Most of this will probably be way too late as feedback since Blizzard has stated we are basically done with major changes now (except mages of course, because they are special).
This is based off someone who will only be interested in raiding and Mythic+ dungeons, very limited time with the beta and months of lurking in this thread. For some perspective I loved the Auspicious Spirits style during BRF and early HFC and was more than happy for CoP to exist as an alternative.
Anyway, a dump of my thoughts
Void Form
- CD too low on Mind Blast and Void Bolt. No time for any fillers. GCD being lowered every 1 second also means a 3gcd VB cd feels clunky. There is a wait of about 0.5 gcd between casting 2nd spell after Void Bolt and it coming back off cooldown. Feels awkward. More time spent on Mind Flay would mitigate this since it is a variable length channel.
- Feels so bad when boss mechanics cause a wasted Void Form - immunity, high movement, etc
Insanity Resource
- No way to bank resources and save them for later. Void Form is a huge damage boost, need to use it straight away. Previous orbs resource system allowed for a small amount of flexibility with resource spending, that is completely gone now.
- Zero Insanity, zero Lingering Insanity opener is awful. Not just the damage, but the feel of the spec. I don’t agree that classes should start with zero of their resources at all. People will probably find ways to entire combat with a partial bar, if not an entire bar, and as soon as that happens it will feel mandatory. Either allow some amount of Insanity generation out of combat, or perhaps a spell only usable out of combat, with a small that would could be channeled to quickly gain insanity. If you know you are about to enter combat, then would it not make sense to perform some ritual (Ritual of Insanity) to commune with the Old Gods to build power?
Dots
- All the interesting interaction is on SWP. VT only has 30% Apparition trigger through artifact.
- Could differential the dots a little. Cast VT just for big damage, cast SWP for setting up other effects (apparitions, Sphere of Insanity, Shadowy Insight). Allow dot spread on SWP since the damage is weaker, so less issues with having it on lots of targets.
AoE
- Shadow crash baseline, replace it with Void Singularity
- Void Singularity - Black hole style spells. Moderate ticking damage, draws enemies towards the centre (or place it on a mob and draw everything towards 1 target). Synergy with Shadow Crash/Mind Sear. Provides shadow with very valuable raid utility
- Sphere of Insanity needs a huge buff - but I like the concept
- SWP dot spread would still make a lot of sense. SoI is evidence that designers want shadow AoE to be tied to dots, but it's too time consuming to set up (coupled with SWP's really low duration). Don't understand why designers are ok with SWP spread from Mind Sear in pvp, but not PvE. Where they worried about the old artifact trait where Mind Sear would trigger SWP ticks?
Talents
- Shadowy Insight: Instant cast Mind Blast feels great, but Cooldown reset spells NEED to have a charge system baseline. Value of a proc varies too much otherwise 2 charges on mind blast would provide flexibility for SI procs and current Mind Spike implementation. Would make Void Form feel much smoother since you wouldn’t lose any MB casts when Void Bolt and MB come off cooldown at the same time
- Power Infusion: +haste seems really weak when we are already drowning in it. Don't need any more ways to make the spec more stressful and spammy.
- Mania: Maxes out too low. Unreliable as insanity fluctuates
- Body and Soul: Tying movement speed to one of our only defensive abilities is awful. Damage mitigation and movement are 2 completely separate scenarios, one spell with a cooldown cannot fill both roles.
- Bring back something to replace the feel of Glyphed Leap of Faith (or just give us that spell back). Teleport to a friendly's position - fits the theme. Compare current spriest movement talents with BM hunter is night and day. Disengage + Posthaste. Burst movement, 50% more speed increase for almost 3 times the duration. On a spell with a recharge system for a total of 2 jumps + 16 seconds movement speed.
- Dominant Mind: Cool idea but feels hard to balance. If you can control powerful mobs, then you have no choice but to balance around that, which makes it mandatory (only dps spell in this tier). If the mobs do low damage, then it's only purpose is for removing a dangerous add. Still has a use, but way less interesting. Please please please don’t force us to constantly find Mind Controlled mobs in order to feel competitive.
- Void Ray: Repudiation of War was a crap mechanic for a trinket, and this is worse in every way. Buff is way too short, for way too little gain. Also current Voidform gameplay has almost no room for filler spells, so this is quickly forgotten.
- San'layn: Boring, but if it's balanced well then it's fine to have a passive talent.
- Surrender To Madness: great idea. Love how unique it is. Only reason it’s considered powerful right now is because the other talents in this tier are super weak.
- Mind Spike: Nice idea, would fill a gap where shadow currently lack passive "free" cleave that a lot of specs have. Too restrictive in practice though since the detonation is triggered by one of our highest priority cd spells, Mind Blast. Need a better way to detonate it: detonate button?
The Cleave Niche
- Very rare that the goldilocks number is reached. Currently this is capped at 3 targets for shadow because of Void Bolt dot refresh and SWP 14 second timer.
- Damage spread is too even and fixed
- A guess would be that Legion priest 3 target cleave damage split would be around 40/30/30.
- Legion cleave doesn’t allow for any choice in damage distribution
- WoD Auspicious Spirits cleave would be around 70/15/15 split on damage when there is a priority target, but that could be adjusted at any time by choosing which target to cast Devouring Plague on. It was amazing
Misc
- Shadowfiend: what even is this? 3m cooldown for almost no damage. Would rather see this function like Mindbender as baseline, and then find another use for Mindbender
- Current speed of the spec is verging on unplayable with 200+ ms for anyone looking to max out the potential of their character
- Spectral Guise: literally leaving a shadow of yourself behind to confuse the enemy. How is this not perfect for the spec?