It’s no secret Shadow Priests have been dominating Mythic+ dungeons ever since their major rework in World of Warcraft Dragonflight Patch 10.1, but their luck is about to change in Patch 10.2.
Blizzard tried nerfing Shadow Priest via hotfixes a couple of times, but the spec turned out to be essential, especially in a dispelling-dominant meta. In Patch 10.2, the balancing team is drastically trimming down the Shadow Priest’s power. The list of changes is quite long, but the highlights are:
- Power Infusion Haste reduced to 20 percent (was 25 percent) and duration reduced to 15 seconds (was 20 seconds).
- Mass Dispel cooldown is now two minutes (was 45 seconds).
- Improved Mass Dispel no longer reduces the cast time of Mass Dispel.
When you combine these nerfs with all the hotfix changes, and the fact that their tier sets revolve around the Shadow Word: Pain and Death abilities, it’s quite obvious they won’t sit on the throne of top DPS classes in the next patch.
Ever since the Patch 10.1 rework, Shadow Priests have been the go-to DPS, especially if you plan on pushing Mythic+ keys. Not only would they top the DPS charts with little to no effort but they also offered off-healing, dispels, and decent utility in the form of Power Infusion and CC. The only area where Shadow Priest felt lacking was interrupts, but this could easily be fixed if you brought along melee DPS specs and healers with interrupts.
Shadow Priest continued to shine in Patches 10.1.5 and 10.1.7 because of the introduction of the third Evoker spec, Augmentation Evoker. This was the golden era for Shadow Priests because they became a core member of the “god comp,” a composition consisting of Guardian Druids, Holy Paladins, Augmentation Evokers, and Fire Mages that could push any key they wanted and find success.
If you’re playing a Shadow Priest right now, I recommend you start leveling a new alt or at least think about switching to healing in the next patch.
