Mind Spike - Anyone in beta figured out what it's good for?

[nevermore]

It's for adds that die too fast for DoTs to matter. It's what they've always said it was for... Think Saurfang, or the dive phase of Anub'arak, or Dreamwalker, or portals/volcanos on H.Jaraxus, or adds on Thorim, or stars on Algalon, or even adds on Freya. Hey look, useful spell on at least 5 fights from the 3 most current raids on live. Could include Toravon, or even Val'kyrs if you wanted. Shadow's ramp up time is too long in a lot of situations and Blizz didn't like it. So you get Mind Spike.

This post should be stickied to the Priest forum front page.

[Annesh]

This post should be stickied to the Priest forum front page.

Clearly you have great wisdom and full understanding of this issue.

Yeah, that was sarcasm.

[nevermore]

Mind Spike is doing exactly what Blizzard said it would when they announced the spell ~half a year ago.
No, it won't become a part of your normal rotation, which is a good thing.
Anything else?

[Scobbs]

Mind Spike is doing exactly what Blizzard said it would when they announced the spell ~half a year ago.
No, it won't become a part of your normal rotation, which is a good thing.
Anything else?

They did say it was for low health adds, and I happily thought: "Okay, this is a PvE spell and thus will rarely apply to me."

The only problem is that they then went into our talent tree and designed our reliable root and PvP burst potential around it.

A glyph would fix this entire mess.

[Kelesti]

A glyph may "fix the mess" but then it becomes a way for Mind Spike to replace the "intended shadow main spell", PvP or PvE, where it has the potential to be "Mind Flay vs Mind Spike", and that should never be a standard option.

[Rizzoti]

Mind Spike is doing exactly what Blizzard said it would when they announced the spell ~half a year ago.
No, it won't become a part of your normal rotation, which is a good thing.
Anything else?

Explain the fact that it makes mind blast instant and a guaranteed crit? 'Cause..um, that makes no sense. It wastes the orbs so mind blast will heat like a wet noodle without any orbs, and it clears dots. So yeah..those pvp elements are completely wasted by the other aspects of the spell. There is no synergy here.

[Vook]

Why does this thread exist? Blizz already said what it's used for:

If it's going to die in less than 15 seconds, Spike. More than 15 seconds, normal rotation.

So, things like low-HP adds, or things like Bone Spikes. It's meant to fill the gap of quick burst damage, something Shadow lacked, being a DoT class.

[Scobbs]

A glyph may "fix the mess" but then it becomes a way for Mind Spike to replace the "intended shadow main spell", PvP or PvE, where it has the potential to be "Mind Flay vs Mind Spike", and that should never be a standard option.

I'm entirely in agreement with you, Kelesti. There shouldn't be a conflict between Mind Flay and Mind Spike as our main spell.

I wasn't very specific in my post about how I think a reasonable Mind Spike glyph might look, but if it reduced the damage of Mind Spike (I'm unsure what the percentage would need to be) in addition to having it not cleanse DoTs, people wouldn't choose to use it rotationally as it would be a clear DPS loss. Many shadow PvPers would presumably take the glyph for the controlled burst/root with a more forgiving opportunity cost (weaker Mind Spikes as opposed to DoT purge).

I'm still optimistic about us in PvP, and I'm willing to wait and see how we do a few months into 85, even with Mind Spike removing DoTs. That doesn't change the fact that I think we're missing out on synergy that was in our tree prior to the change. I think the appropriate glyph could bring it back without compromising Mind Spike's intended use in PvE.

[Direshadow]

Why does this thread exist? Blizz already said what it's used for:

If it's going to die in less than 15 seconds, Spike. More than 15 seconds, normal rotation.

So, things like low-HP adds, or things like Bone Spikes. It's meant to fill the gap of quick burst damage, something Shadow lacked, being a DoT class.

I can tell you right now that if a mob is only going to be alive for 15 seconds, I'll be putting all my dots on it and spamming mind flay or doing MB/Death combos.

I'm sorry but Blizzard's view of Shadow Priests is so off. No we're not "busrty", No we don't have trouble getting rid of adds.

We don't, and if we ever do, who the heck cares?

They're adds!

Trash!

Let the classes who excel in that are take care of them.

[Kelesti]

We don't, and if we ever do, who the heck cares?

