I posted a thread on the battle.net Beta Classes forum and one on the Priest forums as well regarding the idea for having a Shadow Orb Generator. I would love it if you could share your thoughts and opinions on this!
After playing around with the new Shadow rotation and talents, I'm pretty satisfied with everything except for 1 thing: no Shadow Orb generation out of combat.
THE PROBLEM
My concern is strictly from a PvE (specifically raiding) point of view. With the old Soul Harvest (Warlocks) and new Astral Communion (Boomkin, a channel that will put you into an eclipse state) in mind, I feel that some form of 3 shadow orb generation would be a great asset to us. Now, I feel we will be in a state that Boomkins had to deal with, where they were hunting down critters and such to build Lunar/Solar energy to get into Eclipse. And are not starting a fight in an eclipsed state was a large hit to that Boomkin's damage.
THE ANECDOTE
Just the other day when I was doing H Ragnaros, I had to deal with just a few silly wipes. Before pulling the boss, I went on a hunt for 3 critters that I could Mind Blast in order to generate 3 orbs. The damage between a Priest with 0 orbs and a Priest with 3 orbs at the start of a fight would be incredibly drastic. Glancing from logs, Devouring Plague manages to be my top damage spell (sometimes second). Putting up a first Devouring Plague within the first second of a fight VS putting up a first Devouring Plague the first ~15 seconds of the fight will have a huge affect on our damage. I'm trying to imagine if I were to try and do H Ultraxion prenerf right now with this rotation. High DPS was very crucial at the time, and not having DP at the start of said fight would really cramp our DPS. And I don't even think there's any critters on Ultraxion's platform to Mind Blast after each wipe =[
THE SUGGESTIONS
"Shadow Infusion / Shadow Insight" - CHANNELED - Infuses the Priest with Shadow energy, generating 1 Shadow Orb every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. Cannot be used in combat.
*A cooldown can be added to this, I just have no decided on a decent cooldown number. Without a cooldown, it would be too powerful in questing or PvP scenarios. 1-2 minutes would be reasonable for a PvE environment, but still may not work well in a PvP environment.
“Shadow Well” - 10 second cast - Summons a shadowy well, granting 1 Shadow Orb (2 second channel) each time the Priest clicks the Shadow Well. Cannot be cast or clicked in combat. Last for 3 minutes or 3 Shadow Orb charges.
*This might be more viable in a PvP setting with all the cast times required, on top of channels needed for each orb. I put a 3 minute CD on it as well, to mimic the CD on Lightwell. I admit, it’s probably not terribly logical to make this into a clickable well since this only applies to the Priest who made it, but I thought it contrasted the idea of a Lightwell so nicely =P
“Mind Soothe” - 10 second cast - Places the Priest in a vulnerable state, taking 50% extra damage and dealing 50% less damage. Can only be casted if the Priest has less than 3 Shadow Orbs.
“Reaping” - 2 second channel - Generates 1 Shadow Orb. Can only be cast while Mind Soothed.
*Also viable in both settings. Of course, these cast times are a nuisance, but I’m preventing from this concept being abused in PvP, in combat, questing, etc. One would only ever want to be Mind Soothed to max orbs, hence the increase in damage taken and decrease in damage dealt, and taking away the need to be out of combat.
“Dispersion” - You disperse into pure Shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 90%. You are unable to attack or cast spells, but you regenerate 6% mana every 1 sec for 6 sec, and generate 1 Shadow Orb every 2 sec when out of combat. Taking 0 damage reduces the cooldown by 1 minute.
Dispersion can be cast while stunned, feared, or silenced. Clears all snare and movement impairing effects when cast, and makes you immune to them while dispersed.
*Dispersion is typically used as a defensive CD for a Priest, to prevent damage / death. I thought about attaching Shadow Orb generation straight to Dispersion, but my concern in a PvE setting is that what if that dispersion will be needed as a defensive CD, yet it won’t be up because it was just used to generate orbs? Without making it overpowered (it’d be an insane way to regen mana to be able to cast Dispersion infinitely) by refreshing the CD when there’s no damage, I reduced the CD by 1 minute (1 minute CD, 45 sec with the glyph). Perhaps it can be reduced by 1.5 minutes or something instead, I just wanted to avoid people spamming it to get mana back.et mana back.
Whether or not you agree with my opinion/suggestion, I appreciate you reading through this and would also appreciate hearing your thoughts. Personally, I would be ecstatic if anything even related to these concepts were to be implemented.
Thank you!