Priest Talent Revamp for 10.0

Classes Priest
1

It was suggested that I make this as my own topic and it would be fun to spark conversations about our upcoming talent tree revamps and what everyone would like to see for themselves.

I focus primarily with Shadow. As such I have laid out what I would like to see for Shadows talent tree below.

What do you all want to see in not just Shadow, but also the other specializations and as our class talent tree? (I might try putting a class talent tree together based on feedback if anyone is interested).

Link to my original post here…

These are my ideas for Shadow talents in the new tree coming in 10.0

Table of Contents:

1. My philosophy towards Shadow Priest talent choices
2. Baseline abilities moved into talent choices
3. Shadow Talents - Old/Past abilities/talents coming back as talent choices
4. Shadow Talents - Current talents as talent choices
5. Class Talents
6. Additional Ideas that could become talents
7. My current take on how I might build the tree (WIP)

1. My philosophy towards Shadow Priest talent choices:

Shadow Talent Tree Goal:
I envision a Shadow Specialization Talent tree to have 2 primary paths going downward (Shadow and Void) with a mix/cross of abilities in the middle (Shadow/Void).

Playstyles:
My Goal was to have 3 very distinct playstyles…

  • Classic Shadow Priest playstyle (Vanila-Wrath) but with Dark Archangel as your primary “power up”.
  • Shadow Orb playstyle (Cata-Wod) but with the primary focus on using Clarity of Power for Dot Weaving/ Dotless Burst play.
  • Void / Insanity Drain Mechanic (Legion-Shadowlands) with the primary focus on getting into and maintaining your Void Form.
    • I don’t have many ideas on this type of playstyle because I never really enjoyed the entire conception/implementation of it.
    • I do think it would prove beneficial to take a page out of the WoD Demo lock book and instead of insanity being drained constantly and therefore having a slow ramp up in order to get into Void Form, I think it would be better to enter Void Form at any point and your entire insanity resource only THEN becomes active and it builds over time faster and faster. Your goal is to spend the insanity on your abilities faster then it passively generates insanity. Therefore you get upfront damage boost without having to build up insanity first beforehand. Its like the steam mechanic many talked about over the years where your trying to let off steam before you overheat… only with insanity. Outside Void form, you only use mana for abilities until void form is up again.

Resource Generation: The idea is that everything costs mana, with the exception of once your enter Voidform, then everything costs/generates Insanity (pending if its a builder/spender type of mechanic).

Mastery: I think the current “Shadow Weaving Mastery” will work well enough with all playstyles.

  • Shadow Weaving
    Your damage is increased by 4.0% for each of Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague on the target. During Voidform, all targets receive the maximum effect.

2. Baseline abilities becoming talents:

3. Shadow Talents - Old/Past abilities/talents coming back as talent choices

3a. Shadow Path Talents:

(Active)

  • Spectral Guise
    Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving your true form behind. As a shadow you are stealthed, but remain in combat. Lasts 6 sec or until your true form is hit by 3 direct attacks.

  • Dark Archangel (Altered from original)
    Increases the damage done by your non-periodic Shadow damage abilities by 20%. Lasts for 18 sec. 90 sec cooldown.

  • Mind Spike
    Blasts the target with Shadowfrost damage, but extinguishes your Shadow damage-over-time effects from the target in the process.
    Mind Spike also increases the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast on the target by 30%. Stacks up to 3 times.

(Passive)

  • Blackout (2pt) (Altered from original)
    Gives your Shadow damage over time spells a 5/10% chance to stun the target for 3 sec.

  • Shadow Power (2pt)
    Increases the critical damage of your Shadow spells by 10/20%.

  • Pain and Suffering (3pt)
    Your Mind Flay has a 33% chance to refresh the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain on the target, and reduces the damage you take from your own Shadow Word: Death by 10%.

  • Shadowy Apparitions (2pt)
    When you use Mind Blast and Void Bolt you also create 1/2 shadowy version of yourself that floats towards all targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch dealing Shadow damage.

  • Mind Melt (3pt)
    Increases your Mind spells critically strike chance by 3/6/9%.

  • Paralysis (2pt)
    When you critically hit with your Mind Blast, you cause the target to be unable to move for 2/4 sec.

  • Masochism (2pt) (Cataclysm version)
    When you take a damaging attack equal to or greater than 10% of your total health or damage yourself with your Shadow Word: Death, you instantly gain 10/20% of your total mana.

  • Surge of Darkness
    Your Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch have a 10% chance to make your next Mind Spike instant, deal 50% more damage, and not consume your damage-over-time effects. Up to 3 charges.

  • Clarity of Power
    Your Mind Spike, Mind Sear, and Shadow Word: Death deal 40% additional damage to targets not affected by your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch. Also reduces the cooldown on Mind Blast by 3 sec and makes it instant cast.

