Future of Shadow Priests

[Twigzy]

I completely agree with your impression of StM. It's really fun, and can be really annoying.
That being said, it does sucks since we can't exactly use and abuse that talent (the talent that actually gives us competitive DPS) in a lot of scenarios efficiently and consistently, much like dungeons and world content. I don't like feeling like my class is lackluster in everything but raid bosses, and even then it's not like a fire mage or marksman hunter will have any issue keeping up with me.

[arioc]

I really love the talent to be honest, I really hope they find some way of balancing it. The challenge of trying to push as many Voidform stacks as possible is just really refreshing to the fire mage I was playing earlier. The talent really gives people who are good and play smart a way to shine which I love since those aspects of the game seem to slowly become fewer. It really brought out the fun in WoW raiding again for me after they butchered my main that I had been playing since the start of WotLK (Warlock).

[Clavicle]

Something needs to be done to fix the L100 talents. I have StM, but I so rarely use it that I really just don't have a L100 talent. I think I hit the button maybe 10-15 times a week; which is less than once an hour of play.

While I am a game designer, I am not a digital game designer and have no idea how to balance these things. But something like the following is what I would do.
The goal being to make LotV useful for multiple situations, make Mind Spike viable for AoE for Mythic+, and StM a choice.

Legacy of the Void: Voidform may be activated anytime your Insanity level is 70 or higher. At 100 Insanity Void Erruption cast time is reduced by 50% and upon entering Voidform you can cast while moving until your Insanity drops below 60.

Mind Spike: 40 yard range. 1.5 sec cast. Assail the target with shadowy spikes, dealing (60% of Spell power) [up from 45%] Shadowfrost damage and leaving a spike embedded in their mind. Mind Blast will detonate these spikes, each dealing 250% [up from 200%] of their original damage to the main target, and 150% [up from 100%] to all nearby targets.

Surrender to Madness: All your Insanity generating abilities generate 100% more Insanity, and you can cast while moving, until you exit Voidform. Then you gain the Maddened by the Void debuff that prevents you from using Surrender to Madness again until you have exited combat (like potions, expect because you have the debuff until you exit combat, you can't preStM like you pre-pot).
Note: Dying and combat res would not remove this debuff.

[Deleted]

I really love the talent to be honest, I really hope they find some way of balancing it. The challenge of trying to push as many Voidform stacks as possible is just really refreshing to the fire mage I was playing earlier. The talent really gives people who are good and play smart a way to shine which I love since those aspects of the game seem to slowly become fewer. It really brought out the fun in WoW raiding again for me after they butchered my main that I had been playing since the start of WotLK (Warlock).

The problem is that balancing S2M is almost impossible (at least I don't see any way to do it). Sure they could just nerf S2M again to 125% or something and then when 7.3 released to 100% or something but that is just stupid or they could put a cap on Mass Hysteria like they planned in the Hotfix, but i doubt that would really balance S2M.

They either nerf it into the ground so it isn't worth it to use it anymore (although the other level 100 talents are just so bad that this might be a challenge for Blizz). Or they redesign it into something like 50% more insanity gain on a 3 min CD without the death or they just straight up remove it.

And while it's not like other classes can't compete with a shadow, the thing is the insane (execute) burst is just too strong in my opinion ... 750k dps over the course of 1,5 minutes is just too much, especially for encounters like Ursoc with an 'Enrage' mechanic so that the hardest phase of the fight ... it is like you have an extra damage dealer for that phase.

Generally if they keep S2M they need to figure out a way to increase our damage while outside of S2M while lowering the overall damage we deal during S2M. Using the Ursoc Mythic Rank 1 Shadow: instead of 3:30 with 323k dps and 1:28 with 912k dps it would be better if it was like 442k and 625k (if i calculated correctly) just to get my point across with some numbers .

[Bangaa]

Now I'm not an expert on Priests (I do have one at 100, just haven't leveled it yet) but what if we make a "Surrender to Madness" row kind of like the Druid Affinity row. You could have a Surrender to C'thun which would modify some other aspect Shadow Priest gameplay (focused on vision and void zones?) then a Surrender to Yogg-Saron which is like what we currently have because Yogg was all about death. The last one could be Surrender to N'Zoth and this is just my idea but what if it transformed us in to a melee berserker that focuses on cleave damage and it could look like your races version of what the Throbbing Blood Orb turns you into (this would require new models but it would also allow for cool animations) or possibly like the Avatar of Soggoth if you want to become a faceless one. This melee form would change void eruption into an AoE ground slam and your usual cast abilities would be replaced with appropriate melee ones.


