[Shadow] Proposed Revamp for Battle for Azeroth

[Yvaelle]

Edit: WORK IN PROGRESS - adding to post as more ideas come up or people suggest improvements.

The devs recently mentioned they were going to look at Shadowpriests first on the list of class specific updates for Battle For Azeroth.
They have also mentioned they were not planning on large overhauls this expansion to most classes, but since Shadow was called out as top of the list - I think we need to be the most prepared and most vocal upfront to get our feedback in when they want to receive it.

To that end, I'm dredging up my past Willpower/Insanity design from last expansions alpha, incorporating all the best things I like about Legion design, and slapping on anything new I think we need as well:

Two resources: Willpower and Insanity.

Every tick of a Damage Over Time (DoT) provides 1 Willpower. 1 Willpower = 1% haste. Max 100 willpower.
Every use of an Empowered spell (see below) inflicts 50 Insanity. Insanity decays 5 per second. Max 100 insanity.


What happens when you hit 100 insanity?

Apotheosis happens. The spriest loses control of the old god magic they purport to control through their sheer force of will(power): this is both good and bad.
- removes all DoTs from all targets
- removes all Willpower (and corresponding Haste)
- reduces the Spriests movement speed by 50%
- doubles the rate of insanity decay (from 5 to 10)
- causes the Spriest to lose 10% max hp per second
- all spells cast during Apotheosis are Empowered (see below)
- Empowered spells do not inflict Insanity
- can be /cancelaura'd early



What are Empowered spells?
Empowered spells have increased effects but inflict Insanity upon the casting Shadowpriest. Each use of an Empowered spell inflicts 50 Insanity.

Desperation - no cooldown, does not trigger the GCD - upon using this spell the icons on core spells will change, becoming Empowered By The Void: the next core spell used will gain increased effects.

Empowered Shadow Word: Pain becomes Devouring Despair - a powerful DoT that ticks every second for 10 seconds and heals the Spriest for 3% max HP per tick

Empowered Mind Flay becomes Void Torrent - deals massively increased damage and lasts 5 seconds

Empowered Mind Sear becomes Shadow Crash - deals burst aoe damage after a delayed travel time

Empowered Shadow Word: Death becomes Forbidden Word: Null - no longer requires a low health target, always critically strikes and damage scales with critical strike rating. Deals 50% less damage for each of the Spriests DoTs active on the target.

Empowered Fade becomes Disapparate - reduces threat, teleports the Spriest 30 yards in the direction they are facing, and causes the Spriest to be immune to all damage for 1 second

Empowered Silence becomes Excommunicate - locks the target in horror instead of silence and knocks them back 30 yards

Empowered Dispel Magic becomes Nullify Magic - dispels all harmful magic from the target ally and the Spriest

Remove the following spells:

- Shadow Mend
- Power Word: Shield
- Shackle Undead
- Mass Dispel

Change the following spells:

- Vampiric Embrace heals for 10 seconds every 2 minutes
- Shadow Word: Death has one charge (down from two), but hits harder as a result

Thoughts
- empowered spells are a way to give us a lot of our favorite spells back (Devouring Plague, Psychic Horror, etc) without bloating the spec or increasing complexity
- empowered spells add a lot of situational power to the class, but mobility and utility cost damage
- removing utility spells (Mend, Shield, Shackle) reduces the potential maximum utility the spec can offer, which was probably hard to balance
- the spec has less variety of utility (and less spammable), but powerful utility in specific niches (Nullify Magic, more frequent Vampiric Embraces)
- the spec has few spells, but needs to make complex choices about which to empower and when
- the insanity mechanic is an amplified Floating Energy Pool system; capping out is potentially fatal under the wrong circumstances (homage to Surrender 2 Madness)
- Disapparate can use the Diagonal Slide graphic that Archbishop Benedictus has during the Cataclysm quest series (video here)


Gameplay

Due to the extreme power of haste toward sustained fights and especcially the benefit overcapped (more than required to hit the GCD) haste provides to DoT specs, maintaining maximum Willpower is always more valuable in the longterm for DPS than triggering Apotheosis. However with seconds left in the fight, or when pulling a small pack, a Spriest could intentionally trigger Apotheosis (removing their dots and accumulated haste) to deal a short burst of damage (Mythic+ trash burst, world questing, ending every raid fight with a bang).

There is an Empowered spell for every different fight scenario, and they are frequent enough to make in-combat decisions about which to use and when - but it takes Insanity management to plan ahead.

