So I’ve been watching the new Demon Hunter spec in Midnight and… wow. They can literally cast while moving – jumping, dashing, spinning in the air – and still pump full DPS.
Meanwhile, I’m over here as a Shadow Priest, rooted to the ground, channeling, praying no mechanic forces me to move. One dodge, one swirl, and my entire DPS drops through the floor.
How is this fair balance between casters and mobile specs?
• Do you think Blizzard is overdoing the “mobile caster” concept with specs like DH (and even Evoker to some extent)?
• Should traditional casters like SP at least get some mobility options so we’re not punished so hard for mechanics?
• If you play SP (or another hard-caster), how do you feel watching a DH zoom around the arena, casting mid-air, while you’re waiting for Void Bolt to go off?
Curious to hear honest takes – especially from other caster mains, not just DH fans.
What’s even worse is the fact that they’re removing PHorror from SPriest… effectively removing any tools or glimmer of hope of dealing with melees sitting you with endless mobility vs your nonexistent one, and effectively removing the stun/fear combo, which means any healer can see you coming and easily avoid getting feared by you
Void tendrils, if the talent is picked, is being baked into Physic scream. So it will fear and when fear ends the enemy will be rooted
And honestly from what they’ve removed/replaced/redesigned so far, to my understanding it seems like they’re gonna go back to DOT’s being more impactful, so movement won’t be as punishing
I didn’t know about the Void Tendrils being baked into Psychic Scream, that actually makes more sense now. Also appreciate your point about DoTs becoming more impactful again – if that’s really the direction Blizzard is going, it gives me a bit of hope.
Really grateful for you taking the time to explain this, it helped clear up a lot of confusion for me.
Silence is becoming baseline with 30 sec CD. And they didn’t mention anything about Last Word, so potentially 15 sec CD talented. Doesn’t help a lot vs melee, but for casters, healers and pve, it’s certainly a good change
Physic Scream CD is reduced by 5 sec, so now 40 sec baseline, and they didn’t mention anything about Physic Voice, so potentially 25 sec CD. Making base Physic Scream slightly better, and talented much better than Physic Horror. Of course it’s still not a stun, but it’ll be easier to deal with melee’s. And together with the Silence change it’s still gonna work well for kill setups
And we still don’t know about Voidweaver as it’ll need a complete rework with the removal for Void Torrent. So there’s a lot still to be seen
I hope the changes turn out to be positive in the end, because I honestly enjoy Shadow Priest a lot. I’m still a newer player – I tried other classes, but this one really feels closest to my heart. Sadly though, I do feel that in some ways SP is a bit overlooked compared to other classes.
Still, I really appreciate your explanations, they gave me a clearer picture and also some hope.
Sadly that is the truth, we’ve been directionless since BFA, and I think since Legion we’ve gone through at least 3 devs that never really understood the spec and never listened to feedback. Leading us to be brokenly OP or dead on arrival.
But the dev notes with the changes gives me hope that we finally got a direction Developers’ notes: The following changes are focused on simplifying some of the cooldown launch sequence as well as the frequent number of high priority procs in the rotation for Shadow. We are also updating the fantasy and visuals of their core spells to create a consistent theme of using the power of the Old Gods to haunt your enemies.
And with those dev notes, one can start dreaming about having a permanent Faceless pet following us around everywhere
Their main bursty spells can’t be cast while moving, their reap and consume (mid dmg skill+spam skill) can be. Void beam is stationary as always, and collapsing star is also stationary further more IF you move or cancel it you lose ALL the resource that you put into it even if you stop casting it, it’s far more punishing than say cancelling a chaos bolt, or void bolt.
Chances are they will be able to do -some- dmg while moving but will need to stop for their main bursty skills, at least the full on caster version of the spec. hybrid has some melee burst skills, but in return it makes it so your collapsing star doesn’t hit as hard.
While this is true, it’s not so much about what portion of their total dps can be done whilst moving but what portion of their total casting uptime is doable whilst moving. You cast 2 collapsing stars per meta, and beam is every idk… 30? seconds
The whole rest of the time you’re running rings around the boss.
Aye though perspective i eas trying to picture is thst main burst skills are stationary, as far as moving while bursting it will be worse that evoker still. Not in raw numbers maybe that we will see but when it comes to being able to make burst on the run.
Going by pvp talents blizz seem to be going with the warlock route as in making them sturdy.
I hope you’re right, otherwise it feels a bit unfair compared to other casters. I saw some Alpha footage where they could cast while moving, and honestly that looked a bit overtune
How is this fair balance between casters and mobile specs?