  • Shadow Orbs (2pt) (Altered from original)
    Mind Blast & Shadow Word: Death now generate Shadow Orbs (max 3/5). Each Orb empowers your next Devouring Plague to increase its damage and duration by 25%.

  • Harnessed Shadows (2pt) (Altered from original)
    You have a 50/100% chance to gain a Shadow Orb when critically hit by any attack.

3b. Shadow/Void Talents:

(Passive)

  • Insanity (Altered from previous version)
    Casting Devouring Plague your Mind Flay spell into Insanity for 5 seconds. Insanity’s damage is double that of Mind Flay.

3c. Legion Artifact Traits

  • Call to the Void
    Mind Flay and Mind Sear have a chance to spawn a Void Tendril or Void Lasher that channels at your target for 15 sec, generating 3 insanity every 1 sec.

  • Unleash the Shadows (Altered from original)
    Vampiric Touch critical strikes have a 20% to increase your haste by 10% for 6 sec.

  • Fiending Dark (Altered from previous version)
    Increases the duration of Shadowfiend by 2 sec each time Mind Flay critically hits.

4. Shadow Talents - Current talents as talent choices

4a. Shadow Path Talents:

  • Death and Madness (2pt) (Altered from current)
    If your Shadow Word: Death fails to kill the target at or below 10/20% health, your Shadow Word: Death’s cooldown is instantly reset. Damage increased by 150% to targets below 20% health.

  • Unfurling Darkness
    After casting Vampiric Touch on a target, your next Vampiric Touch within 8 sec is instant cast and deals Shadow damage immediately. This effect cannot occur more than once every 15 sec.

  • San’layn
    Reduces the cooldown of Vampiric Embrace by 45 sec and increases its healing done by 25%.

  • Intangibility
    Dispersion heals for 50% of your maximum health over its duration and has 30 sec reduced cooldown.

  • Misery
    Vampiric Touch also applies Shadow Word: Pain to the target.

  • Auspicious Spirits
    Your Shadowy Apparitions grant you a Shadow Orb instead of doing damage

  • Psychic Link
    Mind Blast deals 60% of its damage to all other targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch within 40 yards.

  • Shadow Crash
    Hurl a bolt of slow-moving Shadow energy at the destination, dealing Shadow damage to all targets within 8 yards. 30 sec cooldown.

  • Damnation
    Instantly afflicts the target with Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague. 45 sec cooldown.

4b. Void Path Talents

  • Void Torrent
    Channel a torrent of void energy into the target, dealing Shadow damage over 3 sec.

  • Ancient Madness
    Voidform increases your critical strike chance by 30% for 15 sec, reducing by 2% every sec.

  • Surrender to Madness
    Deals Shadow damage to the target and activates Voidform.
    For the next 30 sec, your Insanity-generating abilities generate 100% more Insanity and you can cast while moving.
    If the target does not die within 30 sec of using Surrender to Madness, you die. 1.5 min cooldown

  • Hungering Void
    Void Bolt causes the target to become vulnerable to the void, increasing their damage taken from you by 10% for 6 sec. This effect may only be active on one target at a time.
    Casting Void Bolt on an enemy that is already vulnerable extends the duration of your Voidform by 1 sec, or 2 sec if Void Bolt critically strikes

4c. Shadow/Void Talents:

  • Searing Nightmare
    Instantly deals Shadow damage to enemies around the target and afflicts them with Shadow Word: Pain. If the enemy is already afflicted by your Shadow Word: Pain, Searing Nightmare’s damage is increased by 100%. Only usable while channeling Mind Sear.

  • Psychic Horror
    Terrifies the target in place, stunning them for 4 sec. Instant 45 sec cooldown

4d. Specialization Passive (Becomes a talent)

  • Dark Thoughts(2pt) (Altered from original)
    Increases the number of charges of Mind Blast by 1/2, Mind Blast can be cast instantly, and can be cast while channeling Mind Flay or Mind Sear.

4e. Tier Set Bonus:

  • Darkened Mind
    Casting Devouring Plague has a 40% chance to grant Dark Thought. Casting Searing Nightmare has a 25% chance to grant Dark Thought.

4f. Legendary Effects:

  • Shadowflame Prism
    Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death cause your Shadowfiend to teleport behind your target, slashing up to 5 nearby enemies for Shadowflame damage. Each time a rift is triggered, the duration of Shadowfiend is increased by 1.0 sec.

  • Talbadar’s Stratagem
    While you have Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch active on the same target, your Mind Blast deals 55% more damage.

4g. New Talents:

  • Fiend Acceleration
    Reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 sec each time Mind Flay critically hits.

  • Withering Phantoms(2pt)
    You shadowy Apparitions have an increased 10/20% chance to critically hit.

5. Class Talents
(The following will now be class abilities and will show up in the class talents)

  • Twist of Fate
    After dealing damage to or healing to a target with less than 35% health, increases your damage and healing by 15% for the next 10 seconds.

