Shadow Priest Revamp Steroid Talents for 3 Different gameplay styles.

[Deleted]

3 different gameplay choices merged into 1 spec, gives people the option of choice and removes the hindrances we have as a 1 dps spec, we cannot change to others if we are struggling, we cannot respec if we do not like the current style etc. The idea is to give more options to classes with the situation that if their only dps option is bad then their dps is not viable.
I would like this to be a class wide thing though and they worked through an entire new tier so we could still have the 7 rows, allowing fury warriors or frost dks 2h and 1h options, prot warrior gladiator stance, beastmaster 2 pet or 1 pet etc etc anyways this is all about shadow.

After rethinking it all i think the best solution would be to have a drop menu like hunter call pet which has the 3 steroid options in it, functioning like 3 entirely different specs,so when you swapped from 1 to the other it would function like swapping between disc and shadow, clearing all talent tooltip issues and spellbook passives etc.
Excuse the crappy paint effort
Shadow would still be THE priest dps spec, but it simply had 3 sub specs acting like behind the scenes the priest class had 5 specs.
The benefit to this is we have 7 tiers of talents and also we would be in essence on par with pure dps classes who can switch specs for different fights.
Sub spec steroids i think are the future for single dps spec classes allowing more flexibility with design choices WITHOUT the limitations a single dps spec traditionally suffers from.


This begins with the Idea that Shadow priest have

• Shadow orbs back baseline, 5 of them. (excluding Voidform) Generate 1 orb every 10 seconds you spend out of combat to a max of 2.
• Power word shield has been replaced with Shadow Veil, it is still pw:s just shadow name and visual. It is NOT on shadow spell school.
• Psychic Horror baseline, duration improved per shadow orb or insanity spent, 1 orb/15 insanity = +1 sec, max 3 orbs or 45 insanity
• Mind Spike is back, 1.5 Sec Cast, No CD, 40 yard range, Shadowfrost school. A simple extra castable spell with an extra depending on talent choice.
• Mind Sear will also be back in the form of upgraded mind flay, (Similar to how insanity worked in WoD, you cast your big damage button to get 5 seconds of Insanity, which turns mind flay into mind sear)
• Shadow word Death is baseline 35%, generates 1 orb if target dies within 2 seconds for CoP and DP, insanity for Void.
• Shadow Fiend - 1 minute cooldown
  Will channel mindflays on your target for 24 seconds
  Granting you 5% haste per mind flay cast.
  Mindbender removed, glyph lovers rejoice.
• New passive: Insanity,While under the effects of insanity your mind flay becomes mind sear.
  Mind Sear- Channeled, deal 350% Spell power to all targets within 5 yards of your target over 2 seconds, if no valid targets within 5 yards your target takes the full damage instead.
• New Mastery: Shadowy Apparitions
  Critical strikes create a shadowy version of yourself that floats towards the target and deals (25% of Spell power+% of Mastery) Shadow damage.
  Gain 25% of Mastery as increased critical strike rating.

I am a strong believer that your class should function perfectly fine WITHOUT talents, talents should be perks that you add on to your class to make it better, not to make it work. So i am trying to make it work that you have great talent choices that you can pick and barely any will actually be mandatory or will you feel gimped by having to take X talent because it's better for X fight but really you want to use Y


Shadow has 3 sub specs to choose from which will dictate how you play your spec, this allows us to have 3 different styles of gameplay in 1 single dps spec using the same toolkit.
Depending on the steroid you take your abilities will function differently sometimes however for the most part they are the same spell, just used differently in the rotation.


You have the option of:

• Clarity of Power- A Shadow mage who has less focus on dots and more focus on instant casts or casted nukes, big single target hitter
• Devouring Plague - The dot focused shadow priest who works similar in a way to affliction warlocks, if you want dots this is your pick
• Void Form - The legion version with Mass Hysteria, a somewhat hybrid between CoP and DP, mixing dots and direct casts.

Gameplay defining sub spec options, Clarity of Power, Devouring Plague, Voidform

Clarity of Power
Your Mind Spike, Mind Flay, Mind Sear, Blackout and Shadow Word: Death deal 40% additional damage to targets not affected by your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch. Also reduces the cooldown on Mind Blast by 3 sec and makes it instant cast and slows your target hit by 30% for 2 seconds. Mind Blast Generates 1 Orb.
Mind Spike will consume your dots on the target.

Selecting this option gives you the ability Blackout.

Blackout, 3 Shadow orbs
Consumes all orbs dealing heavy damage and stunning your target for 3 seconds. Targets permanently immune to stuns take 100% increased damage.
Grants the Insanity buff for 5 Seconds after casting Blackout

---

Devouring Plague
Your vampiric touch and shadow word pain do 50% more damage and full duration mind flays generate 1 shadow orb
Your mindblast will spread your vampiric touch and shadow word pain to all targets within 8 yards for 50% of their max duration and refresh your mindblast target to full duration. Mindblast damage reduced by 70% and does not generate shadow orbs.
Your mind spike will cause the targets damage over time effects to do their damage 10% faster.

