Can we please, for the love of.. Get rid of Void Form

Community General Discussion
41

I’m torn on it. Voidform is a nifty concept, but it’s just not practical in a lot of scenarios that happen in WoW.

Don’t get me wrong, I greatly preferred the WoD iteration where we had Auspicious Spirits/Devouring Plague or the Clarity of Power/Mind Spike builds. And Shadow Orbs were simple but effective. Cascade too, was an amazing talent.

Voidform… It’s entire issue is that it was designed 100% with the artifact in mind. Without it, coming into BFA, Shadow was horrible. And as of now, Voidform is only being propped up by traits like Chorus of Insanity and essences. It’s possible it’ll get back into an “okay” state with soulbinds, conduits, etc… But no spec should ever be reliant on temporary gimmicks to function.

As of now, Shadow can be fun on prolonged fights when you can get nice Voidforms rolling, and it can be great on longer living trash in M+(especially if stacking high crit). But, if those aren’t possible? It sucks. Like Wrathion for example(in my opinion). On pull, by the time my first Voidform is ramped and I’ve got good stacks, the phase changes. RIP crit via Chorus, RIP damage from getting into the next Voidform fast with all that crit.

But, looking at Shadowlands. You know it’s horrible design when, last I checked, the best way to do maximum damage was to straight up basically ignore Voidform. You’d use Void Eruption, immediately dump sanity with Devouring Plague and get out of Voidform as soon as possible. Due to Eruption doing so much damage and there being zero incentive to stay in Void Form. It’s clunky and anti fun.

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42

I’m 99.9% sure the complaint is the execute window and the annoyance of constantly going in and out of it. It’s incredibly clunky and un-fun. Probably worst class design ever.

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43

I’d love for voidform to become a 2 minute damage cooldown for like 25 secs that boosts damage without being tied to a ridiculous resource system. Most other classes have something like this already so…

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44

Thanks Qwaai good post offering counter arguments. Notice I did not focus most of my dislike of void form toward the actual experience… Yes it can do what it is intended to do and DPS stuff down and you can be fine in game.

My dislike of it stems from the fantasy class design and change where I don’t see the void fitting in with Shadow. Blizzard thinks this is a perfect marriage between void and shadow. But I feel it is unnecessary and makes the spec feel worse, because it introduces a handicap with polar opposite feels in game play between in and out of void form. When the majority of time the class has been in the game, priests never had that. I suppose you could argue before between being in and out of shadowform, where healing was the sacrifice and handicap… It didn’t involve this ramp in and out system though that is often met with feeling clunky, or handicapped. And that handicap is felt among shadow priests more than any of my other characters. I have 120s at end game for Warlock, Mage, (ranged casters) and I have a 120 Paladin, warrior… and none of them feel gimped like that, that often. I am not making the argument that you cannot excel with Shadow right now. Because you can…

I also appreciate the responses and highlights people have made to it needing to be propped up by other systems… a point I left out of my OP. so thank you all for that as well.

45

What’s the difference between building up insanity and then dumping it with VE+DP and building up Shadow Orbs and dumping them with DP?

46

I really don’t like it. I want WoD SP back. I tried SP early this expansion and it felt clunky and didn’t have much of a satisfying rotation.

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47

I never advocate for removing what people like. But that didn’t stop Blizzard from deleting ranged Survival over night, and that was one of the most popular specs in the game. :stuck_out_tongue:

Shadow Priests can definitely do well, not many folks deny that. But the ramp is a severe hindrance to a lot of things in WoW. And thematically, where does Shadow fit now? Azeroth no longer has the Old Gods to whisper them sweet nothings of power.

But, a lot of the issue is too, if you are doing dungeons with other adequately geared players, you as a Shadow Priest are literally useless. Trash? Lemme just dot stuff up…Oh its dead. Repeat till boss. Woo! Something that lives more than 10 seconds!

There is also a big difference in doing end game stuff, opposed to leveling and world quests. A lot of the negative feedback comes from those regards.

The point I was making, which you seem to have missed… Is that Voidform is supposed to be CORE to this “fantasy” of Shadow. In the current builds of Shadowlands, Voidform is basically a useless hindrance only used for the Eruption damage. Because there is literally ZERO incentive to staying in Voidform. So tell me, why give us a ramp style, when the whole point of that ramp is rendered worthless due to changes going forward?

But, the simple answer is. Back during earlier iterations of Shadow, our damage wasn’t nerfed to compensate for the potential gains we can get with proper Voidform usage(IE, good stacks). Thus, going back to my previous paragraph, with nothing to prop Voidform up, there is no incentive. Thus no gain. But we are still doing that nerfed damage.

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48

WoD priest was the last time I enjoyed it. The void form mechanic does not work for me, and so I haven’t really played my priest since.

49

Most of us we aren’t hardcore. I don’t even raid anymore. I just want to wind down and have fun. Current voidform isn’t fun. It’s annoying, irritating, and a chore.