  • Dominate Mind
    Mind-controls the target enemy for up to 30 seconds. Does not work on mechanical units; shares diminishing returns with Incapacitate effects. 30 yard range, 30 second cooldown, 1.8 second cast.

  • Void Tendrils
    Tendrils come out of the ground under up to 5 enemies within 8 yards, immobilizing them for 20 seconds. Killing the tendril cancels the effect. 30 second cooldown.

  • Power Infusion
    Increases the priest’s casting haste by 25% and reduces the mana cost of the target’s spells by 20%. Lasts 20 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

  • Body and Soul
    Power Word: Shield and Leap of Faith increase your target’s movement speed by 40% for 3 sec.

  • Mindbender (Replaces Shadowfiend)
    Summons a Mindbender to attack the target for 15 sec. Generates Mana each time the Mindbender attacks

6. Additional Ideas that could become talents

  • Devouring Plague can now be spread to additional targets.
  • Devouring Plague can be casted on additional targets (if it costs resource to cast like insanity/Shadow Orbs)
  • Shadow Orb Talent could be a 1/2 pt talent that increases max orb by 3/5.
  • Not sure how to give access to Halo, Cascade, Divine Star as Shadow… I was thinking those can be healing only abilities that Shadow Spec simply will not have access to.
  • I didn’t play much of shadowlands, so the idea of brining in those covenant abilities as talents or the legendries simply were not on my mind, but open to including the popular ones.

7. My current take on how I might build the tree (WIP)
(Update: I have added a bit more since I started this tree and it is a bit bloated compared to the current DK and Druid talent trees. So it can use some pruning, but I don’t know what to take away as imo I see everything as having a very synergistic purpose).

Abilities shown in my Priest Shadow Specialization Talent Tree…

0 Points required Zone

  • Mind Flay
    Assaults the target’s mind with Shadow energy, causing Shadow damage over 4.5 sec and slowing their movement speed by 50%.
  • Vampiric Touch
    A touch of darkness that causes Shadow damage over 21 sec, and heals you for 50% of damage dealt.
  • Shadow Form
    Assume a Shadowform, increasing your spell damage dealt by 10%.
  • Pain and Suffering
    Your Mind Flay has a 33% chance to refresh the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain on the target, and reduces the damage you take from your own Shadow Word: Death by 10%.
  • Devouring Plague
    Afflicts the target with a disease that instantly causes Shadow damage plus an additional 4 Shadow damage over 6 sec. Heals you for 50% of damage dealt.
    If this effect is reapplied, any remaining damage will be added to the new Devouring Plague.
  • Unfurling Darkness
    After casting Vampiric Touch on a target, your next Vampiric Touch within 8 sec is instant cast and deals Shadow damage immediately. This effect cannot occur more than once every 15 sec.
  • Dispersion
    Disperse into pure shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 75% for 6 sec, but you are unable to attack or cast spells.
  • Misery
    Vampiric Touch also applies Shadow Word: Pain to the target.
  • Mind Sear
    Corrosive shadow energy radiates from the target, dealing Shadow damage over 4.5 sec to all enemies within 10 yards of the target.
  • Damnation
    Instantly afflicts the target with Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague. 45 sec cooldown.
  • Insanity
    Casting Devouring Plague your Mind Flay spell into Insanity for 5 seconds. Insanity’s damage is double that of Mind Flay.
  • Shadowy Apparitions
    When you use Mind Blast and Void Bolt you also create 1/2 shadowy version of yourself that floats towards all targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch dealing Shadow damage.
  • Death and Madness
    If your Shadow Word: Death fails to kill the target at or below 10/20% health, your Shadow Word: Death’s cooldown is instantly reset. Damage increased by 250% to targets below 20% health.
  • Searing Nightmare
    Instantly deals Shadow damage to enemies around the target and afflicts them with Shadow Word: Pain. If the enemy is already afflicted by your Shadow Word: Pain, Searing Nightmare’s damage is increased by 100%. Only usable while channeling Mind Sear.
  • Shadow Crash
    Hurl a bolt of slow-moving Shadow energy at the destination, dealing Shadow damage to all targets within 8 yards. 30 sec cooldown.

