The Darkness specialization was subject to significant changes in the Dragonflight update for World of Warcraft – players received many variations for their builds to make a strong attacking mage out of the healing class with good potential for damaging enemies and restoring allies.
You can head over to the Skycoach Blog to see the latest completed builds without having to experiment with skill sets yourself, or discuss options with other players of the same Shadow specialization for the Priest class.
Major Class Changes Since Dragonflight Update
Now you can choose one of two cooldown skills to form builds based on the strengths of the class.
Void Eruption – Empowers attacks with the power of darkness and allows you to deal increased damage to all targets within a radius of 10 meters from the selected enemy. The duration depends on the use of insanity and is renewed every 25 seconds of use.
Dark Ascension – Increases all dark magic damage by 25% for 30 seconds, which is a burst damage instead of damage over time.
Mind Spike is a skill that deals increased shadow damage and greatly increases the chance of a critical attack with a skill and the cooldown of Mind Blast, and increases the overall insanity to be used for future attacks with other active skills.
Mind Flay – attacks the enemy with the power of darkness magic and imposes a strong slowdown on the movement of the enemy.
Four new talents:
- Idol of Y’Shaarj – Fiend will bring you bonuses depending on the state of the target and general health indicators. You will be able to receive bonuses to damage, speed, madness points, damage without removing the effect of fear from the target.
- Idol of C’Thun is a talent that grants the class’s primary offensive skills an auxiliary ability to summon tentacles, boosting skills for a few seconds and increasing overall damage and duration of debuffs.
- Idol of Yogg-Saron – each summoning of the Twilight Ghost will accumulate summon points and after accumulating 25 values, an Otherworldly Thing will be summoned, which will deal darkness damage to one target and enemies standing within a radius of 10 meters. Every fifth attack will gradually reduce the AoE spell’s AoE damage.
- Idol of N’Zoth – Primary offensive skills have a chance to apply an offensive amplifying effect that greatly increases shadow damage. The skill will accumulate and increase attack power up to 5 levels with a gradual decrease in AoE damage.
Withering Nightmare replaced with:
Mind Sear is a massive amount of dark damage that spreads out in a 10m radius, dealing damage to affected enemies.
Dark Abyss is a skill that deals damage not only to the main target, but also to up to 15 enemies within the radius of action. Increases your overall Insanity by 15 points.
Dark crush – a skill that releases a slow clot of dark energy at opponents, which will apply the vampire effect to all affected enemies.
Dark Insight – Allows you to cast Mind Burst instantly, even if the skill is on cooldown.
Mind Play – the only skill that migrated from the previous Shadowlads update – deals heavy damage to the enemy and turns healing into pure darkness damage and changes the principles of how opponents interact with each other. All healing skills will deal damage, and all attacking ones will heal your allies.
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Healer of the Dark Specialization in the Dragonflight Update for World of Warcraft
Strengths:
- Freedom to choose cooldowns.
- Increased damage against bosses and dungeon chapters from the Light faction
- Attack skills that deal damage with massive and single attacks and restore health to the caster in a percentage based on the total damage.
- Powerful skills to strengthen allies with the ability to save the spell on yourself.
Weak sides
- A complex system of damage over time skills that need to be properly controlled so as not to slow down with global cooldowns.
- A complex spell system that will cause difficulty for beginners, as the class is more of an offensive mage with a projection of damage into healing and recovery into damage, rather than a classic healer.
- The damage begins to gradually weaken, which must be taken into account for playing in position.
- Difficulties in participating in the battles of Mythic Dungeons.
Shadow Healer Stats to Look Out For
Intelligence
The main characteristic for any magician and the healer is no exception. It affects the overall attack power of the enemy and is calculated by the formula of the ratio of intelligence to the target’s total magical defense, so the higher the indicator, the greater the total damage.
Intelligence will be the main parameter for the selection of weapons and equipment, and it is important to focus on this indicator.
Speed
For mages and healers, it primarily affects the speed of running and casting spells – the most important criterion for a weakly armored target and classes that depend on the number of spells fired during combat or farming.
Artifice
Affects the effectiveness of applied magic skills and negative effects. Increases the chance of debuffs and the overall effectiveness of all magic skills.
Critical Hit
An important, but not paramount, parameter for a healer – allows you to deal increased damage to the target with the help of a skill in case of a critical skill.
Can be useful when using offensive skills that restore health at the expense of damage – then the percentage of returned HP will be higher.
Versatility
A parameter that evenly develops the attack and defense of the character. Important because it allows you to increase weak physical defense and damage, but it is also not paramount.
