I generally do not take Damnation on live. If I want to avoid Mind Spike I have less throughput options and will most likely have to Take Damnation. If Mind Spike wasn’t added, one option Blizzard could have had was some sort of passive throughput option. That’s less buttons I need on my action bars. If people want to press more things, they can go for Damnation.
Mind Spike as is does nothing to address what some would call a button bloat issue. Incorporating that ability into other talents to get its maximum benefit makes that problem worse.
If Mind Spike had a cooldown like Damnation, would it still be an issue?
The issue is that Mind Spike is being seen as a core rational ability. Its not… its situational. Just like Damnation, Void Torrent etc. It just happens that the situation calls for you to have a spammable button for a short window. Instead of a instant / Channel button that you fire and forget until the CD is up.
All 3 of those add DPS in different ways. I don’t like Void Torrent, I only use Damnation sometimes. But they all add a button and they all have a situation where they have a strength in. But NONE of them SHOULD be required based on number tuning.
Iunno, whenever someone brings up button bloat I always think it’s an L2P issue, but at the same I’ve been playing WoW since Classic and I’m a PvPer so I’m used to having a lot of binds. My bars on SL feel so empty that I’ve doubled/tripled spells on my bars to make them seem more full lol.
You also have to think that a lot of buttons that we have now are optional. My shadow m+ build doesn’t have Silence; that frees up two binds. It also doesn’t have VE or DA so that’s two extra binds. A lot of buttons on the class tree are also optional. I’ll link the build below if you’re curious.
Personally the “new” buttons don’t really pose a threat, since I’m just reusing binds that I’ve had blank since the pruning, but if you ever need any help with binds lmk.
Also, for me I just macro things together. Like I got Mind Blast, Mind Spike, Power Infusion and Dark Ascension set up neatly in 1 bind. Ready for Burst mode. It will be perfect once DA becomes instant cast lol.
You keep saying this, but especially in PvE, for most builds which are going to be DoT centric, Mind Spike and Surging Darkness are likely going to be a requirement. Mind Spike and Surge of Darkness is going to be of more value than Damnation because of how it interacts with other talents along with the extra damage, increased mind blast crit chance, and insanity generation.
Don’t think we really need to be taking precog juke, since we’re going to have three schools to cast from, unless our pvp talents continue to be underwhelming then I could see us taking precog. A PvP talent that reduces the CD of DA would be god-sent.
Lol, I don’t think I can do a swifty one shot, but I still have so many binds free that I don’t think DF is going to be a problem.
The solution isn’t to remove Mind Spike or Change it. Its to adjust so its competitive but there are other options that should beat it.
Since Mind Spike SHOULD be good for burst short lived targets down. Then it should NOT be good in long form content. Content which is your example.
Its a tuning issue, not a mechanics issue.
Lets think about this logically. If Mind Spike did what you wanted… to NOT consume dots and was CLEARLY better then Mind Flay… Why do we have Mind Flay? Why not remove THAT button?
If it can be the replacement filler for Mind Flay, that would do MORE harm to the spec than to keep it the way it is.
That is why its situational. Its a filler choice between Mind Flay and Mind Spike. But they both should exists because they both serve 2 opposing playstyles. But Both playstyles SHOULD exist together in the same build because of your weaving of dot rot / casting burst and back and forth… it fits that style of gameplay. If you think you need to use Mind Spike for your primary target all the time… that is just replacing Mind Flay. That would upset a lot more people of they think they HAVE to use Mind Spike over Mind Flay and create more dead talents.
Its not a “1 shot” macro. But its done in a clever way to take advantage of resets and cooldown of buttons.
Mind Blast has its inherit cooldown. So its a dead button while its cooling down. Perfect time for Mind Spike to become the button. I got other little things as well to that and other macros. But you get the idea.
Edit:
What’s funny is that with that macro, I actually beat swiftly up 3 times back then lol. Almost made him cry lol.
My main concern is that it really forces you to take Benediction or Revitalizing Prayers to make use of Healing Chorus outside of Salvation. There’s not really any way to get 50 stacks in <9 seconds when stacking haste or hard casting renew. 25 was doable with enough temporary buffs up.
In any case, I’ve crunched the numbers on Divine Service. If you have a 10 stack PoM that fully depletes, it’ll heal 744.2% spell power as opposed to 610% spellpower without it. This ignores the bonus 45% on the initial target. Roughly a 22% increase if you can catch it at 10 stacks.
At 5 stacks, it’ll heal for 341% spell power with the talent as opposed to 305%. A roughly 12% increase.
The biggest show of skill for this spec is attempting to catch a PoM on a target with >2 stacks remaining to PoM them and set the stacks high again. PoH boosted spam in the interim and renew spam during low incoming damage.
Is it a cast sequence macro or just a modifier? Modifier makes sense, I do that for a ton of my spells as well. I tried making a cast sequence macro but I could never get it to work.
The macro logic would be:
If I press 1 and Mind Blast is off cd then it would cast MB.
If I press 1 and MB is on cd then it would cast Mind Spike.
Doesn’t seem that great tho since there will be times when you want to Mind Spike first, but you get the logic of the macro that I’m trying to write.
I don’t think Mind Spike is going to be part of the m+ build, unless it’s Tyrannical. This all depends on tuning ofc. The talents on the bottom left seem better than taking Mind Spike and Surge.
Seems kinda useless you can write an if/and/or statement as a macro.
A macro with the logic of below might be insane:
If I press 1 and Mind Blast is off cd then it would cast MB, unless I have stacks of Surge of Darkness, then it would press Mind Spike first, but it would cast Mind Blast if I have two stacks of Mind Melt.
Mind Spike is cast if neither or those conditionals are met and MB is met.
Seems too complicated, especially with all the new procs. Also sometimes you might want Mind Spike if the above are true just to kill a totem or save Mind Blast procs for your burst. Separate binds (or a modifier) just seem more flexible.
Another Reason I don’t share my macros. They really don’t make sense to other people. I built it to suite my playstyle and I enjoy it and works for me. To everyone else, each their own.