[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[snaxattax]

new build inc - hopefully we'll see some coherent changes to multidot mechanics (reverting dot duration nerf) and/or aoe. changes to the artifact would also be welcome.

[Ramaloce]

Exactly, much like the initial hit from Devouring Plague used to provide. This wasn't always true of SW:P, just like it used to be true that DoTs didn't instantly tag a mob until they ticked for the first time. It's easy to forget, given any current issues, that some of our older issues actually have been solved. I'm rather happy about all that.

I'm assuming anyone not familiar with this is just used to the fact thast SW:P didn't used to do that. It's hard to blame them. Whatever the game skill/spell equivalent of muscle memory is, or what have you, can be a pain to unlearn. Unlearning old functionality is my least favorite part about sweeping changes (even when they're needed), I go through that period every time they've redesigned Shadow, or aspects of it.

I assume that would be the reason that a spriest wouldn't know about swp hitting totems. I just have developed a habit of checking a bunch of mechanics every expansion (checking "see stealthed" range, what I can do vs totems, etc.). The more I learn of the small PvP mechanics at the beginning of the expansion the more effective i'll be for the rest of it.

[Gnarilex]

We almost lost levitate, and that's my favorite one. Who doesn't like floating a couple feet off the ground? I don't know whose Shadow Priest class fantasy doesn't involve floating, but let me tell you, any Shadow Priest that doesn't enjoy floating has a piece missing for their little shadowy heart. ;_;

It also works as a slow fall, which is great.

[Purple]

It also works as a slow fall, which is great.

Technically slow fall and water walk, all in one. However, I submit that the floating animation (not originally present) is the best part.

[Deleted]

Alpha build design notes:

- Charm Spells – These spells are potentially very powerful when used on stronger-than-average creatures. Previously, we handled this by making any particularly strong creatures (such as most creatures in dungeons and raids) immune to these effects. For Legion, we’ve limited the amount of damage dealt by charmed creatures to what a standard outdoor creature could do, and will soon be relaxing those immunity restrictions accordingly. This way, you’ll be able to use things like Control Undead and Enslave Demon more often, especially in dungeon content, and still get a reasonable value out of them.
- Mana and Utility for Hybrids – Most non-healer hybrids now use mana, primarily to fuel utility spells and abilities. See below for more details.
- Interrupt Duration Reduction – We’ve added baseline interrupt duration reduction to several specializations, which should help them get casts off more often, primarily in PvP. This includes Shadow Priests, Restoration Shamans, and all Warlocks. (EDIT: To clarify, this is a reduction to the duration of interrupts used ON them, not BY them.)

- Shadow Priests – Insanity generation tweaked.

I'm a little afraid of the last one. With how fast people said we get into voidform with legacy of the void something tells me it's not a tweak upwards, but maybe they just shift the sources around a bit, but it hopefully won't be too bad and maybe a bit needed for uptime scaling from what was being said. Other than that, mana bar as expected and probably the charm thing applies to mind control.

[Purple]

No sense in not giving this implementation of the mana bar a fair shake. I too assume the charm thing applies to Mind Control.

As for insanity generation, I can't imagine them giving more insanity generation at this point.. it's not like it was anything approaching difficult to build Insanity. I'll take a shot in the [not really all that] dark and say that if they tuned it down, it's in response to no longer needing to spend insanity on insanity spenders that were moved to the new (not really) mana bar.

[Deleted]

Yea, most probably. Hopefully it doesn't make it feel too slow to get into void form, especially the first one.

[Aeriel]

As for insanity generation, I can't imagine them giving more insanity generation at this point.. it's not like it was anything approaching difficult to build Insanity. I'll take a shot in the [not really all that] dark and say that if they tuned it down, it's in response to no longer needing to spend insanity on insanity spenders that were moved to the new (not really) mana bar.

Considering Blizz has said that the time to build up to VF, and time in VF is about where they want, this is likely. More likely it is a matter of tweaking which spells have more relative Insanity, and adjusting SWV to be better for "on demand insanity".

