Why can’t the channel be reduced by haste?
The game has gotten faster and faster since M+ was introduced, and Void Torrent feels more and more like a giant ball and chain around your ankle.
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I believe all channeled spells channel faster with haste? The problem is, is we won’t have optimal haste until s4 of tww, so like 2 years from now? Ggs
I’ve heard there will only be 3 seasons. I’ve also heard seasons will be shorter. I’m not sure.
Oh really? So the expansion in total will be like 18 months? 6 month seasons?
That’s what I read somewhere. Again I’m not certain. Blizz did say say they were rolling out expansions faster for the next 3. Who knows with blizz though it might be 4 season at 4 months each by the time it’s over with.
Void Torrent is a fixed channel time. It’s always 3 seconds no matter how much haste you get
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Because instead of channeling faster it’s ticking faster.
Basically haste increases the tick rate rather that decreasing the channel time.
Having it scale with haste would provide more mobility, as we wouldn’t have to stand still as long. It would also help shadow in pvp where void torrent is just a giant “Hey! Kick this cast, here’s 3 whole seconds to do it!” Sign
It does scale with haste though.
They could make it reduce the cast time, but then they would have to remove the extra ticks from haste or it would just scale out of proportion, but then it would just be a bad talent, so they would have to reduce the cd with haste, which means you will channel it about as much overall.
Good news. Voidweaver gets a talent that lets you move while channeling Void Torrent!
Yes as much over all, but with less chance of being interrupted either via kicks or mechanics as the channel windows are smaller. This would be a huge boon in PvP. Not only to avoid lockouts but it would also add to shadows burst capabilities, which is a serious weak point of the spec.
Yes that’ll definitely help, for those who play it, but I’ve heard Archon is looking like the way to go in mythic plus.
It also won’t really help in PvP. Still a 3 second window to kick the priest on the spell that is essentially the cornerstone of their build.
Because it has a cooldown.
You get more value out of it this way because, as void torrent is your highest priority spell, there’s no opportunity cost for casting it.
Haste doesn’t increase the damage per cast of channelled spells, it only reduces their duration, but the fact it has a cd means reducing the duration does nothing because you can’t fill that “new” space with more void torrent anyway.
It wouldn’t though, it’d just be objectively worse than it currently is by every metric.
Casting void torrent for 1.5 seconds with 100% haste and cancelling it yourself is exactly the same amount of damage as if void torrent’s channel was hasted, you just have 1.5s less void torrent than if you didn’t cut it short.
Yes but would also feed u the same insanity faster. As well as makes things like mind trauma alot more powerful as well. i would 100% rather it be hasted v extra ticks for pvp.
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All of this discussion on hasting Void Torrent or any channeled damage ability for that matter just exemplifies the weakness for Shadow in PvP and that is to actually finish your spell before a stop of some nature be it a hard interrupt or a knock back or knock up or stun etc. and for it to have a meaningful impact that gives the proper feedback result that you infact contributed to the target kill.
But alas, I don’t see a faster channel speed as a solution and only see it causing problems as the faster it will deal its damage, I would have to think the damage done will be barely noticeable in order to keep things balanced.
So you would in fact spend more time channeling or attempting to channel to get the same amount of damage output that a far few channels would deal in total.
Again, this is why WoD PvP was so good because our damage was fed into instant cast damage be it from procs or resource spending or talent options in addition to our Mastery enhancing our rotational spells that have the opportunity to become instant cast.
We were not beholden to needing the target to be max dotted up in order to tap into our maximum power potential and because of this fact, you can launch surprise front load burst on an unsuspecting target without your dots on them and without travel time or visual graphics showing the link of the spell caster to the intended target making you essentially strike from the shadows and before the target realizes what is happening in order to pop defensives, it’s too late as the pressure is already upon them with more following suite.
This again is why I incessantly suggest splitting the damage profile of Shadow to focus between Periodic and Non-Periodic damage and your talents will give more or less weight to one side or the other and the player can choose to what degree they want their damage to lean more on be it heavy Periodic or Non-Periodic or a mixture of both.
Ideally, the more talents that you pick up that grant you instant cant procs or just better interrupt protection would force you to sacrifice talents that increase your periodic damage. So at that point your dots mainly act as a trigger to allow more ease of use of your Non-Periodic damage spells.
Where as instead you can go for more Periodic Damage enhancing talents that keep your Non-Periodic damage dealing less damage and less opportunities to cast with ease aka instantly.
The Non-Periodic damage build should be superior in short fights while the Periodic Damage builds should be superior in long form fights as that just makes sense because dots deal their full damage over a given amount of time and should typically win out over an somewhat equivalent hard casting Non-Periodic damage spell.
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This is already how the Shadow spec tree is set up. It isn’t split left to right obviously, but the makings of a direct damage/periodic damage builds are there. Blizzard just haven’t fully commited to it, because for whatever reason they never fully commit to anything with priests (especially Shadow).
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It would help if it just wasn’t a channel to begin with. At least specs like destro can be kicked but they don’t lose the resources they were using to cast the spell until it’s actually been cast. Shadow gets kicked the first second of void torrent and then you have no damage dealt, your big “nuke” is on CD, and you’re just standing there like 
ok cool
Pfft lol
Shadow is far from being set up as a Periodic vs Non-Periodic damage profile build.
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Voidform does not directly and only enhance Periodic Damage while Dark Ascension enhances Non-Periodic damage but a flat amount, they don’t lean into respective gated spells like Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Death to make them standout on their own.
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You got talents that enhance both Mind Spike and Mind Flay which just adds ambiguity as to what spell you should use since you can’t use both meaning you are forced to pick one or the other without a clear winner.
