god shadow feels awful to play after the patch. we’ve lost so many things that made the spec flow.
But ive noticed during void eruption that without instant mind spike procs you are wasting void bolts, mind blasts, and empowered mind spikes. And what i mean by wasting is you arent able to use every ability on cooldown when it comes up or procs because of having to cast mind spike.
blizz please bring back instant mind spike procs.
I would be more inclined to use Mind Spike if we had its instants back. But, I’ve tried the build that Ellipsis put on wowhead for M+ using Mind Spike vs my build, which has a few differences (the largest being I don’t use mind spike) and 10k more dps in single target, and about 20k more in AoE than I do using the Mind Spike build. Plus, it doesn’t feel weird to me. Mind Spike feels so weird to me to use. Not saying my build is better than what Ellipsis came up with, as they’re the pro when it comes to spriest, but I play what is most comfortable to me. And I basically seldomly cast mind flay during Void Eruption. And its not uncommon for me to keep void eruption up for 50-100% longer than its normal duration.
See this is what baffles me about the argument made that taking Mind Spike feels bad and is awkward etc.
If it feels bad to play with and awkward to use… wouldn’t that mean you can pump out more damage numbers by picking something that might be less from sim perspective but in reality is more because you are more comfortable with it and thus it flows better which translates to more damage that the player can do with a technically less sim number calculation.
However, in saying that, I do see and feel the awkwardness with this update. I do not think this is the end all be all. This is just a stepping stone to another rework coming down the line. I’m as confident as I can be without being 100% assured that they simply ran out of time/manpower to finish shadow. So instead of making a post saying as much after Ian already said priests deserve better, it’s best to just let us ponder over what’s happened than to incite outrage lol.
Not saying that’s the best solution and path for blizzard to take, but it’s what I think is in fact happening lol.
I’m starting to wonder if there wasn’t a bug with the sim, if you’re using evangelism you get two or three stacks from a single mind flay whereas you get one from a spike. Psychic Link includes mind flay and mind spike does poor damage so I’m not sure why it’s taken, being new to playing a lot of spriest. I’ve had one since wrath but it was always a mess around pvp toon for bgs and low rated arenas. Any clarification on why Mind Spike?
At the end of the day when the difference is only a couple percent with optimal play, as in the case of flay Vs spike, most people can get away with playing what’s more comfortable to them. Personally I really dislike hardcasted spike filler too, but I’m going to have to use it at least for raids 
Also on the ‘itll do more in practice’ comment above, the sim isn’t doing anything inhuman, and playing proficiently I’m still able to see the expected DPS difference between the two buttons at least in raid st situations. It’s just muscle memory you’ve got to unlearn.
Ok let’s break this down
While this is true, void torrent caps your stacks before you’d cast either flay or spike in a standard cooldowns opener. There’s no bug, it just doesn’t end up being a factor that spike stacks it slower.
Spike and flay both do pretty poor damage. The difference is mostly in the empowered versions from surge of insanity. In which MFI deals slightly more but over two globals, while MSI only uses one, giving you space to perform the rest of the rotation.
There’s also the interaction with mind melt. As well as the, admittedly very small, interaction with our new set bonus.
In what sense? Why is it a spell on the talent tree to begin with? Like why does it exist?
It first made its appearance in Cataclysm. Its primarily purpose was to be shadows answer to kill a target that won’t live long enough for your damage over time spells to kill it. This was further cemented with the fact that Mind Spike removed your dots from your target. So that meant Mind Spike hit like a truck since you had to choose between Mind Spike and dots.
This was extended to many raid encounters as well where you often had an add that needs to die very quickly that would be a waste of time to dot it up. Instead you just Mind Spike it 3 times to build Crit buff for Mind Blast and then follow up with Shadow Word: Death.
Then if you need ever more burst, you used your Dark Archangel cooldown which is similar to our now Dark Ascension where it buffed up your damage for Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Mind Spike and Shadow Word: Death by 20% for 18 sec.
Only in MoP did we get Surge of Darkness which gave us the instant cast Proc of Mind Spike. With this instant cast proc, it not longer stripped dots away.
Then in WoD, we got Clarity of Power which caused your Mind Spike, Mind Sear and Shadow Word: Death to deal 40% more damage to targets without dots on them as well as made Mind Blast an instant cast spell with 3 seconds reduced cooldown time. This really cemented Mind Spike as a hard hitting spell on targets without dots on them.
Since Mind Spikes reintroduction in Dragonflight, it has been meet with various takes which lead to its confusing nature as to where it fit into the shadow spell kit. Some thought it was a filler, some thought it was to be used only instant cast during movement. It’s been a very poorly communicated spell.
I honestly did not for-see such backlash and confusion with this reintroduction as it made sense for me when it first found its way into the game. But I guess there are a lot of people that were not around prior to Legions Voidform revamp when Mind Spike got removed. So as such, confusion escalated and became this questionable spell we know today.
It’s saddens me really because it was such a good spell for what it was for back in the day, a spell that hit really hard as a burst spell.
and the instant casts that enabled us to defend ourselves. People don’t even want you in mythics – basically they made this class worthless… I’ve put so much time into building it and it was very close to being right, I was happy. What horrible changes, it makes me wonder who is the person playing SP for blizzard telling them these are good changes to make? SO tired of this…
I’m as down about the removal of surge as the next guy but this comment is flat out whack. Shadows easily one of the best m+ specs in the game right now.
If you meant m0s, sure, but when things live a bit longer than a couple seconds we absolutely smack.
That is exactly why I don’t use Mind Spike. That was the argument I was trying to make.
