Ever since they’ve had the borrowed power mechanics, they’ve tuned the spec around the endgame where you’ve obtained all of the important RNG-drop class abilities (something that the original dev team decided was bad for the game) and/or had your artifact/weapon/widget maxxed out. That doesn’t happen until well after the final patch drops (in some cases, never). This is why I recommend that you don’t actually play a priest (especially shadow) until after the last patch drops and you have a full set of catch-up gear. The experience for the first year and a half is dismal.
Contrast the experience with, say, a ret paladin. In the earliest part of the expansion, the ret rotation also feels a bit terrible with a lot of deadtime. Yet, compared to a Shadow priest, you are a god at clearing out the non-raid content, even this early in the expansion.
You wouldn’t even want to play ret if you are looking at the DPS rankings, yet the overall experience feels 10x better on ret.
I won’t profess to know exactly why the experience is so different (to be honest, that’s not my job, and people have put forth their theories) but let me state: Shadow is a terrible spec to play outside of raids, and (barring some surprise revelation) that is NOT changing in Shadowlands.
Those two sentences aren’t related to each other. Shadow Priests having two phases doesn’t mean you can’t master its rotation. Its rotation is pretty easy.
Well there are no rotations any more just priority lists and if then statements to govern what buttons to press.
A lot of people found rotations boring and blizzard moved away from them but I liked mastering my rotation so I could pay more attention to my surroundings. But that’s just my preference.
I hate voidform because it destroyed spriest as a spec. Before Legion spriest was, at its best, a hard-hitting dot class. The melt face meme applied particularly and most appropriately to the Shadow Priest. It was insanely fun.
The aberration, which is voidform, introduced an insane mini-game into the middle of the shadow priest rotation. The original surrender to madness was OP and everyone jumped on it without regard to the fact that it was an aberration of the original core of the class. It was a solution looking for a problem. It fixed nothing but numbers associated with DPS.
The solution to voidform is to return to the core hard-hitting dot class and build and evolve the spec on its shoulders. I hate voidform; can’t wait to see it go. The MO of Blizzard is to double down on errors so it may be a long long time before Shadow Priest is addressed in the way it needs to be.
I absolutely loved Legion voidform. The minute cycle, the absolutely insane amount of haste, your fingers could barely move fast enough. It made pulling off long void forms actually feel worth it. In BFA I could really care less if I fall out of voidform. Idk why people are so nostalgic for old spriest. Go do a dungeon and just never enter voidform. That’s basically old spriest. Just instead, after you mind blast 3 times use an on use damage trinket and that’s your shadow orbs and devouring plague.
let me guess Nightmare was your highlight because it sounds like you are talking about it. I have never spend a minute fighting a mob in open world content.
go play a ret pally, WW monk, any warlock you’ll understand. it’s far more satisfying and you get to have control over your dps mechanic.
However, I think we understand voidform is not going anywhere so let’s try and make it better. Simply saying I like legion voidform is not helpful at all because the moment Blizz saw voidform mechanic in Nightmare they been trying to fix it with no avail.
the spec is dreadful and making all the azerite traits/essence baseline won’t fix it at all. People don’t understand that Chorus of Insanity is completely opposite of what the spec mechanic was intended to be. the idea was to want to stay in voidform more to do more dps not the other way around.
I personally hate the ramp up mechanic in its entirety (I know I have said that multiple times before and I’ll say it again) and I absolutely hate that our dps is bonded to haste( more stacks of voidform=more haste= less cd on spells= use spells more) it’s horrible.
so here’s my question to you how would you rework/adjust voidform. Here’s my suggestion make it fixed strong dps buff with a fixed drain add Devouring plague as a spender and separate Void bolt and Void eruption and turn them into spenders too. So yes you would be able to maintain voidform for the whole fight but the spenders will increase the risk of losing it.
now for the people who like the ramp up. I have a better suggestion then ramping up haste. how about implementing Mass Hysteria baseline. So rather than stacking haste each stack of voidform will increase your DoT damage by %( because in my suggestion you would be able to maintain Voidform until the end of the fight there needs to be a cap on the stacks lets say a cap of 25)
this will make it so you would actually have agency over yourself rather than sitting there hoping to god the fight lasts enough for you to ramp up.
Sadly I didn’t raid much in Nightmare. Antorus was my raid. Also loved farming high keys in M+. The playstyle was insane. Getting up to like 200 percent haste and having Mass Hysteria make your dots go nuts. Void Eruption actually doing damage with the legendary chest. Yeah it was super annoying with the ramp, but at least we ramped so hard that it felt worth it when it worked. I miss void bolt refreshing all dots and extending them. Mass Hysteria should be our new mastery. Voidform needs to pack more punch and give us another ability or 2. I’d love some kind of aoe burst like we had in legion with double void eruption. More than anything I’d just like our dots to actually do damage again.
that’s why we got nerfed and when Blizz recognized how broken Vodiform is more specifically the ramp up mechanic.
i totally get what you’re saying but what I’m suggesting is remove the ramp up element and let Voidform provide its buff upfront. this will make it so much more viable in multiple content and worth popping on small pulls.
yes exactly, that is what we are discussing adjusting/reworking voidform so it can be more enjoyable and viable.
Again I totally understand what you are saying but the problem is we got voidform because the spec “felt” to similar to aff lock. Affliction warlocks mastery is basically Mass hysteria( their mastery increases the damage of their DoTs). the main reason that we got voidform is to turn us away from being a DoT class because that’s the vision Blizz has for Aff locks.
I think the ramp up playstyle should be left to Aff Locks. the way Blizz made Aff lock is the right way to make ramp up mechanic work. they have good sustain dps that ramps up when you want it to.
As much as I love Voidform, that love does not make me blind to its flaws. The following are my pain points with Voidform.
It is not fast enough baseline
The haste gain from Voidform alone is not enough to make the gameplay satisfying. Voidform is only sufficiently fast enough to be satisfying to play after taking the Lingering Insanity talent.
There is no reward to encourage the desired behavior of extending it baseline
Voidform rewards come from non-baseline sources, i.e. Chorus of Insanity and Lingering Insanity. If extending Voidform is the desired behavior of the player, that reward ought to be sufficient and baseline.
Borrowed power has led to its power scaling being exponential, resulting in an unhealthy ramp damage pattern
In Legion, the borrowed power that increased the value of Voidform was Mass Hysteria. In Battle for Azeroth that borrowed power is Chorus of Insanity and Spiteful Apparitions’ synergy. Both of these result in a power scaling of Voidform that causes achieving later stacks to be valued significantly more than early stacks. This causes an exponential ramp damage pattern which leads to excessive punishment if Voidform is ever dropped prematurely.
Voidforms are not independent of one another
Voidform dependency is a term I coin meaning that the power level of a Voidform is directly influenced by the performance of the previous Voidform (sans the first one). The enablers of this unhealthy design are Chorus of Insanity and Lingering Insanity. Both of these last well into the next Voidform after exiting, which impacts the performance of that Voidform. This design is unhealthy because any mistake resulting in exiting Voidform prematurely leads to cascading punishments. Voidforms ought to be independent. That is, the performance in one should have zero impact on the performance of the next.
I enjoy the fluidity of the spec and the feel of playing shadow.
as the poster above said. at this point I’m hoping for the 10.0 alpha to see if actual changes to the spec will happen. other wise it’s just numbers tuning and maybe a talent tweak here and there till then.