[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Ilir]

I'm sure I saw twintop post here :O

Anyway... hi guys(or girls) <3

Yeah, I don't have anything else to say... cheers !

[Kaesebrezen]

That's great to hear that we can stay in StM that long. I'm going to be interested to see how this develops in regards to not only usage of the talent but also the gearing around the idea of the usage of the talent. Thinking that I'm sure a priest is going to be doing their best damage in the execute phase a priest is going to favor stats that make that part even more effective.

The time you can stay in StM is largely irrelevant.

The hideous part is comparing a pre-execute non Reaper Voidform to an execute-Reaper StM Voidform. That's not how you do it.
You compare your RoS-Execute Voidform --uptime-- to your RoS-Execute-StM Voidform uptime. That's the gain StM can realistically have, assuming people are even remotely capable on playing at the Haste Value StM will give you (which they likely won't be).

Base Voidform lasts 20-24 stacks. RoS will extend that to likely 23-27 seconds.
RoS cuts out 6.5 GCDs you have to spend casting Mind Flay outside of Voidform. Instead of 20 GCs - you will enter Voidform after 13.5 GCDs.
Assuming 20% Haste on gear, you'll have a GCD of 1.0 seconds. So you'll need 13.5 seconds to enter Voidform.
Your cycle lasts 13.5 seconds plus ~25 seconds = 38.5 seconds. Your Voidform uptime is 65%.
Adding in Mindbender, AS or SI, T18 2 piece bonus, and in flight Void Bolt whens you leave Voidform - your Voidform uptime is likely in a ballpark of 70-75% during execute without StM.

StM offers you have 25-30% increase in Voidform uptime which is a ~15% damage increase during execute. Legacy of the Void applied to only on a single SW:P currently also is 15% dps increase - for the whole fight (you can count on Legacy being nerfed). Now even if you cut down Legacy to half it's current value, that's still a 7.5% increase solely provided by SW:P. You then have to add in all the SWD casts during execute that eat your overflow LotV stacks. That's going to push it a lot.

StM right now is a extremely minimal DPS gain during execute - and half of the time you're in it you'll be at unplayable haste/gcd values anyway.

[Kretan]

The time you can stay in StM is largely irrelevant.

The hideous part is comparing a pre-execute non Reaper Voidform to an execute-Reaper StM Voidform. That's not how you do it.
You compare your RoS-Execute Voidform --uptime-- to your RoS-Execute-StM Voidform uptime. That's the gain StM can realistically have, assuming people are even remotely capable on playing at the Haste Value StM will give you (which they likely won't be).

Base Voidform lasts 20-24 stacks. RoS will extend that to likely 23-27 seconds.
RoS cuts out 6.5 GCDs you have to spend casting Mind Flay outside of Voidform. Instead of 20 GCs - you will enter Voidform after 13.5 GCDs.
Assuming 20% Haste on gear, you'll have a GCD of 1.0 seconds. So you'll need 13.5 seconds to enter Voidform.
Your cycle lasts 13.5 seconds plus ~25 seconds = 38.5 seconds. Your Voidform uptime is 65%.
Adding in Mindbender, AS or SI, T18 2 piece bonus, and in flight Void Bolt whens you leave Voidform - your Voidform uptime is likely in a ballpark of 70-75% during execute without StM.

StM offers you have 25-30% increase in Voidform uptime which is a ~15% damage increase during execute. Legacy of the Void applied to only on a single SW:P currently also is 15% dps increase - for the whole fight (you can count on Legacy being nerfed). Now even if you cut down Legacy to half it's current value, that's still a 7.5% increase solely provided by SW:P. You then have to add in all the SWD casts during execute that eat your overflow LotV stacks. That's going to push it a lot.

StM right now is a extremely minimal DPS gain during execute - and half of the time you're in it you'll be at unplayable haste/gcd values anyway.

Incoming math heavy post. Don't take the percentages as an absolutely correct number because this is a basic showing of what surrender does. Pay attention to the trends and not the absolute values.

