Shadow Re-design Ideas

[Theed]

Yes, MB should be instant. Interrupts disable shadowpriests way too much atm. Shut down orb generation and you shut down spriest damage. Dot damage can be ignored because it is so low. I hope some class designers look at this thread. Good ideas!

[HeroZero]

Devouring Plague is our finisher now - Mind Blast is our Sinister Strike.

That is a succinct way to put it.

[Deleted]

they got it right with Cataclysm. didnt with MoP

[Deleted]

Been watching this thread for a while. Yvaelle you have some brilliant ideas and so do many other people here. My Forsaken shadow priest was the main reason I played WoW, but I cancelled my sub a while back because I just wasn't enjoying the direction we had taken since MoP (and MoP annoys me in general. Can't be doing with panda crap lol).

I really hope Blizzard takes a peek at the ideas here and uses/adapts some of them. I'd love to return to my cute undead priest. :3

It needs to be better, but don't you dare replace my adorable little octopus (or if anything, replace shadowfiend with mindbender graphic permanently - I'm so over his slobbering, and lead-paint-licking AI).

I couldn't agree more about mindbender though! When I gave MoP a try I was so overjoyed we had a way to have a mindbender. I loved those little things in Vash'jir and Throne of the Tides. I love tentacley friends. Also, I must have one of those purple octopus plushies in that pic. o:< So freaking cute. xD /endrant

Keep up the great ideas everyone. :3

[Frmercury]

Mindbender graphic is the worst. Your music is bad and you should feel bad.

Everytime I see non-Sha Mindbender:



Shadowfiend is hands down the best pet that has ever or will ever be in WoW. It's a damned Aberration, how is that not the most awesome kind of pet to control?

[Blain]

One thing I liked about the "old" Shadow was the CD reduction of the SF. It was random, but not like "OMG push it in 5 sec or it will be lost"-random. You had the choice to wait for another CD to finish, or use it right away if the other cds were to far from finishing


I would like to see the return of a CD working like that. Maybe in form of a selfbuff, costing 1 Orb, running like 20sec, giving you a 10% chance every 2 sek to lower the CD of whatever CD you can imagine. But I fear, with the current Orb/Finisher model, another CD would just be another Spell put in the DP macro.

Maybe some post-mop-copy of the Legenary Meta would be cool,too... something like "gives your dots-ticks a chance to cause xyz rising your haste by 30%" costing 1 Orb, 15 sec duration, using the RPPM Formula it has now.

[supersnap]

I also really enjoyed MF ticks reducing SF. They should lower the CD to 2mins, so they can just get rid of mindbender. In place of mindbender talent, make it so SWP has a chance to reduce SF CD. Could just be a straight % or base on Crit, or mastery ticks. Not sure what they could do for healing, like renew ticks, penance ticks.

With that its a hidden shadow dps incease with sf only having a 2min cd, although they will probably have to nerf its damage slightly. Doubt his idea works at all for healers though.

[soulyouth]

I was thinking about the upcoming nerf to 6sec swd orbs.
IMO they should get rid of the 2nd tap and make it a tad harder and apply a dot that last 6 secs and does about the same dmg as a double tap "works with our mastery"

[Drye]

I was thinking about the upcoming nerf to 6sec swd orbs.
IMO they should get rid of the 2nd tap and make it a tad harder and apply a dot that last 6 secs and does about the same dmg as a double tap "works with our mastery"

Yup, that's been mentioned in the thread.

Change it to hit for 180% dmg, useable at 35%. Would buff single target by a decent amount and give us better dps while moving due to higher possibility on mobs being at 35% than 20%

[Yvaelle]

Yup, that's been mentioned in the thread.

Change it to hit for 180% dmg, useable at 35%. Would buff single target by a decent amount and give us better dps while moving due to higher possibility on mobs being at 35% than 20%

I hope they listen, at least for 6.0

In the short term, they should probably just buff Power Word: Shield for Shadow so that it can be considered our Active Management Defense - that or buff Fade to something like 30% damage reduction like Feint.

[HeroZero]

On PTR stuff, I'm fairly surprised they are making dark binding baseline (at least for the time being) I thought it would pop up on the PTR and disappear just as quick as it came.

Makes me wonder if they like shadow just being another pretty good dps with some healing potential.

[Yvaelle]

On PTR stuff, I'm fairly surprised they are making dark binding baseline (at least for the time being) I thought it would pop up on the PTR and disappear just as quick as it came.

Makes me wonder if they like shadow just being another pretty good dps with some healing potential.

