Shadow BFA Datamining

[ttylol]

2. Remove Voidform stacks, this reduces our dependency on LI, reduces the issue with multiplicative haste and is less punishing when we fail to maximise our voidform uptime.

2.1 Change voidform to provide 20% haste instead of 20% damage, this effectively moves voidform stacks to a baseline mechanic.

Those two things would solve a lot. And then, for people that enjoy the ramp playstyle, rework S2M to have stacking haste while active.

[Daedius]

Honestly regret main'ing a Priest, which I have since TBC to now... Honestly not a fan of the insanity mechanic in Legion, and that's carrying over into BfA.

Think it's high time I bit the bullet and changed class, just means all my efforts on that character [such as transmogs, rep, profession (Got every single recipe), etc.] goes down the drain.

[Demetrion]

Twist of Fate honestly ruins any tier it’s in. It either needs to be baseline or removed and then shadow needs to be balanced around not having it, because 95% of the time it’s going to be mandatory and a total non-choice. It’s literally just a flat damage increase, and as far as I’m aware blizz has been against stuff like that in their design philosophy for ages now


Then again “bring the player, not the class” has also been core since wrath but that’s going out the window in BFA so who knows, maybe we’ll see the return of more BC-era talent “choices” that go,
“[1: Sparkle occasionally][2: Sometimes you get a discount on coffee][3: 150% damage increase at all times] choose one!”

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Hmm these changes have me wondering what Shadow’s “interesting unique tools” will be. They seem to be pooping on our AOE, heavily reducing our ability to dispel, and doing away with our AOE stun, so other classes must be filling those niches. Mobility gone too.

Could they be returning us to a support healer niche? I mean we’ll still be DPS, but vamp embrace may become a powerful utility one again. I also saw flash heal in our kit and went ????.

They should: a) remove it completely or b) make it baseline. There is no third option here.

[Deleted]

I honestly don't mind having a talent like twist of Fate, even if it is superior in it's tier! as long as the other talents in its row find some type of use, even if it's only when paired with specific talents and/or in short fights (like FotM in some cases), i think it's somewhat tolerable.
I still agree though, that removing ToF completely or making it baseline (preferably the latter) would be beneficial to the spec.

[Jaigar]

Sigh, I guess I misread something earlier because I thought a form of Lingering Insanity was baseline. Its nearly impossible to play Spriest without Lingering Insanity. Not only does it smooth out our damage, its far less jarring when you do pop out of void form.

Lets look at S2M. Do you spec Power Infusion with it to get more stacks, or do you take lingering insanity so you aren't entirely a wet noodle after it ends? Lets say you can hit 60 stacks with S2M when releases. During that dead time, Lingering Insanity will average you 15% haste for 30 seconds. Mindbender may net 1-2 more stacks, and power infusion a few more. Lets say Power Infusion nets you 10 more stacks, to 70. Thats 35% average haste for 10 more seconds, on top of PI bonus damage, on top of void form damage. So For S2M, PI is still the goto.

Hmm, the more I think about it, since void stacks are nerfed in half, Lingering Insanity may not be required. Insanity gain seems roughly the same it is now, perhaps a little lower, and if you use LI, you'll likely only hit 30 stacks. But 30 stacks is now only 15% haste.

I think Void Torrent should just get removed. Sure, it looks cool, but theres rarely ever decision making in when to use it. If its up, you use it.

I don't really know what to think of Tier 75. ToF is just too good. On fights with lots of Adds, its uptime is very high. On trash in dungeon, its uptime is high. For the top parse on Mythic AHC right now, that spriest has 81% uptime on ToF. You just can't compete with that talentwise. Spots where ToF is weak, Shadow Crash is also weak.

Auspicious seems out of place in that tier TBH. I just don't see where there would ever be a place you take that over ToF.

[Deleted]

It buffs the entirety of your damage by a flat % on mobs below an HP threshold, that is quite literally a flat damage increase.

"Hitting the right targets" Are you trying to make it sound like a successful encounter occurs in which a mob's HP doesn't end up being low enough to proc it? C'mon, let's stop the pedantry. Unless the priest is AFK or dead, Twist of Fate will be procced in 100% of encounters.There is nowhere in a talent line you could place Twist of Fate that it wouldn't overshadow the other talents.

It's not "flat" because it's conditional and sometimes it allows you to do something extra to gain more uptime. For example on Avatar in TOS you can put a dot on maiden when she's not shielded so you gain TOF off her before boss gets low enough to proc it himself.

It's not about it proccing in execute range of boss (it's obviously up at that time), it's about getting it to proc outside of the execute range.

