[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[deviantcultist]

If the expansion went live today, surrender might be the best 110 in pretty much every case.

How about the realistic function of StM? What I mean by that is:

1) How long is the average uptime vs duration of a dungeon fight or a raid fight?
2) Given that it most likely involves dying, is it something you can convince other groups to have or is it too much of a specialized build?

[Kretan]

How about the realistic function of StM? What I mean by that is:

1) How long is the average uptime vs duration of a dungeon fight or a raid fight?
2) Given that it most likely involves dying, is it something you can convince other groups to have or is it too much of a specialized build?

Well you will never use this outside of execute. You NEEEEEEEEEEEEED shadow word death insanity gains starting somewhere around 50 or 60 stacks to continue. With that said, because they buffed shadow word death cd, I can get the equivalent of about 105 to 115 stacks right now (keep forgetting to dispersion out 6 more seconds). I would say a realistic up time for surrender to madness would be 2 minutes or just shy of.

The average duration of a dungeon or raid fight? I would say this is highly specific to each fight. The real question is can you get 60 seconds in execute to properly utilize StM?

Well I think the convincing of other groups is going to solely depend on if this is viable or not damage output wise for the encounter.

[deviantcultist]

Speaking in Old God language while in Voidform is already in the game, actually. And yesterday, during Ursoc testing, I also got my first whisper from the dagger. It was something about having to kill the Fallen Titan as the biggest priority. Can't recall what it was about exactly.

If it has a specific Nightmare raid quote, that's amazing. Basically, an Old God themed sentient artifact to motivate you against it's nemesis (Sargeras) instead of killing of their own dominion in there is quite an immersive feature.

[Kretan]

Speaking in Old God language while in Voidform is already in the game, actually. And yesterday, during Ursoc testing, I also got my first whisper from the dagger. It was something about having to kill the Fallen Titan as the biggest priority. Can't recall what it was about exactly.

On the topic of issues, there's a couple of other glaring ones still, in particular in our talent tree. As always, from a PvE perspective.

- Shadow Word: Void sucks. It has no purpose while Legacy of the Void exists, and on its own it does approximately 0 damage
- Void Ray is bad and awful to use. You can dig through my posts on the US forums if you want a more detailed explanation as to why that is
- Shadow Word: Death feels bad to use without Reaper of Souls
- Mind Spike is complete and utter garbage in functionality and usability

While these issues don't affect our gameplay drastically it'd still be nice to see at least some of these resolved. Particularly our execute ability only being something you want to press with Reaper of Souls (despite it doing good damage and it's probably worth it to press it either way) sucks.

Oh wow I didn't even notice the old god speaking thing! That's cool.

I am wondering if some major lore hints are going to be leaked to us through whispers.

I agree on those points. Those are some I missed in my list.

[deviantcultist]

Well you will never use this outside of execute. You NEEEEEEEEEEEEED shadow word death insanity gains starting somewhere around 50 or 60 stacks to continue. With that said, because they buffed shadow word death cd, I can get the equivalent of about 105 to 115 stacks right now (keep forgetting to dispersion out 6 more seconds). I would say a realistic up time for surrender to madness would be 2 minutes or just shy of.

The average duration of a dungeon or raid fight? I would say this is highly specific to each fight. The real question is can you get 60 seconds in execute to properly utilize StM?

Well I think the convincing of other groups is going to solely depend on if this is viable or not damage output wise for the encounter.

Hmm, so given that it has a 10min cd, you aim it for an execute phase then. The impact should be really satisfying if it is to make up for LotV that supports the whole fight.

I can see it being quite a fun talent in overgeared dungeon last bosses. Regardless, unless Mind Spike gets a really interesting buff/change, LotV sounds like the basic/default choice, which is good imo, with StM being efficient if you can pull it's full potential.

Like many said before me. Please give Mind Spike a splash/cleave effect as this would give a nice niche to the class and also give the class a nice array of 100 options.

[Deleted]

Well you will never use this outside of execute. You NEEEEEEEEEEEEED shadow word death insanity gains starting somewhere around 50 or 60 stacks to continue. With that said, because they buffed shadow word death cd, I can get the equivalent of about 105 to 115 stacks right now (keep forgetting to dispersion out 6 more seconds). I would say a realistic up time for surrender to madness would be 2 minutes or just shy of.

