Bored and doing this for fun. I play shadow priest and have been for years now. And I of course, like many others think they have good ideas. But seriously lets talk about what we’d do with our spec! Anything that’s a % number isn’t what im focused on. I’m not going to say “Make Mind Blast do 100% more damage”
Obvious mentions
- Something with Shadow Crash. (Baseline, extra charge, CD reduction, ect.)
- Give priest an interrupt
- Make Dispersion baseline
- More mobility. Even if just a little bit. Door of Shadows was cool, just make it purple.
This has been mentioned a million times, I think nearly everyone agrees with a change for these things
New Mastery
The current mastery isn’t bad, after all most masteries are just a passive dmg or healing stat. But Idol of C’thun would make a cool mastery. Just raise the proc chance a bit, make Void Torrent and other cooldowns spawn one guaranteed. It might just be a passive effect but has more visual impact. And passive damage talents like Mind Devourer could also spawn a Void Tendril/Lasher.
Talent Trimming
Plenty of talents can be combined or just removed. Some examples.
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Shadowy Insight and Thought Harvester
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Remove or adjust Mind Spike
Edit: Rethinking it maybe it just needs a little more supporting talents too, rather than just remove. To me it’s just been a side talent but maybe it just needs more love.
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Remove or Combine Auspicious Spirits, Dark Evangelism, Maddening Touch, Phantasmal Pathogen, Void Touched and Tormented Spirits
These are all very simple passive damage boosts. It’s going to exist sure, but Spriest has so many and a LOT at the bottom of the tree. So at the very least combine and trim down to make room for more interesting talents.
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Remove or Combine Dark Ascension
Just weird to me they added it. It’s a more boring version of a Void Form. It’s like giving a choice node with Frost Mage’s Icy Veins or Ele shams Ascension and just have it say “Do 20% more damage”
New Talents and Talent Changes Ideas
Easy for me to say “Add interesting talents” and leave it at that. So here are some random ideas. I’m trying not to go too wild, and am drawing inspiration from other classes since it’s really easy to just go too big.
- Surge of Insanity and Mind Flay: Not only do I think Surge of Insanity should be at the start of the tree, but having something making it cleave like Mass Disintegrate from Devastation Evoker. Possibly make it a capstone talent. Maybe more of a cooldown rather than EVERY Surge of Insanity proc, and possibly remove Psychic Link if needed of course.
- Idol of Yogg Saron becoming an active ability or a better Mindbender upgrade. Summoning a Thing From Beyond is pretty cool. The issue is the lack of control over it. It’s just a passive.
- Stop trying to make Shadow Word Death happen. Either give it a big cooldown with massive damage or just at least not damage us at least.
- Something with DoT acceleration. Screams of the Void is neat with increasing proc chances. It’s just a passive damage boost but it tricks my brain into feeling more active when it ramps up the ticks.
- Misery baseline? I’m not sure what’s the point of having two DoTs at this point. I personally like it, DoT management isn’t what I’m about or I’d play Affliction.
- Void Blast visual baseline. Man it’s cool, make it what mind blast looks like or just rename it or whatever. I don’t want to lose cool visuals when TWW or this hero talent passes on.
- Shadow Apparitions baseline? Another passive, which I love to look at, that I don’t understand is a talent at all. But Spriest isn’t the only one dealing this, so it’s w/e because it’s clear some talents are MEANT to be taken anyways.
Conclusion
I think my ideas are neat, I think a lot of players have neat ideas. I really hope Blizz hears us someday and uses any of the ideas. My big issue is how much of Spriest is passive in terms of the talent tree. And a lot of the talents we have have been around for years. They even brough BACK mind spike. Idk or maybe I’m just shouting out into the void and have nothing but bad ideas.
I don’t have a lot of input here to be engaging, but I want to say, NO.
I love Mind Spike. I do not want it removed.
That being said, I am at a point where I wish we could talent in way that would allow Void Torrent to “replace” Mind Spike and Mind Flay with a talent. Or make this filler spell passive rather.
Demon Hunters have this with their Demon’s Bite being passive, Paladins now have a way to make Crusader Strike passive. Brewmaster Monks can make Tiger Palm passive. There are probably other examples.
