first
shadow never had an actual identity going on. the devs made real clear of that with their trolling. i wish I had my video of them admitting it.
They included void stuff in legion – cool
it also got redesigned
Now shadow can use void and it fits perfectly fine.
you want to split the spec into two which makes no sense.
You are telling blizzard to design a whole new spec itself which is mad because Priest don’t have enough to make a brand new void spec. And bringing back Legion’s void won’t cut it enough to create 2 specs.
I rather have them redesign what we have which isn’t too far from salvation.
The thing you’re missing is the people who enjoy void also really like shadows core spells, they really like dots, they really like apparitions, spread cleave, mind blast etc.
There’s no real way to split the spec in two because all void is is an aesthetic, it’s not gameplay.
this is what I’ve been saying. 100 percent agreed.
You don’t even need one dev ether. There should be more incase he or she QUITTS.
Get them to play the game, play the class as shadow, holy, and disc.
Then come to a good decision.
The point was more a single vision being followed through and iterated to a conclusion, as opposed to something stuck in limbo because there’s never enough time / too many people pulling in different directions.
What shadow needs more than anything right now is continuity.
dam i can’t wait to see the talent tree once its redesigned like aff warlock and archon tree.
This will really give us a sense of what direction they are taking.
I hope they don’t take too long before beta starts ;_;
I remember the video, I also remember when it came out and the feeling from the priest community was “WTF yes it does.” Just because the devs made a stupid comment doesn’t give it validity. The DoT based health/mana restoring vampiric false prophet was it’s identity and the only issue with it was the fact that blizzard removed the mana restoring mechanic from Vamp Touch.
Considering Shamen and Evokers now both have tools to restore mana it’s long since time Shadow got theirs back.
Here I’ll bite. Tell me how abilities designed around damaging and draining your enemies over time while restoring your allies with health/mana, which is shadow, blends in and fits perfectly with summoning eldritch horrors and ripping open the fabric of space and time to create pockets of space.
There is more than enough to make two specs. Hell the shadow side has already been it’s own spec without the void and was for literally across multiple expansions without an issue. The Void side also has plenty that could be used as the basis for a new spec on top of everything it’s looking to get in TWW. The idea there isn’t enough when Shadow spec itself proved it for years and blizzard just keeps adding more void is silly.
Void actually is gameplay the issue is you don’t realize it, because it’s having to attach itself to old shadow. Psychic Link, IE binding enemies together so that your single target damage becomes AoE, is very much solid gameplay but feels bad because it’s been hamfisted onto Vampiric Touch and just to reinforce how much it doesn’t work with the spec they have to specifically exclude the shadow elements, Touch/Pain/Apparitions, from actually working with it to keep it balanced.
You could literally take that concept and run with it as the core of the Void spec binding together multiple enemies and then tormenting them with the various void abominations and space rifts you summon and it would make far more sense than trying to make it work with old shadow spells. Let it keep Void bolt and Mind Spike, which would fix the whole spike v flay issue.
Mean while free from that nonsense Shadow could actually get back to it’s DoTs doing actual damage again while making use of spells like Flay/sear/blast like they use to be able to.
You can’t get continuity when you try to mash two different things together. It goes back to trying to jam ranged nonsense into Arms war simply because “arms” means weapons and bows are weapons. It’s a tenuous at best connection and one that doesn’t fit with the base theme of the class, meaning it would need a dedicated spec to make it work. That is the same issue with Void being a part of shadow instead of being it’s own spec.
To start Shadowy Apparition would be shadow. As for how much they would complain, why? It’s literally right there still in the shadow spec so if you like it play it. The Void would be a new spec as a whole allowed to be it’s own thing and if you love those void elements more than you do the DoTs and apparitions then you play it.
You could even switch around for free as you please. It isn’t like it is being deleted, it’s just going to be in a more cohesive spec that will make those abilities feel better than they already do, while the 2nd spec gets to really play into what makes it unique and be strong in it’s own unique way.
Pre legion and post legion shadow share 80% of their core gameplay. Making void into its own spec not only requires you to make up 80% of a new spec, it takes the 80% of what shadow was that those people liked and removes it.
Apparitions were a huge part of both BFA and Legion Shadow’s voidform gameplay when prior to that they were barely more than fluff besides the few WoD fights you didn’t play CoP.
And if you’re internally screaming “What, no, that’s old shadows mechanic you can’t have it”, then you’ve started to realise the problem.
I’m not screaming any of that because I realize that what blizzard is trying to do shoving the two together is resulting in two specs competing with each other instead of being coherent and working together. This results in neither being as strong and satisfying as they should be.
As for void sharing 80% of it’s gameplay it really isn’t. I already stated what the core of it’s gameplay should be, IE linking enemies together and then summoning the void abominations with direct damage spells like Spike/Torrent at it’s core. I could agree a bit more would need to be added but honestly some of that could simply be making some of the pets, IE tentacles and such, summonable on command while building up to the bigger one.