They're adds!

Trash!

Let the classes who excel in that are take care of them.

I hear there are quite a few things that you can say "who cares on". lawl Bone Spike. Or like adds on Deathwhisper. Blood Beasts. Ooze spawns on Putricide. Kinetic Orbs (do you want to waste a Mind Blast for that?). Valk'yr.

Because y'know "who the heck cares, they're adds, let others take care of them". We can just treat everything like it's Patchwerk, amirite?

[Annesh]

why do pve nerds still not remember that mind spike was also supposed to be useful in pvp as anti-spell lock

[Kelesti]

why do pve nerds still not remember that mind spike was also supposed to be useful in pvp as anti-spell lock

How do you suggest this then? Because it can't replace Mind Flay as Shadow's basic attack. Period. You take out the orb destruction or the dot mechanic, and that's what it does.

As for it being supposedly useful in PvP as anti-spell lock? Shadow still doing favorable damage while spell locked has been present since Vampiric Touch went live. But Spell Lock is supposed to cripple casters, like Disarm cripples physical.The difference is Shadow can use a tool to keep pressure going, and they have a choice:

Keep Dots ticking? Or harder upfront burst to help push that last little bit when you can't Death for whatever reason.

Clear all DoTs for a repentance or blind.

It has use as a niche spell, it just can't be allowed to become a functional replacement to Mind Flay.

[zsun]

Another idea would be for Mind Spike to NOT clear DoTs, but deals less damage depending on how many DoTs you have on the target. Say if you have no DoTs then it will do 100% of the current damage, but if you have 1 DoT on them, then maybe only 80%...or 40% if you have all three DoTs on them.

I didn't really analyze this idea that well since it just came into my head a min ago, so it might not be a good idea after all.


And for the record, an add that takes 15 seconds to die is considered to be too long to use Mind Spike... it's more like 5 seconds or less.

[Annesh]

How do you suggest this then? Because it can't replace Mind Flay as Shadow's basic attack. Period. You take out the orb destruction or the dot mechanic, and that's what it does.

As for it being supposedly useful in PvP as anti-spell lock? Shadow still doing favorable damage while spell locked has been present since Vampiric Touch went live. But Spell Lock is supposed to cripple casters, like Disarm cripples physical.The difference is Shadow can use a tool to keep pressure going, and they have a choice:

Keep Dots ticking? Or harder upfront burst to help push that last little bit when you can't Death for whatever reason.

Clear all DoTs for a repentance or blind.

It has use as a niche spell, it just can't be allowed to become a functional replacement to Mind Flay.

The poster above me has a pretty decent idea for it, but I doubt it needs to be as extreme as doing 40% of its normal damage. All the mechanic needs to perform as intended is to cause Spike to do less damage to a dotted target than Flay.

That way Flay becomes the spell for general stand-and-cast damage, and Spike becomes the shadowpriest version of Searing Pain - a quick, interrupt-proof, low damage nuke to throw out when a melee is in your face threatening a kick.

Actually, I'm pretty sure this mechanic can entirely replace every single other Spike mechanic to date. It's the most elegant solution I've seen yet.

But I'm curious why you think removing the orb functionality alone will make it replace Flay. I see no relationship there; Spike consuming orbs does nothing but profoundly limit the intuitiveness of the shadowpriest playstyle.

We have all these gimmicks to make Blast hit very hard. Okay, cool, they want us to be bursty. But some of them are mutually exclusive, and as a result we have to pick and choose how we make Blast hit hard on a blast by blast basis? It's just weird.


Edit: I should probably state for the record that I don't want Spike to replace Flay. I love Flay, and I was actually a little worried when I first saw Spike mentioned in the review that it would make it obsolete. I wouldn't mind if Spike took its place next to Mind Vision and was ultimately forgotten, even though I would be a little annoyed that it was a waste of a new spell.

But we were told Spike would be immune to school interrupt mechanics, and would therefore soothe the ache of shadowpriest interrupt vulnerability, so that's what I want out of it.

Removing dots makes it pretty much worthless in pvp, including the "quick burst to finish off" scenario you keep mentioning. If you'd like an in-depth analysis of why that is, I'll gladly write one up, but this post is already longer than the freaking Gettysburg Address, so I'll just wrap it up here.

