Annesh's Shadow Redesign for Fun (LUDICROUSLY LONG)

[Annesh]

DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER

This is just for fun. It is not a serious suggestion for WoD or any other xpac, though I would skip merrily through the streets ignoring all the funny looks if it did happen.

Writing this up is a huge waste of time. The chances of getting the positive (or negative) attention of someone with the power to make any part of this happen are so slim that I would be running no worse odds if I threw my life savings down the toilet on the bet that it will dislodge 100x more money in the pipes and it'll all come floating up for me to collect.

However, I fancy myself an amateur game designer and I think about this stuff, and I have way too much time on my hands so I may as well have fun with it.

Important note for all you smart theorycrafters: I know you will approach this (if you read it at all) with your brains working through the under-the-hood results of my insanity, things like scaling and stat weights and talent compatibility, and I'll tell you right now you're most likely going to find a lot of problems with those all-important – but nitty-gritty – details. I don't mind hearing about it, especially if it's approached from a perspective of trying to make the core ideas work in practice. But just remember that stuff isn't my specialty.

END DISCLAIMER

What the Hell is This Crap?

This is an attempt to create a framework for a fundamentally different design philosophy for how the Shadow spec functions, especially in PvP. I will twist all of the existing Shadow spells, glyphs, and talents for new uses, tweak some things, remove some things, or replace things with what I think will make an interesting spec that better serves my vision. In effect I'm creating my own Shadow heaven. Many of the old spells will return either unchanged or tweaked, or completely different. In no way do I promise or claim for sure it would be balanced given the current state of the game, though I will say I honestly don't want to be OP (lack of challenge is ultimately boring) and I'll try not to let things get too nutty.

Why God Why?

Well here's the thing. I've always loved the idea of mobile spellcasters, magic-users who compensate for their inherent frailty using speed, reflexes, and guile, escaping and avoiding their enemies rather than using magics to make themselves more sturdy and tough. And generally I think the “shadow” side of a priestly coin can really work with that.

Also, just to put this in context, here's how I see the existing game, in very simple design terms: There are 9 caster specs. 3 of them (mages) are designed to avoid damage using CC, controlling their enemies and preventing incoming damage. 3 of them (warlocks) are designed to be tanky, taking damage to the face and being tough and hard to kill. There is already one spec that's designed to be mobile with some CC (Balance) and then one is a hybrid of all the other three (Elemental). Many will probably disagree with this assessment but that's just how I see it. Shadow, of course, makes the 9th spec, and according to current game design it's a fourth “tanky” spec.

So for me, there's plenty of room for a second caster class that's built around mobility and escape, with some CC but little personal stability. A class you find it hard to pin down. An “execution” character, if you'll pardon the FGC terminology. Like Seth from Street Fighter, fragile but with lots of tools for offense and escape, who relies on well-executed combos and mixups to keep his opponent on the defensive.

Lore Nerd Stuff

Unfortunately, none of the existing “Shadowpriests” in Warcraft lore demonstrate any such leaning toward mobility. But they haven't really shown what they ARE capable of, in specific gameplay terms, and so in my mind this only means that Blizz has never had a perfect vision for the class type other than a vague “dark side of the light” concept.

I say this, but I will be the first to also say I'm not sure what they actually see for the class, behind the scenes. In outlining my vision there may be plenty of overlap between what I think and what they think. My assessment of their vision may be way off, but it's based on what they've said over the years, which isn't much.

So as I go ahead and clarify the key lore ideas with the spec as I see it, don't forget that I may just be rehashing Blizz's ideas. Again, this is just me having fun pretending to be a game designer. Allow me my obsession!

My Vision

So what is a Shadowpriest, thematically? Well, more than any other class, Priests play with the dual nature of light and dark. But what is darkness, aside from some abstract philosophical theory? Well, it certianly has nothing to do with demons or undead. Pure “Shadow” energy is neither evil nor necromantic, though demons and necromancers may often tap into it for its unique properties.

In my headcanon (and once again, maybe the actual canon too), there is a Plane of Shadow (sometimes called the Void) which is composed entirely of negative or Shadow energy, as opposed to the positive energy that healy Priests and Paladins use to nourish and protect their allies. If you went unprotected to the Shadow Plane you would die, as it's in the nature of negative energy to consume/destroy life. You wouldn't always die right away, or even fast. Depending on how strong your life-force is it could take time but unless you escaped it would be inevitable.

One common use for Shadow energy is to weave in magic that redirects energy, such that the life force or essence destroyed by the shadow energy doesn't dissipate, and is recycled and used by the caster for healing. The Drain Life spell is a good example of this, and Shadow Priests are particularly adept at this kind of “Vampiric” magic.

As a tangent on Shadow Energy, some scholars believe that it's the Shadow Plane's proximity to the regular or “material” plane that causes aging. We are all suffering from the effects of minute traces of Shadow energy every minute of our lives. For the first half we outpace it because our life force is strong, but eventually it becomes too much and begins to break us down, killing us very slowly and gruesomely.

So what's the difference between a warlock and a shadowpriest? A warlock can cast Shadow Bolt, sending a summoned orb of shadow energy at his enemies which deals damage and causes pain. It's something passed down from warlock to warlock, iterated on and tuned, and casting the spell is as simple as saying the words and making the gestures. But anyone can drive a car; only some understand what's going on under the hood. And that's how a Shadow Priest differs from other entities which use Shadow energy – a Priest draws on that raw energy directly, using the power of his mind.