8 Points required Zone

  • Mind Melt
    Increases your Mind spells critically strike chance by 3/6/9%.
  • Darkened Mind
    Casting Devouring Plague has a 40% chance to grant Dark Thought. Casting Searing Nightmare has a 25% chance to grant Dark Thought.
  • Talbadar’s Stratagem
    While you have Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch active on the same target, your Mind Blast deals 55% more damage.
  • Withering Phantoms
    You shadowy Apparitions have an increased 10/20% chance to critically hit.
  • Dark Thoughts
    Increases the number of charges of Mind Blast by 1/2, Mind Blast can be cast instantly, and can be cast while channeling Mind Flay or Mind Sear.
  • Masochism
    When you take a damaging attack equal to or greater than 10% of your total health or damage yourself with your Shadow Word: Death, you instantly gain 10/20% of your total mana.
  • Fiend Acceleration
    Reduces the cooldown of Shadowfiend by 3 sec each time Mind Flay critically hits.
  • Fiending Dark
    Increases the duration of Shadowfiend by 2 sec each time Mind Flay critically hits.
  • Blackout
    Gives your Shadow damage over time spells a 5/10% chance to stun the target for 3 sec.
  • Paralysis
    When you critically hit with your Mind Blast, you cause the target to be unable to move for 2/4 sec.
  • Silence
    Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 4 sec. Against non-players, also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 4 sec.
  • Vampiric Embrace
    Fills you with the embrace of Shadow energy for 15 sec, causing you to heal a nearby ally for 50% of any single-target Shadow spell damage you deal.
  • Psychic Horror
    Terrifies the target in place, stunning them for 4 sec. Instant 45 sec cooldown
  • Unleash the Shadows
    Vampiric Touch critical strikes have a 20% to increase your haste by 10% for 6 sec.
  • Shadow Mend
    Wraps an ally in shadows which heal, but at a price.
    The ally will take damage every 1 sec, until they have taken total damage from all sources, or leave combat.
  • San’layn
    Reduces the cooldown of Vampiric Embrace by 45 sec and increases its healing done by 25%.
  • Intangibility
    Dispersion heals for 50% of your maximum health over its duration and has 30 sec reduced cooldown.
  • Shadowflame Prism
    Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death cause your Shadowfiend to teleport behind your target, slashing up to 5 nearby enemies for Shadowflame damage. Each time a rift is triggered, the duration of Shadowfiend is increased by 1.0 sec.

20 Points required Zone

  • Mind Spike
    Blasts the target with Shadowfrost damage, but extinguishes your Shadow damage-over-time effects from the target in the process.
    Mind Spike also increases the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast on the target by 30%. Stacks up to 3 times.
  • Shadow Power
    Increases the critical damage of your Shadow spells by 10/20%.
  • Void Torrent
    Channel a torrent of void energy into the target, dealing Shadow damage over 3 sec.
  • Surge of Darkness
    Your Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch have a 10% chance to make your next Mind Spike instant, deal 50% more damage, and not consume your damage-over-time effects. Up to 3 charges.
  • Shadow Orbs
    Mind Blast & Shadow Word: Death now generate Shadow Orbs (max 3/5). Each Orb empowers your next Devouring Plague to increase its damage and duration by 25%.
  • Dark Archangel
    Increases the damage done by your non-periodic Shadow damage abilities by 20%. Lasts for 18 sec. 90 sec cooldown.
  • Voidform
    Releases an explosive blast of pure void energy, activating Voidform and causing Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yds of your target.
    During Voidform, this ability is replaced by Void Bolt.
  • Call to the Void
    Mind Flay and Mind Sear have a chance to spawn a Void Tendril or Void Lasher that channels at your target for 15 sec, generating 3 insanity every 1 sec.
  • Clarity of Power
    Your Mind Spike, Mind Sear, and Shadow Word: Death deal 40% additional damage to targets not affected by your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch. Also reduces the cooldown on Mind Blast by 3 sec and makes it instant cast.
  • Auspicious Spirits
    Your Shadowy Apparitions grant you a Shadow Orb instead of doing damage
  • Harnessed Shadows
    You have a 50/100% chance to gain a Shadow Orb when critically hit by any attack.
  • Psychic Link
    Mind Blast deals 60% of its damage to all other targets afflicted by your Vampiric Touch within 40 yards.
  • Hungering Void
    Void Bolt causes the target to become vulnerable to the void, increasing their damage taken from you by 10% for 6 sec. This effect may only be active on one target at a time.
    Casting Void Bolt on an enemy that is already vulnerable extends the duration of your Voidform by 1 sec, or 2 sec if Void Bolt critically strikes
  • Ancient Madness
    Voidform increases your critical strike chance by 30% for 15 sec, reducing by 2% every sec.
  • Surrender to Madness
    Deals Shadow damage to the target and activates Voidform.
    For the next 30 sec, your Insanity-generating abilities generate 100% more Insanity and you can cast while moving.
    If the target does not die within 30 sec of using Surrender to Madness, you die. 1.5 min cooldown

Priest Class Talent Tree
Here is my take on the class talent tree.
I will fill in the detailed descriptions of all the spells later. But this gives a pretty nice and intuitive glance at what to expect. Any feedback/critique is appreciated.