Selecting this option gives you Devouring Plague

Devouring plague, x dmg over y sec, consumes all shadow orbs, stacks up to 5 times, 1 stack per orb spent.
Grants 5 seconds of insanity after casting Devouring Plague.

--

Voidform Works exactly like legion, Mass Hysteria and all will be passives added to the talent to make it function as now.
While in Voidform you will always have Insanity buff, therefore your Mind Flay will always be Mind Sear.
While in Voidform your Mind Blast has 2 charges.
Your damage over time damage from SW:P and VT (and Haunting Silence if talented) increases per voidform stack.
Voidform ofcourse does not use shadow orbs and uses insanity resource, Mind Blast, Mind flay and Shadow word Death generate insanity.

Selecting this option give you Void Eruption and Void Torrent

Void Eruption, Releases an explosive blast of pure void energy, activating Voidform and causing (x% of Spell power) Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yards of your target. During Voidform, this ability is replaced by Void Bolt.
Requires 100 Insanity to activate. (Legacy of the void is still in the tree so don't panic)

Void Torrent 1 minute cd
Non interruptible and can move while channeling, deals shadow damage over 4 seconds, insanity does not drain while channeling.
You must be in Void Form to use this ability.
Replaces Mind Spike

---

Tier - 1 Rotational Tier - Quickness of the Mind, Mind Lash, Haunting Silence

Quickness of the Mind
CoP, DP: Casting Mind Spike will reduce the cast time of your next mind spike by 0.4 seconds, stacks until you cast a different spell. (Instant cast is possible)
Voidform: Your Void Torrent generates 15 insanity per second while channeling.

Mind Lash
Mind Flay and Mind Sear can be cast while moving and is not interrupted by Mind Blast (Or Void Bolt)

Haunting Silence
Silence cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds, successfully interrupting a spell will damage the target for 150% spell power over 8 seconds and reward 1 Shadow orb (25 insanity).

---

Tier 2 - Shadow Veil talents - Momentum of Madness, Dark Embrace, Twist of Fate

Momentum of Madness
Casting Shadow Veil allows 1 spell to be cast while moving, casting spells while remaining stationary for full duration will not consume this buff. Buff will cap at 2 stacks.

Dark Embrace - Shadow Veil heals you for 50% of damage you do for 5 seconds after casting Shadow Veil.

Twist of Fate - 10% increased damage and healing done when Shadow Veil is active.

---

Tier 3 - Movement - Unchecked Insanity, Void Empowerement, Void Tendrils

Unchecked Insanity - Your movement speed is increased by 30% when you have not taken damage for 3 seconds.

Void Empowerement - Shadow Veil increases your movement speed by 40% for 6 seconds

Void Tendrils - Summon a void tendril on the ground which will pull you to its location. 3 Charges 30 second recharge.

---

Tier - 4 Survival Tier - Thrive in the shadows, Spectral Guise, Dark Archangel

Thrive in the Shadows - Dispersion heals during duration, damage reduction increased to 90%

Spectral Guise - Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving your true form behind. As a shadow you are stealthed, but remain in combat. Lasts 6 sec or until your true form is hit by 3 direct attacks.

Dark Archangel - Gain 5%(0.5%) damage reduction for every Shadow Orb(Voidform stack) spent (gained) for 10 seconds, Max stacks 4(no max in voidform) stacks refresh.

---

Tier - 5 Utility Tier Vampiric Feast, Cleansing Void, Void Rift

Vampiric Feast- Vampiric Embrace gives increased resource generation to all allies (Focus, fury, energy, mana, maelstrom, insanity etc) during its duration

Cleansing Void- Mass dispel no cd and heavy mana cost reduction

Void Rift - Tear a rift in the void at a targets location pulling all enemies within 20 yards of the targets location to the target. 2 minute cd

---

Tier 6 Aoe, steroid talent dictates how it works for that spec.


Shadow crash Aoe targeted dmg 20 second cooldown

Cop - Your next Mind Blast will hit all targets struck by shadow crash. Awards 1 orb per target.
Dp - If 3 or more targets are hit applies 5 stacks of DP to each target hit
Void - Leap to target area dealing splash damage, 2 charges, generates 20 insanity each target hit


Cascade - Launch a shadow bolt at your target which splits to other targets, can bounce to same target from splits.

Cop - snares all targets hit, if blackout buff is active this changes to mini stun, slow and silenced for 2 seconds
DP - applies Entropic Decay to all targets hit, targets hit by cascade a second time reset the timer.
Void - Insanity per target hit, double the insanity gain while in voidform
Entropic Decay - Basically a reverse Agony, a pretty high damage dot with 10 stacks that drop off in damage with each stack, stacks drop at 1 per second.

Halo - Sends a ring of shadow pulsing out from you up to 25 yards then returns back to you.

