Thoughts on Shadow Word : Void

[Deleted]

So, raid beginning in a very short time and thinking about raid encounters what we all know is that shadow priest problem is ramping to get to 100 insanity (since you have to play with S2M)
By looking to the abilities the only good one that would actually help to ramp pretty fast is Shadow Word Void...the problem is that Void share the same line of Twist of Fate...making Void a talent not viable.
this is sad because other to help ramping faster, it actually help a lot to remain in voidform..i mean when you have 20+ stacks Shadow Word Void cast is lesser than 1 sec, and +25 insanity on each cast could actually help a lot to remain in voidform longer.
So i was thinking about 1 change that can help priest a lot...Making Shadow Word Void a basic spell instead of a talent.
Opinion?

[Robula]

This is one of the main reasons I am frustrated with Shadow, I'm not sure if other specs suffer with this. Twist of Fate seems to be the clear cut answer to just about everything, Fortress of the Mind is better on absolute single target where SW:V is regarded as the sub-par talent. I'm not even sure how much theoretical DPS you would sacrifice by running with SW:V.

Same again for Void Lord, Reaper of Souls and Void Ray, the latter often regarded as sub-par. It would be nice to think that I could run with whatever talent choice I wanted too without sacrificing too much damage. I'm no theory crafter, but I don't like the concept of being "forced" into particular talent choices just because someone says it's the "best".

I wish somebody could shed some light on this instead of just saying which is better without any theory or evidence to back it up. If I'm sacrificing < 5% DPS so I could play with SW:V and Void Ray then to be honest I would be quite happy. On that note, I'm sure Mind Spike isn't as bad as people are making it out to be, but I don't have any numbers..

[Deleted]

I would rather see Twist of Fate baseline.

We are the execution spec and meant to be that, no matter the build. As it stands, there are pretty much no scenarios whatsoever when you would not pick ToF - it's a whooping 20% more damage bonus at time when we do the most damage.

Allowing us to pick something else from Tier 1 that reduces our Insanity ramp-up, be it SW:V, Fortress of Mind or possibly some new talent replacing ToF would be a huge help in dungeons and open world and help with "the flow" when you transition between mobs or trash packs.

You want ToF over two other even in PvP because it adds execution burst damage.

[Deleted]

This is one of the main reasons I am frustrated with Shadow, I'm not sure if other specs suffer with this. Twist of Fate seems to be the clear cut answer to just about everything, Fortress of the Mind is better on absolute single target where SW:V is regarded as the sub-par talent. I'm not even sure how much theoretical DPS you would sacrifice by running with SW:V.

Same again for Void Lord, Reaper of Souls and Void Ray, the latter often regarded as sub-par. It would be nice to think that I could run with whatever talent choice I wanted too without sacrificing too much damage. I'm no theory crafter, but I don't like the concept of being "forced" into particular talent choices just because someone says it's the "best".

It is also the same with Auspicious Sprits, Shadowy Insight and San'layn. Auspicious Spirits is just the default choice or if you have the Legendary Belt Shadowy Insight is the default choice. San'layn is (at least for PvE, i've got no clue about PvP) just useless. And you can't say that Auspicious Sprits or San'layn require more skill or something ... they are both just passive but one of them just is flat out worse, and Shadowy Insight without the belt is just stupid as the proccs are almost useless if they occur when MB is (almost) ready again ... but it's fucked up anyway how much the belt "changes" the playstyle (it feels just soooooo much better, at least for me).

[Deleted]

how does the belt work with Shadow Insight exactly? it gives you back all the charges of mind blast or only 1 charge?

[Deleted]

It gives you one charge, but you rarely have any wasted proccs. I don't think the Shadowy Insight instant cast component really matters damage wise as Mind Blast doesn't have a huge cast time (i've never actually checked that) nevertheless the instant casts feel great and it is nice if you need to move a bit.

It also made trash a bit more fun for me. It still depends on the group but if you don't have a class in your group that does insane AoE your damage is actually ok (350-400k on every 2nd trash group if they live long enough so you can apply dots and the mobs aren't basically dead after that) and at least for me it is fun on 3-4 mobs to multidot everything and then pop Void Form and just spam instant Mind Blasts and refresh dots with Void Bolt.

