Shadow Nerfs

[Fascinate]

I just wish they would get rid of STM altogether and buff insanity generation and give us a real aoe mechanic.

[bonewax]

I guess i'll say this because its just not sinking in with blizzard. The nerf to mh and vt was not justified HOWEVER its not about that. The entirety of the shadow spec needs to be reworked. Void form is TOO LONG on ramp up time and only gives a short window of opportunity to deal your highest dps. Granted i pvp so my view is biased in terms of being able to put out dps plus survival(yea funny i know right?). Them reverting changes to playstyles that cater to raiding mean ZERO to me. This class (and most casters in general) needs to be overhauled and all hardcasting cut back or removed entirely. And adding that 10% shadowform on the ptr does nothing to help out utility/mobility and survivability in pvp.

[pkusa]

Kinda a random question, but does anyone know why they haven't added Mind Sear to Call to the Void? Wouldn't that, ya know.. make sense?

[davesignal]

Why do game companies insist on announcing things in an official capacity and then say this?

Because programmers are not social creatures and don't listen to their PR people.

[Kilee25]

No.

You could do the rotation at 200ms and still get 100 stacks of Voidform easily, where it came in was around the 130+ when you're literally dead if you make a mistake.

This nerf not only severely reduces the potential length of StM, but gimps shadow as a whole.

Some weird miscommunication happened here. You said no then basically explained the point I had been trying to make. Too tired to try to work out where our differences lie, but short of it is I was referring to the "extreme" end of StM + MH , which is what the nerf affected. Frankly I am mostly in favor of reducing that side of the gameplay.

[tiptopmemer]

Kinda a random question, but does anyone know why they haven't added Mind Sear to Call to the Void? Wouldn't that, ya know.. make sense?

If our mindsear could proc a tentacle that could mind sear, i would feel pretty good about our aoe situation.
Its also a really good way to make sure mindsear doesnt overtake mindflay.

[rowaasr13]

https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs?lang=en-gb

Changes are not final.

IDGAF about twitter. Not until I see actual blue post/patch or hotfix notes. It is not the first time they were "discussing" something and didn't do shit.

[Deleted]

Wrong choice blizzard? Of course it was, looking at data for a single weeks raiding when you've had MONTHS of alpha and beta testing, then giving one spec a 100% nerf HALF A WEEK before mythics open? Are you serious? This nuclear nerf was not nessacary until later in the expansion when our haste scales higher, why not just a faster degeneration? No, please the noobs who can't or won't learn how to play and just cap our MH at 50 stacks so they feel as though they've achieved greatness when they get to 50, because anything beyond that is a waste of time. Take away our interesting play on dispersion and VT to increase our stacks and line up with PI during vf, I've wasted no time in rerolling, blizzard, but thanks for 3 weeks of needless grinding when you've had all the time in the world to balance this.

its not like S2M stops doing any dps after 50 stacks. It just scales linear with the haste buff instead of kepping increasing exponential. It´s just a talent which should have never been released because of balance issues. I just dislike that blizzard nerfs shadow as a hole with the VT changes and not only the "OP" S2M. For my point they could remove the ability from the game. I dont care much about it.

[ttylol]

On short fights yes, on a 8/10 minute fight, one STM will not be enough to make up for the absolute crap damage the rest of the fight.

And the shorter the fight, the more Heroism timeframe matters... Which is usually popped on the pull... Which sucks for Shadow.

Can't win ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Surrender to Madness should be changed to a cooldown that just gives +100 insanity instantly. That'd fix gimp Heroism and fix balance issues :V

[Uberkafros]

I would like S2M and ToF to stop being mandatory talents ( the latter beeing mandatory for years). Imo ToF should be baseline as the "thing" of Shadow.

Edit: Add reaper of souls too on the mandatory 3 traits. Two of which are carried over from previous expansion.

[Gorsameth]

https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs?lang=en-gb

Changes are not final.

they have 3 days to fix it (one of which is a sunday). Sorry if I am not confident in their ability to do so.

[Apero]

https://twitter.com/WarcraftDevs?lang=en-gb

Changes are not final.