Cop -First ring pushes targets away, return slows
Dp - First ring applies SWP, VT and 1 Stack of DP, to all targets, return causes ticks to tick faster
Void - Insanity does not decay during duration, return ring refreshes dots

---

Tier 7 - DPS talents, Surrender to madness, Legacy of the Void, Mindbender

Surrender to madness 2 min cd

Cop - for 15 seconds blackout costs 1 orb but will act as if 3 spent, generates 1 orb every 3 seconds
DP - for 15 seconds dp stack limit increases to 10, generate 1 orb every 3 seconds, at the end of the 15 seconds your overcapped DPs will expire naturally and decrease 1 stack at a time back down to the 5 limit
Void - You instantly erupt into voidform regardless of your insanity level, starting with 100 insanity and gcd lowered by 0.5 seconds for 15 seconds.

Legacy of the void Passive

Cop - Mind Blast increases your haste by 5% stacks 5 times
DP - Mind Flay will cast on all targets within 5 yards of the target, each generating a shadow orb for full duration mind flay cast up to a maximum of 3 for 1 mind flay.
(very strong if you consider Mind Flay turns into Mind Sear)
Void - Voidform can be cast at 65 insanity, increases shadow damage by 20% when entering voidform, losing 1% per second, void bolt and mind blast will add 1% each cast (This is just a mini bandaid ramp up fixer, you won't have a 1% increasing buff to maintain during voidform as it will have run out before you can actually build it)
5% shadow damage increased permanently

Lingering Insanity

Cop - Blackout has a 15% chance per orb consumed to refund 1 shadow orb
DP - Devouring Plague has a 15% chance per orb consumed to refund 1 shadow orb
Void - Insanity drains 10% slower


Extra PVP Talent options:

Vampiric Crux
All healing you and your allies would receive is now converted to damaging your enemies, you will no longer receive healing from your Vampiric Embrace. -Vampiric Feast - Your enemies also have decreased resource generation.

Blurred Shadows
Fade grants you 50% evasion for its duration but now has a 1 minute cooldown.

Shadow Magic
Spell lockout will only affect the interrupted spell.

Voidful Gaze
While Shadow Veil is up, any interrupt against you that successfully locks you out of shadow will also lock out the enemy, Melee get disarmed for duration of the lockout, Casters get their primary school locked for the duration of the lockout
Stare into the abyss and you will find the abyss staring back at you.

Fearful Regret
Doubles the cooldown recovery time of an enemy interrupt cast on you while Shadow Veil is active and halves the lockout duration
(Does not require the interrupt to be successful to double the cd time)

Containment
Voidform will start with 20 stacks, you can no longer gain voidform stacks.

Soothing Veil
Casting Shadow Veil will also apply Shadow Mend to the target.

Power in the Darkness
While at 100(65 LotV) insanity or 3 shadow orbs your Shadow Mend is instant cast and its damage over time is converted to healing.





Notes:

I have given spriests a gorefiends grip yes, because come BFA they have taken our aoe stun away and only 3 classes will have one, we really do need a good utility option to be a desired class in m+ and this could be a very strong option.
Same with things like giving a disarm, we need ways to stop melee training on us in pvp,



Voidform not doing great in m+? that's ok you now have the option to go cop or dp for m+ and not be instantly declined to any group
Cop not doing too great on the raid dmg meters? that's ok you have dp and voidform to switch to, its more pvp spec anyway
DP not really your thing? thats ok you can go cop or voidform instead.



Thoughts?

[Grumpy Old Man]

The concept of level 100 talents working as 'sub-specs' of shadow was tried during WoD. It was not very successful in balancing, but I personally felt the idea had merit and with some more refining it could work. Actually I thought that was the direction they would take shadow from that point on.

Sadly, with Legion they just threw away the whole concept and rebooted the spec, together with a new resource system and all. One could argue talents like Surrender to Madness are a 'sub-spec' *in a way*, but it's not as diverse as the WoD system was. With all its problems, the WoD level 100 talents led to completely different playstyles, different rotations, that's why I use the term 'sub-spec'.

Your ideas here are interesting and have merit, trying to create the same subspec feeling, but sadly it doesn't seems the direction the devs will take with spriests. I'd like a lot to see it but I think we simply won't get it back. Well maybe in a couple expansions from now, who knows, but not now.

Sorry for any grammar errors.

[Deleted]

Yes that's what i am trying to go for, bringing the wod style back because i actually had alot of fun with it, i am pretty sure the only reason they did not go deeper into this route they took in wod is pretty simple:

Much like how they deliberately destroyed demo warlocks because of the legion remake and sv hunters for legion remake they just completely ignored the positive stuff from spriest in wod (or anything spriest really if i am being salty and honest) because of this whole new voidform remake. They had no intention of perfecting the 3 route talents we had because they were giving us voidform in legion. Both the warlock and hunter ones are getting another remake in BFA because it was an unsuccessful remake, spriest i do not care what anyone says was not successful either and deserves a revamp. It might work in raids but it is extremely dull and frustrating even in raids and an abomination outside of raids.

