[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Ilir]

I remember in the H2P discord it was discussed and considered useless in comparison to the other talents. Also considering that stuff gets pretty hectic once you get ~50% haste SW: V would just be sitting at times.

Okay, that's what I thought then.

That's a shame. Another useless talent -.-

[Kretan]

Is shadow word void useless ? That's a real question... I haven't taken it for like 2 months now and I don't feel like I need it. Is it just me or ?

I think that for the most part yes, it will be useless. I feel like we have two other good talents choices though.

[Deleted]

After watching the most recent Shadow Priest PvP video's I can already see that once again they can't deal with melee pressure when focussed.

Maybe I am better off rolling a Lock or Mage in Legion...

[Aeriel]

What about Mindspike? How's that one doing compared to the other two on the branch?

StM is potentially the most powerful cooldown in the game, but its usage is limited since the cooldown does not reset on wipe/boss kill. Basically it will be used on the last boss of a dungeon and in execute in raids. PvP it is likely to never be used.

LotV has shown to be a DPS loss for some people due to not activating properly at 60 insanity, and shorter VF uptime.

MSp is currently a dps and insanity generation loss over MF, since we, at best, have 2 MSp between MB after the first VF. MF also benefits from giving damage and insanity on tick.

So we have one limited use, but extremely powerful cooldown. A talent that is an increase on paper, bit decrease in execution. Finally, a talent that sees less and less affect as the fight goes on, and is outclassed by the ability it replaces.

MSp can be tuned better, but currently is DoA. LotV needs an additional effect for it to be a DPS gain.

[deviantcultist]

I remember in the H2P discord it was discussed and considered useless in comparison to the other talents. Also considering that stuff gets pretty hectic once you get ~50% haste SW: V would just be sitting at times.

When did that change? Last time I checked, SW:V was optimal and FotM was the noob trap. Is FotM the way to go now?

[Koire]

Another SimulationCraft observation.
It appears that Shadow Crash currently does no damage and only generates insanity regardless of how many targets you add to the simulation.
http://i.imgur.com/w9tCiOI.png
It must be due to targeting. Any tips on how to make it work? Do I need to somehow define the coordinates? Is it NYI?

[Ilir]

damn this avatar thing on MMO-C ... at first i saw Leet and I was like "omfg he changed his avatar ? Is that him ? Damn the boy is fine" then I saw that everyone had the same.

[Isentropy]

StM is potentially the most powerful cooldown in the game, but its usage is limited since the cooldown does not reset on wipe/boss kill. Basically it will be used on the last boss of a dungeon and in execute in raids. PvP it is likely to never be used.

LotV has shown to be a DPS loss for some people due to not activating properly at 60 insanity, and shorter VF uptime.

MSp is currently a dps and insanity generation loss over MF, since we, at best, have 2 MSp between MB after the first VF. MF also benefits from giving damage and insanity on tick.

So we have one limited use, but extremely powerful cooldown. A talent that is an increase on paper, bit decrease in execution. Finally, a talent that sees less and less affect as the fight goes on, and is outclassed by the ability it replaces.

MSp can be tuned better, but currently is DoA. LotV needs an additional effect for it to be a DPS gain.

Legacy of the Void and Mind Spike are both DPS gains, they're just marginal. The Insanity bug you're describing wasn't limited to Legacy of the Void and has been fixed for a while now.

As for Shadow Word: Void, that was never considered the best talent at any point, it just provided convenience and felt good to use. The best talent on the row will probably be Twist of Fate for all situations. The only real use for Shadow Word: Void right now is leveling.

[Aeriel]

Thanks @Isentropy. I stand corrected. I was under the impression that MF still won out due to being able to gain more ticks per GCD and thus greater benefit in 1s than MSp.

[Kretan]

After watching the most recent Shadow Priest PvP video's I can already see that once again they can't deal with melee pressure when focussed.

Maybe I am better off rolling a Lock or Mage in Legion...

I have bad news about mage and warlock Or anything else for that matter not beating their target over the head with a stick. If it isn't melee, it sucks. Mage is among the worst in the game atm.

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When did that change? Last time I checked, SW:V was optimal and FotM was the noob trap. Is FotM the way to go now?

