So why does everyone hate VF?

I like it myself, but everyone seems to want to see it gone.

1 Like

I wouldn’t say everyone, but there are two main reasons.

Theme: Shadows core theme used to be very vague before the introduction of void, this let players kind of impose their own meaning on their characters origins design and motivations, as well as what it meant to be a shadow priest. The changes in legion took that away, leaving a lot of players feeling disconnected from what their character had become.

Mechanics: Voidforms mechanic in Legion was very hard to get any potent use out of unless you were in combat for multiple minutes at a time. This made it awful for pretty much all casual content. After voidform was changed into a cooldown in SL, many continued to dislike it for hogging a large amount of the spec’s power budget and taking away from the specs sustain damage which had been part of shadows mechanical identity since the spec was fleshed out in tbc.

I liked voidform from a mechanical standpoint.

There were a few issues, mainly no aoe, aside multidotting, which is not aoe, and ramp up time. Which meant you could do really good damage as long as the fight was long enough.

I think voidform has more potential than what shadow currently is, they just needed to fix these 2 problems, and shadow would have been an exceptional spec.

As for the theme of voidform, i think people are getting too stuck up with whatever they believed. Shadow used to be just a type of magic school with little to no explanation, now, we actually have an idea of where shadow magic is coming from.

Since vanilla, shadowpriest have been using spells of void nature, but obviously in vanilla
not being strong enough to dive into the void itself. We could see it in our spells, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Mind Control. The void is always what powered us, as I see it. I still fail to see why people play shadowpriest while not liking the void. this might sound a little rude, but if I may be so blunt, a shadowpriest without the void, is just another warlock I feel like. The people not enjoying the void could go play that instead.

Yes, there are a few issues with current iteration of Voidform, but I wish blizzard would stick to their own vision of shadowpriest and not buckle under pressure just because a part of the community is loud. Instead of making this new Dark Ascension, just change what Void Form, perhaps even just make it do what Dark Ascension now does.

I want more Mindmelting abilities on my priest, not less…

sadface :pensive:

3 Likes

Because i am shadow priest not void priest. And VF was forced without any choice. Since i only played SP , VF just ruined my gameplay.

I just do not like it. I still fail to see why everything related to void must be ugly , dark, always with tentacles.

Maybe if void form was more darker shadow form without tentacles would be bearable, but now it just nothing but disgrace to shadow priests.

1 Like

I mean shadow has been related to the void and it’s lovecraftian aesthetic for a long time now. They kinda tried to make shadow it’s own thing in WOTLK with the whole raven thing in the scarlet crusade but come cataclysm the link between shadow and void was very much established.

1 Like

I think why most dislike it how it works and how it visually looks. Could be just improved shadow form like mages combustion turn into fire color you go void color etc. without tentacles and reworked without void bolt spam.

I think what many people don’t really understand, is that the school shadow itself is just a
a subcategory to the void. I can totally see some of the less void and more shadowy abilities we’ve had over the time feel great, but it has always been the void that fuelled us. I’ve heard a lot of people say “I’m not a void priest but a shadowpriest”. While this is true, as shadowpriests, we have always borrowed our power from the biggest bad out there(the void). In vanilla, we just didn’t know what the “biggest bad” was. As I also mentioned in an earlier post, our most iconic spells are even named “Mind–”.

While I’m all for choice, I personally hope blizzard doesn’t buckle under the pressure of
loud people, and stick to their vision of inching us closer and closer to the void. I want all the tentacly, maddening, unexplainable hallucinations they can give us, and then I want us to spread it to our target, making them gradually more and more insane. :grin:

1 Like

Well in an ideal world the talent tree system would allow everyone to pick in choose. In practice though some build is going to end up better than the other and then the underperforming one is either gonna be removed or reworked into something unrecognisable. Looking at the current tree I am afraid VF SP is going to be the underperforming one, it has already been nerfed and has like 3 talents going with it instead of what feels like 15 for dark ascension. Not to mention than it and DA seems to fill the same purpose of a 2min cd, leading to many leading members of the SP priest community to call for VF outright removal. We will see if the shadow orbs ligne which hasn’t been fleshed out yet does synergise with VF but I doubt.

1 Like

Void bolt doesn’t feel good because the CD is too short, it also does noodle damage so it doesn’t feel impactful.

They’ve extended the CD in DF which is good, but TBH I still think mind blast should change to void bolt during void form, and essentially be both abilities in one.

1 Like

Well the longer cd doesn’t really mean much since you were already holding it for PI 99% of the time.

Not everyone hates voidform. Only those who do are happend to also be thr loudest on forums. Usualy its ppl that dont play any higher end content.
In dragonflight these people will be exchanged on forums for those who will hate dark arch, orbs, mindspike or ehatever was the wod playstyle.

Im currently on the side where i just want void priest be a separate spec.

1 Like

I’m honestly came to the point where I’m not even opposed to this.
We already unique in being the only class with two healer specs, so why not
also give us a fourth spec, similar to druids where “feral” once was split to better
define “bear” and “cat”.

It would please the people shouting “shadow this and shadow that”, while also letting
the people who like the void, keep the direction they like. Might actually be the best solution for them.

Blizzard created something very unique only to destroy it 2 xpacs later again instead of fixing it

The easiest Solution would have been a 4th Spec. Looking at DF Talents… Ok cool they went back all the Years and almost gave you everything this Class ever had. Wouldnt be surprised to see Shadow Orbs coming back too soon.

The thing about the class theme doesn’t even make sense, shadow used to be a very nebulous power with little to no concept behind it, aside it being shadow damage, then we actually have an explanation of where it’s coming from, and people are like, me no like this void theme, i preferred the previous shadow theme.

Like dude, seriously? Like did you even think about this is that i wonder, when i see this kind of argument.

Probably just nostalgia speaking.

1 Like

it is that.

I was playing a shadow priest on the WOTLK pre patch and I don’t really get the rage about old school shadow, it’s basically just like current thematically but less in depth. Like an under developped version of the spec’s identity.

1 Like

That’s literally the point of the spell though, it does damage, but most of all it generated insanity to keep up voidform.

Which you saying it hits like a wet noodle, look, it was like 14 % of the total damage in legion/bfa, maybe even more, don’t remember exactly how much, but i do remember that it was above 10 %, closer to 15%.

That’s not a wet noodle, maybe the individual bolt itself didn’t do that much damage, but what if you cast like 20? Yea. Not all specs have 1 big damage button that does way above and beyond anything else, and other abilities do close to nothing, like templar’s verdict.

And that’s fine.

People were saying that enhancement shaman hit like a wet noodle, when enhancement was literally the best st spec in the game. People just have no idea what they are talking about. And i was playing enhancement at that time. S priest had a similar damage profile, lots of smaller hits, and a few big ones make up for really big damage.

Ps: It also reset the cd of your dots/increased the duration which was great, but it increased it way more than now, i personally really dislike having to re cast my dots, especially in aoe, it would be fine if we had a way to spread them, but yea… We don’t so, i don’t like it.

1 Like

Complaints will always be heard on forums more, since happy people don’t make posts, unfortunately. I just hope blizzard sticks to their vision of shadowpriest moving ever closer to the void, and won’t get cold feet just because a few loud people want to play affliction warlock.v2

All the people shouting to remove voidform, should be shouting to instead change voidform. Void is and always will be what fuels us, if something doesn’t feel good, change it instead. I hope the loud people realize this sooner than later as well.