Inner Fire: Cataclysm Talents - Part 1: Shadow
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Hello everyone, and welcome to the 6th instalment of Inner Fire; your WoW Priest blog here on cc.com! After covering the 3 current specs and PvP aspects of a Priest, there are still some things – important things that we’ve yet to cover.
Cataclysm is now tantalizingly close (considering the release date stays true to it’s name – you can check that out here (http://www.crusaderscoliseum.com/news/cataclysm-news/2963-cataclysm-latest-release-date)) and since the anticipation is high, everything has to be just perfect. Talents are one of the games most intricate and important mechanics and have to be almost perfectly balanced throughout different classes, whilst remaining unique and specialized within the classes. I’m guessing most of you have already looked over the upcoming Priest talents, and my job right here is to analyse them! To give you an overview of the new doodads, what they do, and how awesome they are. And this being the Cataclysm Talent analysis of the Shadow Priest, I think most of the talents will be supermegaultracrazyawesomeroflpwnlol.
Alright, beginning with the Menu screen of the Shadow talents, we seem to gain 3 unique abilities to Shadow, from choosing this path of destruction. However at a closer look, you won’t receive one of the bonuses until level 80. Not biggie for a current level 80, but for a newly budding Shadow Priest, kinda sucks. But hey…
MIND FLAY AT LEVEL 10!
Although this spell is originally learnt at level 20 (through talents), having this an extra 10 levels earlier will make a surprising difference. Having access to your main filter spell at such an early time is great from whichever way you look at it.
Shadow Power – Spell damage increased by 25%. Increases the critical strike damage of your Shadow spells by 100%. – Being such an awesome talent currently, having access to the 100% extra crit damage so early on will be the tool a Priest needs to be able to level quickly and efficiently. Not to mention the flat 25% Spell damage increase won’t be helping you. Cause it will. A lot.
Shadow Orbs - You have a 10% chance for your Shadow Word: Pain and Mind Flay spells to grant you a Shadow Orb each time they deal damage. The Shadow Orb increases the damage done by your Mind Blast and Mind Spike spells by 20%. Each point of Mastery increases damage by an additional 2.5%. You can have up to a maximum of 3 orbs. You may learn Mastery from your trainer at Level 80. – Pretty much making you feel more like a ‘Shadow’ Priest, this talent grants extra damage, and from which we’ll discuss later on, provides excellent utility for certain situations.
The summary talents seem pretty solid, and I for one would be perfectly happy if these talents made it unchanged into the live game. But let’s delve deeper and see what lovely abilities lie at your fingertips after clicking that wondrous button of joy, that button, is Shadow.
The numbers in brackets after the talents name represent the amount of points that can be spent in that talent.
Tier 1
Darkness (3) – Spell Haste increased by 1/2/3%. – An interesting talent, seeming as one of the prime concerns for the implementation of the 31-point talents, was to remove the flat increase, more ‘boring’ talents from the game. This seems like a flat increase to me, but who can complain about extra haste! Who can?
Improved Shadow Word: Pain (2) - Increases the damage of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 3/6%. – A mandatory talent for raiding, since you’ll be using this spell in your rotation. Also a good talent for levelling as you won’t have access to many DoT’s in the earlier levels.
Veiled Shadows (2) - Decreases the cooldown of your Fade ability by 3/6 sec, and reduces the cooldown of your Shadowfiend ability by 30/60 sec. – Another great talent for raiding, the more you can use your Shadowfiend, the better. And reduced cooldown on Fade possesses a lot of utility, and in my opinion, Fade is one of the most under-rated spells around.
Tier 2
Improved Psychic Scream (2) - Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream spell by 2/4 sec. – Mostly a PvP talent, and the ancestor talent of Silence, this talent increase the use of the Shadow Priest main CC, ‘annoying’ ability, and when used correctly within situations, this could be the start of sending someone to their grave.
