Shadow BFA Datamining

[Yvaelle]

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.

Well it's clearly not working. None of the current talents really let you make playstyle choices at all.

When S2M was a thing, much as I hated it, I was still stuck playing it. Even now, even though I don't really like having to go TOF/LI/AS/MB/LotV every single fight - that's the clearly correct choice.

If they want us to choose our own playstyles, they need to make two paradigm shifts in their development approach:

1) Put fundamental choices of the spec into the talent trees. Voidform should be a talent alongside maybe S2M and maybe old Devouring Plague. Shadow Orbs vs. Insanity vs. No Resource At All should be a talent tier. Choosing between 3 basically passive abilities is not a meaningful decision to playstyle.

2) They can't be Blizzard Entertainment. A company that does one patch to balance talents every second year (every new expansion) is not at all capable of making competitive talent tiers. If they want competitive talent tiers - they need to take the Mythic Entertainment development approach, and adjust things by like +/- 2% every week - with so many patch notes that only the hardcore nerds can even keep up - but everyone else gets to safely assume all talents are competitive.

Edit: Also, there is another major development approach that prevents them from achieving that goal. Secondary stats. The biggest decision we make about what playstyle we are as Shadow, is actually buried in our gear selection currently. Haste makes us good at single target. Crit makes us good at multidot. Versatility makes us more survivable in difficult encounters. Mastery makes us bad.

If we were really selecting playstyle choices, the importance of secondary stats should be like a talent tier all it's own, example:

Single Target Talent Choice: Your GCD is reduced by 0.5 seconds, and your Mind Blast cooldown is reduced by % haste, and instant cast. Highly rewards stacking haste gear for single target fights, and adjusts how you approach single target encounters - making your DoTs less important, making your Mind Blast cooldown extra key.

Multi-DoT Talent Choice: Your Auspicious Spirits proc from all periodic critical hits and generate 2 insanity on proc. Creates a positive feedback loop where more Crit Chance = more DoT crits = more Insanity = longer Voidforms = more DoT damage (Mass Hysteria) and Haste (more DoT ticks) = more DoT crits

Mastery Talent Choice: Your Mastery is only affected by every second Mastery nerf, so that it's not a completely dead stat.

[Deleted]

I really dislike Single Target vs Multi-Target talent tiers. They pretty much force me to change them depending on type of content I do.
What I prefer is if rows provided different approach to similar situations.
ie Dark Void and Misery are great choice for competing talents in a row, but SW ruins it because it will be picked over them in any ST encounter
(and on the side, Shadow Crash should swap places with SW)

besides, I want some goddamn Quality of Fun when playing spriest! why cant I have passive Vampiric Embrace to faceroll outdoor content? why I have to cast shadow form every death/zone change? why my dungeon experience is so unbearable? why isn't void eruption instant cast baseline? why I am starting to deal damage 30+ seconds into the fight?
why my mobility is compareable to wet pasta rolling down the hill

Why spriests can't have so cool utility talents? Like "getting struck in combat applies Vampiric Touch to enemy, take less damage from enemies affected by VT".
Or I don't know... mind blast having ANY interaction with other skills? It's most vanilla "deal x dmg" skill in-game.

[Rhaxus]

@bargh +1 i can't even express how much i agree with you here. the discrepancy between classes regarding fun utilities and overall quality of life is such bullshit, i mean just look at druids, even though they keep nerfing their fun stuff as well for no reason.

[Deleted]

I'd like to add that fantasy of "dot" class is kinda lost on boss fights (our only decent 'niche'), because of Void Bolt sustaining all dots infinitely as long we're DPSing target.

[ttylol]

Yeah, perhaps a mechanic/talent along the lines of "Void Bolt has a chance to consume either VE or SW:P, dealing X% bonus damage and generating X bonus insanity"?

edit: I enjoyed WoD-Subtlety's bleed-tick-on-multistrike but, yeah, guess that's unorthodox :V

[davesignal]

Yeah, perhaps a mechanic/talent along the lines of "Void Bolt has a chance to consume either VE or SW:P, dealing X% bonus damage and generating X bonus insanity"?

That would be wretched. I want to maintain my dots, not have them randomly vanish.

