Shadowlands Alpha Observations: Shadow Rotation

Classes Priest
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So I’d like to preface this by saying this thread is not about mechanics. It’s not about insanity, it’s not about voidform and if people do or do not want it, it’s not about dead talents, it’s not about damage.

It’s about the buttons that make up shadow’s rotation on live, the changes they have received in shadowlands, and how it feels to attempt to use them given those changes. (That last line probably already tells you where this is going…)

I will also be providing my experience and opinion in full, alongside any context needed to properly understand those points. There will be a more succinct version of this post with the same key message on the Alpha forums later.

I got the chance to, via discord and screenshare, essentially playtest the Shadowlands alpha rotation with the new passive addition to void bolt, and return of Shadow Word: Death with some other shadow priests. These additions have had a profound and detrimental effect on shadow’s rotation for three main reasons, but first let’s go over how things work and feel on live.

Live Rotation

Shadow’s priorities in Voidform on live revolve around two goals. Keep Void Bolt on cooldown, and prevent Shadow Word: Void from capping at two charges. These are the only two important rotational priorities shadow has, and you can fulfil both of them with a loop of…

VB, SWV, X, VB, SWV, X, VB, X, X, VB, SWV, X

Each space in the loop is 1 GCD, anything in bold is a GCD in which the player has the option to move, and each X represents a ‘filler’ GCD where you can cast anything. Examples would be Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain, 1/2 of a mind flay or mind sear, Power Word: Shield, any of our “essence” cooldowns etc. The point being that in a loop of 12 GCDs, only a maximum of 7 are fixed.

Mind Flay in this rotation is rarely if ever casted to completion, and instead cut short exactly half way through its channel in order to use Void Bolt, or really any other spell of higher priority. This is how it works on live, and in my opinion this is fine. There’s no benefit to channeling a full mind flay, the damage of flay is evenly dispersed across the duration, and the ticks come in on and the GCD so no damage is ever accidentally missed.

Shadowlands Rotation

Shadowlands alpha makes two changes to the rotation

  1. Shadow Word: Death is added. It, tuning permitting, should be used on cooldown every 10 GCDs.

  2. Void Bolt 2 allows Void Bolt to be cast while channeling mind flay, essentially doubling the damage and insanity generation of mind flay within the rotation, making casting and fully channeling it a much higher priority.

Those who already play shadow, and understand what makes the rotation work on live, may be able to see where this is going…

For starters, with mind flay now being double the value, it becomes a key priority to mind flay before every void bolt and can no longer be considered a ‘filler’ spell, creating the following loop…

Notation

I will be using the notation ‘MF ->’ to show this mind flay continues throughout the void bolt that follows it. Because of this, Void Bolt is no longer considered a movement GCD.

VB, SWV, MF ->, VB, SWV, MF ->, VB, X, MF ->, VB, SWV, MF ->, VB

Shadow has gone from a 12 GCD loop with a maximum of 7 fixed GCDs, to one with 11 fixed GCDs, however we also have regained Shadow Word: Death.

Adding Death in, as close to on cooldown as we can, gives something close to.

VB, SWV, MF ->, VB, SWV, MF ->, VB, SW:D, MF ->, VB, SWV, MF ->, VB

No more X’s, no more space to cast anything else, not to mention the fact that with void bolt being cast during mind flay, the only true instant cast GCD in this entire rotation is a single SW:D every 10 GCDs (Roughly 10-14 seconds). Compared to live, where 1/3 of the rotation is instant and therefor mobile.

To be succinct, this means shadow no longer has a filler spell. The whole rotation is important, all of it, all the time.

  • There is little to no mobility, because we no longer have an efficient instant cast outside of Shadow Word: Death.

  • There is no flexibility, because the space that used to be considered filler is now taken up by a greatly prioritised mind flay.

  • There is no space. Shadow’s rotation feels tight and claustrophobic with these additions, leading to frequent situations where nothing feels good to press and the rotation frankly just collapses under the strain of itself.

This is terrible. Nobody asked for this. Please fix it.

Ellipsis…

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I have played shadow priest as a main for every single era of wow since the release of the game.

The spec has been incredibly hard done by at many levels of different types of content over the years.

The ‘Void Form’ Priest we’ve had for Legion and BFA are deeply flawed specs that have been covered up by set bonuses, legendaries, artifact traits, azerite traits, the heart of azeroth essences and talents.

This hasnt changed when looking at the current Shadow Priest on the Shadowlands alpha, infact current changes show that our rotation is even slower and more stagnant than we’ve already experience before.

Whout any communication from Blizzard, what is the Shadow Priest community meant to make of this?

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I miss WoD shadow priest.

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I beleive a dev felt clipping mindflay needed to be ‘fixed’ thus why they made this change; otherwise I cannot fathom WHY this was even done. Just roll it back; the flow of shadow should not change. Anyone who wishes to learn shadow’s OMG SUPER COMPLEX ROTATION can handle learning what clipping a mind flay is and when/why we do it. It’s FINE; and FUN the way it is on live. So please get rid of this change and give shadow something it ACTUALLY NEEDS like baseline pacing and reward to VFs SO OUR SPEC IS PLAYABLE IN 9.0 PLEASE

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It really feels like whoever is designing Shadow for the next expansion has never played it, and only read about it in some online blog or something

These changes are just leaving me with question marks.

