I’ve tried reading up on the hero talents. A lot of steps to build up to spend for big results. For me it seems way too complex for a player like me. I honestly won’t know until I have a chance to play the finalized version live. But it did have me wondering,
What if you just pick what you think works, and disregard having to cast X, to get bonus Y, for spamming Z
I know regardless of what they may say about personal choice, there will always be a Meta build you need to use, and if you don’t you’re a bad, and should go play Hello Kitty Island Adventure MMO.
Hopefully those of us that don’t have beta will get a chance to experiment’s in the PTR or something prior to release.
Voidweaver without void torrent functionally does nothing. As far as gameplay goes the only thing you actually have to do to get value out of voidweaver is cast void torrent. Mechanically it doesn’t require you to do anything complex to get value.
2 Likes
So is Shadow just pidgin holed into Voidweaver? Are there other options?
Archon should also be playable, but it is pathetically weak on the ptr right now.
1 Like
I guess having choices and viable options are out the window again. lol. You’d think I would know better after 15 years.
Archon. Theoretically it will be tuned to be reasonably competitive at some point before launch, but balance is never perfect, and usually there are particularly bad outliers.
Honestly the way Voidweaver is set up, almost all of its value will be tied to simply using Void Torrent on CD. There might be small resource management optimizations, but as long as you are using Void Torrent, you’ll get just about all the benefits. Archon revolves mostly around Halo, and from what I can tell, the biggest wrinkle there is that when they are all available, you will want to make sure you hit your preferred cooldown (either DA or VF) before using Halo. Other than that, the power also looks like it will basically take care of itself.
2 Likes
Just seems awkward to have to have to continually refresh void torrent just to benefit other casts.
It’s definitely something I will need to wrap my head around. If it’s unplayable for me I’ll muddle through the expansion
I really like shadow priest voidweaver and I don’t mind it being tied to void torrent because it reduces the need to have another button. They made void torrent castable while moving too.
Its very deterministic unlike other hero talents that have you build up stacks or do something else that needs to be tracked in order to trigger it.
Yes, the downside is that you have to pick up void torrent, but again the alternative is either another button or something else triggering it. For discipline it is triggered off of mind blast, but mind blast has like a 24 sec CD.
Archon is kinda of similar, forcing you into picking Halo. Which again I don’t mind for the reasons above. The new halo animation looks super awesome too and its doing a huge amount of damage and healing when I tested it.
Its not really awkward because void torrent does A LOT of damage. Its not some CD you press just to activate extra damage. Its a rotational ability you press that does A LOT of damage on its own and then it leads to even more damage.
2 Likes
let me add this context. Remember, this is pvp perspective.
I went onto my warlock on beta today. Went and tried only aff for now.
Man oh man! How can Both heroe talents be useful on one spec? I kid you not, it as whole different experience.
OVBY the tunning is really crazy right now. the spec is cooking very hard. But that happens all the time. But it feels fun and good to use. SMOOOTH.
Warlock feels like warlock again. The Vamp healing, the dot dmg, the Hex/curses. Magnificent. The visuals are also spectacular. Overall. Very good, I’m shocked. Even malefic tickle feels fun to use now and I’m not forced to just use this spell ether… at least for now.
then again, this class has gotten SOOO MUCH attention. Like its insaine.
meanwhile, we have
Blessing of paladins… Halo lights… and BFA voidform trying to return.
And no talent changes still lmao.
2 Likes
Archon has been a blast to play in PvP, imo.
Every minute you can line up DA and Mindbender and Halo and get a series of guaranteed mind spike insanity procs
1 Like
im generally glad you are enjoying it. And others whether is a small group or large one.
I personally cannot align with it.
i don’t like mind spike
I don’t like Voidform or DA.
I find the talent tree still having issues where I am forced to take things I don’t want
The talent tree is also trying to do too many things.
the warlocks aff one feels much better. way organized while giving you different playstyles.
Hero talents target the core spells.
First one t targets AFFLICTION and empowers it a ton. WIth Malefic rupture adding to it.
The other focuses on Malefic rupture which adds another dot.
Our spell choice is very questionable.
Halo for shadow – a spell not commonly used nor do I want to use it.
Void torrent – Is more common but not a core one.
