Shadowlands: Consolidated Priest Feedback (What does and doesn't work)

Classes Priest
487

Perhaps the DoT should be reduced to 4 seconds, and it deal triple damage in that frame of time?

I also would strongly encourage Blizzard to make Voidform a talent choice at max-level rather than Surrender to Madness. I realize that Blizzard wants to save it, and that’s fine. But they should also bear in mind most Priests have characters that pre-date the ability by close to a decade. It is not a well liked ability, and I fear this will be a case of polishing something that only a few will enjoy.

Perhaps the final tier of Priest should have three options, and three pathes by which one can use their shadow and Void magic. One of them could very easily be devoted to Dark Arch-Angel and Shadow-Weaving style play, with a couple options for spending Insanity on in AoE situations.

Another could be Voidform that replaces whatever spell normally is as the long term spell. The idea here is that Voidform could in skilled hands be more thorough-put, but sacrificing something due to it’s ramp-up.

The third and final talent could then be Clarity of Power, which would offer Priests their WoD / Shadow Orb iteration, except they would spend insanity on short and hard nukes; instead of Orbs.

I would also strongly suggest changing the resource’s name to “Sanity”. We burn Sanity when we are fighting the Old Gods. Thus it makes sense we would burn it when using powers from their magic-pool.

13 Likes
488

I think the problem is that the stated intent of this DP is to make insanity useful for something else besides void form during world questing/trash content, the understanding that mobs do not survive long enough in these scenarios for void form to be efficiently used. So, they want to provide a resource spender to use on quick dying mobs.

I would argue that a DAMAGE OVER TIME is not the best way to achieve this goal. They fail on quick dying in a different way than void form does. 50 insanity for a DOT that will either 1) end before the mob dies or 2) the mob will die quickly and the dot will not reach its full effectiveness. If 1, then you are better using a mind flay for probably better damage. If 2, you are better saving the insanity.

You may rightly note the two options are a lose-lose situation. And you are correct, because the core design of a DOT does not do help the problem that the dev’s identified.

So, the devs identified a problem (which is not even the sole of even most important problem of VF/insanity). They proposed a solution, but the solution, due the nature of the weak damage and overall design of DOT attacks does not address the problem they identified.

5 Likes
489

So to summarize:

  • No fixes for all the talent issues
  • No fixes for the dull and unrewarding VF gameplay

And as far as DP is concernced - it is horrible?

You enter VF at 60 Insanity. DP costs 50 Insanity. VER deals 180% SP damage as AoE. DP deals roughly 122% SP damage. VB deals 120% damage.

Casting VER always outperforms DP, so you will always prefer VER to DP outside of Voidform. Inside VF you have VB every 3rd GCD, dealing slightly less damage. In addition to that, VF still gives 10% more spelldmg compared to no VF.

There’s virtually only one scenario where you’d probably use the spell for some degenerate AoE gameplay (if DP can be used inside Voidform): VER - DP - get back to 60 - VER - DP.

So who cares. It’s time to reroll. They obviously have no intention to fix anything.

11 Likes
490

I concur with much of this. I also feel that Devouring Plague if it returns should cost 20 Insanity, not the current 60, in addition to being around 4 seconds to deal it’s full damage. I would not care if it lost it’s siphon effect, or if it was reduced some.

The point of these suggestions is that this version of Devouring Plague would allow a Priest killing mobs rapidly to reapply it, to a fresh mob; which affirms it’s stated goal of being a spell for quick killing. If it takes 12 seconds and is the same as a Single Target Voidform it is basically useless.

Now if it put the Priest in Voidform immediately… maybe that could make it more useful, such that a skilled Priest could buff their Voidform time by Voidbolt and Mind Blast chaining in those 4 seconds. Then Void Eruption would truly be a good AoE spell.

Honestly I still believe Voidform as a 2min CD, and Devouring Plague and Void Eruption being spammable spells we burn Insanity on and use based off the situation, would be the absolute best solution to all of this long term.

As a fluff / aesthetic side note, we do however need some Glyphs for Voidform to remove the Tentacle Effect and replace it with Shadow Orbs. Additionally an invisible or hidden Shadowform Glyph would be nice, as would be something to make our Shadowfiend be more impactful.

While I appreciate Blizzard breaking silence, right now the changes offered appear to showcase that the company has inadvertantly or otherwise misled Shadow Priest players yet again. This is not a promised redesign, as was offered in 8.1.5. This is a bandaid fix that leaves us as non-Azerite gimped “poor cousins of Warlocks” which ironically is the very reason they forced the entire Voidform redesign upon us to begin with.

