I know absolutely no Shadow Priest that has enjoyed this mechanic. Though an extra layer of depth was an interesting concept, Empowered Shadow is one of the worst, clunkiest class mechanics ever. Most of the time, it was something you didn't worry about. Whenever it dropped off, or took a long time to get up, was extraordinarily frustrating. Even for a masochist such as myself.
Not the most exciting mastery, I'll admit, but at least it's a little more interesting than a pure damage increase. I'd much rather have this than Empowered Shadow.New Mastery:
Gives you periodic Shadow damage spells ( % ) chance to deal damage twice, each time they deal damage.
If you enjoyed the mechanic, you're in the minority. The skill gap between a good Shadow Priest and a bad Shadow Priest has always been fairly high, for some reason. Shadow Priests are considerably more popular. Empowered Shadow management made the gap monstrously huge. You're telling me you WANT to play with MORE bad players?My opinion on this:
Makes the class less fun and challenging to play being able to handle this buff correct was rewarding making shadow priest more unique. The new mastery simplify shadow priest removing a huge skill factor thereby making the spec way less rewarding.
Making the cooldown 2 minutes is both a huge plus, and a bit of a negative at the same time. On the plus side, so many on-use trinkets have a cooldown at 2 minutes. Sure, our VP trinkets for Dragon Soul had 1.5 minute cooldown, but it's not a standard. Hell, if memory serves me well, 1 minute trinkets are more common than 1.5 minute trinkets.Dark Evangelism / Dark Archangel management:
So Dark Archangel(2 min CD up from 1.5 min) is now optional and does not generate Dark Evangelism.
My opinion on this:
Yet another skill factor removed no management required and most likely not a talent that will be picked only for occasional fights.
This two changes out of many that in my opinion destroys a lot of skill and challenge with the class.
On the other hand, Shadowfiend's cooldown has been lowered to a no-longer-altered, static 3-minute cooldown. So at 1.5 minute Dark Archangel, it could've been possible to line the two up, and still get another Dark Archangel.
On our magically suddenly mutated third hand, if you choose Power Infusion, Dark Archangel+Power Infusion+On Use Trinket will be an extremely powerful cooldown use phase. Especially with Mind Blast's cooldown lowered by haste.
Dark Evangelism is a non-issue. It took no skill to manage. 1.5 Mindflays brought it back up. And you'd be pretty dumb to cast Dark Archangel when you know you've gotta refresh your dots a GCD or two later. Anyone with half a brain cell would cast DA after DoTs have been refreshed.
Your only other options are 15% chance for a free, instant Mind Spike that doesn't cancel DoTs after a Vampiric Touch tick, will probably end up not nearly as useful in PvE, that possibly decently powerful to set up burst in PvP, or a little bit stronger version of Shadowfiend. I'd choose Dark Archangel. If Heroic Dragonsoul told me anything is that, for progression fights, Blizzard really likes forcing high burst phases.
Heh, no worries, I didn't even notice.PS: sorry for my grammar and spelling.
Moving on, my additions is that, for PvE, Shadow will be a lot more fun to play. Clunky mechanics are clunky. You're allowed to like them, but the majority hated Empowered Shadows. Evangelism was Shadow Weaving v1.5, which was basically another static buff, something Blizzard has been trying to move away from.
Shadow Orbs being used for Devouring Plague give the spec a bit more of a dynamic playstyle (our current rotation is fairly static). It'll especially ramp up our execution damage (Double Shadow Word: Death alone gives two orbs, so you'll be using Devouring Plague more during execution than normal rotation, plus the damage that double SWDeath deals to begin with.
Again, Mind Blast being altered by Hastes gives us a slightly more interesting base rotation than we've had in the past.
IF you want a clunky rotation, you can bypass the talent cool downs and grab From Darkness, Comes Light, and Divine Insight, and your rotation can be entirely unpredictable and proccy.
If you want a smooth rotation with a little bit of dynamic gameplay, pick up your two cool downs, and all you've got to worry about is Devouring Plague.
All in all, I'm excited at the prospect of playing my Shadow Priest again.