Your analysis is definitely not correct, and it is because of the bolded part. Not all void forms are created equal in this case. I "ran" an ultra crude excel-style damage simulation for 100 seconds (the assumed best case of void form) to show you why. Each row represented 1 second, and I assumed that every second one damage was done. Every row of 1 damage was then multiplied by the sphere of insanity 5% buff, the current dot mass hysteria stack of 3% increase per second, and the 1% haste buff (I just assumed haste was a straight damage buff even if it isn't exactly correct to assume that....not far off of this but still). So for example, if you did 1 damage, and had one stack of void form, your new damage is

1 (Damage) X 1.03(Mass Hysteria) X 1.05 (Sphere of Insanity) X 1.01 (Haste Stack) = New Damage Amount

On the second stack, the formula becomes:

1 (Damage) X 1.06(Mass Hysteria) X 1.05 (Sphere of Insanity) X 1.02 (Haste Stack) = New Damage Amount

And so on.

This is what the rate of damage looks like when you use your numbers of 27 second void form with 13 second downtime:


The black line is your total damage for surrender to madness, the red line is no surrender to madness, and the orange line is your average dps with no execute. Here is the damage increase breakdown:

1. Surrender does 170% more damage than without surrender
2. Surrender does 311% more damage than a non execute dps'er
3. No surrender does 52% more damage than a non execute dps'er

You need to take in to account that surrender allows a quadratic damage increase rate for a longer period of time while non StM resets the quadratic rate to zero multiple times. Damage increases faster and faster the longer you are in void form, and the longer you stay in the quadratic rate increase the more benefit you get from it. Seconds 50 to 60 in surrender to madness is more of a damage increase than seconds 0 to 10. This is the part that people are missing right now. When you combine the effects of mass hysteria and the stacking haste buff, a quadratic increase is inserted in to your damage. Sure the damage increase from second 50 to 51 is the same as 0 to 1, but you also need to consider that the damage increase is ticking MUCH faster...hence quadratic. There is a double dip here you are ignoring.

Now here's the funny thing about quadratics. The rate increase can get absolutely silly when you add more targets. Let's take this a step further to show what we are talking about with 3 targets:

1. Surrender does 170% more damage than without surrender
2. Surrender does 1,133% more damage than a non execute dps'er
3. No surrender does 326% more damage than a non execute dps'er

A few observations here. It seems that the benefit of surrender over non surrender is not dependent on the number of targets. This is a conservative effort that assumes you never refresh dots in any scenario by hard casting. This is not realistic without surrender to madness. But, look over at what surrender does with 3 targets compared to your average hunter or mage.....heh. That's no typo. 1,133% more damage. You do the equivalent of 18 minutes of damage during the 100 seconds of damage your mage gets. Yeah........................This is why people say you can't balance it. Again, don't take these numbers as absolutes, but look at it showing the trend of what can happen. There are a lot of assumptions made here.

Another point is that neither the 1 or 3 target situations consider the damage boost from having full mobility. In a patchwork fight, there is no effect....but what if you have to move? Let's now look at the damage increase from mobility:


A little context on what I'm showing here. The red line shows you the 170% damage buff that happens when you pop surrender to madness and you are not moving while casting at all. This shows you baseline with no movement turret style how much benefit surrender to madness has as a comparison. Now let's look at the black line. This black line shows you what happens to that benefit as movement is introduced. The damage benefit is linearly increasing as the penalty on damage from movement without surrender to madness increases.

What happens after 100 seconds? After 100 seconds, you stop gaining quadratic benefit. At this point, the slope of the line at 100 is snap shot and your damage increases linearly. At this point on one target you do 810% more dps, and on three targets 7,290% more dps compared to a mage.

This is what we are talking about in the last few pages of the thread in graph form. Surrender could actually be the strongest talent of all time when you add targets. It certainly is currently the strongest execute of all time. In reality, the percentages here are probably high. How high depends on so many things. This is where this talent becomes a tuning nightmare though.

[Chantique]

Just got done queueing skirms with a ww for like 4 hours. The only team queueing was rogue ww against us so we pretty much lost every single one because of hard counter. Rogue ww has so many defensives that you can't heal or get void form before you die. I can still nearly get void form without ever even casting against them, but double dps 2s makes it so you just can't play against those 2 classes together. Rogues need a major self heals nerf. Like HUGE nerf. They can top themselves every single time they vanish pretty much. You have to kill them 100-0.

We beat every other team that queued though besides them.

Have you tried Shadow Word:Void against Rogue/WW? Maybe it could be the boost needed to get VoidForm quickly.

