Feedback - The foundation is the issue

Classes Priest
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I’ve seen many iterations since I started playing Shadow many years ago.
Midnight Beta is only 10 days away, so I wanted to share my thoughts before it goes live.

Many people want different things to happen to Shadow’s core kit. Some people wanna grab something that worked back in the day, some people wanna try and build something new. Some people wanna try and fix what we currently have.

That is one thing that we’re all divided on — the path forward for Shadow: what it should be, what it could be.

The current foundation does not hold these days. The spec is broken — not by numbers, but by design.

Voidform has gone from being our very identity back in Legion to something that shouldn’t even be classified as a cooldown these days.

Yet we still have Voidform as our very foundation.

We need to unite on the fact that the only way forward must be to either remove or change how Voidform functions.

Whether it twists spells like Mind Blast or SW:D into harder-hitting versions?

Improves our DoTs to tick more often?

Triggers more ghosts and makes them explode?

There are so many things that Voidform could be, and so many things it could enhance.

Continuing to build on this broken foundation has been proven again and again to simply not work.

Every QoL change, every “rework” ever since Legion should be enough proof that it just doesn’t work. The spec suffers for these exact reasons.

There’s a reason people meme about the fact that Shadow gets reworked every other expansion — because we keep adding things onto an already broken foundation.

You will never be able to build an entire functioning roof on broken walls. Some parts of the house may stay dry and warm, but it’s still broken, and cracks will always let in water and cold.

This needs to change. The foundation of the spec needs to work.

We’re only a few days away from Beta opening up, with Xal’atath as the main villain — the same weapon we had in Legion that gave us the very rework which created the foundation we currently have.

What better time than now, in this very expansion, to finally change that foundation?

It’s clear that we as a community want changes to the spec. We want a new path for Shadow. We want Shadow to work and be fun.

It’s time we raise our voices together to show the devs that this isn’t something they can fix by just tuning a few numbers or swapping some talents around.

Yes, we are far into development, and yes, we probably won’t see anything major changing until 12.1.

But if we want a new foundation, something that works without Shadow feeling horrendous to play outside our cooldowns.

Then maybe it’s time to stand united on that part.

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I still think removing all AOE spenders back in DF was a big mistake. Psychic link as the primary AOE mechanic is always going to cause issues one way or another.

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There is nothing fundamentally wrong with voidform turning into void bolt that deals solid damage and insanity generation on a 4 gcd cooldown.

The problem is the “Gains 2.5s duration every cast of devouring plague” and the fact that in alpha now they removed void bolt it doesn’t do anything else.

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I agree on that. The DoTs do nothing on their own these days, but active so much stuff like Psychic Link and AS.

Yea I agree, but I’d much rather not have something that improves the rotation so much, like the mobility it gives, DoT extension etc, locked behind a 2 min cooldown.
And yea if they remove the 2.5s duration increase for every DP cast they could possible buff Voidform itself to actually increase our damage.

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1 min cd 20s voidform with (Accounting for haste) 5~ void bolts per, would probably feel pretty great for archon. Then the uptime is low enough that you can have the cooldown actually also feel strong as well. Have the talent that reduces bolt / volley’s cd be part of the archon hero spec so it doesn’t get in the way for voidweaver.

I just think that ultimately shadow’s core gameplay without voidform is too dull for the modern game, and that even if we went back to WoD it’d largely be outdated / uninteresting unless you are explicitly doing battlegrounds / pvp.

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The issue with Voidform is Blizzard keeps trying to make the square peg fit a round hole. Voidform, and insanity for that matter, where never designed around a builder/spender dynamic. They where designed around trying to build and maintain as much insanity for as long as possible to allow your damage to ramp to insane levels.

They keep trying to recapture that feeling with the builder/spender dynamic and it simply doesn’t work. They either need to return to the original intent of Voidform and design around it appropriately, you know what they are trying to do with Devourer, or they need to scrap it as a whole and try something else.

I personally would like to see the spec be based far more around Shadowy Apparitions. It is to date still the most unique and flavorful ability in the game and so much could be done with it.

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Im all for a fixed duration and reduced cd for it.