[Direshadow]

Also if I'm "spell locked" I'll probably be spending more time DEFENDING MYSELF with healing and disc spells then trying to get more damage in.

[mrsake]

At least if we got it at a low level if could be handy in leveling...

So, to review: Mindspike is useless in 99.5% of the game except....

1)In fights that are practically designed around it. And even then it's only a slight damage upgrade from Mindflay spam.

2)If you're interrupted in pvp and you, for some reason, haven't already dotted up the target.

Useful spell is useful.

Are Spriests tied with Ret Pallies and Hunters in the "Classes that lost more than they gained in Cata" race yet?

[Kiusaaja]

But wouldn't a Mind Blast + Death be better for bursting down adds? And with Mind Flay gaining more ticks once your haste gets higher, that's even more reason.

There is way to much set up for Mind Spike to be any good, I think.

I'll give it that clearing dots from a target when your raid lead calls to stop dps is nice, but really, when has 3 dots been enough to push a raid boss into a second phase? It's never been a problem for me.

I just don't buy Blizzard's reasoning for the spell since after 3 years of playing my spriest, the situation that Blizzard describes the spell to be good for has very rarely arisen for me.

I really think that Ghostcrawler made a slip at 2009's Blizzcon by saying that we need a "Burn" spell. Now it's neawr release and they really can't figure out what he heck to do with the spell but they felt they had to follow up on Ghostcrawler's quote.

In some boss fights you have sever adds that need some quick damage. Mind Blast and Death both have a cd. After those you can mind spike em

[Kelesti]

"Unless they're designed around it" Hmm... Short term adds that have to be bursted down "right now". No, those have to be designed around Mind Spike, because we never have those.
/sarcasm

You also neglected everythng in ths thread regarding where it fits "right now" in PvP. Whatever.

And, seriously, let's keep Hunters and Paladins out of the Priest boards. This isn't a class war.

Annesh: I do agree with the DoT reduction, it's an interesting thing to pull off. I feel like Paralysis has a little long of a ramp up, and could be dropped down to a seperate mechanic from Mind Blast crits, like perhaps a debuff applied by Spike, consumed on Blast, a one-off stun that still has 3 seconds of wind up, and limited by cooldown and/or DR.

But I'm still not convinced that Mind Spike needs its orb removal taken away. When you're using Mind Blast for Paralysis, you are using it for control, not for the damage. And having a guaranteed crit for damage still doesn't mean that much, when you look at Resil reducing damage taken and crit damage taken, still.


But I feel that's the point of the orbs as a pseudo resource. You choose where to spend them, bigger mind blast, or give them up as part of a burst combo leading into a stun.

Without it, Shadow becomes too reliant on the stars lining up perfectly for big hits that do everything, and absolutely terrible without it. And that never results in buffs, it'd be nerfed because of it.

[Soranis]

Why would be care and use 1 mindspike if target dies within 3secs anyway(as that is +- the time our dots tick.) let the stupid melee people cleave it or something. mind spike has absolutly No reason to be on my cast bar.

and dont qq @ spelling.

[Suzaku]

Also if I'm "spell locked" I'll probably be spending more time DEFENDING MYSELF with healing and disc spells then trying to get more damage in.

Mind Spike is not a Shadow Priest ability. Mind Spike is a PRIEST ability since all Priests are able to get it. Mind Spike is meant for PvE when there are adds that needs to be taken down as fast possible such as Bone Spike and Blood Beasts and Valkyrs. Mind Spike was always meant to fill the niche for a Shadow Priests, because they cannot swap targets easily. Mind Spike was never suppose to enter your DPS rotation and it is only meant to be a situational spell.

And you are also right in stating that when a Shadow Priest has been spell locked that they should Flash Heal and use their Holy spells to heal themselves backup. Conversely in a team match, if a Holy/Discipline Priest is spell locked, then said Holy and Discipline can then use Mind Spike as the Shadow DPS spell in the same way that Shadow Priest can use Flash Heal as a defensive spell. Priests are setup to be the most offensive of all the healers, so Mind Spike can fill the gap when a Disc/Holy Priest is kicked and then they sit there and do nothing for 7 seconds after they casted Mind Blast and SWeath or when the healing is not intensive in PvP.