All this stuff is just an idea but to me when you have a talent that is as cool as S2M but as difficult to balance as everyone is talking about why not just create 3 different versions an balance it around similar spells. There is also some precedence for Old Gods transforming their chosen because C'thun empowered Cho'Gall.

I also like @Clavicle's idea for buffing the other two talents because it changes the usual brain-dead talent of Legacy of the Void into something that has some gameplay with it by trying to stay above 60 insanity. I also liked the idea proposed before about not dying after S2M if you killed your target but that might be gameable with adds.

[arioc]

The problem is that balancing S2M is almost impossible (at least I don't see any way to do it). Sure they could just nerf S2M again to 125% or something and then when 7.3 released to 100% or something but that is just stupid or they could put a cap on Mass Hysteria like they planned in the Hotfix, but i doubt that would really balance S2M.

They either nerf it into the ground so it isn't worth it to use it anymore (although the other level 100 talents are just so bad that this might be a challenge for Blizz). Or they redesign it into something like 50% more insanity gain on a 3 min CD without the death or they just straight up remove it.

And while it's not like other classes can't compete with a shadow, the thing is the insane (execute) burst is just too strong in my opinion ... 750k dps over the course of 1,5 minutes is just too much, especially for encounters like Ursoc with an 'Enrage' mechanic so that the hardest phase of the fight ... it is like you have an extra damage dealer for that phase.

Generally if they keep S2M they need to figure out a way to increase our damage while outside of S2M while lowering the overall damage we deal during S2M. Using the Ursoc Mythic Rank 1 Shadow: instead of 3:30 with 323k dps and 1:28 with 912k dps it would be better if it was like 442k and 625k (if i calculated correctly) just to get my point across with some numbers .

Sure, on the other hand if they remove our niche in raids which is very good single target/multi dot damage and a great execute we have nothing left. Its already painful enough to not be able to run high m+ as a shadow priest because the class just doesnt perform that well in dungeons compared to for example mages or hunters.

Blizzard could alredy make us better by making mind spike a viable choice so it could be used in dungeons instead of StM. Sadly I have no idea how they can balance StM and if the talent is removed we really have nothing left, without the talent we would basically be on the level of elemental shamans.

Also if you look at the logs for mythic Ursoc there aren't exclusively Shadow Priests there, you also have some fire mages and enhancement shamans. Some of these classes are close to keeping up with us on a fight that is basically perfect for the shadow priest (single target with BL on the execute phase).

[Shandalar]

Shadow priest deserves a big nerf. I expect it will be soon.

[Deleted]

First thing to say is that people overestimate general performance of Shadow in raids, imo. Yes, our max potential is pretty incredible, but really, so few people have gear, skill and raid team to reach numbers people here gasp about. If your group has so strong DPS that you can basically S2M on pull (heroic ursoc?) or Shadow can double s2m lined with double corruption damage buff played by padlords then, no shit Sherlock, top logs can look super skewed. But vast, vast majority of shadows don't meet these conditions often or ever.
We indeed have strongest execute by far and everyone knows it because that's what Shadow was meant to be. Sure we can loose our execute potential and maybe reach warrior level of execute, but what would be the new Shadow's niche? Multi-dotting? We don't bring much utility in Legion, we actually bring less actually useful utility than many other hybrids or even pure DPSes.

No, in Legion we're here to do damage and top meters just like Rogues and Mages.

Thing I've been saying and posting about for a while now would be to bring Twist of Fate to ~10% damage bonus, make it baseline, replace it with some new talent and free up Tier 1 of talents (lvl 15) - All these talents would shorten our ramp-up time and bonus Insanity generation would make sure that our damage in fights stays about the same, while nerfing execute just a tiny bit without affecting gameplay (good shadows would still fish for ToF procs, no matter 20 or 10%).

[Snackwiches]

Shadow priest deserves a big nerf. I expect it will be soon.

Why are these types of posts always from cucks with little anime girl avatars? Fucking. Always.

Infracted - Djriff

[spiritsurge]

First thing to say is that people overestimate general performance of Shadow in raids, imo. Yes, our max potential is pretty incredible, but really, so few people have gear, skill and raid team to reach numbers people here gasp about. If your group has so strong DPS that you can basically S2M on pull (heroic ursoc?) or Shadow can double s2m lined with double corruption damage buff played by padlords then, no shit Sherlock, top logs can look super skewed. But vast, vast majority of shadows don't meet these conditions often or ever.
We indeed have strongest execute by far and everyone knows it because that's what Shadow was meant to be. Sure we can loose our execute potential and maybe reach warrior level of execute, but what would be the new Shadow's niche? Multi-dotting? We don't bring much utility in Legion, we actually bring less actually useful utility than many other hybrids or even pure DPSes.

