Door of shadows - For much needed mobility in all content. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=300728/door-of-shadows
Spectral guise - For getting away for 3 seconds when melee are pounding us into the dirt. (Make it so when focus frames drop they are re-focused when the priest re-appears) https://www.wowhead.com/spell=112833/spectral-guise
Idol of y’shaarj - This is the worse capstone in our spec tree. Please rework it. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=373310/idol-of-yshaarj
Void torrent - Move towards the middle of the tree so void weaver can access it more easily.
Whispering shadows - Merge into shadow crash.
Mind melt - Make baseline into mind spike or make mind spike have some functionality tied to it besides a button you press when kicked on shadow. Like make it do something cool. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=391090/mind-melt
Dispersion - Make baseline for shadow priest.
With mind games ( the best ability in the game ) being ripped away from us and forced into our already bloated pvp talents, we need some pvp talents to move into the class or spec tree.
So i vote for catharsis to the class tree and driven to madness into our spec tree.
You listed a bunch of changes suggested by this thread
I thought you were the same guy.
For dispersion it makes sense to be baseline, utility has been removed from many spec trees and it should be removed from the shadow spec tree.
Door of shadows is an easy win, its not an overpowered skill on its own in fact its a bit of a clunky slow mobility spell that without any of the buffs is more than acceptable to give to shadow priests.
Spectral guise was awesome, i will always advocate adding it back into the game, and dont just make it a pvp talent that skill had so many uses in regular content it should be a core part of shadows utility, id trade almost anything for it back.
Its a shame idol isnt very good, mind bender with inescapable torment is my favorite cooldown, i really enjoyed trying to extend it as much as possible with SW:D and mind blast and seeing the explostion felt very good. Its the kind of gameplay void eruption tries to achieve but fails at and its far more interesting than dark ascension, id gladly let those other two CDs get deleted in favor of mind bender replacing them in the center where idol is more flavor than a capstone.
Void torrent being central is good, no argument there.
Im going to suggest this every opportunity, make shadow crash (with whispering shadows) baseline but exchange its CD for a 50 insanity cost, alongside a passive that sets insanity to 50 out of combat like natures balance that balance druids get. Tying 100% of our aoe to a 20s CD is ridiculous.
Honestly i think they should just delete mind spike, its a garbage spell, id rather they put deathspeaker in its place. At most they could make it replace mind flay during dark ascension since DA doesnt affect mind flay for some bizarre reason. If they do keep it as an option it needs more supporting talents not less, something to really drive its gameplay in a unique direction, not just filling the exact same role as mind flay but cast time instead of a channel. Even a passive option that made mind flay apply mind spikes to the target that are detonated by mind blast would be more interesting then replacing a weak filler with a slightly less weak filler.
Mindgames was a cool spell but a garbage addition to the rotation as shadow has enough plates to spin, and it added nothing more to the rotation. Its more a problem with it not being optional and the tree design forcing players to take every active you can reach. Blizz really needs to utilize the talent tree better by making themed branches with optional skills at the top that are weak alone but gain more power as you spec into them so they are truly optional.
I don’t have any issue with anything you stated aside from this bit here.
I think Catharsis and Misery creates friction as one you want to cast SW:P and the other you don’t. I like Misery more so I rather have Misery and not even consider Catharsis existing at all.
But that’s from Shadows perspective. I’m not sure how well received Catharsis would be by Holy and Discipline and if even those specs don’t find that appealing then that’s more weight to NOT include this into the class tree if at all.
Frankly speaking, I think it’s a boring mechanic to have and I really only think it exists because we already have so few PvP talents compared to so many other class and specs.
Regarding Driven to Madness, I don’t think that should be in the class or spec tree because from a PvE standpoint, the idea is that you should not be getting dunked on as your a caster sitting in the back. So its value is very limited and does not justify a talent point.
Also, it’s cooldown being altered at random based on you getting attacked would screw up cooldown stacking timing which is another reason to avoid taking this for PvE purposes.
Only mentioned moving void torrent to the center of the tree and merging whispering shadows is the same as that guys post.
Solo content is now a thing and we should have choices for it.
The whole point of the talent system is to have choices for different content.
We have a section in the class tree dedicated to the damage side of priests.
Things like apathy could be removed and catharsis could replace it. https://www.wowhead.com/spell=390668/apathy
And driven to madness is amazing in pvp, it makes your void eruption a 1min cd if you are getting trained.
Again, taking something like delves / out door world content into consideration, having passive cool down reduction when you are attacked will always be good and free up our pvp talent slots.
We have too many mandatory pvp talents with catharsis, mind trauma , driven to madness and now mind games. We can’t even take things like phase shift , void volley or psyfiend because these first 4 pvp talents i mentioned are just so much better.
mind bomb sharing a choice node with our current stun
instant dark angel/void eruption talent
everything else listed here would be good, also idol of yshaarj is so useless its beyond comprehension (kinda funny since yshaarj was the most powerfull old god) priests need more attention, but honestly shadow in df season 1 was the best for me, wouldnt mind if they bring it back
Or they could actually make Apathy meaningful and revert it to what it was in Cataclysm when it was called Paralysis.
Paralysis
When you critically hit with your Mind Blast, you cause the target to be unable to move for 2/4 sec.
