Shadow Priest Expansion Idea

[Vorakus]

I have been fooling around on my priest alot lately and was thinking about some of the possible changes coming. The thing that came to my mind was to make Shadow more like Mistweavers. For example basically making mind flay like soothing mist, something that you channel most of the time but it would empower or make instant some of the other abilities.

Other spells would have to change too, like mind sear could become a nuke with a short cd like fire nova and be instant while channeling mind flay. Mind spike could become a filler that becomes instant when channeling mind flay that you use when there is nothing else to do and could add half a second to our dots duration. So you aren't channeling all the time Mind blast could keep its cast time and break the mind flay channel.

Maybe some kind of mechanic that mind flay would slowly gain power during the channel to encourage smart positioning but not enough to totally punish you if you have to move. Mind flay could also come with a slight down side of causing a low amount of constant damage that also builds up to go with the insanity and void theme.With this increase the duration of mind flay to 8 or 10 seconds. To offset the damage Vampiric touch could be given some of its leech back. The leech could be capped so that multiple applications don't become problematic in pvp. Like it can't give back more than double the health damage that mind flay is causing no matter how many applications but that just one application will more or less keep your health stable with mind flay.

They have been talking about removing shadow orbs so I don't have any great ideas with devouring plague. Maybe make it a cd that when activated it tracks all the damage you do in a 10 second window then does it again over a 10 second period with whatever cd would be appropriate.

So what do you all think?

[l33t]

I like, with one very small addition. Mind flay should be castable on move. Because if it isn't, your whole system of shadow rework is awful. You will never be able to do jack's shit in pvp, you will scratch the bottoms of the rankings in pve. Having everything tied to a channeling filler will be a final nail in the coffin of a spec.

[Vorakus]

I can kind of see your point but would it be much different from now? When moving now all you can do is shadow word pain and devouring plague if you have the orbs when moving. With this you would do the same just when you stop moving you would channel before starting your rotation again. I can see pvp as an issue that I hadn't thought of though. Mind flay would need some kind of lockout protection or we would never be able to cast our shadow spells. Maybe putting it on its own seperate lockout so if its interupted we could still cast the other shadow spells but some would just have a cast time.

Maybe making the Shadow word death glyph baseline and slightly buffing its above execute damage could help with movement too. So then you could refresh dots and swd as a filler while moving. This could also feed into the insanity/void idea of causing a little bit of damage to yourself but then healing it back up through vampiric touch.

[muto]

No to all of it. Shadow Priest is mostly fine the way it is now. The only things that need addressing are Divine Star, and Void Entropy. Both are currently useless a majority of the time. Twist of Fate needs to go too. It's dumb. Talents should be fun, and something you change depending on the fight, not something you take because it's just that good ALL the time. Also, I feel like what they could do with the Halo/Star/Cascade tree is make it so Divine Star does more damage the more clumped the adds are, and Cascade does more damage the further apart the adds are. Halo is fine as is, as it would be the compromise between the two. There might be a fight where there are spread and clumped adds out at the same time.

[l33t]

Twist of Fate needs to go too. It's dumb.

Right. Not only we have zero burst abilities (unlike EVERY other spec), lets also steal from us our best in game execute. Awesome idea, yay (no).

If only, ToF should be made baseline, alongside with PI.

[Deleted]

They should change our mastery to be like ToF. Make the damage amplification part of ToF scaling with mastery could make it useful for every spec (unlike right now). They could even "boost" it by making it +x% damage for 10s each time you attack a target above 75% or below 35% HP so our pulls who wouldn't be so shitty.

[Jmills]

I think that as a caster class, having a channeled spell as our filler just feels very boring overall. Mind Flay is too iconic to take away though so were stuck with it

[Ilir]

just give us dark archangel back wtf and void star.

[Al Gorefiend]

Give us a 10 second buff that makes Mind Sear and our T90 talents like Halo spread SW:P and VE to all targets hit by it. Oh my god would I love Shadow again.

[Linri]

I rather like my shadow priest as it is.. However, I would like a few more options to be more mobile.