For Council fights (Demonic Inquisition), Devouring Despair (Devouring Plague) can potentially hit multiple targets, so you get an extra DoT to manage.
For Single Target fights (Goroth), Void Torrent is ideal.
For big trash pulls (every Mythic+ ever), Shadow Crash can do work.
For bursting something quickly (a jerk world mob that knocked you off your mount, or the fire orbs on Botanist) Forbidden Word: Null (homage to Mind Spike, but good this time) is an curt rebuttal.

This resolves the ramp-up to Void Form problem because Void Form (Apotheosis) is always 2 empowered spells away - even fresh into combat - and since the benefit is Empowered spells, Shadowpriests essentially have no ramp-up at all on short fights: problem solved.

However, for longer fights, and particularly ones where DoTs are an interesting/desirable mechanic - ramp-up actually feels good and is part of why Spriests can feel powerful/fun (the pay-off for ramp-up is higher long-term damage, theoretically). To that end, and virtually all raid bosses, we would not want to trigger Apotheosis at all - our goal would be to maximize Willpower (= Haste) quickly and maintain it through the entire fight, using Empowered Spells only sparingly to avoid hitting Apotheosis: gaining temporary burst damage/utility, but losing our Willpower/Haste.

[davesignal]

This doesn't really seem like it would address my primary concern with Shadow, which was that the spec has become so frantic and button-mashy that I was forced to quit playing it because it was causing actual, literal shooting pains in my wrist.

I remember when Shadow was about meticulously managing both your DOTs and your buffs, back before DOT management became entirely brainless-- refresh this spell during a huge window, all buffs automatically update your damage, actually don't bother refreshing it at all just let Void Bolt do that-- and it was fun. It was plate-spinning madness, you had to keep track of a bunch of different things, and it accomplished that without frantic mashing.

[Daedius]

Looks complicated.

[Kilee25]

The frantic mashing has become a perceived skill divide. They aren't particularly vocal on public forums, but there's a large group of important, high tier players who spent a very long time trying to get shadow to play the way it does now. I highly doubt you'll see a change in the current style and mindset, because the gates of communication to Blizzard has turned into a bit of an "old boys club". You also have to understand that the game has been moving more and more towards the competitive league/tournament style for quite a while. I suspect that there are many in the industry who feel that this is where the big money lies, and that televised gaming competitions are the next big step/evolution in competitive gaming. I cannot predict the future, so I don't know how much of a reality this is, but I do feel it is one of the driving forces behind the evolution of class changes in wow and it's progression of expansions. Everything is moving more and more towards twitchy, hot-key style gaming, where fast reaction times and quick relfexes and high-speed, split-second choices are the dividing gap between the mediocre and the amazing. I think that the shadow-priest class (and perhaps the priest class in general) has attracted a lot of the players with this type of mindset, so any change to this play style at this point and age of the game will more than likely upset a large group of players, and there would be "riot in the streets" if it changed.

I've resolved myself to the idea that if I ever come back to WoW, it won't be to my priest any more. I might play the Classic servers if they do it right. But as for the modern wow, it kind of feels like every class is heading this way, and I'm not even sure if there's any place for players who like more slow-paced, well-planned and thoughtful style of game play.

[Yvaelle]

This doesn't really seem like it would address my primary concern with Shadow, which was that the spec has become so frantic and button-mashy that I was forced to quit playing it because it was causing actual, literal shooting pains in my wrist.

I remember when Shadow was about meticulously managing both your DOTs and your buffs, back before DOT management became entirely brainless-- refresh this spell during a huge window, all buffs automatically update your damage, actually don't bother refreshing it at all just let Void Bolt do that-- and it was fun. It was plate-spinning madness, you had to keep track of a bunch of different things, and it accomplished that without frantic mashing.

Most of the current chaos is the result of the Void Form implementation, where we spend most of our time in Void Form with extremely high haste, spamming Void Bolt and Mind Blast (reduced cooldown in Void Form). My system doesn't have Void Bolt, and doesn't reduce the cooldown of Mind Blast from it's non-Void Form state. This should make it significantly less spammy than today. Edit: Also added to the change section, to give Death a single charge again but make it hit harder as a result.

The way this should feel is that you mostly cast your DoTs everywhere, cast Mind Blast (8 second cooldown) when available, and channel Mind Flay the rest of the time. This is if anything harkening back to previous iterations of Shadow that were much slower - TBC might be the closest parallel so far. The complexity I'm adding on top of that instead is that about every 10 seconds you would empower one of your spells.

On a single target fight, that would be Void Torrent, which would still feel like channeling Mind Flay (what you would be doing anyways during your Mind Blast cooldown). On a multi-target fight, that would be Devouring Darkness, giving you an extra DoT to manage. In either case though, this is significantly less spammy actions per minute (APM) than Legion's frenetic Void Form

What part of it specifically worried you that it would be spammy?

