Shadow Buffs.. lol

[Rumstein]

Uh.. what?

Mind Flay ticks at 0, 0.75, 1.5, 2.25, 3 seconds, or GCD normalized it ticks at 0, 0.5 1, 1.5, 2 GCDs. Because it deals 60% of it's damage and insanity gain by the end of the first GCD and 40% in the 2nd, the first GCD is better for Mind Flay than Mind Spike. At latter levels of haste (GCD capped +), Mind Flay will deal more damage per GCD as the channel will last for less than 2 GCDs while Mind Spike uses 2 GCDs entirely.

Imagine being at 100% Haste (Can reach that with just bloodlust and good gear). Mind Flay takes 1.5 seconds for a full channel, while a GCD is capped at 1 second (outside of VF). For slightly more damage than a full Mind Flay channel, Mind Spike can be used twice, but that will take 2 GCDs or 2 seconds. In 3 seconds you can cast 3 Mind Spikes, or 2 entire Mind Flays - which deals more damage than Spike.

You're underestimating just how big the dispersion change alone is. In addition to that, you're somewhat contradicting yourself by first stating that it now returns as a defensive CD when later admitting you can still use it effectively at high stacks.

In the end, however, it doesn't matter too much anyway. Just the sheer fact alone that Xavius favors S2M so extremely much means that Blizzard simply can't reasonably balance S2M this tier anyway, unless they're willing to pseudo-remove it by making it bad enough not to be worth taking.

Not at all. Because Dispersion isn't used to build VF stacks while delaying drain, it is no longer as useful offensively at the start of the S2M phase (In fact, it does nothing except chew up buff durations at this point). Due to this you can save it for defensive use instead. In latter stages (100 stacks) the change makes no difference whatsoever, so can be used in the same manner it is currently - buying time for cooldowns to come back up.

By not using dispersion at the start of S2M, we do lose out on the 6 second drain advantage, but I believe most SPriests are fine with that for the return of using it as a defensive ability.

[Kiea]

Mind Flay ticks at 0, 0.75, 1.5, 2.25, 3 seconds, or GCD normalized it ticks at 0, 0.5 1, 1.5, 2 GCDs. Because it deals 60% of it's damage and insanity gain by the end of the first GCD and 40% in the 2nd, the first GCD is better for Mind Flay than Mind Spike. At latter levels of haste (GCD capped +), Mind Flay will deal more damage per GCD as the channel will last for less than 2 GCDs while Mind Spike uses 2 GCDs entirely.

Imagine being at 100% Haste (Can reach that with just bloodlust and good gear). Mind Flay takes 1.5 seconds for a full channel, while a GCD is capped at 1 second (outside of VF). For slightly more damage than a full Mind Flay channel, Mind Spike can be used twice, but that will take 2 GCDs or 2 seconds. In 3 seconds you can cast 3 Mind Spikes, or 2 entire Mind Flays - which deals more damage than Spike.

Mind flay does not do damage at 0 seconds on the channel, unless they changed it with this set of hotfixes for next week.

[Tradu]

Yeah, those are FOTM people. They, like you, are no pillars of the community.

The power level has very little to do with why Shadow is my main alt, StM's playstyle is the primary reason. To me it's the most fun spec in the game in Legion by far. And you know, my old main spec(WW) was ruined(for me) in an attempt to bring in new people, so StM bringing in new people to Shadow should be a good thing and the goal of it.

[GT4]

Not at all. Because Dispersion isn't used to build VF stacks while delaying drain, it is no longer as useful offensively at the start of the S2M phase (In fact, it does nothing except chew up buff durations at this point). Due to this you can save it for defensive use instead. In latter stages (100 stacks) the change makes no difference whatsoever, so can be used in the same manner it is currently - buying time for cooldowns to come back up.

By not using dispersion at the start of S2M, we do lose out on the 6 second drain advantage, but I believe most SPriests are fine with that for the return of using it as a defensive ability.

It's interesting how you portrait the loss of a choice (even though it's been a very one-sided one) as a gain of something.

[LordAmbrosia]

Why does StM even exist tho.

Cause it's awesome? How jaded can you get? If things like this don't excite you I think its time to quit.

[GT4]

Mind Flay ticks at 0, 0.75, 1.5, 2.25, 3 seconds, or GCD normalized it ticks at 0, 0.5 1, 1.5, 2 GCDs. Because it deals 60% of it's damage and insanity gain by the end of the first GCD and 40% in the 2nd, the first GCD is better for Mind Flay than Mind Spike. At latter levels of haste (GCD capped +), Mind Flay will deal more damage per GCD as the channel will last for less than 2 GCDs while Mind Spike uses 2 GCDs entirely.

This is wrong. It's trivial to see in logs as well. E.g. here's a small example taken from a log at the start of void form:
00:00:22.064 Hiddenheals casts Mind Flay on Melee Target

00:00:22.603 Hiddenheals Mind Flay Melee Target Tick 1 (O: 639755)

00:00:23.089 Hiddenheals Mind Flay Melee Target Tick 1 (O: 639755)

00:00:23.089 Hiddenheals casts Void Bolt on Melee Target

You can see two things:

1. Mind flay only does the first tick 539ms after starting the cast.

2. You only get two ticks during the first GCD.

Imagine being at 100% Haste (Can reach that with just bloodlust and good gear). Mind Flay takes 1.5 seconds for a full channel, while a GCD is capped at 1 second (outside of VF). For slightly more damage than a full Mind Flay channel, Mind Spike can be used twice, but that will take 2 GCDs or 2 seconds. In 3 seconds you can cast 3 Mind Spikes, or 2 entire Mind Flays - which deals more damage than Spike.

