This burst was underpinned by the 4set. Dots and the normal rotation were used if you did not have the 4set these things lived long enough that you needed as much damage as you could get.
Never said we didn’t target swap. Just didn’t target swap if it was going to be taken care of by the classes that had abilities to deal with it quickly and effectively.
4 set burst did not exist during Firelands.
Firelands you needed to off target burst more often than DA was up.
Bursting in DS with 4 set made it hit harder but how did it do so? It did so but just making access to max mastery bonus uptime more often with fiend and spirits granting 3 orbs each hit.
Still doesn’t take away the capability that it bursted. It’s burst potential with Mind Spike did not go away in MoP or WoD.
But that’s my point, in its current form with DF Mind Spike burst potential is negligible because it is forced to be so due to it needing to be balanced with Mind Flay. That is why we are in the current mess we are in and why Mind Spike is as confusing as it is because it is competing with Mind Flay.
So whatever methods need to take place, Mind Spike need it’s role to be a bursting tool to return and have a clear delineation between Mind Flay and Mind Spike. Because on primary target you still want Mind Flay but on quick kill target swap targets, we need to ability to burst when dots won’t last long enough.
Same can be said with AOE. We didn’t have an AOE button until wrath. We had to multi dot or just let someone else AOE.
So we should just remove any AOE tools shadow has because clearly it’s struggling and other classes do it better?
Somehow I don’t think many will be happy or content with that change.
So just like AOE having its issues, so does our Burst. To gut it would be just as much as a failure to remove AOE.
3 Orbs buffed the damage of mind spike and mind blast by 30% on top of the buff from Dark Ascension. That’s where the burst came from without that guaranteed buff mind spike was useless.
The only issue I have with AoE is this god-awful mastery making it either too strong when you can effectively spread dots to way too dam weak when you can’t.
Honestly, if the right side of the Shadow tree was rebuilt as the dotless style, with Idol of N’zoth being changed into the Clarity of Power mechanics, it would fix 99% of the clunk. I believe that the two Shadow identities present in WoD were some of the best time I had playing Shadow in 17 years of WoW. Blizzard should simply steer the tree towards
Left Side: Classic Shadow (WoD’s Auspicious Spirits + Shadowfiend)
Center: Legion Shadow (reliance on Dark Ascension or Void Eruption burst windows)
Right Side: Clarity of Power Shadow (dotless gameplay built around Mind Spike + Mind Flay: Insanity for Shadow Weaving phase)
There. I fixed Shadow, made almost every choice relevant, and gave it three radically different gameplays.
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The damage from orbs was not 30%. It was based on your mastery. The more mastery you had, the higher the burst. What you seem to not understand is that Mind Spike still hit hard and helped Mind Blast Crit even without 3 Orbs supercharging it.
I was not asking how it enhanced the damage, I was asking a question in order to follow up with the answer after the fact.
Meaning Mind Spike in the current talent tree can have enhanced damage baseline to targets without dots on it. Or it can get its damage from the Orb talents now with spirits and fiend attacks granting orbs and enhancing damage that way.
The mechanics are in place, it’s just a design decision to make the adjustments to fit the role of Mind Spike to be that burst ability. But again, it has to avoid replacing Mind Flay and avoid being used over Mind Flay and to do that it dot ripping effect must return or a damage dampening effect must be put in place on targets with dots on them.
With the AOE situation, the issue is that it’s clunky. It’s clunky in SL and it’s clunky now. It has been clunky, boring or passive or non existent in every iteration.
I would argue that having Void Eruption AOE damage was the best version for constant AOE. But with Void Eruption being tied to only usable once per Voidform and Voidform being incentivized to stay in it as long as possible really limits the use of Void Eruption. This is why I think Void Eruption should be it’s own talent somewhere in the tree so you have an active ability to do AOE damage without a cooldown, without needing to channel and without needing DOTs. It should just have a resource cost and can be used at any time.
I agree.
I played both Auspicious Spirits and Clarity of Power specs in WoD with a mix of using Surge of Darkness in 5 mans and PvP and Insanity on raid fights mostly.
I enjoyed both having a rapid fire dot manage spec with Devouring Plagues going off like crazy with AS build and Dot Weaving with CoP.
But the best was CoP with SoD and dotting up like 4-5 targets and building up Mind Spike procs and then targeting someone without dots on them and then just lay into them with instant casts back to back hitting like a truck each time and finishing off with Shadow Word: Deaths and Devouring Plagues.
Best and most fun play style ever playing shadow.
What’s funny is that we had Void Entropy in WoD and that was the worst talent ever lol. But if that was like Voidform then, then at that time there could have been 3 distinct play styles and build from there instead of tearing down shadow going into legion and left with 6 years of back to back issues that could go on for another 2 years lol.
It did damage equivalent to mind flay + SW:P it was by no means a hard-hitting spell.
During Cata I did both heroic raiding 10 man and High Ranking RBGs.
If something needed to die in around 10 sec or less, Mind Spike was the go to ability regardless if DA was up or not. It was never a good idea to spend time putting up dots and Mind Flaying in that situation. So call it what you want, I recall how much more impactful Mind Spike was when you needed to get the job done quickly.
Only use MS when it procs, so it buffs Mind Blast.
Thats about the only use.
In its current implementation that would be correct.
But this thread is not talking about how it’s currently implemented. It’s talking about how it was in the past and what it should strive to be once again.
The fact that it’s not really worth hard casting goes to show just how bad the current implementation is which goes to show how much more work is needed to give it a better identity/purpose beyond only used if you get instant procs.
I Dunno, i like it the way it is. I dont think i ever needed it in my rotation.
If there is one thing i would change is mind flay not stopping after casting all the procs (besides Mind Blast)
It replaces mind flay outside of MFI in single target. It is completely worth hard casting.
If you’re doing PvP and therefor never really want to hard cast anything and are always over investing gcds to keep your dots active then sure, it’s just a proc and feels pretty ok, but that’s not how its used for optimal damage.
This has been such an interesting thread as someone who is leveling their priest for the first time since MoP. So regarding Mind Spike, is it a good talent to pick up for PvP purposes? There seems to be a lot of split opinions here on Mind Spike. Trying to figure out if I should go right, falling down towards N’zoth or if I should continue the mid-route leaning more towards C’thun.
It’s good in pvp because its instant damage procs, its used in PvE single target as a spammable filler that replaces mind flay, and in PvE aoe / dungeons it isn’t played.
Worth noting also the single target build plays Mind Flay: Insanity, so while it “replaces” flay on single target you do end up using both still.
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