Generally the belt greatly reduces Mind Flay usage, the most extreme case i had was the Dragon in DHT Mythic where i had 6 Mind Flay tics over the whole fight (1:45), granted you have the phase you get pushed back so you can't really do anything there if you don't want so spawn the welps. But in general Mind Blast is always (single target) the spell with which you deal the most damage overall and you also don't have that "awkward feeling" when Void Bold and Mind Blast are ready again at the same time. (And the obligatory Mind Flay sucks so less Mind Flay feels great)

[Djriff]

This is one of the main reasons I am frustrated with Shadow, I'm not sure if other specs suffer with this. Twist of Fate seems to be the clear cut answer to just about everything, Fortress of the Mind is better on absolute single target where SW:V is regarded as the sub-par talent. I'm not even sure how much theoretical DPS you would sacrifice by running with SW:V.

SW: V isn't necessarily bad, ToF is just astronomically better and that's the terrible part. SW: V has a lot of value when you start a fight cold, ie no stacks of Lingering Insanity. However, once you have that rolling SW: V loses it's value.

However with the Legendary Shoulders, it might be decent to just push to the next VF quickly, but just from some rough napkin math I would say the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Same again for Void Lord, Reaper of Souls and Void Ray, the latter often regarded as sub-par. It would be nice to think that I could run with whatever talent choice I wanted too without sacrificing too much damage. I'm no theory crafter, but I don't like the concept of being "forced" into particular talent choices just because someone says it's the "best".

I wish somebody could shed some light on this instead of just saying which is better without any theory or evidence to back it up. If I'm sacrificing < 5% DPS so I could play with SW:V and Void Ray then to be honest I would be quite happy. On that note, I'm sure Mind Spike isn't as bad as people are making it out to be, but I don't have any numbers..

As always sim yourself and see what is best for your gear. Personally atm I'm running Void Lord and Mindspike and doing 220k+ on bosses easily. You aren't really forced into anything unless you're running StM, and the only reason you take RoS is for the Insanity generation + 35% SW: D. Another reason you take it, is you'll rarely be casting flay/sear so Void Ray will be pretty under utilizied and Void Lord becomes useless outside of the first 8 seconds of your last Voidform as you'll die when you exit making it a useless talent. That's why RoS is mandatory.

Looking at other mandatory talents, San'layn, AS, and SI. San'layn does nothing for insanity generation so toss that out. It is however good with low crit and higher mastery and will net you more DPS outside of StM. AS is superior to SI when you don't have the legendary belt for pure insanity generation. You definitely need this for StM as you would burn charges with SI and it could disrupt the flow of the insanity generation resulting in you exiting voidform much sooner than intended.

Lastly lets look at our last row of mandatory choices, PI, Mindbender, and Shadowcrash. PI offers fantastic insanity generation and haste which at the beginning of Voidform make you a powerhouse off the bat. Literally everything hits harder, and the fact it's on a 2 min CD means you can sync it up with every other Vtor. Mindbender similarily provides good insanity generation and it'll be available with each Vtor and should be popped after, but currently PI is just doing more for you for insanity generation and DPS. Shadowcrash is good for AoE, but if you're taking StM unfortunately you just can't take this talent as it doesn't provide the insanity generation/dps boost we need.

[Jullyx]

I'd echo what Rym said.

I honestly thought SW:V would be viable, but there is just no way. It's super fun to play with though, so it's a shame we can't.

[darkxiao]

As always sim yourself and see what is best for your gear. Personally atm I'm running Void Lord and Mindspike and doing 220k+ on bosses easily. You aren't really forced into anything unless you're running StM, and the only reason you take RoS is for the Insanity generation + 35% SW: D. Another reason you take it, is you'll rarely be casting flay/sear so Void Ray will be pretty under utilizied and Void Lord becomes useless outside of the first 8 seconds of your last Voidform as you'll die when you exit making it a useless talent. That's why RoS is mandatory.

How do you suggest we sim ourselves? Currently I've been using either AMR and beotorch simulator. I've been getting different results with each and not sure which one to use. I imagine it's good to use both just to get a better idea of your DPS but since I'm extremely new to simminig my character(started this xpac) I'm not sure if that's sufficient or not.

[Djriff]

How do you suggest we sim ourselves? Currently I've been using either AMR and beotorch simulator. I've been getting different results with each and not sure which one to use. I imagine it's good to use both just to get a better idea of your DPS but since I'm extremely new to simminig my character(started this xpac) I'm not sure if that's sufficient or not.

