Shadow Orbs.

[Kiora]

I will admit that the orbs are a more interesting mastery than most of the other specs get. However, it needs to be tuned higher because apparently it's not as much of a DPS increase as the other masteries, which is bad primarily because it means our scaling with Mastery will be awful.

I'd also much prefer if Spike didn't consume orbs. There's just a little bit of design conflict there, where many of our new mechanics are designed to beef up mind blast a ton, including Spike - but if Spike steals one of these Blast-buffing class's mechanics...

Well, they finally got our Crit and Haste scaling on track, they had to do something about that issue! =P

I think the reason why Mind Spike consumes Shadow Orbs is preventing massive burst combos for PvP, but I don't like it, though.

[scudmuffin]

One thing I'm curious about though, is if all these mindblast modifiers affect Shadowy Apparitions. You don't have to move to proc these anymore so that would be sweet.

They don't, since shadowy apparitions no longer do 'damage equal x% of your mindblast' they just do damage, as is stated in the description.

[Deleted]

They don't, since shadowy apparitions no longer do 'damage equal x% of your mindblast' they just do damage, as is stated in the description.

Right, missed that part... :-/ Would have been pretty interesting considering there'll be so many talents/abillities that improve Mind Blast IMO.

[elseagoat]

I think it would be nice if it didn't get consumed by Mind Spike really. Then it could perhaps get balanced to the point where you'll use Mind Blast on cooldown, but sometimes when you've procced a lot of orbs it's a dps gain to toss in a Mind Spike or two first before the Mind Blast becomes available, simply because the Mind Blast hits so hard that boosting its crit is worth it. That would give us something to watch in those boss fights.

---------- Post added 2010-09-03 at 09:21 AM ----------

Or as an alternative, let Mind Spike and Mind Blast both consume a single orb, and use Mind Spike to bleed of extra orb procs. Then that MS - MS - instant MB with three orbs would be a nice combo.

Bingo, my thoughts exactly.

Would be nice if it got a "scaling" animation like Shadowmourne, where the animation looks more powerful with each additional stack, then you could visually see one, two, and three orbs around you. I am also very partial to the idea that (at least, if not both MS and MB) Spike consuming only one orb.

[Abandon]

If they only consumed one orb per cast, our mastery would basically just be "Increases your Mind Blast and Mind Spike damage by 10%."
I think the point of having Mind Spike consume them is part of their design for it not to be a rotational ability for us, to be honest.

[elseagoat]

If they only consumed one orb per cast, our mastery would basically just be "Increases your Mind Blast and Mind Spike damage by 10%."
I think the point of having Mind Spike consume them is part of their design for it not to be a rotational ability for us, to be honest.

Good point. I'm all for the idea of just having the orbs proc off Mind Flay and Mind Spike and only boost Mind Blast then.

[nevermore]

i'm pretty sure shadowguard came after lightning shield

and what makes you say that? As far as I know both spells came with the release of vanilla WoW.

[Abandon]

and what makes you say that? As far as I know both spells came with the release of vanilla WoW.

Because when it was released Shadowguard had the exact same animation as Lightning Shield, and they gave it it's own animation later in Vanilla.

[AnHonestConman]

It would be cool if there was like a dark archangel version to penance, where if you built up three shadow orbs, you could launch them through a dark penance. That
way it would look awesome, as if you kinda grabbed them from the air and Pow Pow Pow sent them flying one after another.(cause penance looks like three balls of light)
It wouldnt work with how the talents are, but i just found it a cool idea. It would at least spice up a rotation, and give a sense of management. Like "oh, i have a full orb count charged up now, time for a major damage output" then back to standard rotation.

[Direshadow]

I wouldn't mind seeing the orbs as more "Drippy" or "gooey".

Have them kind of stick together like evil lava lamp globs or something... that'd be neat.

[Stanton Biston]

It would be cool if there was like a dark archangel version to penance, where if you built up three shadow orbs, you could launch them through a dark penance. That
way it would look awesome, as if you kinda grabbed them from the air and Pow Pow Pow sent them flying one after another.(cause penance looks like three balls of light)
It wouldnt work with how the talents are, but i just found it a cool idea. It would at least spice up a rotation, and give a sense of management. Like "oh, i have a full orb count charged up now, time for a major damage output" then back to standard rotation.

If they did that, people would complain that they're just copying the shaman talent with lightning shield and earth shock.

[Skollvaldr]

shadow orbs should be smaller, dripping and floating around the head of the spriest (not circling!)
kind of like a shadow version of kel'thas fire orbs.
that's how i pictuered them when i first read about shadow orbs.

[Direshadow]

Our master is kind of lame.

Mind Blast... seriously? Not very fun.

[Abandon]

Our master is kind of lame.

Mind Blast... seriously? Not very fun.

Compare it to some other mastery skills.

http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=77514 - Increases Frost damage done, passive
http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=77515 - Increases Disease damage done, passive
http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=77493 - Increases Bleed damage done, passive
http://cata.wowhead.com/spell=76671 - Increases Block chance, passive

And so on. At least we got an interesting Mastery which depends on you paying attention and will have some effect on your playstyle, instead of something dull like the Affliction Warlock one which increases DoT damage done.

[Kaesebrezen]

And so on. At least we got an interesting Mastery which depends on you paying attention and will have some effect on your playstyle, instead of something dull like the Affliction Warlock one which increases DoT damage done.

It actually doesn't require attention. It's use MB on CD and use howmany orbs you have.
The only difference between our mastery and every other is that Shadow Orbs are a ~40% damage increase of 10% of our total damage, whereas most others are a 10% damage increase on 30% of the total damage.

Mastery currently is very weak for us, number tuning cannot fix that without making MB reach damage numbers in the 40k range (with 90k HP thats still ouch) and there won't work without massive PvP QQ.

The masteries that require attention are Retribution paladin and frost mage. (Eclipse is NOT the balance mastery, it's a class mechanic you get at level 10).

[Abandon]

It does affect your rotation and playstyle though, otherwise there would be no reason not to use Mind Spike in your normal PVE rotation to get the 30% crit chance on Mind Blast and the cast time reduction.