Yes, Shadowpriests are PSYCHIC in nature. A Shadowpriest uses the unique mental discipline he obtained from his training as a regular priest to transform his body into a conduit between the Material and the Shadow planes – this is known as the Shadow Form, and one of its characteristics is it partially disperses the matter of the priest's body, making him lighter and swifter, and capable of traveling through shadows. Using certain damaging abilities, the shadowpriest can also strategically draw strands of raw, excess shadow energy, mentally keeping them close until he needs to infuse that energy into an empowered version of an existing priest ability.

The big lore downside to the Shadow Form is that it inherently degrades the mind and drives the priest insane. A Shadowpriest is doomed by definition – some slip all the way into the Plane, some just go physically mad and turn on their allies and must be put down, and some have other, more exotic, ends. Some last for a long time (mostly) lucid, but ultimately it's impossible for a mortal to so intimately connect his mind and body to the Shadow Plane and remain whole indefinitely. Thus, every player Shadowpriest in the World of Warcraft exists in his or her own story somewhere between the first time he or she taps into the Plane, and when he or she inexorably loses touch with reality. For this reason (and others) Shadowpriests are much like warlocks – feared, misunderstood, and often outcast.

Lore Becomes Gameplay

Shifting gears for a second, here's how I imagine a Shadowpriest behaving in PvP game combat.

Your own shadow has an air of mystery, don't you think? You have to be facing away from the light to see it in the first place, but go ahead and do so. What is it thinking? Is it staring back at you right now? How could you tell?

A shadow has no substance of its own. It's silent and slippery and can move fast, it's hard to pin down. Throw a torch at it, and it disappears and pops up behind you. Scholars whisper that every person's shadow is a doorway to the Shadow Plane, and an entity as intimately connected to the Plane as a Shadowpriest can travel swiftly between them, or disappear and move just behind reality, reappearing elsewhere.

So that's my gameplay vision for the Shadow spec. It's fast, it's mobile, it winks out and pops up elsewhere, it shrouds itself in shadows, heals itself with your own degrading life energy, and it blows you up with Shadow-based energy and other similar powers. The primary downside is that a Shadowpriest is very flimsy if caught – if you CAN pin him down and identify where the actual person is, he doesn't last long. There's room for outsmarting the Shadowpriest, anticipating where he wants to go and where he'll be and catching him with his cooldowns down.

Note that this doesn't mean a spec that's just ridiculously different from any other spec ever. It's all still grounded within the framework of WoW. Much of the gameplay will even remain the same as the existing Shadowpriest. You'll see what I mean.

Baseline Mechanics

Now, here's where we start getting into gameplay specifics. I'll start with the most basic items before I get into the actual spells.

Quick formatting note: tooltips/spell descriptions are in italics, the text in normal font directly afterwards are notes and thoughts.

Shroud

This is the most dramatic change I would make if I were redesigning the Shadow spec. If you get through this section without skipping to the end to flame me for being insane, then the rest will be chickensh*t by comparison.

On a very broad design level, Shroud is a Shadowpriest version of Stealth/Prowl or Camouflage, and the Shadowpriest would be the World of Warcraft's first stealthing caster (except for boomkins and that's kind of a special case). Here's how the tooltip would look:

Slip into the shadows and move unseen except by players closer than 15 yards. Your own sight is hindered as well, reducing the range of your spells to 20 yards while shrouded. Taking any actions but movement betrays your location, ending the effect. Cannot be used in combat, 10 second cooldown.

That said, here's my thought process on this whole thing.

A stealth mechanic is not quite the highest item on my list of things I'd put in a shadowpriest redesign, but it's very high. To me it gives the spec uniqueness and adds to the flavor. A stealthing DPS spellcaster, that's just cool. And as masters of Shadow, well, I don't see how anyone could argue that it makes at least as much sense, lore-wise, as plenty of the other sweeping game changes that have been made over the years.

However, Rogues are the game's stealthers. That's core to their whole design. They have an entire MoP talent tier devoted to playing with the stealth mechanic. So in designing a caster stealth, just as Blizzard did when they gave hunters Camo, of course I don't want to step on the rogue class's toes. Shroud would be inherently weaker than Stealth, the shrouded Shadowpriest being fully visible at a distance pretty far out. It's at a movement advantage over glyphed Camo, but not only is the priest easier to locate than a camouflaged hunter, it also reduces the priest's own range, restricting the priest in terms of ambushes he can set up.

Before I finish this section I just want to point out that Stealth on its own is not that powerful, and shouldn't be considered that big of a thing to add. Being able to move without being seen except to close-ish enemies is definitely nice, it allows you to pick your battles and very often guarantees that you get the opener. But ask hunters how often they think about their Camo button while they're fighting – without a Vanish-like ability to auto-stealth out of combat, it's just not useful once you're fighting. If you can get out of combat you can restealth and maybe escape, but in Shroud's case that's unlikely since opponents will know generally where you were and that you're visible at 15 yards. In addition, Shadow Sight makes it very hard to use in arenas except to get that opener. It's just not THAT good, but yes nobody is arguing that it's pretty cool utility to have.

Finally, as an alternative flavor to the shadowpriest stealth mechanic, instead of a shadowy “shroud” we could bring back Mind Soothe as a kind of area-effect “psychic” stealth, where it's a mind affecting aura that causes enemies to overlook you, making you effectively invisible until you're too close for them to miss. It reduces the “aggro-range” of enemy players. That's hilarious to think about.

AoE Interactivity

I have long felt that Shadowpriest AoE was kind of boring. Mind Sear-->Mind Sear-->Mind Sear-->Mind Sear. Yeah, you can spam some dots and then Sear as filler, but that's never felt completely... “intended.” There's never been a spell or mechanic that suggests that's what we're “supposed” to do, and has always just seemed like how we've abused the half-finished tools they've given us. In addition, there's zero interaction with our Shadow Orbs mechanic when AoEing, which feels odd. Though I guess there are other classes with AoE rotations that don't interact with their secondary resource.