Class Talents (Active Ability)
Power Word: Shield
Psychic Scream
Mind Blast
Flash Heal
Shadow Word: Pain
Fade
Shadow Word: Death
Power Word: Fortitude
Power Infusion
Leap of Faith
Mass Dispel
Mind Control
Dispel Magic
Shackle Undead
Mind Soothe
Levitate
Mind Vision

My take on the Current Priest Class Talent Tree for 10.0

Abilities shown in my Priest Class Talent Tree…

Baseline…

  • Flash Heal
    A fast spell that heals an ally.
  • Holy Fire
    Consumes the enemy in Holy flames that cause Holy damage and an additional Holy damage over 7 sec.
  • Resurrection
    Brings a dead ally back to life with 35% health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat.
  • Smite
    Smites an enemy for Holy damage
  • Shadow Word: Pain
    A word of darkness that causes Shadow damage instantly, and an additional Shadow damage over 12 sec.
  • Power Word: Fortitude
    Infuses the target with vitality, increasing their Stamina by 5% for 1 hour.
    If the target is in your party or raid, all party and raid members will be affected.

Holy Column…

  • Renew
    Fill the target with faith in the light, healing over 15 sec.
  • Prayer of Healing
    A powerful prayer that heals the target and the 4 nearest allies within 40 yards.
  • Scathing Light
    Increase Critical by 3%
  • Levitate
    Levitates a party or raid member for 10 min, floating a few feet above the ground, granting slow fall, and allowing travel over water.
  • Meditation
    You regenerate mana 5/10/15% faster.
  • Prayer of Mending
    Places a ward on an ally that heals them the next time they take damage, and then jumps to another ally within 20 yds. Jumps up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec after each jump.
  • Angelic Feather
    Places a feather at the target location, granting the first ally to walk through it 40% increased movement speed for 5 sec. Only 3 feathers can be placed at one time.
  • Desperate Prayer
    Increases maximum health by 25% for 10 sec, and instantly heals you for that amount.
  • Test of Faith
    Increases healing by 10/20% on friendly targets at or below 50%
  • Halo
    Creates a ring of Holy energy around you that quickly expands to a 30 yd radius, healing allies and dealing Holy damage to enemies. Healing reduced beyond 6 targets.
  • Divine Star
    Throw a Divine Star forward 24 yds, healing allies in its path for and dealing Holy damage to enemies. After reaching its destination, the Divine Star returns to you, healing allies and damaging enemies in its path again. Healing reduced beyond 6 targets.

Holy/Discipline Column…

  • Inner Will
    A burst of Holy energy fills the caster, reducing the mana cost of instant cast spells by 15% and increasing your movement speed by 10%.
    You can only have Inner Will or Inner Fire active at a time.
  • Inner Fire
    A burst of Holy energy fills the caster, increasing armor by 315. Each melee or ranged damage hit against the priest will remove one charge. Lasts 10 min or until 20 charges are used.
    You can only have Inner Will or Inner Fire active at a time.
  • Purify
    Dispels harmful effects on the target, removing all Magic and Disease effects.
  • Purification
    Purify now has a maximum of 2 charges.
  • Spell Warding
    Reduces all spell damage taken by 10%.
  • Leap of Faith
    Pulls the spirit of a party or raid member, instantly moving them directly in front of you.
  • Divine Hymm
    Heals all party or raid members within 40 yards for over 8 sec. Each heal increases all targets’ healing taken by 4% for 15 sec, stacking.
    Healing increased by 100% when not in a raid.

Discipline Column…

  • Power Word: Shield
    Shields an ally for 15 sec, absorbing damage. You cannot shield the target again for 7.5 sec.
  • Focused Will
    Melee critical attacks against you cause you to gain Focused Will, reducing damage you take by 15% for 8 sec
  • Mental Fortitude
    Increase Mastery by 3%
  • Mind Vision
    Allows the caster to see through the target’s eyes for 1 min. Will not work if the target is in another instance or on another continent.
  • Mental Strength
    Increases your total Intellect by 5/10/15%
  • Shackle Undead
    Shackles the target undead enemy for 50 sec, preventing all actions and movement. Damage will cancel the effect. Limit 1.
  • Body and Soul
    Power Word: Shield and Leap of Faith increase your target’s movement speed by 40% for 3 sec.
  • Inner Focus
    Provides immunity to Silence and Interruption effects for 5 sec and increases the critical effect chance of your next Heal, Flash Heal, Holy Word: Serenity, Holy Fire, and Smite by 100%.
  • Angelic Bulwark
    Anytime a damaging attack brings you below 30% health, you gain an absorption shield equal to 15/30% of your total health lasting for 20 sec.
    This effect cannot occur more than once every 90 sec.
  • Symbol of Hope
    Bolster the morale of raid members within 40 yds. They each recover 60 sec of cooldown of a major defensive ability, and regain 15% of their missing mana, over 4 sec.
  • Power Infusion
    Increases the priest’s casting haste by 25% and reduces the mana cost of the target’s spells by 20%. Lasts 20 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

