The random shadow priest idea thread

[Kakokun]

I wanted to make a thread where we can throw around some random ideas for shadow priest, regardless of how viable or logistically plausible it would be. So here's a few of mine.

Would've liked to see the level 75 talents baked passively into shadow priest. This tier of talents is something of an annoyance to me as 99% of the time it's a no-brainer. The only time in my opinion you would take Power infusion over twist of fate is if the fight for some reason would demand you push the boss past phase 1 really quickly. The extra damage in the execute phase is just more important. Shadowy insight is a talent I would've like to see perform better but the miserably low proc chance just makes it underwhelming and non-viable unless you could keep sPain up on so many targets that the logistics behind it would just be a major annoyance, besides Auspicious Spirits pretty much does the same job as Shadowy Insight except better. If they made this tier of talents just baseline it would give spriests something they need, a proper baseline DPS CD (go away noodlefiend), as well as open up the possibility for something more interesting in their stead.
What I would've liked to see instead is maybe a tier of talent that modify our raid utility a bit more, possibly modifying spells like Vampiric Embrace in some fashion making it a bit more exciting to use.

I would also liked to see Power Word: Shield maybe reworked into it's own thing for shadow priests. Outside of Dispersion and glyphed Fade shadow priests don't really have any defensive CDs. Dispersion almost just being a mobile Ice Block without the immunity baked in and glyphed Fade being a bit underwhelming. Maybe call it something like Shadow Barrier, increase the amount of absorb it does and increase the CD somewhat making it only usable on yourself. This would give spriests a bit more options on the defensive side which I think would be welcome while still keeping it more thematically fitting the priest instead of just a generic damage reduction CD.

That's just some of the ideas I have on the top of my head. Would be fun to hear what you guys think, maybe give some feedback criticism and maybe also come with some ideas of your own.

[Relapses]

Reliably give us 5 Orbs on the pull.

[Shahad]

Oh this is going to be fun.

I would add this to Clarity of Power:
Mind Melt:
3 Shadow Orbs. Instant cast. Deals [400% SP] damage and grants 3 stacks of Mental Clarity. Heals for 100% of damage done.
Replaces Devouring Plague

Mental Clarity:
The damage of your next Mind Blast is increased by 45%. The extra damage
heals for 100% of damage done.

And then change Insanity to:
Insanity:
Consuming Shadow Orbs transforms your Mind Flay into Insanity, your Mind Sear into Searing Insanity, and you Mind Spike into Spiking Insanity, for 2 sec per Shadow Orb consumed. These spells deal 100% additional damage.

So that would kill dotweaving and make the CoP spec a proper ST nuke spec (like what we were expecting when the talent was unveiled) instead of this wishy washy "kinda, but not really" we got going. Since CoP would lose DP, devs would be a lot freer with buffing Mind Flay, Mind Sear and DoT damage without causing CoP to go into CoP-lite, which means a proper baseline AoE now! Might even have to remove Mind Sear from Insanity in that case. However, it would decrease our execute damage a bit, since with SW: Death we'd be generating too many orbs to spend the stacks of the buff. Could just buff the SW: Death CoP bonus to compensate.

Void Entropy I would change to grant 1 stack of the dot per dot application. Meaning, a target with only SW:P or VT would have one stack of it automatically applied, while a target with SW:P, VT and DP would have three (for a short time). Would potentially make Mind Sear interact with it in some way to gain some damage, since CoP and AS benefit AoE (buff to Mind Sear and extra orbs+apparition damage).

Then there would be adding some kind of cleave to Mind Bender, buffing PI and SI to make them more balanced in their tiers. And Divine Star needs some love too. And, last but not least, I would make Vampiric Embrace heal passively for a very small amount. I miss my green healing numbers...

[Deleted]

The only change I would like to see was an idea put forward by someone on another thread. SWD is usable on targets above 90%. This solves our 5 orbs on pull complaints, and is a way of giving us some front end burst. Tired of being at 40k dps when BL on the pull runs out, and below the tanks. For pvp and multiple add fights it might be required to have some sort of mind harvest component to it, but the idea is sound.

[Alanar]

Focused will for shadow priests!!!!


Dark Shield/void shield
Shadow orbs creating a shield up to 3 orbs.
Makes you Immune to silence effects for 5 sec afther being casts, lasts 30 sec. 1 orb 10% 2 orbs 20% 3 orbs 30% maximum health shield.

