Voidform Change

Classes Priest
1

Voidform should be instant cast have a 5 min CD and replace Shadowform during its duration of 30-40 secs.

Voidform should give 25% Spell Damage, and changes ALL Shadow Spells into Void Variants, also grants 100% Insanity IE:

Void Blast ~ Mind Blast

Void Flay ~ Mind Flay

Void Madness ~ Madness

Pain of the Void ~ Shadow word Pain

Death of the Void ~ Shadow word Death

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During this form All abilities can be used while MOVING! This allowing S Priests to get a burst window up front and then just try and maintain.

2

This is very reminiscent of legion shadow.

I see what you’re leaning toward, but I don’t think a 5 minute, no matter how strong, is the play. That kind of CD works for big niche skills, (ie. Heart of the Wild) but in the current design space for DPS, a 5 minute damage CD is way too long.

3

Maybe the worst idea you could possibly come up with. How about a button you never get to press so that you do no damage for 80% of a fight and if you mess up at all or get CCed during your go you AFK out.

4

I like the idea to change the spells to other variants.
But 5 min CD feels a bit to much. I’d take that but a 2 min CD on a 15-20 duration with less power.
Although it should already be instant cast at this point.

1 Like
5

Its not at all lol

6

Trust me as a Disc.. a 4 min CD (Ultimate Penitence), with 0 ways to lower it, already feels dreadful. 5 Min for a DPS spec would be even worse.

This would only feel good if every spell would lower the CD by 0.5 or 1 second so it comes out to a 2 to 2.5 Min CD in total.. and at that point just make it 2 Min CD baseline :stuck_out_tongue:

7

Legion Voidform was terrible in short fights because it took so long to power up due to the haste and damage scaling with optimal gameplay where you are not at the mercy of movement or interrupt affects which are very prevalent in PvP which no surprise, it was horrible in PvP to the point where they had the Edge of Insanity talent to force you to never use / activate Void Eruption to get into Voidform which also meant you did not have access to Void Bolt or Void Torrent as you need to be be in Voidform to use either.

However, what did work great in Legion and still does today without much change happening the entire time is the Demon Hunter Demonic talent which puts them into their empowered state for a brief period of time which upgrades their primary abilities and you can even extend the form by just doing what you normal do without any extra nonsense to contend with and it works great and is smooth.

Back in WoD, when you picked Insanity talent, it transformed your Mind Flay into Mind Flay Insanity and it did so for a timed buff duration. Meaning it did not just allow for a single Mind Flay to be buffed which if interrupted via a spell lockout or movement, it would end your entire buffed spell. Instead, you can use it as many times as you can fit it within that timed window and that was a smooth gameplay experience.

This is why I think the best course of action to take is go back to a temporary empowered state that amplifies our core spells to grant those burst windows while retaining the gameplay flow you would be used to.

To do this, we make it baseline for Shadow to have Mind Flay, Mind Blast and Mind Sear (upon its return) become Void versions while Voidform is active and make something like tentacle slam and/or Devouring Plague put you into / extend Voidform duration for a few seconds.

To do this, the Void Blast from Voidweaver would be moved to be a core part of Voidform and would be replaced by Void Volley in the Voidweaver tree thus disconnecting Void Volley from Voidform and have it once again trigger after Void Torrent.

Then bring back Mind Sear as a choice node with Psychic Link so you can choose spread AOE or focused AOE and have Mind Sear do little damage so you can spam it all you like for low health targets or trivial content but only when it’s powered up during Voidform does it became a Void Sear version that acts like the 10.0 version where it casts fast and deals lots of damage.

Then finalize Mind Flay and it’s Mind Flay Insanity version alongside Mind Blast and Void Blast version so that they too become their Void Versions during Voidform where that becomes both a short duration and a long cooldown to pump by playing normally.

Remove the extra damage buff you get in Voidform and just push that power into those 3 spells.

It works great for Demon Hunters and it worked similarly in WoD with that version of Insanity.

I see no reason why it both can’t work again in this form and be very fun and engaging with my proposed changes.

8

Good times, man, good times. Last time the spec was still shadow priest and not void priestoid.

9

There’s so many problem with your proposal.