When increased critical strike chance on your next Mind Blast was inherit with Mind Spike as it increased 30% chance and stacked up to 3, it basically was alway a critical strike which made the Paralysis effect occur quite frequently and it was amazing at keeping melee at bay while allowing you to get you nukes off.
Also now in PvE you can use your pet be it Shadow Fiend or Mind Bender or any other proc summons you might have via item or talent triggers in addition to using Fade grants you a window of massive burst without being hit as mobs will attack your pets.
Also with our main AOE cc being Psychic Scream and with the intent of the talent Sheet Terror should allow time enough to take care of any mobs we are encountering.
Point is that we seem to have a mix of tools that cater to being attacked and others avoiding being attacked.
As a caster, I think it makes the most sense to avoid being attacked as often times when you are being attacked, you can easily be knocked down or knocked up or melee interrupted or taking so much damage that you can’t recover with leech alone.
So with all that taking into consideration, the idea that being beat on in PvE is the goal in order to gain any functionality on a talent where as you can spent that point on something that you always gain from combat throws major concern as to the reason such a talent exists when something that has a much wider use case can be an option in its stead and as such not just catering to such a niche situation that examples given can overcome just fine in addition to providing further use in a more wide array of areas within the gaming experience.
Now I would admit that some examples given to avoid combat… getting beat on might be seen as weak in their current state but the idea and foundation is the point to work and build on so it’s useful in many and possibly all areas of the game and not just a small tiny sliver of it.
There is only two changes I want for TWW…
Delete the DA/Mindbender Build
Delete Mind Spike
I refuse to touch that build ever again. Ill be going back to affi until they rework DA out of the tree.
And how should Shadow Priest play? Or rather what would be your preferred method to play?
Whatever preferred method you think Shadow should play as, do you think that should be the only way to play Shadow? If you think Shadow should play a one single defined way, what happened to everyone that does not like the one single implemented defined way to play Shadow?
With guardian druid choice of physical vs arcane play styles or feral with direct damage vs bleeds or elemental shaman with lightning vs fire based playstyles etc.
I would like to think you can have multiple ways to play Shadow and to me it makes to most sense to play either a more dot based route where you take more periodic damage enhancing talents or you go for a non-periodic damage based build where you index into more up front damage profiles.
Surely at this point in time with the current flexibility in their new talent trees, the point is to choose gameplay profiles to tap into and explore and index further into. The only real question is what are the different types of damage profile options that should exist within each spec.
I don’t think having Dark Ascension with Mind bender and Mind Spike is a bad option to have, only that it needs to be a bit refined as well as the rest of the talent trees needs attention and care in order to provide a complete and cohesive tree that offers multiple gameplay options that are all competitive.
All that is required is actual time and commitment to hash out it’s short coming and genuine care and creativity at bringing forth said options to life instead of the lack of attention we’ve received in a short fast pace end of the line treatment we have been so used to getting.
Tl;Dr
I want more gameplay options, not removing gameplay options just for the sake of it.
A revert to 10.0 spriest is preferable. Didn’t need all these “fixes”
Damnation would be nice
Instant offensive cd’s
Get rid of void form
Make pi only castable on yourself
Maybe some more reliable instant proc stuff so you can be a little more mobile.
I agree! 10.0 sp was so fun, having mind spike AND mind flay and getting surge of insanity on 1 devouring plague was so much better!
Disagree on this 1, i like void eruption and void bolts, it gives us constant instant damage during void form.
Omg i wish we had damnation back, but the pver’s crying they couldn’t kill a dragon or whatever cried that it was in THEIR talent tree and had it removed.
God forbid a talent used in pvp is in the pve tree. even though we are constantly giving the pver’s our talents.
I heard the pve side of things didnt like all the buttons you could push, it was too complicated. They even got instant mind spikes removed because they didn’t know to only push it when they were moving or had nothing else to push. I could be wrong though.
My biggest complaint about void form is that void bolt is tied to the actual button. It screws up my whole configuration just to try to use it properly. It either takes up extra keybinds or I fat finger it because it’s in the wrong place on my keyboard. I never liked void form though to be honest.
I always set up my cd’s interrupts etc… on the same key and offensive cds are never near my rotation because I have fat fingers. It’s just terrible for the way I’ve always set up my keybinds.
Edit: now if I could just put void bolt on my bars that would be better but I still don’t enjoy the prioritizing something you only use for 20 seconds during a cd either. It’s really clunky to me.
Agreed. No idea how it not only made it to live while being so bad, but has remained awful for so long.
This really should happen. No one takes shadow crash for the damage lol.
This I don’t think they’ll ever do, because it would make mind spike superior to mind flay. And it would give us an extra talent point to play with.
Honestly I’d like dispersion to be reworked. Mages can take 80% less damage while also healing themselves AND still be able to move/cast/use abilities.
It’s ridiculous shadow has to silence themselves for such a weak defensive. Not only that but while you’re in it, you’re encouraged to cancel it early and not get full value because it’s costing you damage every second that it’s active. It’s truly a horrendous defensive that needs changes. It’s a relic from a past time and it needs to be brought into modern wow
The fact that we still have to talent into dispersion AND our silence is CRAZY… all other classes I’ve played have all that stuff on the left side tree