Also, I believe but could be mistaken, that WoD was the first and only time that Shadow had a true “dotless” spec option, albeit a short lived one.
Vanilla with the debuff cap 
but yes. And thank god it was short lived.
You do realize I currently raid as Shadow in Classic and this comment hurts my soul. 
I think that’s really the crux of the argument, does someone believe they have the time / are willing enough to do it?
In BFA I came down on the yes side of this, after two years I’m now on the No side.
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Don’t worry, soon you’ll get to raid in TBC and have literally zero stamina until Black Temple.
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I can feel it, the return of the long… lost… MANA BATTERY!!!
The best part is I will be tailoring/engineering on launch so I can have a MASSIVE gear advantage in Kara and be top dps until the end of SSC/TK.
Being real, blizzard’s vision of the hybrid dps was a complete flop in retrospect. If you had gear as shadow, you absolutely blasted by the end of an expac.
Except MoP where we were just sad outside of Malkorok and ToT farm.
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I mean, design wise there were a ton of issues with Classic and TBC. It was pretty indicative of forced design constraints rather than making something that was cohesive for the game. That didn’t happen until WotLK. Only issue was that Wrath launch was super rocky. Shadow was SO BAD in Naxx tier it was unreal. I mean, they gave us a new mana regen spell and our 2-piece was 10% reduced Mind Blast Cost?
Why?!
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Man, I still have nightmares about that trinket (I was holy) whenever someone brings that up.
“Make your Heal hit twice as hard, take twice as long to cast, and use twice as much mana, while in Chakhra: Sanctuary. (and no stat buff, by the way)” I was LIVID, Blizzard had literally given us a class trinket, on the last boss, that was WORSE than any blue item. Thanks, I’m sure that the other healer(s) won’t top my target off during the 3+ seconds it takes me to cast the spell. Oh by the way, I 2-heal on 10-man raids, and I’m almost always in Chakhra:Serenity except for the 1 fight where you can actually switch because there’s a phase where the tank is taking no real damage. Yeah, that was a great troll. 10/10, would cry again.
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My view point is from pvp. I only suggest these ideas like reflective shield and inner fire because our dispersion is a crap defensive. I would like melee to have to think twice before training us into the ground. Our movement is countered by a slow. we are punching bags. As far as the healing specs go. All I’ll say is: only class with two heaing specs and none are relavant. They have not been for how many expansions? I guess that’s what they call irony. Maybe combine holy and disc… I’m sure that has never been suggested… the post was to get some ideas out there and spark the creative juices because I feel like blizzard dont know what to do with priests so we always get left standing there, struggling to keep up with other classes.
Oh I know all too well lol.
Back in I think Cata days I posted a suggestion that I called “Shadow Skin”. Basically it works like this.
Shadow Skin - Each physical strike taken inflicts attacker with a 10 second debuff that stacks up to 10. Each stack grants 10% extra shadow damage taken from Priest Shadow damage.
- What this does is prevent the melee from training you down as the idea is if you get 1 cast in, they will take a truck load of damage unless they stop attacking you for a bit. This will lead to major burst moments in PvP solo and major chunking down in team fights.
- You could pair this up with a stacking damage reduction form each physical hit taken in a similar fashion that will fade quickly once they stop attacking for a bit.
- You could also lower the stacks & time and up the damage bonus to really get bursty quick. Something like 5 stacks that last 5 seconds that grant 20% shadow damage each stack.
But the goal was to punish them for training you.
Edit:
With the onset of PvP talents & Warmode, they could make it so you cant cheese this in instance 5 mans / raids etc. Only world and instance PvP.
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I would take anything at this point. Also I would really like shadow apparitions to be replaced with the shadow flaying tentacles corruption effect. Thoughts?
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I like the shadow apps. I never really cared for the Old God stuff. I liked the Void Priest theme from Shadowmoon Valley / Shadowmoon Burial grounds in WoD.
But I really want the Dark Archangel with the wings again and get some stuff cool stuff like Pain and Suffering from Baron Ashbury in Shadowfang Keep.
Pain and Suffering - Channels shadow damage every 1 sec for 6 sec. The damage dealt increase as the spell continues to channel.
Basically a bit meaty Mindflay. Be cool to super charge your Mindflay like that and make it less filler if you so choose via talent.
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this is why the talent should be baseline and grants full cc immunity what is the purpose of 60% movement speed if a DK can easily grip me or a mage can freeze me. especially now when most classes have a high mobility spell to keep up with you.
