Two New Power Words!!!!!!!!!

[Annesh]

1% mana and double the scaling, but cast-time, or 15% mana, half the scaling, instant, boosts from DoT's?

Not the same at all.

The point is that wiping dots is such a minor niche that we really don't need two spells that do it. And with Spike being neutered one mechanism at a time, more and more it'll be used only to wipe dots.

I'm going to give even the core concept of Insanity a thumbs down; even after it's functioning correctly I can think of only one place it's truly worthwhile and that's burst for PvP (we don't need any more burst in PvP, we're already scary good in that department). I can see how it'll be neat "sometimes" in a PvE rotation, such as when both dots have under 3 seconds left anyway so you can get the most out of them before they fall off. But how often will both dots really line up like that? Or will the final scaling for Insanity be such that it'll be worth the wasted GCDs of reapplying dots even if one of them has half or more of its duration?

Overall it's weird and confuses me. Like a lot of other stuff Blizz has done with Shadow, it makes me scratch my head and go, "how am I supposed to use this?" It's not intuitive, it's funky and makes you devise ways to use it. That's not good spell design IMO.

[Deleted]

About SW:Insanity, maybe it can be used as part of the "rotation", casting it just aboout when VT or DP are about to end and then redotting (this is purely hypothetical).

Power Word: Solace = telleuric playstyle for healing priests. Downtime? ooh cast Power Word: Solace, get mana back. If the spell isn't mana positive, why would any cast it? It is going to have to be like TC for shamans.

What I worry is that now with AA baseline for disc priests, it makes evangelism playstyle mandatory for the bonus healing. If we are smiting during downtime to build stacks, when are we supposed to cast Power Word: Solace?

Also what abbrev. are we gonna use? PW:S already taken. Shit.

Also in terms of Insanity, Mind Spike will always have a niche position on high burst, low hp targets. Think Heroic Madness burning through the meteor or the parasite. Throwing both dots (who would waste DP on those) is not nearly as efficient as just MS/MB it down.

AA being baseline for Dpriests is not going to change anything for them, it's in their hand to use it or not, the same as before. Previously they could choose to take AA, FDCL or mindbender, now they have AA baseline and the talent option fo AA has been replaced by solace. If anything, they're getting a *free talent*

[Andyclan]

Ok so why all the hate for MS, and why are ppl happy dark arch is gone? is that from a pve perspective or something? because IMO, coming from a pvp perspective, (and even a little pve) popping wings, trinkets, and fiend on someone in PVP with procs meant instant death no matter what with MSx3->MB, its one of the most OP, and satisfying things in the game. so much burst in such a short amount of time!!

[Dawn Falcon]

I'm going to give even the core concept of Insanity a thumbs down; even after it's functioning correctly I can think of only one place it's truly worthwhile

Er, movement? We badly need another instant somewhere. Or to be able to cast something on the move.

[Sarevoc]

Shadow Word: Insanity (New) Blasts the target for (682 + 65.0% of SP) Shadowfrost damage, and causes your shadow damage-over-time spells to erupt, dealing up to 100% additional damage per damage-over-time spell on the target but removing them in the process. 15% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. Instant.

So insanity does half as much damage as Mind Spike, if there are no DoTs on the target. If we have all 3 DoTs on the target, it does twice as much damage as Mind Spike.
Don't know what "up to" means, maybe it depends on the remaining DoT duration?

[Brusalk]

Well you can't really cast it on the move, as it removes the DoTs in the process. All I can really think it'd be useful for would be casting just as VT+DP are both going to expire so you get the 100% extra damage and you'd just cast VT again soon anyway. With the instant damage on SWP I'm guessing that it'll be like DP on live where it does enough damage that it's not really a loss in dps to reapply it.

Only other situation I can maybe think of, is if an add needs some instant damage fast and the dots being cut short does more damage than the time left on the dots. (Like as an add is dying with 2-3 dots on it, we can milk some more damage out of it if we've already casted SWD as many times as we can)

[Purpleisbetter]

Wondering if mind flay would've pumped up the damage of Insanity...

From what i see, with some number tweaks, this new spell can spice up our rotation, wich i approve.

[huth]

Shadow Word: Insanity (New) Blasts the target for (682 + 65.0% of SP) Shadowfrost damage, and causes your shadow damage-over-time spells to erupt, dealing up to 100% additional damage per damage-over-time spell on the target but removing them in the process. 15% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. Instant.

So insanity does half as much damage as Mind Spike, if there are no DoTs on the target. If we have all 3 DoTs on the target, it does twice as much damage as Mind Spike.
Don't know what "up to" means, maybe it depends on the remaining DoT duration?

Probably, so people aren't forced into casting it when their DoTs run out. Would also explain how a fully dotted target only got 90% more damage.

Edit: Contrary to public opinion, Shadow Word: Insanity is the Shadow version of PW:Solace, not Mind Syphon. In fact, Mind Syphon is not a Priest spell at all.

Also, the % damage increase for existing DoTs does not appear to work at the moment.

[Kaesebrezen]

Also, the % damage increase for existing DoTs does not appear to work at the moment.

The damage % is working. There is an "up to" in the tooltip. The up to is based around the remaining DoT duration.

With VT/SW:P at ~1 sec duration left, the spell hits for 50k. And VT/SW:P will always drop at the same time if you cast VT right after you applied SW:P.

Further, in the files SW:I is listed as a lvl 74 spell, it is shown as unlearned in the spellbook (even if you learned the talent - and talents were never listed as unlearned in the spellbook). With Mind Siphon in the files, i'd expect something to change in the next build.