Replaces Power word shield, shield now cost orbs with that extra costs focused will is brought to Shadow in loss of the PW: S.

Void shield will have a cooldown might be 15/20 sec.


Mind Blast being instant should be baked in, Mindspike will no longer remove dots of you pick clarity of power and Mindsike wil stack up to 3 charges, every stack of being cast, damage of devouring plague is increased by 5/10/15%.

Sounds random? Devouring plague isn't hitting for tons and this also slightly increases the offhealing which shadow lacks.

[Dierdre]

Reliably give us 5 Orbs on the pull.

I'll settle for three. Also:

Bring back Inner Fire, either as a glyph or as a passive.
PWS has a different weakened soul effect when cast on oneself.
Void Entropy crit tics / multistrikes generate shadow orbs.

[muto]

Reliably give us 5 Orbs on the pull.

And give Warriors 100 rage, Warlocks 4 embers/full demonic fury, Paladins full holy power, Monks a full stack of tiger eye brew, and so forth. / sarcasm

Honestly shadow orbs should deplete outside of combat if you have more than 1 like Warlock embers do. It's not really fair that Shadow can start with 5 orbs and Destro can't start with 4 embers.

[Naux]

And give Warriors 100 rage, Warlocks 4 embers/full demonic fury, Paladins full holy power, Monks a full stack of tiger eye brew, and so forth. / sarcasm

Except our burst damage on pull is terrible and this would make us slightly less terrible.

[muto]

Except our burst damage on pull is terrible and this would make us slightly less terrible.

Doesn't matter. Our execute damage is probably the best in the game. That more than makes up for it. Some classes have better burst some have better execute, if all classes were alike that would be boring.

[nietz]

And give Warriors 100 rage, Warlocks 4 embers/full demonic fury, Paladins full holy power, Monks a full stack of tiger eye brew, and so forth. / sarcasm

Honestly shadow orbs should deplete outside of combat if you have more than 1 like Warlock embers do. It's not really fair that Shadow can start with 5 orbs and Destro can't start with 4 embers.

A comparison of resources without the context of what those resources provide isn't very meaningful.

[Deleted]

The only change I would like to see was an idea put forward by someone on another thread. SWD is usable on targets above 90%. This solves our 5 orbs on pull complaints, and is a way of giving us some front end burst. Tired of being at 40k dps when BL on the pull runs out, and below the tanks. For pvp and multiple add fights it might be required to have some sort of mind harvest component to it, but the idea is sound.

Holy $hit this is god tier of buffs. Having arguably the most powerful execute in the game on the burst opener for a class that already has 2 execute phases is absolutely insane.

I'd settle for 3 orbs on the pull. Have them generate passively out of combat, maybe remove it for arenas/bgs if its too strong. 3 orbs is imo, perfect, not too bursty for an execute class but enough to get our CoP rotation going fast and the AS synergy with the trinkets and 4set.

5 is a bit too much.

And give Warriors 100 rage, Warlocks 4 embers/full demonic fury, Paladins full holy power, Monks a full stack of tiger eye brew, and so forth. / sarcasm

Honestly shadow orbs should deplete outside of combat if you have more than 1 like Warlock embers do. It's not really fair that Shadow can start with 5 orbs and Destro can't start with 4 embers

3 orbs is about equal to power with 1 burning ember, about 30 rage for a warrior (in execute), 4-5 holy power for paladins and whatever amount for monks. The problem with your analogy is that we have no real consistent way of generating quick orbs at the pull, you have CoP MB but its too slow. You're reliant on AS RNG. All other classes have buffs and CDs they can use to increase resource generation that are consistent.

Warriors have haste and charge, paladins have haste and holy avenger/AW, locks have dark soul and charred remains and still start with 1 ember. We're comparing apples and oranges here and I agree 5 is too much but 3 would be nice.

It's not really a DPS issue overall but its a nice QoL thing. The only situation where it really matters is if you're trying to get good logs, getting rank 1 for a fight like Gruul without 4-5 orbs at the start is near impossible.

[Naux]

Doesn't matter. Our execute damage is probably the best in the game. That more than makes up for it. Some classes have better burst some have better execute, if all classes were alike that would be boring.