The average duration of a dungeon or raid fight? I would say this is highly specific to each fight. The real question is can you get 60 seconds in execute to properly utilize StM?

Well I think the convincing of other groups is going to solely depend on if this is viable or not damage output wise for the encounter.

Shadowpriest in legion might be the mage in wod in regards to speedkills. Have 1 - 2 tanks, a shaman/mage for lust and rest StM shadow priests. No healing needed, just rotate VE (+ vampiric touch for self heal). With the set bonus that grants +1 insanity on each dot tick (+200% StM), you should easily be able to reach 60 void stacks without SWD. Then 1min into the fight lust, 2nd pot, twist of fate activates probably about then and SWD and destroy the boss. Im excited for that!! :-D


Some napkin math:
Set bonus: Assume we are at 100 stacks in a 3 target fight, which you say is possible with SWD. Without any haste, VT ticks every 3s -> 1/3 ticks/s and SWP ticks every 2s -> 1/2 ticks/s --> 5/6 dot ticks/s. Now assuming 10% haste from gear, we end up with 110% haste resulting in 2.1 x 5/6 dot ticks/s. 3 target --> 3 x 2.1 x 5/6 ticks/s. Now every dot tick gives 1 insanity (3 with StM).
We end up with 3 x 2.1 x 5/6 x 3 insanity/s = 15 insanity/s.
Thats a lot AND its very reliable as the dots tick multiple times per second.

Maths for AS:
Assuming 33% crit.
SWP insanity gains: 1/3 (crit chance) x 2.1 (haste) x 1/2 (base ticks/s) x 12 (4 insanity per spirit, factor 3 for StM) x 3 (targets) = 12.6 insanity/s

VT insanity gains: 1/3 (crit chance) x 2.1 (haste) x 1/3 (base ticks/s) x 12 (4 insanity per spirit, factor 3 for StM) x 3 (targets) x 0.6 (should be 60% chance for spirit with 6/6 in that artifact trait?) = 5 insanity/s (rounded)

So at 100 stacks there is a base regen of about 15 + 5 + 12.6 = 32.6 insanity/s. AS insanity regen should be somewhat reliable for 3 target with lots of haste, because there are so many dot ticks/s. Its probably possible to get above 33% crit.

2 questions:
How much insanity is drained from void form at 100 stacks?
Any mistake in that calculation?

[Deleted]

Would be amazing if they put in quite a few flavourful dagger whispers, opening up a trade window with someone it tells you to take all their gold or something, targetting an enemy player it tells you to throw them off a cliff or something, mocking us when we die, some unique dialog if we go back into ulduar or ahn'qiraj and stuff.

Nice to hear the Shath'yar language is in, i really liked it when i first saw them talk about it. Have a couple questions regarding it if its possible to test,
1. can you understand it if another spriest talks while you're both in voidform? and can you understand it while not in voidform?
2. if yes does it work cross faction?

[Naga Coatl]

On the alpha forums, someone notes that SP have difficulties while questing/doing outdoor content, because compared to other ranged classes we have no tools (aoe, mobility, cc, etc) to reliably deal with 3+ mob at a time even when multidotting and using our limited devensive, resulting in a sort of 'race' where the priest can only dump damage while being hit hoping to kill them first.

How true is this? Are shadow priests really so lacking when it comes to this type of situation? Are other classes so much safe, effective and dynamic?


Also, even if probably everybody here is sick and tired of talking about this, I have another question/doubt about dot damage. I remember that during MoP, our VT+SW:P dealt about 20% of our single target damage (without considering SA, and ignoring DP that was more a nuke than a 'real dot'), and everybody complained about how dot were 'tickling mobs' and 'hitting them like wet noodles'. Dots became the last prioritized spell after MF, abandoning the old 'don't delay/clip the dot refresh'.
Now logs show that in Legion alpha, dots are doing about 20-25% of our damage (single target), they are still the least prioritized spells after fillers, and everybody is happy because they are suddenly deemed 'very strong'. At this point I'm staring to believe that I'm just insane, and that I don't get something - maybe I don't remember as well as I think, I don't know - but what changed? Why are they very strong compared to a similar situation where they were 'pretty weak'? No sarcasm, I just want to understand.

