How would YOU make Shadow Word: Death a useful Execute?

[Kelesti]

So the topic of the thread is pretty straightforward. I'm interested in seeing everyone's ideas (as well as sharing my own) for how we could make Shadow Word: Death both interesting and a fun mechanic for Execute phases, while still maintaining a sense of balance for the spec. We're not here to be PvP gods, vanilla's over afterall :P


Disclaimer: Any troll posts including those that just say "remove it" will result in an immediate 2 day ban. I shouldn't have to post this, but really here people. -- Kelesti

[Conwayb]

Maybe a Dot you can apply after mob is at less than 20-35% that falls when it either dies or gets healed up past whatever percentage, keeps it balanced in pvp and pve i suppose

[Nangz]

Maybe a Dot you can apply after mob is at less than 20-35% that falls when it either dies or gets healed up past whatever percentage, keeps it balanced in pvp and pve i suppose

i like it. Or a type of infest mechanic wher it increases the damage (will cap out) removed at 35% health and only castable on targets under 35% health.

[HawynLegend]

I would love to see Shadow Word: Death as a execution type spell. But to balance it out and to still make it useful, I would say make it do more damage when the target is at 25% or less with no backlash damage.

[Irony]

Tbh, losing our only spell to use while moving would kinda be meh. But idk, I haven't raided shadow since 3.2 so /shrug

[Kelesti]

Alright, my personal suggestion:

Death's Embrace, a 3 point Shadow talent.
Increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Death by 4/7/10%. If your Shadow Word: Death is cast upon a target below 35% health, they take 4/8/12% increased damage from your Shadow spells. Your Mind Blast critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to increase its duration by an additional 3 seconds. This debuff is removed if the target is no longer below 35% health. Lasts 15 seconds.


What it does: Brings Shadow Word: Death into the fold, as a unique method of Execute, without either being a passive increase or "lolexecutespam" replacing a part in our rotation. It's just something weaved in.
What it doesn't: Allow you to spam increased Mind Spikes. It will be keyed around everything but Mind Spike, executing things quick to die shouldn't matter, and uncontrolled burst is not what Shadow needs in PvP.
What else it does: Allows a new execute mechanic to take place, without really screwing people over should a healer come into the fold.

[Kelesti]

@Conwayb & Nangz:
The infest idea is kind of cool, but another DoT to be monitoring is kinda crazy at this point. I do like the idea of it falling off past 35%, but it can't be allowed to stack with itself, or even over time. So a 12 second DoT (depending on Haste, of course)

@HawynLegend: That may be what they end up doing, but that's less fun. :P

[Cirus]

Alright, my personal suggestion:

Death's Embrace, a 3 point Shadow talent.
Increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Death by 4/7/10%. If your Shadow Word: Death is cast upon a target below 35% health, they take 4/8/12% increased damage from your Shadow spells. Your Mind Blast critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to increase its duration by an additional 3 seconds. This debuff is removed if the target is no longer below 35% health. Lasts 15 seconds.


What it does: Brings Shadow Word: Death into the fold, as a unique method of Execute, without either being a passive increase or "lolexecutespam" replacing a part in our rotation. It's just something weaved in.
What it doesn't: Allow you to spam increased Mind Spikes. It will be keyed around everything but Mind Spike, executing things quick to die shouldn't matter, and uncontrolled burst is not what Shadow needs in PvP.
What else it does: Allows a new execute mechanic to take place, without really screwing people over should a healer come into the fold.

I like this idea a lot actually. Its a new change into how an execute could work in another way. Also increases your dmg. in raids a tiny bit, even though they are more of a supportive class. (Forgot my opinion :P) I'd like to see it as a DoT. Where (depending on your haste of course) stacks up. The higher it stacks the more dmg. it does or the more dmg. that mob takes from shadow dmg.

[Nikoll]

i'd not mkae this change until catty first off, or it could be OP in current PVP. I'd like to se a basic "increased damage bellow 35, 25, or 20% (wherever it feels right in beta). making it not really usefull above than unless you are moving, but something that should be on CD under x%. Also the CD should be lowered to say, 8 seconds, maybe 6.

[cannibalghoul]

Shadow Word: Death
12% of base mana 30 yd range
Instant cast 12 sec cooldown
A word of dark binding that inflicts 750 to 870 Shadow damage to the target. If the target is above 20% health, the caster takes damage equal to the damage inflicted upon the target.

[Snes]

Tbh, losing our only spell to use while moving would kinda be meh. But idk, I haven't raided shadow since 3.2 so /shrug

Well, that and Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and defensive spells such as Dispels, Power Word: Shield, Psychic Scream and Dispersion.