First, it’s the antithesis of what Blizzard was trying to do with the prune, which was to move damage out of big CDs windows so that getting CCed in Voidform doesn’t destroy all of your damage. This is a very real problem with Devour DH right now. Where does the power budget come from to upgrade every core spell during Voidform? It comes from the damage outside of Voidform.

Extension is also something they just got rid of because it desyncs Voidform from PI and it’s hard to track. Why would they put something back they just decided to get rid of.

The most glaring issue is you are comparing shadow priest to Demon Hunter when they have completely different play styles - Demon Hunter can frequently and instantly go into meta with tons of mobility. Compare that to the super telegraphed slow cast made by the priest that can’t chase people who will just pillar your huge dam and cause you to leave VE early and lose all of your hard hitting abilities.

Shadow right now is in a good spot. We have a lot of dot damage and builds right now are leaning into the big SWP and having lots of small burst windows with void blast followed by a big window with void form.

What this spec doesn’t need is another complete redesign. We had too many of those. Any solution that requires redesigning half of our spec tree and our hero trees is beyond idealistic.

1 Like
10

Shadow right now is in a good spot.

You know looking at other Specs or entire classes… wish more where in as good of a Spot as Shadow or Priest as a whole ^^ The biggest complain the priests seem to have is that Holy Feels boring to play and has Mana issues. Comparing that to Paladin or Mage.. we are eating good (iam playing on EU.. but the EU forum is dead so i post here :stuck_out_tongue: ). I really enjoy Disc right now and Shadow also just feels nice.

1 Like
11

As I mentioned, it would come from the actual overall damage increase Voidform currently adds.

Meaning you’re total damage no longer would increase but instead you get your increased damage from your active casted abilities which makes it more meaningful and noticeable making your Flay, Sear and Blast in their Void states actually feel chunky as they once were long ago instead of feeling like they don’t do anything at all.

I would argue that you have MORE uptime and thus more resilient to CC since you can gain access to those Void empowered abilities more often just like how Demonic from Demon Hunters allows in addition to its Metamorphosis which is akin to Voidform as it’s primary cooldown.

So for example, outside using Voidform cooldown in of itself, if you tie using Tentacle Slam to grant like 3-5 seconds of Voidform and thus temporarily empower your core spells, you have a small window to get out some hard hitting spells in a mini burst. This of course can be in addition to Voidform cooldown as well just like how Demonic works with Metamorphosis.

The concept is already proven to work for Demon Hunters since it’s inception. The primary difference as you mentioned is between the ease of movement being a melee vs a caster but that problem still exists without my proposal as it always has, the difference is that you gain MORE uptime in smaller more often bursts which again is more akin to Legion/BFA Voidform where you didn’t have a cooldown and instead you weaved in and out. But the primary difference is that you are not punished for NOT using your spells thus depriving you in forcing you out of Voidform faster. Instead, you have a set duration all the time so you only need to worry about the static time you get in those short windows and work within that frame in proper positioning and lining up your teams CC if that is your biggest concern and you can also hold until you are ready to burst which you did not have that option in Legion/BFA as it automatically put you in Voidform even if you were not in a proper position or have CC ready to go.

The extension I am talking about is that if you have an ability that works like Demonic in that it temporarily puts you into Voidform, then you are not punished when using it while Voidform is currently active and so the temporary time it would have put you in Voidform would instead just increase the current duration of your Voidform… exactly how Demonic works which is not as much of a big deal you are making it out to be.

Which is currently still a problem that my proposal doesn’t make worse but infact make it better since you have more opportunities to get into it. Obviously the best route to take is make it so it no longer requires a hard cast to get into Voidform with Voidform itself. That is a separate talking point which should be addressed for sure, but that only really highlights the current problem which is not made worse with my proposal.

Regarding the rest, I can agree that some things are better, but I also think improvements can be made and thus my proposed suggestions as I think Voidform in its mechanics is quite hollow and arguably could just be removed and make Power Infusion be the primary cooldown and so I would rather make Voidform more standout as a cooldown in taking what is a proven reliable system in both short and long fights and make it work for Shadow while also essentially fixing the issues that the original Voidform came with and at the same time changing the actual flow of the spec in speeding it up with how Mind Flay becoming the current Mind Flay Insanity is smoother to obtain and use while also bringing back Mind Sear in an on demand AOE in short bursts to both reign in its power while also making it meaningful and finally, making Mind Blast actually meaningful again in having it do chunky damage as it once did again with this short window of powered up state in Void Blast.

