Hey all, so I wanted to share what I had to say on class feedback and I was curious about what other shadow priests are saying and what other spriests thought about what I had to say. (It is a bit long, but I tried to break it up subject-by-subject as best I could)
What type of content do you focus on? [PvE/PvP/Both]
PvE
If PvE, what type of PvE? [Heroics/Raids/Other]
Normal/Heroic 10s
If PvP, what type of PvP? [Arenas, BGs, Rated BGs]
Battlegrounds if I do, but I rarely do.
What are your biggest quality-of-life issues? For instance, no longer requiring ammo could be considered a quality-of-life improvement for hunters.
Quality of Life wise I would have to mention the usage of SWD in FL encounters and the current way in which Shadowy Apparitions behave.
For Shadow Word: Death, after the 4.2 buff to single-target damage spells, Shadow Word: Death simply backlashes too hard. I have had upwards of 50k backlash without a % damage taken increase (Baelroc) or % damage done increase (Omnitron Defense System), and that's with mostly normal FL gear. Letting us use SWD as a execute spell is a great idea, and I'm all for it, but in most fights sub-25% is when there is either a large amount of raid-damage taken or a large amount of raid healing required, where using SWD no longer becomes a execute on the target and becomes an execute on the player. The backlash was fine when it did not hit for so much, but now that it will crit for upwards of 75k with Int procs and other +damage buffs, it hits the player for too hard.
The major issue I have with SWD is that the amount which it'll hit the player is too variable to be accounted for, as it's dependent on +int procs, archangel, and a myriad of other things. There either needs to be a way for the damage to be more constant or expected, or for the damge of the backlash to be less than it is right now. (Perhaps limiting the backlash to the backlash of it's non-crit damage, if SWD does crit.)
For Shadowy Apparitions, the limit of 4 up at a time is perfectly acceptable (Though it was fun running around trash mobs and just SWP'ing everything late in ICC), however in the event that they cannot path to the target, the amount of time that they are alive just standing there is borderline obnoxious. They'll stand there for 15-25 seconds before despawning during which time you cannot spawn any more apparitions, fairly drastically reducing the amount of damage they can do for no reason other than being useless. Giving them a despawn timer of a few seconds in the event that they are standing still would help remedy this problem greatly. (It's not a major thing, which is why I have it under a QoL issue)
What makes playing your class more fun?
Life Grip is an amazing spell, but I feel that it should be moved into the discipline category, rather than holy, as it takes you out of shadow-form even when you cannot successfully life-grip the target. (I.E. They're just out of range)
Shadow Orbs and the Empowered Shadows mechanic is great in concept, and the ability to extend +mastery procs through creative use of Orbs+Mind Blast is awesome, but it does fall short on some aspects. (Just don't change how it works primarily! It's one of the reasons I went back to playing my priest from my rogue)
Dispersion is also, once I got used to it's applications, an amazing 31 pt talent, please don't change it.
What makes playing your class less fun?
Being completely ineffectual at healing when I do decide to drop out of shadowform. I understand and completely agree with not being able to heal as well as a healer can, but going OOM in less than 20-30 seconds and doing very bad healing while doing it deters me completely from doing it. (Ever) If I do have to help heal, it's often in a capacity where we'll most likely wipe anyway, as a healer dying in a fight early on pretty much (in 10man anyway) guarantees a wipe due to lack of mana. A nice change to shadow-form would be to make it 100% of the time while spec'd shadow and have it reduce healing done by 10-x%. That way you wouldn't have to take time to get back into shadowform after dropping out to heal or life grip or whatever, but your healing wouldn't be too Overpowered.
How do you feel about your “rotation”? (Rotation is the accepted order in which abilities are used to maximum efficiency.)
I feel like the rotation is fine the way it is. There's only some smallish issues with what I've mentioned before and am about to mention.
Mind Spike is perfectly fine and fits the niche it was designed for, though I feel like it should not use Shadow Orbs when used, and should have it's damage be proportional to the damage done by Mind Blast. (So that it does a third of Mind Blast damage or something similar, so that as gear increases, Mind Spike scales similarly. As it is, I've noticed that it seems to be falling behind in damage. (Mostly a scaling issue)
What’s on your wish list for your class?
A slight change to how mastery works to make it more attractive for shadow and to reduce the inherent RNG with shadow orb generation, without eliminating it completely.
What I'd like to see is to have mastery, in addition to it's current effects, also increase the % proc chance of generating an orb off of ticks of SWP and MF. Something around .25-.5% per mastery point (not rating) while reducing the base chance a little would probably be balanced without being over-generous. Something around a 15% base chance (10 Mastery) increasing to 15.5 with 11, 16 with 12, 17 with 13 mastery, 18 with 14, 19 with 15, 20% with 16 etc. It would allow us to make an intelligent choice between haste and mastery (as both would, at different rates, increase our chances to proc shadow orbs over time. Mastery by changing the proc-chance and haste by decreasing the time between potential orb generations) Obviously the numbers would have to be adjusted to make them balanced so that mastery isn't way above or way below haste, but you get the idea I hope :P
What spells do you use the least?
Mind Vision and Mind Sooth. I like the current implementation of Mind Vision as it has it's uses and isn't completely useless. I just don't use it much.
For Mind Sooth it would be nice to have it changed into a form of CC for shadow beyond shackle and mind control (as both are very niche CCs). Perhaps being able to use Mind Sooth to prevent it's target from pulling with the rest of the group (but still patting as if it was unaffected), and change it to one-target at a time for a longer duation. It would be a new type of CC that has it's disadvantages (for example, not being useful in PvP, or still being able to pull the mob, but just have it temporarily unlinked from it's group).
The other use for mind sooth that I can think of, is to have it be a threat reducing cooldown that temporarily reduces the threat generated on the affected target by the priest. It would be a new type of threat-reducing spell, and it fits the name and idea behind the spell, it just gives it a use during combat. (Giving it a CD to not make it a part of the rotation would probably be necessary.
Anyway, those are my ideas, I'm looking forward to feedback from other spriests and what they have to say on the subject