[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Djriff]

I'm curious though, what about not being to control void form makes you feel good? If you can macro it then there's no difference in the world and you shouldn't even have to worry about it.

Eitherway, whoever makes the post on the alpha forums can remove that piece.

[davesignal]

I'm curious though, what about not being to control void form makes you feel good? If you can macro it then there's no difference in the world and you shouldn't even have to worry about it.

Eitherway, whoever makes the post on the alpha forums can remove that piece.

It makes the purpose of it, a class mechanic, more clear. Having it being a spell you activate muddies the water into making people think it's a DPS CD that should be up at the start of every boss encounter, like what's currently happening in the shadow priest feedback threat on the alpha forums.

Now people are talking about how 'necessary' it is that people leave dungeons and farm up insanity, then run back to the boss, so that Voidform is available immediately at the start of a fight, and how the obvious conclusion is that shadow priests should just instantly have 100% insanity at the start of every fight.

The whole situation is decaying into exactly the sort of thing I predicted it would when Blizzard made it an active spell. People want a DPS CD, and now they're in the process of mangling what was once an interesting idea to get it. There is extremely little design space to be had around insanity/voidform now, because anything that doesn't make it a DPS CD is going to get shouted down.

Blizzard should have stuck to their original design, left Voidform alone, and gave shadow an actual, independent DPS CD.

[Kaesebrezen]

I'm curious though, what about not being to control void form makes you feel good? If you can macro it then there's no difference in the world and you shouldn't even have to worry about it.

It's not about feeling or anything, but about mechanical implications.

If you do macro Void Form, at no point will Voidform or Insanity ever matter - regardless of it's existence, you will press your buttons the exact same way.

A no control Voidform to say isn't a mechanic, and as a macroed Voidform equals a no control Voidform, you have Resource Bar with Resource generators that serve absolutely no purpose.

[shanthi]

I don't think a "universal" set of pros and cons makes sense. People on the alpha forum should limit their posts to their own opinions of what's good and bad. Like, I disagree that Void Form "looks good" (largely due to the tentacles which, yes, I know is Old God-y but doesn't mean I think looks great on me...turning into a big Faceless would also be Old God-y, but I'm sure plenty of people would hate it).

[l33t]

Blizzard should have stuck to their original design, left Voidform alone, and gave shadow an actual, independent DPS CD.

Which was even earlier in the alpha, called Oblivion... but god forbid you'll be able to burst with everyone and won't waste 15 seconds of pot/heroism!

[Gnarilex]

I don't think a "universal" set of pros and cons makes sense. People on the alpha forum should limit their posts to their own opinions of what's good and bad. Like, I disagree that Void Form "looks good" (largely due to the tentacles which, yes, I know is Old God-y but doesn't mean I think looks great on me...turning into a big Faceless would also be Old God-y, but I'm sure plenty of people would hate it).

I think voidform could have looked better. The PvP forms for fire and frost mages look significantly better than it imo. I actually would prefer turning into a faceless one or another old god minion instead of a mass of tentacles.

[Djriff]

Now people are talking about how 'necessary' it is that people leave dungeons and farm up insanity, then run back to the boss, so that Voidform is available immediately at the start of a fight, and how the obvious conclusion is that shadow priests should just instantly have 100% insanity at the start of every fight.

The whole situation is decaying into exactly the sort of thing I predicted it would when Blizzard made it an active spell. People want a DPS CD, and now they're in the process of mangling what was once an interesting idea to get it. There is extremely little design space to be had around insanity/voidform now, because anything that doesn't make it a DPS CD is going to get shouted down.

And this is different from getting 5 orbs before a pull how? It's not mandatory at all, but it does give you a bigger opener.

[2about]

Removing Oblivion was the mistake that caused this VF trigger thing. Oblivion would have served as the "Trigger" for VF that you want, and its on a 2 min CD. I am all for control but not a fan of this approach they're doing.

[davesignal]

And this is different from getting 5 orbs before a pull how? It's not mandatory at all, but it does give you a bigger opener.

Yes, people also used stupid and silly methods to game Shadow Orbs, because Shadow Orbs were also an unfortunate half-measure between two different concepts. In this case, Shadow Orbs was a poor compromise between an actual resource system and Devouring Plague just having a CD.

The real solution there was to either give Shadow meaningful things to use Shadow Orbs on (Void Entropy, obviously, does not count) and more ways to generate them, or just sacking the concept and giving DP a real CD.

In both instances, the common theme is when you try to compromise a design between two differing ideas you just end up with something unsatisfactory that really pleases nobody.

[Biomega]

I feel forced to agree with the sentiment that we are past the point of meaningful changes now. We will not get mechanical updates, only number tweaking. They will not add new talents, they'll just shift around existing ones. We're stuck with MS and StM clogging up our tree with extremely niche or downright useless picks.

SP in Legion is a proof of concept, an early stage in what could become an interesting class with more work. They apparently couldn't quite settle on what to do and how to flesh out the details, which is why we're stuck between "mind stuff", void energy, vampirism, and "shadow" (whatever that is supposed to be). The class fantasy is still fuzzy and undefined and without a clear line or purpose. Mechanically they replaced our frankly quite solid Orb mechanic with a weird Eclipse/Demonic Fury hybrid that will probably have people raging about trigger-happy GCD-spam three months into the expansion. Our niche of multi-DoTing has become an excuse for having terrible AoE, meanwhile all other classes are getting free, easy-to-use, effective cleave tacked on to everything left and right. Our single target is an uninspired rotation practically unchanged by talents or traits, and will show middling performance. Our raid utility is practically gone.

