instead of the ramp required for voidform to get full value why dont we just make it a CD? my idea is we make it like shaman ascendance, you can cast MB with no CD in the duration for burst damage. i think not having a dot extender mechanic brings back the feeling of a dot class, managing dots isnt a bad thing in my opinion.
Edit: I’ve had some time to think through changes without scrapping insanity as a resource and I’ve imagined it as a more basic builder/spender. the downside is builder/spender like that isnt as interesting as current voidform but the positive is i feel its healthier gameplay for priests while keeping aesthetic similar.
The barebones is building insanity to spend on void torrent/void eruption. void torrent is a fun spell, it looks good and it has the right feel for a spender. you build insanity normally like we do now, just instead of void eruption into voidform we use torrent to dump insanity for huge damage. Void eruption is the same way, its just used for aoe burst as is now. This just gets rid of voidform, not the entirety of modern shadow priest. voidform, over its lifetime, has proven its a feast or famine gameplay style, that people dont want to keep experiencing the famine part for a brief feast.
Ya Voidform as a cooldown would be a good idea, something like this:
Voidform - talent - replaces Surrender 2 Madness - 2 minute cooldown - 30 second duration - While in Voidform, Mind Blast has no cooldown, and you gain access to Void Bolt (BFA).
So you pop this cooldown, you go Blast -> Blast -> Bolt, which is essentially the old Clarity of Power rotation for those that also liked that, for 30 seconds every 2 minutes. Good single target damage burst cooldown - definitely useful on some fights, and not optimal on others, mostly a playstyle choice (as it should be).
Then because Surrender 2 Madness was replaced, and Voidform is now a talent, we get to redesign the rest of the spec around not having Voidform
30 seconds is way too long, I think before even attempting to redesign voidform as a cooldown you have to redesign the core mechanics its going to work off. I do, however, like the idea of voidform still unlocking void bolt.
I think this would be ideal - it allows Blizzard to hang on to what is clearly someone high-up’s pet design (there’s absolutely no other reason for it existing this long) while fixing the spec in its base case. One issue is maintaining insanity as a resource for a niche talent or just a CD, but it might be worth it. VF should never have been baseline.
I kind of like the thematic similarity this has with Apotheosis - Void Form becomes a shadow version of the holy talent for those that want a consistent HAM window CD.
Certainly preferable to the ramp up/minimal reward design.
I agree, voidform can be an asendance type cool down, I would personally do 15 seconds 20% haste buff mind blast no cool down I don’t personally see how activating voidform as a CD could give you the extra ability “void bolt” asendance doesn’t really give you an ability it just empower some abilities. So why not while in Void Form our Mind Flay stronger in a certain way maybe increasing the damage from 148.48% of spell power to 200% of spell power or if that’s too ridiculous just increase the slow speed (makes it more viable for pvp)
separate void bolt and void eruption. Make void eruption more of a cleave that damages like 5 enemies
Turn voidform into a 1min cd that gives you insanity over its duration (lets say 20sec) this way its a real dps burst cd because it well let you cast more Void eruption/Void bolt ( the numbers can be tested and balanced)
for Surround to Madness make it a passive that gives 1% haste for each second in voidform this will allow you incase you run out of resources to build them faster using mind blast and cast more void bolts/ void eruption but onece you are out of voidform you recieve damage equal to the damage you inflicted up to 90% of your health over the same amount you had voidform (however long they decide to make it last) .
in case people say its not interesting because all you do is build insanity to spend on single dps or aoe dps here are my other suggestion
Devouring Plague(cost insanity): makes your Dots tick fast or make them spread to other nearby enemies
Psychic Bomb (currently a talent make it basleine and cost insantiy): same as live make it an aoe stun.
more options to how you spend your insanity creates a more dynamic play style to a builder spender mechanic.
Just as activating Voidform now replaces your Voidform button with Void Bolt, it would work like that.
That would mean that after your DOTs are applied to your burst target, for the duration of your burst sequence in Voidform, you would not need to refresh your DOTs.
I don’t want it as a CD, I want a set Duration. I like the idea of trying to get back into Voidform as fast as you can, the problem is the exponential scaling it has.
You get the same effective haste from ONE - 60 second Voidform as you do from NINE - 20 second Voidforms, despit you being in Voidform 3x as long. You can’t balance this kind of scaling. There is a reason why NO Other Cooldown in the Game Works Like This!
If it had a set duration then My Voidform would be just as good as Yours, and the skill comes in from getting the most out of those Voidforms and being able to squeeze one or 2 more into a fight by Strategically leaving Mind Blast Charges to get into the next one ASAP.
Also if it was a set duration you would know when to start saving up those Mind Blast Charges since you know when it ends so you aren’t stuck with no charges right as the CD increases dramatically.
