I’d like for shadow to have a more accessible AOE tool for dealing with repeated waves of low/medium health mobs. Something with more damage output than Holy Nova but more frequently usable than Shadow Crash. I’ve been noticing in lot of PvE content Shadow Crash just doesn’t keep up with the sheer number/spawn rate of mobs. An example is empowered trash in delves that spawn spiders upon death. If shadow crash is used to deal with the initial mobs, it isn’t available for the spiders, and holy nova isn’t sufficient to deal with them either. I know AOE isn’t an “iconic” aspect of shadow priests, but they’re a dps spec. I’d like an AOE tool that isn’t 1: On a delay, 2: on a 20 second cooldown, and 3: Holy Nova.
As an aside, I feel like more could be done with holy nova to make it fit in to the different priest specs.
2 Likes
WE need double shadow crash charges and slightly larger area of impact.
Maybe a tad bit else but it’s almost in a good spot. It’s not as far away as people think.
10 Likes
Yo, Pre, chill with spamming your idea across a bunch of posts. You act like it’s some new development that people haven’t already suggested a dozen iterations for.
6 Likes
I feel the same. I kinda feel like the Shadow Crash choice node should be a choice between a larger shadow crash with a higher damage/DOT application cap on a 20 sec cd, OR 2 “current” shadow crashes on a 10 sec recharge.
I also don’t mind the idea of Devouring Plague spreading dots to other targets. (The name does sound contagious.) Though that does kinda sound like more of doing a single target rotation for AOE, which I maybe it wouldn’t mind if it could actually keep up with the spammy mob density that seems to keep cropping up in TWW.
I dusted off my neglected holy/disc priest this week and respecced Shadow.
Shadow Crash confused me. It didn’t seem to do anything, it just kind of fizzled out next to me and didn’t even hit the mobs.
It took a few dungeons and some raiding before I finally noticed I was using an @cursor macro but thought it was a regularly targeted spell (not a reticule). I was literally casting it next to me at my cursor instead of at the mobs.
Pulled the basic spell out of the book and ran some more dungeons.
Started using Shadow Crash correctly for the first time. And barely noticed a difference in my dps. The slight increase also coincided with better gear.
So yep, this ability could use some adjustment.
2 Likes
Did you talent Shadow Crash to spread Vampiric Touch? That’s how we do our aoe damage. Spread vampiric touch and then a percentage of single target damage on one of the targets will transfer to whomever you have vampiric touch on. It should be a significant portion of your dps.
I feel the same way… I miss my AoE with the Army of Shadows closing in.
There is AoE gameplay with SP but it require a bit of set up… it’s not like other classes that do have AoE as part of their normal rotation if the situation demands it.
I really wish they revisit this… I do love AoE gameplay and always spec for it…no matter what! I just love seeing all those shadows and explosion coming out of a group of enemies! Man I miss my Soul Flame in Affliction… love everything exploding in dark flames. At least I can still get that effect gameplay with my SP.
Your right buddy I wont care anymore good idea
No, you made your post as you should if you would like to get your thoughts out there and don’t see an appropriate existing post to respond to. People can read and respond to it as they like. Spamming links to your post across multiple other posts is unnecessary and often goes against forum posting guidelines.
3 Likes
2 Shadowcrash charges is the bare minimum, but I feel it would be a band-aid.
They just need to re introduce Mind Sear, really. Idk what was on their head to remove it. If not, just remove Shadowcrash’s cooldown and add a cast time to it maybe?
3 Likes
God I really miss mind sear… I now it looks dated especially with the new VFX but man how fun it was to see does shadow ripple synergy with the Shadow Apparitions.
It be nice if they add an synergy that would basically spread your DoTs to new enemies caught in its AoE wave.
I think Mind Sear would also sync well with Archon and Voidweaver gameplay (IMO).
1 Like
Make shadow crash move at 50x less speed, but when it lands it dots the whole dungeon forever.
3 Likes
I miss mind sear too. With some visual/mechanical updates like what you describe it could be a really nice part of the kit again.