About StM, I still don't like the talent. It might be strong fun while you are using it - casting while moving, dealing a lot of damage, becoming quicker ad quicker. But the almost anachronistic 10 minute CD and the fact that you die, so the fact that's extremely niche, still makes it a bad talent for my tastes. Not only you have to have a good fps and connection, but also you need to not have those little random problems that PCs/hardware sometimes have. For example, when I play WoW, sometimes the game freezes for about 1-2 seconds - it doesn't happen often, but it happens. The fact that the punishment for uncontrollable factors may be not just a lesser dps gain but straight up death is not fine in my book.

[Isentropy]

Their priority is irrelevant on a single target. What you want dots to do is completely unbalanceable and would make for a very, very unsatisfying rotation where so much of your damage comes from a completely passive source. Everything else you do basically doesn't matter, because your dots are doing the heavy lifting. Needless to say this doesn't translate to multitarget at all. This also further highlights the issues of relying on how long mobs live, as we've seen time and time again that as expansions get later and later we fall behind the burst specs. Your idea of what dots should be is not realistic, not even close.

As for the survival thing, that's just absolute nonsense. Shadow has great tools to deal with multiple mobs at once, and besides, no DPS spec has been struggling to level in years. The concern boils down to 'I suck at the game, but I think it's the spec's fault'

[Aeriel]

Once you get used to surrender, it's so crazy after about 50-60 stacks. The shadow word death buff from last patch for cd reduction was a huge buff to StM actually.

The food loss does suck :/ No way around it currently.

I just wish Surrender was more useful in dungeons.

I like the idea of the sound lol. I might have to steal that.

I don't believe it is in game yet.

Would people prefer if the end of StM was "You are drawn into the Void." Unable to attack, move, be targeted ( remove from combat and count as dead) for the remaining time on the debuff. Then you would not need to eat/rebuff each time you use it. The problem with this idea is what happens when the debuff ends. Dropping back into combat (potential boss facepull), bypassing mechanics, the group waiting on you to return.

[Naga Coatl]

Their priority is irrelevant on a single target. What you want dots to do is completely unbalanceable and would make for a very, very unsatisfying rotation where so much of your damage comes from a completely passive source. Everything else you do basically doesn't matter, because your dots are doing the heavy lifting. Needless to say this doesn't translate to multitarget at all. This also further highlights the issues of relying on how long mobs live, as we've seen time and time again that as expansions get later and later we fall behind the burst specs. Your idea of what dots should be is not realistic, not even close.

Does the priority change in multitarget? I was under the impression that you still have to do VB>SWD>MB>SWP>VT>fillers (because you have to generate that insanity of course). About the role of DoTs, I don't want to just throw arguments just for the sake of it, but IIRC during Cata we were doing very good with about 50% dot damage, and our burst needs were mitigated with the T13 4p - we were strong, but not to the point of being brutally OP, weren't we? I know that burst classes were better for fights like spine, but I think that we were in a better position back then.
My question still stands - why 20% during MoP was 'pretty weak' and 20-25% now is 'really strong'? Please don't think I just want a rotation where we throw dots and reap result passively, I think it could be balanced with new/creative mechanics. Direct damage spells that boost the next dot/dot damage, single target short but strong dots, dots that deal less damage based on the number of targets, I don't know. I just think that if they wanted, maybe they could find something to give more power to dots.

I'm not saying that the current style is not functional, or that is not dot based, I'm just talking about 'class fantasy' / 'design' / 'feel' / etc. I just like the good ol' style where we could dot stuff and watching it die while focusing on a main target instead of relying more and more to direct damage spells like other classes.

As for the survival thing, that's just absolute nonsense.

Good to know, thanks, even if I was not talking stricly about leveling. I'm more worried about level-cap grinding/farming/questing etc.

[Deleted]

Would people prefer if the end of StM was "You are drawn into the Void." Unable to attack, move, be targeted ( remove from combat and count as dead) for the remaining time on the debuff. Then you would not need to eat/rebuff each time you use it. The problem with this idea is what happens when the debuff ends. Dropping back into combat (potential boss facepull), bypassing mechanics, the group waiting on you to return.