[Nihiel]

I'm not really sure what to think of it all just yet. It looks promising though lots of small changes that seem to be pushing the spec in the right direction.

However, if there's one thing I've learnt from playing shadow in Antorus, it's that spriest's mastery (which literally has been changed in every single expansion) influences our playstyle and general dmg scaling more than anything else. In WoD, for example, AS crit stacking and DP machine gun builds were very very good during BRF, but as soon as HFC arrived it was evident that playstyles which don't scale with all secondaries just can't keep up (Mastery in WoD increased the dmg of ST spells, thus didn't affect dots).

I'm a bit anxious to see if our mastery actually stays the same in BfA, because we know that Blizzard tends to screw over shadow when there's a lot of multitarget fights in raids, and if they nerf our dots below a certain threshold we'll lose proper scaling once again, which is exactly what happened in Antorus. With both dots and also MB and VB to deal dmg, our dots are in a constantly fragile position because they're "the culprit" for high performance on multitarget fights, and they don't seem to care to fix this issue properly. Hence kneejerk nerfs and a weird struggle between dmg coming from dots VS ST-abilities like MB/VB, in which dots will always lose and be the ones to get nerfed.

Affliction for example is currently scaling soooo well because all of their stats (and stat prio) as well as their ST rotation buff their dots, while we have focus on Mind Blast which doesn't scale with mastery, and our dots were nerfed into the ground. This is an issue I'll be looking out for. Maybe it'll happen to affliction too now that Shadow Bolt is back and their kit won't hyperscale with itself any longer?

Either way, I'm excited to see what else is in store for shadow. I'm a bit surprised that I'm actually not mad about the new iteration of S2M.... I never thought I'd not hate it

[Relapses]

hmm i seem to recall people pointing out mass hysteria and high voidform stacks as too harsh of a ramp as a core problem for shadow, as well as no way of applying sw to groups of enemies. stm's penalty of killing off players was also quite often mentioned.

have fun sitting this one out for your personal reasons, though

I suppose I should have been more clear: I strongly dislike "Insanity" as a resource. When they introduced Mind Blast charges in MoP then doubled down on the concept in WoD, it didn't really pan out well for the spec. With Blizzard essentially doing the same thing with BfA (instead of all-around revamp like Balance typically gets), I can't help but be cynical about my anticipation for the spec.

[Rhaxus]

snip

Ah yes, in that context it makes more sense. personally, i like the void theme, it ties spriest into the upcoming expansions, but at the same time it lost a lot of unique themes and visuals. Insanity fits spriest overall very well, with how much they have always dabbled with mind affecting spells but i'd wish for them to focus a bit more on the "devouring" aspect of the void, with stronger emphasis on leech effects and visual glyphs for changing offendingly glittering spells.

overall though, i am way more interested in a well rounded toolkit for all aspects of the game, not this annoying "niche" garbage that never pans out for dps classes, that are not part of a 2-3 dps spec spectrum, so changes to mass hysteria are way more important for me, personally

[deviantcultist]

These changes are giving off mixed signal on the direction. For me, there is one big positive hint and that is the fact that the spec will be balanced around a much "tighter" VF cycle.

If each stack gives half% of Haste and we no longer rely on Mass Hysteria for upwards scaling, added to the fact that Shadow=Voidform in terms of dmg% added, that alone pretty much pushes out the "ramping" problem. One of our biggest issues in Legion is that we have ramp mechanic on top of ramp scaling on top of being a dot spec.

As for the negatives, as of now there seems to be some things that need to be baseline (Twist of Fate) and some things that should not be put into a choice factor.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Twist of Fate honestly ruins any tier it’s in. It either needs to be baseline or removed and then shadow needs to be balanced around not having it, because 95% of the time it’s going to be mandatory and a total non-choice. It’s literally just a flat damage increase, and as far as I’m aware blizz has been against stuff like that in their design philosophy for ages now

The problem with ToF is the scaling, not the mechanic itself. ToF was mandatory in WoD and Legion because it was just numerically much stronger than any of its competititors. Back in MoP, when it only procced at 20% hp, and SI being significantly stronger than it is now (because of higher orb generation having really nice synergy with Mind Flay: Insanity), SI competed quite nicely with it all throughout ToT and SoO. SI was the go-to choice for any pure ST fight, any council type fight, or any fights that allowed you to keep dots up, while pumping all your orbs into a priority target, for example Dark Animus and Paragons of the Klaxxi. ToF was obviously the best choice for any fight with many adds dying throughout the encounter, but both talents were picked according to the type of fight you were doing.

In WoD and Legion ToF was buffed to proc at 35% instead, while also being placed together with other talents that was really shit compared to it.