[Annarion]

Considering what they are talking about in terms of health pools, for pvp at least, 35% isn't exactly going to be a couple of mind spikes to death. I don't think a little extra burst near the end would end up being overpowered in terms of pvp, in fact I think that it's going to be par for the course, that being able to burn down that last bit is going to be the deal breaker in any kill, before the healer can get a cast or two off and bring them back up closer to half or more. As for Parafernalia's comment, I believe mind spike will be instant, but I could be wrong, I'm primarily holy, didn't look all that close at the shadow stuff. (Also spam more ImpDP while moving?) It seems annoying to me to have to talent into Death's Embrace just to make a baseline spell useful, or more appropriately, in line with Blizz's philosophy for the spell.

Even though this is practically unfounded, since they haven't given any solid reason to believe that we'll use Shadow Orbs in anything other than a passive sense, but I'm thinking something along the lines of this:
Death's Embrace (lolstolen), 3 points.
Increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Death by 4/7/10%. If any Shadow Orbs are active, the spell will consume up to a maximum of 1/2/3 orbs, which will increase it's damage by 10/20/30%.

It allows for some planning, in the sense that if we have other mechanics that consume Shadow Orbs, then we'd be required to preserve them in order to achieve maximum burst. It also preserves it usefulness for holy and disc, since it would simply just be less effective than the shadow version. I can foresee it being usable only at sub-35%, and losing most or all of the backlash. I think they're less attracted to those mechanics since they removed SoMartyr/Blood.

[Weena2]

As long as they don't just increase the damage on SW so your almost taking off half your health in damage when the mob/boss is in execute range it should be fine. I actually like the idea where it provides a 12-15 second of so buff increasing your shadow damage done, this would mean while SW isn't used mainly for the damage it does, but rather increases the damage you do overall.

[jonish]

Alright, my personal suggestion:

Death's Embrace, a 3 point Shadow talent.
Increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Death by 4/7/10%. If your Shadow Word: Death is cast upon a target below 35% health, they take 4/8/12% increased damage from your Shadow spells. Your Mind Blast critical strikes have a 33/66/100% chance to increase its duration by an additional 3 seconds. This debuff is removed if the target is no longer below 35% health. Lasts 15 seconds.


What it does: Brings Shadow Word: Death into the fold, as a unique method of Execute, without either being a passive increase or "lolexecutespam" replacing a part in our rotation. It's just something weaved in.
What it doesn't: Allow you to spam increased Mind Spikes. It will be keyed around everything but Mind Spike, executing things quick to die shouldn't matter, and uncontrolled burst is not what Shadow needs in PvP.
What else it does: Allows a new execute mechanic to take place, without really screwing people over should a healer come into the fold.

I Had a similar idea but just a flat dmg increase to us as a buff rather than a debuff.

Shadow Trance - When Swdeath is cast on a target below 30% hp the priest gains Shadow Trance a 10-15% undispellable damage increase which lasts 10 seconds.

thus it gives you a debuff which lasts the cooldown of swdeath and to get the increase for the entire fight you have to recast swdeath to keep the buff. this will make it give us a dps increase on par with a huge execute without having to take away swdeath for the uses it has been adapted for now.

[nosoup4crr]

I think shadow orbs are an excellent opportunity to make SWD more appealing. I think a sliding scale could be used...mapping damage between searing pain and chaos bolt. The number of shadow orbs circling you are used as a resource to determine how much damage it does.

[Pagefault]

Painful Death:
Whenever you cast Shadow Word: Death on a target below 35% health, if the target is afflicted by Shadow Word: Pain, it explodes for a burst of damage equivalent to 3 (don't know the number) ticks and its duration is refreshed.

It also would be nice if it won't backlash.

[talrob]

(usual text), As the target beings to feel death approaching this spell becomes more powerful. Target takes extra
damage based on the difference in % of total health between the caster and the target.

This extra damage would be something like 1% extra damage if the target was on 99% and you were on 100% and 99% more damage if the target is on 1%. This portion of the damage is not applied as backlash.

[Blain]

I like the infest idea, a dot that increases every tick and replaces SW:P ("only one Shadow Word can be activ at the same time", something like this) and is only working under 35%.

Of cause if it replaces SP:P it has to be a significant increase, but it wouldn't be to OP in PvP because it scales with time under 35%.

[Cariborne]

Why not make it like Kill Shot and Hammer of Wrath?

If they aren't under 20% Health, it can't be used. And when it's used, it has like a 10second cooldown to throw in another rotation. That way its not OP for PvP, and not like the Warrior Execute when at a certain percentage it's all the smash.

[daenerys]

Why not make it like Kill Shot and Hammer of Wrath?

If they aren't under 20% Health, it can't be used. And when it's used, it has like a 10second cooldown to throw in another rotation. That way its not OP for PvP, and not like the Warrior Execute when at a certain percentage it's all the smash.

This sounds good, it's already on a 12sec cooldown, just keep that, remove the backlash damage, and have it hit 2-4x as hard as it currently does and it should be good