You know what else is a bit annoying or perhaps just a missed opportunity is that the last Mage Hero Talent trees Sunfury basically centers on summoning or triggering a spawning of a Phoenix and having those floating fire/arcane spheres that basically are taken/inspired from Kael’thas Sunstrider.
Okay so what can Shadow and specifically Voidweaver take inspiration from? Well the main antagonist going into TWW of course, none other than Xal’atath herself.
Looking at her new model, you can see floating Void Orbs that visually is a callback to Shadow Orbs but more importantly I ask the question of if they can add that amazing graphic in the game, and they are doing the floating orbs for Sunfury, then why in the world does that not exist for Shadow Voidweaver as it seems like they could have easily built a mechanic around that Void Orb concept instead of focusing around Void Torrent.
Again, just seems like a missed opportunity.
Also, I would assume at some point the new look for xal’atath should be a priest transmog, would assume coming from a tier set and if that doesn’t happen, another missed opportunity.
Finally, I have to wonder what cool spell effects and abilities xal’atath would have when we get to the point where you fight her. I am betting they will really go all out and make her do some really cool and interesting things… things that are far removed from what Shadow would ever see itself doing.
But why do we have so much CC for? Like why?
Every game that I played where there is so much cc in PVP is just toxic.
And wow current state makes me say crazy statements like…
Why do we even have interrupts anymore? Or why do we even have to cast anymore? At this point I either can never cast unless I have instas or just spend most of my time in CCs.
This is why I can’t arena. Its just such a toxic experience lately. Especially with the Marcro abuse, bot abuse, addon abuse — all targeting mainly casters!
and here we are, an SP with No protection against this at all. We just have to take it to the face.
The sad part is, my fave part of casters is the casting part… but not when we can’t do it at all for majority of the fight…
So here let me attempt to cast one Void Torrent before I die through perma CC during a Melee Rush.
i assume that was the case.
But void torrent is a super strong spell with high cd.
Still feels bad that a mechanic is using this for activation, forcing us to us it more often in scenarios where we are most likely going to get it Kicked or cced out of…
Waste of a Void cast.
why not
Mind flay has fair chance to proc it and Void has a 100 percent activation. That way I don’t have to throw away that Void torrent.
i would prefer it to be a “proc” or “Debuff” from our dots overall so I’m not forced to cast as much through this CC spam. And in the case I don’t want to be forced into spending points on Void Torrent, I won’t need to because it doesn’t use it at all for activation.
Vamperic Touch applies the debuff “void touch” causing your Direct dmg abiliteis and DOT abilities to have a chance of procing a entropic rift onto the afflicted target-- then the rest of the bs.
To compensate for the spread. remove the growth. prob last talent has to be redesigned a bit.
VS void torrent – requires talent point 45 sec cd plus another point to reduce it to 30… A non-baseline ability with high cd should not be the trigger of this effect.
HERE IS A CRAZY THOUGHT LET SHADOW USE DARK PENNANCE TOO :3
Both Disc and shadow use penance to activate this BS, except Shadow’s version is just dark penance and only dmges lawl.
U know what, call it void penance idc. just let it cook
Then possibly Mind Flay and Mind Sear damage ticks from Idol of C’Thun tentacle procs?
I would not include Shadow Fiend / Mindbender attacks.
I included both Void Torrent and Devouring Plague so that you can open without needing insanity to cast Devouring Plague and you are not forced to pick Void Torrent.
I did not include Mind Blast as that in this case would be a builder of essence since it’s a Mind Spell.
I would love to change Void Torrent to cause your damage over time spells to deal damage faster during its channel (perhaps only on the target of Void Torrent only)
I would also add Void Ray talent idea as a choice with Void Torrent to make your Mind Flay deal more damage per each of your damage over time spells on the target to something like 5-10% per dot.
I would also change Malediction to make your channel spells deal damage 33% faster as a callback to WoD leveling perk to Mind Flay.
Dark Penance is just an in-between version of Mind Flay and Void Torrent.
All 3 channel, but Penance has a short cooldown while Void Torrent has a long cooldown and Mind Flay has no cooldown.
There should be no reason to add another spell to Shadow toolkit that is also once again a channel that is very similar to Mind Flay and Void Torrent.
If anything, reduce the cooldown of Void Torrent to increase its trigger of Entropic Rift more often. But that would mean the raw power needs to be lowered.
But then it would essentially be your Dark Penance.
Should be an option (choice) talent that reduces the cooldown of Void Torrent through gameplay within Voidweaver talent tree.
I admit, I really want to make this Void Orb concept work because…
You see Xal’atath with her new look sporting those Void Orbs herself that just scream to be incorporated into Shadow.
You see it work for Sunfury rather well which is a callback to Blood Mage or Kael’thas from WC3 and TBC.
Itself a callback to Shadow Orbs from Cata-Wod
So I would maybe have a talent interaction where each time you generate a Void Orb, it reduces your Void Torrent cooldown by 5-10 sec.
edit:
Then for Discipline, your trigger could be Penance and the talent that reduces the cooldown of Void Torrent could reduce Penance cooldown by an appropriate number as well.