How exactly would that make us like all classes. So are warlocks mages and all the other classes the same since they have big DPS cooldowns and we have...shadowfiend.

[Relapses]

To be fair, I simply suggested something so out of this world off the wall batshit fucking insane that I know Blizzard would never implement it. Please don't criticize me for my wild fantasies.

[l33t]

Three orbs at pull.
Mind Sear untied from Insanity. Something like: if Mind Sear hits target which have swp/vt applied, it copies swp/vt to any other targets, 15 yards radius. I'd totally love it to be like balance's starfall too, fire'n'forget spell.
REAL dps cooldown. I mean, cooldown that gives plain buff to our stats/damage. Like, you know, EVERY other dps spec have. Except us. Just make PI baseline, and it will solve this unfairness.
Glyph of mind flay, allowing us to cast it on teh move.

[Deja Thoris]

How exactly would that make us like all classes. So are warlocks mages and all the other classes the same since they have big DPS cooldowns and we have...shadowfiend.

Changed it to show how I feel about it :P

[Deleted]

Three orbs at pull.
Mind Sear untied from Insanity. Something like: if Mind Sear hits target which have swp/vt applied, it copies swp/vt to any other targets, 15 yards radius. I'd totally love it to be like balance's starfall too, fire'n'forget spell.
REAL dps cooldown. I mean, cooldown that gives plain buff to our stats/damage. Like, you know, EVERY other dps spec have. Except us. Just make PI baseline, and it will solve this unfairness.
Glyph of mind flay, allowing us to cast it on teh move.

I've been seeing this suggestion thrown around for years now and it still makes me physically ill. Same goes for the Sear/dot spread idea.

Would love a real dps cooldown, although I don't really want it from PI, especially as a Troll and with Darmac trinket.

Since we're going for crazy and unrealistic ideas, I would like Piranhado's from Diablo's Witch Doctor. I don't care why or how this fits into our rotation.

For those that don't know it, think Ursol's Vortex, but it's a tornado with piranhas, does DoT and increases damage taken. Obviously a sPriest version would have to remove the piranhas and give it a shadowy animation.

[Yvaelle]

And give Warriors 100 rage, Warlocks 4 embers/full demonic fury, Paladins full holy power, Monks a full stack of tiger eye brew, and so forth. / sarcasm

Honestly shadow orbs should deplete outside of combat if you have more than 1 like Warlock embers do. It's not really fair that Shadow can start with 5 orbs and Destro can't start with 4 embers.

Orbs aren't comparable to other secondary resources (ex. Rage), they are our burst cooldowns. It would be more like if on each pull, Recklessness, Bladestorm, Bloodbath, Avatar, etc all began their cooldown - and you had to build up rage (Anger Management of w/e the left-most L100 is called) and wait until they became available ~30-90 seconds into the fight. That is how Shadow Orbs do.

[muto]

Orbs aren't comparable to other secondary resources (ex. Rage), they are our burst cooldowns. It would be more like if on each pull, Recklessness, Bladestorm, Bloodbath, Avatar, etc all began their cooldown - and you had to build up rage (Anger Management of w/e the left-most L100 is called) and wait until they became available ~30-90 seconds into the fight. That is how Shadow Orbs do.

No it's really not. If you have any version of goren soul repository and around 20% crit you'll have 5 orbs less than 10 seconds into the fight. I've never not had gsr proc on the pull.

Also, nice octopus video

[Shahad]

A general issue being les of an issue with a specific trinket and talent configuration doesn't make the issue disappear in general cases.

[Juicebox]

And give Warriors 100 rage, Warlocks 4 embers/full demonic fury, Paladins full holy power, Monks a full stack of tiger eye brew, and so forth. / sarcasm

Honestly shadow orbs should deplete outside of combat if you have more than 1 like Warlock embers do. It's not really fair that Shadow can start with 5 orbs and Destro can't start with 4 embers.

It's not the same thing though. Other classes has cooldowns, we don't. Instead we got Shadow Orbs which works like mini burst cycles. Orbs on pull equals a burst window for us. Even when a Shadowpriest pulls with 5 orbs our burst is only just mediocre.
What happens after the trinket procs are down? We're stuck without that CD we lack during the rest of the heroism, and still come out below average for burst.

So no, it's totally fair that Shadow can (and should always) start with 5 orbs and destruction warlocks and other classes can't (and shouldn't).