Not sure how impactful the 3% nerf will be, but the community has been asking for our AOE toolkit (Shadow Crash) to be updated for a long time now as chain pulling is the norm and casting vampiric touch on priority enemies through 20 stacked enemy plates is aggravating.
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I’m gonna keep posting this on every shadow crash thread.
The spell was never designed to spread DoTs, it has a preset small radius that doesn’t increase based on your target’s hitbox.
DoT spreading spells are supposed to increase based on a targets hitbox like with DKs. If you hit a Nerubian Lord, the spell would hit every mob withing 8 yards starting from the circumference of its hitbox.
Shadow Crash however, doesn’t do that, it was originally designed as a hard hitting boss mechanic from Wrath of the Lich King that was ment to be dodged, hense its low radius and slow speed, despite doubling the missile speed, it’s remains slow.
Again, Shadow needs to have AoE dots baked into the spec. Merge the properties of Shadow Word Pain and Vampiric Touch into one spell via the Misery talent. Reduce its targets to 6 max.
Turn Shadow Crash back into an optional AoE burst spell, increase its radius and speed.
Change Idol of Nizoth into something useful like exploding Shadowy Apparitions for a more interactive AoE.
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Following this idea though Shadow as never design to have an easy method by which to spread DoTs. Instead manually managing hard hitting DoTs with a CD nuke(MB) and a filler spell(MF) was what it was designed to do.
Point being things can change over time, for better or for worse. I do think it is worth it to have the discussion if Shadow Crash SHOULD even be spreading DoTs, and my personal answer to that is no it should not spread DoTs. If they are determined that Shadow Priest DoTs will hit like a wet noodles but be easily spreadable then they need to give them a better and consistent method by which to spread them and Shadow Crash isn’t it.
Anything to do with Shadowy Apparitions I am all for. That ability is easily the visually enthralling and coolest part of the entire Shadow Priest toolkit. I am all for anything to explore and makes that ability more interactive, thematic, and engaging part of the spec design.
True, but the game mechanics have changed so the old days of hard hiting dots is something we can’t go back to so long as psychic link is the only game in town. Every mechanic we have, AoE, Mastery and Procs depend on enemies being DoTed, which essentially turned our dots into an debuff that our class simply cannot function without.
Which is why I would like a 6 target limit for our dots so that they aren’t nerfed to death and giving us options to AoE that doesn’t rely of PL which is kind of boring as a mechanic, and impossible to balance when too many enemies are DoTed. Hense exploding ghost is the way to go, a spell like thar can have reduced damage beyond a certain target limit.
-Screams of the Void could use a buff as well.
-Buff Mind Blast but nerf Void Blast for Voidweaver. Instead of giving Void Blast a window during Entropic Rift, instead make it proc from Shadowy Insight. Adjust it’s proc rate and make it grant a temporary extra charge like it used to.
-Mind Flay is also in a weird place where the baseline is useless but Insanity procs are just insanely powerful.
I’m aware that when we buff something, we need to nerf something else. My intention is to have mechanics that are reliable, we can tune numbers later.
Currently we’re a weird Frankenstein of mix matched abilities grandfathered in from older design pilosophies that need to be rethought with modern WoW in mind.
No argument from me here. I agree with Psychic Link is boring, it’s also incredibly lazy on blizzards part because it doesn’t really require any visual assets beyond having numbers pop up when you do damage.
There is a ton of potential in Shadowy Apparitions to be absolutely incredible and it’s often been considered one of if not the coolest aspect of the Shadow Priest class so it boggles my mind why Blizzard has done so little to make it be a truly iconic aspect of the class. I get if you don’t want to have a million shadowy ghosts running around, there are other ways to make the ability iconic and cool than just watching a million of them run around.
We are worse then that. We are a no spenders keep a rapidly draining resource high square peg, that blizzard has been trying to hamfist into the builder/spender round hole. We still carry to much of Legion’s design philosophy that simply wasn’t built around the idea of builder/spenders it’s why Mind Sear didn’t work as a spender, it’s why we only have Devouring Plague as a spender. Shadow either needs a revert to what it was originally designed to do, or the better idea, a fully fleshed out redesign that takes the cool elements of the class people like, DoTs, Shadowy Apparitions, and melting face, but removes the crap few/nobody likes, such as psychic link, Voidform/Dark Ascension/Mind Spike/Pet management.
I agree. Although Void Form looks cool, there’s just too many abilities competing for the window, it’s even worse with Voidweaver. Because of Void bolt, our other hard hitting spells end up nerfed as well as Shadowy Apparition.
I’d rather Void Form just be an instant cast dps buff off the global cooldown. Void Bolt could either become a spell that can only be used when it procs like in did with the Shadowlands covenant tree, or have it shoot automatically like our current season set bonus.
I also would like blizzard to make Shadow Form an optional consmetic spell. It made sense back in the day when it restricted healing spells.
Now it’s just annoying having to recast it every time I die in pvp and sometimes that 1 sec GCD loss cab mean the difference between winning and losing.
But mostly, I just want to be able to choose how my character looks. Current, the only option is looking like purple blurr or covered in black smoke with glyph of Shadows.
Yeah. It would be cool if they updated the animation and travel speed to reflect it’s instant damage. I remember how annoying it used to be when the ghost didn’t actually deal damage until it drunk waddle its way to the enemy.
Even if it was never designed to be that, its what we have and our only way to quickly spread our DoTs, which our class is based on. I personally could care less the damahe Shadow Crash does as it’s not very impactful to our overall DPS. Yet our Mastery reqires us to have multiple dots on multiple targets do do meaningful DPS.
I would trade all damage SC does in a heart beat for up to 8 yargets get DoTs and I get a second charge.
AoE DoT should not rely on Shadow Crash at all, that’s the point. Obviously it’s our only option which is why it’s so frustrating both because of its long cooldown and terrible radius.
Let’s say VT was instant cast, and a tank pulls a room of 8 targets. Would you rather waste 8 GCDs to apply dots to each of them or press 1 button?
Is it perfect by any streach of the imagination no, but it’s what we have and Blizzard isn’t going to suddenly change how our Mastery works. I can live with SC as how we spread our dots, it just needs a second charge.
Okay so I see what’s going on here, you have a reading comprehension problem. I litterally said, in the original post that you responded to, that AoE dot application needs to be a baseline aspect of our spec.
Merge SWP and VT into one spell and make it AoE cast with the Misery talent. Read the thread because I don’t have time or patience to explain all the problems Shadow has to you.
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So something like Shadow Crash.