Class Tree
[Dominate Mind] is an AWESOME spell. It is super fun to use, and very thematic to the Priest fantasy. Functionally however, it is frustrating. The low 30 sec duration, a matching 30 sec cooldown, and a cast time which leaves you vulnerable to your MC target. Considering the potential power of this talent, these downsides are most likely intentionally designed to ‘balance’ the spell. Personally, I would really appreciate some QOL changes to make the spell feel better to use, with maybe some restrictions placed in order to prevent game breaking shenanigans. In outdoor content and delves, it would be so much better if Dominate Mind had a 90 sec duration, or at the very least, a 20 sec CD with the ability to cast Dominate Mind on an already MC’d target, allowing you to refresh the CC without turning the mob hostile again. Then maybe in raids, where MC is more likely to see abuse, retain the 30 sec CD and and duration.
[Void Shield] This could be such a cool talent, but it’s severely underutilized because the shield simply isn’t large enough to take any meaningful amounts of damage. Even for Disc Priests, which can superpower their shields with certain buffs, the amount of Shadow Damage that actually converts into additional shield health is very low and the talent stands no chance at competing with other talents in its tier. Void Shield might be a lot better if the additional shield health was accumulated by shadow damage BEFORE the next PW:S cast, similarly to how Druids can increase their next instance of Regrowth Healing through their damage.
[Cauterizing Shadows] Another talent that sounds cool and is really thematic, but doesn’t do much of anything in practice. Even when taking Disc priest into account, which can take talents that will consume the duration of SW:P, Cauterizing Shadows is a waste of a talent right now, especially when considering its position competing against some of the best talents in the priest class tree. The healing is negligible in multi-dotting scenarios, and isn’t even worth mentioning in single target. This talent might see more use if it simply healed a nearby ally for a portion of its damage done, like it would during Vampiric Embrace. This would have some very interesting synergy with Disc Priest talents as well. But knowing Blizzard’s apprehension toward passive-healing, Cauterizing Shadows might just be better off being replaced by [From Darkness Comes Light] in the talent tree.
Discipline Tree
[Encroaching Shadows] / [Revel In Darkness] These two talents should really just be baked into one. I know that Disc is sort of suffering from a lack of talents to choose from, but splitting functionality like this doesn’t really do anything to offer more choices, and tends to just feel bad. Maybe if one of these talents did something more interesting and impactful, it could justify its own spot on the tree. Something like “Your Shadow Word: Pain damage is increased by an amount equal to your mastery” or something.
[Ultimate Penitence] The 4 minute cooldown on this spell doesn’t feel great, especially considering the actual strength of the spell. Of course, in the context of Disc as a whole, who already has a very powerful cooldown in Evangelism, a 4min CD Ultimate Penitence makes more sense as sort of a ‘supplementary’ cooldown. The spell might be more interesting if there were talents available in the spec tree that allowed you to deviate from a Shadowfiend/Mindbender-centric build, and focus more on an Ultimate Penitence focused build. Maybe Void Summoner should be a choice node with another talent that decreases the cooldown on Ultmate Penitance by 50%.
[Inner Quietus] This talent is fine, it just feels bad knowing that Oracle has the same talent with twice the potency. Also, increasing the absorb of Power Word: Shield doesn’t really fit the Voidweaver theme. Instead, maybe Inner Quietus would be better if it did something like “Casting Power Word: Shield increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Pain by 25% for 12 seconds”. This would be more in line with the void theme, while also maintaining the intent behind the talent to incentivize casting PW:S as a Voidweaver.
[Void Empowerment] A 1 sec increased duration on your 5 lowest Atonements is a very difficult option to pick against the alternative, which gives you 3+ extra casts of Void Blast. It is still an interesting option, but +2 sec might be more enticing so that a Power Word: Radiance cast before Mind Blast would have atonements that last long enough to benefit from Collapsing Void.
