[7.2] Legion Shadow Priest Guide and Discussion

[Ilir]

When I used it in the alpha... it was giving you a permanent buff until used for your next mindsear after entering vf. Basically what i was doing was keeping the buff, using it just before going into VF and then using it again inside VF if there were other adds... but the range of the spread is so small. It sucks so bad lol.

[Djriff]

@Djriff
A few days back you did speadsheets on SI vs AS insanity gain and damage gain. Any chance you could do one to compare insanity and damage gain for AS without UtS, with 3/3 UtS and with 6/3 UtS. Trying to figure out if UtS is a better talent than Death's Embrace (esp with RoS) since VT ticks 1.5x slower than SW:P and had a double rng chance to proc shadows. Thanks if you manage to do it.

Well I didn't use UtS at all, as a matter of fact, it's without an artifact weapon. In terms of raw Insanity gain, UtS would be better than Death's Embrace, as far as DPS goes, UtS would be the better trait. While the Death's Embrace trait is a nice flat increase to SW: D, when running reaper of souls the benefit you get from it is kind of moot. Just looking at a non UtS sim with AS, SA's are going almost 4 times the amount of DPS over the course of the fight. That's just with SW: P, once you throw VT into the mix due to UtS, it's going to shift things even more in favor of Death's Embrace.

If anyone has mathed it out and not just taken a look at a few different variables of sims i'd love to hear your take on it. Personally i feel it's a trap trait when running RoS.

[Relapses]

Experienced the bug with my SPriest unable to generate or spend Insanity again two times last night. It seems to occur when I engage an encounter while my Insanity is degrading. I hope I'm not the only one experiencing this bug (I've opened a thread on the official bug report forums) but it's extremely frustrating since I am effectively unable to DPS for the entire pull when it happens.

[Isentropy]

Death's Embrace is terrible. Probably the worst artifact trait that we have because it pretends to be a DPS trait, but is completely negligible. All you're doing is wasting three points when you take Death's Embrace. 10% more damage on a spell that is not going to make up even 5% of your damage breakdown on most fights is just bad for three points. There's no synergy with RoS either so I'm not sure why that's relevant, you will always use SW: D regardless of whether you take RoS or not.

Compare that to one point of Touch of Darkness, To The Pain, Creeping Shadows, Unleash the Shadows, and Mind Shattering. One point in all of those traits is better than three points in Death's Embrace. I'd rather have three points in Void Corruption or a utility trait than three points in Death's Embrace.

[Djriff]

There's no synergy with RoS either so I'm not sure why that's relevant, you will always use SW: D regardless of whether you take RoS or not.

I know you always use it, but the only way i could even see it being viable is not running RoS and that extra % damage actually kills the target.

[Isentropy]

I know you always use it, but the only way i could even see it being viable is not running RoS and that extra % damage actually kills the target.

The odds of that being the case are so astronomically low. The trait is such a trap (as evidenced by someone thinking it could be better than Unleash the Shadows) that it's ridiculous that it still exists in its current state. I would much rather have a utility trait block the way to Mass Hysteria than the absolute garbage that Death's Embrace is.

[Djriff]

The odds of that being the case are so astronomically low. The trait is such a trap (as evidenced by someone thinking it could be better than Unleash the Shadows) that it's ridiculous that it still exists in its current state. I would much rather have a utility trait block the way to Mass Hysteria than the absolute garbage that Death's Embrace is.

I think it would be better if was changed from Increases damage by 5/10/15% to it now behaves like Shadowburn.

I know it is astronomically low, was just saying that's the only way it could ever be viable.

[Isentropy]

I think it would be better if was changed from Increases damage by 5/10/15% to it now behaves like Shadowburn.

I know it is astronomically low, was just saying that's the only way it could ever be viable.

It's 3/6/10%. You're doing it way too much justice like that.

[Djriff]

It's 3/6/10%. You're doing it way too much justice like that.

Oops, was thinking of the wrong trait percentage, thanks!

I like to try and see the silver lining of everything. Helps me understand wtf the devs were thinking half the time.

[Ilir]

Death Embrace should be "if you kill the target with SWD, you gain 10% more damage for X/Y/Z seconds"

[N1gh7h4wk]

Death Embrace should be "if you kill the target with SWD, you gain 10% more damage for X/Y/Z seconds"

This would be for solo play only. I don't think they should add such a small chance on anything on a artifact trait.
But well we are talking about the same guys that invented the perm sphere of insanity, that does no dps at all and strains you additional to StM with laser shooting.

[Ilir]

This would be for solo play only. I don't think they should add such a small chance on anything on a artifact trait.
But well we are talking about the same guys that invented the perm sphere of insanity, that does no dps at all and strains you additional to StM with laser shooting.

I know, hence the "" but still ... I think I'll like it more than what we currently have. Especially in solo play with ToF. (it'll make questing less of a chore since you don't have the same VF uptime).

