Iconic Shadow Priest abilities

Classes Priest
1

Just curious, how come mind spike, the shadow orb playstyle, and spectral guise weren’t abilities into consideration when revamping the shadow priest and bringing back iconic abilities for Shadowlands. I’m not saying that shadow priests haven’t gotten any love so far, but I’m curious as to why they went the DP route instead of the orb/insanity combination or mind spike being put into the main core rotation.

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2

Insanity is basically just a more fluid version of orbs. Build orbs, spend on DP. Build insanity, spend on DP. Pretty much the same thing. I do miss the instant mind spike procs from MoP.

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3

God do I miss those instant and POTENT mind spikes… Oh the glory days…

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4

I miss MoP-era Mind Spike but out of fear of them reviving WoD-era Mind Spike I’d rather just pretend it never existed :flushed:

I think MoP was the height of the Spriest fantasy for me. Huge emphasis on DoTs and off-healing/supportive tools. I’d gladly take a DPS tax to get back to that.

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5

I know it was a very divisive play style but I really loved Dot weaving in WoD. It felt so weird, but so good.

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Because the person who came up with the whole Insanity thing is probably one of the Managers at Blizz and is so full of himself/herself that they refuse to admit it isn’t a good design so they are tweaking it to satisfy their ego…JK :smiley:, though maybeee…:wink:

To be honest Mind Spike never fit Shadow, it was completely counter to Shadows design philosophy, Shadow Orbs were loved by many but when looked at objectively, they are basically just combo points, there is nothing truly unique or innovative about them. There is no reason to bring them back when the exact same could be achieved with Insanity.

Insanity is also easier to balance and more flexible. Think of each Shadow orb being 20 Insanity and DP costs 60 Insanity (that’s basically all they are). With only Shadow orbs you can never have an Insanity gain of more or less than 20, it’s why you only got them from Mind Blast and SW:D. With Insanity they can give smaller increments (think partial shadow orbs) from many different sources. So it was the most elegant, and probably easiest, solution.

7

Shadow orbs looked cool.

8

I will concede this point, but only if you used the raven glyph :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Raven priest was the best priest.

10

Azeroth Metrion Zinthos…!

11

I don’t see the WoD issue with Mind Spike. You still had FDCL with instant hard hitting and non dot stripping Mind Spikes.

So what is it about WoD Mind Spike you dislike?

I like the fact that I know I will get X amount each time I hit X button.
I dislike the fact that now I have to use many many GCD’s to built a little bit at a time. That is a problem because it opens you up to a lot more interrupts and requires a lot more hard casting moments which ends up rooting you for a longer period of time.

I loved that with CoP, I could have a low CD and instant cast MB to generate an Orb every 4 sec. Then it was fun to toss out a PROM and bounce it with SW:D to both heal myself and my party and get that double tap rush of orbs at execute range. Of course, you could go AS and get orbs passively for more Dot Rot playstyle if you choose.

Also, too many times I have seen my insanity bar at 49. Meaning I am just 1 stupid insanity point away from using DP. It is very frustrating feeling. I rather have set intervals of I press X button(s) X times I get X results 100% of the time. Instead now with insanity, I can press X buttons X times and get Y results because I pressed different X buttons from time to time because I got or didn’t get procs that changed getting insanity from 9 to 8 or something.

Overall, I like some new things with the Shadow Rework, but I would still take and play WoD Shadow over anything else.

Edit:

Honestly, if we did use Orbs and ever went back to that resource mechanic, then I think it would both work better and be more “fun” if the following changes were made…

Baseline spells

  • Mind Flay
    • Does not generate resource (baseline) as it should only be used as a filler when everything else is off CD.
  • Mind Blast
    • Generates 1 orb baseline.
  • Shadow Word: Death
    • Generates 0 orb and only 1 charge baseline.

Talents

Row - 1

  • Fortress of the Mind (Talent)
    • Mind Flay and Mind blast deal 10% more damage and Mind Flay generates 1 orb upon completion of cast. This effect cannot occur more then once every 10 sec.
      • This has synergy with Void Torrent.
  • Death and Madness (Talent)
    • SW:D generates 1 orb and if used at or below 20% it resets 1 time if target is not killed when used.
  • Unfurling Darkness (Talent)
    • Generates 1 orb when this proc is consumed.

