[Legion] Shadow Priest Discussion

[Kretan]

Kretan, listen to Theed - I hold his opinion on Shadow PvP higher than my own opinion, and I'm both the Shadowpriest & PvP forum moderator.

Responses to your points:
1) ToF doesn't help when trained either. Big executes are nice, and they do help to secure kills, but Void Form is stronger. Uptime on ToF doesn't matter, it's all about - when you have that brief window of opportunity - and you have the burst to make it a kill: being able to get into Void Form at that moment counts for a lot - and if they get into Death range, people often die anyways because there are so many execute abilities now (in which case ToF is overkill, and 'does nothing').


2) Getting into Void Form randomly is not the goal for PvP, the moment you aren't trained (which usually means your teammates just pulled off their CC chain) - you need to be into Void Form and Void-murdering the kill target - because you likely only have a couple GCDs before their CC chain will end and you will be trained again. Getting into Void Form in 2 GCDs is worth 100x more than getting into it in 5 GCDs: because it gives you 3 more GCDs of Void Form damage during your kill window. That's the difference between a kill and a near-miss - and winning in Arena is all about overcoming the Near-Misses, to perfect the Kill.

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." - is the old expression


3) Actually a lot of rot comps are quite good at executing - Shadowpriests have always had some of the bigger executes in the game, and Unholy DKs are no slouches either. In the past Affliction's Drain Soul was quite strong, though it may not be much in Legion (but I suspect Affliction will be overpowered in Legion arenas, so you'll see no tears from me for Drain Soul). Execute damage hasn't often been a rot comps problem (and, given we're talking Spriests here - has never a Spriest-based rot comps problem).

Rots are a good talking point though - because they explain precisely the problem that Theed is getting at. The reason Spriest rot comps rarely work - is because so much of our CC breaks on damage now, but to rot effectively, we need to DoT everything. Without CC, we don't survive - without DoTs we can't rot. Rots only succeed when the enemy healer can't keep up with our damage - but in a world where healers can heal to full in a single (sometimes instant!) cast in Arenas - this is a difficult endeavour.

Rots thrived back when we had Drain Mana - the process was at the time three parts, 1) Rot everything, 2) Drain Mana / Mana Burn the healer, 3) dispelling our DoTs was tedious (1-2 at a time) and painful (strong dispel deterrents on UA / VT). Without our mana draining spells, and weaker dispel deterrents, the effectiveness of rot comps declined significantly - almost vanished spare a few portions of a couple seasons. Ever since then, the dominant path to victory in Arenas has been burst-oriented. You stick CC on the healer (and you have to know it will hold before you commit), and then you have a couple seconds to kill someone or watch them return to full health.

*This isn't pointed at you, more at the whole thread* This is exactly what I was hoping for. A discussion on the topic. I'm not sure why so many people in this thread are so averse to just discussing things if the discussion is anything beyond "I agree". Don't take things so personally when someone doesn't 100% agree with a point. We can learn from discussions.....echo chambers aren't useful. Theed might be 100% right in the end, and I could be totally wrong; but that isn't the point. I just want to discuss why shadow word void would be preferred instead of agreeing with someone just because. We don't all have to come to a consensus on every discussion, and it's perfectly fine to agree to disagree. Just want to open up discussion on the subject is all...

Anyway, to respond:

1) Twist of fate to me isn't a talent which has a focus on insanity generation, and it isn't supposed to help in that area at all. I brought up that shadow word void doesn't help while trained because it's main purpose to me is to get in to void form inside of 2 casts give or take. I feel like currently, unless we are focused, we can already get in to void form extremely quickly to the point where shadow word void barely has any practical benefit. In my opinion, in a hypothetical situation where you could free cast, shaving only a few seconds off of void form downtime isn't that impactful in the end when our damage is rot based.

In the more likely case of being trained and interrupted having a shadow word void cast is pretty useless to me because you'll already be struggling to keep up dots and mind blast. That's where I get that argument of "it doesn't help while trained" from. I know from the rest of your post you don't agree with the idea that a few seconds is unimpactful though....just explaining my train of thought.

In the situation where let's say someone is dropping low but void form just ended, getting back to void form quickly is still 100% possible without shadow word void. If they are below 35%, you could mind blast -> death someone and be at 42 insanity instantly, and if you take any damage at all you would be at 52 from driven to madness. Shadow word void would likely get you into void form 1-2 globals sooner than without shadow word void. But this is all dependent on hitting a shadow word death. If you don't have the ability to death someone at 35%, I can see where shadow word void adds a ton of flexibility.