Apparently the mindsear Buff was to heavy, tune it back to +25%

[RsinRC]

I find it funny that i can reach 50 stacks with lotv

[Deleted]

I dont even know where to start; i was furious once i saw the changes but i cant say that i was surprised - kneejerk reaction happened. Not the 1st time.
Out of all changes only 1 makes sense - dispersion no longer stacks VF. Thats how it should ve been from the start, because with current mechanics dispersion is always used as offensive cd which greatly helps in reaching 100s+ VFs.
If we look at logs even at max SP is #6 , #8 at hands of above average players (data from WOL MAX and 80% percentile i cannot post links) so i have no idea why they decided to nerf upper midpack dps spec into oblivion especially now when scaling is not yet an issue and wouldnt be until NH because of how horrible itemization in EN is.

Imo the main culprit here is Surrender to Madness, but this is a number hotfix and is not a place to make major changes. I would advice Blizz to take these steps now:

1) Revert the hotfix changes except for dispersion nerf - keep it. It would still leave dispersion some offensive power because you could use it to wait out SWD charges and keep dots ticking at high stacks. It will be very hard for average players to reach 100 stacks with dispersion nerf. Void Torrent shouldnt receice the same treatments because its an offensive ability which overall is already subpar artifact ability that nerf would make it one of the weakest if not the weakest. Possibly limit max duration of SOTM to 2minutes.
Mind Sear is which will either be underpowered crap as it is now (any healer can do more aoe than mindsear) or it will still be underpowered overall, but will make mindflay useless and not usable even in ST scenarios. That spell just needs to go. Give us baseline AOE with ~10s cd which would do moderate instant damage+area dot. Spreading dots is not an option imo because of Mass Hysteria.
2) for 7.1 go for rework of first and last talent row. Twist of Fate should be made baseline - nobody is ever going to pick another talent even if you nerf it to 10% extra damage. The class is supposed to be lagging behind in openers and catching up during execute - that talent only amplifies that ability and any other choice will not matter. Surrender to Madness is very fun and cool but having no choice in multiple tiers because of that talent ( have to pick PI, RoS, ToF) makes it boring. Also all balance has to be done around that talent. And since it scales too well nerfs will have to come and come. There are handful of good suggestions how to change lvl 100 talents with removal of SOTM. For example for LOTV - merge it with voidlord and give extra damage in VF.
Whole SP rework is perfect. It has a perfect base now what is needed is to work around the talents, because currently we are pigeonholed into certain talents and all balancing is done around 1 talent.

[Khorneflake]

its not like S2M stops doing any dps after 50 stacks. It just scales linear with the haste buff instead of kepping increasing exponential. It´s just a talent which should have never been released because of balance issues. I just dislike that blizzard nerfs shadow as a hole with the VT changes and not only the "OP" S2M. For my point they could remove the ability from the game. I dont care much about it.

Of course it doesn't, but blizzard decided to cap hysteria at 50 stacks which makes the "dying" part pointless when at >50. How hard is it to balance? All you do is increase the degeneration rate at certain thresholds, because s2m is the ONLY way we can be competitive with other classes. Nerfing it now when optimal gear isn't even available is completely unjustified, especially this close to the mythics opening.

[l33t]

I find it funny that i can reach 50 stacks with lotv

I wonder if that happened before or after you "outdpsed everyone including demon hunters in heroic dungeons".

[Deleted]

I wonder if that happened before or after you "outdpsed everyone including demon hunters in heroic dungeons".

Ehh 50 stacks with legacy is simple enough with disp and VT. That's why the nerfs are devastating...

[Gorsameth]

Ehh 50 stacks with legacy is simple enough with disp and VT. That's why the nerfs are devastating...

Indeed they are 1 post poster...

[KaPe]

Ehh 50 stacks with legacy is simple enough with disp and VT. That's why the nerfs are devastating...

It might be "simple" with PvP talents, starting at 35%, VT relic for extra SA procs, zero movement and Bloodlust. Or maybe you have a different definition of "simple".

[Syenite]

About time they redo the whole tallent.. (Someone linked it in guildchat, not sure who should be credited)


They might as well be honnest about it.