Shadow BFA Datamining

[Felfuhrer]

Currently Voidform, which is a form, is giving us a small damage bump and one spell to spam. While there are ingame tons of 3-minute cooldowns giving a lot more bonus damage or interactions with other spells.
Our Voidform is pointless as it doesn't give anything mechanically speaking. At least during Legion it gave this insane amount of Haste, which was necessary for the Shadow Priest to be enjoyable.

Voidform, as a form, should change most of our spells to an enhanced version imo. Mind Blast should be transformed into Shadow Word: Void during Voidform. Dispersion should be enhanced during Voidform (No silence ? Healing ? DoTs ticking harder ?). Mind Flay should be enhanced during Voidform (WoD insanity ? 2p T20 ? Void Ray ?).

Currently the Voidform is a glorified Shadow form with minor damage upgrade. Nobody wants that. The Shadow Priest is broken out of Voidform today. What saves it in Legion is that we're not spending more than 10% of our time in Shadowform, we're always in Voidform. This will change in BfA, where the Voidform will be rare and short, thus you'll be stuck playing with your 3-button cycle with no procs/spells to prioritize, which means your whole regular cycle can be macro'd into one castsequence.



SP needs a complete overhaul, if that doesn't come now, it will never be balanced for the beginning of BfA so we'll have to deal with band-aid hotfixes in the middle of the first raid, leaving us unplayable as usual.

That's too late imo, what we're gonna have is just tuning numbers and we'll have to pray that the Azerite traits can somehow save the spec.

call me insane (heh) but i think if they would restore lingering insanity it would go a long way to help the spec. I never really understood the removal of it but I think it works best with shorter, more frequent voidforms. I doubt we will ever be anywhere near EN voidform S2M levels ever again so I think this is the single easiest fix for the spec atm.

[Deleted]

call me insane (heh) but i think if they would restore lingering insanity it would go a long way to help the spec. I never really understood the removal of it but I think it works best with shorter, more frequent voidforms. I doubt we will ever be anywhere near EN voidform S2M levels ever again so I think this is the single easiest fix for the spec atm.

Honestly wouldn't be a terrible thing to be made baseline and free up space for 2 proper talents but i cannot see it happening.

[Clozer]

and another bluepost about mm hunters, while spriest is still without a talent and months of absolutely nothing.

[qactuar]

If I see a single blue feedback post regarding Shadow before BfA ships I just might crap my pants.

[Syenite]

If I see a single blue feedback post regarding Shadow before BfA ships I just might crap my pants.

One could say that not a single shit was given about spriest mechanics yet again...

[Clozer]

New Talent:

Dark Ascension (New) Immediately activates Voidform. Cannot be used while in Voidform. Generates 30 Insanity. Shadow Priest - Level 100 Talent. Instant. 1.5 min cooldown.
Void Torrent is now 90 row

[Alanar]

New Talent:

Dark Ascension (New) Immediately activates Voidform. Cannot be used while in Voidform. Generates 30 Insanity. Shadow Priest - Level 100 Talent. Instant. 1.5 min cooldown.
Void Torrent is now 90 row

Right tested it out and honestly..I would prob never pick this while LotV is right next to it simple. As for Mindbender it still feels it does more damage compared to Void Torrent..
Not so much changed for me to change talents or any thing.. like at all

[Jervaise]

If I see a single blue feedback post regarding Shadow before BfA ships I just might crap my pants.

Originally posted by Blizzard (View Original)
Dark Ascension is a new talent we're trying for Shadow. The version currently on beta is an unfinished, in-progress version. The implemented version we have internally is currently:

Dark Ascension - 1 min cooldown, Generates 50 Insanity, 40 yd range
Immediately activates Voidform, then releases an explosive blast of pure void energy, causing Void Eruption damage to all enemies within 10 yds of your target. Cannot be used while in Voidform.

Tuning is pending playtesting/feedback, but the goal is to give Shadow a more controlled way of entering Voidform.

[Ramaloce]

Dark Ascension is a new talent we're trying for Shadow. The version currently on beta is an unfinished, in-progress version. The implemented version we have internally is currently:

Dark Ascension - 1 min cooldown, Generates 50 Insanity, 40 yd range

Immediately activates Voidform, then releases an explosive blast of pure void energy, causing Void Eruption damage to all enemies within 10 yds of your target. Cannot be used while in Voidform.

Tuning is pending playtesting/feedback, but the goal is to give Shadow a more controlled way of entering Voidform.

Better than version in beta. The problem I have with it is that it's still a minute cool down. With the way void form is now I don't think a "double form" every minute will out pace LotV (30~45 sec cooldown might do it?). Though it's nice they are FINALLY giving us a version of what they said they were going to give us back in the legion preview (Oblivion).

[Deleted]

Right tested it out and honestly..I would prob never pick this while LotV is right next to it simple. As for Mindbender it still feels it does more damage compared to Void Torrent..
Not so much changed for me to change talents or any thing.. like at all

Did some testing myself and have pretty much come to the same conclusion.

If this talent is supposed to negate our ramp, which i'm assuming it is and wants us to use it on pull, because why would you ever pick it over LotV if it wasn't? Anyways the insanity generation is just not there to support it, if using bender you must use it at the same time to hope at getting over 15 stacks, which then just feels awkward as it desyncs since bender is on a 1min cd. Void torrent feels a bit more intuitive with the talent as it slots in nicely after the first void bolt and since it has a 45s cd you can line it up pretty easy with every other DA.

The best i got out of it was 19-20 stacks using SW:V and Torrent, tho i did get 18 with bender and SW:V, but im pretty sure torrent will be better when you add on the fiend damage you lose from taking bender since it does not provide any voidform uptime advantage atm.