Discipline/Shadow Column…

  • Fear Ward
    Wards the friendly target against Fear. The next Fear effect used against the target will fail, using up the ward. Lasts 10 min.
  • Psychic Scream
    Lets out a psychic scream, causing 5 enemies within 8 yards to flee, disorienting them for 8 sec. Damage may interrupt the effect.
  • Mind Bomb
    Inflicts the target with a Mind Bomb.
    After 2 sec or if the target dies, it unleashes a psychic explosion, disorienting all enemies within 8 yds of the target for 6 sec.
  • Dispel Magic
    Dispels Magic on the enemy target, removing 1 beneficial Magic effect.
  • Mass Dispel
    Dispels magic in a 15 yard radius, removing all harmful Magic from 5 friendly targets and 1 beneficial Magic effects from 5 enemy targets.
  • Improved Mass Dispel
    Mass Dispel is now potent enough to remove some Magic that is normally undispellable.
  • Fae Guardians
    Call forth three faerie guardians to attend your targets for 20 sec.
    Wrathful Faerie: Any direct attacks against the target restore 0.5% Mana or 3 Insanity. Follows your Shadow Word: Pain.
    Guardian Faerie: Reduces damage taken by 20%. Follows your Power Word: Shield.
    Benevolent Faerie: Increases the cooldown recovery rate of your target’s major ability by 100%. Follows your

Shadow Column…

  • Mind Blast
    Blasts the target’s mind for Shadow damage
  • Rapid Shadows
    Increase haste by 3%
  • Shadow Word: Death
    A word of dark binding that inflicts Shadow damage to the target. If the target is not killed by Shadow Word: Death, the caster takes damage equal to the damage inflicted upon the target.
    Damage increased by 150% to targets below 20% health.
  • Mind Soothe
    Soothes the target, reducing the range at which it will attack you by 10 yards. Only affects Humanoid and Dragonkin targets. Does not cause threat. Lasts 20 sec.
  • Unbreakable Will
    Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by an additional 5/10/15%.
  • Shadowfiend
    Summons a shadowy fiend to attack the target for 15 sec.
  • Mindbender
    Summons a Mindbender to attack the target for 15 sec. Generates Mana each time the Mindbender attacks
  • Spectral Guise
    Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving your true form behind. As a shadow you are stealthed, but remain in combat. Lasts 6 sec or until your true form is hit by 3 direct attacks.
  • Void Tendrils
    Tendrils come out of the ground under up to 5 enemies within 8 yards, immobilizing them for 20 seconds. Killing the tendril cancels the effect. 30 second cooldown.
  • Twist of Fate
    After dealing damage to or healing to a target with less than 35% health, increases your damage and healing by 10/20% for the next 10 seconds.
  • Mindgames
    Assault an enemy’s mind, dealing Shadow damage and briefly reversing their perception of reality.
    Healing becomes damage and damage becomes healing.
  • Unholy Nova
    An explosion of dark energy infects enemies within 15 yds with Unholy Transfusion, and heals allies for up to based on number of targets.
    Unholy Tranfusion
    Deals up to Shadow damage based on number of targets over 15 sec. Allies who damage this target are healed.
  • Fade
    Fade out, removing all your threat
  • Phantasm
    Activating Fade removes all movement impairing effects and prevents your movement speed from being reduced for 5 sec.
  • Mind Control
    Controls a mind up to 1 level above yours for 30 sec. Does not work versus Demonic[][, Undead,] or Mechanical beings. Shares diminishing returns with other disorienting effects.
  • Dominate Mind
    Mind-controls the target enemy for up to 30 seconds. Does not work on mechanical units; shares diminishing returns with Incapacitate effects. 30 yard range, 30 second cooldown, 1.8 second cast.
3 Likes
2

Bro loving the bringing back old talents especioally the one i linked above there. There is a lot of interesting talents from back in the day.

Not a huge fan of searing nightmare needing to press xtra buttons. The talent shoulds just auto do it when you click mind sear

Also like the mind spike talents. Def something we should get back

1 Like
3

I use this macro. But to simplify it for Mind Sear / Searing Nightmare instead…

#showtooltip
/targetenemy [noexists]
/castsequence [spec:2,@mouseover,help]Circle of Healing;[spec:1/2,@mouseover,exists]Holy Nova;[spec:2]Prayer of Healing;[channeling,talent:3/3]reset=target/2 Searing Nightmare;Mind Sear

Using this (same as above) will turn your Mind Sear into Searing nightmare while Mind Sear is channeling. Essentially combining 2 buttons into 1. Only downside is that if you want to refresh Mind Sear mid cast… you cant unless you cancel it 1st by jumping/moving etc. w/e.

/use [channeling,talent:3/3]Searing Nightmare;Mind Sear

4

That would be the actual strength of the new talent system if they can do that.

Druid endgamers are mad already tho.

very much digging this idea of subspecs within the main spec that drive playstyle and fantasy would make a lot of sense

TLDR I really like ur idea OP

5

This isn’t our current mastery. It’s a damage increase based on number of dots on the target. Dark thoughts is a passive.

6

Thanks for catching that. Not sure how I mixed that up lol. I was up late doing most of this write up and tree building lol.

Fixed now.

