Hello, OP here.
Geniune question not a troll, what is the harm in hard casting VT for a few globals to spread DoTs, in between Shadow Crash cooldowns? It is not the end of the world.
Do you guys think Blizz did not get this feedback in the PTR? They did not forsee this outcome?
To me it is obvious that blizz intended that DoT spread change and shifted AoE from Sear to a more cleave style.
Personally, I think Shadow SHOULD be hard casting Vampiric Touchâs often.
But in reality⌠since the game is so fast paced, we have been pushing this gogogo mantra for so long now that hard casting VT and tab targeting seems like a relic of the past when you see how quickly other class/specs and go from 0-100 so fast. So if shadow canât do the same by Mass dotting quickly, it feels like we are doing something wrong or simply being left behind in the arms race of spec design.
Another contributing factor is that if you are forced to hard cast VT and tab target around, you now have to weigh in the dot timer left on 1st target dotted to also be weaving in your psychic link damage profile into them since our dots are mainly a conduit for the main portion of our damage to actually connect.
So there is a fine line between how many GCDâs you would commit to before you would loose out of a big portion of your psychic link damage due to having to refresh dots.
I think this would be somewhat countered if we had a reliable method to extend dot duration through Mental Decay in multiple target situations such as if spirits extended dot duration upon impact, but thatâs not the case.
Also I think Unfurling Darkness should really be the Twin Moon type of talent where itâs both a single target and a cleave talent where every other VT you cast is instant. That way you can cut your dot application by half and for single target, you donât have to cast VT 50% of the time as it would be instant.
I honestly believe if we can quickly spread VT with a Cleave talent like Unfurling Darkness and have spirits extend dots upon impact, then we donât need a short cooldown spell like Shadow Crash to exist for 5 or less targets. If that happened, I think having a spell like Cascade with a longer cooldown like 30-45 sec would be the go to for A LOT of target situations if it applied VT and have spirits reduce that cooldown as well.
Thatâs the direction I would go if I had a choice.
I actually like that!
Elemental has something similar with the surge of power proc applying two flame shocks. Flame Shock itself being on a 6s cd. Beisdes that they have liquid magma which spreads flameshock around⌠on a 45s cd
I donât see the difference between mind spike and mind spike, they are the same spell with practically no animation.
What if mind spike didnât replace mind fly (the most iconic shadow priest spell) and instead replaced mind blast. Also it would be the same spell that it was in 10.0 (mind spike insanity could go something something itself), procs with instant cast with 3 stacks.
If Mind Spike replaced Mind Blast, it would put us right back to where we were before this change in that you can can Mind Flay and Mind Spike at the same time⌠so which one do you use?
With Mind Blast having a cooldown tied to it, itâs place is to be used as often as possible and because it has a cooldown, it should be an overall better spell to use from a priority standpoint.
At this point in time, what needs to be taken into account is that shadow is divided between periodic damage and non-periodic damage profiles.
So if Void Eruption takes the other side to be a periodic damage cooldown, it would solve the confusion about when to use Mind Spike vs Mind Flay as you would have a complete understanding that shadow has 2 damage type profiles and itâs the players choice to lean into one or the other.
So having the Legion Artifact Trait Mass Hysteria incorporated into Voidform where it increases your periodic damage, the debate over Mind Flay vs Mind Spike would be over and solved.
Edit:
Posting my shameless idea to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
Grant shadow mobility in a controlled form while also making Idol of YâSharrj more appealing as an Idol and capstone talent.
Summoning Mindbender causes your Mind Spells to become empowered, granting an additional effect while Mindbender is active.
Maybe use mind fly after devouring plague so it benefit from insanity or as a filler and mind spike when it procs, almost exactly as it was in 10.0.
Mind blast and mind spike were the same spell with minimal difference, two casted spells with a proc that makes it instant cast.
The only difference was that one had two charges and cooldown and the other no charges and no cooldown. The freaking same spell, and I donât care about difference of damage because blizzard could always buff or nerf any of the two spells.
I dont think thatâs the issue here, right now the rotation feels boring with most spells that must be casted so we feel like a turret. In last patch we had too many procs and too many spells to use at the same time.
Mass hysteria wouldnât solve anything, itâs just a passive that bust our dots, doesnât change anything on the rotation.
Basically ever since mythic+ was introduced shadow has had to apply dots one target at a time and could only deal damage to targets that had dots on them, and for the two expansions prior to Shadowlands it was always too slow. Then bliz added the ability to mass apply swp, but since VT was the spell we needed active so once again, it was too slow. Shadow simply does not do damage to things that donât have VT on them, and having to invest 1 GCD per target in a pull before you even start your aoe isnât particularly feasible with how everyone elseâs aoe works competing against you. The other target capped specs (Fury, outlaw, enhance kinda) also have alternate DPS specs to fall back on when the situation doesnât line up with what theyâre capable of.
Itâs like imagine if chain lightning only hit things with flame shock on them.