So part of my redesign is to write in some more interactive AoE mechanics, both for the CoP/nuke spec and for the classic DoT spec, especially when it comes to the building and spending of our secondary resource.

Shadowy Apparitions

This mechanic is also quite a bit different: it's gone!

Okay, not gone gone. It's gone from the baseline shadowpriest kit, but it returns as the replacement for Auspicious Spirits, which I have rethought. More details below.

The thing about the Apparitions, however, is that they provide some much-needed crit scaling, and just flat removing them devalues crit. There might need to be some kind of new (preferably passive) mechanic to replace it, so that crit retains its value for us.

Shades and Shadow Infusion

First up on the list of combat mechanics, Shades are basically Shadow Orbs, our secondary resource. The change is because I feel like a “shade” is more flavor-appropriate than an “orb.” Mages do orbs, shadowpriests do darkness and mystery. Ultimately not a big deal but this is my world, hmph.

Visually, shades appear as dark wisps or amorphous purplish strings that drift around the priest in shifting patterns. In addition, the visual effect of the shades is accurate to the number you actually have.

Just like orbs, shades are built up by certain spells and are used to fuel a number of powerful finisher spells. You can hold up to 5 shades and each ability uses a max of 3. Shades naturally regenerate slowly when out of combat, to a baseline of 3 (obsoleting the Glyph of Mind Harvest, about which I could rant but I won't). Mechanically, the only way shades differ from orbs is how they're spent:

Shadow Infusion: Consumes up to three shades, empowering your next shadow ability.

This is a new spell that's used to dump shades and “infuse” that energy into the next spell you cast. Shadow Infusion is off the GCD and has no cooldown. When you use the Shadow Infusion spell, it consumes up to 3 shades and temporarily transforms some of your spells into their infused/empowered versions. Once you have used one, they all transform back to their regular versions. It can't be used/grayed out if you have no shades.

Visually, the Infusion spell itself ought to have a neat animation, dark but flashy, during which 3 orbiting shades energize and suck themselves into the priest's hands which will glow with black energy similar to old Inner Focus. The size of the glow depends on how many shades you infuse, and it will remain until you use an infusion spell.

Here are the spells you can burn your shades into:

Vampiric Hunger (infused VT): Instantly blast your target for up to (337% of your spellpower) shadow damage and then 100% of the initial damage over 6 seconds. Redirect 100% of the life destroyed back to you as healing.

Some dislike the wording of Devouring Plague, feeling it isn't very “priesty.” Though it isn't very high on my list of gripes I'm inclined to agree, so here's the new DP. Also note that an infused VT is instant cast.

Psychic Scourge (infused Psychic Horror): Overwhelm your target's mind, causing them to cower in horror for [3+0.5/1.0/1.5] seconds. [1.0/0.5/0.0] second cast time, 45 second cooldown.

First note that Psychic Horror (tooltip below) is now a baseline Priest ability, a 3 second horror/stun with a 1.5 second cast time.

However, a Shadowpriest can drop shades into the spell to quicken the cast time and increase the duration. With 3 shades it becomes instant and 4.5 second duration, just a tiny bit better than the same Psychic Horror we know on live and on the current beta build. The big change here is we have the flexibility of a version that's shorter and has a cast time, but does not cost us a secondary resource. Also note the new glyph for it, further below in the CC section.

Mass Suffering (infused Mind Sear): Unleash the power of Shadow Word: Pain, causing each of your active instances to erupt with shadow energy. Each second, each instance has a [33/66/100%] chance to tick once and deal X damage to enemy targets within 4 yards. 5 second channel.

Stand and channel for 5 seconds; all your active SWP spells tick every second and cause small shadow explosions around them. You don't need LoS or range to any of your targets to use this spell, giving you a neat but not OP edge when multi-dotting in PvP. The extra explosion makes it exponentially stronger with more stacked SWP targets (a la enhance shaman Fire Nova) but has a built-in cap because you can't have that many SWPs rolling at the same time (especially if you're spec'd into Shadowy Apparitions and have to also have VT rolling, see below). The spell should be tuned so that its DPET and damage per shade exceeds Vampiric Hunger/DP when you have 3+ SWPs rolling. Finally, these extra ticks don't have to count as real SWP ticks for damage numbers and procs; they can show up as a different spell in recount.

Also note that the spell uses the Omni channel animation, not the targeted one that Mind Sear does.

Glyph of Suffering: Your Mass Suffering deals 30% less damage, but its targets move 20% slower per shade while affected.

Dark Shell (infused Power Word: Shield): Wrap yourself in a bulwark of shadow energy, absorbing (Spellpower + 5,082) damage. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. If the shield is broken by damage, it causes an eruption of shadow energy, knocking back all enemies within 8 yards and slowing them by 40% for [2/4/6] seconds. 1 minute cooldown.

This spell absorbs no more or less than a normal PWS, the knockback+slow is the infused part.

Core and Movement Mechanics

Now I get deeper into some specifics. Keep in mind my redesign is done with PvP in mind, but PvE can certainly benefit from it.

Shadowform: Assume a form of Shadow, increasing your Shadow damage by 25% and base movement speed by 15%, and increasing all party and raid members' haste and multistrike by 5%. However, you cannot cast any Holy spells.

Leap of Faith is “Disc” school and can be cast. Yes, the bonus armor is gone.

Spectral Guise: Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving behind your true form. As a shadow you are invisible, can cast non-damage spells, and move 60% faster, but you remain in combat. Lasts 6 seconds or until your true form is destroyed. 15 second cooldown.