Honestly this just feels like a quality of life talent for dungeons, so shadow can burst on demand for boss fights that are over before our damage gets going. In a raid i just don't see the advantages without mathing shit out over Lotv. One thing is certain tho, after your first VF casting eruption at the unbuffed cast duration is fucking painfully slow, which only goes further to being horrible in raiding.

On the fence about it so far, cause haste is so goddam low that the spec feels like its running on half steam, perhaps with gear things will change.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally posted by Blizzard (View Original)
Dark Ascension is a new talent we're trying for Shadow. The version currently on beta is an unfinished, in-progress version. The implemented version we have internally is currently:

Dark Ascension - 1 min cooldown, Generates 50 Insanity, 40 yd range
Immediately activates Voidform, then releases an explosive blast of pure void energy, causing Void Eruption damage to all enemies within 10 yds of your target. Cannot be used while in Voidform.

Tuning is pending playtesting/feedback, but the goal is to give Shadow a more controlled way of entering Voidform.

edit jsut saw this, that makes much more sense now after testing, lines up with bender and more insanity to actually making using it on pull sustainable.

[Deleted]

Decent talent combined with lingering i think

[ttylol]

New talent would be a good addition if LotV was baseline...

[qactuar]

Honestly feels like any sort of nice thing we might get is just stuffed in as a talent. When do we get anything baseline that isn't absolutely horrible? The spec should be able to stand on its own without talents, and then have talents which amplify certain parts of it depending on which ones you choose. I don't feel like shadow has that right now. Baseline changes are what I feel like we need.

[Ophenia]

That feels like some band-aid hotfix which won't solve a lot regarding the awkward behaviour of the Shadow Priest.

edit jsut saw this, that makes much more sense now after testing, lines up with bender and more insanity to actually making using it on pull sustainable.

Does it really synchronize with Mindbender ? I mean, ok it's one minute cooldown now, but you may be in a "normal" Voidform one minute later, which would completely screw the synchronization right ? (I cannot test right now)
Or maybe entering in a normal Voidform without Legacy of the Void is way too long, thus you'll never cast Void Eruption the normal way if you pick this talent ?

I don't know, I feel like LotV is still above everything and Surrender might steal the show for 80% of raid/dungeons encounters depending on the mechanics

Honestly if this is all Blizzard can come up with after 3 weeks, we're definitely screwed.

[esqi]

To me it needs to be baked into the spec, or at least a talent much earlier in the tree. Shadow burst was an issue in alot of playstyles, the chest helped in M+ but wasnt the way forward in raids.

Its a solid change but fact as a talent is discouraging.

[Deleted]

That feels like some band-aid hotfix which won't solve a lot regarding the awkward behaviour of the Shadow Priest.



Does it really synchronize with Mindbender ? I mean, ok it's one minute cooldown now, but you may be in a "normal" Voidform one minute later, which would completely screw the synchronization right ? (I cannot test right now)
Or maybe entering in a normal Voidform without Legacy of the Void is way too long, thus you'll never cast Void Eruption the normal way if you pick this talent ?.

After a bit more testing you pretty much manage to fit one voidform after the first on pull with DA. What tends to happen is that second voidform is still up and you roll straight into the third one after the second drops. So basically yeah it just feels awkward now because MB and DA will just sit off cooldown for however long that second VF lasts which should only get longer with more gear, so it plummets in value compared to LotV over the course of a encounter.

Then there is the fact that you can get into VF with 3 GCD's with LotV anyways using Prepull VT>DV>SC>MB=60 insanity then still have MBen in the tank to push stacks. The talent is clearly there to give us more control and circumnavigate the ramp, which it does, just not very effectively when you can use the above with LotV in comparison.

I still don't think it would be better even if it gave a full insanity bar tbh.

[deviantcultist]

How does Dark Ascension look like in terms of graphics in the beta?

Also, did they implement the 1,5min version in the patch notes or the 1min version from the blue post?

[Deleted]

Graphics wise it currently has the end animation of mass dispel (clearly placeholder) and its the 1.5m version that only gives 30 insanity and doesn't proc void eruption.

Need to wait on next build to see what the improved version is like, currently tho this one is garbage.

[Ophenia]

I think, to avoid the feeling of wasting Voidforms, they may simply give this Dark Ascension a second charge. With the current design, you may be forced to "waste" like 20-30 seconds of Dark Ascension and that's awful for a 1-minute cooldown.

But to be fair, they should just say "okay that was a mistake" and replace this by whatever Legion legendary effect.
I didn't think that was possible but Power Infusion was actually better

[Deleted]

The spec is a total mess atm, everything seems to work against each other.

Like in dungeons opening on a pack with DV>SC>MB>VE feels good as its great damage, but then you are like "i don't want to push, buttons as that will actually prolong VF" as you want to drop out asap so you can build to another VE since its our hardest hitting aoe. Super awkward..............and like where does VT even fit into that equation?

VE really needs de-coupling from the on activation of VF mehcanic, it would make far more sense to have it as a voidform only ability on a cd that way we can actually feel good about being in VF in the first place instead of wanting to be out, which is the total opposite of what the spec is supposed to play like.

Single target wise is just as bad, firstly having mass aoe abilities being the most efficient way to quickly build insanity for ST just feels weird and voidforms so short that it is actually more efficient to stop using your stacks of SW:V and let them reset after you get past a certain insanity deterioration threshold, to allow you to quicker build into another void eruption.

All this while playing without SW: D just feels like there is a giant hole in the spec.

I really hope they gives us a decent feedback post soon, as everything i've said is being echo'd on the beta feedback thread many times over as well as loads of other stuff, cause if they dont i really am scared for the state of the spec come release.