Shadow Buffs.. lol

[Djriff]

To me dieing in a game is weakness and failure. You die and can go afk until the fight has ended. It is bad desig and for me it's not fun at all. It is unusable in pvp too, which is my main focus of the game.

I get your frustration from a PvP standpoint, StM is terrible. I'm ok with that though. Not every talent can/should be suited to every scenario. I'm curious do you think MS is worth it in PvP or is LotV still going to reign supreme? I'm leaning LotV personally.

As for PvE StM has it's place in raids and those priests that decide to just pop StM to give themselves a ~2m break are scumbags.

[Theed]

I get your frustration from a PvP standpoint, StM is terrible. I'm ok with that though. Not every talent can/should be suited to every scenario. I'm curious do you think MS is worth it in PvP or is LotV still going to reign supreme? I'm leaning LotV personally.

As for PvE StM has it's place in raids and those priests that decide to just pop StM to give themselves a ~2m break are scumbags.

LoTV is still better most of the time. MS has some burst potential but could be better. 10 second duration of the mindspike debuff is too short in pvp and it is dispelable. The only good thing about is the shadowfrost school.

I'm tired of these gameplay limitations. Can't use Dominant Mind or S2M. Twist of Fate, Body and Soul, Reaper of Souls mandatory. At least its better than WoD from a pvp player perspective. Don't get me started with the pvp talents.

[Phalamore]

So with these changes, is the go to spec in 5 mans going to include Mind Spike + Void Ray? Stack up the Mind spikes and explode them with mindblast constantly for decent AOE? Or will it be better to throw up dots and mindsear?

[Djriff]

LoTV is still better most of the time. MS has some burst potential but could be better. 10 second duration of the mindspike debuff is too short in pvp and it is dispelable. The only good thing about is the shadowfrost school.

Good to know. Season starts today yeah? you going Arena's or RBGs?

I'm tired of these gameplay limitations. Can't use Dominant Mind or S2M. Twist of Fate, Body and Soul, Reaper of Souls mandatory. At least its better than WoD from a pvp player perspective. Don't get me started with the pvp talents.

The DM nerf was a silly nerf IMO. At least MC itself doesn't have a CD so you can still have fun and drop people off cliffs. ToF is mando in PvE as well, that talent is just ridiculous. B&S is mandatory for raids and dungeons as we don't have movement speed otherwise. RoS is mandatory with StM, Void Ray and Void Lord don't really make a lot of sense in a PvP environment though. Maybe Void Lord in a BG. I'm still not happy that without it being talented you can just be shutdown from entering voidform, CC'd, and destroyed. Not hard to just wait out a dispersion then fear/stun combo wombo >>

[Deleted]

Because it's a fun and awesome ability. What needs to happen is that the other talents are improved to be on par (and maybe Shadow as a whole is nerfed to compensate) so that people who can't appreciate it can use something else.

I don't appreciate it because I'm mostly PVPing hence, to me, there are no level 100 talents - the other two are such shit that they may not even exist and I won't notice.

[Alvito]

Umm an actual aoe not a buff to the worst one in the game, and more insanity generation. Cant wait til they get rid of StM altogether, lets hope sooner than later.

No way they do that until the next expansion.

[Ealyssa]

Why does StM even exist tho.

That's the right question. Because even if a nice idea. It will always be mandatory or trash. You just can't build a talent with "do crazy damage during buff and die at the end".

Mechanic idea may sound nice. But game reality make it unbalancable.

Because it's a fun and awesome ability. What needs to happen is that the other talents are improved to be on par (and maybe Shadow as a whole is nerfed to compensate) so that people who can't appreciate it can use something else.

If S2M is on par, there is no point in S2M. if the risk/reward balance doesn't give S2M more dps, nobody will take it. And if it does it makes the talent mandatory.

Its actually the definition of a nice but unbalancable idea.

[Kiea]

That's the right question. Because even if a nice idea. It will always be mandatory or trash. You just can't build a talent with "do crazy damage during buff and die at the end".

Mechanic idea may sound nice. But game reality make it unbalancable.


If S2M is on par, there is no point in S2M. if the risk/balance reward doesn't give S2M more dps, nobody will take it. And if it does it makes the talent mandatory.

Its actually the definition of a nice but unbalancable idea.

STM is an execute talent outside of gear levels not yet obtainable and outside of weird boss mechanics (Xavius), and the talent should be treated as an execute talent. The problem does not lie in STM, but the complete lack of another powerful choice in that tier. LotV is weak, and MS is very clunky and doesn't provide enough of what it is supposed to (AoE).

[bonewax]

I'd like to see this "feedback" that gave them the impression that we needed mind sear buffed. This latest round of "fixes" has given me the impression they really dont know wtf they are doing anymore.

[Uberkafros]

I'm happy that dispersion is a defensive cd as it supposed to instead of an offensive one.

