No it doesn’t.
We just need clean defined paths to choose from with a sprinkling of miscellaneous talent interactions mixed in.
Just like Elemental Shaman have lightning based and lava based damage profile choices to pick from and index into, so too can you do a similar effect with Shadow in the form of Periodic and Non-Periodic damage profiles.
With Dark Ascension already giving the hint of Non-Periodic damage enhancing cooldown, it should be Voidform become the Periodic Damage cooldown.
You can look at Mass Hysteria from Legion Artifact that increases your Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch damage while Voidform is active. I say just embrace that identity and make it so it enhances all Periodic Damage across the board.
This would clearly make Mind Flay the go to filler for Periodic Damage builds and Mind Spike for Non-Periodic damage builds. Then also make Mind Flay and Mind Spike separate again so you can have both and grant a utility buff with Mind Spike that enhances your damage to an extent. I vote for adding a stacking critical strike buff for mind spells for a short duration so it would only really benefit a Non-Periodic damage profile since you need to cast Mind Spike often to keep the buff up.
We can look at Mind Spikes original inception with it granting a 30% critical strike chance increase on Mind Blast, stacking up to 3 times to see that this already aligns with the goal of what Mind Spike is supposed to be, a more Burst damage enabler and less of a Filler.
Only with Mind Spikes reintroduction in Dragon flight has it been considered a filler and that is because a lot of people misunderstood it’s original purpose and seems so did blizzard.
But fine, if they want to make Mind Spike a Filler, then it should be further embraced and go full throttle in granting 2 damage profiles to index into with Shadow Talents in Periodic and Non-Periodic damage profiles.
This would add clear identity into both damage profiles and the fillers that can also act as utility.
I detail out how easily this can be achieved with my feedback.
Link below…