We need to have suggestions and feedback to further the class, just accepting whatever blizz does has made spriest a joke for so many years now and nothing will ever change unless people bring suggestions to the table and make enough noise about it. It is even harder now when we have so many people that made spriests in legion who post feedback on spriests as being great because they only play it as a raid alt. We need voices.

[RsinRC]

10/10 would smash

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Much more interesting than what we got going on in bfa

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And within reason

[ceall]

You don't remember like 90% of the Shadow community hated CoP, do you?

I'd much rather have the legion style SP with Void torrent and shadow crash baseline and generally interesting, diverse talent choices.

[Deleted]

You don't remember like 90% of the Shadow community hated CoP, do you?

I'd much rather have the legion style SP with Void torrent and shadow crash baseline and generally interesting, diverse talent choices.

No i do not, i do not remember a single person saying they hated CoP, Perhaps you are confusing remembering people hating dot weaving, i remember that being a notoriously hated thing, i remember people stating they disliked that cop was the only viable option due to the same issues that your beloved legion voidform suffers from, but that is a completely different point and one that completely enforces this entire suggestion, please actually read the post next time.

Ironically enough, you're one of the very few people i see who actually likes this voidform garbage.

[ceall]

No i do not, i do not remember a single person saying they hated CoP, Perhaps you are confusing remembering people hating dot weaving, i remember that being a notoriously hated thing, i remember people stating they disliked that cop was the only viable option due to the same issues that your beloved legion voidform suffers from, but that is a completely different point and one that completely enforces this entire suggestion, please actually read the post next time.

Ironically enough, you're one of the very few people i see who actually likes this voidform garbage.

FYI, I like it more than WoD's iteration, but nothing comes close to cata 4.3 style, you know, when shadow orbs were still only a buff to MB/MS, DP was a real Dot, SWP being refreshed by mind flay and Dot snapshotting and especially dark archangel.

[Grumpy Old Man]

You don't remember like 90% of the Shadow community hated CoP, do you?

I for one liked it. What I didn't like was the bad balancing (one tier CoP-dotweave is the "right" choice, the other tier AE is the right one, and so on). With better tuning I believe we could reach the point of 3 completely different playstyles, each viable in some circumstance.

But I digress. What I wanted to say is, I don't believe one can say as much as 90% of all spriests "hated" it. Some hated? More than half? Maybe. But even so I believe if CoP/AE/the other one nobody used were better tuned, one could use whatever they pleased. And so what people really "hated" was feeling forced to play with this or that talent because it was the mathematically better one that tier. Having no choice is bad, everybody hates having no choice, and that's basically what we have now, even with a different class mechanic.

Back to WoD talents: they were never properly balanced, so stuff like dotweaving became a thing, and surely there were people that despised that hybrid style (mind you, I remember during WoD alpha/beta people warning Blizzard it would become a thing, and they just dismissed it saying it was a niche thing few people would use or something like that).

[Jervaise]

No i do not, i do not remember a single person saying they hated CoP, Perhaps you are confusing remembering people hating dot weaving, i remember that being a notoriously hated thing, i remember people stating they disliked that cop was the only viable option due to the same issues that your beloved legion voidform suffers from, but that is a completely different point and one that completely enforces this entire suggestion, please actually read the post next time.

Ironically enough, you're one of the very few people i see who actually likes this voidform garbage.

Many old shadow priests hated CoP.

The opinion was that shadow is a dot class and should stay so.

The Legion gameplay is basically CoP v2. No dot management or anything.

I don't mind giving people choices, so that's why I think your suggestions are fine.

Just make sure that there is also a competitive dot playstyle somewhere in those options.

[Kilee25]

I do not think "90% of all shadowpriests" is accurate, but rather "90% of all hardcore shadowpriests". Basically, the vocal (important) minority didn't like it, but due to their prominence within the community, they have the ability to shout the loudest and be heard. In any case, I think it’s fairly accurate that a large (but unknown how large) portion of the shadow community disliked CoP to the point that they...

1. Stopped playing the class for most of the latter half of the expansion, when AS didn't permeate into the last raid tier.
2. Spent large amounts of time trashing it on the forums whenever they could (and still do today, even though the “battle” is won, just out of fear it might come back if too many people say they liked it).
3. Actively withdrew support of it within the theorycrafting community out of some passive aggressive attempt to help it die.

The amount of apathy surrounding any topics on CoP during WoD frankly astounded me. I honestly think people talk more positively about it now that it’s gone than they did when we had it. I’ll never know for sure but I believe completely that this “disdain” for CoP somehow found its way all the way to Blizzard’s design desks, and contributed greatly towards the new design direction in Legion.

In any case, I agree with some others here that subspecs is a great idea for shadow due to its lack of other dps specs. I also think that WoD's implementation was a good solid attempt, and that it just simply needed refinement and maturation, rather than to destroy it all. The current version of shadow needs just as much work before it will feel great, and I would like to point out to the people who disliked CoP, “What would you think if Blizzard destroyed the current version of shadow because of the balancing issues it had in Legion?” I think what most people really want is for specs to have time to grow and evolve, rather than completely change to the point that it’s continuously a “work in progress.”

