My entire point is rose tinted glasses are just that, rose tinted glasses, if the game had existed in the same state prior to legion then pre legion shadow would not have been anywhere close to as fondly remembered.
No. I am not saying that. Shadow only gained any sort of notoriety in Mythic+ this tier, I also remember it being A-S tier in PvP throughout Legion and BFA…
I’m saying this “back in my day” revisionism and constant desire to drag shadow back to whatever it was in a game that is over a decade passed at this point is doing as much harm as people screeching to bring back legion voidform. Shadow has always sucked at the things it continues to suck at, and looking back in the history of it sucking at those things isn’t going to produce any solutions.
DF was nostalgia bait that barely assembled into a functioning spec seemingly by accident given the changes we’ve seen in 10.1.
I love voidform. Its why I started playing shadow, but I would like to see it be spammable, or flay turn into sear when form is active for a big 1 or 2min burst CD.
It’s only been 7ish years really. Not a decade yet but that may be around the corner soon enough before everything for shadow is figured out lol.
But since the onset of Voidform in Legion, it’s been a mess. So calling out it’s problems then and onwards to now coming on 7 or 8 years more so an issue with the pro Voidform crowd not seeing the forest through the trees. Just because the issues haven’t been addressed since Legion doesn’t make them any less of an issue.
So if Legion is not the solution, and looking back before Legion is not the solution. What are you suggesting? To once again pull a Legion and remake shadow from the ground up and throw out everything we ever had and HOPE it doesn’t become another Legion?
What you’re suggesting is go with hope and change not knowing what’s on the other side. I’ve had to deal with Shadow being not Shadow that I’ve known since 2004 for 7+ years. I want Shadow back to how it felt for over 10 years before Voidform. It NEVER had a problem from a mechanical failure. It just didn’t have all the tools then as it still doesn’t today. The introduction of Voidform has not solved this issue, only exacerbated them.
I’m all for hearing ideas how shadow can be this new thing that has no ties to pre and post Voidform, but then is it really shadow? It would be an entirely new thing and I really don’t think that’s the best route for shadow since it has its own style since the beginning and only grew from there until it was wiped away in Legion.
I really don’t see the issue to look back at WHY shadow was fun prior to Legion and take those ideas and bring them into modern wow. I have stated this multiple times. You’re the one that somehow thinks taking any idea or inspiration from the past is a fools errand because somehow you think it needs to return at a 1:1 copy and paste. You know that is not what myself or anyone is actually asking for. So I really don’t know what your “tired” of as you said.
With what you’re suggesting, Shadow would be OP in AOE or be crap in single target.
At one point, Mind Flay and Mind Sear were both built into Mind Flay. But this causes an issue where the filler spell if good on single target, becomes way too over powered on multi target. Or if it was balanced for multi target, it would be overpowered in single target.
Even if you limit it to only transform during Voidform, it would still become a single target/multi target balancing problem as it was in the past.
Imo I think the core essence of Voidform is the ramping up aspect. The issue with that in the past was it was uncapped and with the right gear and buffs and execution you can get to insane numbers thus the justification for its constant nerfs and reworks to bring it back down to acceptable levels only to then leading to the current version where it’s really just a hollow shell of what it used to be.
That’s why I think the ramping feature can be introduced but just increasing periodic damage. That way Mind Flay would be the go to filler for those that don’t want to take Mind Spike and then rip out the Void Eruption bit and make that as a talent that is out spammable AOE spell. Give it a short cooldown of 10 sec or less or make it be a spender to use over Devouring Plague. Or just get a more reliable dot spreader/application spell for multiple targets to actually work with the ramping aspect and psychic link.
The main issue with Voidform is that everyone seems to have their own head cannon on what it should be.
With psychic link as a conduit to spread damage and Dark Ascension being a non-periodic damage cooldown, I think Voidform being a periodic damage cooldown would fit nicely and make the spec as a whole make a lot of sense and really push this periodic vs non-periodic playstyle choice.
I liked BFA SP. Was my favorite spec in the entire game.
Sear wise, just make it a filler, get rid of spike, make sear replace flay, and viola.
I’m totally okay with being crap in one aspect. I’ve played SV hunter for years, I’m completely used to being very bad in one aspect of damage. I’d also be happy with a middle ground of the pack, so to speak.
I REALLY do not like psychic link at all though.
Do you not like it because you feel forced to take it because it sims better? That’s not Mind Spikes problem, that’s Mind Flay and it’s synergy problem.
Once again, if Voidform took on Mass Hysteria Legion Artifact Trait and extend the ramping to all periodic damage, then Mind Spike from a sim’s perspective would no longer be an issue.
If you don’t like Mind Spike other than a Simming issue, then just don’t pick it? The removal of Mind Spike is just a reaction based on poorly designed talent choices, not that Mind Spike is a problematic spell itself.
With the Mind Flay and Mind Sear suggestion, I don’t think it will solve anything because it’s been done before and we know the outcome. It was not good for multiple reasons beyond just balancing. It also breaks CC if you want to Mind Flay but not Mind Sear.
And Psychic Link is obviously something blizzard really want to explore with shadow based on the few blue posts they given alluding to this. I think Psychic Link is the answer to the question of dot classes having balance issues. So if they just make most of our damage single target and only a fraction multi target, they can have the tools in place to make Shadow viable in cleave target situations without becoming overpowered as what has happened time and time again in the past.