This is your primary mobility and evasion spell, being a sprint on a short cooldown as well as a target drop. It would become baseline for Shadow and replaced by a new talent that's more purely about defensive survivability, like the rest of that tier. The “true form” would have a decent percent of your health, but low enough that 2-3 GCDs or so worth of focused DPS pumped into it should bring it down. And dot ticks don't kick you out, that's important.

Shifting Shadow (OPTIONAL): Slip through the Shadow Realm and reappear in the shadow of another creature within 20 yards. 2 charges, 30 second cooldown each.

This ability functions like rogue's Shadowstep, but you can use it with allies as well. It is an additional form of mobility, if it's needed (it very well might be).

Dispersion: Disperse into pure Shadow energy, increasing your movement speed by 30% [stacking with the increase from Shadowform] and lasting until canceled. You cannot cast spells while dispersed, and if you are directly struck while dispersed the effect immediately ends.

This functions as a “movement mode” for Shadow, and can be dropped or raised at will. It provides no damage reduction.

As a visual note, while dispersed you don't just look like a purple fart cloud. The gaseous effect is there, but muted somewhat, with a shadowy trace of your character at its center that moves with a unique floating/hovering animation more involved than the stiff, unappealing way a levitating character currently moves.

Fade (priest baseline ability): Fade into shadow, freeing you from movement-impairing effects and temporarily removing all your threat for 10 seconds. 30 second cooldown.

Deep Fade (Shadow replacement): Fade into shadow, allowing you to move unhindered [immune to slows and roots] for 3 seconds, and temporarily removing all your threat for 10 seconds. 15 second cooldown.

Glyph of Fade: Your Fade and Deep Fade abilities now also reduce all damage taken by 10%, but their duration is reduced by 5 seconds.

Defensive and Utility Spells

Power Word Shield: I've seen reports that this spell is very strong on the beta, now that it can crit and multistrike, and that we may end up feeling quite tanky with it. So just to address this point, let me say that I'm not scheming even in this (fun) redesign exercise (that's just for fun) to have an actual strong defensive spell AND a bunch of mobility. Under the redesign we'd have PWS for iconic and historic value, but it wouldn't be very strong, comparable to how it's been very often before – you can burn through it in one or two GCDs without much problem. I'd prefer to rely on escaping and self-healing than a big strong shield to take hits while I stand there rooted or stunned. If that makes it bad for Disc then just buff it for Disc.

If needed, we could say that in the lore, a shadowpriest's intimate connection to the Shadow Plane actually weakens his spirit compared with a healy priest, such that his own Weakened Soul debuff lasts longer, maybe around 30 seconds or so. This prevents Shadow from using PWS that often and turns it into a longer cooldown emergency spell.

Leap of Faith: Many shadowpriests would want to keep this ability, and I am one of them. However, instead of the Glyph of Renewed Faith (which provides an ability already granted by Shifting Shadow above, I'd go with a Shadow-only new glyph):

Glyph of Doubt: Your Leap of Faith transforms into Burden of Doubt: Overwhelm your target's mind with self-doubt, reducing their movement speed by 75%. The target's resolve returns over 5 seconds, regaining 15% movement speed every second. 30 yard range, 1.5 min cooldown.[/i]

Mass Dispel: This spell is a problem I'd say, because the ability to dispel CC off your healer is uniquely powerful. If we're giving Shadow the ability to defend itself I'd say its utility here should be nerfed. Options can be discussed but an increase of the cooldown to 30 seconds or longer for Shadow may be a good place to start.

Dispel Magic: Offensive dispels are neat, not especially powerful anymore (where everyone's major cooldowns are undispellable anyway), and something Shadowpriests should keep.

Other Spells

Living Shadow: Split your psychic essence and cause your shadow to come alive at the targeted location. Your shadow stands still and casts shadow damage spells on nearby enemy targets afflicted by your Void Chill effect [see below]. Once per use of this ability, you can switch places with your shadow. Lasts 20 seconds, 3 minute cooldown.

This amounts to a DPS cooldown (and replaces Shadowfiend) that offers a bit of PvP mobility. Your shadow has all your gear and uses your character's model and animations, as well as the absence or presence of the Glyph of Shadow. It can cast Mind Flay, but it doesn't slow its target. If you are spec'd CoP it spams Mind Spike instead. It can be attacked and killed but it has plenty of HP and is usually not worth it – it can also be death gripped or knockbacked, which might be an interesting tactic (relocating your teleport location to a less advantageous position – say on Blade's Edge a DK is wailing on the spriest, who summons his shadow up on the bridge in preparation to swap with it, but the DK sees this and grips the shadow down while spamming /lol).

Glyph of Vengeful Shadow: Your Living Shadow's Mind Flays and Mind Spikes slow their target by 50%, but halves its duration.

Vampiric Embrace: Redirects the life energy destroyed by your shadow damage, healing your allies for 10%, and yourself for 25%, of any single-target shadow damage you deal. Lasts 15 seconds, 3 minute cooldown.

Glyph of Vampiric Embrace: Doubles the healing you and your allies receive from Vampiric Embrace, but reduces its duration by 5 seconds.

Cretin Control

For a spec with this much mobility to work, it can't have too much CC. Controlling enemies is a mage's thing, and the last thing we want is a Million Mage March, flooding the forums and going THEY TEWK R JERRRBS.

Assuming for the moment that what Shadow is capable of on the beta right now, CC-wise, is the target Blizz is shooting for, what I'd like to do is tweak things so they feel better for us, while not adding significantly more power. Add flexibility, aka the power to choose what we're good at. Because I for one am tired of being forced into a class that is great at party support and utility, but can't defend itself and relies on non-sucky teammates for peels and heals.

Psychic Horror: Causes your target to cower in horror (incapacitate) for 3 seconds. 1.5 second cast time, 45 second cooldown.