Improved Mind Blast (3) - Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 0.5/1/1.5 sec., and while in Shadowform your Mind Blast also has a 33/66/100% chance to reduce all healing done to the target by 25% for 10 sec. – One of the first things I notice about this talent is that the cooldown reduction has been reduced by 1 second. The current talent will bring the Mind Blast cooldown to 5.5 seconds, but this will only take it to 6.5 seconds. Unless Blizzard plan on reducing the base cooldown of Mind Blast, or adding another DoT for Shadow Priest to throw into their rotation, I’m not too happy about this. At least the Healing reduction effect is still there.
Improved Devouring Plague (2) - Your Devouring Plague instantly deals damage equal to 15/30% of its total periodic effect. – Unchanged from the current talent, just been moved up a few tiers. Having early access to this talent will increase the levelling utility of your Devouring Plague spell, and since it has no cooldown, you can effectively spam DP whilst moving to deal out some adequate damage.
Twisted Faith (2) - Increases your shadow spell damage by 1/2%, and grants you spell hit rating equal to 50/100% of any Spirit gained from items or effects. – This seems redesigned from the current Twisted Faith talent, and in a very good way indeed. Shadow Priests usually have a fair amount of Spirit, although it is not a Primary stat for Spriests, this talent should be able to cap your Hit Rating just like that. This is assuming the gear stats stay similar to the current ones, and just scale up. And 2% extra damage is always nice.
Tier 3
Shadowform (1) - Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15%, reducing all damage done to you by 15%, and increasing all party and raid members spell haste by 5%. However, you may not cast Holy spells while in this form. – Seems to be slightly different than the current Shadowform, with a base Haste increase at the cost of VT and DP having the ability to crit, this is an interesting talent. Although I think the old Shadowform is better, this is certainly a nice buff, and will now give raids a reason to want a Shadow Priest.
Phantasm (2) - Your Fade ability now has a 50/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects. – PvP based, this talent combined with Veiled Shadows will give Shadow Priests the ability to be very hard to snare/root within the battlegrounds.
Harnessed Shadows (2) - Increases the chance for you to gain a Shadow Orb when dealing damage with your Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Pain by 4/8% and you have a 50/100% chance to gain a Shadow Orb when critically hit by any attack. – A good talent all round, whether you’re in PvP or raiding, this talent has it’s obvious benefits. It seems Shadow Priests will be very powerful while moving, so PvP will be interesting.
Tier 4
Silence (1) - Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 sec. Non-player victim spellcasting is also interrupted for 3 sec. – Good old Silence, giving Spriests the ability to nuke other casters down before they can do a thing about it. Good to see it staying.
Vampiric Embrace (1) - Fills you with the embrace of Shadow energy, causing you to be healed for 15% and other party members to be healed for 3% of any single-target Shadow spell damage you deal for 30 min. – A great spell to increase the utility of a Shadow Priest, with this at full pelt, Shadow Priests can sometimes do 10-20% of the healing on a boss fight. That really helps. Within PvP, it could be the difference between life and death, this talent really goes about “a good defence is a good offense” mindset.
Masochism (2) - When you take a damaging attack equal to or greater than 10% of your total health or damage yourself with your Shadow Word: Death, you instantly gain 4/8% of your total mana. – A very nice talent for obvious reasons, universally. It has it’s uses in PvP, giving you the opportunity to have almost constant mana (combined with your other abilities) and a great way for a little boost in mana while raiding.
Mind Melt (2) - Increases the damage done with your Shadow Word: Death by 15/30% on targets at or below 25% health, and when you deal damage with Mind Spike, the cast time of your next Mind Blast is reduced by 25/50% lasting 6 sec. Mind Melt can stack up to 2 times. – Aha, this is why the Mind Blast cooldown is being increased. I’m sure there will be a way that Mind Spike is thrown into your PvE rotation, and this will grant you access to your Mind Blast spell much more often. It will be interesting to see whether this has an internal cooldown or not.