It mostly boils down to the negative aspects of being dead which i covered earlier, losing durability (not an issue) food buffs (atm we lose this) buffs (not an issue) runes (unsure how the new runes work if they persist through death since they are now a boss specific progression buff thing), basically its these things that make it annoying which may not be an issue at all, think of it like now, in progression you expect to wipe alot and use all your raid mats, thats part of progression, but think of that being the entire expansion if you always use that talent even on farm. Its quite annoying, that could be a simple fix of you just dont lose anything from dying to it other than just plain old being dead which makes it a non issue really.

The other aspect is the impact on your raid, do you cost a battle res? can your raid accept being down a player even if you do huge damage to make up for being dead? you could have mechanics that require as many people alive as possible to deal with mechanics as you end the fight, or possibly you are the only spriest in the raid and theres something that needs a mass dispel now and again so you cannot risk using this talent at all, maybe a brand new mechanic where allies can be cc'd and your shadowmend damage breaks the cc? things like this make it that you want to only use it in execute phase to limit the drawbacks which means you're really only using the talent at the end of a fight and never using it on the way to bosses which means you're essentially without a 110 talent for the majority of fights unless you do the more common sense thing of using x talent for trash then swap to it for the boss (possibly all bosses?) which brings me to an idea il mention in a sec.

These types of things make you always think of the worst case scenarios and overlook the benefits of the talent, i did the same and intended only to use it on occasions where it was near mandatory but after hearing some of the negative issues i had don't actually exist i am a lot more open to using it more. However i think the death part will always put a lot of people off from using it no matter how good it is.

I believe making it baseline in its current incarnation would be nice though, correct me if i am wrong but i don't think any other class has a 10 min cd ability as a level 110 talent? everyone else has sort of always active talents or short rotational cooldowns or lower no drawback dps cooldowns to use, it would give us room for a better gameplay defining 110 talent and give us another old gods themed ability for our core, something we don't really have a lot of. If it remains as a 110 talent i would like it to not be such a niche and sort of i need to make sure my raid are happy with me dying here sort of deal, possibly like you say you're just unable to do anything offensive until the duration ends and you then can fight again.

Basically i want it to be something where people look at it and go wow that old gods stuff is nice and powerful, not become a stigma of oh ffs priest is using StM and will die alot.

just think of the possibilities we could have as an extra 110 talent to fix any issues we have, a talent that increased our dot duration by a few seconds to ease up on the voidbolt refresh, a spread mechanic, a blink? , oblivion? a proper burst aoe? i am not just thinking for raids here im thinking in general all content, dungeons, solo play, pvp etc

[Aeriel]

Yeah. That's why I was thinking of the "remove from combat" idea. It's more QoL than anything. We wouldn't use an in combat rez (though the best use of the talent makes this point moot with the debuff most likely), retain buffs, etc. leaving a void fragment so that we could move out of combat when we return would avoid the facepull issue.

But really it's more QoL change and reduction of stigma.

[RsinRC]

Or it could be solved with something as simple as not generating any insanity for the remeinder of the fight/dropping combat.

[Kretan]

Does the priority change in multitarget? I was under the impression that you still have to do VB>SWD>MB>SWP>VT>fillers (because you have to generate that insanity of course). About the role of DoTs, I don't want to just throw arguments just for the sake of it, but IIRC during Cata we were doing very good with about 50% dot damage, and our burst needs were mitigated with the T13 4p - we were strong, but not to the point of being brutally OP, weren't we? I know that burst classes were better for fights like spine, but I think that we were in a better position back then.
My question still stands - why 20% during MoP was 'pretty weak' and 20-25% now is 'really strong'? Please don't think I just want a rotation where we throw dots and reap result passively, I think it could be balanced with new/creative mechanics. Direct damage spells that boost the next dot/dot damage, single target short but strong dots, dots that deal less damage based on the number of targets, I don't know. I just think that if they wanted, maybe they could find something to give more power to dots.

I'm not saying that the current style is not functional, or that is not dot based, I'm just talking about 'class fantasy' / 'design' / 'feel' / etc. I just like the good ol' style where we could dot stuff and watching it die while focusing on a main target instead of relying more and more to direct damage spells like other classes.



Good to know, thanks, even if I was not talking stricly about leveling. I'm more worried about level-cap grinding/farming/questing etc.