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see this is why I’m disappointed in the devs because for all the people who missed the archangel wings they could’ve easily made a glyph that gives you archangel wings once you pop voidform rather than tentacles.
I really hope they can make a glyph for shadowform to have the same effect as the corruption gear. giving you that void pattern rather than the purple smoke screen. it’s just I would like to see the gear that I worked hard to obtain.
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Apologies for posting this again but I’d like for as many people as possible discussing shadow feedback to see it. It is a relatively straightforward framework for updating the shadow priest, keeping void form but allowing for other playstyles via talents much like shadow was in MoP and WoD.
Shadow priest
General:
Mastery - increases damage of your periodic damaging effects (including channels) by x%, also gives them a y% chance to tick an additional time for full damage
Mind blast rank 2 - increases crit chance of hard casted mind blast by 40%, increases it critical damage by 10%
Vampiric touch rank 2 - vt period damage effects restore x% mana to you and party members
Void bolt and void eruption have a shared cool down, both instant cast, can use either to enter void form, both do bonus damage when used to enter void form.
Void bolt extends dot duration on single target by 3-4 sec
Void eruption extends dot durations by 1 second on all targets hit within 8-10 yards of main target
Void form increases all damage done by 15-20% (in addition to shadowform damage increase), also increases haste by 25-30%. No more ramping stats or damage baseline during voidform.
Shadow word:death - two charges baseline, damage increases by 20% and generates 15 insanity on targets below 25% hp. Killing a target generates 30 insanity.
Shadow fiend - greatly increased insanity generated from its attacks; attacks also slow targets by 50% (stacks multiplicatively with mind flay) and apply shadow vulnerability, increasing shadow damage taken from ALL sources by 2% stacking 5 times. (Change applies to mind bender as well, insanity generation would be 1/3 of that of shadow fiend due to cool down difference, still more than current however).
Fade rank 2 - removes all roots and movement impairing effects, and makes you immune to them for 4 seconds
Inner focus - melee attacks against you cause you to take 5% decreased damage from all sources (stacks twice), and makes you immune to spell push back effects. Lasts 10 seconds, can only activate once every 30 seconds.
Talents
Mind bomb does not replace psychic scream
Psychic horror lasts 4.5 seconds, costs x amount of insanity, cool down reduced to 30 seconds
Talent - Improved silence - cool down reduced to 20 seconds, interrupts spell casting and locks out school for 5 sec, blanket silence lasts 3 sec.
Void torrent: deals something like 400% (a lot of dmg) spell damage over 3-4 sec, castable while moving, only useable at 100 insanity (70 with legacy) or in void form. Pauses insanity decay.
New talent -channel mastery: while channeling abilities, your damage over time effect durations tick down at half speed
New talent - reverberating shadows: mind sear ticks causes targets with damage over time effects to pulse for damage equivalent to the dot ticks in a 3 yard radius. Affects only up to 4-5 targets with dots on them.
“New” talent - Surge of darkness - final tier talent; your vampiric touch damage over time effects have a 15-20% chance to proc surge of darkness, stacks up to 2 times, allowing void bolt or void eruption to be used outside of void form. These spells deal 10% increased damage per damage over time effect on the target ( from the priest only). Casting these spells costs insanity (equivalent to what they would generate normally in vf). ie. this will be the non-void form playstyle talent.
New/updated Dark Ascension - base insanity drain during void form is reduced by 50%, affected by haste (as in more hasted will further reduce insanity drain)
Shadow crash: all targets hit have shadow word pain applied
Remove dark void talent
Remove stm
Remove lingering insanity
Remove proposed void bolt rank 2
Add Mass Hysteria - void form damage aura reduced to 10%, all periodic damage effects and haste are increased by 2% per second within voidform. Here is your ramping damage for void form players
New Vampiric embrace - toggles on/off, when on, all direct/channeled damage you deal heals you for 20% of damage dealt, and allies for 10% of damage dealt. Drains x insanity per second while on.
Sanlayn - increases healing done by vampiric embrace to your allies by 30%, insanity drain increased.
New talent - Chorus of insanity - each point of insanity you have increases your crit chance by x%
Shadowy insight stays same (ie. swp ticks have 15% chance for instant mind blast) , additional new effect, instant mind blast does not incur a mind blast cool down.
Fortress of the mind: all mind and void spells have their damage increases by x%. Insanity gen increases by y. If used with surge of darkness, insanity cost of procs are increased proportionally.