I hate mind spike as an ability. It feels clunky to use, it feels like it doesn’t belong in the rotation, there’s nothing I like about it.
I don’t care about sims very much, but I do have to somewhat due to doing high levels of content.
Idk, I liked shadow prior to 10.1, very complex, very rewarding. No spec like that still exists except maybe boomkin
As I said before, that is not Mind Spike as a spell being a problem. That’s a talent synergy problem that doesn’t offer anything that would make Mind Flay a better choice.
If Mind Flay was the best sims choice over Mind Spike, I don’t see it as a problem.
Mind Spike offers a lot from a mechanical perspective. You can use it as a secondary spell school when you get locked out of Shadow and for quick kill targets that take longer to kill using Mind Flay. Then you can use Mind Spike on a totem where Mind Flay you cannot.
When given the appropriate opportunity, Both Mind Flay and Mind Spike can and should have a place. The solution is not to remove Mind Spike but to actually flesh out the synergy and purposes of both fillers.
I liked shadow prior to 7.0 in Legion.
If they actually put in real effort into Shadows talent tree, I don’t see a reason why both of our desired play styles can’t coexist to some extent. I am not a fan of just overriding another’s choice if it has no mechanical flaw merrit.
I also hate mind spike… Idk, it feels awkward to press, maybe because there’s little to no visuals for it, it feels like I’m not pressing anything.
I remember I liked a previous iteration of Mind Spike consuming the dots for more damage. If it was like that, with a cooldown, instead of replacing the main nuke, I’d probably enjoy much more.
Another thing that bothers me about spriest right now is the insanity generation being so bad that we can’t really get that “game” of trying to maintain Void Form for a really long time anymore. I don’t even remember how it performed back then, but I do remember it was thrilling to do so.
Shadow also feels worse in PVP without the instant Void Form.
I liked mind spike when its purposes was breaking up mind flays, an instant spell I only used when it procced that gave me some movement and helped with what is otherwise a pretty monotonous rotation of blast on cd, flay as filler, plague at 50.
Having to hard cast it, with or without mind flay also existing, just doesn’t feel all that great.
Funny thing to me is that it feels like mind spike’s role could have been carried out entirely by void bolt, but the DA / VF cooldown split makes that not possible because the spec has to function fully without it. Just give us a proc that lets us use bolt outside of VF.
We almost had that in SL, but they chose to attach it to mind flay instead of VT ticks so in reality it didn’t help anything at all because you couldn’t get procs on the move or during the rest of your rotation.
I find it funny that prior to DF, Voidform has Void Bolt which if you think about it, it really is just a reworked version of Mind Spike in that it has a travel time and a cooldown vs Mind Spike being instant damage with no travel time and no cooldown. But if you got enough haste, your Void Bolt would become basically a GCD as the cooldown got reduced enough to not feel like much of a rotational ability as more of a spammable ability.
Seems we finally agree to remove Void Bolt out of Void Eruption. The question then becomes does it deserve to stay as an option somewhere? The only thing going for it over Mind Spike from a mechanical standpoint is that it’s always instant cast instead of having a cast time or proc to be instant cast.
I would argue for its removal outright because from what I can see, its only place is to use on the move. So with that said, either instant cast Mind Spike or Void Bolt offers that feature. But I think Mind Spike has a lot more mechanical features that make it superior to Void Bolt.
One thing I can see just to appease those that desperately want a on the move spell to cast would be to just merge Void Bolt and Mind Spike as a choice node within the Mind Spike talent.
Void Bolt gets the synergy that Mind Spike has at the cost of it having a short cooldown so you can’t spam it while not replacing Mind Flay. That way Mind Spike would be the choice filler for Dark Ascension playstyle in a non-periodic talent build.
As I said, spamming it is going to give me carpal tunnel syndrome. I definitely do not like it. However, unlike the rest of you, I also hated it as an ability whose purpose was pretty much only meant to be pressed for surge of darkness.
We already have lesser used abilities that could have been used for a similar purpose. Let us bank more uses of shadow word: death through deathspeaker or maybe a new talent that empowers shadow word: pain so that the next time you use it the initial hit hits hard and allows you to bank a few for future use.
20% of all damage you take is stored. The stored amount cannot exceed 15% of your maximum health. The initial damage of your next Shadow Word: Pain deals this stored damage to your target.
With the addition of Misery, I like that I don’t need to hit a SW:P button. So having something like catharsis is a stupid spell imo.
I do agree that Shadow Word: Death SHOULD be the default go to spell to use on the move. Anything else is just extra. But SW:D should be the overall default for Shadow.
I argue using its presence in the base rotation as a proc familiarises players to it within their muscle memory / gameplay and removes the jarring feeling those people get (Which I don’t) when it enters the rotation fully in voidform. On top of that it has a nice thematic element of shadow tapping into it’s voidy underbelly periodically but only being able to fully unleash that power when they’re able to enter voidform.
I think a cooldown granting access / increased access to a spell is one of the few genuinely interesting things the class design team has done since MoP metamorphosis.
I respectfully disagree , remove voidbolt entirely, it’s part of the clutter and bloat people wanted removed, it doesn’t feel good to use so please don’t double down on it.