2) A point I wanted to make is that hitting void form isn't a huge burst of instant damage. It just turns on the ability to rot very hard, and it's effectiveness needs to ramp up over time. Shadow isn't going to be killing people in short CC chains in Legion imo; they just don't have the bursty tools they did before. It all got traded in for strong sustained. If someone is up out of execute range, I don't think jumping right back in to void form is all of a sudden going to tank them down; if they are in execute range I think it is very quick to snap right back in to void form.

3) Really? I was under the impression that finishing a target off was a weakness of rot comps. I mean it's not like a glaring hole, but it's not their strong suit. The way I see twist of fate is that if you can get it to proc with the team rotting, adding 20% damage to void form is going to up the pressure to a ridiculous level making it very very hard to recover, and one proc can feed in to more procs.

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In the end, I think the answer to this comes down to what type of comp shadow ends up being a part of. If they are part of a stun burst set up, then I agree shadow word void is going to probably edge out twist of fate because those few globals will be meaningful likely. If shadow is part of rot oriented comps, then I would have to think that twist of fate would win out.

I don't think shadow is going to be in a position of strength if they have to be a part of burst comps because there's other classes that could offer everything we do with more burst inside that stun and have more control or defensives. We would be a poor partner for a burst comp...why take a shadow priest for a burst comp when other specs are better for it? In WoD we have great unstoppable burst with high CC...its our pvp niche really. In Legion though we are at our most effective when throwing up cleave on the whole team and melting them with maximum dps; that's where we can't be replaced by other classes to me. Our damage on one target in arena isn't going to be good in a burst setup imo; we don't have the tools like we do on live.

If i end up being right about us in rot comps, I worry about rot style comps just not being good, or shadow's defensive tools not working with the rot style in 3s though.

[Yvaelle]

So, I think part of the issue is that we're all assuming burst comps will be the 99% of Gladiator+ arena comps, as they have been for the past few expansions now.

You're taking issue with that assumption - and the reasons you list are premised upon an assumption you didn't state - that rot comps will be the way Shadow is played in Legion. If true, this hopefully explains why everyone is conflicted here - because you're working from a different (contentious) premise.

If rot comps work, and if rot comps can get people down to below 35% frequently, and if Shadow is the 'train this until dead' target - then ToF is the logical choice.

However, if healers still instantly and fully heal people all the time, and if they have so much mana you can't rot them out of mana - then the only comps which will thrive in Legion - as with the past few expansions since arguably WotLK, it's burst comps or bust.

In a burst comp, where you may only have a kill window of a less than 10 GCDs to ~100-0 someone, you
a) won't likely have ToF active until the end of the burst window,
b) need to get into Void Form ASAP at the start of that kill window (ex. the moment the demon hunter is feared off your ass),
c) need to coordinate your burst with your partners before Stun->Silence on the enemy healer ends.

The debate then, isn't about SW: Void at all, it's about whether rot comps will make a comeback. I would much prefer something like Shadowplay or Unholyplay to make a comeback - but I don't see it :/

Reasons:
Dispels are strong, and dispel deterrents are weak.
Healer heals are powerful, and their mana is considerable.
Spriest / Lock CC is constantly cut, and breaks on damage (compared to the hey-day, when fear would often run for most of the duration despite full dots).

[Kretan]

So, I think part of the issue is that we're all assuming burst comps will be the 99% of Gladiator+ arena comps, as they have been for the past few expansions now.

You're taking issue with that assumption - and the reasons you list are premised upon an assumption you didn't state - that rot comps will be the way Shadow is played in Legion. If true, this hopefully explains why everyone is conflicted here - because you're working from a different (contentious) premise.

If rot comps work, and if rot comps can get people down to below 35% frequently, and if Shadow is the 'train this until dead' target - then ToF is the logical choice.

However, if healers still instantly and fully heal people all the time, and if they have so much mana you can't rot them out of mana - then the only comps which will thrive in Legion - as with the past few expansions since arguably WotLK, it's burst comps or bust.

In a burst comp, where you may only have a kill window of a less than 10 GCDs to ~100-0 someone, you
a) won't likely have ToF active until the end of the burst window,
b) need to get into Void Form ASAP at the start of that kill window (ex. the moment the demon hunter is feared off your ass),
c) need to coordinate your burst with your partners before Stun->Silence on the enemy healer ends.

The debate then, isn't about SW: Void at all, it's about whether rot comps will make a comeback. I would much prefer something like Shadowplay or Unholyplay to make a comeback - but I don't see it :/

Reasons:
Dispels are strong, and dispel deterrents are weak.
Healer heals are powerful, and their mana is considerable.
Spriest / Lock CC is constantly cut, and breaks on damage (compared to the hey-day, when fear would often run for most of the duration despite full dots).