3 Likes
Plus, there’s no shortage of more up-to-date shadowy VFX to be used as the basis of a new Mind Sear. Can’t hold my breath for it, though… One of the most used Priest spells, PW:S never had an update in 20 years?
Sadly, as with other spells within the Priest toolkit, Power Word: Shield has become so watered down over the years that even if it did receive a visual update, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s basically only used as a movement tool lol.
So stupid that it can’t absorb like a single normal auto attack or maybe a couple but then it’s back to being useless.
In classic, it used to have a 30 second duration with a 15 second Weakened Soul debuff that could absorb a good chunk of damage that was around 30% of your health. Since dispels were few and far between, especially if you were on Horde side, it felt pretty good to use.
Now it doesn’t last long, it doesn’t absorb much and can easily be dispelled by so many offensive magic dispel capabilities in the game. It almost seems pointless like if it wasn’t for the fact that it grants a speed boost when used with Body and Soul then it wouldn’t even be worth pressing because it would have already been absorbed and you taking damage before the end of the incurred GCD lol.
It’s so pathetic now it’s laughable.
2 Likes
Yeah, the state of the shield (outside of big cooldowns like Raputre) is pretty underwhelming.
I think they stopped making PW:S a big part of Disc’s healing filler because they couldn’t balance a shield healer. IIRC, Disc was kind of meh at the beginning of an expansion and scaled overpowerdly as it went on when PW:S was their main tool.
Either it was difficult to balance or it was boring playstyles. I’ve heard both.
I was never a Discipline spec player, I only used discipline to enhance my Shadow and Holy back when you were able to put points in each spec. So my discipline experience is the least out of the 3.
However, for whatever reason it may be, it seems like ever since the end of WoD with the vast changes done to Priest and it’s specs going into Legion, Power Word: Shield has since just been essentially a mobility button and not a damage absorb mechanic since of the latter, it’s absolutely abysmal at lol.
Good thing spell pushback isn’t really a factor anymore as that was also mitigated by our Shield but it’s just sad to see that it’s not really worth pressing yet for a good amount of time since the begining it was an amazing spell to use to save someone in a pinch which just goes to show that our useful utility that we once were all about had all but gone extinct.
2 Likes
The Answer is Holy nova and it’s weird they’ve never used it.
Basically update it to fit the theming, call it void nova, and don’t make it a talent just a baseline to all priests (talent bloat problems). Then you put Rhapsody where the Holy Nova talent is currently.
How you make Rhapsody worth it is up to the devs. I think if you just removed the healing component of Holy nova, wrap everything into damage and then the 20 stacks of rhapsody on a higher baseline damage value will actually amount to something. If you make it so its 2 casts before it depletes then we have a solution.
Basically the first void nova is a really big burst, it loses half its stacks so the second one isn’t as big, but enough to kill little delve targets as you mentioned or in Group content enough that with the other dps the non-elites have all died.
lots of minor tweaks available to make it more aligned with shadow, you can make the charges of rhapsody come from doing damage rather than just 1/s. You can adjust numbers in Rhapsody talent, the baseline damage of nova, you can try things like take it off GCD, but give it a cd itself. It has always been present in the priest kit and its weird to just not have it be part of shadow in any way. Its already there just use it.
3 Likes
I think shadow crash is a bit of a mistake.
It has put all of our eggs in ine 20s cd basket.
Psychic link and multidotting are both bottlenecked by this one skill, shadow crash is truly our only aoe tool
Ive suggested adding a passive baseline to set insanity to 50% out of combat and making it cost insanity instead of having a cd before to mixed reactions.
Ive also suggested removing VT applying shadow word pain and just making shadow word pain apply in aoe baseline.
Frankly i think shadow priest just needs a proper rework that brings back old gameplay into distinct builds, not the half baked ones like the past 3 or 4 that redesign it into something unrecognizable.
There is far too much clunkiness to the spec. They added a bunch of stuff in dragonflight without making it all fit into something cohesive. We dont even alter out gameplay in aoe. It plays the exact same.
Its not very good design.