Shadow in 7.1.5

[tiptopmemer]

Change MH to 1% - Prevents crazy execute dps, getting to 3rd Vtorrent is still rewarding thou. This would make mastery a trash stat for us though, but ...

Add MFlay and Msear to spells affected by mastery - Buffs aoe damage, out of Vform damage, and makes mastery useful still. Of course all the numbers can be played with.

Maybe I am totally wrong, thoughts?

this please. holy fuck does surrender feel like the shittiest fucking spell right now in the PTR. they shouldn't have fucked with the insanity generation and i would take a smaller MH cap any day over what they did. getting 3 void torrents out of surrender is a reward for taking the time to actually practice and now it's hit the 2nd void torrent and call it a day. don't even need to manage insanity for that shit you can just mongo through it with PI

Stop this.

Neither if you have any clue what numbers you're talking about.

Nerfing doesnt mean taking a knife and putting it right through the center of it.

If you want to nerf something, ALWAYS do it indirectly.

Twist of Fate is the biggest culprit to our stupid levels of scaling.

If you nerf MH, you nerf non-s2m too, if you put a cap on MH, its clunky.

Blizzard have made it clear that s2m is niche spec by gutting Lingering Insanity.

S2M will only be viable on fast kills.

Theres literally no reason to play spriest if 7.1.5 goes ahead as planned.

[kalaratic]

for me it's not even about the numbers, it's just about the gameplay itself. 3 void torrents as we have now is a really fun achievable goal to shoot for each surrender and from what i've played from the ptr so far feels like a step down gameplay wise. i don't like both the void bolt refresh and the surrender insanity generation.

[davesignal]

Stop this.

Neither if you have any clue what numbers you're talking about.

Nerfing doesnt mean taking a knife and putting it right through the center of it.

If you want to nerf something, ALWAYS do it indirectly.

Twist of Fate is the biggest culprit to our stupid levels of scaling.

If you nerf MH, you nerf non-s2m too, if you put a cap on MH, its clunky.

Blizzard have made it clear that s2m is niche spec by gutting Lingering Insanity.

S2M will only be viable on fast kills.

Theres literally no reason to play spriest if 7.1.5 goes ahead as planned.

Nerfing Twist of Fate also nerfs non-S2M. The only way to nerf S2M without nerfing Legacy of the Void is to nerf S2M. It may not be possible to nerf it any more without completely dismantling it, but that's because the design of S2M is completely antithetical to how balancing works in WoW.

S2M is a great idea for a talent.. in some other game. Warcraft, however, just flat out does not support a talent that essentially reads "You are categorically better at DPS than any other spec, provided you can handle this rotation". It just breaks the game balance in half.

[Deleted]

For everyone of us who loves S2M the way it is and does not wish to have it broken completely: make yourselves heard over at the Blizzard forums.

They don't read these forums, so all the whine we produce here will be missed by the developers who actually decide what'll happen. They listen to feedback, let's give them some.

Go over to Blizzard forums and let the developers know that we love S2M gameplay. Nerf the numbers slightly if you want, but keep the playstyle, because it is super rewarding to reach that 3rd void torrent or perfectly time when the boss is going to die. Please help me in letting them know that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Nerf the numbers slightly if you want, but keep the playstyle, because it is super rewarding to reach that 3rd void torrent or perfectly time when the boss is going to die. Please help me in letting them know that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

The risk and extreme annoyance of dying too early, by far outweights the rewarding feeling of making 3rd VoiT on a boss.

S2M needs to go, asap.

[Alenoria]

Why can't they just make it so S2M doesn't kill you if you get out of combat.......

[Gorsameth]

Stop this.

Neither if you have any clue what numbers you're talking about.

Nerfing doesnt mean taking a knife and putting it right through the center of it.

If you want to nerf something, ALWAYS do it indirectly.

Twist of Fate is the biggest culprit to our stupid levels of scaling.

If you nerf MH, you nerf non-s2m too, if you put a cap on MH, its clunky.

Blizzard have made it clear that s2m is niche spec by gutting Lingering Insanity.

S2M will only be viable on fast kills.

Theres literally no reason to play spriest if 7.1.5 goes ahead as planned.

I'm sorry but this is just wrong on so many levels.
If you nerf indirectly there is a high chance the same problem comes back later because you didn't fix the root cause. And then you need to nerf again.

ToF is not the problem for our scaling. Its good, mandatory even but it has little to do with the insane damage being shown by top Priests. Mass Hysteria and the heights to which it stacks during StM is the problem that causes our massive dps leap.
You can see this by the fact we gain far more then 'only' 35% more damage during the end of the fight then the rest before it.

Yes a cap on MH is clunky and i'm not a fan of it. Therefore the better solution would be to stop the high stacks, which is done by hitting StM (at which point the death penalty also needs to go and the entire baseline damage of the spec needs to come up).