Looks complicated.

It's really less complicated than it may sound:

Apply DoTs > Mind Blast if available > Empowered Spell if below 50 Insanity > Death if target is low HP > Mind Flay to fill

- - - Updated - - -

The frantic mashing has become a perceived skill divide. They aren't particularly vocal on public forums, but there's a large group of important, high tier players who spent a very long time trying to get shadow to play the way it does now. I highly doubt you'll see a change in the current style and mindset, because the gates of communication to Blizzard has turned into a bit of an "old boys club".

Multiple iterations of Shadow's design have been borrowed wholesale from my past proposals like this. I made a similar proposal last expansion cycle, and they took my Insanity and Apotheosis (Void Form) mechanic without the corresponding Willpower mechanic - but they did take the stacking % haste bit from my Willpower proposal. Void Torrent was originally a spell I called Mind War, etc. Parts of our Lich King, Cataclysm, and Pandaria design came from ideas I was promoting too.

Two points here: 1) I'm as much an Old Boy as anyone, I'm so old I don't know these new-fangled post-GC devs they have now, 2) don't assume that you can't affect change, the Shadow Priest High Council was a thing Woaden, Kelberot, myself, and Condee (sp?) started on mIRC back in TBC for Spriest activism. When you are loud enough, and right enough, the devs can't help but hear you

You also have to understand that the game has been moving more and more towards the competitive league/tournament style for quite a while. I suspect that there are many in the industry who feel that this is where the big money lies, and that televised gaming competitions are the next big step/evolution in competitive gaming. I cannot predict the future, so I don't know how much of a reality this is, but I do feel it is one of the driving forces behind the evolution of class changes in wow and it's progression of expansions. Everything is moving more and more towards twitchy, hot-key style gaming, where fast reaction times and quick relfexes and high-speed, split-second choices are the dividing gap between the mediocre and the amazing.

League of Legends is the biggest eSport in the world by far, and each player has only 4 buttons, usually all of which have 3 to 30 second cooldowns. You can create complex combos and intelligent planning without mashing buttons. Maybe the WoW devs don't see that yet, but that just means they are wrong (evidenced because more popular eSports exist with less complexity and chaos than WoW already has). So if you are right (and you might well be), it doesn't mean they won't recognize the mistake themselves and change course.

To use a recent League example to demonstrate that complexity/twitch is not the only facet of eSports skill, Faker (aka. "God" within the League eSports community) played a champion called Galio in 5 of 5 games in the semi-finals matches of this years World championship - Galio has 4 abilities, all with 10-30 second cooldowns, and virtually no twitch required: his capabilities come entirely from clever combo'ing and positioning. The most mechanically gifted player in the world played a champion with ~no mechanical complexity and still clearly demonstrated he was strategically outplaying his opponents.

I think that the shadow-priest class (and perhaps the priest class in general) has attracted a lot of the players with this type of mindset, so any change to this play style at this point and age of the game will more than likely upset a large group of players, and there would be "riot in the streets" if it changed.

Spriests riot prior to every expansion, it's tradition Hyperbole is the only way we illicit any dev attention. We tried whispering into the void previously but the forum thing really didn't go well for either side. The devs stopped listening and stopped participating, and the players got hostile. By being included, then ignored, the devs were claiming community-driven design on the authority of leading players, without actually granting them any power. If they aren't willing to share design power, then forum riots (activism) are the only means to get their attention.

I've resolved myself to the idea that if I ever come back to WoW, it won't be to my priest any more. I might play the Classic servers if they do it right. But as for the modern wow, it kind of feels like every class is heading this way, and I'm not even sure if there's any place for players who like more slow-paced, well-planned and thoughtful style of game play.

We can start a retired Spriests League community Kilee - lots of slow but strategic shadowy characters (Malzahar, Syndra, Evelynn).

[Swalload]

which was that the spec has become so frantic and button-mashy that I was forced to quit playing it because it was causing actual, literal shooting pains in my wrist.

So if you played Enhance during WoD your entire body would have literally exploded and splattered the walls with all your destroyed organs.

[davesignal]

So if you played Enhance during WoD your entire body would have literally exploded and splattered the walls with all your destroyed organs.

Probably! I was still playing Shadow during WoD, and my wrist pain issue was minor enough that taking a week off every three or four weeks was enough to keep it under control, though trying to DOTWeave exacerbated it. Shit escalated during Legion, heavily.