1 Like
7

I really hope they do away with Searing Nightmare completely. I miss in BFA where your ghosts were your AOE cleave.

1 Like
8

If I may ask, What seems to be the real underlying issue with Searing Nightmare. Seems its leaving a bad taste in many mouths.

  • Is it the damage aspect? (Doesn’t scale / compete?)
  • Is it the extra button press that requires a [channeling] macro to streamline it?
  • Is it the way you must do AOE by channeling / not moving?
  • Other?

Genuine question because I’ve been playing BC and haven’t touched SL since the covenant ordeal alone was enough for me to enjoy my priest from past iterations instead lol.

9

It’s awkward to use.

When I play my Frost Mage you cast your Orb, rechannel Blizzard on cd, and just do your normal rotation to do AOE damage. There’s nothing complicated about it.

With Shadow you have to sit there and channel mind sear and hope you build up enough insanity to do searing nightmare. It just sucks doing a full mind sear, getting enough insanity on the last 0.25s, and then having to recast mind sear again to do searing nightmare. The more haste you have the shorter the window is to cast searing nightmare.

Also, you HAVE to pick the talent to do AOE damage at the expense of losing twist of fate or misery which are both good talents. No class ingame other than Shadow has a talent that literally doubles your AOE damage.

10

Gotcha.
I agree with all that you stated. However, consider this potential small change…

Seems you loose the “flow” in your button presses when you use Mind Sear + Searing nightmare as your just in this “waiting” game to get enough “Resource” to cast another Searing Nightmare without having to recast Mind Sear.

So what if…
Since its taking a talent slot already, why should it come at the cost of requiring a “resource” to use? What if while channeling Mind Sear, you can cast Searing Nightmare as many times as you can within the channel duration of Mind Sear. Therefore the more haste you get, the more you can ramp up the Searing Nightmare button presses and in result not have to be tapping you foot saying “come on come let me do something” while you wait to be able to use Searing Nightmare.

So basically…

Take away the resource cost of Searing Nightmare.
I think that would greatly improve the feel of the ability.

11

Its also we are a dot class. With searing you arent really dotting. You are using that to put dots up and spamming. I miss dot management of back in the day but i also understand in the current envoroment of burst, that play style would lack

1 Like
13

Going to bed soon but initial thoughts, shadowflame prisim shouldnt be bcapped to 5 targets, aus spirits should be of pain not vt, and cooldowns are still all over the place in terms on syncing up

1 Like
14

I’d much rather it get uncoupled from mind sear entirely and become an insanity spender. The issue with it now is it it completely apart from our regular rotation and requires an extra GCD to cast mind sear before you can actually start aoeing. It’s less annoying on huge aoe pulls where you can just spam, but on 3-5 target cleave, trying to fit in the channel between other abilities is annoying af. Not to mention forcing you to be a turret. It’s even worse now with our tier set where you have to essentially choose between spending a DT proc or a second cast of SN in the channel.

No other spec has such awkward aoe. It’s either a spender or a separate button that takes place of an ST one in your regular rotation. Spriest would benefit from the same.

15

If Mind Sear + Searing Nightmare is not bad on mass groups and only in 3-5 is feels awful, then I think that’s more of an issue of the ability to get our cleave damage out without using Mind Sear more then the Mind Sear + Searing Nightmare being the issue.

This is why I loved Clarity of Power back in Wod. I dot up high HP targets and then get procs and nuke the rest down with instant cast Mind Blasts, Mind Spikes, Shadow Word: Deaths and rolling Devouring Plague non stop.

So in conclusion, I think we just have crap cleave capability compared to previous iterations of Shadow. We have no quick on demand burst without using CD’s and dotting things up that will die fast feels bad. So only option is to Mind Sear, but its damage alone is bad and with Searing Nightmare, it just doesn’t feel fun and fill the void we once had.

That’s how I see it anyway. Having a lack of quick 3-5 target burst capability creates a whole host of gameplay and “fun” issues for shadow that we simply no longer have a good answer for.

This alone (below) is both fun and fixes that feeling your describing imo. I would love to replace Searing Nightmare and maybe Damnation or Void Torrent with these 2 options in the current talent iteration lol.

  • Surge of Darkness
    Your Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch have a 10% chance to make your next Mind Spike instant, deal 50% more damage, and not consume your damage-over-time effects. Up to 3 charges.
  • Clarity of Power
    Your Mind Spike, Mind Sear, and Shadow Word: Death deal 40% additional damage to targets not affected by your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch. Also reduces the cooldown on Mind Blast by 3 sec and makes it instant cast.
16

Its just flat our boring and thoughtless design. You press a button and pulse mediocre damage. Searing nightmare empowers this with a second layer of pulsing damage. Two layers of stale ability.

It is awkward to start a channeled cast and have to press another button to active a two part ability. Without high haste, you get two SN casts and have to restart the channel because it clips before you can squeeze in a third.

