Poor personal defensives, effectively 0 mass stop in M+ and very low movement seems to me that if your weak in these 3 attributes the compensation should be that you are the top damage.
3 Likes
IDK how the final damage balance pass will be, but after the last beta changes, Spriest Voidweaver feels so smooth to play compared to what we have now.
how do you mean?
A lot of small things that just… comes well together. To name a few:
- Apparitions refreshing the dots
- There’s a talent that adds a weaker SW:Madness to Tentacle Slam. It effectively gives a ramp up shortcut since you can have Insidious Ire (all 3 dots applied) with just one button, and it even applies the longer duration SW:M if you’re talented into Distorted Reality.
- New passively summoned minions are much better, and gives SW:D more reasons to be used outside of the execute window.
- Tentacle Slam is a huge improvement over Shadow Crash. Feels good to press it, especially with the Apex talent that gives a 100% idol proc on it.
- The option for SW:P to be stronger and detached from VT creates a different gameplay feel
- Shadowy Insight basically giving what feels as a separate free MB really makes the proc feel much better and not wasteful when it procs at the wrong time
Of course, the spec still needs work, like how Voidform is really uninspired and bland as a main cooldown. But overall, the gameplay loop of Voidweaver is really good. In fact, I don’t think I felt Shadow playing this good in years.
4 Likes
Void form should be the apex imo.
Improved void form instead becoming “whenever you proc an idol void forms cooldown is reduced by X/2x (varying per idol).
Final apex: During void form Mind blast is replaced with shadow word: entropy consuming insanity based on time spent casting (1-3s). Meteor type spell, splitting its damage amongst targets hit / dealing more overall with more targets. (No cooldown).
Empowerment spell:
- 35 (Causes all your damage over time effects on struck targets to gain 4s duration)
- 70 (Applies shadow word madness to 5 targets struck, with a 4s duration) - does not apply effect 1
- 100 Collapses void form, refunding up to 30s cooldown (if you have >1/4 remaining duration) and applying entropy to up to 5 targets struck for up to 30s, a non invoked nightmare level sw:p that counts towards shadow weaving, if a target dies while affected by entropy its remaining damage is instantly split amongst nearby targets affected by entropy.
Probably too much density for a single spell… but idk, void forms boring. Being able to make it so you peak during the window in one way (level 2 empowerment follow by chains of 1s, or just 1s if you are cleaving 2 which already have madness), while also ending it early allows you to then void torrent into a stacked entropy / extended aoe madness that you applied in voidform.
With the cd refund and cd reduction you could probably push void form to a 60-75s cd with a 15s duration.
Voidweaver may want to desync void form from torrent (or not go full apex), while archon may want to overlap halo.
Having Mind Blast becoming a different spell while in Voidform while also becoming a different spell in Void Blast from Voidweaver creates multiple problems that not only would desync the Voidform cooldown but desync the entire spec in how it plays when you turn a insanity generation ability into a insanity spender ability and makes Voidweaver talents become useless as well during Voidform as one would override the other.
But even if you rework many things to force this suggested idea to work, you still have to deal with the fact that all Voidform really does is grant access to Void Volley for a few casts or so.
The problem is not about reducing the Voidform cooldown or extending it, it’s the fact that Voidform needs more identity to actually feel like a proper cooldown.
___
Now I know I’ve mentioned this already but I think the most simple and effective change they could do is just make Void Volley trigger after Void Torrent again which makes it exclusive to Voidweaver. Then make Voidform transform Mind Blast to Void Blast and then do the same with Mind Flay transforming into Void Flay And then Bring Back Mind Sear as a Choice node with Psychic Link which would transform into Void Sear while in Voidform and become a high damage fast channeling version like it did back in the 10.0 version.
Add triggers to get into Voidform more often for a short duration with Madness being an insanity spender would work and then give Voidweaver an extra Voidform time in making Void Torrent put you into a short duration Voidform as well. This would really express the Voidweaver name in that you are weaving in and out of Voidform more often.
Give Archon a power up in damage each time Halo goes off and reduce its cooldown with Shadowy Apparitions so you can become a more powerful version of yourself and fulfill its intended fantasy.
So now you have every reason to enter Voidform in order to gain access to upgraded versions of our Mind spells where I think Void Flay and Void Sear can be fast channeling spells and Void Blast can remain what it currently is.
Sure it’s borrowing from the demon Form mechanic from Demon Hunters in your spells get upgraded to better versions and you weave in and out of that form but hey, it works in both short and long form content and it could be a relatively simple change as we have all the Puzzle pieces already, we just need to move a few things around and it can add a whole new dimension into the play style while retaining what we already do but just make it more impactful more often.
The quick recap to achieve this…
Shadow
- Voidform upgrades Mind Flay, Mind Blast and Mind Sear to Void versions.
- Mind Sear added as a choice talent with Psychic Link.