Nerfing LI doesn't show that Blizzard wants to make StM a niche spec. It barely even impacts StM because the damage done before Surrender is shit anyway, being a bit more shit is no big deal, and it does nothing once you enter Surrender since you will never leave it to gain LI.
I could (but don't want to) argue that Blizzard is happy with StM considering they have not buffed the other 2 talents at the 100 tier.

StM will still be the only talent ever taken by a raiding priests because the other 2 talents simply do not do enough to compensate.

The only line in your post I can actually agree with is the final one. I have seen nothing that convinces me Blizzard actually wants to fix us.

- - - Updated - - -

Why can't they just make it so S2M doesn't kill you if you get out of combat.......

Because Blizzard is stubborn.
StM as it exists should never have left the first design meeting. An ability that will kill you if you slightly mess up needs a reward that is so big that the ability can never be balanced.
The whole talent screams bad design.

[Arachnofiend]

I honestly really like the "become a god, then you die" design of S2M, but making it skill based was definitely the wrong direction to go. If it was just a timer and there was no punishment for dropping out of voidform then it'd fulfill the design of backloading a ton of damage into the execute phase (which is in and of itself a very powerful thing even if the overall damage is the same) without being required to massively overtune to make it worth taking.

[Naga Coatl]

I hate how everytime Blizzard says something along the lines of "StM is soooooo much class fantasy, we like it" - Well, it's easy for that talent to be such fantasy-defining when basically every other talent is extremely generic. A bit of void energy here an there, a bit of invisible insanity generation/extra damage, and the usual confused conceptual mess (Vampirism/San'layn? 'Spectral' apparitions? Do these thing really belong this new fantasy?), what does really improve our "class fantasy" among the other talents? The only other "visible" Old-Godly things are Call to the Void (which is not even a talent) and Shadow Crash (only because is basically a Faceless trademark spell)...

[davesignal]

God, I really wanted Shadow Crash to be good because it's such an iconic Old God minion spell. But between competing with Power Infusion and the ground targeting.. not so much.

[RsinRC]

I hate how everytime Blizzard says something along the lines of "StM is soooooo much class fantasy, we like it" - Well, it's easy for that talent to be such fantasy-defining when basically every other talent is extremely generic. A bit of void energy here an there, a bit of invisible insanity generation/extra damage, and the usual confused conceptual mess (Vampirism/San'layn? 'Spectral' apparitions? Do these thing really belong this new fantasy?), what does really improve our "class fantasy" among the other talents? The only other "visible" Old-Godly things are Call to the Void (which is not even a talent) and Shadow Crash (only because is basically a Faceless trademark spell)...

I totally agree. The spec should've gotten a total fantasy rework. Same playstyle but simple things like tentacles being more pronounce, apparitions being something like eyeballs coming out and shooting a lazer, power word shield should've looked different with old god or void flavor. Shadow fiend, mind flay and similar spells should be renamed.

Love my priest but why so many themes? I mean they reowrked survival mechanics and all.

It's weird in a way. They put so much hype and they feel so passionate about StM that it feels like they worked the entire spec around the thought of that one talent and all the effort went into making it work but everything else was an after thiught. Maybe that was a little harsh to say but personally I dont play StM and all i hear is StM this StM that, and its getting old tbh lol. The rest of the spec without this spell is nothing super kool or out of the ordinary. No kool fun talents, no super kool pvp honor talents at all. We have a small dagger while other casters have ippy ass gorgeous weapons because of 'class fantasy'. I would've given us an artifact that is a hybrid force of naruu and old gods infused in 1 weapon and have a unique animation when switching between the two and the quest to obtain it would be slightly different depending which one yu get first. Ok Im just babbling now but it goes without saying, im a little dissapointed in how Legion priests are pretty much the same with a new tacked on theme of old gods with no single entity.

[Alanar]

Whats interesting, in the ptr we're having a lot more insanity coming in and little time outside of VF that in itself made it slightly more viable. Not only that but it got buffed. The change is very noticeable in the ptr. I still don't think its gonna be popular but it does have its benefits. Especially combined with the free casting legendary and not having to waste a global on the shield. Basically you can pump out a few extra thousand dps with this vs body and soul. Just putting it out there.

Yea i can see it being fun while using the legndary boots.. I can also see it as something fun using the pvp talent to do 30% damage with 100 insanity... making you move fast and still doing good damage.. but the loss of Voidform would be to great and it's mostly about going in voidform fast and not realy care about how long you stay at 100 without going into voidform. Thus making manio completely agaisnt the shadow playstyle. It would be a cool spell if it would start when voidform starts, and decaying when you lose insnity, 100% speed would be op, but making it 100 insanity( while uoi just used voidform) = 75% lowing by 1%.