While I will reserve final judgment till when I see and play the abilities, what I hear is not aligning with my 12+ years of experience in maining a Shadow Priest character. I also want to stress that I am all for Old God magic / The Void. Heck, Lacryma was roleplayed for most of Cataclysm as a Twilight Hammer cultist, but this isn’t the way to achieve that fantasy, not by a long shot.

Priests should really be tapping into Arrakoan Shadow Magic / Shadow Ravens etc.

Like… Talon Priests.

I believe I will stick with Mage and Hunter unless something changes.

9 Likes
491

The damning thing for VF is that there is both mechanical and flavour issues with it. While the quality of the character/look of the shadowpriest is usually dependent on the shadowpriest, mechanically, previous to the introduction of void form which clearly tied the shadowpriest to void/old god influences, there were MANY interpretations of the shadowpriest that allowed a more varied presentation (voodoo, raven priests, talon priests, and so on).

I would like to go back to that.

6 Likes
492

After reading the post again and checking Wowhead for the tooltip, I think they tricked all of us.

DP is not an alternative option to VF but rather an early exit button on VF

the DoT being 12sec will hinder your ability to reapply the spell. meaning if you hit DP again while the DoT is on something it will just refresh it and you would lose on that damage. it hits like a noodle.

the damage needs to be amped up and increased while the DoT duration needs to be between 5-6sec no more. and the self-healing definitely needs to stay no question.

Before anyone says if they increase its damage no one will use VF. That by itself should say something. #removevoidform

SWV, LI, and LoV need to be baseline which will free these talents to have something to do with DP.

otherwise its simply an “exit voidform early” button. Which is not what people asked for.

P.S: I swear to god someone on the forums said “watch them bring DP but make it so bad because players didn’t appreciate there precious VF design”…well it came true.

So basically rather then fixing the problem here is a permanent crutch. Just frustrating and very disappointing. At Blizzcon they claim that the player’s voice matters and they are listening and now that we have spoken up they simply turn there back and say “We don’t wanna bother with it”. Please just remove VF and fix the class for god sake.
#removevoidform

9 Likes
493

They just don’t give af about priests. After 75 days of radio silence, that’s seriously all they have to show? A weak version of DP and number tuning for SW:D? Those “changes” for Shadow are just underwhelming, and it gets worse when you remember Holy and Disc are getting completely ignored.

The worst part about this entire thing was getting my hopes up they would do anything meaningful for priests, because I watched them make so many good and meaningful changes for other classes :clown_face:

7 Likes
494

Bring back Shadow orbs, and remove insanity. We already have DP back, stop being stubborn about void form. Too many flaws, and Shadow priests aren’t in love with it anyway. Played Shadow exclusively since BC. Stopped in BFA cause I just can’t stand it anymore. #MakeShadowGreatAgain

9 Likes
495

Blizzard, here is why we Shadow Priests are upset:

Going into BFA Alpha, Shadow Priests brought up concerns with the class. Void Form didn’t work without the Borrowed Power from Artifact Weapons and Legendaries. We didn’t hear anything back. Shadow Priests kept asking about it but heard nothing in response. Until the interview with Ion. Then we get (this is a copy/paste from the WoWHead LiveBlog of that interview, so not exact words from Ion but pretty close) this:

Can we get a timeline for specs that are still on the radar for major changes prior to prepatch?

The window for major change is rapidly closing. They’re still listening to feedback and talent changes may still happen, but shouldn’t see any large reworks like Demonology Warlock from the beginning of Alpha. Fury Warrior and Balance Druid aren’t as big as the Demonology Warlocks from the beginning. E.g. Tiger’s Fury for Feral Druids will be off GCD in next build.

Now they also have to focus on tuning and balance as well. Discussion on complexity, awkwardness and other feedback is still ongoing but large changes will likely need to wait until Patch 8.1 at this point as they need to work on balance and stability.

Ion specifically mentioned Enhancement, Elemental and Shadow for changes in Patch 8.1.

Blizzard, Shadow Priests were expecting changes in 8.1. You made Void Form playable, barely, again through Borrowed Power. No meaningful changes to the class itself.

Now, we’re in the Shadowlands Alpha. We bring up the exact same concerns that we raised in BFA Alpha and we are met with the exact same thing - absolute silence.

