Old Void Form SHOULD make a comeback - either as a talent (not the best option, but at least something) OR as a new spec / subspec “Void”
Current Shadow is boring, so so so boring and not unique, basically just different warlock skin and apart from Single target damage, everything else is lack luster within this rushed rework. It’s actually awful.
While I do respect that some people like this rework and wanted it (I still don’t understand who would want the rework what we have now, but okay …), there’s still tons of us that do not like it and never wanted it. Even those that were so adamantly pushing for new rework and turning back now and calling for old Void Form.
So yes, old Void Form should be brought back, absolutely. It was the best design we ever had for Shadow.
Can we have shadowpriest from Cataclysm back? Mind spike, being able to heal like we did back then. This is not a hybrid class anymore. Healing with Shadow mend 5x times then out oom. Boring rotations, dots are weaker then a level 50 lock or a mage fire debuff.
Thats the problem really. In BFA it was functionally a CD where you had to be a god to get it to do what it was supposed to because of the cost ramping on insanity. They tuned it to functionally make it reliable to 5-8 stacks every time at which point they already broke it, and yes functionally made a a CD which could fail if you were unlucky. In that regard yes this is better.
What we should be comparing it to is Legion, the point at which they actually designed this mechanic and so is as close to how it was intended to be as it ever was in live.
Some of the stuff was stupid like basically requiring the legendary belt to make the spec work. Or the fact Acrano crystal was a functionally mandatory trinket. But mechanically it was so much better than noits unreal. Dont get me wrong at least its not convoke the spirits. Nothing like knowing your entire spec is dependant on 2 seconds with a single button you have no control over, but the current build is not exactly rewarding like it was.
Loved shadow during legion. Getting to 70 voidform stacks made crazy dps. Loved shadow in bfa with tones of crit and azerite beam burst. Loved the way we played voidform cycles without any burst button.
Shadow was never considered best m+ spec, but for me it was one of the best. Great offhealing and crazy dps. I used to beat all the meta pugs in overall damage. I loved it.
Current priest feels bad for me (i played m+ mostly). The iteration between skills are weird for me. No easy way to keep dots up and extend them on the run is not fun. You have to chose between dots and blasts/voidbolts in bigg pulls.
Older priest was engaging and fun. I prefer to play mage or warlock over current mess. Spriest were unique class and it make me sad, i loved my priest so much, it was my main since end of wotlk.
Is that why shadow was reworked in the first place? If yes then it sucks lol. Old Void Form shadow could very easily be tweaked to be viable on M+ as well. All it needed was quicker ramp time while Void Form was active, maybe adding some other abilities to it than just Void Bolt, maybe Shadow Crash could be baseline in Void Form etc.
If the whole point of this messed up rework was to make shadow actually viable on M+ then why the hell did we even need to get rid of the Void Form mechanic? It was the single most unique mechanic any caster had in this game. Many people loved the ebb and flow type of gameplay it provided when you went into the Void Form, went out a moment later, recharged it and then went in again. It was very engaging and fun. It made shadow priest stant out from other casters but now?
Void Form is meme. Once unique mechanic became another generic DPS cooldown. Now shadow priest is immobile reskin of mage. Very disappointing. What did we get in return? DEVOURING PLAGUE - the most fun and engaging mechanic we could imagine. /s
Instead of playing around our ebb and flow mechanic with insanity draining etc, we spend all of resources we generate on some boring dot (if SP:Pain and Vampiric Touch weren’t enough) which doesn’t even do that much damage, is only really useful for ST fights. I really don’t understand why people seemed so happy that it’s coming back. It’s boring, unoriginal, bland, it barely even has any visual effects so you don’t even see it except for the icon while it’s active on your target AND it’s getting nerfed in 9.1 so it will be even worse.
It feels like most people who wanted Void Form removed were people who either barely played shadow or didn’t play it at all. More and more of my friends that play shadow and many other people I know simply think this rework was a failure.
Honestly, at this point, I’m giving up hope that old voidform will ever be back lol. Ion in his recent interview really showed he doesn’t care much about players’ opinions, the dev just gonna go with what they see fit for the game.
Sadly it wont be back.
They changed it because people that barely played shadow wanted it to change in their forum whining threads.
Since they spent money in development, they wont take back their change im afraid.