We’re a DoT class and that is what most player presumably enjoy. Our AoE should follow that same design. Affliction Warlocks are currently hamstrung with the same issue via Malefic Rapture. It is very unpopular for the same reason SN is. Imagine if our shadowy apperations required a button press to activate and weren’t tied passively to an ability - that is Malefic Rapture.

1 Like
17

Eh, I think the reasonable fix would be to baseline Psychic Link, the replacement talent makes it transfer 50% more damage, and Shadow Crash also applies VT.

Then either double Mindsear’s channel time or make Searing Nightmare automatically tick the damage if enough insanity is available.

Void Bolt now shoots at all targets with SWP up.

Void Eruption automatically tags all targets around your primary target with SWP+VT.

With these changes, Dark Thoughts becomes relevant in aoe/cleave without the tier set, and our aoe damage is bumped up.

Remove Power Infusion from Shadow and place that damage back into our dots. That way Void Eruption is freed from having to be held for every PI, and thus we have improved aoe burst periods.

1 Like
18

Your suggestions I can see would “work” but only as a Band-Aid fix. The problem I still see is that in every iteration of Voidform, it has always had the constant same problem of not needing the damage when you want it.

In the past if you want to AOE a pack down and do the most DPS you can, you needed to ramp up your insanity and by the time you did that and shift into Voidform… everything is dead and Voidform is wasted.

Now that you can activally control when you go into Voidform… then sure you can balls out for that 1 pack… but then you fall back to the sidelines for a while. Its this contant up and down timing that you have to just accept.

This was not the case before Voidform. Every pack of mobs I would constantly be able to mix my dots and burst and it never had me play 1 way (without Voidform available) then swap and play a different way (Voidform becomes available) when then everyone else sees your roller coaster performance and is like ??? whats going on here lol. Its frustrating to me as someone who long loved Shadow pre Voidform.

I am not the only one that has noticed this drastic shift of spec mechanics that just will never have a place is short burst fights because its always a YES you have voidform ready or NO you don’t that determines how well you do.

Now I get other classes have this up and down aspect to them sure great. But the Shadow Priest never had this before Voidform and ever since Voidform got introduced… the spec has suffered form the same underling issues year after year and I think we either need callback in the form of a redesign to move away from this Voidform mechanic altogether or a split and allow the player to choose (Like how I outlined in my talent Tree)

19

This is an issue of how much damage is shifted into cd’s, which is why I want Power Infusion gone. Too much damage sunk into VE+PI and then you hit like wet toilet paper outside it.

Turn VE to a 1 min cd, implement the other changes I proposed, and for a higher key with fortified Spriest has mostly VE up for every pull.

They could also put in a talent that reduces the cd of VE on multitarget procs, like shadowy apparitions, or not a talent but a passive, and immediately make VE much more accessible for M+

1 Like
20

Still a bandaid fix imo.
Your example is for M+ Fortified targets. Well what about a normal heroic? or Normal Mythic? Or just doing world content?
See The argument for Voidform breaks down on all the low or trivial type of content and as a result the spec suffers greatly in the hands of people new to the spec.

Because lets say your qued up leveling or max level and just casually doing auto group content. What you will find is that all these other classes are popping off every pack of mobs. But you will always be doing subpar damage outside your Voidform because we have no burst… our dots don’t hit that hard because its balanced by the massive damage boost in Voidform. So when you go into Voidform, sure its great… but why are the other classes able to still tower over your performance outside of there burst windows while your outside of yours as well?

I am telling you, its a mechanic that ONLY works for prolonged fights. It feels bad in every other instance.

I cant tell you how awful the feeling is when you feel like you cant even quest without feeling like you have a good chance to die because your so reliant on the Voidform window to get anything done. This is simply not the case with any other DPS spec.

And really the solution your arguing for is basically what I’m arguing for… get the imbalance of the top end damage of Voidform out and bring it to more closely align with the low end moments outside Voidform. The problem is that is such a delicate balance that the closer they become equal… the more questionable and useless Voidform becomes. The more you want Voidform the be special… the more unfun it becomes when you don’t have access to it.

I really think its purpose only belongs in a Raid encounter and as you mentioned… M+ Fortified mobs. Outside that, its a complete and utter failure on all counts. And don’t even get me started on the PvP aspect of things. Ever since Voidform became the thing… PvP Shadow priests are just walking easy kill targets. I have bared witness on both ends. When I am on my priest, it was such a slog with Voidform vs pre Voidform and when I am on my other classes, I never fear a Shadow Priest because I know how easy and useless they can be because of Voidform alone lol.

21

It’s what will happen with any non-burst spec. Normal low level content can be trivially completed regardless, so it should never be a point of design.

Their balancing is fine to be aimed at the +10 level. It’s what heroic raids more or less are tuned at, or even harder than the +10 in the case of this raid tier.

DoT specs will never outshine in casual content, and that’s fine. As long as they shine on extended encounters.

1 Like