[Kretan]

Have you tried Shadow Word:Void against Rogue/WW? Maybe it could be the boost needed to get VoidForm quickly.

The problem is that the rogue uses cloak, so I can't damage him. I sick my pet on the ww. They stun and burst me, so I need to pop dispersion. I come out of dispersion at 100% hp, and driven to madness gives me around 100 insanity. The rogue stuns me and they burst again. I trinket and pop void form, the monk pops karma on me and the rogue runs. I can't heal and I'm dead. They blow all of their defensives and I can't do damage, cast, or heal. It's just a hard counter situation. If I could live 10 more seconds....ez win.

We might be able to beat them if the monk had FoF stun though. As it is he can't peel long enough for me.

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Thanks for making the gifs, it looks tasty. Let's hope General Vezax won't be too mad for stealing his animation.

Does the projectile have travel time? The green targeting glyph looks quite big, yay .

edit: some brackets

The travel time seems static. It travels very fast over large distance and slowly over short like the gif.

[snaxattax]

your quadratic increase is only for dots. the haste bonus is severely reduced in effectiveness from 4t19. I don't think stacks 30-40 or whatever is worth the 7-or-so voildbolts you lose from not triggering another voidform.

the talent definitely has potential in a low % enrage and require lots of movement fight, though.

[Kretan]

your quadratic increase is only for dots. the haste bonus is severely reduced in effectiveness from 4t19. I don't think stacks 30-40 or whatever is worth the 7-or-so voildbolts you lose from not triggering another voidform.

the talent definitely has potential in a low % enrage and require lots of movement fight, though.

So quadratics are for dots, and nukes are linear, but our dots are a significant portion of our dmg.

4 piece isn't going to overcome FOUR HUNDRED percent dot damage increase with a 100% haste buff......you only get TWO 4 piece procs in 100 seconds also haha. We are talking stacks 80-90 and not 30-40. Heck you get 300% dot damage bonus with a 65% haste bonus starting at 60 second lol.

Again, don't underestimate quadratics.

[Isentropy]

Some positive observations regarding Surrender to Madness

- The proposed Void Bolt change by Celestalon will make Surrender to Madness a viable option on council fights, but Legacy of the Void is a safer, more consistent and probably better option.
- The proposed change to our dots by Celestalon will potentially make multidotting an option, albeit a very risky one
- Sphere of Insanity lasting through the entirety of Voidform fixes the 'only one Sphere once you use StM' problem
- The ability to move while casting during Surrender to Madness fixes one of its biggest problems

On to the problems that are very much still there

- It still has the 'can't be ressed for 3 minutes' debuff applied after you die despite the tooltip not mentioning it. This means that using Surrender to Madness anywhere before the execute phase is still going to make you a liability to the raid.
- You have to exactly know how long it'll take before the boss will die from the moment you press Surrender to Madness or you risk dying before the encounter ends.
- Playing Surrender to Madness with any sort of FPS/latency problems is going to be next to impossible
- Playing with such a low GCD cap is hard, and even though you can cast on the move maintaining the APM necessary if you have to deal with mechanics is going to be ridiculously hard
- It's still not far enough ahead of Legacy of the Void in terms of its execute damage. You have to deal with not being able to multidot as well until you actually use Surrender to Madness
- Using Mindbender when deep into Voidform is next to impossible, and Power Infusion gives you more haste which you don't need and the Insanity generation is negligible if you're under the effects of Surrender to Madness. Funnily enough, Shadow Crash might actually be the best talent during Surrender to Madness but the fact that you have to target the ground first again requires ridiculous APM.


Overall, in my opinion the risk/reward still isn't worth it, but Blizzard seems very adamant about making it work so there's probably going to be more changes to make it a better option. Something else to keep in mind is that Legacy of the Void will probably be tuned down. I'm still not a fan of the talent but it's going to stay around, might as well make the best of it.