I agree that if they would remove it the core would be dull, thats why my main point was to change it. Wheter that is your preposal or something completly new, Im all for that.

But still having a spell locked behind a cooldown is not something Im a fan off.
That goes for both Void Volley and Void Bolt.
Id rather have some of our other spells turn into Void Bolt to still have a movement ability during Void Form.

Agree on this one.
I’d also love alot more being based around SA.

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Many of the iterations of the shadow have been fun. I would argue that TWW shadow is actually quite good and enjoyable to play, and that 2 charges of SC closed a lot of the existing gaps.

I mean, a LOT of specs are large CD dependent now, it’s just part of how the modern game has developed to make tuning more predictable.

If you don’t like the rework my suggestion - instead of writing paragraphs about how it’s bad and has gone through many iterations etc. maybe propose a design that fixes these issues.

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I never said that any of the earlier iterations of the spec were boring in any way. I simply said that the foundation that Shadow is built on is almost 10 years old, and I do not believe it works anymore.
I agree that 2 charges of Shadow Crash fixed some issues indeed, but those issues were there for a long time before Blizzard finally caved and gave that to us. It’s also an issue that Blizzard created themselves, since we can’t do AoE or damage without our DoTs applied.

Yeah, a lot of classes are very dependent on their CDs in the current design. But Shadow has a lot of them, and other CDs are locked behind the first ones.
Since we have alot of CDs they also feel very weak on their own.
We’re also incredibly immobile, with cast times on Void Torrent, Halo, and Voidform. On top of that, we need to throw out both our charges of Shadow Crash just to even begin doing damage.

I did actually write some ideas, both in the first post and in my response to Elipsis, on design changes that could fix some of the issues that I wrote about.

Examples:
Voidform twists spells like Mind Blast or SW:D into harder-hitting versions.
Voidform improves our DoTs to tick more often.
Voidform triggers more ghosts and makes them explode.

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I agree with you. Voidform has never felt as good since they changed the way it functioned from being a race to keep your insanity from draining away. It seems like they are making a lot of changes to emphasize shadowy apparitions, but they are taking the rest of the power out of void eruption and void form. If our normal damage is high enough that weak cds like voidform and shadowfiend are just a little extra, and not as strong as other cds that’s fine. But taking away shadow word pain when you talent into misery is something that nobody was asking for.

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And that problem stems from our mastery.

Again, something that WoD Shadow didn’t have to deal with how Mastery worked back then.

Just because it’s thematic doesn’t mean it should come at the cost of gameplay when so many fights are based around burst damage where your dots can barely get anything done in time let alone wasting time applying them.

Then in PvP, the ease of which to remove dots highlights this problem even more and now that the new Devouring Plague is changed to be a magic instead of a disease, you can wipe the board of dots even easier.

The current game is designed to not favor dots and so when you restrict a Spec that relies in dots to the point where it’s Mastery is built around that mechanic yet doesn’t mesh well with how the rest of the game is built around, is it any wonder why it will always feel bad when dealing with dots?

The fact is that Shadows Mastery needs to go. That is the stem of many issues affecting Shadow.

Heck it works for Demon Hunter in making Chaos Strike become Annihilation and Blade Dance into Death Sweep.

Make Mind Blast become Void Blast and Mind Flay become Mind Flay Insanity and have them trigger off using getting into Voidform and then make Voidform easy to get into with an ability akin to Eye Beam that puts you into it for a short duration and a cooldown by itself and make Devouring Plague still extend the duration.

It works out great in short and long fights on my Demon Hunter.

Would require tweaking the current Hero path talents and Shadows tree but I can see a world where that works.

Also, can bake in one of Shadow Word: Deaths talents into Voidform itself since they put a stupid choice node where you really need both to make it useful.

That way you get all the buffed abilities while in Voidform and you can get into Voidform more often for short fights and it still works in long fights with Voidform use proper.

In regards to Mastery, just make it basic like increases Void damage.

That is similar to Demon Hunter where all Chaos damage is increased.

That makes dots and normal spells not scale well with mastery which promotes proper usage of getting into Voidform as much as possible to turn your Mind Spells into Void spells and feel that pump feeling while still having some Void Spells outside of Voidform still work.