I've resolved myself to the idea that if I ever come back to WoW, it won't be to my priest any more. I might play the Classic servers if they do it right. But as for the modern wow, it kind of feels like every class is heading this way, and I'm not even sure if there's any place for players who like more slow-paced, well-planned and thoughtful style of game play.

You should try Arcane Mage. That's what I'm raiding on right now, and that describes Arcane very well. Small list of spells, but the way in which you deploy them has huge repercussions.

What part of it specifically worried you that it would be spammy?

I'm just extremely leery when I see escalating haste bonuses and off-GCD rotational abilities.

[Yvaelle]

Probably! I was still playing Shadow during WoD, and my wrist pain issue was minor enough that taking a week off every three or four weeks was enough to keep it under control, though trying to DOTWeave exacerbated it. Shit escalated during Legion, heavily.



You should try Arcane Mage. That's what I'm raiding on right now, and that describes Arcane very well. Small list of spells, but the way in which you deploy them has huge repercussions.



I'm just extremely leery when I see escalating haste bonuses and off-GCD rotational abilities.

Just means 1 second Mind Blasts and <3 second Mind Flays, but it's not that spammy in itself without Void Bolt, reduced CD Mind Blast, and double charge Deaths.

Off-GCD rotational abilities are a legit concern but you would only need to push that button about once every 10 seconds normally, or twice every ~21 seconds if you are building toward a burst window (ex. drop to 0 insanity anticipating a priority add spawning, Desperation -> Devouring Despair -> Mind Blast (wait a second for Insanity to drop to 40 from 50 so you don't Apotheosis) -> Desperation -> Void Torrent. You wouldn't need to press it at all during Apotheosis since it applies to everything automatically.

Plus if you really didn't like that, you could macro as follow:

1 = Shadow Word Pain
2 = Mind Flay
3 = Death
Shift+1 = macro that Desperation+Pains = Devouring Despair
Shift=2 = macro that Desperation+Mind Flays = Void Torrent
Shift+3 = macro that Desperation+Death = Forbidden Word: Null

At which point it's just a modifier key to use desperation spells without actually needing Desperation on your bars.

[Fleckens]

I think it's safe to say we aren't going to get a massive revamp like you are suggestion. Honestly it's not like we are that bad off, just make mind flay aoe by default(there are plenty of other specs who can't avoid cleaving either so that's hardly an issue) without the dot requirement, give us back old lingering insanity where stacks stay until you reenter voidform and give us a way to spread our dots. With us losing our artifact and mass hysteria with it our damage in voidform won't have as big a difference on start of voidform vs end of voidform so as long as we can get into voidform quickly and get dots on targets our damage will be good and getting old LI will make it less punishing for us when it's not possible to chain pulls.

[deviantcultist]

Brilliant idea. I hope Blizz fixes/tunes Shadow to an extent that reflects on this guide.

[Kilee25]

You should try Arcane Mage. That's what I'm raiding on right now, and that describes Arcane very well. Small list of spells, but the way in which you deploy them has huge repercussions.

Thank you, I have a worgen mage that I stopped playing back in Cata. Maybe I will dust the character off and give it a try. I was playing arcane/fire back then with that character and really enjoyed it.

[Rhaxus]

looks and sounds incredibly fun!
two issues i see: empowered fade should not be 50 insanity, since you likely want to use it as a mobility tool with body and soul missing, and you need to check your text, since you mention apotheosis after calling it either Mind War or Desperation.

i'd love to play that spec, it keeps the fast pace from current SPriest with actual options for a lot of overly punishing situations, keeps the new AND the old shadow themes and allows to retain Voidform as visuals while also fixing horrendous clashing visuals (shield mainly, but i hope for a levitate glyph)

edit: insanity numbers need haste tuning too i just realised with a basic 1,5 sec gcd it is impossible to even hit Mind War state within 2 buttons, since you will be at 45 insanity after 1 sec.
question is: does haste affect insanity drain too?

[Yvaelle]

looks and sounds incredibly fun!
two issues i see: empowered fade should not be 50 insanity, since you likely want to use it as a mobility tool with body and soul missing, and you need to check your text, since you mention apotheosis after calling it either Mind War or Desperation.

Thanks fixed the text - Mind War shouldn't be in there at all, was meant to be "Apotheosis happens."

Disapparate cost might be too high ya, besides it would still obey the 30s cooldown on Fade - so our mobility is already gated by the cooldown. What do you think the cost should be?

i'd love to play that spec, it keeps the fast pace from current SPriest with actual options for a lot of overly punishing situations, keeps the new AND the old shadow themes and allows to retain Voidform as visuals while also fixing horrendous clashing visuals (shield mainly, but i hope for a levitate glyph)

edit: insanity numbers need haste tuning too i just realised with a basic 1,5 sec gcd it is impossible to even hit Mind War state within 2 buttons, since you will be at 45 insanity after 1 sec.
question is: does haste affect insanity drain too?