Im all up with you though, old voidform was way better for me.
We used to be the only spec that was not a builder/spender spec, now they made us one.
This is the saddest part of this rework. When I heard that shadow was getting reworked I was pretty hyped up at first…but then I saw all of changes they were trying to make so I thought to myself “welp atleast they’re kinda keeping the old playstyle as level 50 talent ‘Legacy of the Void’ so I guess it’s fine”…and then they removed this talent because of some more forum whiners who said “they don’t want to be forced into this talent if it’s the strongest one in the row” so Blizz listened again and removed this talent completely. Now we have Hungering Void in it’s place.
This is what made me love shadow, going into the Voidform, working to keep it as long as possible, Voidform ends, I charge my insanity and then I go in again. It made for a very engaging gameplay. Voidform became another Arcane Power/Combustion/Icy Veins/Celestial Alignment instead of being it’s own thing. That’s a total downgrade in my opinion
Many of my friends who used to love shadow just don’t bother anymore because they say it feels terrible, like taking away shapeshift from druids etc. I’ve even seen some streamers who played shadow say it was awful and they don’t feel so good about this rework anymore.
This rework was supposed to fix shadow’s problems with being useless for M+ content since it needed a very long time to ramp up it’s damage. Not only did it fail completely as shadow still feels terrible on M+ compared to many other classes but it also took away identity and unique aspects of the spec. Every problem shadow had could be fixed without taking away the Voidform mechanic. Instead of trying to improve unique and fun thing this spec had, they took few steps backwards and nearly removed it.
Make the ramp up much faster, make a maximum duration increase we can get so Voidform doesn’t feel broken since it’s not infinite, add couple of spells to it baseline so it feels more engaging to play (maybe Shadow Crash/Void Torrent baseline during VF?), keep other changes that were actually very cool like free Mind Blasts casts while channeling Mind Flay/Sear or ghosts being spawned by Void Bolt/Mind Blast casts but please just PLEASE bring the old Voidform back.
I was shocked about how democratic blizzard was there, its like they gave THEM the rework they wanted but they also gave US the option to keep the old void form… But as you said: Forum whiners got back in job stating that if its better it will force them to play VF again so… They won in OUR spec again because 99% of the VF forum whiners had barely LFR gear and as we know shadow is un-playable in low ilvls.
Back then ive said many times…
If they only made stacks+VF-drain to fade ONLY WHEN WE ARE IN COMBAT shadow would be INSANE in M+ because we would have crit+haste for the next pack but as it seems blizzard doesnt like shadow to be top tier inside M+. They prefer their mages to rule everything.
That would be a simple M+ fix that would not affect raiding or M+. It was as simple as this.
From what I’ve noticed Blizz seems to jump back and forth between different iterations of class/spec whenever new expansion (sometimes even patch) comes. I think we WILL see old Voidform back in some way in future expansions but how long will we have to wait for that to happen is unknown.
At this point however I think the best thing they could do is doing what they did for druids few years ago and simply giving priests the 4th spec, calling it ‘Void’ and making it fully about insanity draining Voidform, old god/cultist theme etc. They could bring back Shadow Word: Void (seriously, this spell is IN EVERY WAY superior to Mind Blast, it had it’s own unique casting animation and sounded almost like a revolver shot when hitting enemy) and make Void Torrent and couple other spells baseline for this new spec. This way people who prefer current dot based, Devouring Plague shadow gameplay could be happy and people who want Voidform back to it’s original glory would get a new spec with gameplay fully around it.
what was the gameplay difference between mind blast and sw void? resource generating spell pressed on cd that hits like a noodle. the only thing that made it interesting was the 2 charges, they could basically have made a talent giving mb 2 charges and it would have been the same. i agree on the cosmetic part of it though, mind blast feels underwhelming both damage and cosmetic wise, i liked the old sound better.
Yeah I was talking about cosmetic part. It had unique casting animation (Mind Blast is using basic casting animation for most spells) and much cooler sound and visuals. Things like that may not seem important but for me it kinda messed up the whole feeling when playing shadow priest. SW: Void felt much more satysfying whenever I got to cast it than Mind Blast.
Old voidform is well and truly dead and may it never show its ugly face ever again. Devouring plague hits hard and I can sometimes even 1v3 people in bg’s because I actually sustain way better than I did in legion or bfa.