Row - 3

  • Searing Insanity (Talent)
    • Consume 1 orb for each Pulse you use. But you are able to hard cast or instant cast Mind Blast during channel as well so you can generate and consume during Mind Sear.

Row - 5

  • Auspicious Spirits (Talent)
    • Mind Blast generates an additional Shadow Orb and grants 10% haste for 10 sec when it critical strikes.
      • This talent is an attempt to make “critical” stat more attractive as it will increase the damage of all abilities and through this talent, give you some haste back that you would otherwise sacrifice. Then this could also end up being the talent to take for more fast paced playstyle regardless if you stacking more haste or not.
  • Psychic Link (Talent)
    • Mind Blast Damage is increased by 50% and deals its damage to all other targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch within 40 yards.
      • This is the only talent in the row that does NOT increase the chance to generate a Shadow Orb. Basically, the idea here is that your giving up on an extra orb generation ability to put more damage into single / multi target with Mind Blast. Meaning, your “using” 1 orb to “empower” Mind Blast.
  • Shadow Crash (Talent)
    • Removed or moved to PvP talent.
  • Darkened Mind (Talent) - Replaced Shadow Crash
    • Mind Blast has a 15% chance to proc Dark Thoughts when used on target afflicted by your damage over time spells.
      • What this does is makes the “primary” way to “proc” Dark Thoughts to be from Mind Blast as it can now proc an instant Mind Blast from itself (used on a target afflicted by “your” damage over time abilities) and potentially being able to “chain” these together. But it still allows Mind Flay to be used to proc when MB is off CD and your not “lucky”.
      • This also makes it so you have an increased change to proc during Mind Flay / Sear and using the Dark Thought Mind Blast while channeling.

Row - 6

  • Void Torrent (Talent):
    • Mind Flay refreshes the duration of Vampiric touch and Shadow Word: Pain and generates 1 orb upon completion of cast. This effect cannot occur more then once every 15 sec.
      • This has synergy with Fortress of the Mind.

Row - 7

Note:
The Voidform / Void Eruption would not be a baseline ability for the spec. The baseline kit is focused on Dots and hard casting spells. No self empowering DPS buffs.

  • Legacy of the Void (Talent)
    • Gain the Voidform Ability.
      • Voidform: Activating Voidform resets the cooldown of Mind blast and you gain an additional charge, increasing your damage by 15% for 10 sec. Your Mind and Void spells increases the duration by an additional 2 sec. During Voidform, this ability is replaced by Void Bolt. 90 sec cooldown.
  • Dark Archangel (Talent) - (Replaces Ancient Madness)
    • Gain the Dark Archangel ability
      • Dark Archangel: Activating Dark Archangel resets the cooldown of Mind blast and you gain an additional charge, increasing your damage by 20% and your critical strike chance by 30% for 15 sec, reducing by 2% every sec. 90 sec cooldown.
  • Thought Devourer (Talent) - (Replaces Surrender to Madness)
    • You gain an additional charge of Mind Blast while an enemy is afflicted with Devouring Plague. Devouring Plague has a 20% chance to proc Dark Thoughts with its damage over time effect.

Developers Notes:

  • Voidform: The idea is to remove the unlimited scaling from the talent and focus more on your haste stat from gear that would reduce the CD on your Voidform duration extension abilities thus netting the fast paced feel but not making it scale off of itself and gear (Borrowed Powers) and instead it works fine baseline and is only enhances based on your gear stats alone (Haste).
    • This also does not become restricted with Orb “chunks” vs insanity “trickle” resource gains as its based on button presses centered around a defined CD which is reduced further with haste.
    • This makes it so Devouring Plague does not have a NEGATIVE impact in “costing” resources in the case of Voidforms uptime and thus reducing the Voidform duration.
  • Dark Archangel: This just basically makes the current Ancient Madness have more of an identity and split entirely from Voidform theme.
  • Thought Devourer: This is to be the option / opt out of a self empowering CD playstyle for more of a consistent damaging playstyle. This just “enhances” what we normally do in granting an additional Mind Blast charge more frequently to the point of almost constantly once you get DP’s rolling and getting an additional uptick of Orb generation as your primary orb “consumer” Devouring Plague will now grant a chance to proc Dark Thoughts more often.
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