Just thinking when I was readjusting keybinds, reworking power word solace into a proc with a cool down that transforms Smite into Solace.
This one seems really obvious when I tried to think about how to just macro them together. It’s a pointless extra button seeing as Solace is effectively just a Smite in terms of all talent interactions and spell type.
The other more controversial idea is to have Shadow Covenant “replace PW Radiance” and just making it a shadow version of radiance, same healing/charges/CD but giving you that temp shadow buff might need to be readjusted for uptime.
These just feel like they play the exact same role anyway and would cut down on buttons.
Oh and have covenant give us a shadowform visual pls.
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Solace is an instant cast, and it’s useful to have for movement scenarios. I MOSTLY agree that it could replace smite every so often instead - but it might feel a little disjointed to be smiting/casting then suddenly not smiting and GCD locked because Solace procced. If it were to happen it should be ‘every 12 seconds your next Smite restores mana and deals extra damage’ rather than keep solace around.
Shadow Covenant is a big no, though. It’s a mini-cooldown for us, and when we pop it does matter. In low damage scenarios, yeah, you’ll hit it off CD just for the extra damage you get. But in high damage scenarios, Shadow Covenant is important to control.
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When are you shadow covenanting and not throwing out a radiance though.
Disc just has too many buttons that all do practically the same thing and so you’re just spending so many globals layering multipliers just to do actual throughput. Cutting down a couple globals would be a huge qol imo.
I could see what you mean if shadow covenant didn’t do an aoe heal and was just an extra buff when you Schism or something.
Solace just feels like smite. Mind blast just feels like smite outside of squid/expiation builds. Shadow Covenant feels like radiance and schism. Schism feels like mind blast with a dmg amp.
Twilight equilibrium alone makes the entire rotation take a lot of on the fly thinking, so even if the rest of dmg amps weren’t a thing it’d still be very engaging. Expiation and squid also are engaging and take CD timing to think about.
I’m sure it doesn’t seem like an issue to people that have all the muscle.memory down but it is objectively a little clunky and convoluted design wise.
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We do use Radiance without shadow covenant…
I do think Shadow Covenant and Schism are a bit redundant… What I would personally do is two things:
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Put Shadow Covenant and Schism in a choice node.
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Schism merges with Mindgames if both are taken.
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Yeah I like the idea of combining schism and covenant together a little more.
I really wish Mind Games reversal was a lot higher for disc to make up for the direct dmg being weak. The reversal effect feels really good but it’s not enough for 4 points.
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Even if you use them both at the same time, every time you hit Scov, it doesn’t change the problem that I was talking about: there are times I want to radiance and not put Scov on CD. There are also times I use Schism outside of Scov.
Tbh while I do feel there’s some button bloat, it really doesn’t bother me anymore… I’ve already accommodated the spells and built the muscle memory for them, the only one I tend to forget is Light’s Wrath when I’m raiding since that’s not used in M+ which is what I do the most…
But I certainly remember it feeling a bit daunting initially to get used to all the different damage abilities and trying to fit so many “rotational” abilities in bars, and that’s with me already having plenty of experience as Disc from past expansions, so I’d imagine someone trying to get to it for the fist time could have a rough time, that’s on top of the already steep learning curve of playing proactively (all though it’s not as bad anymore if you don’t, in M+ at least).
Disc needs harsh discipline baseline and a buff to smite dmg. So it’s not reliant on ramps for solo play.
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Tbh while I do feel there’s some button bloat, it really doesn’t bother me anymore…
No amount of muscle memory is going to help the fact that I only have 9 buttons that are easily reachable by my tendonitis-riddled fingers.
Disc needs harsh discipline baseline and a buff to smite dmg. So it’s not reliant on ramps for solo play.
Blizz’s new philosophy is steering clear of baseline talents, but there’s plenty of top-tree filler talents it could replace to make it more reachable.
I’m using what I affectionately term “Shield Baby” spec, focusing on the left side of the tree so I can keep my total buttons down. The throughput is lackluster, and I think certain talents could use a big buff or redesign (Contrition).
And more than just reducing total buttons, I want them to focus on the many target-specific reactive abilities- it’s those abilities (Smite, Pen, Power Words, Schism, etc) that need the critical 1-5, R,T,G real estate on my keyboard. Big CDs and target agnostic abilities, like Nova, like Barrier, are easier to load up on.
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