Yeah I don’t even use void form unless it’s on a boss cause there isn’t a point otherwise.
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That sounds interesting. So while you’re out of insanity your spells would cast normally and build insanity? When you reach 100 you would get a buff that would empower your spells? Or did you have another idea how this would play out? I’m curious to know. Juggling insanity and choosing between VB and VE for single target and aoe sounds like a damn good idea. I really like that.
Edit: Not a buff. My question I guess is would you lose insanity like we do now and trying to upkeep it while doing empowered damage with your spells or would you reach 100 and start using the insanity you built up?
Well, the idea is that you could cast Voidform any time. Say its a 30 second duration, with a 1 minute CD.
You cast it, you get an extra 100 insanity on top of what you already have. It would slowly degrade, sorta like how Rage decays. But it would be an EVEN decay speed, not the slow at first and then decays faster.
Then all spells would cost insanity, but would be empowered. Maybe Vampiric Touch would give you more health during VF, or SWP would have a chance to spread to surrounding targets on each tick during VF.
You could still use VB/VE, but since they ALWAYS require Insanity, they’d require a lot more. But basically be a real heavy hitting spell during VF.
IE “Void Blast, on top of normal damage, also refreshes all dots on the target” and “Void Explosion gives all dots a chance to spread.”
So you’d be encouraged to enter Voidform, but it would be under YOUR terms and not your your Insanity quickly draining that you’ve been trying to build.
And yes, obviously it’d need a lot of work to balance things. This was just a way to keep Insanity, keep Voidform, but make Insanity an actual Resource to manage.
Ok. I see where you’re going with this. Would you allow me to tweak this idea?
Obviously. Like I said, it was a spitballed idea. The key of course is making Insanity an actual Resource you would use, and of course giving players BETTER control over WHEN they used Voidform.
Because right now, it depends on whether you’ve built up enough Insanity. So by having it as a static CD, its entirely under your control.
And the idea of extra insanity during VF was based off a Fury Warrior thing where casting Recklessness gives you 100 Rage automatically.
I picked up on this when you first talked about it. I didn’t want to say it felt like it was copied from them lol.
Nothing wrong with grabbing ideas from other abilities, and the fact they already have a mechanic that does it … its less work they’d have to do.
Changed character so I don’t have to wait on a post before I can reply
So. I was thinking we keep your VF idea. Love that but increase the CD to 2 minutes.
Let’s say we are attacking an enemy and we have 0 insanity. We would build it up like we do now going up to 100. Once you reach 100 you either start losing insanity evenly or use it with each cast of a spell at the cost of a certain amount to empower them in some way, (ie: SW:P=more damage, VE=more lifesteal etc).
Devouring plague is a normal cast ability even in insanity. However, Mind Seer would spread DP, SW:P and VE if a target is effected with DP.
VB/VE would probably have to be talents. Blizzard would probably put them in the same tree too knowing them. So they would be situational talents but work as you have described. Being cast with insanity but do big damage.
(This is kind of a mix between both of our ideas. It sounds fun in my head lol.)
Numbers of course was just an example.
But yeah, that could work.
So it would be a “once I hit 100 Insanity, further spells are empowered, but COST insanity, instead of building it.”
Once you hit zero Insanity, its right back to building Insanity with spells.
So it’d be a cyclical up and down. Which isn’t bad, so long as you can control things.
Then VF would just be something like a static duration, keeping in a damage buff (since its a DPS CD), and doing something with Insanity. Maybe doing the simple thing of “all spells are empowered, add +100 Insanity.”
So during VF, no matter your current Insanity, all casts would drain Insanity until it hit zero or the VF buff ended. Then you’d go right back to building Insanity as normal.
It keeps Insanity as a Resource, gives you an actual DPS CD (something Shadow has always been lacking in), and gives you an up and down sort of flow to your damage which would even out in the long run.
This is the Idea I liked the most and tried to play off of that. Building up insanity to 100 casting and losing insanity to 0 and then once you hit 0 cast VF and 100 sanity all over again for another big burst of damage.
From a boss fight perspective, you can then do the up and down normal rotation, then when a damage window comes up, pop VF, since its a longish CD. Drop the heavy pain, then go back to the normal up and down.
So VF still has a purpose, and when seen, feels more dramatic. IE “when you see tentacles, kill the priest!”
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Honestly I was ok with loosing voidform from the beginning. It’s insanity I like more. But, this idea I like. The only issue I can see is balancing the numbers for insanity gain vs insanity loss. I imagine blizzard would have it set up to where our gain would be a lot lower than our loss so we aren’t constantly in and out of our damage burst but would try to balance it where you would enter it once per world fight.
Edit: Removed redundant “constantly”
Obviously these aren’t hard and fast numbers. It’s more a matter of making the spec actually fun to play. Something that is an issue for many. Because it keeps coming up.
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For sure. I wish blizzard would let us know they are listening rather than the tone deff sound of “yes we know” or “we understand your concerns”.
I think it’s unlikely at this point that they’d remove voidform entirely, or make it just a talent, but maybe they’d consider the opposite.
Make a talent that disables void form (replacing either legacy or dark ascension maybe) and increases insanity gain by 50% or whatever. Then change devouring plague to consume all remaining insanity (so you can use it at any amount) increasing the damage the more you spend.
If you select that talent it could also modify Shadow Crash, Void Torrent or Lingering Insanity if you happen to take those talents with the new talent. IE: it could transform shadow crash into a zero cooldown insanity spender that consumes all insanity to deal damage as an AoE insanity spender you can use in AoE situations instead of plague. Void Torrent could transform into a full insanity bar generator on a CD and lingering insanity could give you a short duration buff every time you spend insanity, scaling with the amount you spend.
Also add a legendary that plays into that playstyle.