On Ret Paladin, Wake of Ashes is kind of a long CD “filler” of sorts. It works really well and I’d enjoy that style for Shadow Priest with Void Torrent.
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You’re right. Rethinking it maybe it just needs a little more supporting talents too, rather than just remove. To me it’s just been a side talent but maybe it just needs more love.
Honestly, after playing more, and going to 99th percentile heroic raid and m+ scores, that’s how I feel. I’m definitely never ever bottom DPS, but middle yes every time.
It seems fine, the community just looks at the 5 spriest in mythic and think that’s the state of the class.
Even aoe on trivial, just popping halo and forgetting dots and just blasting with insanity and death keeps it surprisingly competitive.
I think a lot of Priests are really jaded by the neglect to the class, so we say knee jerk things like “remove this or that”. And I agree there are times where that’s applicable, but also, I feel like sometimes it lets the class designers off the hook by making things “easy” for them instead of giving us a rework on par with what Ret Paladins got in Dragonflight.
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Or the 2 complete reworks during TWW alpha/beta cycle and another massive overhaul coming in 11.0.5 lol.
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I’m a little confused to what you’re mentioning here. Which 2 complete reports? I don’t see any news about a Spriest massive overhaul in 11.0.5
Mind Spike being currently a design choice against Mind Flay is the crux of the problem imo.
Mind Flay and Mind Spike should coexist simultaneously just like it did in Cata and MoP and WoD without ANY issue. It worked quite well alongside Mind Flay.
The problem is the misinterpretation of the reason for Mind Spikes existence and how it is supposed to function from a balance perspective.
Mind Spike was never supposed to be a filler spell, it was supposed to be what you use when the target won’t live long enough from your dots. Meaning it was a very upfront damage source that you use to get the damage out quickly or risk teetering off the longer you used it since it ripped the dots of a target.
You can feel the effects of dots being worthless on targets when they die quickly now and the targets that didn’t get your Shadow Crash dots on them cause you to pause and think if you should take the time to manually cast your dots on them or just ignore them completely and feel like you have no options other than let your teammates handle them.
So when they brought it back during DF beta, it was misunderstood and the backlash changed it to how it is today in being some odd choice of a filler spell.
What they should make Mind Spike be is a choice of a few things…
- Turn Mind Spike into a maintenance buff option where all your Mind Spells gain increased critical strike chance that stacks and lasts a short duration so you are weaving Mind Spike in between your other spells to maintain the buff.
- Make it so it does massive up front damage to targets without dots on them. This doesn’t necessarily need the dot rip effect that was present in Cata->WoD but merely has a passive damage bonus on target without dots on them. So you don’t accidentally remove dots unintentionally.
- Either through Surge of Darkness or from Archon either proc effect or during your primary cooldown, make Mind Spike instant cast.
Here are how I might write/implement these ideas…
Shadow
- Mind Spike (Updated)
Blasts the target for Shadowfrost damage.
Mind Spike also increases the critical strike chance of your Mind spells [buff] by 5% for 6 sec. Stacks up to 3 times.
- Irrationality (Replace Mind Melt)
Mind Spike pierces the target and embeds a spike [debuff], causing it to receive your maximum mastery effect from all spells and deals 100% increased damage if the target is not afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch.
Lasts 10 sec.
(Choice)
- Surge of Darkness (Nerfed version)
Your Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague damage has a 10% (was 12%) chance to cause your next Mind Spike be instant, and deal 20% (was 50%) additional damage. Can accumulate up to 2 (was 3) charges.
Lasts 10 sec.
Archon
- Sustained Potency (Redesign)
Dark Ascension and Void Eruption now activate when you Cast Halo and causes your Mind Flay or Mind Spike to always become their insanity versions while active. Dark Ascension and Voidform become passive and can no longer be manually casted.
- Manifested Power (Redesign)
During Dark Ascension or Voidform, your Mind Flay: Insanity becomes castable while moving and Mind Spike: Insanity becomes Instant cast.
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Not Priest, Paladin got a massive rework in Dragonflight.
Then on the earlier side of TWW Alpha, they got another massive rework.
Then on the later end of TWW Beta they got another massive rework.
Now coming in 11.0.5 they are getting yet another massive rework.
So in the span of like less than a year they will be getting 4 reworks while Priest are still in rough draft mode from back in DF beta level of rework.
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