If I were redesigning Shadow’s AOE spells, I’d do the following (just brainstorming, could use feedback):
Remove Mind Sear
Remove Searing Nightmare
Buff Vampiric Touch & Shadow Word: Pain
Void Eruption is instant cast, has no cooldown, and costs 50 Insanity
Shadow Crash remains a talent
Psychic Link: Mind Blasts hits 4 additional targets afflicted by Vampiric Touch within 40 yards (for 100% of damage, up from 50%)
Mind Sear, even with Searing Nightmare, just feels dull to me. Somehow Mind Flay feels better. Possibly because our AOE damage is so distributed between DOTs, talents, Eruption, and Sear that Mind Sear itself does almost nothing: it doesn’t feel impactful. Compare to Eye Beam, or Bladestorm, or etc - where large portions of the specs AOE damage are invested into a single high intensity spell: those feel very impactful, Mind Sear is the opposite.
Shadow should be about multidotting for most AOE situations. Psychic Link with good DOT management should be amazing for council fights and most Mythic+ packs.
When there are giant trash pulls, spamming Void Eruption and Shadow Crash would look and feel great.
Not gonna lie, I would gladly give Mind Sear away if they buffed VT and SWP.
But wouldn’t that hit too hard in single target?
Making Searing Nightmare baseline might be easier in that case.
Or, for an even wackier idea: make Mind Sear deal more damage if it’s the only DoT on the target. Hits harder on the low hp trash, but makes multi-dotting better on tougher packs.
I think buffed Shadowflame Prism will help. It’s going to push you into misery since SN globals will become dedicated to MB. You’re going to be sending out a lot more ghosts with this build than SN so AS or PL might not be a bad idea over SC.
Personally I never liked SN but as it stands now with the exception of ToP and Spires its really our only way of staying competitive for AoE pulls. This buffed legendary should help with that
Buffing the Leggo like Gluggins said should help some, I personally really think that Spriest was designed to be too rigidly reliant on talents along with the Insanity mechanic being more an afterthought now (especially with void form being turned into just a dps cooldown instead of the kind of stat/skill game it was).
Other problems are with the AOE as it stands even with Searing Nightmare is that its a LONG channel that you’re just stuck doing. They kind of removed these aspects from a lot of classes it seemed like (Starfall is just something balance turns on, flamestrike is just bam on ground, blizzard is just a cast and forget etc, even warlocks don’t really channel their aoe or anything either) The only comparable ‘channeled unmoving aoe’ is maybe demon hunters with eye beam? But thats a fast channel and autocrits everything.
Which the channeling is partially why volcanic week can absolutely get bent.
I think the main things needed in short term would be just give us SN as a baseline, honestly the fact we need to talent to even have reasonable AOE is silly. Also having a second way to actually interact with Insanity would be nice.
either that or I think making Psychic Link baseline if not Searing Nightmare might help, or at least bake in Misery at that point too. That would help alleviate the issues with packs of 3-4 mobs that SN feels really weak on and would give some better passive AOE ability without making Spriest able to crush things passively.
In long term I really think that Spriest needs deconstructed and hard questions need asked about what it brings to the table and how to make it viable ST/AoE/Utility formats. Right now its like everything’s been heaped into the ST area and then “Oh talents will let them do other things” with many abilities kind of shadows of old abilities that just don’t have the same oomph anymore.
This is really the crux of it. Shadow aoe has never felt good while boomkins can just instantly sunfire and starfall an entire pack and mages just keep dropping flamestrike and let that and flame patch do work. they can also do them instantly and on the move
we have to talent into having passable aoe and when we do our ST suffers
SN should really be baseline, or PL be made baseline. I feel like either of these would be good starting points
i think Shadowflame Prism (especially if you’re night fae) is going to be great for m+ where you wont have to sacrifice much for ST or AOE damage. It scaling off mastery + popping mindbender every VE means that you can get plenty of aoe burst off MBs while not sacrificing much in the way of ST damage, if any. Being able to funnel DP as a spender instead of SN means HV picks up more value even on fortified weeks.
Personally I’m really looking forward to crafting it and moving away from SN
I am curious if with Shadowflame Prism if running Psychic Link with it could be semi viable. You’re TRYING to throw all the mind blasts you can with the Prism part. I feel like maybe with that something like this could work (not sure about Unfurling to help spread Misery around faster or just roll with Fortress for mind blast’s benefit) Possible build for shadowflame prism once buffed
I hadn’t even thought about switching off of D&M. We are actually getting some talent variety with this build, fun!
if its PL i probably use Fortress for the raw MB damage. If the adds are short lived I probably do unfurling and shadow crash. I think we won’t know until live. It’ll probably change depending on what the affixes are for the week and also what dungeon it is
The thought more is that since Psychic Link NEEDS to have VT on them Unfurling would help you spread more since every 15 sec you can basically do VT then Instant Vamp (so two targets with pain and VT) would speed up the multidot needed to make the most of PL, and Mind Bender would get to go off just about every trash pack with Shadowflame Prism going. Certainly might take some setup, but wonder if with Prism + Mind Bender on bosses too if that’d give a solid DPS boosting.
from a QoL standpoint it sounds much more appealing than fortress. Idk how the numbers would shake out
I think that build would lose a lot of value on bosses though because UD and PL are basically dead talents on single target. I think going either Fortress+PL or Unfurling+AS would allow you to dip both feet in the water, so to speak
No deader than SN and how weak Shadow Crash is on a single target, at least UD gives an extra burst of damage for an instant cast though so about same GCD as if you were applying VT and Pain at once (which you aren’t because misery), PL is dead but either way we’d run a dead talent in M+ with SN spec too.
I think it will be interesting to play around with. I’ve been looking for an excuse to go back to bender over torrent and I think this build will be way more engaging and rewarding than just SWD sniping adds and hoarding insanity and spamming SN
EDIT: one thing I’m wondering, does Rabid Shadows pick up more value now just based off the extended duration from MB casts or will Ghosts and Bolt conduits still reign supreme
I think ghosts would still be EXTREMELY strong with that build by virtue of you’re mind blasting and VTing everything so ghosts gonna be all over things.
Not sure about the bolt though. Might be something to try swapping Rabid in for that build
Just to clarify, Unfurling Darkness doesn’t help you spread VT any faster, it just adds a proc when you cast it (and makes it instant). You still spend the same GCD casting the instant proc that you would spend hardcasting Vampiric Touch.
So for example, VT-VT-VT-VT still takes 4 GCDs, whether you have Unfurling Darkness or not.
Correct, however paired with Misery you’re dropping the SW:Pain GCD effectively is what I was meaning so to get both dots on multiple things Unfurling+Misery works well
I’ll be suggesting the ideo of nerf devouring plague and buff swp and vt we are going to be at the same single but we are going to be better at cleave and aoe