Why not Devouring plague, our spender?
why not Mind blast, mind flay/mindspike, Vampiric touch or even SWP
Just poor choices imo.
2 Likes
I get that. I have enjoyed most of the iterations of shadow over the years (mana battery, dot weaving, void form), but my favorite iteration was actually WoD.
Stealthing with Spectral Guise then popping out with five shadow ravens, dumping a giga plague into someone which transformed mind flay into purple beam from outer space, and just delete people in arena and Ashran.
Don’t think that version is ever gonna come back until a classic WoD, if they even do that expansion.
4 Likes
well lets see how their talent reworks look like for the class, if we get one.
Maybe it does justice…
1 Like
I would love a talent choice between Shadowy Insight and the part of Clarity of Power where Mind Blast cooldown is reduced and it’s always an instant cast.
Then maybe prior or before that talent we could have a choice between a hard hitting Mind Blast or an extra charge of Mind Blast.
That way you can have a more stable rotation with more Mind Blasts for PvE and then you can have less Mind Blast uptime for more instant cast and hard hitting Mind Blasts.
Then a talent to replace Mind Melt or just rework it so that your Mind Spikes deal a massive amount more damage to targets without your dots on them and they deal 10-20% more damage to targets either above 80% health or below 20% health or both.
That way you can have a means to still do massive damage without your dots on the target due to dispels and then just running out while your controlled leading to very short windows to do anything aside from refreshing dots again with Shadow Crash.
Just some ideas to possibly get something akin to the Dotless playstyle back in a fun and meaningful way.
2 Likes
I guess what is a bit concerning to me is that we are two months out? And I don’t think I’ve seen a hero talent calculator or modified spell trees to dig into.
Edit. I see wowhead has one, silly me thinking there would be one here. 
Are we going to get again a
Here’s what we pieced together for launch, we will fine tune and adjust in a later patch.
It’s getting a little old having to relearn a revamped spec every two years.
Archon makes Halo go from “I don’t want to use it” to “I can’t wait to use it”. The updated spell animation/visual is very very cool.
Just going to kindly say it before someone else does. I don’t think you like Shadow Priest 
Go to the Warlock forums right now. You’ll quickly find out how they feel about Malefic Rupture…
2 Likes
As a 2600 lock last season, i love that malefic rupture is shadowflame now.
so who cares what those locks cry about.
The only thing different from halo its the extra ripples back and forth.
I personally dont care for it off healer spec.
And there are way color options imo.
U do realize shadow was mainly mind flay, vampiric touch, shadow word pain l, mind blast.
The switch to adding mind spikr was way way way later.
Even so, our cureent version of it does not match the past.
I love shadow priest especially the original version.
I hate the fail design it currently has. It has no identity, fighting between so many incomplete itterations.
I stated i didnt like malefic rupture.
But at least its better to use now and i dont have to focus on it. I would prefer for it to disappear.
But the spec is doing amazing by long shot. At least for now
1 Like
Hellcaller Affliction feels good and gives you that Dot-Rot feel you crave. It turns Corruption into Wither which is a really powerful dot. They also removed Siphon Life which is another QoL change that I welcome. I’m all for less button bloat.
Yea… I’m aware. I think you just might be more interested in Affliction Warlock as opposed to the current iteration of Shadow Priest.
The majority of people don’t like it. The way it works makes it so that malefic rupture does more damage based on how many dots you have, which is cool but then you realize that the premier dot rot spec has dots that do absolutely garbage damage on their own. It would have just been better if malefic rupture amplified all of your current dots instead of having your weak dots amplify malefic rupture. But as I said above, Hellcaller seems promising by making Corruption super strong, but I wish they made all the other dots much stronger too.
Making it replace Mind Flay is the issue imo, not the spell itself for existing.
- BC = Vampiric Touch added.
- Wrath = Mind Sear added.
- Cataclysm = Mind Spike added.
- MoP = Divine Star/Halo/Cascade added.
- WoD = Additional Shadow Orbs added alongside other WoD leveling perks that just all together refine the gameplay for Shadow.
- Legion = Everything tossed into the bin and we still in a conflicted state to this day.
So I would view Mind Spike as just another step in progression for Shadow that came relatively early when you look across all the previous iterations of the game.
1 Like