First of all, the big thing with Psychic Horror is that it is now baseline for all priests. With Scream made a talent, healy priests are left with little or nothing, and I staunchly disagree with Blizz on the notion that this is okay. Other healers get plenty of CC and nothing priests get compensates.

Whether this version of Psychic Horror is useful for healers is up for debate. But it's a start to improving the priest's toolkit.

For Holy, going into red chakra might transform Horror into Chastise or something, I dunno leave me alone.

Glyph of Psychic Horror: Increases the duration of Psychic Horror and Psychic Scourge by 2 seconds, but reduces its range to 10 yards.

This makes Horror a fairly powerful defense against melee, but harder to use offensively.

Silence: This spell remains pretty much unmolested. Of all the live shadow spec's toolkit I think this is my favorite spell, the one I feel best fits the spec's lore/concept. The void is silent and dark. Not to mention, a shadowpriest is psychic and can go into someone's mind and temporarily turn off their speech centers.

Glyph of Silence: Reduces the cooldown of Silence by 25 seconds, but also reduces its duration by 2. (I even like this thing.)

DPS/Rotational Spells

These for the most part remain the same. I have no problem with Shadow's DPS or the design of its rotation. And because this is my fantasy world some or all of the spells would get a slick graphical update.

DPS - Two Flavors of Shadow

One thing I want to address first is the Clarity of Power talent partially turning Shadow into a Direct Damage spec – I have no problem with this. To me, Shadow-based DPS is neither intrinsically dot-based or direct-damage based. Either is appropriate, though if I were going to make it thematically appropriate I might say DD shadow should somehow feel more “unstable,” but that's just kicking a stone around.

The thing I love about the talent is that it gives you that playstyle choice. Want to play classic Shadow dot spec? Don't take the talent. Want to blow people up like a mage? Take the talent. It's all sixes, there'll be (slight to noticeable) differences in the things you'll be good at (dots better at multi target, DD better at single), but you'll still be “ok” at the thing you don't specialize in. Sure, it means there are essentially two specs and two rotations Blizz has to balance, but honestly it's what they're actually setting themselves up with for WoD, it seems like, so good for them.

So for my redesign, this holds true. Both playstyles are designed to have roughly equal mobility, but the PvE DPS of one should feel slower and more deliberate, and the other will feel more spammy and nukey.

Mkay on to the actual spells.

Mind Flay: Unchanged

Glyph of Mind Flay[/b]: Your Mind Flay no longer slows its target, but heals you for 10% of the damage it deals.

The existing Flay glyph is poorly designed.

Glyph of Psychic Subtlety (minor): Your Mind Flay's appearance changes to leave no visible trace.

Essentially this erases the purply beam from the Flay graphic but leaves the little glow on the priest's hands and the target's head. PvP targets will know they're being Mind Flayed, but may not immediately know where the priest is. Adds legitimacy to the idea that we're the caster whose spells you can't trace back to the source, though THIS much subtlety much be overkill, though the counterpoint there is that CoP/nuke spec will innately leave no trace at all.

Mind Blast: Natively causes a debuff called Void Chill for 8 seconds, reducing healing received by 25% (Mortal Strike debuff).

Glyph of Mind Blast: Your Mind Blast slows its target by 30% for 2 seconds. A critical strike increases this effect to a 4 second root.

Shadow Word: Pain: No longer has an initial moonfire-like hit. There is a new, more elegant solution for what Shadowpriests will do on the move.

[b]Improved Shadow Word: Pain (perk): Your Shadow Word: Pain has a 1.0 second GCD. (This might be impossible to balance, but I like the idea of it)

Vampiric Touch: Each tick heals the caster for 1% hp. Shadow should never have lost the self-healing they did. Also, I'd increase the horror from the dispel backlash to 4 seconds.

Devouring Plague: Name becomes Vampiric Hunger (see above) but otherwise unchanged.

Mind Spike: Blast the target for (45% of spellpower) Shadowfrost damage. 1.5 second cast, can be cast on the move.

Spike is redesigned to be a Shadow version of Scorch – low damage but move-castable. For baseline/classic dot-spec shadow, it provides filler for moving DPS.

**Important**: Note that I understand Blizz is moving away from movement casting. However, remember that in current tuning, the initial SWP hit is roughly 44% of spellpower, so this change doesn't actually add any movement DPS from how we are on live, where we are one of the LEAST mobile casters (without proc talents anyway). The only change here is that instead of an instant Moonfire-like dot, we'll be spamming a cast-time spell, which I feel is more elegant and fun. Also note that for CoP shadowpriests, Spike becomes a rotational spell that takes longer to cast (read: scales better with haste) and hits like a true nuke if you cast it without moving.

As for Spike's original intent of being a spell you use when mobs die too fast for dots... well, I have two things to say about that. First, I never thought we needed anything like that. It was a natural weakness of the spec and I never minded being bad at this minor element of WoW gameplay. Second, the design philosophy of the Clarity of Power talent offers an excellent alternative – it turns the spec in general into a nuking spec, and thus it can turn Mind Spike into a hard nuke that's good against low health adds. If you're a dot spec then you aren't good at adds. But if you're a nuking spec then you are. It works great IMO.

Finally, I'm not sure if this functionality ever made it in, but Mind Spike would be truly separate from the Shadow school, allowing you to Spike when locked out of Shadow, and vice versa.

Glyph of Desperate Vampirism: Whenever one of your Shadow damage spells is interrupted [by a kick effect], your next Mind Spike will heal you for 100% of the damage it causes.

Talents

This is the tricky one because even on live servers, the interactions between all the various talents are complicated. Adding the 100-tier makes it exponentially worse. You'll have to have a PhD in matrix modeling to figure out what to do. So my tackling it is beyond hilarious and is more just sad.

