So I have messed around with searing nightmare in mythics and have to say I don’t like it? It seems like its best for 5+ mobs but if you’re running high keys it seems like misery is the better choice because things wont die quick enough to not use VT. Plus the added dps boost/gcd reduction of having VT and SWP together outweighs it for me.
What do people think/see and know from beta?
I personally don’t like it. It’s a weird ability. I don’t like how it can only be cast while channelling. It makes it useless for movement, and just feels clunky
I also dislike how it still requires manual application of VT. Misery is a huge quality of life talent. Even in single target, having to use 2 globals to refresh dots is annoying.
I just like misery way too much to ever use nightmare
It seems like a niche mass AoE option which will only be taken by fight minmaxers. Or people soloing old content.
I see Twist of Fate being a potential option for fights with a single boss and the occasion spawning add.
Otherwise it seems like Misery will be our cookie cutter talent and i think many people are ok with that scenario.
I agree with both of your sentiments. It is clunky and gets in the way of regular mind sear dmg/ticks which is something I do not like. Further just like you’re saying Majestic, if a target is going to take a while to die I’m still going to need to VT and doing it separately makes it a weird rotation.
Twist of fate would make sense for single target progression fights or anything with a tricky enrage mechanic. I just don’t see why I would take searing nightmare when realistically I’d use it maybe once during an entire mind sear channel?
Misery is almost kind of mandatory because you tab-target DoT a lot of trash. It’s kind of irrelevant against bosses unless they spawn adds.
I think you’ll expect to use it for mass aoe where applying VT’s to every target you enter combat with is just inefficient or pointless. It provides a lot of burst aoe during voidform because that gives you full value from your mastery without needing dots up, and it pairs well with talents like mindbender and shadow crash which provide insanity generation / damage without having high opportunity costs or needing VT to be on your target. I’m expecting it to be used in some dungeons, and misery to be used in others, and maybe if blizzard make another fight like Hivemind it could see use there.
You generally want to have 2 Searing Nightmare casts per channel of mind sear, refreshing sear after the second Nightmare to prevent having a gcd at the end where you’re doing nothing waiting to sear again.
If I’m going into a pack of mobs and have more than 30 insanity, I will aoe apply sw:p with madness then go about tab targeting with VT.
If I don’t have the sanity, I’ll tab target spam VT until I can aoe apply sw:p with madness.
Once everyone has a VT on em, I’ll just spam mind searing and searing madness (among dark thoughts) until I need to reapply VT. The sw:p will not need refreshing once it’s up due to searing madness, so once your plates are spinning, it’s much easier to maintain
the thing i don’t like about SN is that, because it doesn’t generate apparitions, it has anti-synergy with our other cleave options and with the spiteful apparitions talent.
like, even on those packs of 5 where SN starts to shine but it’s still easy to keep VT on everything–you could just be dropping insanity on DP and generating apparitions for cleave instead of dropping it on SN. that anti-synergy just makes the cleave rotation feel…very weird.
i know apparitions from SN would be OP in live with azerite, but once azerite goes, like…what are apparitions for, if we’re not generating a mess of them in cleave? it feels like we have two mechanics for those situations that step on each other’s toes, instead of one smooth and synergistic mechanic.
i also feel that way about SWD not generating a spirit. like. why.
They want apparitions to be primarily for generating more insanity and maximizing single target and light cleave damage, while they intend for psychic link to be the go-to spread cleave choice, and then for stacked aoe they want us to use shadow crash and searing nightmare.
According to people on the beta, SC and SN do pair up well for M+. I’d go as far to say that new void torrent also adds some synergy there by giving you 2 free SN’s worth of insanity.
Unfortunately psychic link is undertuned, and therefor AS steps on its toes. I think if they want it to do better they need to let the duplicated mind blasts generate insanity as well or something
I feel like Searing Nightmare should be on a row with Psychic Link and Shadow Crash. Specifically because of the way it conflicts with Psychic link. Link requires spreading VT’s, in which case wouldn’t you be better off just going Misery? Both are AoE talents, but I can’t think of a scenario where you would ever want both of them. It’s always going to be one or the other.
whoa, an actual niche for SC. haven’t seen that since what, legion?
i guess that all makes sense to me, though it’s odd to my mind that they’d want entire separate toolkits for cleave at a cutoff of 4 or 5 targets.
i’m also just wondering what the, like, high point of spriest is meant to be then, gameplay-wise, if we’re not having these big waves of apparitions that we’ve been enjoying in pre-patch.
and i’d agree completely about the psychic link insanity generation. i’d love to see psychic link pull ahead in higher level m+, for instance.
void torrent’s a pretty weird one, conceptually, and it also feels a little awkward for me to use.
In shadowlands once SA traits drop out SN is better then DP on 3+ targets (outside voidform) and you will find it is used a lot more often in dungeons.
Try playing a misery key without SA traits and see how lackluster the damage of Apparitions actually are without azerite traits. I won’t disagree SN feels a bit clunky at first (I’ve gotten used to it after some practice) but misery with AS and cleave build just doesn’t… do that much damage.
Crash saw play in legion as a necessity because undergeared people didn’t have the haste / crit to maintain enough insanity gen for the minute cycle once they removed ToS 4set.
It saw use in PvP back when blizzard managed to push us to a point where we didn’t even want to enter voidform. Mainly because it was the only talent in the row that did anything.
And then, in EP, shadow crash saw play on single target because of an interaction blizzard added in Uldir, that they then forgot about, which had the unintended side effect of making Spiteful Apparitions stronger without Auspicious Spirits (The trait that buffed them) than with.
Shadow crash for shadow has had one of the weirdest histories of any spell. Seeing use, but almost always by accident and for some of the weirdest most unexpected and counterintuitive reasons imaginable.
I’m glad it looks like it has a purpose now, but damn is that a long time coming.
Thanks everyone for the replies! This has been helpful. I’ve definitely seen the use of shadow crash following its many beta iterations but appreciate the suggestions re. searing nightmare.
I like it in M+ not sure what all the hate is in this thread. Can burst high in big packs with it
I actually like Searing Nightmare. So far it’s been awesome when doing open world content and things die faster. By using only Mind Sear it’s guaranteed that I will be at 30% health by the time 5 mobs are at half health…a quick recipe to die fast.
I haven’t tested Psychic Link + Misery yet so I can’t tell about the damage difference but it looks more like a cleave build rather than an AoE build.
Misery and Twist of fate great talents, but I feel comfortable sacrificing some single-target power for more aoe power. There’s nothing like getting a Thought Harvester proc, mind searing and melting things down with Searing Nightmare/ Too sad harvester is going away…
Was watching drjay doing like +12 on beta with a shadow priest. Priest was playing searing nightmare, when they would pull groups of like 5 - 8 mobs, the dps was nutty. Would be holding like 19-22k dps.
Was pretty funny because he was raging at how spriest will be god tier come at high keys and for mdi. But it is awkward to play I feel.
I agree with twist. Try it without your SA traits and it feels much different when you compare the options. I played it in Beta and found I far preferred SN both in 5 mans and open world. I used it with void torrent to load up. If I didn’t have enough insanity for at least two SN’s, I would keep building insanity until I did.
I tried it out, and it was solid dps, but i didn’t like it because i was basically just using mind sear and nightmare the whole damn m+.
Would rather see nightmare insanity cost up to 60 and make it also apply VT to all targets in range.
Or even keep it at 30, and make it’s damage meh, but make it apply both dots.