Shadow Tree
[Shadow Crash] / [Whispering Shadows] These two talents should be baked into one. There are virtually no situations where you would only prefer one without the other. Further, it’s been a long pain point for Shadow Priests to be so restricted by the 20 sec CD of Shadow Crash, especially in lower forms of content where new enemies are constantly being introduced to the fight long before Shadow Crash becomes available again. Now I understand that some people want to continue the DoT maintenance aspect of Shadow Priest gameplay, but with the current design of Shadow Priest as a whole, any situation where you need to apply your DoTs one by one feels very detrimental to the pace of combat. Unless additional mechanics were introduced that made manually multi-dotting enemies a rewarding gameplay loop, Shadow Crash should have a lower cooldown and a second charge so that Shadow Priests can more quickly proceed to the fun part of their rotation without feeling too restricted by their Shadow Crash cooldown.
[Unfurling Darkness] An interesting talent. Sometimes taken to make spread-out multi-dotting easier, or to have another source of instant burst damage. Would probably feel much better in both cases if it was a buff that procc’d every 8 seconds, and stacked up to 2 times. This would remove the awkwardness of having to fully cast a raw VT in order to proc the instant VT, and then having to wait for the internal cooldown to do it again.
[Maddening Touch] Considering the long history of nerfs to DoTs, and most of our multi-target damage actually coming from Psychic Link, this talent struggles to find power and see play. Even its increased Insanity generation falls flat when compared to the output of other talents. This might be a better talent if it abandoned the increased Vampiric Touch damage, and doubled down on the insanity generation. While doing the reverse would be cool, it’s pretty apparent that we no longer want maintenance DoTs becoming a primary source of damage.
[Deathspeaker] Deathspeaker is generally disliked in PVE contexts because it adds to a very busy rotation. The talent itself is fine, and even enjoyed, but when added to the plethora of buffs, procs, and resources Shadow needs to pump out, it becomes a source of frustration. Instead of removing it and depriving the Shadow tree of a very cool talent with interesting synergies, I think we should try iterating on it to make it fit the rotation more seamlessly even during Shadow’s busiest moments. So, “in addition to SW:D’s current effects, it also unleashes your Mind Spike/Mind Flay: Insanity if you have either available.” I considered giving SW:D its own insanity version, but realized that having 2 different spells compete for the same proc only added more complexity to a spec that doesn’t need it. By simply casting MS:I and MF:I simultaneously with SW:D, it frees the Shadow Priest from deciding between conflicting resources, while still giving it access to a very cool proc to enjoy.
Holy Tree
[Gales of Song] / [Seraphic Crescendo] Competing with a whole 60 sec reduced CD on Divine Hymn is very difficult thing to accomplish, and Gales of Song’s current tuning doesn’t even make it a close comparison. One way to bridge the gap would be to reduce Divine Hymn’s cooldown to a 2.5min CD, and make Seraphic Crescendo reduce the CD by 30 seconds. This would give Gales of Song a little more room to compete, but even then, the additional healing would have to come from more than just +6 stacks of prayer of mending every second.
[Empowered Renew] While this talent does accomplish to replace Circle of Healing’s old functionality as a cooldown reducer for Serenity, the 60% increased healing when cast is very underwhelming, even when all other renew-synergistic talents are taken. This should probably be buffed significantly.
[Divinity] / [Eternal Sanctity] Due to the raw power of Holy Words, Divinity is almost always outclassed by Eternal Sanctity. The power gap could be narrowed if Divnity simply increased the healing of Heal and Prayer of Healing for the entire duration of Apotheosis, instead of only applying to the first 3.
[Light in the Darkness] The power of this talent is insane. It is simply too good to not take in every situation. It is made so much better by its accompanying talents here in the final talent tier; Miracle Worker, Holy Celerity, and Divine Image. With talents like these, the power Holy Word talent builds will always outclass others. I think in this case, the power of Holy Words should be brought up a bit baseline, and this talent should be nerfed to allow other talents more competition.
[Divine Word] Is a very interesting ability, but its potential is cut down by its 1 minute cooldown and extra key bind required. I think this would be a lot more compelling of a choice if instead, the buff durations were reduced, but were applied to every cast of a Holy Word. To balance things out further, Divine Word would also have to become a choice node with Miracle Worker. The choice would be: “Have 2 charges of holy words, or have 1 charge that gives you a short buff after each use”