GCD isn't capped at 1 second outside of VF. It's capped at 1 second before VF stacks are taken into account (and at 0.75 seconds with VF stacks taken into account).

[worcester]

My opinion is that STM should stay, but as a gimmick for execute style encounters. As in it should be an overall dps loss to use it, but a high gain during execute. Right now, it's an overall gain and hyper gain during execute. So there's no reason not to use it all the time.

Execute phases are arguably some of the most difficult parts of an encounter, so STM definitely needs to be taxed for being so good at it.

[Tradu]

My opinion is that STM should stay, but as a gimmick for execute style encounters. As in it should be an overall dps loss to use it, but a high gain during execute. Right now, it's an overall gain and hyper gain during execute. So there's no reason not to use it all the time.

Execute phases are arguably some of the most difficult parts of an encounter, so STM definitely needs to be taxed for being so good at it.

It also helps that the competing talents do barely anything

[Waytomoo]

Cause it's awesome? How jaded can you get? If things like this don't excite you I think its time to quit.

Indeed it's awesome, could be one of the most unique and exciting skills ever made in this game and I love using it. I get it if some people don't like it and to be honest they should make the other 100 talents competitive.

[Rumex]

The power level has very little to do with why Shadow is my main alt, StM's playstyle is the primary reason. To me it's the most fun spec in the game in Legion by far. And you know, my old main spec(WW) was ruined(for me) in an attempt to bring in new people, so StM bringing in new people to Shadow should be a good thing and the goal of it.

Indeed it is the funniest talent, but also the most unforgiving one (wich is cool). But i think alot of new people to shadow are 'afraid' of picking up the talent because you can easily look very stupid when u die because of bad timing etc, and there is basically no room for error when u get many stacks, and i think people might be afraid of that. It is the same with healers and tanks, people are afraid of getting yelled at and/or look stupid.

[Jaigar]

The killer execute of Surrrender to Madness is what made spriest so awesome.

Something to remember is that all DPS is not equal. Up front burst is awesome in the cast of Archimonde, and strong execute is awesome bosses with soft enrages. If you have 3-4 good spriest, then you can push an enrage really hard.

For example, look at Ursoc logs. Good spriests will ramp up all the way to 700k-800k, which if running 3, is like having 5 more DPS for that phase. You can just trivialize a fight.

[Deleted]

Thanks Blizzard.

In my honest opinion, Mass Hysteria should never be capped, not now, not in future patches. It reaches it's max potential at 100 VF stacks and should stay like that, even if S2M was removed and we would not be able to reliably reach 100 stacks anymore.

Mass Hysteria, as it is, adds an immense reward for maintaining Voidform and should keep it's potential, even if you could reach it only from time to time under perfect conditions without S2M. It gets you excited for every bonus stack and strive for more. Locking it's potential at 50, 70, 80, whatever, would hurt it.

[Faildevil]

Insanity is the actual class theme. Well played, Blizzard :-)

[Deleted]

Imo buffing baseline dots by ~50% and changing MH to 1% per stack (dot buff number would have to be adjusted) would fix many problems with ramp up of ramp up and caping MH without it being unintuitive.

[Drdoelloos]

Or...or.. they did read the forums and try to understand what we want and toss us a small bone for being mediocre atm.
Like Blizzard mentioned about the warlock forum where there was no constructive advise only posts about how terrible the class was.
A lot of SPs did post about Mind Sear needing a buff and there it is. It's still not one of the best AoEs in the game but its a start.

[Deleted]

GCD isn't capped at 1 second outside of VF. It's capped at 1 second before VF stacks are taken into account (and at 0.75 seconds with VF stacks taken into account).

GCD is capped at 0.75s for most classes. Shadow priest with Voidform/Lingering insanity can go lower.

[Rumstein]

GCD is capped at 0.75s for most classes. Shadow priest with Voidform/Lingering insanity can go lower.

GCD is capped at 1 second for most classes, not 0.75. VF/LI takes it down to 0.75.

[Ashbeck]

Thank you for listening Blizzard!

It's great to finally see some love being given to Shadow, we really are abysmal on AoE right now so hopefully these buffs will make us more viable for mythic dungeon groups where we are struggling to even get selected.

[Tradu]

GCD is capped at 1 second for most classes, not 0.75. VF/LI takes it down to 0.75.

No, it's capped at 0.75 for any class with a base GCD of 1.5 seconds. It's just that you need 100% haste to reach that, which very few classes ever come close to(outside of maybe Lust). Classes that start at 1 second stay at 1 second.

[Deleted]

Honestly, as a shadow priest I'm always happy to see buffs, but the Mass Hysteria nerf should have stayed. The damage STM is capable of <35% with 100 VF stacks is absurd and needed to be toned down. This is just kicking the nerf can down the road at best.

Yeah, only thing that can lead us into top dps spots with perfect playing should be nerfed. #blizzlogic hard