Change in Shadow Priest rotation

Classes Priest
1

Hello.

I have a suggestion to make about Shadowpriests.
As someone that has been playing WoW since tbc, I’ve noticed that S-priest have a reoccuring problem; mind flay.

It’s generally just a filler spell that get little to now attention, but using the full timer gives more ticks, vs doing mind blast. As someone that love healing as a mistweaver monk I’ve been waiting for a day when a casterclass could optimize a channel based rotation.

Then I figured: Why not make mind blast free (while channeling mind flay / mind sear) and together with void bolt being able to cast them while channeling mind flay and mind sear; both making it easier to fully utilizing mind flay and mind sear, and making the rotation more facinating.

My suggestion to mind blast / void bolt rotation when doing mind sear, is to make the dmg splitt among all the targets affected by the mind sear pulses. Although void bolts increase the dots on all targets by 3 seconds, I suggest that it would also spread the dots to all target for 3-4 seconds. This could make become over powered depending on shadow priests overall dmg in the future, so concideration of how to balance this has to be taken into account. But overall, making mind blast and void bolt being castable while channeling mind flay / sear would be very interesting and fun.

Yours sincere, Zetan - The Maelstrom

2

I’ve thought about this a lot… And I mean a LOT. Shadow is the only spec with a channeled filler spell at its core (Drain life doesn’t count). It’s a been a candidate for this kind of design for a while, and it’s something I’d really like to find a way to make work… It’s just really not easy :confused:

The first problem is spell identity. Once you remove the cast time from Mind Blast, what makes it feel different to Void Bolt in this model?

The second is finding space in the rotation. Right now the cooldown of Void Bolt is 3 globals, the channel time of mind flay is 2 globals, and the cooldown of Mind Blast is 5 globals (6 with SWV). If you were to even contemplate this design, mind flay would have to have a significantly longer channel time.

The third problem is feel. Despite it initially being cool to cast spells whilst channeling, like a mistweaver, what does this actually ‘do’ to the current rotation?

When you boil it down to its core (Bolt on cd, Blast on cd, keep dots up, flay as filler) the answer is pretty much nothing. You just end up extending mind flay’s channel time, reducing its damage to compensate, and removing the cast time from mind blast.

Problem four, convenience. If I want to mind flay one target, but mind blast another, can I do that? In the mistweaver model all your heals had to go into the target of soothing mists, which meant you could channel massive heals into one person very efficiently, but as a dps who is frequently target swapping? Reapplying mind flay on different targets repeatedly just sounds awful and gets in the way of casting important spells which already have short cooldowns.

Problem five, balance. The easier it is to apply dots to other targets, the less damage those dots can do, the less relevance those dots can have on single target, the more shadow’s damage is pushed towards direct damage spells and anchored to hardcasting.

I think my bottom line as a response is would this really be the case? You’re doing exactly what you’re already doing, to the same result, just instead of mind blast having a cast bar (And its own identity) it’s a second copy of void bolt while you channel flay.

EDIT: I don’t mean to just shoot this down completely. I really like the concept of a caster dps mistweaver-esque spec. I’m just not sure it can be done convincingly with the current mechanical toolkit shadow has. If you disagree, then feel free to respond with more detail / ask for clarification on anything I’ve said. I’d love to get a dialogue going. :smiley:

3

Since void bolt is a spell only being used in voidform, why not keep it as a high damage single target spell with current increase of dot up keep? I mean just because you can use both doesn’t mean that one or the other is obsolete.

Mistweavers can both use vivify and enveloping mists while channeling, and neither of the spells disrupts the purpose of the other. For a rotation spell cooldown, Mind blast still has a rather high cool down depending on haste of course, yet gives plenty of dmg to favour it over mind flay lets say.

Thereby, while channeling mind flay / mind sear, it could have a complettary purpose if not for the sake of having a powerful spell to use at certain intervalls while channeling. This could be that mind blast increase the targets damage taken by a certain percent (Lets say 30% just as a random example) for 4 seconds.

This combined with the dots left on the target together with using void bolts on cd gives the person small intervalls of potential pulsating burst damage; as the mind blast cast increase the dmg of void bolt. Void bolt, for this purpose, should be approximatly of what it is today… A great burst spell that one could only be using while in void form.

For mind flay / sear duration, increasing or decreasing channeling time is up to how you want / could balance the spec. If you reduce it’s damage for the purpose to be able to cast void bolt / mind blast instantly, that could be the factor that balance the rotation. Afterall if we compare to mistweavers, soothing mist doesn’t heal a lot but it enables the person to direct heal efficiently to the target.

For one to two target swapping, I don’t know. As both mind blast and mind flay are single target spells, why would one use mind blast on a target and use mind flay on another? If it’s for the slow effect caused by mind flay, it could be seperated into another spell (no spell dmg) that has a global / no global cooldown so that you can slow one target, while damaging the other. Afterall, mind flay / mind blast combo is utilizing singletarget damage while mind sear / mind blast (like stated in post) utilizes aoe damage, spliting the total mind blast damage among all the targets affected by mind sear. Also, which other short cooldowns are you talking about?

Dots would be unnaffected by the channeling, so you have to break channeling when you reaply dots anyway. Thereby applying dots would be the same hassle as it is today. The only difference this suggestion proposes is that you can use mind blast and void bolt channelling mind flay / sear :slight_smile:

But I understand your sentiment. For this to work, certain tweeks to shadow mechanics have to be changed; and I’m not sure exactly what the best proposal to such a rotation would be. I just mainly feel that mind flay is way underworked at the moment, and that it could be utilized together with other spells so that mind flay could have a more importaint role. Although mind flay is just a filler, it could add more depth to rotation instead of just zapping in for 2-3 seconds while waiting on mind blast / void bolt cooldown.

4

You spend about 75-80% of your time in Voidform currently in raids. The distinction of “This can be used in VF and this can’t” isn’t really much of one. With this they’d both be instant cast damage spells that generate insanity on very similar cooldowns.

Exactly. The channel would need to be much much longer than it is currently.

Newly spawned priority target, some light damage split to make sure something dies in time without overdoing it, current mob has very low HP but I was already channeling on it and I wanna hit something else, adding dot duration to a far away target with void bolt. There’s lots of reasons the freedom to attack whatever’s in range of you is important.

You said Void Bolt should apply dots to nearby targets.

I think it’s a lot more than tweaks at this point, honestly. The way Voidform works, and how the rotation currently fits together doesn’t mesh well design wise with the “cast while channeling” idea.

EDIT: One idea I’ve been tinkering with for a “cast while channeling” spec is something similar to the combo system in fighting games. You have several abilities, say 3-4, and a channeled filler. The filler essentially “starts” the combo queue, and then depending what you press and in what order throughout the channel, augments the last ability used during the channel.

This is obviously a very complex mechanical idea, and something that would have to be the core mechanic of whatever spec, if it were ever implemented. But I do think it’s a unique and flavourful way to introduce “Cast while channeling” to a ranged spec.

5

The idea is interesting, but I would rather see move while channeling

6

In PvP perspective, I like the idea. We are class, that our CC slow cost us everything else. Other classes have more uptime of slow, also have it for free.

7

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