Tier 5
Pain and Suffering (2) - Your Mind Flay has a 30/60% chance to refresh the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain on the target, and reduces the damage you take from your own Shadow Word: Death by 10/20%. – Increasing your survivability from casting SW: D, and although the refresh chance on your SW: P has been reduced from the current 100% to 60, I’m sure SW: P will still remain on the target 100% of the time. If only we could cast Mind Flay while moving…
Vampiric Touch (1) - Causes 540 Shadow damage over 15 sec to your target and causes up to 10 party or raid members to gain 1% of their maximum mana per 5 sec when you deal damage from Mind Blast. – Seemingly unchanged, granting a Replenishment effect when used in conjunction with Mind Blast, and being our Main DoT damaging spell, I wouldn’t want to see this going anywhere anytime soon. If only it would be moved up a few tiers for earlier accessibility.
Paralysis (2) - When you critically hit with your Mind Blast, you cause the target to be unable to move for 2/4 sec. – Another PvP oriented talent, giving Spriests a root effect! Something the Priest class lacks, this will be a great boon to your battleground buddies.
Tier 6
Psychic Horror (1) - You terrify the target, causing them to tremble in horror for 3 sec and drop their main hand and ranged weapons for 10 sec. – Seemingly unchanged from the current talent, this spell combined with Psychic Scream, Silence and a Paralysis proc could allow a Shadow Priest to totally obliterate almost anything before even getting hit. Woo!
Sin and Punishment (2) - When your Vampiric Touch is dispelled, the dispeller and all nearby enemy targets within 10 yards have a 50/100% chance to be instantly feared in horror for 3 sec. When your Mind Flay critically hits, the cooldown of your Shadowfiend is reduced by 10/20 sec. – A very, very nice talent indeed. Starting with the on-fear effect from the dispelling of VT, this will prove to be very effective in PvP. Applying VT to all nearby enemies gives them the choice of being repeatedly mass-feared, or to just sit and take the damage. And we all know VT does a hell of a lot of damage. The CD reduction on Shadowfiend after a Mind Flay crit is awesome as well, and depending on your crit chance (And luck) you could see your Shadowfiend being out in the open way more than usual.
Shadowy Apparition (3) - When you deal periodic damage with your Shadow Word: Pain, you have a 4/8/12% chance to summon a shadow version of yourself which will slowly move towards a target which is afflicted by your Shadow Word: Pain. Once reaching the target, it will instantly deal X shadow damage. While moving, the chance to summon the shadowy apparition is increased to 20/40/60%. - I LOVE this. Not only Is a shadowy impending death version of yourself awesome, this talent has ridiculous amounts of utility. Shadow Priests will seem to be extremely good while constantly moving about, and while raiding, this could add a substantial amount of DPS.
Tier 7
As we reach the end of this new and improved Shadow tree, we face the monster talent, the beast of Shadow Priests…
Dispersion (1) - You disperse into pure Shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 90%. You are unable to attack or cast spells, but you regenerate 6% mana every 1 sec for 6 sec. Dispersion can be cast while stunned, feared or silenced and clears all snare and movement impairing effects when cast, and makes you immune to them while dispersed. – Yay, completely unchanged. A very mixed opinion on this talent, most people would prefer to have a DoT in place of Dispersion. However, it’s a great survivability/.regenerating talent, although depending on the mana management of Shadow Priest (especially with all the new talents); this has the potential to be redesigned into something completely new.
So, we’ve reached the end of this week’s Inner Fire. Next week we’ll dive into the Discipline or Holy lands of Cataclysm! From what I can see here, Shadow Priests will be a great class to play come Cataclysm, and I for one, can’t wait to try out all the new talents, in PvE, PvP and levelling.
Until next week… peace out.
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Last Updated on Friday, 17 September 2010 13:21 Written by Thaesha Friday, 17 September 2010 13:17