And to be clear, this isnât about not being good at everything. That would be preposterous and shadow absolutely has its fair share of strengths, the concern is when a spec is the only choice for itâs class it should at least be capable of everything, even if itâs not especially good at it.
Btw⌠anyone here has ever reached to 100+ insanity with the rotation? I really donât see the point having 150 insanity if we never reach 100.
Maybe they thought that the solution to our mobility issue was to stack insanity to use devouring plague on the move?
You end up over 100 if youâre playing with 35% haste and everything going in bloodlust.
Regardless what you think, many people were overwhelmed with Mind Flay and Mind Spike and the purpose of when to use each one.
Personally, I want both back but not for the reason you do.
Mind Flay should be our filler and Mind Spike should be our on demand Burst Button. It can be modified to be usable as something to press while moving. But clearly blizzard wanted to cut back from that as they stated as much in that they actively wanted to reduce the instant casts that Shadow had access to as the primary one was Mind Spike.
So what youâre arguing for is to bring back something blizzard outright chose to remove.
Not a copy and paste version no.
Void Eruption: Increases your periodic Shadow damage by 15%, increasing by 2% every second. Lasting 15 seconds. Devouring Plague costs 50% less insanity and extends Voidform duration by 2 seconds. 1 min cooldown.
Dark Ascension: Increases your non-periodic Shadow damage by 25% for 20 sec. The cooldown of Shadow Word: Death is reduced by 50% and deals damage as if the target is below 20% health. 1 min cooldown.
Both cooldowns would have a fast paced gameplay change with how often Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Death would be available for each respective cooldown alongside the damage profile they lean towards.
Shadow Word: Podcast Ep 07 - Rework and PvP Season 2
Maybe itâs me but a lot of the concerns would be solved with my take on YâSharrj and our DPS cooldowns.
Mind Spike, Mind Spike: Insanity, Mind Blast and Mindgames and look and feel like pressing the same button. What, exactly, do we need all these for?
Mind Flay, Mind Flay Insanity, Void Torrent feel like pressing the same thing as well by that logic. They are all channeled spells.
Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague, Mindgames feel like pressing the same thing as well by that logic. They are all Damage over Time spell magic debuffs you put on a target.
Not sure what your point is.
We have Channeled spells, Instant cast spells, Damage over Time spells and casted spells. Each spell is slightly different from another in its own way. Where are you wanting to draw the line as to whatâs the same vs different?
These are just direct damage spells, with little spell effect. Not applying a DoT, not channeled. All doing exactly the same thing. If you made MS:I instant cast, for example, you add something useful that feels different. Itâs not exciting to get a proc for MS:I. There needs to be something that distinguishes these spells more, or itâs pretty bland.
I would agree that it needs more work.
But that also applies to Mind Flay, Mind Flay: Insanity, Void Torrent as those are all channeled spells as well.
I say this because you included Mind Blast and Mindgames alongside Mind Spike and Mind Spike: Insanity.
The inclusion of Mind Blast and Mindgames is the part Iâm confused about as those are mechanically different from Mind Spike.
Currently the only purpose of Surge of Insanity is just increasing your filler spell damage. So the real question should be, is that enough for a talent? Or should it change the mechanical nature of the spells it affects?
If it changes the nature of the spell mechanics then what should it be? Because if it is for example making Mind Spike: Insanity to be Instant Cast, then that directly contradicts the active change blizzard did with the removal of Surge of Darkness.
So basically we are asking blizzard to go back and restore Surge of Darkness.
Maybe that can happen, we shall see how blizzard proceeds. But currently what we have is no accident, they stated they wanted to remove or reduce instant casts and if they bring it back in the form of Surge of Darkness, then that goes against their stated goals.
I am of the opinion blizzard did not care or did not read players opinions about shadow rework.
God, I miss the times when blizzard actually responded on their forums and I mean the actual developers.
you like having to use it as a cast in stead of instant proc? really?
Totally relate to being useless as SP⌠I donât play SP anymore â thereâs got to be a better mmorpgâŚ
I honestly think that they really need to address abilities Mind Games, Void Torrent, and Halo/Divine Star being unnecessary button bloat for Shadow. I have to slot these 3 buttons on my bar and they have 30-45s long cooldown that just exist to be there.
Shadow probably needs something else though because thereâs nothing really to press in between Mind Blast cooldowns other than DP and Mind Spike. It shouldnât be an endless stream of procs like before which was a bit overwhelming.
Halo/Star - make it passive, every 20 seconds your Mind Blast releases a wave of shadow energy damaging enemies and healing allys for 20 yeards.
MindGames - could possibly replace or blend w SW Death, and grant it a second charge. This would help with mobility, and make the instant SW:D proc way more valuable, and help mobility
Void Torrent is fine, iconic ability for spriest since legion, and lots of other classes have 45s , 1min cd buttons to press. Stormkeeper, Rune of Power
Void torrent is NOT iconic, it was added in legion and has continued to make the spec clunky and in its current form it needs to be nerfed to the ground and other abilities need to be buffed or just get rid of void torrent make mind flay a thing and use divine star to spread dots