No, in Legion we're here to do damage and top meters just like Rogues and Mages.

Thing I've been saying and posting about for a while now would be to bring Twist of Fate to ~10% damage bonus, make it baseline, replace it with some new talent and free up Tier 1 of talents (lvl 15) - All these talents would shorten our ramp-up time and bonus Insanity generation would make sure that our damage in fights stays about the same, while nerfing execute just a tiny bit without affecting gameplay (good shadows would still fish for ToF procs, no matter 20 or 10%).

I agree that Twist of Fate should be baseline, it's been basically THE talent to pick for an eternity.

[chunx0r]

In mythic+ do STM deaths add 5 sec to the timer? Are M+ spriests running STM?

[spiritsurge]

In mythic+ do STM deaths add 5 sec to the timer? Are M+ spriests running STM?

I run STM in M+. Another priest friend and I spent a day testing out different builds but the shorter boss times from running STM seems to be better than the slightly increased trash clear from Legacy of the Void or Mind Spike. Just pop it right when the boss fight starts.

[ysnake]

Now I'm not an expert on Priests (I do have one at 100, just haven't leveled it yet) but what if we make a "Surrender to Madness" row kind of like the Druid Affinity row. You could have a Surrender to C'thun which would modify some other aspect Shadow Priest gameplay (focused on vision and void zones?) then a Surrender to Yogg-Saron which is like what we currently have because Yogg was all about death. The last one could be Surrender to N'Zoth


All this stuff is just an idea but to me when you have a talent that is as cool as S2M but as difficult to balance as everyone is talking about why not just create 3 different versions an balance it around similar spells. There is also some precedence for Old Gods transforming their chosen because C'thun empowered Cho'Gall.

I also like @Clavicle's idea for buffing the other two talents because it changes the usual brain-dead talent of Legacy of the Void into something that has some gameplay with it by trying to stay above 60 insanity. I also liked the idea proposed before about not dying after S2M if you killed your target but that might be gameable with adds.

Completely reworking the Level 100 tree and implementing a path of an Old God you want to follow is just an amazing idea, both, from lore perspective and the game perspective.

We are already kinda tailored to pick certain talents in our talent tree as they are vastly superior to others, however, the ultimate shaping ability being the Level 100 talent which just tailors your class for a certain "specialization" is purely amazing.

Surrender to Yogg-Saron: (single-target raid talent)
- You can now cast Mind Blast while moving.
- You gain a new ability "Surrender to Madness", which would be a nerfed (100% insanity gain?) version of the current Surrender to Madness (preferably no Death, just an Insanity gain penalty, but it doesn't really fit into the lore).

Surrender to N'Zoth (AoE/M+ talent)
- Your Void Eruption transforms you into the Faceless One.
- Your Void Bolt is now replaced with Void Sweep which deals a moderate amount of AoE damage.
- While transformed, your Mind Blast does 50% less damage, however it deals damage to all targets in the 10y radius of the target.

Surrender to C'Thun (PvP talent)
- You gain a passive ability "Vampiric Shroud" which infects the target with "Vampiric Touch" upon being hit.
- You can now cast Mind Flay while moving, however it's Snare is now 30%.
(not sure if these would be proper PvP changes, but judging by the history, SPriests were always trained until someone dies, haven't PvPed in Legion)

Yes, I know, none of these will see the light of day, but man, this would fix SPriests by so, so much. Blizzard pls

[TheTrueM4gg0t]

StM has two problems:
1. Its the only good option in that tier. The other two are basically dmg neutral talents, whereas StM has a huge dmg potential. (also a dmg loss potential, but thats not really a problem)
2. It makes us viable. What does shadow have without the huge execute potential of StM? Weak-Medium ST dmg, medium multitarget/cleave, decent execute dmg, no ST burst, no Aoe dmg, no aoe burst. (I'm speaking in relation to others ofc)
How to fix this? Lets face it: StM has to nerfed a bit more to make room for competitive tier talents + more ST dmg/burst. First, remake LotV (or replace with any of the ideas above), buff Mind Spike. (mechanic is fine, numbers much to low). Our dots are fine, so to bring ST dmg up Mind Flay could be buffed by a lot. As Mind Sears current incarnation is basically useless, the could revamp it to do like 5x the dmg but gain a 20sec CD or something like that. (Aoe burst without setup, not making us OP for sustained Aoe, but also making it useable on ST as a rotational ability. Void Form could reduce that CD to make VF more impactful on AoE) And/Or make Void Torrent do 50% AoE.
We dont desperatly need ST burst if we had great sustained ST, good cleave/multidot and some AoE. (great sustained also implying good execute thanks to SW and ToF)

