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  1. #21

    Re: DoTs and Beacon of Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Neichus
    So I agree there's no need to make the two more similar, but claiming that Affliction and Shadow have been so homogenized as to be indistinguishable is just untrue.
    I disagree. From a purely PvE perspective, the specs remain incredibly similar, especially to what they were in TBC.

    My idea for Cataclysm is similar to something someone suggested earlier on in the thread: Our "nuke without a cooldown" should have the majority of it's damage based on how many dots are rolling on the target (15/30/45% increases ?). That said I don't think making it a mana sink is a very good idea. It's probably just me, but I want to see mind flay completely removed from our PvE rotations and make it a purely PvP spell - simply due to the fact that it still receives a snare penalty on it's damage. Give us this "nuke without a cooldown" to have as our filler spell, replace the cooldown on improved mind blast with "increases the damage of mind blast by x%", and give mind blast some sort of functionality that makes it worth using over the new nuke whenever it's off cooldown - a haunt mechanic would be nice, but unoriginal. Similarly a backdraft mechanic (reduces the cast time of your next 3 spells by x) whenever it hits would also be nice.

    Probably not gonna happen, but that's what I would do for shadowpriests in Cata.

  2. #22

    Re: DoTs and Beacon of Darkness

    Why wouldn't some sort of "swiftmend" like ability be sufficient? I think it would be neat to have an ability that either consumes the DoT, consumes a portion of the DoT, makes them tick faster, or just gets a large bonus for having DoTs applied. Hell, they could attach it to SWeath somehow to make it useful as a nuke to solve that problem too, perhaps through a glyph or simply reworking it.

    As an example, say an add comes up and it will only be alive for 10s, in the current way of things, you probably wouldn't bother to DoT it. However, if you could get bonus damage for having DoTs applied; maybe you would then DoT it up, then use that ability for some quick burst, if slightly delayed (you'd still have to apply DoTs first to use it). So, you still wouldn't have the 15k burst in in the first 2s that some other classes might, but you could do that much in 4-5s plus whatever other damage the DoTs, so it'd still be worth switching to those 10s adds and possibly still have some sort of burst for PVP.

  3. #23

    Re: DoTs and Beacon of Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeuq
    Why wouldn't some sort of "swiftmend" like ability be sufficient? I think it would be neat to have an ability that either consumes the DoT, consumes a portion of the DoT, makes them tick faster, or just gets a large bonus for having DoTs applied.
    Good question. Several classes have such mechanics. They could be worried that the same idea is being over-used. They could fear that the class would be too powerful if it had effective burst on top of mobile/sustained DPS. They could feel that right now understanding time-til-death mechanics are part of the flavor of a DoT class and that this would simplify them too much. I don't have an answer.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeuq
    However, if you could get bonus damage for having DoTs applied; maybe you would then DoT it up, then use that ability for some quick burst.
    http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51167
    http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42415
    http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=15332 (when first attacking the target)
    I know those aren't exactly what you're looking for, but the idea of preparing the target with DoTs and then reaping the benefits isn't entirely absent from the class. As above, there could be a lot of reasons why they haven't done anything like this.

  4. #24

    Re: DoTs and Beacon of Darkness

    Quote Originally Posted by Neichus
    Good question. Several classes have such mechanics. They could be worried that the same idea is being over-used. They could fear that the class would be too powerful if it had effective burst on top of mobile/sustained DPS. They could feel that right now understanding time-til-death mechanics are part of the flavor of a DoT class and that this would simplify them too much. I don't have an answer.
    I agree, and I think that this sort of mechanic change would still keep that part interesting. I don't think I did a good job of actually fleshing out my idea of attaching it to SWeath because my thought was making it some sort of "execute" ability. Obviously, if you could just DoT and consume and reDoT... it would either always be better and thus completely replace the priority rotation, or it would always be worse and be useless. Instead, I'm thinking something like making you want to apply DoTs, so that perhaps in execute range or low health mobs you can use a different roation.

    Here's something along the lines of what I'd be thinking. First, make SWeath not deal reflective damage to you if the target is in execute range. Then make a glyph or whatever that makes it so it will do it's damage plus consume say 6s worth of SW:Pain and apply the equivalent damage. I'm not quite sure what values would work, but the idea would be that a nuking rotation would have SWeath useful and doing tons of damage, and filling with mindflay to refresh SW:Pain so you can nuke with SWeath when it's up again. I think this mechanic would work well on low health mobs too because, as long as you make sure you don't cast SWeath early (in which case you'd do a hell of a lot more damage to yourself), you could still get some additional damage on a target that's alive for ~10s because now you'd get effectively be getting 16s worth of SW:Pain in those 10s, and with the Haste, you'd probably get in at least the full duration's worth.


    http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=51167
    http://www.wowhead.com/?item=42415
    http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=15332 (when first attacking the target)
    I know those aren't exactly what you're looking for, but the idea of preparing the target with DoTs and then reaping the benefits isn't entirely absent from the class. As above, there could be a lot of reasons why they haven't done anything like this.
    Point taken. I think the theory behind DoT classes is supposed to be that they have a lot of ramp up time, but as a reward they are ultimately supposed to do slightly more sustained DPS and have slightly better DPS while moving (assuming they aren't moving enough for DoTs to drop). This compares to the burst DPS classes that have little or no ramp up time and do a lot of DPS upfront balanced out by slightly lower sustained DPS such that, over time, the ramp up plus sustained DPS of a DoT class is roughly the same as the burst damage and lower sustained DPS of these classes. The problem with that theory both Shadow and Affliction is that, at least now, their sustained DPS isn't high enough to overcome the ramp up and difficulty of the rotation and, of course, that theory just doesn't translate well to PVP where burst is king.

    So, instead, I'd prefer they just do something to reduce ramp up time, and give some serviceable (but not outrageous) burst, and in exchange balance their sustained DPS to be roughly the same. Or simply design enounters so you don't need every single DPS to switch targets and, instead, can let the ramp up DoT classes avoid switching and the bursty types switch so that everyone is happy. Of course, as far back as Shadow Priests have been, either of those still means a buff to sustained DPS.

  5. #25

    Re: DoTs and Beacon of Darkness

    Rather than giving us a brand new spell which is some cheap knockoff of pestilence or conflagrate, why not simply fix the one broken spell no self-respecting shadow priests uses every cooldown. that being shadow word: death.

    First, include SW in twisted faith so it actually scales well, second, add it to Pain and Suffering. so whenever you shadow word death, you refresh shadow word pain as well. you can change glyph of shadow word death to include "Also refreshes your Vampiric touch on a target". the old sw glyph "10% more damage on targets under 35%" can become baseline.


    This change would give us more Gcd's to play with on a single target, and add to our niche as a class that truly excels in fights with multiple npc's in play.huzzah

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