IMO, Bliz shouldn’t have given up on CoP or Void Entropy so quickly. But... neither should they give up on the current void version either. Instead just make it better. Address concerns. Listen to the people who actually play it and like it. And stop listening to just the 1% and making a game that's just for them... but honestly that's another topic entirely...

[Ophenia]

To people above : CoP was a great concept. It was disliked because of poor execution.
CoP DoTweaving was the fuel of nightmares. The fact that outside of this DoTweaving nonsense, you only have 2 spells was also a nightmare.

CoP could've worked with a bit more stuff inside than MindBlast/MindSpike spam.

OP, I like your ideas, but I'm a bit resigned right now. BfA will be Legion 2.0 for ShadowPriest, but I still maintain hope that when we'll have a proper Void expansion, we'll have a deserved well-working rework

[Thelxi]

I'm all for anything that gets rid of void form. Shadow orbs might have been boring, but I'll take them any day over insanity.

[RsinRC]

Every time someone brings up Cop it's always the same old tired song.

Cop was awesome for what it was. Paired with shadowy insight and surge of darkness it made the spec more enjoyable for me than any time I could remember.
In my guild and plenty of pug raids fellow Spriests used to whisper me asking me my rotation and I simply told them I would keep my dots up and use my procs up and could care less bout that damned dotweave bullshit that gave us such a weak increase in damage and didn't even feel right. People would pay attention to that so faithfully that they would miss opportunities in plain sight to keep the dotweave rotation going. And it's always the same discussion in every forum lol. It ain't my fault you chose to dotweave even if it was such a minor increase in damage. It wasn't fun and I chose not to bother with it. Did I suffer for not doing it? Not a single damn time. Was I scrutinized for not using it? Not a single damn time. Was I successful with it in raids and pvp? exceptionally so.

Cop was amazing. It was fun. Yea you can try and wall of text me trying to point out a flaw or what elite Spriests did or what websites had up or trinkets etc etc but in all of my experience it was my favorite iteration of shadow and my old videos reflect that.

OP's topic is literally showing massive implications with simple ideas. I think it's a great concept being since we have 1 dps spec. Will it be a balancing nightmare? Sure but it could have great potential to down the line separate the spec to it's own class. Wishful thinking.

[Spicymemer]

I enjoyed reading this post, and i understand your reasoning, especially when it comes to the concept that the class should be completely functional in the absence of any talents, something i have preached time and time again.

There are definitely some interesting ideas in this post and i do like the idea of multiple subspecs existing within the current talent tree and it definitely can exist, but not as dramatically as you've suggested here.

There are still common themes here of ramp up and utility focus which i am completely opposed to, it leaves shadow in a hybrid position which means they cant be considered on the same tier as other dps specs in non-niche situations.

[Darth-Piekus]

That was a fantastic wall of text my friend I must say. As a veteran shadowpriest I am in favor of these changes and we should push the developers to make them real.

[Deleted]

There is one simple fix to shadow priest, remove void form and make us viable without it as we always were ...

[Darth-Piekus]

Personally I believe the class needs a revamp and these suggestions are what we need. What do the rest think?

[Jedimindtrx]

I like where you are going OP. I agree on that front.

I was thinking 3 playstyles: DP, Dark ArchAngel, and a better VF.

As fun (relative term) as Legion's Voidform was, I was really hoping to not see it again in next expansion/BFA. When they did the new animation for Voidform, I was like ooo an Archon, but then realized by making that animation they've invested in VF.

SP needs a definite rework for VF to be successful. There should be no stacking haste or mass hysteria effect. It should just be straight up, here's a flat % more haste and flat % more damage, here's voidbolt to refresh dots, while insanity is draining. Or even take out the drain, if current alpha people are hitting 25-30 stacks, just make it a finite 30secs. Blizz wants this back and forth, at least make the out-of-VF/shadowform bearable rather than always feeling like a punishment. When your resource builders are DoTs, it's /pray until you are back in VF especially when getting locked down in PVP. Even when locked down in VF, here you go losing your drain. I suggest out of VF have a hard hitting move in addition to MB, such instant cast MSpike on a recharge, and DP which can only be used outside VF. Inside VF you have MB-VB-flay. OR maybe make Flay turn into Spike in VF? That way the form isn't punished so much around melee. Just a thought and now I'm going off on a tangent brainstorming. OR when in VF, have flay hit harder and have a thicker animation

I just miss feeling of hitting a DP on someone and saying BOOM! (When your Dot is your nuke). I actually miss Dotweaving, it's what made me a great Dot weaver from there on out.

Since SP is now following this void route, give us another voidy CD like Sphere of Insanity, the invisible talent from the Artifact. Make it do the same thing hitting all targets with SW:P, but hit like a truck similar to the Alpha Demonology Commander. I actually missed the pew pew noise, I know tons hated it, BUT more aesthetically the visuals were so satisfying. Having all the apparitions spawn while the sphere went off was awesome. A talent or glyph could be your sphere summon is a tentacle/3 tentacles instead.