[Kretan]

Some positive observations regarding Surrender to Madness

- The proposed Void Bolt change by Celestalon will make Surrender to Madness a viable option on council fights, but Legacy of the Void is a safer, more consistent and probably better option.
- The proposed change to our dots by Celestalon will potentially make multidotting an option, albeit a very risky one
- Sphere of Insanity lasting through the entirety of Voidform fixes the 'only one Sphere once you use StM' problem
- The ability to move while casting during Surrender to Madness fixes one of its biggest problems

On to the problems that are very much still there

- It still has the 'can't be ressed for 3 minutes' debuff applied after you die despite the tooltip not mentioning it. This means that using Surrender to Madness anywhere before the execute phase is still going to make you a liability to the raid.
- You have to exactly know how long it'll take before the boss will die from the moment you press Surrender to Madness or you risk dying before the encounter ends.
- Playing Surrender to Madness with any sort of FPS/latency problems is going to be next to impossible
- Playing with such a low GCD cap is hard, and even though you can cast on the move maintaining the APM necessary if you have to deal with mechanics is going to be ridiculously hard
- It's still not far enough ahead of Legacy of the Void in terms of its execute damage. You have to deal with not being able to multidot as well until you actually use Surrender to Madness
- Using Mindbender when deep into Voidform is next to impossible, and Power Infusion gives you more haste which you don't need and the Insanity generation is negligible if you're under the effects of Surrender to Madness. Funnily enough, Shadow Crash might actually be the best talent during Surrender to Madness but the fact that you have to target the ground first again requires ridiculous APM.


Overall, in my opinion the risk/reward still isn't worth it, but Blizzard seems very adamant about making it work so there's probably going to be more changes to make it a better option. Something else to keep in mind is that Legacy of the Void will probably be tuned down. I'm still not a fan of the talent but it's going to stay around, might as well make the best of it.

I think that if they changed surrender to be one third the depletion rate this APM issue goes away as well as the latency issues for the most part. I could definitely see legacy beating this single target depending on tuning, but multi target StM is definitely the easy pick imo if you can execute StM post 60 stacks. I think surrender might become one of the highest skill cap talents in the game.

[Blackmorgrim]

Well I can see the potential with STM at this point, and I'm still waiting to see us run the all shadowpriest /w STM and see bosses fall left and right, followed by the explosions of 20+ shadowpriests. And the nerf of STM into the ground.

[Kilee25]

Haha, yeah Black that is very true.

[Kretan]

Well I can see the potential with STM at this point, and I'm still waiting to see us run the all shadowpriest /w STM and see bosses fall left and right, followed by the explosions of 20+ shadowpriests. And the nerf of STM into the ground.

Hahahaha. I just don't see how they can balance this when you start having multiple targets.

[Kaesebrezen]

Again, don't underestimate quadratics.

That quadratic will only exist onc you have Mass Hysteria - before that it's completely linear. Without Mass Hysteria - StM is absolutely useless. And even with Mass Hysteria - It only affects 30% of your total damage.

Let's take my cycle, and assume 30% of your damage are DoTs - then when compared to Legacy of the Void (at 50% total, not 100%), you will deal an additional 60% damage over the full 90 seconds of StM.

The thing is that you pretty much are required to get to 90 seconds. If you only get to 75 seconds - you are looking at 30% additional damage over those 75 seconds. Or in another way: The more often you skip outside phases, the better. And quadratic is quadratic, bigger gains at the end.

And quoting Isentropy

- Playing Surrender to Madness with any sort of FPS/latency problems is going to be next to impossible
- Playing with such a low GCD cap is hard, and even though you can cast on the move maintaining the APM necessary if you have to deal with mechanics is going to be ridiculously hard

This two things are the most important one.

I doubt many people are even remotely capable of playing past the GCD cap - once past 50% Haste, we're playing at a 0.66 seconds GCD. (it's a flat out 33% GCD reduction).

[Chantique]

Well for me StM is still a no-go scenery. I play with 101ms and 45 fps so it will be next to impossible for StM works for me. And i play on the Brazilian realm with a "good" internet. Most of the people that play on the brazilian realms, latin america and oceania have way worse MS. So with the death componente it's a talent for people with low MS and high FPS.

I'm not saying that is a problem, just saying that its talent that not only requires you to play near perfection, but it requires a good internet and pc to use properly.

[Kretan]

That quadratic will only exist onc you have Mass Hysteria - before that it's completely linear. Without Mass Hysteria - StM is absolutely useless. And even with Mass Hysteria - It only affects 30% of your total damage.