[Relapses]

The problem with ToF is the scaling, not the mechanic itself. ToF was mandatory in WoD and Legion because it was just numerically much stronger than any of its competititors. Back in MoP, when it only procced at 20% hp, and SI being significantly stronger than it is now (because of higher orb generation having really nice synergy with Mind Flay: Insanity), SI competed quite nicely with it all throughout ToT and SoO. SI was the go-to choice for any pure ST fight, any council type fight, or any fights that allowed you to keep dots up, while pumping all your orbs into a priority target, for example Dark Animus and Paragons of the Klaxxi. ToF was obviously the best choice for any fight with many adds dying throughout the encounter, but both talents were picked according to the type of fight you were doing.

In WoD and Legion ToF was buffed to proc at 35% instead, while also being placed together with other talents that was really shit compared to it.

Just a minor note, ToF was buffed to 35% with SoO; I really don't remember using SI over ToF much in SoO outside of Council and that was only because #Warlocks.

[Ophenia]

The problem with ToF is the scaling, not the mechanic itself. ToF was mandatory in WoD and Legion because it was just numerically much stronger than any of its competititors. Back in MoP, when it only procced at 20% hp, and SI being significantly stronger than it is now (because of higher orb generation having really nice synergy with Mind Flay: Insanity), SI competed quite nicely with it all throughout ToT and SoO. SI was the go-to choice for any pure ST fight, any council type fight, or any fights that allowed you to keep dots up, while pumping all your orbs into a priority target, for example Dark Animus and Paragons of the Klaxxi. ToF was obviously the best choice for any fight with many adds dying throughout the encounter, but both talents were picked according to the type of fight you were doing.

In WoD and Legion ToF was buffed to proc at 35% instead, while also being placed together with other talents that was really shit compared to it.

Sorry but back in MoP you could snip a Halo, Divine Star, Void Shift or whatever during a big AoE phase on a low-health ally to proc Twist of Fate too. Hell, I even threw a few Flash Heals just to proc it sometimes.

If they want to "nerf it", instead of numerically nerf it to 15% or put it in a row where it will anyway outshine the other 2 talents, they should just transform it like the Warlock talent. Give DoTs a +20/25% damage on low health targets, this way we couldn't benefit from snipping but we would keep an exec phase (which will take a hard hit without SWD).
Not sure I'd like it though, but that would match with Blizzard's will to remove anything that requires some skill.

Also, I really hope they'll rework Vampiric Embrace. Its current design sucks, and even if we could spam it it isn't worth it. It doesn't heal anything right now.

[RsinRC]

Am I the only one who noticed how we can have a fear, silence, talented horrify AND mind control? Back to being the c.c. chain king?

Also I noticed on wowhead how we still have SWD baseline as well as in the talent tree. Thinking maybe the talent version is a placeholder? *crosses fingers*

[ThrashMetalFtw]

Just a minor note, ToF was buffed to 35% with SoO; I really don't remember using SI over ToF much in SoO outside of Council and that was only because #Warlocks.

SI was outright superior to ToF on Iron Juggernaut, Thok, and Paragons of the Klaxxi. By Council I'm assuming you are talking about Paragons, and not Protectors of the Endless, since Protectors was a ToF fight (because of the add phases). You could probably perform just fine with it on Immerseus and Dark Shamans aswell, even if ToF was stronger on those.

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Sorry but back in MoP you could snip a Halo, Divine Star, Void Shift or whatever during a big AoE phase on a low-health ally to proc Twist of Fate too. Hell, I even threw a few Flash Heals just to proc it sometimes.

Never denied that. My point was that ToF wasn't as much of an obvious choice back then, because the other talents in the row (SI) were good enough to take over ToF in certain situations. This was never the case in WoD, and has never been the case during Legion.

[dragonmancers]

I'm just going to talk about the talent tree for the most part since it's a little harder to talk about the actual gameplay. This is the first iteration of shadow that I've actually played, but I have mained it for this entire expansion through s2m to the cyclical voidforms we have now. Sorry for making this so long but I really wanted to give an in-depth view of what I think the talents should look like. To get these out of the way, I believe ToF and Lingering Insanity should be added baseline. With a change to ToF increasing the damage on only the add that is in execute range.

The 15 tier looks okay, but I would like Shadowy Insight more if mind blast had 2 charges. This obviously changes SW: V if mind blast has baseline 2 charges, but because this is the first tier another simple talent could easily be added.

The 30 tier is alright, but San'layn is a little out of place, I kind of wish they would switch it with something like letting Mind Flay be able to be cast on the move, which would give of a little more meaningful Insanity generation if we need to move long distances.

