-Whispering Shadows gets baked into baseline Shadow Crash (why do we need a second talent just to have the button function? This button isn’t for damage but dot application).
-Many two point talent choices becoming one point, ex. Maddening Touch, Dark Evangelism, Mind Devourer, Phantasmal Pathogen, etc.
-Void Torrent should be centralized in the tree and made a core part of the spec, similar to Wake of Ashes for ret paladins.
-Mind Spike should be baked into Dark Ascension and change your mind flay to spike during its duration. Make it hit HARD so the cooldown has an identity, similar to Dark Evangelism from Cata.
-Void Tendrils castable from range. With the mobility creep in the game and ease of melee escaping from this, it really isn’t that far of a stretch to ask.
-Remove either Divine Star or Halo and put the winner in a centralized part of the class tree. Given that a hero talent tree revolves around Halo, Halo might as well be the choice here.
-I would say remove both Divine Feather and Body and Soul so they can be replaced with one movement displacement button, a short distance movement ability a la roll, just with a priest aesthetic.
I’d like to hear others feedback and thought on these changes. I’m sure more can be nitpicked, but these are simple changes that could do wonders.
I’m pretty new to Shadow Priests. Over the last 2 years I’ve leveled 3 of them, but never play them after hitting 70. They just don’t feel right to me.
That’s not a knock on the spec, I’m just wired differently I guess. If I geared them up and spent more time, maybe they’d grow on me, but right now, they feel bloated with too many cooldowns and spells existing just to affect other spells.
I apologize if this sounds stupid, but I almost wish they’d take a page out of the rogue handbook and either switch your action bar (or just your primary abilities) when you go full shadow/void. Instead of 12 buttons for 12 skills, have 6 primary that become something else after x amount of insanity.
Mind you, I say that as someone who doesn’t love stealth being part of a rogue rotation.
But to me, I don’t feel the shadow in shadow priest. Sure the skills are themed and stuff is purple, but when I’m popping cooldowns and fighting the gcds, it just feels like I’m a caster, not the guy one sip of koolaid away from being a full blown old god follower.
I’m sure there’s a million reasons Spriests are built the way they are, but I just don’t feel it.
Think it needs to be available to the class in the class tree. Then we get the cd reduction in the Shadow tree.
Agreed. And put Shadow Crash on a choice node with Dark Void (change Dark Void to apply VT instead of SW:P) instead of Void Crash.
Wouldn’t mind this, would have to see how talents are shuffled to make it work.
100%. We’re already deciding between two dps cds, choosing between two fillers as well and soon two Crashes… it makes sense to consolidate a bit, and this would be a great way to do it.
Or remove both and replace with Cascade. As someone who didn’t play when Cascade was a thing, I don’t see an outpour of support for something as much as it very often. Blizz should listen to their players.
I think putting Divine Feather and Body and Soul on a choice node would make sense, but still add the displacement ability (Door of Shadows). Still only two sources of mobility talents, but we’re not losing out on either Divine Feather or Body and Soul, just need to choose.
Good to see others’ thoughts on class / spec improvements!
I feel that a LOT of the overall Priest talent trees need a complete revamp. There are some parts of the generic class priest block that makes me scratch my head and go "Why isn’t this just baked into the base class utilities (i.e. dispels), but the Shadow spec block just honestly takes the cake for “this needs to be baseline” for a variety of reasons.
The Devouring Plague node just needs to be baseline for the spec. An active damaging ability should never be considered as for being placed at the very start of ANY talent tree. It’s flat out bad class design.
Silence is also an active utility spell that needs to be baseline. It’s too essential for both PvE and PvP use-cases to not be the case. Especially since this particular branch in the talent tree is a dead end once you get to the choice node. Maybe instead replace the silence talent node with a node that extends it by 2 seconds or so and then have it roll into the choice node.