IMHO if StM gets nerfed further, the risk should also be reduced. E.G: +100% Insanity, after it drains you "collapse", take 30% if HP dmg and get a debuff for 15sec taking 5%dmg per sec, not gain any insanity and slowing you by 30%. (just ideas, numbers have to be adjusted to not make it an "per-se"-death in pvp somehow but not too easy in a raid setting)

[Deleted]

It's very obvious that other than S2M this spec ain't getting any big changes to make it more viable in dungeons. Thankfully 7.1 makes rerolling easier. Gona have fun doubling the overall dmg of spriests on these forums that are saying we are fine.

[amythist]

so looking at the 100 tier this is really what I would like to see

Legacy of the Void: remove it and roll it's effect into Voidlord as both are fairly mediocre talents on their own but together they make a single talent that's all about getting into void form quickly and keeping the pace up due to lingering insanity

then in it's place add a talent, say Controlled Madness, that is buffs our damage at the cost of less Void Form uptime, making some Spells, SW:P/Vampiric touch for example have an effect similar to Shaman's "Shock" spells, costing insanity, up to a cap, for an increased effect this would lead to a slower play style for those that like the more controlled managing strong DoTs focused playstyle

Mind Spike: probably just buff it's damage, push it more into the role of being a sustained cleave talent with a minimum effect on our rotation

Surrender to Madness: keeping the same idea but almost making it the opposite of my proposed first talent, giving a flat boost in insanity generation, say +100% for sake of argument, as well as remove the "die horribly" part of void form, instead give you a toggle to drop out of void form, but if you run out of insanity you get a penalty to insanity generation or possibly a loss of the lingering insanity buff, or some combination of the 2

idea here is to keep the sort of frantic play style of trying to stay in void form as long as possible stacking the haste buff up as high as possible, but then pulling yourself back from the brink before you burn out

This would make the 100 talent row give us meaningful choices in how we play, a slower more methodical style, and a more frantic high risk style

[Reposed]

...
Make Shadow Word Death apply a "baseline" S2M that doesn't scale more than xxx, not kill you, but buff goes away if your insanity is completely drained. Shadow can keep their "execute master fantasy" without a broken all-in talent.

That sounds like an interesting change, hmm...

---------------------------------------------------

Anyway, just thought I would post this here:

Shadow Priest
* The Shadow Priest Level 100 talent tier redesign won't be in Patch 7.1, but hopefully not too long after.
* There are some problems with Surrender to Madness right now. It was designed to be high risk and high reward, but has come to dominate the class's viability.
* The team wants to offer other robust alternatives to Surrender to Madness, but this will take some time.

[bambule]

Legacy of the Void: Voidform may be activated anytime your Insanity level is 70 or higher. At 100 Insanity Void Erruption cast time is reduced by 50% and upon entering Voidform you can cast while moving until your Insanity drops below 60.

Surrender to Madness: All your Insanity generating abilities generate 100% more Insanity, and you can cast while moving, until you exit Voidform. Then you gain the Maddened by the Void debuff that prevents you from using Surrender to Madness again until you have exited combat (like potions, expect because you have the debuff until you exit combat, you can't preStM like you pre-pot).
Note: Dying and combat res would not remove this debuff.

I love your Legacy of Void changes!

Your suggestion to s2m itself also sounds like sth pointing the right way, but I would like to see them turning s2m into a 3-5min cooldown. Something that would let us stack to 70~80 stacks for a short time with a bit of a penanilty afterwards, 50% decreased insanity generation for 1 minute or sth like that. So we can use s2m twice in a long fight, with each of them not being as strong as the current one.
In general, in my opinion, s2m should become a big cd that keeps the basic mechanic, cause thats what makes it fun, but be useable more often with a different penality at the end.

[Deleted]

Shadow priest deserves a big nerf. I expect it will be soon.

They do maybe in execute range however that is the only place we are actually good at.

Consistent damage? Due the nature of voidform our damage spikes up and down.
AoE? Lol sear does no damage and stuff dies before you get it dotted up
Priority target burst? once again, the voidform mechanic ruins this, you have to be lucky to have it timed right.

From the ground up shadow priest is designed for execution. This can be seen in numerous talents and spells that only or work better in execute range.
So if they indeed change surrender they have to give compensation or we fall by the wayside completely.

[l33t]

Why are these types of posts always from cucks with little anime girl avatars? Fucking. Always.

Mages, man.