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We don’t have a method of AOE that caters to being increased via Periodic damage increase like Mind Sear could be if it was a choice with Psychic Link.
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Our mastery requires dots on target to deal maximum potential damage which runs counter to a Non-Periodic damage build.
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Both Hero Talent trees focus on enhancing Non-Periodic damage within our rotational gameplay spells which is why the cooldown of choice is so weird when to match them up for each Hero tree as it’s an odd paring of Voidweaver with Archon but it’s only because Dark Ascension would not buff Halo completely on targets without dots on them as Voidform would as well as not buffing Mind Flay as Voidform would and Dark Ascension enhancing Mind Blast is why it would be the primary choice for Voidweaver because of the upgraded Void Blast. It’s all kind of whack.
We need talents that directly enhance one side or the other.
The Periodic damage profile should enhance your dot damage to the point of it being quite scary alone (given enough time to ramp up) but in turn your Non-Periodic damage would hit for very little and would only really be used to increase the damage or duration or general effects of your dots.
The Non-Periodic damage profile should enhance your Non-Periodic damage in increasing your damage, getting instant cast procs from your dots, add other effects like debuffs to the target and essentially make your Periodic damage do very little.
I have plenty of examples of how to bring this sort of thing to life which I will link below but here are a number of examples…
Mastery needs to change, I suggest moving it to a flat rate and into its own talent…
- Shadow Weaving
Your damage is increased by 5% for each of your Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch and Devouring Plague applied to the target.
Then return to a WoD style mastery that would cater to both damage profile builds…
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Mastery: Mental Anguish
Increases the damage of your Mind Spells by 20%.- This would provide the Periodic Damage profile build with higher damage on both Mind Flay and Mind Sear with Mind Blast also receiving some additional bonus.
- This would provide the Non-Periodic damage profile build with higher damage on both Mind Spike and Mind Blast.
- This would make Mind Spells hit hard as they should with each damage profile being buffed further from chosen talents.
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Voidform (Redesign)
Increases your periodic Shadow damage by 15%, increasing by 2% every second. Lasting 15 seconds. Devouring Plague costs 50% less and extends the duration of Voidform by 1 second. 1 min cooldown.- This puts more focus on your dots specifically which also gives more weight in casting Devouring Plague because of its DoT aspect and the cost reduction which also then speeds up your gameplay.
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Dark Ascension
Increases your non-periodic Shadow damage by 25% for 20 sec. The cooldown of Shadow Word: Death is reduced by 50% and deals damage as if the target is below 20% health. 1 min cooldown.- This gives more weight to Shadow Word: Death and speeds up your gameplay while enhancing the damage of your other Non-Periodic damage spells.
- Much more found in the links below
TWW Feedback post…
More Feedback provided last year…
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I don’t mean that it is literally split between a periodic and non-periodic build. But rather that the seeds for it is there. They just didn’t go the whole way.
Can i just rant about how much i hate this version of Void Form? Actually no, i won’t. I am just going to say that i think the current iteration of Void Form is the worst cooldown in the game and leave it at that. Your idea is much better.
Yeah but this is the result of Blizzard merging those two spells. So anything that affect Mind Flay has to affect Mind Spike and vice versa. Prior to the mid DF rework it did not work like this.
Realistically i don’t see a world where Shadow ever has access to a completely DoT less build again, like Clarity of Power in WoD.
That said, the current mastery is pretty terrible and is part of the reason why silly things like the Void Form clause has to exist.
Wait, Halo is classifed as “periodic” damage? How does that make any sense?
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Which is why the Surge of Insanity talent needs to be removed as it’s an abomination of this twisting between Mind Flay and Mind Spike.
Both Mind Flay and Mind Spike need to be separated and coexist simultaneously just like it had in Cata, MoP and WoD without issue.
It was never a question back then as to when to use one or the other.
The only reason they got merged now was because so many people that never played shadow back then were utterly and completely confused as to what to make with Mind Spike when it was reintroduced during the DF beta.
Because both Mind Flay and Mind Spike were a spell that did not cost resources or had a cooldown, it was somehow thought as a choice between fillers.
But Mind Spike was never intended to be a filler when it first showed up. They only made it a filler based on the community reaction which just started this step by step process to become what it is today, a totally misunderstood spell that it’s best known purpose in the past as being a short burst moment or target swap spell has been long forgotten.
Our mastery exemplifies its forgotten purpose since you were supposed to use Mind Spike on targets without dots on them and that runs counter to how our damage works with our current mastery.
So talents like Surge of Insanity just bottlenecks the entire choice of what these spells can really do given more attention and care and an actual vision as to what Shadow should be able to do.
The point behind this statement is that while Dark Ascension is active, Halo will still be limited to doing its FULL damage to targets with all 3 dots on them due to our mastery getting in the way.
Meaning you can’t just simply expect Halo to do its full damage to a massive group of targets just because.
Where as Voidform has the unique feature of dealing MAX damage to all targets regardless if they are dotted up or not.
So in mass AOE situations, you cannot expect to dot everything up with 2 dots let alone all 3 which quietly acts as a damage suppressant whenever you use Halo when you are not within Voidform specifically.
So the question you have to ask yourself is what’s gaining you more damage? Your mastery effect requiring all 3 dots to unlock your full damage potential or the Non-Periodic damage enhancement that Dark Ascension provides which with the empowerment of our cooldowns within the Archon tree, that gap between Dark Ascension and Voidform is even less pronounced.
Without testing and just going off of how the spec works, it seems logical to think Voidform will clearly make Halo do more damage to a non dotted up target compared to the effects of Dark Ascension.
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