No one asked for this. Nobody had a problem with clipping mindflay for voidbolt.

If these changes go through, Shadow is going to have terrible damage, on top of literally being bolted to the floor.

Any movement will just make our damage fall even lower

Who’s designing this??

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Signed. The current changes are not addressing the actual issues with shadow while making it even worse at what it was already bad at.

Please listen to the feedback Blizzard.

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you mean welded to the floor we’re past bolted.

I just don’t understand why they reworked WoD mechanics to Voidform. Can someone please explain to me why the change. Were people complaining about WoD orbs or what? Why would Blizz take something that is completely fine and break it beyond repair? please someone explain to me.

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I know this is a concern of yours, It’s a concern of mine too, but there are multiple other threads to discuss it. I really tried to focus this thread on one very specific problem with current shadowlands shadow, this isn’t the place for the orbs debate.

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I really really want to know their decision making progress. How did this change get approved is beyond me. There are so many issues of shadow need attention and they came up with this VB rank 2(and PI that is destined for drama)… I worry that they once again are going to ‘fix’ shadow by using external systems such as some particular covenant abilities and new legendaries instead of improving the basic design of shadow.

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so with your suggested gcd’s where do you fill in VT’s and Sw:p’s just assuming it’s in the MF–> section.

but does this change mean you have to cast mf before every vb? wont this delay of casting vb be really bad for sanity past 20 stacks.

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You drop the GCDs with the lowest DPS value… which in this case looks: damage loss of one full MF channel vs. damage loss of a MB/SW:V/SW:D cast…

So with current numbers, you’d be dropping the MB/SW:V/SW:D casts to apply DoTs, that’s assuming applying the DoT is even worth it… and at least for SW:P without several VB extensions that could be difficult.

We could also add MS’s place in all of this, but it doesn’t really add anything in favor of this change.

VB while channeling MF is an absolutely terrible idea and should be scrapped.

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With current SL alpha tuning we had “roughly” these values. Alpha is alpha, there has been no tuning, but as shadow is not designed around a builder spender dichotomy, and instead a list of similar generators, I don’t expect much can be done to shift this. Also remember that mind Flay’s damage essentially sets the upper bound for mind sear, so drastically reducing flay damage has a massive impact on our aoe.

Swv: 1 GCD, 950 damage, 15 insanity
VB: 1 GCD, 840 damage, 20 insanity
MF-> : 1 GCD*, 1050 damage, 12 insanity
MF: 1 GCD, 525 damage, 6 insanity
SWD: 1 GCD, 690 damage, 15 insanity.

Mind flay followed by void bolt is too strong to ever miss out on, SWV is already almost capping it’s own cooldown because of the being bumped down the priority by double strength mind flay. SWD is already so low in the priority you’re only using it in the single GCD the rotation already has and nowhere else.

Also remember that any time you deviate from the rotation I outlined in any way, even to cast something that generates 6 insanity, like VT, you are always losing at least 6 insanity to do so.

This is what I mean by claustrophobic rotation collapsing under itself. There is no space to do anything, and everything feels bad.

EDIT: Crunching the base numbers and having a chat with some members of the shadow team, we’re coming to the realisation that it’s entirely possible letting your dots fall off in voidform and not re applying them until you do drop out again is likely to be a DPS increase. There’s simply no space to cast them in this rotation.

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I think I get the thinking behind VB-2.

From the perspective of a designer, a spec shouldn’t have to interrupt its own spellcasting on a regular basis, it feels bad. So, they took the spell we want to cast ASAP and let us cast it during the spell we’d never cast to completion because of it.

If you don’t think about it too much (ex. basically everyone’s first impression), it looks like a good change. It just doesn’t work out in actual play for the reasons actually outlined above.

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+1 to this, my first time playing shadow was legion so i cant speak on previous iterations of the spec but damn, you guys (blizz) are taking this spec in the wrong direction.

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It’s the same issue with the design of Shadowland’s Surrender To Madness, at first glance it sounds like it could be really good, unless you know what you’re talking about - and then it’s mind-bogglingly bad.

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But that is exactly what made me mad. People who design the spec should not have the same level of comprehension of this spec as a non-spriest player. The azerite traits and essences indicate that at least some of the devs knew what was wrong at 8.0 & 8.1. However, the new shadow spec in shadowlands still has the same old issues, and on top of that, they have only added meaningless changes that make the flow of shadow even worse. It’s almost like they want us to relive the BFA experience in shadowlands. I don’t want to wait a year to get a properly-functioned spec.

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I would like to be able to cast MF while moving like the MoP Gylph? They could maybe make it a talent, but with blizzard’s design they would add it to the first row making us choose between SW:V vs MF while moving.

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I personally don’t see what this fixes compared to just not having Void Bolt Rank 2, honestly. Shadow is mobile enough on live with Void Bolt being almost 1/3 of your total GCDs in combat. Sure letting you flay while moving gives that mobility back once Void Bolt Rank 2 is added in SL, but it still causes all the other problems outlined here.

The more important flay is to be casting, the harder it is to use anything else in the space it would usually take up. And shadow’s rotation is already short on space to cast without letting things sit off cooldown.

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Agreed. My post here was to solve the issue of mobility.

The spec by far has more problems than current ways to address them in game.

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If I had to choose between MF allowed to be cast while moving, and just removing Void Bolt Rank 2, I’d choose to remove Void Bolt Rank 2 every time.

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