TL;DR. Please rework Shadowpriest.

[Annesh]

Overall: Some good concepts, a few things I feel are pretty awkward, won't happen because Blizz doesn't have the ability or interest to do this much work for just our one little spec. In very general terms, three different playstyles in one spec won't equate to more flexible gameplay, it'll just feel more complicated to people. But it's fun to dream, so let's get into it.

3 different gameplay choices merged into 1 spec

Good, love CoP-style playstyle shakeups through talents.

Shadow orbs back baseline (excluding Voidform)

Cool, fine. I'm okay with generic builder/spender, but I'd much prefer if the "things" were something other than "Shadow Orbs." It's just weird, random, vague, and mages are the casters that deal with orbs of things. What if the "thing" we build and spend was actually Shadowy Apparitions, manifesting as wispy spirits that float around us, like the Shadowmourne effect?

Power word shield has been replaced with Void Shield (Not the pvp talent), it is still pw:s just shadow name and visual.

Noooo, nooooooooooo. An updated graphic for PWS would be nice, but the problem of having only one interrupt school for PvP purposes is already really bad. I'd be much more okay with this step backwards if there were a few steps forward, such as putting some of our spells on the "Shadowfrost" school, and then following through to actually put them on that different school. I'd also REALLY like it if Shadowmend went away and our direct heals were back to Holy. Not everything we do has to be shadowy, we're still Priests for christ sake.

Mind spike is back

Depending on implementation, I'm VERY okay with this, but oddly enough, you don't expand at all on how it'd work.

Mind sear will also be back in the form of upgraded mind flay, (Similar to how insanity worked in WoD, you cast your big damage button to get 5 seconds of Insanity, which turns mind flay into mind sear)

Ewwwwwww no no no n ono no. Your version of Mind Sear/Insanity is possibly my least favorite element of your revamp. Design where "empowering" a ST spell makes it AoE is super awkward. Reason why: in pure ST encounters, empowering it is useless, and in AoE encounters, you want it to be empowered all the time, instead of just some of the time.

Shadow word Death is baseline 35%, generates 1 orb if target dies within 2 seconds for CoP and DP, insanity for Void.

Sure! I like the "dies within 2 seconds" bit. It's bugged me for quite a while that other classes keep getting mechanics like that for their executes, which is much more reasonable and functional in grp play, but SWD has remained in the stone ages. Just another example of us always being the redheaded stepchild.

Your first 3 talent choices will dictate how you play your spec, this allows us to have 3 different styles of gameplay in 1 single dps spec using the same toolkit.
Depending on the steroid you take your abilities will function differently sometimes however for the most part they are the same spell, just used differently in the rotation.

Okay, sure.

Clarity of Power- A Shadow mage who has less focus on dots and more focus on instant casts or casted nukes, big single target hitter

Cool cool

Devouring Plague - The dot focused shadow priest who works similar in a way to affliction warlocks, if you want dots this is your pick

Alright

Voidform - The current thing we have now

Sold. It's like a high school reunion for all the different styles of Shadow we've had over the years. Each of them have had fans, so (in theory) everyone will be supportive.

Just gonna say that in reality it would be a balancing nightmare - no matter what you do, something's going to be wrong with something. And somebody is going to be unsatisfied - very possibly everyone. One thing you'd need to do is to very carefully define the strengths and weaknesses of each playstyle, and don't let them step on each others' shoes. To the tune of: "CoP - ST, burst AoE; DP - prolonged multidotting; Voidform - ??"

The main complaint I see people having EVEN IF Blizz scooped this up and made it happen with all the associated tuning, balancing, and tweaking, would be that they feel expected to learn three different specs in order to play their spec. Different playstyle talents will be better for different situations, so you'd HAVE to know how to play all three to be good at the game. It's romantic to imagine having these options, but in reality and in the long run, you're not going to have people just playing what they want and being happy, they're going to want to play what's good for the content they're doing, and that will mean switching, and that will mean having to know each playstyle. This doesn't intimidate me personally - hell, I love the idea of having that much diversity - but I'm in a small minority, and game systems should not be designed to alienate the majority this much just to appease the minority.

New passive: Insanity, While under the effects of insanity your mind flay becomes mind sear.

Yeah already crapped on this

if no valid targets within 5 yards your target takes the full damage instead

Okay that's something I missed on my first readthrough. The concept helps, but it doesn't make a whole lot of numerical sense. Say Mind Sear deals 500 damage a tick to all targets in 5 yards. But if there's only one target, it takes the full damage of... what, exactly? Its damage times 5? That's OP. Its damage times 2? More reasonable, but maybe underwhelming - if you're ALWAYS under insanity in Voidform, then it's still pretty OP, especially for AoE. Just further refine what you mean here. Or hell, just cut this aspect of it, it seems super hard to balance. Maybe just take the idea back to the drawing board, determine more carefully what you're going for, specifically. If feels like you just enjoyed the Insanity talent from WoD and you want it back. But it wasn't AoE. That's the part that busts the idea.