[Purple]

If Solace is going to be another Holy Damage talent I have the same response to it that I have to all the Holy Damage or Healing talents. There needs to be a Shadow alternative, and no, just letting it be cast in Shadowform is not, I repeat "not" acceptable.

[Deleted]

also remember its an additional spell so I have no issues with it.
if it's a DPS increase to use it, it's a DPS increase. if it's not... then don't use it :P

[Annesh]

Er, movement? We badly need another instant somewhere. Or to be able to cast something on the move.

The mana cost precludes it from spamming. IF they sliced the cost by a third, it would still be weird and awkward to use it as a spam-on-the-move spell, because every time you stopped to cast you'd have to recast VT.

[huth]

The damage % is working. There is an "up to" in the tooltip. The up to is based around the remaining DoT duration.

With VT/SW:P at ~1 sec duration left, the spell hits for 50k. And VT/SW:P will always drop at the same time if you cast VT right after you applied SW:P.

Further, in the files SW:I is listed as a lvl 74 spell, it is shown as unlearned in the spellbook (even if you learned the talent - and talents were never listed as unlearned in the spellbook). With Mind Siphon in the files, i'd expect something to change in the next build.

Oh, i see. Odd way of doing it, but then the spell isn't spammable anyway. On the other hand, have you considered that the bug might be that it appears in the spell book as learnable, not the other way around? I'm not really sure what Shadow would need with a shadow version of Solace anyway.

If Solace is going to be another Holy Damage talent I have the same response to it that I have to all the Holy Damage or Healing talents. There needs to be a Shadow alternative, and no, just letting it be cast in Shadowform is not, I repeat "not" acceptable.

It's mana regeneration. The damage is just gravy(and not that impressive anyhow). You do get a funky holy laser, though.

[Lathander04]

PW: Solace sounds exactly like Smite... except that it gives 2% mana when cast. Imo rather than making a whole new spell (that currently doesn't proc evangelism) why not just buff Smite with 2% mana as the talent instead?

Similarly, Mind Siphon could just be blended into Mind Flay Flay giving 1% mana per tick instead and the effects of SW: Insanity could just be blended into Mind Spike (as a talent or glyph).

Alternatively, you could use the 'morphed/converted' approach where your Smite is converted into Solace and your Mind Flay is converted into Mind Siphon etc. (Why is it called Power Word: Solace when it takes 1.5 sec to cast? Word Spells - including Sanctuary, should be instant cast imo).

Sure the whole 'new spell' thing sounds shiny but this approach just makes more sense to me rather than adding another separate spell to the 'rotation'.

Also, why take away the crit bonus from Mind Spike? Now what's the point in casting it when i can cast Mind Flay instead and not remove my dots?> Unless Blizz is planning on removing Mind Spike and replacing it with Shadow Word: Insanity?

I also don't like the changes to SW: Death... there's nothing new here - they've actually taken away functionality from it (reflect damage on yourself to break cc or proc PoM) and instead you have to glyph for it if you want that functionality back... not good to me at all since there's soo many other major glyphs to choose from.

Overall, despite all the 'new shiny stuff' i actually don't like the changes from this patch... even the changes to Mindbender have a downside (before the patch it would restore 40% mana - Mindbendy hits every 1.5 sec so that's 10 times in 15 sec @4% mana/hit = 40%... now it procs every 1 min with 1% mana return per hit = 10% or 30% mana/3 min... therefore a decrease of 10% mana overall (not to mention it will return less mana back if you use it in conjunction with hymn of hope)... the talent bonus is only 6% now vs the untalented 24% mana/3min)... on the otherhand, you're probably getting more dps out of it and it makes it less sucky if it gets cc'ed in pvp.

[Xista]

Time to grow a new finger.

Starting to run out of keybinds for PvP

[Deleted]

PW: Solace sounds exactly like Smite... except that it gives 2% mana when cast. Imo rather than making a whole new spell (that currently doesn't proc evangelism) why not just buff Smite with 2% mana as the talent instead?

Simple reason they can't put morph smite into solace : atonement. blizzard has been pretty clear that they don't want you to have a mana positive heal. Also it's 1.5 sec for obvious balance reason.

[Dawn Falcon]

The mana cost precludes it from spamming. IF they sliced the cost by a third, it would still be weird and awkward to use it as a spam-on-the-move spell, because every time you stopped to cast you'd have to recast VT.

Not saying they got it RIGHT, but that the need's there.

[Kelesti]

Not saying they got it RIGHT, but that the need's there.

Why did this need to be a new spell, and simply not added onto Mind Spike though?

[Dawn Falcon]

Mm...mind spike is VERY low mana and scales fairly well? By the time you've tacked on something making it more closely and not-scaling-as-well while you cast it when moving...

It's the damage-while-moving which is the important point...

[Kelesti]

Mm...mind spike is VERY low mana and scales fairly well? By the time you've tacked on something making it more closely and not-scaling-as-well while you cast it when moving...

It's the damage-while-moving which is the important point...

Our DoTs tick, while we're moving. Even though we aren't really pushing buttons, Shadow Priests don't suffer from "mobility issues" as black-and-white as other specs do. And pushing this button eliminates our DoTs, doing less damage than keeping them up unless the stars align just right. How often does that happen at specifically the right time, while we just so happen to be in the middle of running from them?

I don't foresee mana being a concern for long, and if this ability scales too poorly, then Blizzard will look at it. But why do we still need two abilities to remove DoTs, when one of them is losing a chunk of its scaling, any interaction with Shadow Orbs it ever had, removal of its crit bonus, etc etc.

For all the hate of Mind Spike, having one that just says "your dots go boom when they wipe", I don't see how we really needed a second one.