I agree. Well put. I didn't state that premise clear enough. That's my bad. I agree with your view on what the meta will be if that's how things operate. I really wish they could make rot comps a thing again; I find that enjoyable.

A few things I do see in favor of a possible rot is that CC is trimmed considerably, CC doesn't clear dots, and shadow priests can talent out of fear to run with a warlock. On top of that, the damage break threshold on fears was increased by a very large amount in legion...some think too much.

If the meta really does favor stun -> burst, then I think we will be among the weakest specs in arena....we'd probably be top notch for RBGs, but not arena. Even if we have some very strong damage, if we can't pack our punch in to a burst.....what's the point if sustained isn't effective damage?

[Tanned]

I tried gaming it like that Tanned, many times, and while it felt like a fun thing to do it didn't actually net me any significant damage increase versus just using it on cooldown.

My current thinking is that not every Void Torrent should be a "god torrent". I will say that Void Torrent with Void Lord + PI + Mother Shiraz's Seduction, 4 seconds into Voidform feels amazingly fun.

[Ilir]

My current thinking is that not every Void Torrent should be a "god torrent". I will say that Void Torrent with Void Lord + PI + Mother Shiraz's Seduction, 7.5 seconds into Voidform feels amazingly fun.

That's what I was doing on the alpha... I was adding the troll racial in it... it was... funny (those 1m+ damage baseline)

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But yeah I guess if you know you'll have a strong haste buff or something along those lines in a few sec, it's better to wait for VTor

[Djriff]

Void Torrent snapshots your stats right? So if I have lust and it disappears mid Void Torrent, i shouldn't lose ticks because of that right?

[davesignal]

No apparent nerfs in the new build, but Mind Bomb got buffed. Instant cast with a 2 second delay, instead of having a cast time.

[Ilir]

Guys we really need to find where our hidden artefact is ! My guess those things are in legion zone only.

For reference : i dropped a book on a legion mob, and the book starts a quest. This book is reserved to the demonist class atm and after looking on WoWhead the quest text, it is related to the afflock weapon. I guess it's their hidden appearance. The mob I killed was a warlock.

Maybe we need to find and kill some cult related bastards.

[Ramaloce]

No apparent nerfs in the new build, but Mind Bomb got buffed. Instant cast with a 2 second delay, instead of having a cast time.

The stun duration went from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. Looks more like a nerf to me.

[Ilir]

Still no change to Void Ray, to Mindspike, to Shadowcrash.

No word on SoI aswell ...

It's really getting old.

[davesignal]

The stun duration went from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. Looks more like a nerf to me.

Oh, well, missed that. Still seems like it'll be more useful, since it's uninterruptable and usable on the move.

[Kretan]

Yikes. I mean the instant portion of mind bomb is nice, but only 2 seconds? Seems a little short to me. It's just a worse shadowfury.

[Ilir]

It's more of a nerf for me imo.

The target has a debuff => he'll just run away from his teammate.

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I think they nerfed the tentacle from Voidform.

[Kretan]

It's more of a nerf for me imo.

The target has a debuff => he'll just run away from his teammate.

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I think they nerfed the tentacle from Voidform.

haha what did they do to it?

[Ilir]

When you pop VF, you have no tentacle (used to have 2 on your shoulders).

Those 2 spawn way too late into VF.... and like at 30 stack I have like 2-3 tentacles.

Seriously pissing me off, we ask for more visual and they nerf it -_-

[Kretan]

When you pop VF, you have no tentacle (used to have 2 on your shoulders).

Those 2 spawn way too late into VF.... and like at 30 stack I have like 2-3 tentacles.

Seriously pissing me off, we ask for more visual and they nerf it -_-

To be fair that is probably a buff in some people's eyes.

[pixelated senpai]

When you pop VF, you have no tentacle (used to have 2 on your shoulders).

Those 2 spawn way too late into VF.... and like at 30 stack I have like 2-3 tentacles.

Seriously pissing me off, we ask for more visual and they nerf it -_-

Seen alot of upvotes about this topic on the wow forums, people dont seem to like going full hentai. So instead of a glyph i guess they just change the visual uptime.

[davesignal]

I'm gonna start calling people like that Big Bird Priests; they seem to be overly attached to the bird aesthetic.

[Aeriel]

i'm gonna start calling people like that big bird priests; they seem to be overly attached to the bird aesthetic.

don't diss my ravens!

[Kretan]

I'm gonna start calling people like that Big Bird Priests; they seem to be overly attached to the bird aesthetic.

I like the idea of tentacles on voidform...I just don't like THESE tentacles lol.