The 45 tier is where some bigger changes start coming in, currently there's SW: D in there which is just dumb. If anything about SW: D is there, it should be Reaper of Souls (which sidenote sounds a little too warlocky). Second, I would almost like to add a third dot here. I'm very unsure on this, but I can't come up with a better sustained damage option, maybe just flat damage to dots? (but that's WAY too boring, or maybe boring enough??).

The 60 tier I'm torn on. I LOVE the reduced Silence CD as I hate not being able to interrupt because it's still on CD from a minute ago, but I think moving the new San'layn into this row could add an interesting choice. It would obviously be taken when you don't need an interrupt or stun, but the real choice comes when you could need those, but might prefer the extra healing Vamp Embrace could offer. Do you trust your raid and party members to do their jobs or not? It could add some more of a thought process to choosing which talent you want. That being said, I have no idea which of the current talents it would replace, but most likely mind bomb.

75 Cooldowns:
Mindbender - replaces Shadowfiend, 1m cooldown, 10s duration, channels Void Ray at your target, dealing progressively more single target damage with each tick
Dark Archangel - 2m cooldown, Instantly applies Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain, and increases your Mastery by 50% for 20 seconds
Surrender 2 Madness - 4m cooldown, 1m duration, increases insanity generation by 100% and allows you to cast while moving, then deals 90% of max hp and prevents insanity generation for 30 seconds

The 75 tier is where I'm iffy. I kind of like Yvaelle's suggestion of making this row cooldown oriented, but I'm not sure if I agree with their choices. The Mindbender change is interesting, but with the addition of the regular Shadowfiend generating insanity, I would think Mindbender would have to at least keep some of that. I think Void Torrent could be a good addition here. I'm torn on putting it here, or switching it with Dark Archangel in the 100 tier. However I completely disagree with the placement of S2M in this tier, as it's such a game changing/breaking ability that it should basically be reserved for the 100 tier, instead I would argue that Power Infusion, or some iteration of it should be placed in this row.

T90
LoTV* | AotV* | PotV*
Legacy of the Void - Reduces the cast time of Void Eruption by 50%, Dispersion no longer Silences you but does not halt Insanity Decay.
Allure of the Void - You generate 5 insanity per second when not in combat, Your insanity decay is reset when combat ends.
Power of the Void - Void Bolt hits up to 2 nearby targets. (they do not generate insanity)

The 90 tier would be basically completely changed since I've moved almost all of the choices elsewhere. I really like InvisibleHand's suggestion of making this tier about Void Eruption, but most of their actual choices I dislike. Legacy of the Void is an obvious choice for this tier, and I think you could keep it relatively the same as their current iteration in the Alpha. An interesting choice I thought of is making one of the talents basically the Legendary chest, meaning it would increase the initial damage of Void Eruption by a large percentage, giving us some much needed burst AoE, made much easier since we don't need to dot everything we want to hit now. The last one I could think of would basically be the T19 4-set, making Void Bolt have no cooldown for several seconds after we cast Void Eruption. This could add an interesting choice between Legacy and this choice, Say if the boss had a weakness phase such as Kin'garoth, spamming several void bolts into that weakened phase could add some nice burst that Shadow is severely lacking.

The 100 tier is almost bare now as well. This tier I reserved to make some MAJOR changes to gameplay. I absolutely love the idea of S2M, especially now that it doesn't punish you as hard. I might be in the minority, but becoming a floating god of execute phase is just absolutely amazing. Making the CD 4 minutes now, and if they moved LotV to a different tier could really make this talent come into it's own. An interesting idea would be to add Devouring Plague back, and make it cost Insanity instead of shadow orbs, but in reality I can't see this happening, as it would become WAY too complicated and punishing during Voidform. Not to mention if just spamming Devouring Plague overtook Voidform damage it would invalidate a whole talent tier and hide away half the spec so I don't see how it could work. As I mentioned earlier this is actually the first iteration of Shadow I've played, so I'm not entirely familiar with what Dark Archangel has done in the past, but I think a change to it instantly casting Void Eruption and maybe advancing your stacks some could be interesting, it would be a way of giving Shadow an actual opener with lust, and maybe giving us some more burst, which could synergize with the choice in the previous tier giving no CD void bolts. The last choice I think might be the most controversial, which would basically be to add Mass Hysteria back. I KNOW this created a lot of problems for Shadow but keeping it separate from S2M, and making it a CHOICE could make it less problematic. Basically, it would function as it did in our weapon. I thought it might also revert the nerf to the haste buff from void form, to really push the ramping damage. Like I said, it's pretty problematic, and would require some major tuning, but if they got it correct it could be an interesting choice for fights where we just want to sit there and hit the boss. Mostly the reason I suggest it is because I don't have any other ideas for this tier.