- Shadow Word: Madness grants a short duration Voidform / extends Voidform.
Voidweaver
- Void Volley gets attached to Void Torrent again.
- Void Torrent grants a short duration Voidform / extends Voidform (Can replace current Void Blast Talent with this).
Archon
- Halo grants stacking damage/healing buff each time it goes off.
- Shadowy Apparitions reduce cooldown of Halo when they hit their target.
2 Likes
Very off topic and unimportant to the post.
None of this addresses that unless something changes shadow priest if going into midnight severely gutted and likely not a viable dps spec for end game content.
In its current beta form shadow priest has the worst utility. PI is something any M+ group would give up to ensure they have battle rez, bloodlust, and literally every buff aside from fort.
Fort is the least desired class buff now, just outright. Hunters literally get bloodlust and an increase to all damage debuff. Eliminating or passive group healing is also a pretty big hit for shadow.
By eliminating interrupts on all healers there is also no situation where you would ever want a shadow priest over a healer priest.
Shadow is bottom in mobility, group utility, raid utlity, survivability for self sustain and defensives.
Midnight has 27 dps specs if shadow is 21 or lower on the damage output(currently rated 21 of 26 in TWW). It will literally have 0 viability in M+ and will likely not see any mythic raiding play. Unless they add some other utility it has to be a top 5 damage spec to have any hope of being a legitimate choice for end game content and in alpha is was 3rd and got nerfed to the point its looking like it will require top tier play to be mid on the meters
Im sorry Eloch but this is not a topic of discussion where we need a world content/LFR player making contributions to the topic. All specs will always be viable in LFR and world quests. These discussions around balance, utility, survivability and damage cap potential are for end game players and content.
No one will ever be worried if a class can handle the casual content.
2 Likes
I didn’t say at any point that the spec is ready to go. I’m just stating that the GAMEPLAY feels much better than any other spriest iteration, and that on itself is worth of feedback/praise regardless of the content the player engages into.
All three things can and need to be talked in parallel: how the spec plays, what it brings to the table and the performance.
They should just remove voidform and make void volley baseline with a 15-20 second cooldown
2 Likes
Don’t forget any utility they do have is also brought by disc or holy priests. So they really have nothing unique except silence lol
In addition to the 3 things you listed they also have:
No bloodlust/hero
No battle rez
No group defensive
No group damage reduction
No group mobility
No damage buff or debuff
No utility buff (lol stamina)
Shadow brings almost nothing to the table that a group would want. And anything they do bring you can get from disc or holy which frees up a DPS slot for you to invite something better. Shadow is a hindrance to group comps
so far in beta, at least in pvp, SP does dmg, but when have they not really?
The problem is, they are just sitting duck now. Everytime i have to heal them im like oof.
I can’t imagine why, they didn’t just lose a hard cc and life swap lol.
Sure i bet the top guys will be fine, but 60-80 percent of the playerbase won’t.
Shadows always been a face tank in PvP. They can’t run from anything except maybe a warlock
Still though, I think their utility is held back because of things like leap of faith or life swap. And while those can be powerful in niche situations (sometimes straight up OP) they’re not really “general use” utility.
Life swap for example can be super strong, but in PvE if your party is doing everything right, it’s useless. It’s power is directly tied to how poorly someone plays
On my priest I couldn’t even tell you the last time I used leap of faith except to troll someone. It’s not needed if your group is on top of things.
That’s my issue with priest utility. Almost all of it is niche and is either incredibly strong, or entirely unnecessary. I personally would like to see priests utility be less situationally powerful, and more generally useful.
4 Likes
Agreed 100 percent.
i guess we will have to wait another expansion at this point.
I really got my hopes up for midnight. I thought for sure void expansion = cool stuff for shadow priest
I’m so disappointed with it
Another expansion of sitting on the shelf for my poor priest. He’s gotten so dusty up there
I’m planning to try it. See how it feels. But I’ll have my feral druid in the wings, just in case.
I usually level mine and gear him a bit, but I haven’t been able to stick with it for an entire season in like 5 expansions.
I always end up back on my warlock because it sort of has the “dark caster” vibes but none of the glaring issues of shadow
1 Like
Yeah. I feel you there. I’ve started my priest every expansion since legion, but I haven’t stuck with it all the way through since mists probably. Sometimes because other classes interest me more, sometimes because I can’t stand to play it more.
I’m hoping midnight will be one I can stick it through, but only time and personal experience will tell.
i ended up settling for Bdruid and RDruid.
If i touched priest it would be for Disc priest. So ill prob lvl priest second later on like i did in TWW.
Seems like its the same mission for me.
I’m leaning towards warlock. I’ll probably level my priest first to “test” how it feels but I’m totally expecting my interest in it to fade and I’ll be a warlock for midnight.
1 Like
I see what you did there with fade. No enough fade talents to pick from?