My gut says haste should not affect insanity drain, but that would be worth thinking about. And ya, either I probably need to make max insanity 90 instead of 100, or make empowered damage spells 60 instead of 50. 60 instead of 50 probably is the better choice (and insanity remaining 100).

[Ambereldus]

I've always loved your concept of balancing a duality, but I'm a little skeptical of your new iteration.

The idea of Apotheosis could be really cool in practice, but that health cost could be seriously detrimental outside of group content. I would probably try to avoid Apotheosis entirely while solo, particularly with the removal of Shadow Mend and Shields. It could be /cancelaura'ed, of course, but I feel you'd have to bake that into the class somehow. Forcing everyone to rely on a macro for core questing mechanics seems excessive, particularly for people new to the class/game. Unfortunately I'm not sure of an intuitive way to solve that problem.

Debuff falls off out of combat? What about chaining mobs?
At a certain health percentage? What about unavoidable damage spikes in raids?
A separate button? Seems like unnecessary bloat.
With another ability? Which one? Maybe Desperation?
...that might actually fit.

I'm also concerned that it may be too punishing overall, particularly if you accidentally overcap your Insanity through mismanagement. Losing that 100% haste buff (or potentially 100% of your health) and your ability to dodge mechanics could be an extreme frustration for some, even with the ability to toggle it off. I'd probably get overzealous. It reminds me of the Quickening-era of Arcane mages, where a single mistake meant you may as well AFK the rest of the fight.

Perhaps turning it into a more regular mechanic of the class, and toning down the drawbacks? I could see it being a "phase" that you can voluntarily enter for a burst of dps, followed by a lull while waiting for your haste to regen. Tuned to be dps negative (perhaps with a Weakened Soul style debuff to limit frequency), it would allow burst when necessary while rewarding your ability to temper your Insanity when burst isn't ideal.

The problem with mine is that the S2M playstyle wouldn't be preserved, which I feel was your original intent.
*afterthought* That weakened soul-esque debuff could add the health sapping debuff! Double burst but at a cost! ...but a pocket healer could break that entirely...dang.

Overall, I kinda like how the rotation is trimmed down a bit, but with added complexities and interactions. I'm also a fan of how it could handle both short and long fights effectively while preserving the idea of our historical ramp-up. I'm not sure if it would feel right as-is, but I like the potential it has.

My gut says haste should not affect insanity drain, but that would be worth thinking about. And ya, either I probably need to make max insanity 90 instead of 100, or make empowered damage spells 60 instead of 50. 60 instead of 50 probably is the better choice (and insanity remaining 100).

Well, it would still be 2 spells mid-fight, since you wouldn't want to let your Insanity sit at 0 due to lost dps potential. The only time it would take 3 would be on the pull and after long immunity phases.

[Yvaelle]

I've always loved your concept of balancing a duality, but I'm a little skeptical of your new iteration.

The idea of Apotheosis could be really cool in practice, but that health cost could be seriously detrimental outside of group content. I would probably try to avoid Apotheosis entirely while solo, particularly with the removal of Shadow Mend and Shields. It could be /cancelaura'ed, of course, but I feel you'd have to bake that into the class somehow. Forcing everyone to rely on a macro for core questing mechanics seems excessive, particularly for people new to the class/game. Unfortunately I'm not sure of an intuitive way to solve that problem.

Debuff falls off out of combat? What about chaining mobs?
At a certain health percentage? What about unavoidable damage spikes in raids?
A separate button? Seems like unnecessary bloat.
With another ability? Which one? Maybe Desperation?
...that might actually fit.

The one that leapt to my mind was, my previous proposal for Apotheosis was that it rooted us for the duration - which was meant to make it super dangerous to use without some planning and foresight. Everyone thought that was too prohibitive - but maybe that's the solution. It doesn't root us or slow us by 50%, but Apotheosis ends if we move: that way we can cancel it with WASD and Jump. That would make it very intuitive to break.

That said, Desperation is probably the best option, it still allows us to use it on the move - and we won't need Desperation during Apotheosis anyways - so it works as a Cancelaura - good thinking!

I'm also concerned that it may be too punishing overall, particularly if you accidentally overcap your Insanity through mismanagement. Losing that 100% haste buff (or potentially 100% of your health) and your ability to dodge mechanics could be an extreme frustration for some, even with the ability to toggle it off. I'd probably get overzealous. It reminds me of the Quickening-era of Arcane mages, where a single mistake meant you may as well AFK the rest of the fight.

