Do Priests actually like Surrender to Madness?

[Tradu]

Yeah, I saw this coming which is why I levelled my Mage and Warlock together at the start of the expansion, catching up with my Priest later was rather less efficient.

Indeed, that's why I'm getting every class levelled now so I have less catchup to do in the future.

[spiritsurge]

I don't hate it but I wish there were other options that were kind of close to it that I could use.

[Ramaloce]

I like it on paper. Really long voidforms, has the crazed cult feel to it (which isn't that far away from where shadow priests are). In practice though, it's a god damn mechanical and balancing nightmare and should of been on of those cool "would of been" talents that might of been able to try again on another expansion and not making us suffer through this unbalance-able mess of a 100tier that is shadow.
Just should of given us oblivion in it's place (instant 2min CD, 100 insanity)

[De Lupe]

I love fighting the madness. Pushing you self further and further until it finally overwhelms you. It's a fun, unique talent that I really hope sticks around. The high risk/reward is well done here.

[MajorTom]

StM is actually what drove me to the spec in the first place. I saw it as the ultimate form of effort vs. reward that existed in the game. My meaning by that is if you spend enough time practicing StM, then you'll see that effort and practice reflecting in your numbers. I really like gameplay the is extremely rewarding for doing extremely well, as well as being extremely detrimental if you screw it up.

[Cerbz]

Absolutely hate it.

[Knifttar]

When did you start playing shadow? I feel like the recurring theme is, those of us that have played shadow since the early expansions generally do not like it.

[Deleted]

If you raid you HAVE to love s2m: when was the last time shadow was so OP to want 2 in raid and carrying the kills? Yeah, you know the answer... pretty much never.

[Deleted]

This is my problem with it. Any talent that kills you if you mess it up at all or miss time

It's beyond even messing up, latency killed me last night. Just moved to a new place, doesn't even have fibre (woo UK), and got a tiny spike at 100 stacks.

And if it is over powered even those who don't want to use it will have to to stay competitive.

[Yozu]

Love the talent, edge seat gaming

[Deleted]

also want to point out that lore wise it should be renamed "law, order and selfsacrifice" not "surrender to madness", it is in practice the total opposite of madness. some paladin or holy priest should have this kind of talent. would have loved shadow get real madness abilities... like massive void bolts flying randomly, including friendly targets etc. so it's raid healing cooldown time when shadowpriest goes nuts. but this is just fake holy crap in shadow skin.

[MoanaLisa]

I understand what they were after with StM but I agree with others that it's been more trouble than its worth. I would have much rather they done something like create a talent that would buff up Shadow Word: Death, put the health penalty on it like it used to have and allow us to kill ourselves or not with it. There's just something about StM that I've never much liked.

Being honest here: I haven't much liked the entire insanity piece of our class fantasy either. I've never thought of my shadow priest as being borderline insane and don't think of her that way now. So, problems all around. At this point I don't recognize the class from what it was even a few years ago.

[Naga Coatl]

Being honest here: I haven't much liked the entire insanity piece of our class fantasy either. I've never thought of my shadow priest as being borderline insane and don't think of her that way now. So, problems all around. At this point I don't recognize the class from what it was even a few years ago.

This. I love the Old God theme but I think that all this 'insanity' stuff is really poorly done. From a thematic standpoint, I find it a mess. We basically charge insanity to fuel VF, which consumes said insanity while we try desperately to keep ourselves insane. If they called it 'Void Power' instead of trying to 'explain' how the priest is on the verge of 'madness' it would have been simpler ad clearer. As I said since alpha, we should make others insane, not ourselves. I'd find that much more fitting and would made feel the character stronger than being some sort of mad cultist.

Also, technically speaking, I think that the insanity resource (and VF) is the rotten core of the class. It's slow, based on continuous ramp-ups, punishes excessively for using non-insanity generating spells, forces the player in the 'low quality half of the spec' for most of the time spent playing, and it's 'smooth' only in long fights (raids) - where it basically becomes just a rotational thing that gets averaged out.

I'd like it removed/reworked the next expansion, but I'm not really optimist about it.

[Tharid]

Yes. How else do you get into high rankings?

Is it a requirement in progress raids to get high rankings on farm bosses? Because you certainly communicate it like that you have no other choice.