[ttylol]

Perhaps an execute-based talent row help balance Twist of Fate too? Mega damage SW:D (for single target) vs Twist of Fate (sustained) vs something like "if your SW:P is active when nearby enemy dies, it explodes for X% damage" (for low hp adds).

[cafecito820]

Perhaps an execute-based talent row help balance Twist of Fate too? Mega damage SW (for single target) vs Twist of Fate (sustained) vs something like "if your SW:P is active when nearby enemy dies, it explodes for X% damage" (for low hp adds).

This is exactly how Blizzard *should* be treating talent rows. Each of the three talents on a row should provide a similar benefit, but it's up to you to choose which one you like. The entire problem of constantly having to swap talents around is because they'll mix single-target and AoE abilities. It's so dumb.

[Yvaelle]

This is exactly how Blizzard *should* be treating talent rows. Each of the three talents on a row should provide a similar benefit, but it's up to you to choose which one you like. The entire problem of constantly having to swap talents around is because they'll mix single-target and AoE abilities. It's so dumb.

Yea - I'd really like them to make tiers consistent (I made a proposal a couple pages back (below).

Then they should also remove the stupid books from stopping us from changing talents. Changing talents before every fight should be encouraged as much as possible. Make us interested in tuning our own class and trying out different things.

Currently most just google a guide at the start of the expansion, setting our talents, and then checking back next expansion to see what the cookie cutter will be (ex. the last 3 expansions it feels like we barely every change talents, and we're really just min/maxing a couple % tweaks by doing so).

If I could propose a simple design for BFA I'd say:

General changes:
- Mastery increases periodic damage by X% (no longer affects void bolt)
- Voidform is a talent (see below)
- Insanity caps at 120

15 - Procs:
Shadow Word: Death - 1 charge, deals massive damage to targets below 20% of their max HP
Shadowy Insight - Shadow Word: Pain periodic damage has a chance to give you an additional charge of Mind Blast which is an instant cast
Call of the Void - Mind Flay & Mind Sear damage has a chance to summon a Void Tendril which channels Mind Flay at your target

30 - Survivability:
Body & Soul - 40% run speed during Power Word: Shield
Sanlayn - Gain 10% Leech at all times, and reduces the cooldown of Vampiric Embrace by 60 seconds
Reborn - When you take fatal damage, you instead automatically trigger Dispersion for 2 seconds and regenerate 20% max HP. 5 minute cooldown.

45 - AOE:
Dark Void - Void Eruption applies Shadow Word: Pain to all targets hit
Misery - Vampiric Touch also applies Shadow Word: Pain
Shadow Crash - 3 charges, gain a charge every 20 seconds, deals massive damage in an 8 yard area after 2 seconds

60 CC:
Psychic Horror - 45s cooldown, 4 second stun
Last Word - reduces the cooldown on Silence by 15 seconds
Void Tendrils - 30s cooldown, Shadowy Tendrils root nearby enemies

75 Cooldowns:
Mindbender - replaces Shadowfiend, 1m cooldown, 10s duration, channels Void Ray at your target, dealing progressively more single target damage with each tick and generating Insanity
Dark Archangel - 2m cooldown, Instantly applies Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain, and increases your Mastery by 50% for 20 seconds
Surrender 2 Madness - 4m cooldown, 1m duration, increases insanity generation by 100% and allows you to cast while moving, then deals 90% of max hp and prevents insanity generation for 30 seconds

90 - Buffs:
Auspicious Spirits - Your spirits deal 100% increased damage and generate 2 Insanity
Twist of Fate - After damaging a target below 35% health, gain 15% increased damage for 15 seconds
Initiation - Critical strike chance increased by 30% on targets above 80% health

105 - Finishing Moves:
Devouring Plague - costs 60 Insanity, lasts 10 seconds, deals periodic damage each second, and heals the spriest for 3% of max HP each time it deals damage
Void Torrent - costs 50 Insanity, channel for 4 seconds to deal massive single target damage
Voidform - costs 100 insanity, increases all Shadow damage and grants access to Void Bolt while Insanity is maintained

[zito]

Then they should also remove the stupid books from stopping us from changing talents. Changing talents before every fight should be encouraged as much as possible. Make us interested in tuning our own class and trying out different things.

They actually want the OPPOSITE to happen and people should be picking talents based on playstyle choice and not what is needed per fight. Problem is so far they are doing a terrible job at it with the whole mixing aoe and ST stuff in a single tier.