Obviously, posts like this aren't immensely useful, because their content speculates over the mechanics of things that may change as the new expansion approaches. To avoid such a problem, issues and potential side-steps have to be thought about, fully, before one can gauge one's opinions accurately and "conclude" things.
There isn't a huge amount of Shadow Priest-specific stuff so far on the Cataclysm preview front. The one major thing we've been told is that we will "probably get a nuke without cooldown".
Now, this is a problem, really. My initial reaction to hearing this news was: we already have a nuke without cooldown -- it's called Mind Flay. My reaction was met with a certain deal of hostility from people claiming that Mind Flay doesn't "Count as a real nuke" because it's channeled. This argument, I suspect, comes from a PvP perspective. I don't see how it really matters whether a spell is channeled or cast in PvE -- you're standing still and nuking ... Indeed, a channeled spell has some advantages in this respect since, if you have to move, you can clip it short and yet still have dealt some damage to your target.
However, the reason I say we "Already have a nuke without cooldown" is this: we already have something that we spam between our cooldowns. Mind Flay is a powerful spell, and we use it whenever we don't need to do anything else. So where on earth do we fit in another "Nuke without cooldown" into our rotation? The only room it has is in the same places as Mind Flay: we can only cast it between Mind Blasts and refreshing DoTs.
This, naturally, means that there is going to be a preferred spell to cast: either Mind Flay or Spell X (Shorthand for "Nuke without cooldown") will provide us with more DPS. If it is Mind Flay, then Spell X isn't going to be used at all. If Spell X results in higher DPS than Mind Flay, though, then Mind Flay will fall by the wayside: just as Shadow Word: Death was the casualty of TBC --> Wrath, Mind Flay will be the casualty of Wrath --> Cataclysm. It will become a spell that we only cast when we want to keep SW: P refreshed.
I was talking to Koren about this, and she thought that Spell X might act like a "Reverse Arcane Blast": her thought was something like "it gets weaker with each consecutive spellcast." I can't see this being particularly appealing, though ... and even if it were a non-reverse Arcane Blast, I'm not entirely sure I'd feel comfortable about becoming an Arcane Mage.
Shadow Priests are in a good place right now in terms of their complexity. We don't need another spell coming in and screwing with things. Besides which, I don't have a keybinding spare for it.
There isn't a huge amount of Shadow Priest-specific stuff so far on the Cataclysm preview front. The one major thing we've been told is that we will "probably get a nuke without cooldown".
Now, this is a problem, really. My initial reaction to hearing this news was: we already have a nuke without cooldown -- it's called Mind Flay. My reaction was met with a certain deal of hostility from people claiming that Mind Flay doesn't "Count as a real nuke" because it's channeled. This argument, I suspect, comes from a PvP perspective. I don't see how it really matters whether a spell is channeled or cast in PvE -- you're standing still and nuking ... Indeed, a channeled spell has some advantages in this respect since, if you have to move, you can clip it short and yet still have dealt some damage to your target.
However, the reason I say we "Already have a nuke without cooldown" is this: we already have something that we spam between our cooldowns. Mind Flay is a powerful spell, and we use it whenever we don't need to do anything else. So where on earth do we fit in another "Nuke without cooldown" into our rotation? The only room it has is in the same places as Mind Flay: we can only cast it between Mind Blasts and refreshing DoTs.
This, naturally, means that there is going to be a preferred spell to cast: either Mind Flay or Spell X (Shorthand for "Nuke without cooldown") will provide us with more DPS. If it is Mind Flay, then Spell X isn't going to be used at all. If Spell X results in higher DPS than Mind Flay, though, then Mind Flay will fall by the wayside: just as Shadow Word: Death was the casualty of TBC --> Wrath, Mind Flay will be the casualty of Wrath --> Cataclysm. It will become a spell that we only cast when we want to keep SW: P refreshed.
I was talking to Koren about this, and she thought that Spell X might act like a "Reverse Arcane Blast": her thought was something like "it gets weaker with each consecutive spellcast." I can't see this being particularly appealing, though ... and even if it were a non-reverse Arcane Blast, I'm not entirely sure I'd feel comfortable about becoming an Arcane Mage.
Shadow Priests are in a good place right now in terms of their complexity. We don't need another spell coming in and screwing with things. Besides which, I don't have a keybinding spare for it.
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