[Zephirdd]

I'd like to see this "feedback" that gave them the impression that we needed mind sear buffed. This latest round of "fixes" has given me the impression they really dont know wtf they are doing anymore.

Pretty much everyone has been complaining that shadow AoE is so bad, even holy has a better AoE. Some trash packs on dungeons had me switching to holy to do them.

At least now I get to generate a lot on insanity on these big packs(court of stars, arcway, black rook hold, halls of valor), and mind sear won't feel like a dps loss compared to single target.

[Ocedic]

I'm happy with the changes but I hope they will look at other Spriest problems when they change S2M scaling. Our rampup time is too long, our talent build diversity is abysmal, and our AoE ability is still boring and subpar.

Seed of Corruption isn't necessarily amazing, but it shines in certain situations (tons of small mobs) and has a fun feel to it when everything blows up. Mind Sear doesn't feel good to use.

LotV needs something like an increase to insanity generation in voidform. Mind Spike needs to be a lot stronger. Our last tier of talents feel underwhelming.

[Kooja]

I think this is a fair question to ask here since there is a lot of talk about Mind Spike: how does choosing this affect our play/rotation? Do we continue to play the same way as before but just use spike instead of flay when a filler is needed? Do we have to more closely manage the debuff from spike, or let it just do it's thing in the background just making sure to Mindblast whatever target we spent spiking?

[Ocedic]

I think this is a fair question to ask here since there is a lot of talk about Mind Spike: how does choosing this affect our play/rotation? Do we continue to play the same way as before but just use spike instead of flay when a filler is needed? Do we have to more closely manage the debuff from spike, or let it just do it's thing in the background just making sure to Mindblast whatever target we spent spiking?

It scales linearly with stacks so there is no reason to care about whether you pop the stacks or not on a prolonged fight. Doing 2 MS > MB > 3 MS > MB will not yield more damage than MB > 5 MS > MB in terms of total output of the spells. The only time it matters is toward the end of the mob's life, because if it dies with MS stacks, you won't be getting those back. However, at that point it doesn't really matter other than bumping up your meter numbers.

So in terms of where it goes in the rotation, it just replaces MF. It still doesn't do enough damage to change that core rotation. You're right that you have to make sure to Mindblast the right spiked target, and that is the constraining part of the spell compared to MF.

[Deleted]

Couldn't S2M be tamed with, instead of dying, you got a... 30 sec stun/pacification? I personally think it's easy to work around the idea.

[davesignal]

So with these changes, is the go to spec in 5 mans going to include Mind Spike + Void Ray? Stack up the Mind spikes and explode them with mindblast constantly for decent AOE? Or will it be better to throw up dots and mindsear?

I'm getting good results from maintaining DOTs on two targets and using Mind Spike/Mind Blast with Void Ray. Mind Sear could potentially be better, but the way the ticks are spaced out fucks with your timing in Voidform, meaning you can't clip cleanly. If Mind Sear has the same tick intervals as Mind Flay (two ticks every 1 GCD) then I think the problem would go away.

But even then, Mind Spike/Void Ray and maintaining DOTs on two targets with Void Bolt is doing way more now than I ever did before maintaining DOTs on three targets with Void Bolt. Plays quite nice as well. Once I get a bit more comfortable with Spike I'll probably go back up to maintaining DOTs on three targets and it'll be quite good.

[Sxq]

I actually think sear feels nice in dungeons. Solid boost to aoe, and the insanity gen is letting me hit like 50 vf stacks on trash lol

[Naga Coatl]

On the official forums somebody reported that apparently the insanity drain was stealthly increased after the hotfix. Can somebody confirm/deny it?

Also, they are reporting the complete absence of void form tentacles after 15 stacks, too. I really hope that's a bug...

[Deleted]

It shouldn't. They need to just scrap it and come up with something new. If you like StM, you are just wrong.

What kind of broken logic is this?
I personally LOVE StM, probably the most fun talent in the game cause you can go batshit insano mode.
If that makes me "wrong" then so so be it.

[Djriff]

I'm getting good results from maintaining DOTs on two targets and using Mind Spike/Mind Blast with Void Ray. Mind Sear could potentially be better, but the way the ticks are spaced out fucks with your timing in Voidform, meaning you can't clip cleanly. If Mind Sear has the same tick intervals as Mind Flay (two ticks every 1 GCD) then I think the problem would go away.

Mind Sear is weird like that, you'll at least get a tick out of it before you need to cancel it, which evens out in terms of insanity.

But even then, Mind Spike/Void Ray and maintaining DOTs on two targets with Void Bolt is doing way more now than I ever did before maintaining DOTs on three targets with Void Bolt. Plays quite nice as well. Once I get a bit more comfortable with Spike I'll probably go back up to maintaining DOTs on three targets and it'll be quite good.

You should still be filling with sear. It activates Void Ray as well and benefits from it. More Insanity generation as well.