Clarity of Power
Your Mind Spike, Mind Flay, Mind Sear, Blackout and Shadow Word: Death deal 40% additional damage to targets not affected by your Shadow Word: Pain or Vampiric Touch. Also reduces the cooldown on Mind Blast by 3 sec and makes it instant cast and slows your target hit by 30% for 2 seconds. Mind Blast Generates 1 Orb.
Mind Spike will consume your dots on the target.

Selecting this talent gives you the ability Blackout.

Blackout, 3 Shadow orbs
Consumes all orbs dealing heavy damage and stunning your target for 3 seconds. Targets permanently immune to stuns take 100% increased damage.
Grants the Insanity buff for 5 Seconds after casting Blackout

Sounds okay. Giving exact numbers seems strange for concept presentation, just tell us generally how hard things should hit in your vision

Devouring Plague
Your vampiric touch and shadow word pain do 50% more damage and full duration mind flays generate 1 shadow orb
Your mindblast will spread your vampiric touch and shadow word pain to all targets within 8 yards for 50% of their max duration and refresh your mindblast target to full duration. Mindblast damage reduced by 70% and does not generate shadow orbs.
Your mind spike will cause the targets damage over time effects to do their damage 10% faster.

Selecting this talent gives you Devouring Plague

Devouring plague, x dmg over y sec, consumes all shadow orbs, stacks up to 5 times, 1 stack per orb spent.
Grants 5 seconds of insanity after casting Devouring Plague.

Seems okay in theory. So you're just not using Mind Blast at all in this case, except to spread your dots? Not bad in theory, but a little weird. You've also got some conflict there with what the intended filler is, Mind Flay (which generates orbs when fully channeled) or Mind Spike (which buffs dots). You also failed to mention how long certain things will last, which is kind of important - DP and the dot haste effect of Mind Spike.

Voidform Works exactly like legion, Mass hysteria and all will be passives added to the talent to make it function as now.
While in voidform you will always have Insanity buff, therefore your mind flay will always be mind sear.
Voidform ofcourse does not use shadow orbs and uses insanity resource, Mindblast, Mindspike, Mind flay and shadow word death generate insanity.

Selecting this talent give you Void Eruption and Void Torrent

Void Eruption, Releases an explosive blast of pure void energy, activating Voidform and causing (x% of Spell power) Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yards of your target. During Voidform, this ability is replaced by Void Bolt.
Requires 100 Insanity to activate. (Legacy of the void is still in the tree so don't panic)

Void Torrent 1 minute cd
Non interruptible and can move while channeling, deals shadow damage over 4 seconds, insanity does not drain while channeling.

So right off the bat it's not symmetrical because Void gives two abilities and not just one. This is a big deal because implementation would be WAY easier if all three give just one ability, so that ability can be linked to a single button that changes based on spec.

Yeah, it just feels pretty off because the Void talent is a much bigger shift than the other two, morphing so many different pieces in order to create "Basically what we have in Legion." You've also got the same filler confusion you have with DP - which to use, Spike or Flay? If there are buttons on your bars that you're just not using, then it's clunky.

Momentum of madness
Casting void shield allows 1 spell to be cast while moving, casting spells while remaining stationary for full duration will not consume this buff. Buff will cap at 2 stacks.

I like this A LOT. Good lord, I just wanna yank it out of the post and stick it the game.

Voidful Gaze
While void shield is up, any interrupt against you that successfully locks you out of shadow will also lock out the enemy, Melee get disarmed for duration of the lockout, Casters get their primary school locked for the duration of the lockout

This is weird and unprecedented. I like the melee get disarmed thing, but it might be a bit OP.

Fearful Regret
Doubles the cooldown recovery time of an enemy interrupt cast on you while void shield is active and halves the lockout duration
(Does not require the interrupt to be successful to double the cd time)

Too much like the previous talent. This isn't a "punish melee for interrupting us" talent tier, it's a PWS talent tier. Surely you can think of something more specifically PWS-oriented.

Unchecked insanity - Your movement speed is increased by 30% when you have not taken damage for 3 seconds.

Stealing hunter talents? I don't think we need this.

Void empowerement - Void shield increases your movement speed by 40% for 6 seconds

Why not just keep it called Body and Soul?

Void Tendrils - Summon a void tendril on the ground which will pull you to its location. 3 Charges 30 second recharge.

Nice, like it a lot.

Thrive in the shadows - Dispersion heals during duration, damage reduction increased to 90%

Very good.

Spectral Guise - Your shadow blurs into the darkness, leaving your true form behind. As a shadow you are stealthed, but remain in combat. Lasts 6 sec or until your true form is hit by 3 direct attacks.

yes pls

Dark Embrace - Void shield heals you for 33% of damage you do for 5 seconds after casting void shield

Seems possibly a bit underwhelming compared to the other options on this row? Not too bad though, overall interesting choices.

