I know people lately have been absolutely over-saturating the phrase “player choice” and “player agency” due to the Blizzcon deep dive panel given that literally no one was using these phrases before then, but what you’re suggesting (That you can just “switch mechanics” as a “choice”) is completely untenable at present.
I don’t think people here care what’s untenable and what isn’t. They haven’t been listened to for 4 years, they aren’t even entertaining the idea that what they are saying might be being listened to now. And if what they are saying is untenable, they have nothing worth saying to a developer anyway.
9 Likes
You know that I hate Voidform, and why, the end. I’ll tell you why it’s unbalanceable as it currently is.
I’ll even tell you the two courses of action that Blizzard could take to remedy this across all future expansions. So here we go.
WoW’s combat is inherently too short for a two minute ramp up. I was under the notion it was a 1 minute ramp up, but the folks who actually play the modern incarnation explain well enough that it takes 2 cycles to reach your actual max DPS. A two minute combat cycle is inherently too long for WoW’s gameplay loops. Except for raids. It actually works for raids.
Voidform would function in a game like monster hunter, where the combat lasts in 5~10 minute bursts across a 20~50 minute encounter. Voidform’s gameplay would absolutely fit a game like that. But 90%of WoW is not that kind of fighting. Even if you push progression hardcore, you can still only expect about 50% of your combat time engaging Voidform correctly. It just doesn’t fit WoW. So what do you do? Here’s where we hit our 2 solutions:
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Trash it.
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There is a spec with a very similar cycle of combat, and is perhaps the only example of BfA class design going right. It has a build up cycle, that then leads into a powerful strike, followed by a few moments of brutal, high octane face smashing. It’s incredibly intuitive, and incredibly satisfying.
I am talking about BfA’s Fury Warrior. It is everything that Shadow Priest’s Voidform could be; should be. Rampage into the fury state has the right amount of build up, of around 10 seconds. Followed by a rampage and some 3 seconds of high octane berserking mayhem. And back again.
It’s satisfying to play as. It’s a gameplay loop that is short enough that you get to experience it in every fight. And if you choose to not engage it because you’d rather not waste your insanity, because a questing mob is so close to dead, go ahead and bank it for the next fight in a few seconds.
And it’s satisfying, because you aren’t irrelevant outside of your 3~4 second burst window. You’re stronger with it, by design, but you are a real, functioning class without it.
Make Shadow the ranged, half-dot brother of Fury. Be as a standard shadow Priest harnessing the shadows along the edge of the Void. Having gathered too much insanity, you briefly, violently, invoke the malefic darkness of the Old Gods in a fit of hideous frenzy, wreaking havoc upon the world. It only lasts a a few moments, before the Priest regains control of the darkness, reverting to a more sane state again.
Blizzard already made it work, so repeating it shouldn’t be impossible. that’s the only way Voidform can belong in WoW. It’s past two 2:30 iterations have no place in a game where most fights last between 10 seconds and 2 minutes. but a 15 second gameplay loop can definitely have a place.
TL;DR SPriest CAN’T be balanced as is. You can do 2 things:
1.Trash it
2. Copy Fury Warrior
8 Likes
can Devouring plague be our rampage?..please? with self heal and DoT?..oh yes that sounds wonderful
5 Likes
OMFG YES.
Please do. Please copy Fury.
Either make Devouring Plague our Rampage, or make something like Void Torrent our Rampage, but the idea of filling up an Insanity bar and using one of those things sounds 100x time better than the 2.5 button rotation of BFA Voidform.
Or whatever ~2 button rotation SL Voidform is going to be (does Void Bolt count if we’re macroing it into Mind Flay, since it will be off-GCD?).
3 Likes
what if both Devouring Plague and void eruption become our rampage but each give different buffs/buff window
so void eruption is more aoe burst and give a more aoe oriented buff while Devouring Plague is more single target oriented.
i really like void eruption because honestly it’s our only aoe burst and its a cool looking spell.
4 Likes
Or they could reduce the ramp up time significantly, they could add in talents/functionality that offers you something to do when you don’t have the time to reach maximum power, they could stop balancing the class around the top 1% of players potential dps and let the spectrum be that you can still pull effective and reasonable dps before reaching full cycle, allowing for a range of damage from priests based on gear and ability (thinking Feral Druids in wotlk).
Or they could change the incentives around voidform entirely, they could adjust numbers and values and remove the build up, they could do a LOT of things to make this situation better.
And I think the biggest, and most impactful and important changes would be to our 5 man and pvp based content.
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5 Man dungeons feel really really bad because it always feels wrong when using voidform. If you want to save it for a more important fight, you tank your current dps and if you want to use it now you tank your future dps, essentially only getting it every other pull. This needs to change. This has been a criticism since Legion launch for Shadow. They need to give us a way to have Void Form available at the start of every fight, or at least a way to get to it very very quickly from the start of each pull.