Shame legendary don't work in pvp anyway.. outside of wpvp, making it a no go talent realy.

[tiptopmemer]

Nerfing Twist of Fate also nerfs non-S2M. The only way to nerf S2M without nerfing Legacy of the Void is to nerf S2M. It may not be possible to nerf it any more without completely dismantling it, but that's because the design of S2M is completely antithetical to how balancing works in WoW.

S2M is a great idea for a talent.. in some other game. Warcraft, however, just flat out does not support a talent that essentially reads "You are categorically better at DPS than any other spec, provided you can handle this rotation". It just breaks the game balance in half.

Removing ToF takes far more away from s2m than it does with lotv, there's nothing stopping blizz from replacing it with something that does more vs targets above a certain threshold rather than below.

I'm sorry but this is just wrong on so many levels.
If you nerf indirectly there is a high chance the same problem comes back later because you didn't fix the root cause. And then you need to nerf again.

ToF is not the problem for our scaling. Its good, mandatory even but it has little to do with the insane damage being shown by top Priests. Mass Hysteria and the heights to which it stacks during StM is the problem that causes our massive dps leap.
You can see this by the fact we gain far more then 'only' 35% more damage during the end of the fight then the rest before it.

Yes a cap on MH is clunky and i'm not a fan of it. Therefore the better solution would be to stop the high stacks, which is done by hitting StM (at which point the death penalty also needs to go and the entire baseline damage of the spec needs to come up).

Nerfing LI doesn't show that Blizzard wants to make StM a niche spec. It barely even impacts StM because the damage done before Surrender is shit anyway, being a bit more shit is no big deal, and it does nothing once you enter Surrender since you will never leave it to gain LI.
I could (but don't want to) argue that Blizzard is happy with StM considering they have not buffed the other 2 talents at the 100 tier.

StM will still be the only talent ever taken by a raiding priests because the other 2 talents simply do not do enough to compensate.

The only line in your post I can actually agree with is the final one. I have seen nothing that convinces me Blizzard actually wants to fix us.

- - - Updated - - -


Because Blizzard is stubborn.
StM as it exists should never have left the first design meeting. An ability that will kill you if you slightly mess up needs a reward that is so big that the ability can never be balanced.
The whole talent screams bad design.

1. No

2. You are 100% wrong here, infact the exact opposite of what you are saying is the correct response.

3. MH is the main reason S2M is viable, if you nerf it, you might aswell replace S2M.

4. Without LI the spec feels slow and clunky

[Nyel]

I just got http://www.wowdb.com/items/133973-th...-painful-touch - do we know yet the new effect in 7.1.5? It's obvious that they need to change it, maybe they've done it already?

[kalaratic]

I just got http://www.wowdb.com/items/133973-th...-painful-touch - do we know yet the new effect in 7.1.5? It's obvious that they need to change it, maybe they've done it already?

it's changed to mind flay instead of sear on the ptr. have fun having no control over your spread come 7.1.5

[Nyel]

it's changed to mind flay instead of sear on the ptr. have fun having no control over your spread come 7.1.5

Is it a bad thing? I haven't fully understood how our new AoE is working but spreading DoTs seems to be... helpful. Unless you're breaking CC lol.

[kalaratic]

Is it a bad thing? I haven't fully understood how our new AoE is working but spreading DoTs seems to be... helpful. Unless you're breaking CC lol.

ya basically with the new ring you are going to be put in situations where you will burn the ring's proc just by doing your single target rotation. compared to now where you can choose exactly when to use the proc by hitting sear instead of flay.

[Nyel]

ya basically with the new ring you are going to be put in situations where you will burn the ring's proc just by doing your single target rotation. compared to now where you can choose exactly when to use the proc by hitting sear instead of flay.

Ah, now I see the problem. I'm wasting the proc on ST situations etc. because Mind Flay is part of my standard rotation - thanks for clearing that up.

[Minka]

Hello,

atm i am just playing my SP as an twink but I fell in love with the mechanics and gameplay. And maybe want to reroll.
Now I am really worried that the 7.1.5 changes destroy the SP in terms of DMG and Gameplay.

If I only think about refreshing dots in VF how fucking stupid is this?

They should leave VB as it is. I can't imagine 3 sec would be enough to push the dot timers.
Also why are they really removing LI? I can't get it. SP damage is low outside of S2M execute phase.

Some SP here playing on the PTR and can say how it feels? For me it all sounds clunky as fuck now...

Sadly

[Skead]

ya basically with the new ring you are going to be put in situations where you will burn the ring's proc just by doing your single target rotation. compared to now where you can choose exactly when to use the proc by hitting sear instead of flay.

the simple fix would be make it proc when there is eligible targets nearby on the next tick.