Please Revive VoidWeaver

Classes Priest
1

Hello! I am hoping someone as Blizzy reads this and has the power to do anything for voidweaver. And some community upvotes/bumps would help too. I am a disc priest main. Resi +17 at the moment.

Voidweaver is in a very, very bad state right now. WarWithin S3, it gets a slight rework. It was the best it has ever been. And still fair; high risk, high reward, right? Great gameplay or a complete fail is the tradeoff. The damage was great, the atonement was insanely good, and the tier set helped a lot.

Then the pre-patch happened. And voidweaver couldnt heal a Big Mama aoe pulse on a +12.

And current day just look at logs. From making the scariest parts of +16 Priory look like a joke to pathetic gameplay. Ouch.

Disc priest had many tuning changes this expansion. Which are good! It’s just that Blizzy never tested these against voidweaver it seems. The voidweaver dps is terrible. Atonement took a hit and the dps output was never adjusted for this. MW Monk is doing more damage than the spec that is supposed to be high risk / high reward.

I think some of the voidweaver changes are very good. It seems like approaches to make the punish period lesser. Although the cd on Mindblast was hiked up. A lot. (tell me you dont play this game without directly telling me xD).

I think the fixes could be very simple. More dot damage to Shadow Word Pain and the Rift. These are consistent damage dealers and the stars of the show. Return Mind Blast cd to what it was. They play well with the spec and dont pigeon hole players into a play style (unlike those crappy summons and Shadow Word Death, which honestly need to die off already.) And roll in the Tier set bonuses that we skipped. Yes, they helped a ton! Maybe a slight cd reduc to penance. 1 or 2 seconds. Playing Oracle at high keys tells you just how important this is and why is oracle spreading dots better than the shadow-based spec? Penance also cant be shadow damage anymore.

Oracle is fantastic. And I think the tunings done to it have been awesome. If there are attempts to make voidweaver not garbage, we shouldnt modify Oracle in the process.

Let me know your thoughts!

UPDATE:

I did a test today as voidweaver. Goal was to absolutely blast a dungeon while having no one die due to rot.

+12 Windrunner. iLvl 289 Voidweaver with Expiation, Summons, and smite talented for max dps.

59k overall. Normal run; not MDI mode.

100k+dps burst at start of pulls with summons ready to go. ~60kdps otherwise. Single Target was better than expected. ~30k dps single target.

Really not bad. 1/3 the dps of a decent dps role is pretty dang good. The healing was sketchy. Even with the rift out, 6 bolt empowered, and smiting with 33% haste, it just does not heal worth a damn. I think it hit 100k hps at one point. Oracle hits that in its normal rotation without trying.

And I think this is the problem with Voidweaver. It played in such a way that it could ignore some mechanics, like dots, and didnt really spot heal. Now, its spot healing is better and I can nearly ignore dots on a +12. I dont know how good voidweaver is supposed to be. I could understand the argument that War Within S3 was too strong, but right now it is dog doo. Very tough thing to balance.

5 Likes
2

They 100% need to take a look at voidweaver. However, our dot damage and rift damage is already good. Our damage in general is pretty good, I think it could use a slight bump to put us on par with the other damage healer, MW monk. The main issue is the atonement nerfs. They tried nerfing oracle through baseline atonement and just nuked the already behind VW spec.

Voidheart and Void Infusion in the hero talent tree are excellent tuning knobs that can up our atonement output to shore up the spec’s current major weakness. They can get us back to where we should be, being the atonement spec and all, without buffing oracle by just buffing those two talents.

There are other things that could definitely benefit VW as well. Why is it that oracle gets longer atonements when its not the focus of their spec? Then the spec that is all about atonement gets shorter atonements. This is more of an annoyance in M+ but in raid it is the nail in the coffin when you add in the atonement throughput nerfs.

From a playstyle standpoint, this is the best VW has ever felt to play. I do miss the hasted voidblast from the set bonus which they were originally going to tie into greater smite but it was removed. Putting hasted cast onto Void Blast itself would also make up for some of the major healing deficit while making the spec feel much smoother to play.

They have the perfect opportunity to let disc priests lean into the playstyle they like best (which I thought was the whole point of the hero talents in the first place). Oracle for those who long for the old days of pre-legion disc spamming penance and shielding. And VW for those who love to maximize their damage output to have the full damage healer playstyle that was introduced in Legion.

6 Likes
3

My man. 100% agree.

Was just looking at logs. 60k dps is pretty damn good. I agree, it really felt like the atonement healing wasnt there. I remember the way the bars used to hop in a +16 priory. Every void blast was huge.

2 Likes
4

Absolutely! Void blast crits should be moving bars but they just steadily push them up. I remember in beta that was their original intent for healers this xpac. To have smoother, less spikey incoming damage and a slower healing profile to match. However, that quickly got thrown out the window for every spec but VW disc. Other specs can spike health bars back up but VW disc seems to be the only spec still tuned and functioning behind the slow hp push up philosophy from beta. Void Blast crits might push up 20% of a health bar but that is not nearly enough for some of the fights. Second boss in Skyreach comes to mind. The beam soak damage is insane and VW just does not have the throughput to effectively heal it. There are other fights like that as well, but that is one of the main offenders.

3 Likes
5

So Blizz does hero talent tuning today and VW disc is left off the list again. Absolutely pathetic. Literally the least represented healer in high keys and one of the worst in healing output.

1 Like
6

yeah kinda surprised they buffed mana on hpriest but not disc. i do believe hpriest was suffering mana issues way more and people were causing more of a stir and disc kinda got buried prolly what happened tbh. disc gets more talked about for it’s dps/void stuff but still…
:cherries:

7

Thats because its void tree is in the gutter. Oracle may have mana issues but it is in the top 4 specs/hero trees in both M+ and Raid. Voidweaver is in the gutter in both.

1 Like
8

I am baffled that the recent tuning focused on hero talent balance didn’t even mention voidwever disc priest. The data for M+ is showing voidweaver being played at like 0.5% in keys. I really wish they would stop neglecting voidweaver disc. It is so fun to play. Buffs to voidheart and void infusion would go a long way and seems like a simple fix. Bring back TWW S3 VW disc, I miss this so much. I miss atonement healing in general. Please blizzard

3 Likes
9

I ran a +13 WR pug yesterday. ilvl 291. Surely VW can handle that. No. I truly hate complaining on the forums, but I have no idea how to to make it known that VW was killed off and nothing is being done about it.

Priests are so SO COOL. We have 4 healing specs that play entirely different from eachother. No other class gets too do this. They have to get all sweaty making alts and gear everything. But currently only 3/4 of the specs are viable.

2 Likes
10

You are right, VW is a super cool build and the one I enjoy the most. The spec feels good to play and pretty smooth as well. It is strictly a numbers issue in PVE. They have shown countless times that they can bump up PVE numbers while adding the note that it does not affect PvP tuning. Its an easy fix as there is nothing wrong with the gameplay of VW. Just needs atonement buffs through the hero tree. Voidheart and Void Infusion buffs would be a great start.

2 Likes