Been playing since 2006 (as said earlier) and for years only played my shadow priest. Now I have 50 characters and probably 2/3 of them are 120 and most are around ilvl 450.

I “DREAD” playing my shadow priest. He’s only brought out to make his 2k gold these days. I’m attached to him and it pains me to just let him languish in disregard. And, it makes me mad.

I hope that all of the comments by the players undoes this jacked up mess. We shall see, we shall see…

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50

This is essentially how I use it for basically any solo content. A lot of classes have build / spend gameplay, including the shadow orb idea, but it’s the way it is implemented that sets it apart IMHO. You have one option for spending (the DP change in SL doesn’t really help here for various reasons), and it’s all or nothing.
Unfortunately, at least for me and, unlike a lot of other class mechanics, it doesn’t flow naturally; it’s a constant context switch that, the shorter a fight is, the more jarring it becomes and, even after playing with it for a while, requires a little too much babysitting. I’ve seen even good SPs spend a bunch of time just floating around looking voidy while their resource ticks away way more often than I should.
Don’t get me wrong, I like VF thematically, and I think the gameplay changes can be fun, but I think it would feel better as a CD akin to DH’s meta.

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51

I didn’t miss the point, I was asking about it from a gameplay perspective.

It’s fine to have an issue with Shadow having too much ramp up.

It’s fine to have an issue with the fantasy of Voidform.

I don’t see how you can hold both of those beliefs at the same time: either there’s too much ramp up because you want big Voidforms, or there isn’t a reason to stay in Voidform because you get the payoff quickly.

Let’s imagine you’re right, that the proper gameplay of Shadow is to pop Void Eruption, Void Bolt, and Devouring Plague then gets you out. If your damage is balanced around that, does this complaint go away?

I’ll admit I probably care less than average about the “fantasy” of whatever I’m playing, so my real question is:

What is the difference between a gameplay loop centered around generating Insanity and dumping with VE+DP, and a gameplay loop centered around generating Shadow Orbs and dumping them with DP?

52

If they had done voidform “right” nobody would care. If they had recognized their mistake and tried to rework it or make current playstyle more palpable (instant voidform baseline comes to mind) nobody would care.

But no… Sour grapes had to become ruined vines. Then they salted the earth for good measure. No spin can undo this mess as it currently stands.

53

Voidform would be loads better if it didn’t drain your sanity the way it does now. Casting spells while in Voidform should drain your sanity a little bit per cast.

54

Shadow priest was my original WoW main from vanilla through the end of BC, I loved the class back then. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I made a new priest and absolutely despise the whole void form/insanity mechanic to the point I switched to discipline for questing/leveling.

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55

It feels out of place

give me mind blast back, give me devouring plague back, get rid of voidform/insanity

I personally can’t stand SP anymore

56

This, is one of the many good ideas put forth since voidform’s inception. Yet nothing has changed. Why is that? Inquiring minds want to know.

57

That would remove the whole point of VF.

58

You are being extremely obtuse just for the sake of doing so. In this scenario. Please tell me, what even is the point of keeping Voidform around if it’s entirely useless? If it’s useless and thus the intended design is to get in solely for the eruption damage then get out as quickly as you can, then from a design standpoint, the developers have failed and that further emphasizes why Voidform should be removed. That promotes a very gimmicky and clunky playstyle.

Okay, heres my thing. Which I basically said earlier. I don’t mind the current iteration. Voidform can be fun when you get it rolling. And It’s absolutely a blast on fights like Hivemind where you can get really high stacks due to lots of targets.

But I also said, take Wrathion for example, or hell, any fight with a phase change that requires you to have to stop dps for a bit. Your entire damage window was just shut down. You lost all your ramp and have to start over. No other spec is punished that severely.

This is why I preferred the WoD style. Was it perfect? No, not at all. But there wasn’t really any ramp needed. There were also two very distinct playstyles via Clarity of Power/Mind Spike and Auspicious Spirits/Devouring Plague. With no Voidform to dictate our damage, Shadow was easier to balance as needed. But as of now, any tweaks, regardless of how small, have to be considered very carefully due to what it may enable very skilled players to do with Voidform, as such, Shadow has consistently seen nerf after nerf to its dot SP ratios and stuff. All for the sake of Voidform.

Simply put, I love my Shadow Priest alt. It took me time to get her to a good spot, and she still doesn’t have ideal azerite traits or Blood of the Enemy but she is in a solid enough spot so that I can more than hold my own in Heroic or +15/16 keys with her. But, I still greatly, greatly preferred WoD’s iteration because not being tied to ramp was quite nice. And again, much easier to balance.

(Also, the thematic comment I mentioned, isn’t a big deal to me, just happened to think of it and thought it warranted saying).

Edit. Just noticed the time. Should try to sleep. Have fun friends!

(And obviously, my posts are my opinion. :slight_smile: )

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59

It’s responsible for priests being barely useful in other content.

60

that’s why they can make a talent for an alt if people want it, I don’t want them removing any more playstyles. I’m still salty over demo and survival.

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