Let's take my cycle, and assume 30% of your damage are DoTs - then when compared to Legacy of the Void (at 50% total, not 100%), you will deal an additional 60% damage over the full 90 seconds of StM.

The thing is that you pretty much are required to get to 90 seconds. If you only get to 75 seconds - you are looking at 30% additional damage over those 75 seconds. Or in another way: The more often you skip outside phases, the better. And quadratic is quadratic, bigger gains at the end.

And quoting Isentropy
This two things are the most important one.

I doubt many people are even remotely capable of playing past the GCD cap - once past 50% Haste, we're playing at a 0.66 seconds GCD. (it's a flat out 33% GCD reduction).

Yeah the quadratic is entirely dependent on mass hysteria. Absolutely agree. Until you have that surrender is DOA.

Why do you bother considering the case in which mass hysteria doesn't exist? Or am I not catching your point? I imagine PVE players will be going straight at this talent. Of course without mass hysteria surrender is useless and not even close to legacy. I am talking about a maxed out artifact here for sure.

On the ease of playing and issues though, my post doesn't even start to consider it. My post is just showing the damage potential for a robot.

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Well for me StM is still a no-go scenery. I play with 101ms and 45 fps so it will be next to impossible for StM works for me. And i play on the Brazilian realm with a "good" internet. Most of the people that play on the brazilian realms, latin america and oceania have way worse MS. So with the death componente it's a talent for people with low MS and high FPS.

I'm not saying that is a problem, just saying that its talent that not only requires you to play near perfection, but it requires a good internet and pc to use properly.

I agree. I hope they rework the talent to have the same effect, but it is kinder on fps/latency. I will be fine with low ping and well over a hundred fps, but I have a high end computer......I hope they rework the talent so high end machines aren't a requirement.

[Naga Coatl]

I still don't like the fact that it basically seems to me a Raid Encounter Execute Talent with almost no use outside that scenario. Months ago when there were debates about PvP talents, one of the most common comments was that "the core talents are not PvE talents" - so why this has to have such an incredibly limited viability? Long CD, about 30 seconds to become active (before that it's just a normal Void Form basically), makes you die at the end, and requires you to have at least a target all the time with no pauses.

Still not fun for my tastes.

[Kretan]

I still don't like the fact that it basically seems to me a Raid Encounter Execute Talent with almost no use outside that scenario. Months ago when there were debates about PvP talents, one of the most common comments was that "the core talents are not PvE talents" - so why this has to have such an incredibly limited viability? Long CD, about 30 seconds to become active (before that it's just a normal Void Form basically), makes you die at the end, and requires you to have at least a target all the time with no pauses.

Still not fun for my tastes.

Yeah there is no use here outside of raid bosses that's for sure. I'm not sure how long you can keep up StM without shadow word death either I'll explore it today.

I think the limited viability it because of how stupidly strong it is in its niche of raid boss executing.

[Shahad]

Yeah there is no use here outside of raid bosses that's for sure. I'm not sure how long you can keep up StM without shadow word death either I'll explore it today.

I think the limited viability it because of how stupidly strong it is in its niche of raid boss executing.

Without SW: Death I get a bit past 70 60 stacks.

[Naga Coatl]

I think the limited viability it because of how stupidly strong it is in its niche of raid boss executing.

And in my opinion that's bad design. Stupidly strong in one niche thing thus stupidly useless for everything else not only is quite annoying, but can still result in a nerf if in that niche it's too strong. And if it becomes just averagely strong to prevent abuse while keeping its huge downsides, all that remains is a wasted slot in my opinion.

[Kretan]

Without SW: Death I get a bit past 70 stacks.

Alright sweet. The thing that I was getting at was what happens if a boss's execute lasts for 25 seconds? If you can get in to execute before stack 65 or so maybe then I could see you being able to pop surrender early even before 35%.

Extreme case, but it should make it so it doesn't lose value on farm outside of twist of fate.

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And in my opinion that's bad design. Stupidly strong in one niche thing thus stupidly useless for everything else not only is quite annoying, but can still result in a nerf if in that niche it's too strong. And if it becomes just averagely strong to prevent abuse while keeping its huge downsides, all that remains is a wasted slot in my opinion.

While true, I personally find surrender to madness extremely cool if it is viable. I personally don't mind swapping between talents for situations as it keeps shadow fresh.