AMR is working better for me atm, then again I also run my own priority list as the one swol wrote is a little wonky at times (he's working on it). Sim-C is also bugged atm as for some reason MB always has a 6 second CD baseline and that's just incorrect. As for seeing what talents are the best, you can run a batch simulation and just run all the talents at once. It took me ~10 minutes to run and I got the talent setup I use now. If you want further help, shoot me a PM and I can help you when I get home later today.

Alternatively I can sim you myself and tell you the results.

[darkxiao]

AMR is working better for me atm, then again I also run my own priority list as the one swol wrote is a little wonky at times (he's working on it). Sim-C is also bugged atm as for some reason MB always has a 6 second CD baseline and that's just incorrect. As for seeing what talents are the best, you can run a batch simulation and just run all the talents at once. It took me ~10 minutes to run and I got the talent setup I use now. If you want further help, shoot me a PM and I can help you when I get home later today.

Alternatively I can sim you myself and tell you the results.

I know that beotorch uses Sim-C to run their simulations but if MB is a little bugged then the sim results on beotorch would be slightly incorrect also then yeah? Honestly, that would be pretty cool if you did that for me. Obviously with raids starting soon I want to be as prepared as possible. I'll shoot you a PM with my character info. Thanks so much!

[Robula]

Thank you Djriff for the explanation of some of the talents there, that's cleared things up for a me a little. It's a real shame ToF is just too good as it would be great to have some variety in our talent choices, I guess this boils to bad/sloppy design and just generally hasn't had much thought. I can't imagine there are many encounters where there is only one target throughout the encounter thus degrading the value of ToF, therefore possibly opening up choice for FotMind or SW:V.

So speaking purely outside StM, would it be fair to say that 60, 75 and 90 open up a little more to choice? I would hazard a guess that 60 opens up completly? 75 San'layn favours heavy mastery and AS heavier crit and SI is probably too weak without the legendary belt? And 90 would be a between PI and Mb unless the encounter favours periodic AoE burst for SC? It would be a shame to be forced into StM for every encounter, especially if the DPS gap is going to be so big.

Is Mind Spike as bad as Void Entropy was? I'd like the think it was worth something outside of StM, especially with multiple targets? Probably not, but I want it to be because it could add variety to the spec. I like StM, but it's just too good, much like our beloved ToF...

[Djriff]

Outside of StM you'll be doing subpar DPS unfortunately, as StM is a beast, especially with Mass Hysteria, that's just facts.

As for talent selection, row 60 is a good toss up between all three. Void Ray technically is best in a pure ST scenario generally speaking, however in my sims I'm getting Void Lord ahead of it, probably due to the little downtime between voidforms I have + getting 35+ stacks with ease.

Row 75 is definitely AS by default. SI is actually an increase in terms of insanity generation if you don't have ~20% crit and have low mastery for some reason (pure haste crafted gear as an example), however San'layn is actually quite strong with mastery. However AS is the superior talent, as is stacking crit as it's insanity generation scales with the number of targets and the other 2 talents do not. SI doesn't leave a lot of GCD's free with 3+ targets unfortuntately.

Row 90 I would go with PI by default. Mindbender was nice while leveling due to the tier bonus, but other than that PI is just superior on all fight types. Shadowcrash is best used on a fight like beastlord, where adds spawn every ~30 seconds allowing you to have some nice AoE burst. I may end up using it on Il'gynoth depending on how fast stuff is dying. it may also see some use on Cenarius, I'm not sure yet. StM will probably be better overall, but it'll depend on needs of the raid.

As for LotV vs Mind Spike. It's a toss up. On a 0 movement fight, Mind Spike will probably win, however once you introduce light/heavy movement you'll have to plan your filler/casting GCD's carefully. Mind Spike's strength comes in it's explosion, especially in voidform with it's small but passive cleave. LotV has no such restrictions and you won't feel like you're wasting your t100 talent choice if you have to spam SW: P on the move.

Mind Spike is definitely not as bad as Void Entropy is, but it's not much better. Same with LotV.

The reason ToF is so good is because of the potential to snipe with it. It's also another reason why RoS is good as well, something sims can't really show that well. In sims and ST fights you'll have it up for the last 35% of the fight, which is usually close to 30% of the fight length due to executes, which means you do 35% of the damage for 30% of the fight. In reality with SW: D sniping this number is closer to 50% (I've had 90%+ a few times) which is stupidly powerful. That's why it's the default talent and should just be baseline.