Been playing my sp these past couple of nights in arenas. Not having access to unfurling darkness anymore feels genuinely terrible. Shadow crash is too easy to reflect and was better served as a backup button than a primary means of applying dots, and hardcasting vampiric touch also feels really really bad now. Please consider adding the talent back!
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Yeah even in PvE it kind of sucks not having it. Didn’t realize how much I actually used it until it got deleted
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I was watching Publik’s latest video on YouTube “shadow priest survival guide” and he brought up that he thought the devs didn’t like the way it was being used (in PvE I assume), prompting its removal.
Made it sound like it was being intentionally used in some gimmicky way. He didn’t go into crazy detail on it but that was the gist.
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They removed the ability to deal a mini burst of damage instantly with the removal of Unfurling Darkness.
They removed the ability to continue dealing Damage in the form of Frost using Mind Spike if Shadow got locked.
They removed the more useful Deathspeaker talent and added in its wake the ability to use Shadow Word: Deaths maximum damage at a higher HP threshold (35%) with the ability to have it deal its damage again 2 more times at 15% effectiveness but the problem here now is that you now would only use it during execute HP threshold and no longer able to get a proc to use it outside the execute range health threshold which basically calls into question what purpose does the additional SW:D hits do when it’s not effective as often which calls for those talent points to be better spent elsewhere.
They did all this and still the cooldowns have a cast time.
I now find myself rooted much more often with less ability to deal damage on the move while being easier to lock down and no, Void Volley does not make up for this severed state in the slightest.
This is clearly a half cooked rework that did much more harm than good but it was not unexpected given the recent history since the DF talent inception.
Sad.
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They have this weird fetish with taking away “on the move” casts/damage from Spriest, only to add another type of on the move damage right after in a cycle. I really don’t understand what they’re doing with their design intent here. It is really confusing.
Scrash is your new unfurling darkness. For better or worse.
It’s also your primary means of applying dots.
They dont know either
I think he means they didn’t like that it was a single target talent. You took it when you wanted more single target, not when you wanted AoE. It became part of your rotation to proc unfurling on a single target fight and gets weaved into the opener, too.
Which is weird because it seems like it’s a talent that was intended to help spread dot, and/or get a little bit of damage when an add spawns.
That means they probably think Shadow Crash is just a much better direction for the purpose of DoT spreading, plus the 300% talent gives it some AoE oomph.
The only way to adhere to their intended design direction while also keeping Unfurling Darkness in the game would be to lower the direct damage the talent was doing dramatically, so it would be used with strict purpose for DoT spreading. And we all know that would just have felt terrible.
The lacking damage part would have been bad, the instant application of our dots on a 2nd target is still sweet though.
-I don’t like the effects of their intended design direction in pvp
-void volley fills the instant damage button role well enough that I would have settled for the instant dot spread
Don’t you know this is a Mythic plus simulator now
Instead of removing it, they should have at least kept its functionality.
Instead of it dealing damage, it should have just cast Vampiric Touch instantly and remove the proc cooldown and just have it activated on every other cast of Vampiric Touch.
- Vampiric Touch cast #1 = Cast time
- Vampiric Touch cast #2 = Instant cast
- Vampiric Touch cast #3 = Cast time
- vampiric Touch cast #4 = Instant cast
Repeat etc.
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The original intent of it was to make it not feel like multidotting a cleave target was a wasted global by letting it do a chunk of damage.
People decided instead that it was a single target dps gain just to mash VT a couple times.
I feel like we can do better, as far as “button that does instant damage” goes, and also as far as “button that made dot spread easier” goes.
Now void volley and scrash are meant to take the place of UD and old Deathspeaker as instant cast abilities that do damage.
Void volley is fine i think (especially the synergy with n’zoth), but i hate the over reliance on shadow crash when shadow crash is poo.
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Absolutely hate what we have now compared to before.
Think about it, we already had Devouring Plague that was supposed to be the MAIN damage as a “spender” regardless of how much damage it actually does, IT’s intended purpose is to do a lot of damage hence the spender cost.
Then we also have Void Torrent to deal a lot of damage to a target.
Now with Void Volley, you are FORCED to have used Void Torrent recently in order to get any use out of it and then once you use it, you cant use it until Void Torrent is back off cooldown.
What this means is any type of situation where you have mobs that need to be cleaned up with quick damaging abilities that can be applied quickly and have a short cooldown without blowing big cooldowns are non-existent where you could before have a Death Speaker Proc or have an Unfurling Darkness to rely on.
So in essence, it focuses more damage on single target and reduces options to deal out damage on multiple targets which we were already struggling with.
So its a net negative imo.
Edit:
In regards to Shadow Crash dealing damage to targets… I mean I guess…? But you should already have that on cooldown for when you are dotting things up. I guess if you choose to spend a talent point for its damage then that’s a choice I guess. But I just hate using that dang spell every time I do because its such a terrible spell from the ground up.
I would prefer to not have our current mastery suppressing our damage if targets are not dotted up and use Halo or rather get access to Cascade and use that to finish things off as you can do in MoP and WoD.
Sadly, that vision of Shadow seems even more elusive now than ever before.
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