[Chantique]

Now if blizzard fix our aoe, replace mind spike with something more useful and give us back Psychic Horror, we will be gtg.

[Kretan]

Yeah I was pretty sure insanity generation needed a nerf. Outside of void form basically didn't exist making shadow word void useless.

[Djriff]

I wouldn't mind many of those utility or fluff/flavor skills finding more use rather than being knocked off with a, "It's not supporting my damage/healing/tanking role and too many buttons confuse me" mindset.

I don't play a Warlock, but collecting masses of feathers back in the early days, just so I could levitate all over, mind visioning myself from player to player around the city and getting through a dungeon are to a boss solo with mind soothes the sort of utility/fluff things I enjoy. I know some class aspects used to be more useful (lock picking, unless you just used the cannon) in that way, but the problem tended to be in the static nature of MMOs. I don't know where the balance would be, but I certainly don't want the utility/flavor spells and skills gone regardless.

We almost lost levitate, and that's my favorite one. Who doesn't like floating a couple feet off the ground? I don't know whose Shadow Priest class fantasy doesn't involve floating, but let me tell you, any Shadow Priest that doesn't enjoy floating has a piece missing for their little shadowy heart. ;_;

I do wish they had more use. I'm hopeful for the artifact quests to utilize every skill we have, like the warlock fire quest did. I would love more stuff like that. I don't have a reason to play my priest now, i love the class, but outside of that there's nothing "cool" about being a priest. WTB more class quests.

I'm happy with the change to levitate, as floating during combat is awesome(disable in pvp though). I honestly forgot about mind soothe :C I miss that, and mana burn. Even if the damage of mana burn was shit, it was still pretty cool to have and an excellent tool to use if need be, just needed to be scaled.

[Purple]

Right, mana burn was useful and a nice little niche shared with Warlocks (theirs was a drain, actually, if I remember). I don't quite recall why they axed it, but I always figured it had more to do with mana drain/burn in PvP than in PvE as the PvE applications tended to be far/few in between. Not to say they were never useful in PvE, I remember at least one raid boss I was expected to use mana burns on, along with a Warlock draining them, back in the pre-BC days.

The mana burn damage never bothered me so much as the mana cost of casting the bloody spell. Hard to argue with. It's better than giving a Priest an on melee proc burn.. They'd never have done something so silly.. I wonder why my eyebrow keeps twitching.

[Kretan]

I wonder how much interrupts were reduced for shadow locks and shamans. If it's significant I could see shadow affliction shaman bein a comp based solely off of it. I'm guessing 25%

[snaxattax]

lol interrupt reduction reminds me of season 1 75% chance to ignore interrupt resto shamans just sitting there chain LHWing and never dying

[davesignal]

So judging by Wowhead, the only change to Insanity generation is that VT and SW:P now generate 3 insanity instead of 4. Pretty meh, as far as nerfs go.

Edit: Also, our first new minor glyph: it make Fade give you a 'ghostly' appearance.

[Djriff]

We also hand mind bender nerfed :C

[Ilir]

I like how they changed the wording on the psychic horror trait ... but we don't have psychic horror anymore.

:')

[davesignal]

We also hand mind bender nerfed :C

That's the Discipline Mindbender. They've got different durations, for some reason. Shadow's Mindbender is still 20 seconds.

[Tirilka]

I like how they changed the wording on the psychic horror trait ... but we don't have psychic horror anymore.

:')

That's what confused me. Are they THAT oblivious?
Though, seeing as they made Second Wind a talent for protection warriors, it wouldn't surprise me.

[davesignal]

The same guys copy-editing the ability descriptions to match a style guide aren't the people balancing talents. There's multiple production streams in any project of this size; the copy editors were told to fix the wording on every talent, shit the balance team is doing doesn't factor in.

This stuff is kind of apparent if you don't go into every bit of Blizzard communication with a 'How are they fucking me TODAY' mentality.