I probably went overkill on the punishment, but I do want the ramp-up mechanic to be meaningful, it just means the devs can always extract penalties later though - like removing the health drain or the movement speed slow.

It also depends a bit on the fight though too, with 2s Pain ticks and 3s VT ticks, and 1s Devouring Despair ticks, in 30 seconds, before haste (gear and willpower) is even considered, you would get 10+15+20 (assuming 2 Devouring Despairs in 30 seconds) = 45 Willpower stacks. So even on single target fights (more for multi-dotting) and even before we consider haste, ramping up would take about a minute. Maybe 45 seconds or less in a geared single target, or multi-dot scenario.

Perhaps turning it into a more regular mechanic of the class, and toning down the drawbacks? I could see it being a "phase" that you can voluntarily enter for a burst of dps, followed by a lull while waiting for your haste to regen. Tuned to be dps negative (perhaps with a Weakened Soul style debuff to limit frequency), it would allow burst when necessary while rewarding your ability to temper your Insanity when burst isn't ideal.

The problem with mine is that the S2M playstyle wouldn't be preserved, which I feel was your original intent.
*afterthought* That weakened soul-esque debuff could add the health sapping debuff! Double burst but at a cost! ...but a pocket healer could break that entirely...dang.

Yea the risk with making it pocket-healable is that the other classes would get pretty annoyed if Spriests destroyed all the DPS meters, even if it involved cheesing fights by spamming Apotheosis and dedicating a healer to keep the Spriest up We'll need to think of a cleaner solution.

Idea: Weakened soul for 60s between Apotheosis states. Health drain removed. For every 1 insanity you gain beyond 100 while weakened soul is active, you lose 1 willpower. So the penalty for overcapping becomes that you ruin your own stacks of willpower - penalizing without being prohibitive?

Overall, I kinda like how the rotation is trimmed down a bit, but with added complexities and interactions. I'm also a fan of how it could handle both short and long fights effectively while preserving the idea of our historical ramp-up. I'm not sure if it would feel right as-is, but I like the potential it has.

Ya any decent proposal always needs to be a work in progress, and even if the community came up with an objectively perfect system through some brainstorming activity, we'd relay it to the devs, they'd take the half they read/liked/understood, and discard the rest anyways. So you have to be resilient to how ideas like this will be received, concepts can be retained while details are lost. Community feedback is like trying to convey detail in watercolor paintings - the wrong medium but still a worthwhile pursuit.

Well, it would still be 2 spells mid-fight, since you wouldn't want to let your Insanity sit at 0 due to lost dps potential. The only time it would take 3 would be on the pull and after long immunity phases.

Going point I guess it just loses that 0 to 100 acceleration, but really in the midst of a fight where you are sitting at 0-50 Insanity already, Devouring Despair -> Void Torrent would trigger Apotheosis at any time.

[Annesh]

Okay loooong response and deconstruction coming.

First up, I wasn't super sold on your first iteration in the Legion alpha. I don't remember why; I think it's just that it's complex and didn't seem to address my own problems with Shadow. This new version I can get more behind, but there are still a few things I'd like to note.

My problems with Shadow

I have three:
1) Long ramp fucks us on short fights but doesn't make us better for long fights to make up for it.

2) Underdesigned AoE fucks us on AoE and big multi-pack pulls.

3) We suffer too much to heavy movement and phase changes.

In one sentence, we aren't good enough at raid bosses to justify how mediocre or worse we are at everything else.

Solutions that will help

SO, with that being said, any solution we propose or receive must address all three of those concerns to get my stamp of approval (not that my opinion is inherently worth anything to anyone, but this is my reply so that statement applies).

1) It must not force us into a single playstyle that relies on long-term ramp. In other words, it must allow for the ability to deal better burst damage, both single-target and cleave/AoE, possibly by sacrificing long-term damage ceiling (although realistically our single-target is already sub-par; I feel very bitter that I have to feel uncomfortable in wanting a kit that makes us as good as boomkins on as many things).

2) It needs the ability to handle very large pulls just as well as anyone else. When the tank says "Fuck it" and pulls three packs at once, we should be just as excited as everyone else, not groaning that they get to shoot their bars to the moon, while we're stuck dotting 20 mobs one at a time and ending the fight having done half the damage as the tank.

3) It must not be overly weak to heavy movement and phase changes.

Survey Says...