[Rhaxus]

I'd like to add that fantasy of "dot" class is kinda lost on boss fights (our only decent 'niche'), because of Void Bolt sustaining all dots infinitely as long we're DPSing target.

datamined changes show a reduced runtime on sw p (14 sec) and you only get 2 seconds per void bolt instead of 3.

[Deleted]

datamined changes show a reduced runtime on sw p (14 sec) and you only get 2 seconds per void bolt instead of 3.

And thats not a good news. See it means dots can drop in vf. Same situation as 7.1 ptr. Its awful.

What they should do is to reduce vf uptime enough its:
a) something i forgot, lemme edit this later
b) let dots expire outside vf

[zito]

another alpha build, another build where things get worse

yeeesh

and why the fuck are they still pushing twist of fate? Oh my lord, even at 10% increased damage what's the fucking point? It's boring and fucking uninspired. Lazy crap talent that just needs to be removed. Quit trying to make such a lazy talent work blizzard and make something, do you want another WoD?

[Rhaxus]

i think they plan for voidform to be around 20-25 sec uptime if you are not using stm, so dot refreshing is actually something we don't have to deal with while in voidform.
i wonder how 14 seconds of dots work with spread target multidotting

[Theed]

So alpha started. Now is the time for changes and feedback. My favourite time!

Anyone got in?

[Deleted]

Like I just don't get how shadow STILL just refuses to get a defensive spell. I want to play shadow so bad but I don't want to be another melee target dummy for a whole xpac.

[ttylol]

I want to play shadow so bad but I don't want to be another melee target dummy for a whole xpac.

And I don't wanna keep risking death when everyone else is popping their personals because I already used it to pause insanity for random-target CC/movement mechanic. Happened so often tonight with Felhound's Molten Touch: https://i.imgur.com/KqKm36h.png

Lowering the importance of (and ability to) prolong Voidform should help... But why don't they just attach the pause to Fade with like 3 sec duration? Please ;_;

[Clrg]

So alpha started. Now is the time for changes and feedback. My favourite time!

Anyone got in?

feedback that is going to be ignored because "is just an alpha" then the beta rolls in and the feedback is ignored because "is just early in the beta and we are too busy reworking warlocks and hunters" the expansion is launched and they will notice how fucked up the spec is and they will try to band aid fix the spec for the rest of the expansion.

[worcester]

I think instead of voidbolt adding time to dots, voidform should just pause the timer on all dots (i.e. every time it ticks in vf it adds another tick). This way, the duration of the dots will never increase and you have to eventually refresh it at some point, but never during vf.
Voidbolt will still be pressed for damage and insanity, and tagging on the dot extension never made mechanical sense anyway.

[Theed]

Like I just don't get how shadow STILL just refuses to get a defensive spell. I want to play shadow so bad but I don't want to be another melee target dummy for a whole xpac.

With dispersion artifact traits (cd and heal) removed and VT healing nerfed, i'd expect them to compensate that somehow.

[Ophenia]

With dispersion artifact traits (cd and heal) removed and VT healing nerfed, i'd expect them to compensate that somehow.

Don't get your expectations so high, it's very unlikely that we'll get back a full-powered 90% Dispersion. We'll likely keep this 2min-cd 60% silencing reduction.

And VT is buffed though. Reduced CD and I think its healing is untouched

[zito]

With dispersion artifact traits (cd and heal) removed and VT healing nerfed, i'd expect them to compensate that somehow.

lol, this has been an underlining problem since forever. Spriests have always had a defense problem and the excuse is that we can heal. It's disgusting in PvP because all people do is tunnel the shadow priest since after dispersion we are sitting ducks.

One time we got defensive cooldowns they were removed because SHADOW PRIEST OP 2967582048602860809. Shadow guise, void shift.... rip

[ThreeLions]

Psychic Horror re-added as a talent

I'm in heaven! I have missed this so much in Pvp.

Edit: If this is in lieu of another stun or silence... then to hell with this and BFA. I WANT MY PSYCHIC HORROR!

[Ophenia]

I'm in heaven! I have missed this so much in Pvp.

Edit: If this is in lieu of another stun or silence... then to hell with this and BFA. I WANT MY PSYCHIC HORROR!

It's on the same row as Last Word (reducing Silence's CD by 15sec) and Mind Bomb (which is now a mass Fear and no longer a mass Stun).
http://bfa.wowhead.com/talent-calc/priest/shadow