Ya, I think the goal should really be to remove it and/or focus on a single specific hybrid heal per hybrid (ie. Word of Glory, Power Word: Shield, etc) rather than distributing a plethora of healing effects to each. It would be easier to balance Shadow's output if we knew we were being balanced around using all of them to survive, or if we were expected to remain in Shadowform and just Power Word: Shield / Defensive CD to survive.

The second model is easier to balance and more fun for everyone involved I think. If Shadow's healing-utility was too strong, and Power Word: Shield was the only healing utility we had, you know instantly where the problem is - as opposed to wondering if say... Renew was too strong (lol): easier to balance.

It's not fun for Shadow to be expected to roll Renew, Shields, ProM's and spam Flash Heals to keep a teammate alive - it takes all our GCDs, produces an inconclusive result, and isn't fun from the enemy perspective either: they can interrupt Flash Heals - but the rest are instant (even if they suck). So we feel like we're wasting our time, and people trying to lock us down 'feel' ineffectual because Renew still got through even if Renew is useless.

By contrast, Power Word: Shield has a cooldown - if it were the only healing utility we had - you have to deal with one of those every 15 seconds (currently) - after which you don't see it again. If Weakened Soul is about to end - and you CC the Spriest - you block their healing utility during our burst cycle: that 'feels' effective.

Feeling is very important to people and shouldn't be understated by the devs (I feel they ignore it sometimes). The difference between euthanasia and murder is the feeling of the victim: whether or not they accepted their death. The difference between "going to summer camp" and "being sent to camp" is largely feeling: whether or not the kid feels privileged or banished. The feeling of locking down a spriest from support-healing feels impotent if Renew gets through, even if Renew is useless. Relying on useless Renew ticks when you are balanced around spamming Flash Heal feels impotent when you are being sat on. Word of Glory feels powerful, Sacrifical Pact feels powerful, Ice Barrier feels powerful.

Addressing feeling is a good way to make people on both sides feel like they are enjoying the game more - like they are more in control of the situation - without really altering the capacity of the classes.

[Deleted]

I switched to warlock permanently this patch so my ideas are probably skewed by that! Essentially I agree with everything my more learned friends have stated but I was thinking about things that I'd like to change.

I hate shadow orbs, so ideally I'd want that RNG bs totally gone, but if we absolutely HAVE to keep em...

I agree absolutely that making the classes the same removes a lot of the fun, but I'd like something like a priest version of the spell that druids have that pushes them towards eclipse (Astral Communication?), perhaps to generate some orbs for a pull? It's incredible the damage difference that pulling with 3 does vs pulling with zero and I can't think of many other classes that have to wait as long as we do for damage?

I'd like DP back as a default spell that I can use as a perma dot! Having played undead priest for almost six years, I just don't like not having it. It has been a part of my dps rotation since forever, and I think my issues with the class really started when it was gone. Yvaelle's ideas for orb finishers are actually close to perfect but I do think our old dot orientated role needs to make something of a comeback.

[Scylliane]

So, I'm just going to add this idea here for Black Shield. Might be overpowered, underpowered, just plain stupid, etc, but I like it.

Make Black Shield reflective (and maybe call it Shadow Word: Punishment). Make it deal equal damage to the attacker equal to the damage you're taking from it as long as the shield is up (maybe cap it at some percentage if it's too strong or something). Also, make it only castable on yourself so you can't just spam cast it on the tank. The idea is that you want to cast it on yourself when you know high damage is coming in, say you get a debuff from the boss that explodes after X seconds (think exploding seeds on Majordomo).

It wouldn't be worth using on CD if it doesn't absorb all the damage coming in, so it would be a way to squeeze some extra damage out for those run-out-of-the-raid situations. Maybe to prevent the caster from using it on CD, it could take a static damage penalty to what it reflects? Say, always does -5000 damage, so frequent, low damage ticks aren't reflected back, but big raid damage spikes are? It would probably need to be capped at some amount of the max damage it absorbs as well (depending on how much that is, it might have to be higher or lower, but definitely capped in some way). Also, it shouldn't reward you for standing in fire, so maybe have it only apply to damage effects that would grant Vengance to tanks (also fits with the idea of it being revenge/punishment themed).

Feel free to tweak this suggestion if you like it. I don't PvP much, so I have no idea how broken or unbroken this would be from a PvP perspective.

Edit: slightly improved formatting.

[HeroZero]

So, I'm just going to add this idea here for Black Shield. Might be overpowered, underpowered, just plain stupid, etc, but I like it.