Absolutely! I’ve tried to make it work, it just feels so… off to me. But, I also love Affliction without Shadow Bolt. I love drain classes, and my brain works well with them for some reason, ha. I think sometimes people just dive too hard into it. Like, I get that numerically there is one that will out perform the other, even if it’s a super small percentage, but if the player sucks at the optimal playstyle but is great at the slightly less than optimal playstyle, then the slightly less than optimal playstyle will be the victor… for that person. I feel a lot of players don’t understand that concept, lol. Mad respect to you, tho! I appreciate your advocation for the spec! Spriest and Afflock were always two of my favorite dps specs in the game (arguably, I tend to heal tho).
I would second this statement. I did probably 100 keys on PTR for this patch. At least 50% of those were done as shadow, and I have to say the only time I got eclipsed in damage was 1. if there were significantly more than 8 mobs or 2. if the mobs died within a couple of globals. Otherwise? I was able to hold very consistent strong DPS either it was single target or AoE. (I loved the first pull for FH and doing 300k+ dps).
The two things I am sad the most about are the removal of Surge and the removal of the ability to cast the instant mind blasts during mind flay.
I was just agreeing and emphasizing your point.
Some people are too focused on the trees that they don’t see the forest.
I will just say this, if you’re picking talents based on sims only and forgo your own enjoyment, then why even play the game/class/spec at all. It’s supposed to be fun and if your fun in impaired because sims then you might as well have all gameplay decisions taken away since the idea of choice is not what your concerned about.
Obviously if there is a huge discrepancy, that should be addressed via changed from the dev team. Aside from wild outliers, minor numbers should be taken with a huge grain of salt as it’s not that big of a deal if it conflicts with the personal fun factor.
I tried to do the heroic dungeon quest to get the heroic item, but gave up after a few runs. Obviously, higher end content will be really different, but in the easier dungeons, tanks just kind of pulled and kept going. I had literally nothing I could do, apart from throw out a few shadow word pains. Shadow Crash would miss, so had to hold it to the end, but everyone else was happily DPSing away. Sure, this isn’t content that “matters”, but I felt like crap.
Not that the recent changes don’t make this situation worse, but this has been the shadow priest dungeon experience for well over a decade at this point.
Shadow has been FOTM since the MDI. They went from being a rare occurrence to being in almost 70% of the groups for high keys. The consequence of Shadow going FOTM was that it made it harder for Disc and Holy to get into keys because Shadow brings the same exact toolkit.
Honestly I’ve been talking to some buddies and we’re thinking our push comp this season might be triple caster double priest. Obviously you have less comp options as disc if you’re running without a melee, but it seems pretty strong in these keys.
I’ve run with quad PI all caster groups several times and those were some of the fastest dungeon clears.
No you didn’t, not at all. You lost 1 thing that made the spec flow; casting a spell while moving, that’s it. If they brought that back most people who have any issue with this version of it would be enjoying it instead.
Also, I didn’t like that version more either as Shadow Crash was always selected, which made no sense in ST.
They should redo the middle right Idol, though, the one with the thing from beyond that comes out. That Idol should be about your spirits and not about a thing from beyond.
Not unless you’re hard progging mythic raid in the first 2-3 months the raid is out. By month 4 everyone has enough gear, and there’s been enough nerfs to the bosses it’s not actually needed anymore and you can actually technically get away with losing that % damage then.
What people are you referring to? Because unless you’re world 500 guild, it doesn’t matter, then. And what do you mean by mythics? Dungeons or raids? If raids, again if you’re not world 500 then it’s not going to matter because any guild not in the world 500 is the same. They experience the bosses after nerf 10 of the raid, it doesn’t matter, then, since buffs have happened, weeks of vault loot have caught your toons up or made them go above where they should be giving better power level gap, and the raid has taken at least a few nerfs making content/bosses easier than they were originally so it still wouldn’t matter.
If you’re referring to dungeons then unless you’re hard progging top level keys, once more it doesn’t matter because everyone is in the same boat; you’re either a top contender or you’re not. If you’re not a top contender then play whatever you want, bring whatever you want because anything below top contender is all the same.
I wonder who is telling them they need to keep making burst a thing in this game. I want that nonsense to completely stop and for them to stop pushing burst so hard. It ruins everything, quite literally. You gotta take more damage because burst healing is so high. You gotta start dealing diablo levels of damage because the damage power creep is so insane. This game is an MMORPG, not an ARPG, if you want ARPG levels of numbers then go play that genre.
I wish we can put that genie back inside Pandora’s box. Alas, I think this game heavily relies on being able to burst out damage and if you cant do it, your a liability, not an asset.
I enjoyed Shadow when we didn’t have burst, I enjoyed the consistency where I can always do my full damage and not have to watch and play around cooldowns.
Sadly, the modern wow will not ever see that again.
I actually think that as long as they do it correctly with talents, they could actually be fine without a CD.
Just need better talents is all it takes, and for them to consider DoT damage vs instant damage better. If a Ret’s Judgement hits for 40k instantly, there’s no reason VT or SW:P can’t do 300k over 18 seconds. In the span of 18 seconds for Ret, pushing like 5 globals is around 200k, if all things were even etc.
They just need to understand DoTs aren’t instant damage so they should actually be doing more damage than burst abilities since, again, it’s not instant.
The closest thing we has to on demand Burst was Dot weaving with Clarity of Power in WoD.
We didn’t have a DPS cooldown aside from Shadow Fiend as meh as it was. But we can still do well.
But with how the game is now, I don’t know if we can get to a competitive version of Shadow without becoming OP.
I think the main issue stems from Bloodlust windows as that’s when everyone pops off and needs to burn down the target.
I don’t think Shadow can compete enough in those situations without being overpowered if we had consistant damage.