Shadow word void: 2 charges, decrease cast time and cool down from original mind blast.
Pvp talent - Thought harvester: increases mana restored to the priest by x%, Fear from dispel effect no longer dr’s.
Pvp talent - void shell: when power word shield is broken, the breaker takes damage equivalent to the size of the absorb.
Remove greater fade
Pvp talent - spectral guise, same as it was in MoP, also increases your move speed by 50%
Pvp talent - masochism: attacks against you generate insanity
Void origins removed
Driven to madness removed
Glyphs:
Glyph of old shadow form because duh
Glyph of old (legion) void bolt because i like the way the old void bolt looks better than the wispy nonsense we have now.
Balancing aside, these changes would let you have almost 3 different playstyles -
- general void form play, short vfs, no crazy ramp as void form bonuses are static throughout each void form and beefy enough to be rewarding
- ramping void form play with mass hysteria and new dark ascension
- non void form play with more direct spells/casting that doesn’t invalidate our dots like old clarity of power.
Yes please remove ramp up and make it a fixed buff however 25-30% haste is way too much I would rather it be 10% and the rest is baked back into the main spec to make it play smoother.
here is my question what is the main mechanic? are you suggesting voidform becomes a cd on a set duration or what?
my suggestion is similar. remove ramp up make it a fixed buff you get once you enter voidform and make the drain a fixed rate. make mindfly be our maintainer meaning if the drain is 5insanity per sec make mindfly generate 7insanity per sec. then add Devouring plaque as a spender lets say it costs 30 insanity.
so the mechanic becomes more about entering voidform and managing your resource rather than keeping up with the drain. you good player would maximize his use of devouring plaque without falling out of voidform. you could also add more insanity spenders as talents (You could make shadow crash an aoe spender on a 10sec cd)
Since the drain is a fixed rate of 5insanity per sec it will allow you to react to fight mechanic without forcing you out of vodiform. making mindfly our voidform maintainer meaning if you messed up and about to fall of voidform but all you big insanity generators are on cd you can cast it to slowly build up insanity (drain is 5 per sec and mindfly generates 7 per sec so that means you are building only 2 insanity per sec) until your bar is in a good place or one of you big insanity generates are of cd.
this is to address the core mechanic of voidform however when it comes to talents i only got one idea which is…
make Legacy of the void baseline
make Lingering insanity stacks refund insanity after leaving vodiform(with a cap of 50stacks meaning 50 insanity regen after leaving voidform)
this will make it easier to jump back into voidform once out of it.
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Numbers obviously can’t be final, but the idea was since i wanted to remove the ramp up in void form, you’d have to be able to feel the bonus of void form right away as you enter it, and since void form is so short (usually 10-20 sec) it shouldn’t feel too bad.
So to clarify a bit; base play style you would use legacy of the void, play as normal and cycle in and out of void form. Void form has no inherent ramping damage within it, but the large bonus to damage and haste make up for the lows of being out of void form. I would envision being in and out of voidform in this case around 1.5 times per min if you can just sit there and free cast.
Ramp play style involves you taking my updated Mass Hysteria and Dark ascension talents. It lowers the huge baseline buff of void form and replaces it with the stack dot damage and haste that some people enjoyed from legion, while dark ascension allows you to stay in void form longer so you can try to get higher stacks.
Obviously these ideas aren’t perfect or fully fleshed out, but i can only do so much work for blizz before they are gonna start having to pay me lol.
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i think you and me are on the same page but here’s where it gets a bit messy.
when we talk about removing ramp up mechanic we have to remove the ramp up drain. the boost in dps you get from ramp up while in vodiform is due to the stacking of haste. you would stack more haste which lowers your cd making you cast your big spells more(mind blast and voidbolt) these spells also generate insanity and counter the ramp up drain.
if you remove ramp up and implement the the fixed %20 haste buff that means vodifrom would ideally have a set duration. on live you drop around the 20 stacks mark. each stack gives you %0.5 haste. so with the fixed haste buff you would drop around 40 stacks of vodiform.
you see how this could be messy. that’s why i want to remove the ramp up in its entirety and make it so we have sustain damage in voidform with moments of burst from Devouring plaque.
so you would sustain vodiform for its buff (with a fixed drain rate) and manage your draining insanity as you spend it on devouring plague for windows of burst.
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Yeah i see what you’re getting at. Makes sense, and we are definitely on the same page.
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