After over two months of literal silence in terms of Priests, while most other classes are getting relatively frequent updates, we get a singular change.

You say “we understand that you are worried about ramping up and how Void Form can feel useless toward the end of fights.” And then you give us a way to spend our Sanity instead - in the form of a 12 second DoT ability. Can you please explain to us how this would ever be better to use than Void Form in any situation?

If you’re at 50 Sanity and the mob(s) you’re fighting are going to live longer than 12 seconds (the duration of DP), it will never be better to use DP. So instead, we continue pooling Sanity to use Void Eruption. Then we can VE -> VB -> DP? I guess? That will take us to low sanity and we’re likely to fall out of Void Form pretty immediately. Is that the gameplay you’re expecting?

If you had given us this change a month ago as a starting point, I think the Priest community would be fine with it. We’d be willing to test it out, play with it, see how it feels and functions. Instead, we’re likely pushing the end of Alpha and the only thing you’ve done for us is destroy our mobility and give us a spell that no one can figure out the point of.

We’re all sitting here, dumbfounded, just waiting for this line:

The window for major change is rapidly closing.

Again.

Please, Blizzard, listen to the Priest community and make some changes. Quickly.

19 Likes
497

I just reread it again as well, they dont want to heavily rework a broken spec, but have no problem reworking a good spec (arms) into something even better. Here is what we want blizz #reworkshadowpriest #removevoidform

9 Likes
498

This interaction is exactly the reason why it’s apparent they haven’t been testing the spec. They managed to make this awkward spec even more awkward. Lmao. So glad I unsubbed. No representation for my favorite class and spec at ALL.

5 Likes
499

yep ive had my priest sense ive been 13 im not 27…and guess what? I hate voidform.

3 Likes
500

That’s precisely what i been thinking. they can spend weeks figuring out the fine tweaks of Aff lock but god forbid they listen to what priest have to say and actually sit down for 2 weeks to work on the spec. Disgusting

7 Likes
501

Void Form is straight garbage and it always has been. It was a hand-me-down from Warlock’s old Metamorphosis and has been a stain on Shadow ever since. The most recent changes to Shadow in the Shadowlands Alpha do absolutely nothing to make this spec even remotely fun. The only solution is to remove Void Form from the game; it never should’ve been there from the beginning.

5 Likes
502

So basically they admit that VF only works on %10 of content (Raids/boss fights) and it does not work on the other %90 of content ( Mythic+,leveling, outdoor content, and solo content)

yet insist on making the whole spec oriented around VF (%10 of WoW content) and decide to give us one tiny spell (DP) to use on the rest of %90 of the content?..what the heck?

So in other words this is code for we don’t wanna bother and rework the spec to address the problems. WHY?

#removevoidform

10 Likes
503

I really had no pretenses on anything. My cynicism came from years of disappointment, so only actions would of changed that outlook and opinion at this point. I honestly do not think we will see anything meaningful before Shadowlands, nor do I expect a redesign.

Voidform is some developer’s baby, they have likely staked their reputation on the concept; and thus to remove it would damage their office cred. Their cred and thus the currency they can burn in office meetings is all that matters, not players enjoyment of the class. This is fine with me either way. My Priests make capable NPC characters for my purposes now.

2 Likes
504

Outside of any of the anger, disappointment, discussions, etc.

This is just a sad thread to me. How much people who love the game have been reduced to echoes wailing into a seemingly empty void. It’s almost like watching someone die slowly in the desert of thirst, then for them to rejoice at the sight of water. Only to find out it’s just a mirage.

Feelsbadman :frowning:

4 Likes
505

It is painfully obvious at this point that they randomly updated priest with something, so we couldn’t legitimately keep the “X days since Blizzard response/feedback…” thread rolling.

3 Likes
506

I can’t help but be happy that we finally got some kind of response.

However, this quote just hurts my soul, "Rather than heavily re-designing Void Form, we’re introducing a new tool for these combat situations with the return of Devouring Plague. "

I think others have probably said this already, but the above can be translated to the following, “We can’t be bothered to improve your spec, here is some garbage that shares the name with an iconic spell you used to have. This will be another expansion where you MUST depend on our new convoluted systems to do anything.”

1 Like
507

If they make DP good enough it seems like you could just ignore VF and spend your insanity on DP instead. Maybe they could add in a DP focused legendary that makes it better than VF even in long fights.

2 Likes