In general, I'm not so much interested in rotation and PvE DPS. The design and mathy stuff there has always been handled by people much smarter than I am, and they're welcome to it. So mostly I only feel qualified to make some observations about how things might evolve around the other changes I've thought up, and then get to the stuff I care about – the stuff that matters for PvP.

I'll format this stuff by listing, for each tier, the design goal for each slot and the spell that should fill it.

First Tier – General Defense/Survivability

Going into it, this tier is one of the dorkiest talent tiers in all of WoW. It feels like there's so little creativity here it almost makes me want to fix it. I'm not gonna do it, but I do have to replace Spectral Guise, which becomes Shadow baseline in this redesign.

3rd: Void Shift: You and the currently targeted party or raid member swap health percentages. Increases the lower health percentage of the two to 25% if below that amount. 3 minute cooldown. A lot of people are sad to see this ability go, so here it is in talent form, on a tier where it makes sense. Adjust the other two talents to make it a compelling choice.

Second Tier – Mobility

This tier presents a particular challenge for this redesign, because Shadow would already be super mobile. The tier as it stands on live servers exists in a world where Priests are one of the least mobile people in WoW (and ironically enough, with Feathers they become one of the MOST). It's my opinion that with Feathers OR B&S, plus all these changes, Shadow would be basically untouchable.

My best idea to fix this is to say the existing talents are the talents Priest healers get, and change the talents for Shadow to be more about self-healing.

Second Tier – Healers

1st: Body and Soul: When you cast Power Word: Shield or Leap of Faith, you increase the target's move speed by 60% for 4 seconds.

2nd: Angelic Feathers: Place a feather at a targeted location. If allies walk through it, they gain 60% increased move speed for 5 seconds. 3 charges.

3rd: Holy Word: Celerity: Allows the friendly party or raid target to levitate, floating a few feet above the ground. While levitating the target gains 25% increased move rate. Lasts 10 minutes. Replaces Levitate. (This would use the unique floaty animation I already made up for Dispersion)

Second Tier – Shadow self and off healing

1st: Nurturing Darkness (active, direct, and defensive): When you suffer a damaging attack while in Shadowform, you gain one stack of Battered. You can only gain one stack every 4 seconds. When you reach three stacks, your next Flash Heal is instant cast, can be cast in Shadowform, and heals for double the amount if used on yourself.
2nd: Twisted Intent (helps ability to apply primary self-healing while under pressure, slightly added mobility): Reduces the cast time and global cooldown of your Vampiric Touch spell by .5 seconds.
3rd: Hungry Shadows (anti-healer offensive utility): Your Vampiric Hunger absorbs up to X healing its target receives for 5 seconds and redirects it to you.

Third Tier - ???

Surge of Darkness: The tier on which this talent resides is weird. Its theme in MoP seems to be “mana” but that only matters for healer priests, so for Shadow it's just different ways to do more DPS. SoD has the useful side effect of adding a tremendous amount of mobility to an otherwise immobile spec.

However, in redesigning Shadow to be more mobile baseline the talent can't add MORE.

So here's how that row ought to look, along with the sort of talent I'd want to be there:

1st: Adds a random proc event to the rotation (SoD; VT ticks have a chance to increase the damage of your next Mind Spike by 50%, but only makes it instant if you have CoP).
2nd: Narrows burst window (Living Shadow cooldown reduced to 1 minute, its damage adjusted accordingly. Note: Living Shadow's place swap ability has a 3 minute cooldown so this talent doesn't increase mobility).
3rd: Adds interactive, stationary burst (Insanity, unchanged)

Fourth Tier – CC

I hate this talent tier. It's full of poorly designed nonsense spells. On MoP beta the only one anyone will ever take is Scream.

My opinion on this row is pretty strong, and my vision for it roughly resembles the CC tiers for other classes. Also remember that healers will have full access to all these, so that's something I'm keeping in mind. Here it is:

1st: Psychic Scream (AoE CC): Unchanged
2nd: Sleep (Single-target CC): Put an enemy humanoid, beast, or demon to sleep for 50 seconds (8 in PvP). Any damage will wake the target. Allies of a sleeping target can interact with them in melee to deal 1% health in damage. 1.7 second cast, no cooldown. (This spell is something priests have never had, spammable CC! But it does come with an interesting limitation of letting allies “slap” the target awake, if within melee range. It basically makes the sleeping target “gearable” with one of those little hands, and click to smack them [with an unarmed slap animation!] and get them out. Such an ability would be pretty useless against an opponent that has an ally nearby that's not paying attention, but against lone opponents (healers that like to keep their distance, for example) it's incredibly strong, even better than Polymorph – makes sense, preying on the outcasts and those with no support.)
3rd: Phantasm (Anti-CC): Your Fade and Deep Fade spells can be cast while stunned, and break such effects. However, their cooldown is increased by 30 seconds.

As an alternative possibility, there could be a talent that dramatically buffs Psychic Horror, similar to the way a paladin's Fist of Justice talent doubles the frequency of his stun.

Final note: Both of the talented CC options would be “Incapacitates,” DRing with Cyclone, fears, Blind, and warlock seduction.

Fifth Tier – Damage

This tier is fine I think. Smart people will help it be balanced. I dunno.

One note: Shadowy Insight does not natively make Mind Blast instant; that's reserved for CoP.

Sixth Tier – Damage Spells

I'd also leave this tier alone. I think it has problems but to fix them would be a huge task that's mostly beyond my interest even to express.

Final Tier – Playstyle Choices

This is what I'm talking about, the kind of thing I feel like talents should be doing. Make a choice of what kind of priest you want to play, knowing that it won't have a huge impact on your overall performance (especially in PvP).