You really gonna sit there and tell me that linking enemies together mentally while summoning small horrors building up the hysteria of your enemies allowing you to summon ever bigger and more horrific abominations from the void doesn’t sound freaking awesome? It’s literally insanity but on your enemies and absolutely doesn’t need DoTs to be effective or satisfying.
I mean… It’s not what voidform shadow was or ever has been, it’s a completely different spec and it doesn’t have any familiar elements I associate with my shadow priest.
Void priest was the gameplay of Legion and BFA, and 80% of that was the core gameplay shadow had always had. Keep up dots, blast on cd, flay as filler.
I mean 2 of the 4 idols current summons void tendrils/thing from below right now and all of them are based on old gods which are void aligned. The idea that the Void elements of the spec do not involve summoning these types of horrors when they are literal cap stones is pretty silly.
Summoning those horrors also has nothing to do with traditional shadow, and are only tied to apparition because well something needs to be, mean while the tendrils are tied to Torrent/spike with flay being the random addition that is there purely for players who prefer to flay over spike.
Originally sure, but it was more the Surrender to Madness panic mode more than anything. As it’s moved away they have added more void elements to try and make up for the loss of StM which has in turn resulted in the additions of the current void horrors and psychic elements that don’t really fit shadow near as well as they would the void itself.
Void Shift made its first debut in Mists of Panderia. Similar to Mind Spike making its debut in Cataclysm. They among other spells were just reintroduced recently in the modern game.
Void Tentrils also made its debut in MoP but got removed in Legion alongside Mind Spike and many other spells and utility.
In Warlords of Draenor, we got the Insanity talent (not the resource) introduction to solve the lack of single target damage issue we had in MoP.
We also got a very awful never taken bad talent Void Entropy in WoD which basically acted like an extra dot. It was bad because the other 2 choices were just so much better and simply not having either of the other choices was not an option.
So Void themes and spell names were creeping in as soon as MoP Beta. Well before the Legion revamp.
So in comparison, Voidform is a relatively new spell compared to some other Void named spells.
They do, but they’re not really gameplay. They don’t dictate or influence what buttons someone presses or necessarily how those buttons feel to press. Also idol of cthun is originally a legion artifact trait, so it didn’t come after the removal of drain / S2M.
The only truly voidy addition to shadow post drain removal is idol of yogg saron and the thing from beyond it summons, cthun existed before that and the other two idols have voidy names but don’t necessarily follow through to anything visual.
This is what I mean by shadow’s association to the void being mostly thematic. The buttons we press and the thought process behind pressing them have always been rooted in core shadow gameplay.
Still so surprised that people don’t think we have enough for multiple specs. We have two concepts that are connected (so can absolutely be part of the same class and have overlap), but still have enough difference to be separate specializations (some more defined flavor and a different core gameplay loop).
Conceptually shadow drains away with vampirism, pain, plague. Multiple, meaty, heavy hitting dots with a couple casts filling in.
Conceptually void torments, rips, tears down mentally with psychic bolts, torrents, and blasts, with the wielder going on the verge of losing itself to madness before having to reign it back in. Casts that build and build to gain temporary bonus building a cyclical gameplay loop.
Keep in mind, it’s okay for two specs of the same class to share some spells. It’s ok for both to have mind blast. Maybe one dot is shared. But shadow can be great with no need for mind games, void torrent, psychic link, void form, etc. And void can be great without needing both standard dots, devouring plague, dark ascension, etc.
It’s not necessarily that we don’t have enough, it’s that the things people gravitate to / associate with BOTH eras of gameplay are mostly shared.
You could absolutely rip voidform, torrent, tentacles, yogg, etc out of shadow and make a new spec around them, but that new spec would be missing half the stuff people who loved legion / BFA shadow for in the first place.
You are looking at it as if those things are going to go away. This wouldn’t be like the survival hunter remake where the class lost a lot of what made it survival if old and you got stuck with a new playstyle with no ability to recapture what you liked in the old style.
This would be taking the elements people love about both old shadow AND the new void styles and fleshing them out, making them each powerful, and strong while giving the devs the chance to really delve into what those elements are free from the constrains of having to make two very different concepts somehow mesh together.
That means both shadow and void get fleshed out, streamlined and made unique. As players it means you get access to BOTH depending on which playstyle you enjoy the most and BOTH get to be strong and fun.
The stuff people love doesn’t go away it gets to shine even brighter because its not having to share the same stage as something else.
way more people care about how it plays than the visuals / theme. In taking the Shadow out of the Void you’ve removed the gameplay elements people actually want.
If Void priest doesn’t have anything to do with the gameplay of legion / BFA, it may as well not be void priest at all.