10 years of white-named, black-formed goodness are coming to an end. I'm already leveling a mage and a warlock.

[Djriff]

True, but honestly it just feels like we traded in orbs for insanity and that's it. Everything else is the same.

[shanthi]

I think voidform could have looked better. The PvP forms for fire and frost mages look significantly better than it imo.

I agree. I think just the shadow-and-void striated form, without the tentacles, would look pretty cool.

[Aeriel]

I have been thinking about the AoE/multidotting/Mind Sear debate a little bit. These are a couple of ideas that I thought up to synergize/adjust talents to make AoE/cleave feel "better" without being too OP.

First: Void Ray should affect Mind Sear as well as Mind Flay. This would allow for Mind Sear to be a meaningful ability with multiple targets, while avoiding the potential oddity of Mind Sear becoming too powerful single target. They could set it so that Void Ray only gives a stack for Mind Sear on tick rather than on damage, which would mean that a full channel is a full stack rather than the potential of reaching a full stack on the first tick (note: this is for balancing reasons).

Second (this one is potentially more controversial): Remove Shadow Crash, instead make it into Void Burst. Void Burst turns Void Bolt into a meteor effect where the damage is split between all targets, but retaining the DoT extension for all targets. With this version of the talent, you multidot outside of VF, then Void Burst maintains the DoTs on all targets for an extended period. This creates an AoE cycle where you multidot to build up Insanity, then go into a AoE "burn phase" in VF. This talent would be useless outside of multiple targets, but that is not exactly a bad thing. Plus it would make Mindbender have some competition in at least one scenario. There is also a trade-off with this talent: Void Bolt would no longer be a single target effect, and less direct SoI damage (however, the DoT extension is the primary value of this idea).

Feel free to scoff/critique/etc.

[Kilee25]

I like the idea of combining mind flay and mind sear into a single new spell that cleaves and is filler. Make it hit 2 or 3 targets only. Then buff the remaining true ae spells.

[Kalistez]

I'm not sold on this whole 'Old Gods' and 'Void' theme.

Personally I always envisioned a shadow priest as a type of Inquisitor, who skulked in the shadows and inflicted pain, torture and eventually death on the enemy's of their respective churches. Essentially doing all the dirty work that the goody goody Holy priests didn't want to know about.

It always felt like a controlled type of insanity on our part (sort of Dexterísh I suppose) that inflicted insanity on others due to the pain we dealt.

I felt that the old abilities fit that theme perfectly, and I'm kinda sad to see it moving away from that.

[Aeriel]

I'm not sold on this whole 'Old Gods' and 'Void' theme.

Personally I always envisioned a shadow priest as a type of Inquisitor, who skulked in the shadows and inflicted pain, torture and eventually death on the enemy's of their respective churches. Essentially doing all the dirty work that the goody goody Holy priests didn't want to know about.

It always felt like a controlled type of insanity on our part (sort of Dexterísh I suppose) that inflicted insanity on others due to the pain we dealt.

I felt that the old abilities fit that theme perfectly, and I'm kinda sad to see it moving away from that.

This makes me think of the old Scarlet Graveyard boss Interrogator Vishas. He was a cross between rogue (dual wield), priest (SWP), and warlock (immolate). But, yes, I can somewhat agree on this point.

I can also see our "mind spells" being a case of inadvertently tapping into the Old Gods, while thinking that it is an aspect of the light. The void direction seems a little too far since void != shadow in WoW's universe.

[Deleted]

I dont know how to do proper twitter links and mmoc is stopping me doing links

Immortalstate:
What's the deal with shadow priests? Casting animations? Spell animations? What direction you see SP going in? Pros/Cons?

WarcraftDevs:
Shadow has received a number of visual improvements, and we think the new Voidform is pretty impressive looking!

So thats it then for our animations and visuals? Or maybe a hint that new stuff is on the way /hope

[Ilir]

hahahahahaha told you, apparently they live in a world where shadowpriests have visuals.

also : "Shadow has high survivability so far, via Vamp. Touch, Shadow Mend, and PW:Shield. We're willing to adjust if necessary, though." via twitter. https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...42269036818432

lol... so blizzard when designing shadow : let's give them stuff but let's not take into account actual gameplay/realistic interaction with other players in pvp.

[l33t]

hahahahahaha told you, apparently they live in a world where shadowpriests have visuals.

also : "Shadow has high survivability so far, via Vamp. Touch, Shadow Mend, and PW:Shield. We're willing to adjust if necessary, though." via twitter. https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs/sta...42269036818432

lol... so blizzard when designing shadow : let's give them stuff but let's not take into account actual gameplay/realistic interaction with other players in pvp.

Why yes, the survivability is indeed high... against a training dummy. It can't deal any meaningful damage to a shadow priest, that's why they are preparing some nerfs for Shadowmend in next alpha patch.

[RsinRC]

The way it was written is as if its past tense. Im not sure its for any upcoming visuals.
Heres to hoping! Lol

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Btw, that was me who tweeted them. Didnt think they'd answer.