Dispersion and Shadowy Asperations are two talent nodes that also need to be baseline. SA just feels way too close to shadow’s overall thematic fantasy for it to not be baseline while Dispersion is an ability that Shadow needs as a whole in order to get out of sticky situations. And even then, Dispersion isn’t up to snuff with its equilvant from other classes. Why is my priest, who is nothing more than a cloud of ethereal shadowy smoke when I use this ability, STILL stunnable? Why can I still be rooted in place? I’m a cloud of smoke for Void’s sake!
Shadow Crash and Whispering Shadows need to be melded together and made baseline. Why is the spec’s only method of DoT spreading so far down the talent tree and then split up into two talent nodes? Instead, why not offer a choice node that gives Shadow Crash the ability to stun enemies for x seconds or roots them in place for x seconds.
Overall, I think the Shadow spec tree suffers far too much from being a poorly thought out amalgamation that is derived from the ancient fantasy, yet still viable, of the vanilla-era “Shadowy Vampiric” spell caster and the new-age Old God/Void-centric minion-lite and fleshy tendrils fantasy aspect.
I like that I have a choice between Mind Flay and Mind Spike for base filler. I much prefer casting my filler to channeling my filler.
If they could just slap Mind Spike and Mind Flay on the top of the tree in a free choice node (would not cost any points) I’d be happy.
I do not like Mind Flay (never really have) especially because we already have Void Torrent which feels 10 times better than Mind Flay for a big chunky channeled spell.
Removing the choice between the two would also kind of be the antithesis of the point of having talent trees. For choice.
The reason it’s this way is because as a single talent node it’s the strongest AoE damage talent in the entire game, let alone our tree. They split it up to make taking what is essentially our entire AoE damage budget slightly more taxing.
Silence should be a node in the main class tree. In the shadow tree you should be able to spec into a stronger reduced cool down effect (from 45 down to 20-25sec)
Like it was in S1, agreed.
Agree, for the strength these things provide, 2 points is hardly worth it.
Cool idea. Double its damage and insanity gen while we are at it.
Anything that makes mind spike hit hard I like. I’ve been saying Mind spike: insanity should be instant cast since it was released in S2 (also mind flay: insanity should make it castable while moving).
Maybe a second modifying node that changes it from a melee range AoE to a single target ranged spell?
These spells should just go back to being disc/holy only
I’d just remove feathers and make B&S a bit more powerful.
For me, low key one of the big things that annoys me about current shadow is Mind Games still existing and demanding 4 talent points to be of any sort of use. Also mind blast’s damage is embarrassingly low.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved Cascade and it was just so visually cool, but since they’ve already put so much work into Archon, I didn’t think the change would be reasonable enough to have it done by TWW.
I also know a lot of people are asking for silence to be placed in the class tree… I’m not entirely sold on that. Would I say no? No. But I’ve also never really sat there wishing I had a kick on disc/holy.
I’m just hoping we get a few more tweaks before release. The class is in an overall good place, but some things can definitely improve.
I really enjoyed divine star when it was first implemented. It did damage and healing and required some actual thought to use properly. It was a joke last time I played spriest.
I don’t know, I’m pretty done with Surge of Insanity at this point.
I really hate that by the time I’m finished with my procs and more important instant cast spells that during my cast of the “Surge of Insanity” buffed up Mind Spike in the form of Mind Spike: Insanity that the buff goes away midcast which FORCES the canceling of the cast in its entirety is just plain awful.
Having to be forced to take Surge of Insanity (pretty much anyway) actually negatively impacts gameplay experience when you delay hard casting Mind Spike during its Insanity buff is a result of terrible design.
It was fine when it was instant cast and with Mind Flay it allows you to continue the spell channel if the buff falls off during the channel. But this is not the case with Mind Spike.
Ugggh it’s very annoying.
Edit:
If surge of Insanity stayed then it should take on its Surge of Darkness form of activation instead of WoD Insanity version.
For reference…
WoD Insanity was activated each time you casted Devouring Plague and gave you a timed buff to fit as many Mind Flays into it as possible. This works fine for Mind Flay but terrible for a hard casted Mind Spike.