[muto]

Right. Not only we have zero burst abilities (unlike EVERY other spec), lets also steal from us our best in game execute. Awesome idea, yay (no).

If only, ToF should be made baseline, alongside with PI.

You don't think they can buff numbers to compensate?

[wombats23]

I just want some of our old defensive tools back. We've lost inner fire, the two inner fire glyphs, healing on our T90 talents, passive VE, shadowform damage reduction, renew and prayer of mending (and I guess glyph of dark mending or w/e it was called). I wouldn't mind having DP do less self healing to compensate. DP being a life steal-esque mechanic always felt out of place. I'd also like a boost to our mana regen. Personally I'm a fan of copying the destruction warlock haste mechanic over for shadow since our attunement is haste anyway.

Basically I just want to feel more like a hybrid again. Except without the hybrid tax (although if history has taught us anything, the hybrid tax might as well be true for us regardless of what Blizzard says.)

[l33t]

You don't think they can buff numbers to compensate?

Blizzard? The developers who are well known for "MINUS 15% NERF ON SWP FIRST DAY PATCH GOES LIVE" (when priests weren't even in a middle dps-wise)?

No, not only I don't think they'll buff numbers to compensate, I am also quite sure they won't.

Also, I would totally love having an aoe spell worth casting and baseline burst ability.

[Deleted]

Give us a 10 second buff that makes Mind Sear and our T90 talents like Halo spread SW:P and VE to all targets hit by it. Oh my god would I love Shadow again.

yeah, more nobrainer classes please.

[muto]

Blizzard? The developers who are well known for "MINUS 15% NERF ON SWP FIRST DAY PATCH GOES LIVE" (when priests weren't even in a middle dps-wise)?

No, not only I don't think they'll buff numbers to compensate, I am also quite sure they won't.

Also, I would totally love having an aoe spell worth casting and baseline burst ability.

Kind of like how they aren't buffing our numbers in the upcoming patch September 1st? /sarcasm

[l33t]

Kind of like how they aren't buffing our numbers in the upcoming patch September 1st? /sarcasm

Oh wow, first buff for 5+ years... before going full happy mode, wait till they go live, friend. We will remember those "-15% swp nerfs" first day patch goes live in ToT forever. Not to mention absolutely idiotic DP nerf at the start of 6.2...

I won't even start the topic of Blizzard creating a legendary ring which favors us the least because, surprise, WE HAVE NO BURST SKILLS TO LINE WITH IT.


Anyways, back on topic.
I would absolutely love at least PI to become baseline CD ability.

[Sanguiris]

I would make dot classes do damage over time not burst as hard as other classes

[Deleted]

I think that as a caster class, having a channeled spell as our filler just feels very boring overall. Mind Flay is too iconic to take away though so were stuck with it

No way, channelled spell as filler gives you a lot more freedom, since you don't have to wait for the cast to finish.

Give us a 10 second buff that makes Mind Sear and our T90 talents like Halo spread SW:P and VE to all targets hit by it. Oh my god would I love Shadow again.

Yeah, turn our multi-target rotation into just spamming Mind Sear, genius. Instant dot-spread is for classes who aren't focussed on their DoTs. We are. Casting our DoTs is what makes us a shadow priest.

[Robula]

I'm quite happy with how Shadow plays, though there a few things I'd like for 7.0.
- A 3m CD.
- Removal of talents like "Twist of Fate".
- VEnt made a little more interesting and harder to use. I love DoTs but this very much a fire and forget ability which really isn't all that fun.
- Removal or rework of Shadowfiend, it feels pointless right now.
- More emphasis on DoTs, more interactions with DoTs
-- Vampiric Touch; okay I used to love being a Mana Battery but those days are over. VT just isn't "vampiric" anymore. It would be nice if this ability granted Leech to yourself or anyone who attacked the DoTed target. Perhaps this is too close to old school VE?
- Less reliance on Crit. Haste should be stat to focus on. Perhaps another rework of our Mastery?
- Additional Shadow Orb generators and spenders.

[Deleted]

Only buff that shadow needs is being able to use Ogre Pinata in raids again. I can feel my guild being annoyed by me spending 10s outside to get orbs every wipe.