I think this Dark Penance idea should just cause normal Penance to change to Dark Penance or I guess Void Penance when you activate Shadow Covenant.
cuze they gave Mind blast as the activator for Disc – 24 sec cd basline and drops a lot with haste. 21% haste dropped it to 20 cd.
For shadow, there really isn’t any other spell that can mimic that CD length besides Void Torrent and it cost two talents in our tree. one to get it, and another to drop it to 30 sec cd FLAT.
i think they need to rethink about what the activator should be.
if they wanted something SIMPLE – I would suggest Pennace as it has a Light and Dark version.
TBH the whole tree itself is fine to me, I’m intrigued by it. Im liking it. I dig it.
But only issue I have is the activator. i really would like for it to just not be VOID TORRENT.
NOW if they just drop it to us as baseline spell with 25 sec cd that goes down with haste. Ok I’m fine with it then. cool.
or
I wouldn’t mind they increase our Mind blast cd up while buffing its dmg up as well to compensate that way we can use Mind blast as a trigger too. That would b e cool.
Mind blast hitting hard without 1000 talents.
That is another reason why having a limiter in the form of these Orbs or Spheres that Sunfury have and what I propose for Voidweaver would control how often you can bust out the Entropic Rift.
With Discipline having less access to Mind Spells, it would naturally either be fine with less access to Entropic Rift or another idea I had was to change up Smite to become Mind Flay during Shadow Covenant.
That way Discipline can really utilize these dark Shadowy spells during that window which fits the dark void theme of Voidweaver.
I’m more of bringing it up on the thought of trying to understand why Void torrent as the Activator for shadow, which I dislike for PVP reasons. just wanted to make this clear in case I caused confusion.
Only difference is that it consumes an orb to trigger Entropic Rift. Meaning, you can reduce the cooldown of Void Torrent as much as you want and then you can nuke back to back to back as long as you got orbs. Otherwise you just do it rotationally.
Having a limiter allows a lower cooldown.
It sounds more complicated, but it’s just a way to allow more use in moments of need and not waste it.
Cause right now, you can easily waste Entropic Rift because it’s tied to a 30-45 second cooldown spell. Be it you misclick or mistime etc, you can’t make use of your entire central hero talents while Void Torrent is on cooldown.
But if you build in a way to reduce the cooldown and tie it to generation of orbs, then the faster you play, the more you get to use Entropic Rift.
Otherwise yes I guess you can go the route of just adding haste to reduce the cooldown of Void Torrent. But imo, that’s just boring and just means you will scale slowly until you hit those haste thresholds after a while of playing and gearing up.
But for a new person starting out, it will feel like a slog.
Edit:
The idea im proposing is that normal gameplay builds on top of eachother and each button press gets you closer to the crescendo of activating Entropic Rift.
if i overlook the highly annoying fact a shadowfiend / mindbender talent exists which will likely pigeonhole priests into a mindbender build YET AGAIN, it looks like a decently powerful and useful tree. because of that, i expect it to get nerfed, since its surrounded by trees, such as oracle or for other classes, that are so underwhelming in comparison to this, that i just expect blizz to do the laziest thing and nerf voidweaver.
i got hoodwinked by blizz once again. after being temped by the shadow re-work i played shadow priest during the launch patch of dragonflight and had some of the most fun i have ever had on this spec. it finally seemed as though someone with brain cells existed on the dev side of this game. deluded by the euphoria of this experience, i continued playing during season 2 and 3, despite i saw all the nerfs, they called them changes and updates, but it was clearly just nerfs and restriction of choice, every time, i saw them coming, but some reason i kept playing.
a big mistake. well sub’s up in a little bit, gonna take the next 7 or 8 months off until TWW, and maybe not even come back then, but if i do, its clear that 15 years of priest was more than enough, to see the highs and lows, i’ll just stick to whatever is getting the good dev attention if i play again, right now that looks like monks. but generally something with actual proper mobility for sure and an interrupt
It sjust the poor neglected state blizzard has left pvp in.
Building mechanics suck in PVP when you are too busy being tossed around like a rag doll. And this actually happens now when multiple classes with push and pull effects come into the game ironically. I’ve been there, done that. Was something interesting to C happen to you lol.
For shadow pvp, we need something simple and not easily shut down forcing us to restart over and over and over again.
Builder stuff just suck.
Void torrent being used just to get the passive to proc would suck.
I would prefer for it just to be a DEBUFF that we trigger as our dots go off and direct spells too if you like.
This Is still my most favorite option. Keeps me from casting less, keeps me from having to micro-manage even more than I have too now.
other options
–Removing void torrent from talents, making it baseline, and cd a flat 30 with haste impacting it is fine with me. AT least its not a waste of 2 talent points. now I can use it somewhere else.
It just becomes a waste of a spell at times…
Yes is more boring but classes these days have just too much happening.
– your builder option is another route. But again building in PVP just suck with the current style we are in.
– making penance the activator – Dark pennacne for shadow.
Just adds another button bloat and its another void torrent as you said haha.