You can't both be competitive in sngle target and not OP in multi target if your dots do 50% of your damage. Heck right now, on three targets it looks like dots will be about 40% of your damage...... This is a good and balancable way to implement our spec. Any more dot damage and our single target has to suffer......

[Naga Coatl]

You can't both be competitive in sngle target and not OP in multi target if your dots do 50% of your damage. Heck right now, on three targets it looks like dots will be about 40% of your damage...... This is a good and balancable way to implement our spec. Any more dot damage and our single target has to suffer......

That's why I suggested 'new' mechanics like a DoT that can be applied only on a target (old DP), or a DoT that deals good damage on a single target and deals less damage for each target that you apply it on.
I know it would require work, I just think that it could be (could have been) made, somehow. Obviously I don't think that just upping DoT damage with the mechanics we have now would be a solution, I'm just saying that I would have appreciated a bigger % of dot damage to feel more as a dot-focused spec like it was before MoP.

[Aeriel]

Or it could be solved with something as simple as not generating any insanity for the remeinder of the fight/dropping combat.

I considered that, but the ability is really too powerful to not have a downside. Plus there are potential situations where you want to use StM early in a fight such as a council fight with one particular boss that your tactic to burn fast, and no longer generating insanity would be more detrimental than the 1.5-2min of downtime. I'm sure someone could math that out as I do not have time right now.

- - - Updated - - -

That's why I suggested 'new' mechanics like a DoT that can be applied only on a target (old DP), or a DoT that deals good damage on a single target and deals less damage for each target that you apply it on.
I know it would require work, I just think that it could be (could have been) made, somehow. Obviously I don't think that just upping DoT damage with the mechanics we have now would be a solution, I'm just saying that I would have appreciated a bigger % of dot damage to feel more as a dot-focused spec like it was before MoP.

One target limited DoTs really only work as cleave spells (mage bombs), or require a very high cost per cast (current DP). For instance: Hunters have A Murder of Crows that sees little to no use, because, while powerful-ish, the one target and cooldown limits use greatly, and, of course, there is our VEnt.

That said: turning the MSp talent into a cleave DoT would help our AoE issues for larger packs.

[Naga Coatl]

One target limited DoTs really only work as cleave spells (mage bombs), or require a very high cost per cast (current DP). For instance: Hunters have A Murder of Crows that sees little to no use, because, while powerful-ish, the one target and cooldown limits use greatly, and, of course, there is our VEnt.

Old DP worked pretty well I think (even if we weren't known for our ST dps back then), while the new DP wasn't really a dot - half nuke, half 6 second dot (who is also clipped using CoP now). It was our third dot but couldn't be used to multidot, it had no limits or anything. VEnt was a failure, yes, but it also dealt very little damage for its duration and didn't contribute to orb generation, falling behind the other two options. It was also too weak/long to be useful outside raids.
If a spec is built with the idea that it has to have a single target dot (short-ish duration but strong, so you use it quite often along a DD spell, I don't know), maybe it would be possibile. I just don't think that it would be impossibile by default.

[RsinRC]

We got to recognize that we arent dot focused. More like half direct damage and half dots. We are the only spec that has really strong dots AND have a lot of mechanics tied to them both. We arent a full this or that but fully balanced between both. We cant, at this point, buff dots without nerfing our direct damage spells and vice versa. It can be if they wanted to but no other spec is the same. Balance have dots but mainly for the mechanics they bring. Death knights are the same and then warlocks having a spec for full dots.

I like where we're at with having a mix of both as it makes it seem unique in that regard.

[Isentropy]

That's why I suggested 'new' mechanics like a DoT that can be applied only on a target (old DP), or a DoT that deals good damage on a single target and deals less damage for each target that you apply it on.
I know it would require work, I just think that it could be (could have been) made, somehow. Obviously I don't think that just upping DoT damage with the mechanics we have now would be a solution, I'm just saying that I would have appreciated a bigger % of dot damage to feel more as a dot-focused spec like it was before MoP.

Why go through that trouble? Just to say 'our dots now do a big % of our damage on single target'? Then what do you do to make sure there's an enjoyable multitarget rotation? Your idea just creates a very unsatisfying single target rotation, while making an incredibly hard to balance multitarget rotation that won't feel very good as apparently our dots will be weaker on multitarget. It's actually among the dumbest spec ideas I've read in my time playing WoW.