There is no skill or strategy in what you are suggesting. If I’m understanding you correctly you want it to still be the main core mechanic of the spec but have a fixed duration once you enter it. that’s more boring than the builder/spender suggestion we were discussing because all you will be doing is generating insanity as fast as possible to enter void form. legacy of the void would be a requirement
Don’t get me wrong I know what you are trying to achieve and I wouldn’t mind that playstyle here is my suggestion ( i hope i capture the playstyle you want) :
make it so that you would get a fixed buff in voidform and the stress fulls on maintaining it but if you lose it because of trash dying or boss mechanic it’s fine because all you have to do is build back insanity quick to get back into it. this will still make your voidform impactfulbecause you get the full buff up front ( so basically remove the ramp up and make it a fixed buff that we would want to maintain)
also for those who don’t know that was Demo lock Meta back then. Blizz just took Demo lock mechanic and Shadow orb and switched both reskinned them and gave us voidform
It comes down to voidform’s current design being the excuse for our barren, interactionless rotation. Once you take it away, everything that is leaning so hard on it falls flat.
Sorry, I kinda altered my op a little but what I meant was that voidform is just a CD that buffs us. The CD has no interaction with insanity or cost, and void form is not the main mechanic of the rotation. Just use it and you can now spam mind blast.
The builder spender part I added in later because I saw the post about not fundamentally changing specs as they are on the alpha. The idea being we just don’t have a voidform anymore (except the CD one I suggested if you want). You build insanity to spend on either a single target torrent that drains your sanity or eruption for aoe.
You could reasonably have both. Voidform making no CD mind blast ramps insanity gen considerably, giving more torrents. I could spend more time fleshing out this idea, with a full talent tree but I’m just posting rough drafts for feedback/ showing devs ideas
Personally, I don’t think there’s an easy way out of this. There is just not enough there once voidform doesn’t work the way it does, and if bliz won’t commit to completely redesigning the core mechanics I don’t see a way to salvage a working coherent and engaging design from the pieces they have left.
Currently shadow is 2 dots and 3 rotational spells, and SW:D which can go in its own little box marked “??!?!!!??!”, however none of those spells interact with each other in any way at all.
|Does this mean that there is no skill in playing every other class in the game? Because that’s how every cooldown works.
The skill in current shadow is “Don’t be targeted by mechanics.” Current Shadow is all RNG, there is almost no skill to it. There is a mathematically correct time to use Shadowfiend/Lucent to get the longest voidforms, the so called “Skill” is did you get targeted by a mechanic at a bad time.
The issue is Voidform length. With those lucky Voidforms where you get to turret the raw amount of haste you get is double or triple the same amount of time spent in lower count Voidforms.
Here’s an example of a Cooldown where we add some stupid RNG mechanic to another classes CD.
Let’s change a Moonkin cooldown:
Incarnation: Chosen of Elune
An improved Moonkin Form that increases the damage of all your spells by 25% and randomly grants you 15%-60% Haste.
*Oh, I’m sry, you rolled 15% haste and your buddy rolled 60, looks like he gets to do 3x the damage you do. Maybe you should git gud next time…you obviously don’t have enough skill to play this class
How quickly would players rage if there was thins kind of RNG in their spec?
Voidform is a completely garbage mechanic, that is poorly designed, poorly balanced, and because it exists you can’t do anything to make our class truly interesting or else Voidform will break…again.
I don’t think that was the point they were trying to make.
The point is you can’t just make voidform a cooldown and then do nothing to the buttons that are left, the spec would be monumentally dull to play.
The skill is in minimising the impact a mechanic can have on your rotation by how you handle it in most cases, pre positioning for potential times of movement. If you ever, ever, have pulls where some of your voidforms provide you with, in your words, “double or triple” the amount of haste as some of your other voidforms. That is not RNG mechanics, that is on you.
If you want to talk about how playing shadow badly often results in an unsatisfying experience where you feel at the mercy of what’s going on around you, sure. I would also agree that shadow really lacks that universal payoff that’s supposed to feel good regardless of how perfectly you execute it. But just because other classes get that universal payoff from their cooldowns, does not mean Voidform is functionally a cooldown.
Voidform is not currently a cooldown. It is not designed to be one, it does not function as one, and it does not take the role within the spec as one. Turning Voidform into a cooldown is a much, muchlarger job than just making it a fixed duration.
This is my point with calling it RNG. True, you getting the really high Voidforms is your doing because a bad player will never reach those stacks. My point is that you have no control over if that is even possible. Even if your play allows for those stacks to be reached, it is all dependent on the game allowing you to get there.
Shadows gameplay is making the best of a bad situation…but that also means Shadow is always in a bad situation, which goes to prove the point that the spec is in a bad place.
And if it’s the game deciding whether the possibility to reach those stacks even exists, it’s effectively the same as an RNG mechanic.
Very True, it’s not a cooldown, but it is presented as one by the game. Just changing your view of it doesn’t make its design better. It’s still one of the worst (and probably the worst) class mechanic in the game right now.
Agreed on all counts, I just don’t think reframing voidform as a cooldown and leaving the rotation itself as is (Which is what many people seem to be doing) is actually fixing the core issues shadow has.
You are absolutely right, but if Blizzard are so obtuse as to leave Voidform infor Shadowlands, then almost anything would be better than it’s current version.