1st: Clarity of Power (Direct Damage spec): Mind Spike now removes your Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Touch spells and its base cast time is increased by .5 second, but your mastery increases Mind Spike damage, and Mind Spikes you cast without moving deal X% additional damage. Your Mind Blast's cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds. Each time Mind Sear deals damage to a target not affected by your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch spells, you have a Y% chance to gain a shade. When Surge of Darkness or Shadowy Insight proc, the resulting Mind Spike or Mind Blast is instant cast. Finally, you gain access to the Vampiric Rage spell:

Vampiric Rage (Shade-infused Mind Blast): Blasts your target and all others within 8 yards for X (based on shades used) Shadow damage and heals you for [1/2/3]% of your max health per target struck. 2 second cast, no cooldown.

Glyph of Vampiric Rage: Targets affected by Vampiric Rage are slowed by [20/40/60]% for [1/3/5] seconds, but the ability no longer heals you and deals 30% less damage.

2nd: Focus of the Void (Single-target-focused DoT spec): Your Shadow damage spells do X% less damage, but you learn the spell Void Entropy.

Void Entropy: Cause the void to embrace one target of your choice for one minute. When used on your Void Entropy target, your shadow spells deal Y% more damage and heal you for an additional 5% of the damage they deal. Your Void Entropy target deals 20% less damage to you, and is visible to you despite stealth or invisibility effects. Void Entropy cannot be dispelled, but can only affect one target at a time. 1.5 sec cast, 20 sec cooldown.

Note: I understand Blizz designed VEnt to be ideal for council-type fights but that seems nonsensical to me, even after fixing the remaining design problems with VEnt, described in detail elsewhere by smart people. There are one or two fights of that type per tier, and we're already famously good at any fight with 2-4 targets. It's also 100% useless for PvP. So here I retool it to be a talent you take when you have one opponent/single-target without having to swallow a nuke style of play.

3rd: Shadowy Apparitions (Greater shade generation/multi-DoT spec): Your Mind Blast and Vampiric Hunger deal X% less damage, but your Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain each last 6 seconds longer and gain Y% additional benefit from your critical strike and multistrike. Whenever your Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain are both on a target, a dark presence watches closely, granting a Z% chance each tick to draw life from the target, dealing (45% of spellpower) shadow damage and granting you a shade.

Notes: And here they are, the new improved Apparitions. Visually, this “dark presence” can look like anything, but I'd want there to be some kind of subtle but clear indication on or around the target that both dots are present and potentially generating apparitions (kinda similar to how Unstable Affliction has a persistent visual effect on its target).

As for the apparitions themselves, I'd want them to be kind of opposite how they are on live – when an apparition spawns it moves from the target to the shadowpriest, and instead of a weird floaty ghost I'd prefer a projectile similar to that of the Spirit Towers from WC3.

A word on scaling: A huge problem with Auspicious Spirits is it scales way too well, almost exponentially. As gear increases, Devouring Plague becomes stronger in every way, AND with better crit you get more and more and more of them, hilariously maintaining 100% uptime with enough crit and SWP targets. It double-dips from gear in a very unfair and imbalanced way.

The point of this redesign, then, is to accomplish the concept of AS without that scaling issue. And as I see it, the point of the talent is to increase shade generation through multidotting and (here's my own agenda) to generally increase multi-dotting damage at a heavy cost of single-target potential. The percent chance of the apparition per dot tick is fixed and never changes (though it can be tuned as necessary). Haste increases the number of chances per unit of time, but I don't think this will scale as ridiculously as AS would.

As a result, taking the talent should cause you to generate shades faster than without the talent, but the rate of increase should not feel dramatically greater with much higher level gear.

Additional Seventh Tier Notes and Explanations:

Complicated stuff, huh? That CoP tooltip particularly is pretty complex, isn't it? I know Blizz has avoided long tooltips for a while now, if possible. But the thing about this stuff is that the talent tier offers three entirely different playstyles. From what I'm seeing, a long tooltip is the price for uniqueness and playability, and it's not a bad one to swallow.

By way of explanation, here's how I see each playstyle working out for PvE rotation, single-target, on the move, and AoE, with some additional notes on PvP. I'm probably way off base by now, but remember this is all just for fun.

CoP/DD Spec:

Single-target: Stand still if possible and spam 2.0 second Mind Spikes into a dot-less target, Mind Blast on cd, infuse VT to use Vampiric Hunger when you have 3 shades (note that Spike doesn't remove it, only the two “primary” dots). If you have SoD and/or SI you can dot up off-targets for procs. If you have to move, you can keep spamming Spike but it will not hit as hard. (Note: I don't know if the tech exists to increase the damage of a spell if you didn't move during its cast time, but that would be important for this to work).

Another thing to note is that I see a lot of people criticizing CoP for its boring 2-3 button rotation and I don't actually have an answer to that. I think it's a very valid point and it's something that I'd say needs to be looked at, because the ultimate goal for CoP is to provide the option of a nuke-based shadowpriest playstyle without having to swallow any significant disadvantages in flavor, fun, or viability.

AoE: This is where things change a lot. For AoE, the DD spec's shade builder and spender are reversed. Spam Mind Sear – with the CoP talent it generates shades at a rate that can be carefully tuned so that around 6-10 targets it'll take roughly 1-3 full Sear channels to gather those 3 shades. When you have 3 shades, infuse them into Mind Blast to cast a big AoE direct-damage nuke (that slows if glyphed). Repeat.

Shadowy Apparitions/Multi-target DoT Spec:

Single-target: This is as classic as you get: Keep dots up, Blast on cooldown, Flay as your filler. Hit Vampiric Hunger when you have 3 shades and continue Flaying. When you have to move you can use the weaker Mind Spike, but you really do want to use Flay if you can.