A snap judgement of your willpower/insanity system is that it's definitely interesting, and I REALLY like the whole "empowered versions of spells" gimmick, but it makes me a little skeptical that it would actually address the things that need addressing. The biggest thing I see is that there's no way to spread one of our dots, the way everyone else can. Not only are we still stuck painfully manually multi-dotting on big trash pulls (which is the primary reason why we suck on those), but there are several mechanics in your system that actively punish us for having dots up. We should WANT our dots on things, as many as possible. I shouldn't feel guilty for having my dots up.

I know you have Shadow Crash in there, on what's essentially a 10 second cooldown. That's a step in the right direction, giving us a choice whether to use our "resource" on single-target or aoe, like Starsurge or Starfall. But we can't get by on that alone. My immediate suggestion is to have one of those empowerments be to spread SWP to all targets, or to have Shadow Crash apply SWP. Your SWP empowerment is basically Devouring Plague and I gather that's something you care about a lot. But I think it's possible to make something work for everyone.

Breaking it Down

Okay so getting into the system a little, why I think it's too complicated, and various issues I see with it.

1) I don't really see the point of Willpower. It's not a resource, it's just a stacking buff to reward you over time for not using your big "cooldown." It's kind of misnamed as well; you'd think Willpower would be being used, one way or another, to avoid a build up of Insanity, but that's not the case.

2) Is Willpower even worth it? Apotheosis sounds powerful as hell - you can just jump in it and reapply dots real fast, then spam Void Torrent or Shadow Crashes with seemingly no resource-oriented downside? You'll drop out of Apotheosis within 10 seconds, yes, but you can jump back in within 2 GCDs, and you won't be too interested in the disadvantages. This is because...

3) The disadvantages you've put in there are the wrong kind. Removing dots feels like a QoL flaw, just makes you reapply them. HP drain just makes you a burden on the healers. Movement speed is moot because you can merely cancel the buff when you need to move and then spam a couple empowered spells to jump back into Apotheosis when you're able to stand and turret again. This has the unpleasant side-effect of making movement even more punishing than it already is. Big fat goose egg there.

4) If you fix this by making Willpower more valuable, then you're creeping back toward the nightmare of Legion, gating our damage behind 60 seconds of ramp-up.

5) The "right" kind of disadvantage is entirely resource-based, making you flat unable to do something again if you mess it up. Example: Boomkin hits Starfall on a pack of adds just as they die, causing him to be unable to afford a Starsurge for the big mob/boss that remains.

6) Now some minor issues; A) 10 seconds for the "cooldown" of Desperation feels both too long and too short for something as integral as this. B) It's a shared 10 second cooldown across ALL your various DPS spells and utilities, which feels too limiting. Only 2-3 of them will ever be used, because they'll just be better in most or all situations. C) Devouring Despair directly conflicts with Void Torrent, because it can't be used on multiple targets (10 second duration, 10 second cooldown) and is therefore just another single-target spell. One will be better than the other. Even if you increased DD's duration to 20 seconds, you can still only have it on 2 mobs at once. I guess DD is better when moving a lot? D) You're completely gutting all our utility, and it's not even GOOD utility! I reeeeeally think it's a bad idea to give up our direct healing - shadowmend is limited enough as it is. Losing PWS is losing B&S - a 40% run speed boost with like 75% uptime (for about 20 seconds, until we run OOM, and then it's more like 50% uptime). Big large huge mobility loss. Then also our one CC, and MD? Good grief man.

Roots

So, because the system is interesting, I wanna take it back to its roots. Please correct me on my assumptions that are wrong here about your goals.

The elevator pitch for this system seems to be that it allows a high long-term DPS ceiling (through the long ramp of Willpower), with the flexibility of burst AoE and add-killing.

All in all, what I'd say is that this doesn't quite work out in practice, the way I'm thinking about it. If the system is tuned in such a way that having high willpower is more valuable than just jumping in Apotheosis over and over, then the real punishment for hitting Apotheosis (dropping all Willpower) is far too great to justify using it to kill adds or burn through trash. Better DPS would be yielded by letting Willpower ramp up, then staying at max Willpower for an entire dungeon, never using Apotheosis, at which point Apotheosis may as well just not exist, and Desperation may as well just have a 10 second cooldown. If you try to solve this by having Willpower drain or dump when out of combat, then we're just flat bad for dungeons because we'll have that 50 second ramp-up back, that we can't even control anymore.

In short, you have two entirely different modes of play (maintaining high Willpower vs rotating in and out of Apotheosis), and because of the freedom you're giving players to use one or the other at their leisure, they are not complimentary; they are conflicting. One will always be better than the other. Legion's Voidform system has two modes, but they're designed such that you WANT to be in one as much as possible. One is supposed to be better than the other.