On topic: I love the theory behind StM, but I hate the implementation of it. It requires an incomparable amount of training to make it work consistently. I tend to play WoW a lot less in the last weeks, and my numbers show that in a more brutal way than during any other raid tier, because StM needs perpetual repetition.
That is why I'm more stressed out than during heavy progression a few months ago, and that is why I really feel for Shadow Priests that don't have enough time to put in the work that this talent needs to work.

[Deleted]

I like the way it plays with the frantic button mashing.

However I think the risk/reward thing has gone too far here which makes the talent very hard to balance. If the punishment for a slight mistake is death the reward ultimately needs to be overwhelming and this causes more trouble than it is worth.

My suggestion would be: remove the death penalty and adjust the benefits. That way we can keep the play style and still have valid alternatives depending on the fight.

[kevins]

Why not just call it improved death 2.0

I can understand the "fantasy" or "trick" to pulling off StM, but honestly...really?? What other class has to kill themselves in order to top the meters?
A much better and more palatable design would have been to drop the health to 1 or disorientation for 1-2 minutes or incapacitated for 3 minutes...ANYTHING....would be better.
You would still have the "Risk vs Reward" nonsense the elitists like to shove on the table as an excuse for the spell, but I honestly believe that Blizz dropped the ball once again on this one, evidenced by the fact that they are doing dramatic "hotfixing" for the StM class mechanic.

Disappointing to say the least, I would have expected they would have learned from the past but obviously they haven't.

[KaPe]

I can understand the "fantasy" or "trick" to pulling off StM, but honestly...really?? What other class has to kill themselves in order to top the meters?

Holy Priests with their reincarnation cloak. And honestly, it's fits their "class fantasy" much better than StM.

I kid, of course, but it seems like the Priest class attracts bizarre design decisions over multiple expansions.

[Deleted]

Yes. How else do you get into high rankings?

Cheesing, superior rotation and outgearing usually?

- - - Updated - - -

I love fighting the madness. Pushing you self further and further until it finally overwhelms you. It's a fun, unique talent that I really hope sticks around. The high risk/reward is well done here.

The only thing that's missing is a cooler death animation.

- - - Updated - - -

When did you start playing shadow? I feel like the recurring theme is, those of us that have played shadow since the early expansions generally do not like it.

I played shadow on our 3rd ragnaros kill back in vanilla, disc on the first 2. PvPed a lot as it as well, manaburning casters leaving them helpless was glorious. I still like StM a lot.

- - - Updated - - -

also want to point out that lore wise it should be renamed "law, order and selfsacrifice" not "surrender to madness", it is in practice the total opposite of madness. some paladin or holy priest should have this kind of talent. would have loved shadow get real madness abilities... like massive void bolts flying randomly, including friendly targets etc. so it's raid healing cooldown time when shadowpriest goes nuts. but this is just fake holy crap in shadow skin.

Wut... also, speaking of balancing nightmares?

- - - Updated - - -

Why not just call it improved death 2.0

I can understand the "fantasy" or "trick" to pulling off StM, but honestly...really?? What other class has to kill themselves in order to top the meters?
A much better and more palatable design would have been to drop the health to 1 or disorientation for 1-2 minutes or incapacitated for 3 minutes...ANYTHING....would be better.
You would still have the "Risk vs Reward" nonsense the elitists like to shove on the table as an excuse for the spell, but I honestly believe that Blizz dropped the ball once again on this one, evidenced by the fact that they are doing dramatic "hotfixing" for the StM class mechanic.

Disappointing to say the least, I would have expected they would have learned from the past but obviously they haven't.

None. But they also don't have nearly the same possible reward at the high-end that shadowpriests do.

[Deleted]

Wut... also, speaking of balancing nightmares?

Anything what makes shadowpriest look mad. Currently only person who cares is shadowpriest. Why get mad then anyways.
In real life, if somebody near you is really mad and out of control - he/she is in the center of your attention.
Shadowpriest doesn't even chase raid leader with big void axe, after boss is killed, could atleast explode or smtn.

[l33t]

Cheesing, superior rotation and outgearing usually?

Sure, that's like 90% of it, but basic stuff like flask, food, 2x pots and rune still is required.