With WoD Surge of Darkness, it’s proc triggered from your Vampiric Touch damage ticks for Instant cast Mind Spike that hit for an additional 50% more damage.
So what Surge of Insanity should do is change its proc trigger to be from Vampiric Touch and make Mind Spike instant cast again and sure make Mind Flay castable while moving I suppose.
But restrict its proc to be a defined number within a given time to make it the same in either single target or multiple target and be done with it.
We already have shadowy insight and deathspeaker for procs.
We do not need more.
Mind spike gives us something to cast when kicked. I do wish mind spike had some other gameplay functionality with it though, like make mind melt baseline into mind spike or something.
That’s why i liked having mind flay AND mind spike before.
I don’t think it’s particularly good design to have a spell that exists only to press when kicked.
If you’re removing mind spike procs as you say, what’s the rotational function of having both flay and spike.
For what it’s worth I kinda liked it when it was “Flay as filler, use spikes when they’re instant” but having both spells just be there and one be mathematically better than the other is dumb.
I agree that having both Mind Flay and Mind Spike would be ideal.
But my point was that Surge of Insanity is a terrible method to empower Mind Spike as without even considering being interrupted from an outside source like another player… you can still get interrupted by normal gameplay simply because you casted your Mind Spike a bit later since the buff only lasts for a limited duration. Regardless how you obtain the buff though, the fact that if the buff runs out midcast, it will AUTOMATICALLY cancel your Mind Spike cast.
THAT is a massive flaw in game design.
Especially since you can’t NOT take Surge of Insanity if you pick up Mind Spike.
We all do as you are FORCED to take Surge of Insanity if you take Mind Spike.
Again, the point is the flaw of the Surge of Insanity buff running out during your Mind Spike cast.
Do this test yourself and find out what I mean.
Get your Surge of Insanity buff and hold off casting Mind Spike until the very last moment so that it fades off WHILE you are casting Mind Spike. What you will notice is that you simply stop casting the spell altogether and have to recast it or another spell.
The fact that a talent interrupts your own spell cast is terrible design.
They need to fix that or remove Surge of Insanity outright or change it like I suggested because having a buff that makes Mind Spike empowered but also interrupts its own cast if the buff runs out during cast should not exist.
I know what your talking about, but why is the buff falling off for you? im literally using my surge of insanity right as i get it. there is literally nothing else to press?? Everything should be on cd, by the time you get enough insanity to devouring plague twice.
Even during void eruption you still have plenty of time to press it.
And this is in pvp with me purging important buffs off and spamming power word shield off cd.
The point he was making that in having both Mind Flay and Mind Spike coexisting in their current forms would beg the question of WHY would both exist if the role for both is labeled as “filler” meaning the only reason to use Mind Spike at point is if Mind Flay or another Shadow Spell got interrupted and locked out thus allowing you to cast Mind Spoke still since it can access the Frost spell school and not be locked out like all your other shadow spells.
So on this point it makes sense that if both spells coexisted in the same form where they both fill the same role that the only justification for Mind Spike is that it can tap into another spell school.
What should happen is Mind Spike deals more damage to targets without dots on them.
With Mind Spikes initial incarnation back in Cataclysm, it ripped dots off to justify its massive burst damage profile.
But in the initial reimplementation of Mind Spike in Dragonflight beta, people got confused on what purpose Mind Spike served as thought that it would be a filler spell to compete with Mind Flay when that was never its intention.
But without blizzard doing a good job at explaining and delivering this change, they simply removed the dot removal aspect but had to dial down its damage to compensate which now brings us to current day with both Mind Flay and Mind Spike doing “filler” damage and Mind Spike looking it’s “burst” damage profile.
It also doesn’t help that our current mastery conflicts with trying to deal damage to targets without dots on them so in a way I get why they made the change but they didn’t fully understand the purpose of Mind Spike and instead just forced it into the tree leaving many confused as to why.
