Quick Thoughts – MoP Beta Patch 15657

Shadow Priests rejoice! This latest beta build has definitely included changes for Shadow Priests that are for the better in almost every way. Expect a math-heavy post about these changes later this week as they have a lot more significance than might appear on the surface. My initial thought is that Haste will still be king for us (more DoT ticks = more double damage), but Mastery will increase the rate at which we get double damage procs… Here’s a quick breakdown for the time being, though:

  • Shadow’s Mastery has changed to Mastery: Shadowy Recall. Whenever a DoT does damage, there is a % chance that it will deal damage twice. The spells that this will affect should include Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, Devouring Plague (more on that next), Mind Flay, and Mind Sear.
  • Shadow Word: Pain no longer generates Shadow Orbs. Rather, it has a 12% chance per tick to spawn a Shadowy Apparition which will travel to the target and deal damage. It also appears that Shadowy Apparitions can now fly baseline, don’t despawn unless the target is dead, and have had their max summoned cap increased to 15 from 9.
  • Mind Blast is now the sole way to generate Shadow Orbs for Shadow Priests. It has had its CD increased by 2 seconds, up to 8 seconds, but in exchange a new passive ability Mind Surge (NNF) has been added, allowing Vampiric Touch a 20% chance to reset the cooldown on Mind Blast on tick.
  • Devouring Plague is back in a reimagined form! It now lasts for 2/4/6 seconds (number of Shadow Orbs used x2 seconds) and ticks every second, healing the caster 15% of the damage done. Because of the restriction to how Shadow Orbs are generated, the upper limit on how long it will take to use a 3 Shadow Orb Devouring Plague is once every ~28.5 seconds (lower with more haste reducing the GCD, of course). If you get really luck on your Vampiric Touch procs, tough, this could be as low as ~5 seconds, though that is unlikely.
  • In the same vein, Vampiric Touch no longer restores health (as that is Devouring Plague’s role), so expect Glyph of Vampiric Touch to be changed with the next patch.
  • From Light, Comes Darkness has been nerfed significantly (~50%) as it no longer has a chance to proc off of Shadow Word: Pain. This should make the rotation/priority system for using it easier, especially in multi-DoT situations, as it will not proc as often.

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