AoE: Spam SWP and VT on as many targets as you can and channel Mind Sear. Apparitions from this filler phase will feed you shades; when you have 3 you can infuse them into Mass Suffering.

Void Entropy Spec:

Single-target: Use Void Entropy ASAP, as your damage without it is weak (and is weak on off-targets as well). Once it is up, proceed with a classic DoT-based rotation, essentially identical to that of the AS spec, except for the Void Entropy spell you use each minute.

AoE: This spec will have generally very weak AoE, as it has neither the special functionality of the CoP spec nor the increased dot damage and passive shade generation of the Apparitions spec. But that's the whole idea of this version of Void Entropy – powerful single-target damage, weaker multi-dot and AoE.

PvE Notes: The way these specs would need to be tuned is that CoP is best at AoE and has strong ST and decent multi-dotting. VE has the best ST but weak Multi-dotting and almost decent AoE. SA has the best multi-dotting and good AoE (neither much better than CoP), but its ST is far behind both specs, particularly because its Vampiric Hunger doesn't hit as hard, and its primary strength is in the versatility offered by high shade production.

PvP: All three specs are mobile and elusive. VE is stronger than both other specs in 1v1 (especially against stealthers) and can be very scary if permitted to focus one target, but loses much of its spread pressure. CoP has powerful burst and can still off-dot, especially to provide instant proc nukes for better mobile, bursty instant damage. SA does not excel at single-target but its spread pressure is strong (though not that much better than CoP's), but its greatly increased shade generation adds power through versatility – go ahead, blow 3 shades on Horror or an infused Shield, you'll be getting them back soon anyway.

Other Stuff

There are a number of other minor elements of design to address that I'd like to, for completeness if nothing else.

First up, Mastery.

Mental Anguish: Increases the damage of Mind Flay, Mind Blast, and shade-infused spells by X%.

Couple things to talk about here. I removed Spike from the mastery (CoP adds it back on) so that Spike can be used as moving filler that doesn't scale too well. I also added in any spell that you blow shades on, including Vampiric Hunger (DP) and the two AoE finishers – Mass Suffering and Vampiric Rage.

This means our Mastery is no longer a purely single-target stat, which is something I haven't really liked much (seems hard to balance. But it also still doesn't scale up our dots; I can understand Blizzard's reluctance to let our dots scale too well.

Next, set bonuses. PvE set bonuses are hard, and honestly I'm not too concerned with them. Those I'd leave that to smart math people.

PvP 2pc: If your Spectral Guise's true form is destroyed, you gain X versatility for 5 seconds. (Note: enough to make a noticeable difference!)

PvP 4pc: When you summon your Living Shadow, you can swap places with it one additional time.

Final Thoughts

Balance: If, after reading all this stuff, you're convinced Shadow would be the most ridiculously OP spec of all time in any game, or even just moderately OP, well you know what? You could be right. I lack the very deep insights into the nuances of the highest levels of PvP that multiple gladiators have.

However, I'd say to look back over the post and try to identify the defensive stuff. There's no damage reduction, no bonus armor, and no survivability cooldowns at all unless you count the various escape mechanics. Even mages, one of the most fragile classes in the game currently, get a 16% passive physical damage reduction (from glyphed Molten Armor) – and this Shadowpriest doesn't even have that. There's the 10% DR from Fade if you glyph it but the duration is only 5 seconds, and Fade is designed as an escape from snares and roots. There's some good overall self-healing, but it's not a whole lot, and it won't help much if you're being focus-fired.

In fact, many people are saying Shadow is broken right now on the WoD beta because of a lack of defensives. Well, compared to that, the redesign is actually worse off for survivability/defensive stuff, because it trades Shadowform's bonus armor for passive 15% movement, and Dispersion no longer has any defensive functionality (other than to run away). The only thing it'd have for emergencies is PWS. The ultimate irony is I've loaded the spec up with a bunch of awesome-sounding stuff like stealth and moving Mind Spike, but I could actually see it still being kind of gimped in a real-world setting where smart players can dogpile on you and keep you locked down for the precious few seconds it would take to crush your flimsy butt.

Compare it to Balance, the other mobile DPS caster. Boomkins innately have higher armor (leather vs cloth, plus moonkin form still has the bonus armor) and are flat out immune to polymorph, have far better stealth, can shift out of snares forever with no cooldown and have a very fast travel form, a blink+sprint on a 30 second cooldown, very strong self and off heals from Rejuv and others, incredible CC from rooting treants, cyclone, typhoon, Ursol's and/or Solar Beam, AND, to cap it all off, if you manage to finally catch up, he can turtle up in bear form with all its brute survivability and defensive cooldowns, even harder to kill than usual with HotW. This version of a Shadowpriest is only possibly more mobile/slippery and has roughly equivalent CC and off/self heals, but is more fragile to melee and doesn't have that immense last ditch tankiness.

Random Problems: I'm aware there may be any number of ways something wouldn't work as stated, be impossible to balance or tune, or just flat out be wildly, hilariously OP or UP. In working on this whole thing I've already caught a number of these issues and at least tried to fix them. I'm sure there are plenty more.

But once again, just keep in mind this whole thing was done for fun, and not as a serious suggestion that needs to be picked apart on a numbers level. If I'm looking for feedback at all it's really just on the core design, on how we can imagine it “feeling” in practice, and on the individual ideas.

Thank you for (miraculously) getting all the way through!

[Deleted]

It took me all morning but im finally done reading!

I relly like alot of the ideés and would like to see some of them get implemented, but as you said, might actully make us able to 1v1 Wohooo


hope some high rated people can comment on this to