Sure it would require some rework in shuffling some abilities around, but all the pieces of the foundation exist, it would just imo bring it up to current design gameplay standards and fully flush out Voidform in a fluid form that is both proven to work and reminiscent to how Shadow played in prior expansions and thus be familiar yet modern.

12

Why in the world would you want this in PvP. Right now if you have dots rolling and VF you still get value even if you get CCed or spell locked. You’re talking about having to work even harder for the same damage.

I understand that the new Voidform isn’t that exciting, but they’ve literally tried every other iteration and all of them had issues, and you’re not acknowledging the realities of being a caster versus how Demon Hunter works. You’re proposing a lot of non-concrete wishlist items like mini forms, PI shuffling, several new spell ids, without nailing down the concrete details and proposing a design that backslides on Blizzard’s intention to simplify specs and make baseline abilities feel good.

Hero talents were a great W for shadow priest. Our damage isn’t packed just into Voidform and that’s a good thing. You have mini bursts with halo or torrent, and VT and SWP feel substantial. Why you would want us to be redesigned back around VE and cite DH as good design of all specs I don’t understand.

13

There is a reason Dotless spec in WoD was good in PvP. It pushed more power into your castable spells instead of your dots.

Now, why does this matter? Why would this be good in PvP? Because you can easily remove the dots as the enemy of the Shadow Priest thus negating all your damage with a simple dispel.

So what’s the point in having a lot of damage being pushed into dots when they can just be removed with a GCD?

If your damage was mostly pushed into actual controlled spells that you get to choose when they go off and deal their damage, you can set up more burst damage to land a kill instead of just padding the numbers in a best case scenario or doing abyssmal damage worse case with a simple dispel GCD.

Mini form = A short duration Voidform just like a short duration Demon Form that demon Hunters have.

PI Shuffling? No, I propose no changes there. That is left untouched.

New spells? No, use the same spells we have currently or in the past. No new spell would need to be created.

You are using the same abilities as you have always had. They only get stronger and in the case of Mind Flay and Mind Flay, they would cast faster just like how it always works.

And those wouldn’t change.

You would still have that enhanced damage window With Void Torrent.

VT and SWP should NOT feel substantial. They should feel alright but if anything, spells like those are what blizzard have been against the most in putting power into them. That is why the DOT specs have been struggling for so long because they get too strong on council fights which is what began the multiple expansions of destroying the strength of dot specs.

I would much rather they do what they do in the background where they activate the spec and then your real damage comes in the form of spells that you control when the damage is done so you have less wasted padding damage and more targeted and meaningful damage.

14

This is not WoD. You realize that was 11 year ago right? How is that even relevant to this conversation. “We should remove dot specs” is such a fried take it’s hard for me to even respond seriously. Dispel is an 8ish second CD and they can’t use it to stop actual CC if they’re spamming off DoTs, plus they are taking dispel protection CC, plus we can instantly put them back on with TS, and 150% juiced SWP. You’ve clearly not been healing if you think healers have globals to sit there and spam off dots.

From a game engine perspective an “upgraded” spell with a different name is a different spell ID.

Your whole post reads like “I don’t believe in shadow priest or affliction warlocks core identity, let’s just turn them into demon hunters”. If you like demon hunter go play DH lol. It’s a spec designed to be played on a Wii steering wheel. Some people actually like dot management and don’t want all of their damage packed into a single CD.

15

Because the balance of Dot Damage and Dispels and Council fights all still remain relevant to the current discussion which is why I am proposing a solution that take all of that into account.

Okay and?

  • Mind Flay Insanity already exists.
  • Void Blast already exists.
  • Mind Sear both its original form and its 10.0 form already exists somewhere in their backup files.

The point is they don’t need to reinvent the wheel. This is a non sequitur.