Since insanity is so easy to come by so quickly, shadow word void just has no place except leveling.

[Djriff]

I've actually been taking ToF over FotM. SW: V didn't seem worth picking up as I was hitting the GCD wall pretty hard in the opening scenario. Not to sure what the difference between ToF and FotM is though. I'm sure there's a threshold where one's better than the other, but until we can do some testing, i''m not sure what that is.

[Kretan]

I've actually been taking ToF over FotM. SW: V didn't seem worth picking up as I was hitting the GCD wall pretty hard in the opening scenario. Not to sure what the difference between ToF and FotM is though. I'm sure there's a threshold where one's better than the other, but until we can do some testing, i''m not sure what that is.

I'm guessing it will be determined by how many times you can snipe a proc. I imagine twist of fate will be the default 99% of the times because 20% damage for 10 sec is like a mini dps cooldown.

[Djriff]

I'm guessing it will be determined by how many times you can snipe a proc.

Well I mean that's a given. I imagine it also depends on fight length. If a boss stays <35% for X minutes, I want to know how long X is before FotM moves ahead. In a fight with a bunch of adds if you can snipe a lot it seems like a no brainer, but you never know.

[Kretan]

Well I mean that's a given. I imagine it also depends on fight length. If a boss stays <35% for X minutes, I want to know how long X is before FotM moves ahead. In a fight with a bunch of adds if you can snipe a lot it seems like a no brainer, but you never know.

That's true. I just don't get why twist of fate is a talent. It's almost too good to compete with.

[Aeriel]

That's true. I just don't get why twist of fate is a talent. It's almost too good to compete with.

The same could be said for RoS, but the insanity change for SWD makes it a little less mandatory.

[snaxattax]

swv seemed pretty great during the preview because it seemed like the overlap of voidform buffs would be a thing. instead they hardcapped it thru voidlord so the usefulness of the talent and performance ceiling of the spec in general were greatly reduced.

so many of our talents are goofy mechanical orphans that would have been good in some other setting or under older mechanics (like void ray being a substantially shittier version of the old, very strong dark evangelism, or power infusion in the abovementioned multiple-voidform stack idea).

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The same could be said for RoS, but the insanity change for SWD makes it a little less mandatory.

ros is still mandatory to use STM

also lotv isn't a huge dps increase without 4t19, it's pretty good with that bonus, though. of course, my super secret the devs have downs prediction is that they'll significantly nerf the damage of voidbolt once we start testing with tier bonuses.

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Not to sure what the difference between ToF and FotM is though.

it'll come down to how much mastery we have, and 4t19 etc. fotm only buffs mind flay/blast whereas tof buffs everything but mindbender.

[Djriff]

I really hope with the change to SW: D that Lingering Insanity isn't to much of a difference from RoS. The talent just makes the whole playstyle feel smoother to me.

Anyone feel that SW: P hits like a wet noodle and doesn't really feel like it's worth the GCD?

[snaxattax]

even discounting apparitions and talent/artifact interactions, swp has more dpct than voidbolt. it's just that since it's so short we end up with a 3 target practical cap on multitarget effectiveness.

lingering insanity is almost guaranteed to be the talent of choice with 4t19 to maximize our priority target burst. it's just dumb that it gives us nothing when we use surrender to madness (which further requires the 30 insanity SWDs to get a worthwhile STM voidform).

[Kaesebrezen]

Another SimulationCraft observation.
It appears that Shadow Crash currently does no damage and only generates insanity regardless of how many targets you add to the simulation.
http://i.imgur.com/w9tCiOI.pngIt must be due to targeting. Any tips on how to make it work? Do I need to somehow define the coordinates? Is it NYI?

It worked at one point until Blizzard changed the spell data. So you just have to wait until Twintop gets around to fixing it.

As for Shadow Word: Void, that was never considered the best talent at any point, it just provided convenience and felt good to use.

It was very good when all of the stuff happened on entering Voidform, i.e old Sphere, Lingering Insanity lasting 20 seconds, Void Lord being a 10% additional buff to Voidform.

[davesignal]

I feel like Shadow Word: Void would be fine if it was just a talent to give Mind Blast three charges and maybe an additional 5 Insanity per cast. Replace the MB-has-charges legendary with something else.