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Our multi target damage in 5 mans is garbage. Dark Void is just not good enough. Buff it. Let it spread BOTH our dots, or reduce the cast time, or the cooldown, or increase the damage, or several of the above. Shadow Crash could also use some love, being on the same tier as Spirits when spirits is almost always as effective in aoe and more effective in single target.
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Shadow Mania feels like a tax we never get to take. The other PVP talents are just too important to the survival of the priest in PVP and fulfilling their role as support dps, that you never get to take it, but taking it would grant a major QoL to Shadow. THIS IS WRONG. PVP talents should not feel like they are QoL fixes for the class, but rather interesting choices for the playstyle of the class. Make it baseline. There’s no real choice there. A perfect example of a good choice talent is Driven to Madness, a way to punish melee for training you super hard. And a choice you can make if you want to fight melee. It’s a benefit, and not a fix to a problem that exists.
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Shadow is still an insanely immobile caster that can’t create distance or gaps in their fights like other classes can. And with the increased power in melee classes, this makes us a lot weaker. Obviously Shadow can’t just gain back their oppressive passive defenses as they had before as an offset to their immobility. Just passive always on defenses are not very interesting, and don’t really offer good pvp solutions. The solution to shadow priests isn’t to make them a super tank so that they are incredibly difficult to kill. But rather to give the priest more options and abilities to use smartly to create that distance and relieve pressure. Greater Fade is a good start, being a very VERY powerful defensive ability, but it’s on a 45 second cooldown and doesn’t create any gaps for the priest in most situations. Shadow needs something more to alleviate this, and the solution is NOT to just pick the covenant with the teleport ability, because that once again limits choice and decision making.
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A lot of talents currently are mandatory or required functionality for the class, that similar to Shadow Mania exist to solve a QoL problem with Shadow rather than giving Shadow meaningful choices. Once some of the other above problems are fixed, talents like Legacy of the Void, Lingering Insanity, and Shadow Word: Void can be eliminated, or baked into the baseline of the class, and either replaced with more interesting talents that offer choice or reworked to function for Shadow post 5-man/PVP fixes.
SW: Void offers 2 charges for the mind blast slot, and it’s taken for no other reason to fix the issue with the rotation. -Baseline 2 charges on Mind Blast.
Lingering Insanity exists to alleviate the downtime between base form and void form, shortening it to be more reasonable. - Either make being out of voidform matter/be more interesting, or reduce that duration baseline, or make this talent baseline.
Legacy of the Void - Shortens the cast of Void Eruption and lets us enter voidform 40 insanity sooner. -Baseline, Baseline, BASELINE! Dark Ascension might actually feel really good if LotV didn’t make the class feel 100x better. I think people would STILL pick this talent without the damage increase.
Void Eruption should be combined with Dark Void IMO.
it should still do the Void Eruption damage and burst, but it should also apply Shadow Word: Pain.
3 Likes
This thread sucks and can be entirely summed up as people who agree with each other not realizing they agree with each other.
1 Like
which is that the state of shadow priest sucks and changes need to happen.
personally if voidform is staying ramp up mechanic in its entirety gotta go (both the ramp up haste buff and ramp up drain rate). stop binding our dps to haste and bake it back into the core spec then give us a fixed buff once in voidform ( no the %10 extra damage(you drop the %10 from shadowform once in voidform) is not good enough)
3 Likes
Holy crap this triggered me so hard. I screamed about this back in legion, and the Voidform fans would all say to me ‘lol go reroll if you hate it, I’m new to shadow and I love it.’
What about those of us who have loved our class for years? Those of us who loved our class since Vampiric Embrace as a 30 min long buff, when Shadow Orbs had only just been thought up, when Devouring Plague was JUST another dot of ours. When Shadow Orbs were an ACTUAL Combo Point copy. When CoP let me be a poor man’s arcane Mage but with heals. And these new SPriests came laughing at me “lol it’s our class now.” Ughghgh I hope my being unsubbed for a year and some hit Blizzard. It probably didn’t, but I saved some cash in that time. Ok, rant over.
12 Likes
OMG same. the moment i saw legion rework i came to the forums to discuss it and got shunt with rocks by these new priests and they’re all saying the same thing it’s “Sooo Unique” well unique doesn’t mean it will function and there is so much you can ride on the word “UNiQUE”
now look at them they left their priest for their mains locks and have their priests as alts but still praise how you unique it is. they only want voidform because its a “fun” gimmick they can hop on once they’re bored with their main locks/mages.