[Alanar]

Hmmm was wondering one thing... since you can cast while moving with StM... how did you guys keybind spells? I usually strafe with A/D and while I can strafe right with D and still easily press 1/2/3 to cast, cant say the same if i have to strafe left with A... impossible to press these keys then... how do you do it?

I always strafe with a and d and use a mouse with 12 plus buttons. So I just pop STM and dont worry about any other keys since they are there anyway. Maybe cus I pvp and always jump circel strafe etc so Ita natural for me.

It takes some practise at first tho. Good luck. Try to unbind the s key to something else I have Mindflay on s for example.

Moving with your mouse while moving and pressing keys is something a lot of people find hard so a mouse like that helps alot. I almost never use my keybord for that reason.

[Djriff]

I do exactly what Alanar does, although i still backpedal like a scrub lol.

[Deleted]

I do exactly what Alanar does, although i still backpedal like a scrub lol.

I for example have my backpedal (S) bound to my Dispersion, and actually only move with Q,W and E, having both A and D also bound. I think it really depends on you as a player - I doubt one single way of moving is superior while under StM

[Zephirdd]

can someone explain me the thought process behind San'layn? Like, yeah it increases VT heal and VE damage substantially but... at that talent row?

You have Auspicious Spirits which is a massive insanity generation and damage increase as long as you get a little bit of crit, and Shadowy Insight which is arguably much better when you have fast dying targets(which means you can use the extra burst, like dungeons) or you have a lot of haste and low crit(unlikely I think, but not unheard of).

Like, San'layn by itself doesn't look that bad, but it is completely useless because it's competing with two talents that are FAR FAR more useful. VE is very weak on non-solo environments(at least from what I saw in 7.0) and VT is only applied to long living targets. What's the design process in having this on the same row as the two insanity boosters? Is there some artifact trait I'm unaware of that makes VE/VT godlike to make use of this?

[Kilee25]

Talents mostly only have one configuration now. They aren't for choice. Instead they are for skill levels and what are you doing. Nothing is meant to compete with AS on that Rowe. Sanlan is for if you are lazy or something. Imo that's how you should think of talents in legion. One good talent, but high skill cap. Two mediocre that are easy to use.

[Ryeshot]

The only talent for shadow priests that actually has a different skill cap from its competitors would be StM. I personally hate this since I look at the diversity in talent choices with so many other classes and they do have that low-skill/high-skill system. We are forced into mechanically bad talents (ToF, RoS, arguably AS) just because of how much better they are compared to the other options. If it were up to me I would take Shadow Crash and SW:V every fight, since I just love the feel of those talents. I thought Legion might give us more choices than before, but it's still cookie-cutter as usual.

[Deleted]

Talents mostly only have one configuration now. They aren't for choice. Instead they are for skill levels and what are you doing. Nothing is meant to compete with AS on that Rowe. Sanlan is for if you are lazy or something. Imo that's how you should think of talents in legion. One good talent, but high skill cap. Two mediocre that are easy to use.

Couldn't saylan be good if it's a short fight? Since you don't rly need the insanity generation from AS to stay in voidform then. Like sub 1 min fights.

[Zephirdd]

The only talent for shadow priests that actually has a different skill cap from its competitors would be StM. I personally hate this since I look at the diversity in talent choices with so many other classes and they do have that low-skill/high-skill system. We are forced into mechanically bad talents (ToF, RoS, arguably AS) just because of how much better they are compared to the other options. If it were up to me I would take Shadow Crash and SW:V every fight, since I just love the feel of those talents. I thought Legion might give us more choices than before, but it's still cookie-cutter as usual.

I feel like most talents have a different feel for skill cap like you said, but most of the high skill cap ones(with exception of StM) are worse than their competitors.

Maybe there's something we didn't figure out though. Take Shadow Word: Void for instance: it's designed to give you a huge burst of insanity on demand; maybe it'll be superior to ToF on fights where you need to burst the boss in a phase BEFORE his execute phase? the current cookie cutter built(ToF/RoS/StM) is designed to make the priest a godlike executioner. However, talents like Legacy of the Void, SW:V and Void Lord are designed to throw you in and out of Voidform very fast. Then you have the artifact trait Sphere of Insanity which benefits heavily from having a high voidform uptime(not necessarily the voidform duration in itself).

On the other hand, Mass Hysteria is an insane artifact trait which makes the ToF/RoS/StM build so so much better. Hopefully they tweak some of these talents a bit, while I'm loving the playstyle it feels really bad to see a talent and think "I'll never ever equip this talent no matter what".

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Couldn't saylan be good if it's a short fight? Since you don't rly need the insanity generation from AS to stay in voidform then. Like sub 1 min fights.

Would you waste a Tome of the Clear Mind in order to play "optimally" for a sub 1min fight though? Although I'm interested in the math behind the 20% VT damage vs Mind Blast possible procs vs AS procs on such a short fight.