Focus on turning other spells into Void damage as well like Shadowy Apparitions into Void Apparitions for example.

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There has been no single change in the history of the Priest class that has screamed “developers don’t play the class” as much as this one. It is absurd that they even thought it might be a reasonable change let alone made it an alpha, or as it seems in the next 10 days a beta.

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I agree on the fact that our mastery does no longer work aswell.
It forces us to use our dots to even do damage these days. I could really use an adjustment indeeed.

This is exacly something that I had in mind when I sugested that change for Voidform!

This sounds so much better than what we currently have in both the Alpha and on live.
Would be amazing if Blizzard even did a fraction of this to make Shadow flow better.

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i agree

And I, for one, emphasise a full overhaul of this class.

Meaning full redesign

Start from ground 1 and build up.

I would like for them to let go of the insanity and madness bs and focus back on Shadow.

We already have chars with great control of the void, and the madness thing is no longer an issue. There is another layer now. This madness old gods design is not designed well currently, and it’s no longer worth exploring with the new expeditions we are in.

What we should be focusing on is priest having better control on grasping shadow to the point that they can now tap void while controlling that Hunger for more power.

I would argue Voidform should be a Voidweaver unlocked spell over Void Torrent and with shorter cd.
Yes, I am calling for a redesign of this BS form and keep it out of shadow spec.

Shadow spec should be able to tap into everything we have so far experienced without being forced into one: Shadow, old gods, the void.

While the heroic trees further explore a specific theme – voidweaver – the void
Oracle - would work nicely to include some old gods stuff here since they are all about granting visions, seeing past and future, etc.

This would be a great balance and control of this poor layout design we have now.

Before it was VOID insanity BS trying to overshadow the shadow spec.
Now its all Old gods instead of shadow spec.
Take it out and push it into the hero trees like i did and just give us a small amount in teh shadow spec to show mastery of priest tapping into the power of shadow.

Oracle – old gods
Voidweaver – void

Disc – Archon and Oracle
Holy - Archon and Void
Shadow - Void and oracle

This makes more sense as the Narru can flip and touch void – holy spec should be the one flipping here, not disc.
Seeing Entropic rift explode and shift to light + healing folks would be pretty cool and more thematic accurate imo. Holy should be the one to flip with shadow

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I also that this would be the best way for Shadow aswell.

Extremely interesting take. I like the idea of tying Voidform to Voidweaver instead and free the core of Shadow from it.

This is very interesting aswell! The fact that Naaru can flip from Holy to Void lorevise really makes this so cool.
This would also be so good if Blizzard adds a fraction of what your vision is!

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This is why I get so passionate and state, “they aren’t tryin.g”

They have the money
They have the talent – great artist from visual, concept, and music.
They have the dev

what are they doing?!?

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I hear ya!

The frustration is really high right now, thats part of the reason why I created this post.
I feel that Blizzard hasnt acted on anything because the feedback is so divided.
Thats why I wanted us, as a community to stand more united on the fact that the Core is the number one issue that Blizzard should prioritize to fix.

Maybe then they can make something more substantial with the spec.
Like some of the examples you and some others have posted.

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even if that’s true.
Their current changes on classes like mages and shamans speak differently. I reckon a bunch of the community prob didn’t want those changes. Even the healing ones are controversial as well.

To me, frankly, they just dont give a poop about Priest, and even less for shadow spec. Devour DH is proof of it.

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I think the actual foundation of Shadow is:

-keep up dots

-keep mind blast on cooldown

-channel mind flay

I think it is a solid foundation. It has been this way since I started playing in Wotlk.

Voidform is basically vestigial at this point, and should be mostly, if not entirely, cosmetic.

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I really don’t get why they’re even keeping Voidform in Midnight, it doesn’t really do anything. Especially for Voidweaver which doesn’t have a hero talent buffing it. Entropic Rift is a straight up stronger cooldown that happens every 30 seconds. Though the Archon buff for Voidform being 5% is a complete joke.

Why shadow has 3 different cooldowns with Voidform, Power Infusion, and Shadowfiend is beyond me. Especially when 2 of them are so incredibly weak and the 3rd is more group utility that you have to try to line up with someone else’s cooldowns.

1 Like