Ideas for cleaning up shadow tree

[Töasty]

1) Make "Vampiric Embrace" built-in to shadow form.
2) Make "Improved Shadow Form" a one pointer.
3) Get rid of "Improved Shadow Word:Pain" and put a spell pushback talent in its place.
4) Swap places with Psychic Horror and Silence. Raiding priests who still like to help out on interrupts would like to only spend 1 point to get it rather than 3. Or at least make it so that having improved physic scream is no longer mandatory for silence. Or just give all priests a spell interrupt/silence. Call it "Mind lock"?

Thoughts?

[Vook]

1. They're instead making Mind Flay built-in.
2. True. Moonkins have a single point for Moonkin Form AND their raid buff, while ours is two points.
3. Shadow Priest - Reduces threat and spell pushback on shadow spells. Part of Mastery.
4. Does Shadow REALLY *need* a Silence, with all the other classes that have silence/interrupt effects? And you can't really use it as a reliable interrupt, seeing as it's on a 45 second cooldown, compared to other classes like Rogue with 10 second CD on their interrupt.

[fabian]

I'd say get rid of Shadow Power and add it into the abilities gained by being a Shadow Priest while also extending it all shadow spells.

3. Shadow Priest - Reduces threat and spell pushback on shadow spells. Part of Mastery.

Actually, it is part of our passives, not mastery. We'll probably see a few extra stuff to add to our passive abilities too.

[Töasty]

Ah I did not notice the pushback thing already implemented. Shadow form however is a talent, while mind flay is an ability given to you at lvl 10 if you spec into shadow. They really need to trim down shadow, or make improved inner fire two points instead of 3. As it is right now, we do not have enough points to take all of the "necessary" dps talents.

[Deleted]

As it is right now, we do not have enough points to take all of the "necessary" dps talents.

I believe that is intentional...

[fabian]

I believe that is intentional...

Actually, no it is not. They want the lack of points to come after you've picked up the necessary dps talents, not before.

[Chaoslux]

Actually, no it is not. They want the lack of points to come after you've picked up the necessary dps talents, not before.

They'll hammer their way in the tree then, because they dont want you to have 41 dps talents either.

[Abandon]

I would say the best places to start trimming would be Improved Psychic Scream, Spirit Tap and Improved Shadow Word Pain.

Improved Psychic Scream is dull, affects one spell, and as a prerequisite for Silence, which would be quite handy in PVE but is essentially locked because it's a three-point investment.

Improved Shadow Word Pain is an obvious one, a small DPS increase to a single spell that every Shadow Priest will feel obliged to pick up despite it being dull, not changing their gameplay at all, and just being a bog-standard DPS talent, the type they mentioned removing.

Spirit Tap at this point in the Cataclysm tree is only used for levelling. It's also a mana-regen talent, while they mentioned that DPS specs would have ways to recover their mana without having to worry about regen. Since it's very unlikely that you would be getting too many Killing Blows in a boss fight to top off mana, that kills it for raiding.

These are my top three picks for changes/removal when we see the Shadow tree changes.

[Annesh]

i'm not sure if other dps caster specs are supposed to have the 200% spell crit built into their masteries or not - i can't see talents for it anywhere but the shadow tree, so lol at that.

but if they are then shadow really needs the same treatment, and shadow power needs to therefore be removed or redesigned.

it's nice they're actually paying us a little attention with the last couple of blue posts, but i still have this horrible feeling that shadow won't get near the same attention that others are getting.

then again shamans aren't getting much attention either, so we'll see

[Kelesti]

From what they've said, Annesh, Mage and Warlocks have it automatically (not masteries, but passives at level 1).

Don't be surprised if Elemental and Balance end up having to spec for it.

[fabian]

From what they've said, Annesh, Mage and Warlocks have it automatically (not masteries, but passives at level 1).

Don't be surprised if Elemental and Balance end up having to spec for it.

Check out the talent calculator on wowhead, it is showing that both balance and elemental are getting 100% crit damage as passive when they choose to be balance. Just wait until they start on us and we'll probably see Shadow Power becoming passive.