Vampiric Feast- VE gives increased resource generation to all allies (Focus, fury, energy, mana, maelstrom, insanity etc) during its duration

Really interesting idea! I had not thought of this solution to give Shadow better group utility. Very nice.

Cleansing Void- Mass dispel no cd and heavy mana cost reduction

Totally, makes sense to buff MD by a lot so that it competes with the other two monstrously useful talents in this row. Blizz will never go for it because they've been hardcore yanking defensive dispels from DPS specs for a long time.

Void Rift - Tear a rift in the void at a targets location pulling all enemies within 20 yards of the targets location to the target. 2 minute cd

Niiiice.

Shadow crash Aoe targeted dmg 20 second cooldown

Cop - Your next Mind Blast will hit all targets struck by shadow crash. Awards 1 orb per target.
Dp - If more than 3 targets are hit applies 5 stacks of DP to each target hit
Void - Leap to target area dealing splash damage, 2 charges generates 20 insanity each target hit

Cascade - Bounces and splits after each attack, can bounce to same target

Cop - snares all targets hit, if blackout buff is active this changes to mini stun, slow and silenced for 2 seconds
DP - applies DP to all targets hit, if target is hit twice applies VT, and third is swp
Void - Insanity per target hit, double the insanity gain while in voidform


Halo - Sends a ring of shadow pulsing out from you up to 25 yards then returns back to you.

Cop -First ring pushes targets away, return slows
Dp - First ring applies dp to all targets, return causes ticks to tick faster
Void - Insanity does not decay during duration, return ring refreshes dots

---

Tier 7 - DPS talents, Surrender to madness, Legacy of the Void, Mindbender

Surrender to madness 2 min cd

Cop - for 15 seconds blackout costs 1 orb but will act as if 3 spent, generates 1 orb every 3 seconds
DP - for 15 seconds dp stack limit increases to 10, generate 1 orb every 3 seconds, at the end of the 15 seconds your overcapped DPs will expire naturally and decrease 1 stack at a time back down to the 5 limit
Void - You instantly erupt into voidform regardless of your insanity level, starting with 100 insanity and gcd lowered by 0.5 seconds for 15 seconds.

Legacy of the void Passive

Cop - Mindblast increases your haste by 5% stacks 5 times
DP - Mindflay will cast on all targets within 5 yards of the target, each generating a shadow orb for full duration mind flay cast up to a maximum of 3 for 1 mind flay.
(very strong if you consider mindflay turns into mindsear)
Void - Voidform can be cast at 65 insanity, increases shadow damage by 20% when entering voidform, losing 1% per second, void bolt and mind blast will add 1% each cast (This is just a mini bandaid ramp up fixer, you won't have a 1% increasing buff to maintain during voidform as it will have run out before you can actually build it)
5% shadow damage increased permanently

Mindbender 1 min cd
Replaces Shadowfiend
Calls forth a mindbender to attack your target with mind flays, generating mana or insanity.
Haste increased by 40% for 10 seconds then decreases by 2% every 2 seconds

Ooookay now we start getting really complicated. This is where people are going to whine up a storm that they have to know 3 different specs just to play their spec. There are too many variables, too many things different. Various specific pieces within this minefield are neat, but it's hard to keep track of it all. Remember, playing CoP spriest vs DP spriest is even less of a change from Affliction to Destro, and yet they might even play more different! It's crazy.

Ultimately i would like for all classes to have a similar steroid talent system

Dude Blizz doesn't have the man hours to design and balance 31 specs properly, you really think they'd be able to handle 93? Cmon.

I'm all for talents that drastically change the playstyle, CoP-style, but there's a limit to what's realistic and meaningful. What's the ultimate point of all the moving parts of your redesign? To allow Shadow to specialize in burst and AoE, right? Do you really think we need this convoluted mess to do that? I think the same thing can be accomplished with 1-2 talents that switch things up in small, subtle ways, so that the spec plays generally/more-or-less the same between raid bosses and dungeon trash, it's just better at one or the other.

Anyway, I appreciate all the work and time and thought you've put into it, and there are pieces in here that I really like. I'm also okay with the general idea of providing talented options for Shadow to be good at things it has classically not been good at. But I think this thing is too big, too complex, and too involved, much more than it needs to be to accomplish its goals. Ideas are only a small part of the game design process; implementation is much harder.

Hit me up with what you think!

[Ophenia]

I suggest out of VF have a hard hitting move in addition to MB, such instant cast MSpike on a recharge, and DP which can only be used outside VF. Inside VF you have MB-VB-flay. OR maybe make Flay turn into Spike in VF? That way the form isn't punished so much around melee. Just a thought and now I'm going off on a tangent brainstorming. OR when in VF, have flay hit harder and have a thicker animation

Well, it was kinda the obvious solution that Voidform should change all our spells to Void versions. Even Mind Blast should be transformed into Void-whatever, with the same basic mechanics but some improvements (like how some spells are enhanced during Metamorphosis - that's nothing crazy but it matches the concept).