The only main actual change they need to do is swap Void Volley with Void Blast.

After that, they just need to passively make Mind Flay, Mind Blast & Mind Sear become Void versions of themselves while in Voidform. Simple.

Everything else can just be managed by talent choices.

  • You don’t like the mini burst playstyle? Don’t pick up the Demonic equivalent talent.
  • You want more Voidform Burst windows, add a talent in Voidweaver so you go into a Voidform for a short duration that equals to the time that Entropic Rift lasts for.
  • You want to go into a mini Voidform that is triggered from either Tentacle Slam or Shadow Word: Madness? Then pick a choice talent. Each of those choice talents can also adjust your Voidform Cooldown if necessary to make it weaker in cooldown or duration for balance purposes so you can choose if you want more short windows of Voidform or prefer a single long Voidform.

There are many options you can add to adjust the playstyle.

This isn’t about making Shadow a Demon Hunter, It is about looking how mechanics work within the game environment and judge them on how successful they are. We can do the same with many abilities across a many classes. I’m sure when many people were comparing Silence to other interrupt spells that it would sound foolish to just tell them to play those other classes if they want that type of interrupt.

So lets drop the postering shall we and actually discuss the mechanics on their merits instead of derailing the conversation and completely ignoring the legitimacy of successful mechanics that can be adopted for the pursuit of improving the overall gameplay.

16

There are no merits to this. You are proposing a hand wavy “trust me bro” complete spec rework that’s impossible to balance and just result in one viable build for throughput and turn shadow priest into yet another boring one button burst spec. You are obviously not playing shadow priest enough to actually know the strengths of the spec today or have felt the fatigue of many expansions of reworks enough to say enough is enough.

Luckily the changes of any of this happening to shadow are 0.00001%. Blizzard just pruned every spec, they’re not going to bolt on a bunch of optional abilities when they explicitly just went through removing abilities.

Again, if you love demon hunter, go play demon hunter. I thought demon hunter was straight boring garbage the it came out, and devour is even worse. Let people play shadow priest because they enjoy shadow priest, don’t force shadow priests to play something else entirely.

17

What I am proposing is an improvement to the clearly unfinished / un-thought-out work that was done during the Midnight development cycle.

Do I think these changes have any chance to be implemented for Midnight? Of course not. I am planning for the next development cycle. Because if you think this is perfect and it is never to be touched again then you are sadly misinformed.

I see flaws and I propose solutions to said flaws.

Just because that is not your cup of tea (which again I don’t see why) then that is your business.

But as I already mentioned, the only MAJOR change they would have to do is swap Void Volley with Void Blast. Everything else is a minor change.

So if swapping those 2 spells with one another makes you think we are playing like Demon Hunters now and that is all it takes then you seem to be the one that is out of touch.

18

It’s not unfinished. Shadow priest played well in Midnight it just had too many globals (mostly when playing archon), which they’ve trimmed down. You haven’t actually pointed out any real flaws, you’ve only demanded that they change the identity of the spec to suit your VF does everything goal, which having power budget split into hero talents actually makes the spec much more playable in all forms of content. Your changes would literally hurt the spec and regress it back into the dark ages. You have no idea how power budgets work or why meta works for DH. You’re asking for our main source of damage to be reduced so we can get CCed in VF and lose all of our damage :upside_down_face: This is just straight shadow word madness.

19

This occurs MORE now than it would with my proposed changes.

If you have 1 single Voidform NOW then when you go into it, you are MORE likely to get shut down because once they shut you down, you are less threatening for a LONG time.

However, if you can get into Voidform MORE OFTEN multiple times etc. Then they wont have the CC or Burst they need to take you out as often which means you have MORE uptime during Voidform.

After I laid out that logic, are you still on the thought process that you have MORE uptime with Voidform with a single shot at using it until it comes off CD again?

20

You’re not understanding the point. You don’t need to kill someone in VF. You just keep your dots up, and go every time you have MS and CC. That’s why move damage from VT/VB into VF is strict a worse tradeoff. Now instead of a 40 second go you have a 2 minute go. And what the new VF you can literally put dots up, entropic rift, VF and sit behind a pillar while people are dying. You don’t have to actively cast anything.