7 Likes
Voidform is unique alright. It’s uniquely garbage, I can’t think of any other spec that’s as terrible to play as Shadow.
7 Likes
I thought about starting a post. It would be titled: No One Mains a Priest but a Priest. Because a Priest main never needed to reroll (until WoD or legion, this is when I got the “I wanna try something else feeling”). We had everything. We had so much to offer, the other classes would be a after thought. Change is good and we dont need that much power back, but I am just asking for a little slice of the pie back. Just enough to be competitive. Not asking for a I win button.
3 Likes
I’ve long past “asking”. I’m straight up demanding at this point lol.
I demand that we get some actual thought put into the class for once? again?. Not some narrow minded idea that on paper sounds cool but in practice it utterly flops in every type of situation/environment aside of 1 if just barley.
I mean it seems strikingly clear that the entire concept of Void Form was only thought about in terms of end game / Raid environments yet to even get to that point you have to suffer the entire way filled with nothing but pain and misery while watching your friends and guild mates just glide by with ease.
So then you try out other options in different classes only to become shocked if not horrified by how an utter disgrace shadow has become when those other classes play better not just in the base toolkit and functionality inherent within the class, no it plays better FOR YOU, the person who has played a Shadow Priest for over a decade is actually performing better and has more fun on a completely foreign class. It’s a hard dismal reality check that simply makes you speechless and pessimistic for the future of your beloved spec of old.
You know, I was really looking forward to M+ when it was announced all those years ago. I was excited to bring my priest along and do what I have always done in terms of not just pumping damage but always off healing and using all my utility to its fullest. Only to find out that its just a complete slog when compared to other Classes. So its no wonder why I enjoyed my Demon Hunter so much as they seemed to be built for M+ specifically.
Disgraceful.
4 Likes
Shadow problems aside, M+ would be fixed in a big way if they remove timers from it. Then we (and other specs) could afford to use our healing/utility to help out more. Instead of just brain dead having to pump damage constantly.
i like that idea turn it into Torghast rather then a timer put a death cap based on key. however that does not help with shadow at all as a matter of fact it actually make us slightly worse of because the mentally will turn from how much dps can you dump to what utility do you bring.
2 Likes
See, this is me right now on BM hunter. My original main, I switched to shadow in BC because I like classes that can contribute something other than raw DPS to group success. Then, it was mana return and healing. Now, we have very little we can contribute to any group. What should be our signature CD, VE, does almost nothing. Mass dispel is occasionally useful. Silence is up once for every two to four times other classes are. A ST stun. Dispel is ok. Fear is an ok interrupt if you are in range and will break before pulling adds.
On my BM, I can use a heroism pet if the group doesn’t have it, or a dispel/healing one if it does. I have multiple speed boosts so I’m never behind. I can misdirect loose mobs to the tank, aoe slow, aoe stun by talent, ST stun and st slow. Hard CC with freeze trap. I can taunt and off tank a bit with my pet. I can drop aggro, heal myself, or use an immunity shield.
ALL WITH KILLER DPS!
With the focus on solo content just increasing I can’t thing of a single reason to play my mess of a SP in shadowlands.
2 Likes
As Heylaa kind of mentions but in a slightly different way, Torghast will basically be like a M+. The main difference is no timer, however with how Shadow looks to perform in Torghast as of now, they cant really perform at all. Its shown to be more healing & DPS to just do it as Disc.
So if they removed the timers in M+, that wont fix shadow. Not even close. Its the sad reality lol.
3 Likes
| The problem is that this impossible with Voidform’s current mechanics. |
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Every stat point increases the strength of other stat points, ie. every point of haste increases the effective damage that every point of crit / vers / mastery gives, since these all have some form of multiplicative interaction between them.
Voidform scales exponentially, because of this almost all your damage happens during the highest last seconds of each Voidform. If you increase the base damage the class does then the top potential benefits exponentially as well. It’s what happened in Legion’s Emerald Nightmare. So they nerfed Shadow’s top end damage…that also exponentially decreased its low end damage.
Unless they completely change Voidform’s mechanics then there will always be a massive gap between you lowest and highest potential damage. It’s just how Math works. The only way to balance an Exponential class with the other multiplicative classes is to make the Exponential Mechanic not have much impact on your damage, thus reducing the dps swings.
This is exactly what they did in early BFA, where Voidform did almost nothing. In M+ it was optimal to let voidform drop as soon as possible so you could build up to another Void Eruption, since the eruption did far more damage than you did in your entire Voidform. So they added Chorus of Insanity and made the original problem worse.
This is exactly what they would have to do, it would remove the exponential scaling. But then it’s not Voidform anymore, they could still call it Voidform, but it’s now something different, and this is what majority of people are asking for.
8 Likes