Make Black Shield reflective (and maybe call it Shadow Word: Punishment). Make it deal equal damage to the attacker equal to the damage you're taking from it as long as the shield is up (maybe cap it at some percentage if it's too strong or something). Also, make it only castable on yourself so you can't just spam cast it on the tank. The idea is that you want to cast it on yourself when you know high damage is coming in, say you get a debuff from the boss that explodes after X seconds (think exploding seeds on Majordomo).

It wouldn't be worth using on CD if it doesn't absorb all the damage coming in, so it would be a way to squeeze some extra damage out for those run-out-of-the-raid situations. Maybe to prevent the caster from using it on CD, it could take a static damage penalty to what it reflects? Say, always does -5000 damage, so frequent, low damage ticks aren't reflected back, but big raid damage spikes are? It would probably need to be capped at some amount of the max damage it absorbs as well (depending on how much that is, it might have to be higher or lower, but definitely capped in some way). Also, it shouldn't reward you for standing in fire, so maybe have it only apply to damage effects that would grant Vengance to tanks (also fits with the idea of it being revenge/punishment themed).

Feel free to tweak this suggestion if you like it. I don't PvP much, so I have no idea how broken or unbroken this would be from a PvP perspective.

Edit: slightly improved formatting.

That's not a terrible idea having the damage reflection glyph baked into it as well. I think the solution to spamming it on the tank could be more easily done with a debuff given to anyone it is cast on (weakened soul type thing) but have it not apply to when casting on yourself. One problem this could cause for PvE would be that it would likely be worth casting on the tank every time the tank loses the debuff for the spike of damage, not to mention helping tank healing. So perhaps the only castable on self would be the way to do it for simplicity sake.

I think your damage threshold idea for the shield is an interesting one to deal with using it for as a dps cooldown but it would likely be simpler to make sure the damage reflection amount isn't so high that using your orbs for a shield rather than a finisher would do more damage. Part of the reason I say this is in PvP (which you were specifically not covering) dot classes would potentially be able to ignore the majority of the shield which would not be a great thing. Besides there aren't a ton of bosses that just do static constant damage during a whole fight. If it was better as a finisher on some fights so be it, but I can't imagine that being the case with any frequency. I really like the name though, I think it is fitting much like I think Coalesce is better than coagulate.....^_^.

[Yvaelle]

I like the principle of it It could even be something with an extremely short duration, like 3 or 5 seconds - so it's really more a skill-shot to raid mechanics/burst damage than it is a 'shield' effect. Almost like spell-reflection (except, all-damage-reflection).

How much would it absorb? 50% of our max health?

Sacrificial Pact is 100% of the Locks health, plus it causes Soul Leech to stack to like 500k since damage is being absorbed by Sacc Pact while it's stacking - so I feel like the bar is set pretty high on just how much damage something like this can absorb.

[HeroZero]

What kind of CD do you think the shield should have, or should it have a debuff like power word shield. Or would it even need it at all if it takes shadow orbs... assuming it has the damage reflection as well.

[Yvaelle]

What kind of CD do you think the shield should have, or should it have a debuff like power word shield. Or would it even need it at all if it takes shadow orbs... assuming it has the damage reflection as well.

Hmm, I'd suggest a 60 second cooldown, possibly without a Shadow Orb cost now that we have lost our passive damage reduction from Shadowform. This would put it on par with Sacrificial Pact.

I'd probably avoid tying it into something like Weakened Soul, it should always be available when we need it - regardless of who has been healing us or whether we had to move lately (Body and Soul).

If it were going to be put on another player, it would definitely need a debuff like Weakened Soul, but not (Blackened Soul, perhaps?). It would also possibly need a Shadow Orb cost. But if we were just planning on making it a self-only defensive cooldown, I think that just needs a cooldown, but not necessarily a resource cost (Shadow Orbs) or a debuff (since the cooldown is already dictating how often we can use it).

[HeroZero]

Perhaps one orb for on self and 2-3 to be able to use it on another player? That might be too complicated for balance although I am not sure.

Another possibility would be it reduces the cooldown when used on self to incentivize self use more than giving it away to a tank or whate have you.

[Yvaelle]

Perhaps one orb for on self and 2-3 to be able to use it on another player? That might be too complicated for balance although I am not sure.

Another possibility would be it reduces the cooldown when used on self to incentivize self use more than giving it away to a tank or whate have you.

Both are good ideas for making it more of a raid utility as well