I understand that you're not meaning Apotheosis to be used as a rotational tool, like a "DPS cooldown" or a "phase," but you have to understand that since you've built it to be both dangerous and worth DPS, people will use it for that DPS and criticize the drawbacks as QoL problems. But this leads me to ask, what is your goal with Apotheosis? I'm not even 100% sure. If you want it to be a punishment for hitting 100 insanity, then why does it look so juicy for DPS (spammed empowered abilities)? If you want it to be an alternate DPS mode used for burst, then why does it come with such painful drawbacks? It's too versatile to be good for any one particular combat encounter type (works for single-target, AoE, small-group cleave), so it's not as if max-Willpower playstyle is for long single-target boss fights and Apotheosis spam is for dungeon trash fights.

So yeah, I'm not sure it's accomplishing what you want it to, though I might've missed something or misread your goals.

Suggestions

Honestly, and this might sound crazy to you, but hear me out: I think you should get rid of Apotheosis's drawbacks and tweak the DPS benefits. It's already got the drawback that it doesn't do as much damage in the long run as staying at high Willpower. I think you want Apotheosis to do two things at once - either it's a punishment for reaching 100 insanity, or it's a DPS mode for short fights. But these things aren't working together very well, so one or the other has to go, and my vote is on the former.

How about this: "Power Overwhelming (Level 15 talent): Your Voidform increases Shadow damage by an additional 30%, but causes insanity to drain 30% faster and no longer increases haste." Basically the same idea, it's just a talent. You have your baseline haste-stacking Voidform for long fights, and you can talent this thing for short fights. Bonus points, it keeps all the sexy Voidform animations, and it'll be a lot easier for Blizzard to implement. Along with a baseline SWP-spreader and better access to Shadow Crash, that's about all I need to feel happy with the spec for PvE (plus some genius solution for movement/phase changes that I don't have myself). PvP design still needs a lot of work, but before I even bother with Shadow PvP, or touch PvP again at all, they're gonna have to walk wayyyyy back on the melee v caster shit show they've fallen into over the last few expansions.

Eagerly looking forward to your reply!

[Tradu]

Empowered Fade would be extremely overpowered. An immunity every 30 seconds, regardless of duration, is way too good. The ability to /cancelaura Apotheosis also circumvents the entire mechanic, as you could just Desperation -> spell -> Desperation -> spell -> cancel Apotheosis -> Desperation -> spell -> cancel Apotheosis and repeat forever, as you can achieve the Apotheosis effect by just using Desperation instead, with none of the drawbacks. This is unless Apotheosis is weaker than 100 stacks of haste, because if it's weaker than 100 stacks of haste, it serves absolutely no purpose.
The idea sounds quite similar to what Demonology was in MoP/WoD, though, which I like quite a lot.

[Ambereldus]

Yea the risk with making it pocket-healable is that the other classes would get pretty annoyed if Spriests destroyed all the DPS meters, even if it involved cheesing fights by spamming Apotheosis and dedicating a healer to keep the Spriest up We'll need to think of a cleaner solution.

Idea: Weakened soul for 60s between Apotheosis states. Health drain removed. For every 1 insanity you gain beyond 100 while weakened soul is active, you lose 1 willpower. So the penalty for overcapping becomes that you ruin your own stacks of willpower - penalizing without being prohibitive?

Interesting idea. Willpower would probably need to increase a bit, but that could be a good tuning lever for the future.


A better proposition than my other one: A 2-part debuff, lets call it Weakened Will and Broken Will.
Weakened Will would happen after going into Apotheosis, and lasts X duration. The debuff on its own does nothing except act as a deterrent.
Broken Will would morph from Weakened will if you Apotheosis while having that debuff, preventing you from entering Apotheosis again for X duration but giving Apotheosis additional benefits/drawbacks, like a dmg buff and increased duration but with a % health cost, à la Surrender to Madness.

Make Apotheosis a regular part of the rotation, and tune it dps positive. You'd want to be in Apotheosis as frequently as possible (like current Voidform), but you need to hold yourself back or else fall into madness.

I don't know how the Willpower buff would fit into that model, but I can't justify removing it outright from the concept. The high haste playstyle appeals to enough people that it would feel wrong removing it. Going off of @Annesh 's observations, I'd need to draft out how the phases are expected to interact, and if they'd be acceptable in the existing raid/dungeon/questing encounters.

I'll be thinking on this for the next few weeks, I guarantee.

[dewd]

what a waste of time

[Lillita]

Never stopped wanting Cata era Shadow back, but I've resigned myself to having a love affair with a spec that no longer exists and is never coming back. Emphatically do not like the whole insanity and voidform/meta playstyle and lore. Shame that both couldn't coexist as their own entities.