Saving Void Shift

[Deleted]

Void Shift -> HS is one of the most amazing combinations you can perform as a spriest or healer in a raid.

Don't forget DP. DP is off the GCD. You can use both or either. You can even macro it with VS. You get to 75%+ health using both, assuming Healthstone does not crit.

[appro]

Don't forget DP. DP is off the GCD. You can use both or either. You can even macro it with VS. You get to 75%+ health using both, assuming Healthstone does not crit.

I've personally found macroing DP and Void Shift together to be cumbersome due to the delay on Void Shift.
The standard;

/cast Void Shift
/cast Desperate Prayer

requires the macro to be pushed twice whereas the following requires just one push but isn't spam friendly.

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=6.5 Void Shift, Desperate Prayer

Obviously there is some time to be saved in using a macro in ideal circumstances. However there are times when I prefer to use these spells separately, having both the macro and individual spells requires additional binds - something of which I feel is always in short supply.

I like the spell but stated previously its use is ideally tied with healthstone and/or desperate prayer and this makes it cumbersome to use. I'd like the spell to stay but not in its current form, making the swap instant would solve the macro/bind problems I have.

Void Shift adds flavour and can be truly the saviour of particular circumstances (not dissimilar from life gripping someone from being punted off the Galakras towers).

The removal of this spell feels like a small piece of a greater trend that happening, part of this being the removal of abilities; reducing the disparity between skilled and average players. Ability bloat is one thing but I sense that the scale between highly skilled and low is becoming smaller. For evidence of this I suggest taking a look at the discipline's mana managment removal however I digress and will leave this sentiment for now.

[Mdev]

I feel the reason they removed it was partially because of the new level 100 Talent "Saving Grace." They're rather similar. 50% of target health is enough to save a tank/dps in almost all situations and it has no cooldown. That's much better than a 5 min CD. Its healing debuff is annoying but honestly VS sort of had a healing debuff as well in the sense that you had to take time to heal yourself back up.

Essentially this. They've somewhat reworked Void Shift into a talent.

[Zinge]

90 talents *the fact that some shadow priests don't use DS on heroic garrosh still boggles my mind, cuz haloing the adds is really useful*

Not everyone uses the same strat for phases 2 and 3...

[ThrashMetalFtw]

The only time I have ever used that spell, is to heal the Tank up after he pulls tons of trash with no actual Healers there to take care of him.

Void Shift won't be missed, to put it that way...

[Dierdre]

I don't even have a keybind for it on my new undead priest. I've actually used it more for trolling than to be useful.

[Yvaelle]

I don't even have a keybind for it on my new undead priest. I've actually used it more for trolling than to be useful.

That's unfortunate because it's pretty awesome. I used it very nearly on cooldown during early progression this expansion to save lives - and it was great for that. Ever since they moved it to 10 minutes though I think of it less - perhaps because it feels like its never up.



With all that said, I think we should lose Void Shift, T90 healing, Flash heal, and renew - but possibly gain a more powerful ProM (instant again, please?), Shield, and Vampiric Embrace. Or when you spec Shadow, ProM could become Prayer of Malevolence - which bounces between enemy targets dealing damage upon receiving damage (hostile action, hence malevolence - so our DoT ticks would proc it).

Or, it could be like a damage shield (more like thorns than a shield, if that terminology is confusing) that bounces between allies upon taking damage - but I think they want to move away from that model: though I would like it to apply to allies.

Mostly I just love Prayer of Mending, the graphic, the sound, the Priest-Catch game I don't want Shadow to lose it.

[nobodysbaby]

Never liked VS. It often bugs and doesnt land, I also died from it several times... Nah, I wont miss it at all. I prefer safer ways to help tanks/others out.

I can understand ppl who were more lucky or skilled with it missing it tho.

[Dierdre]

That's unfortunate because it's pretty awesome.

It's not awesome. I can see how it could be good for PvP, but at least for PvE it's like a gnomish engineer's Lay on Hands with a 50% chance to backfire that also requires remarkably bad players to actually get a chance to use it, be it DPS standing in fire, awful healers or tanks that don't use ADM.

[Verain]

While it can certainly cover for a mistake- many of which happen on progression at skill levels ranging from nub to world first (minimization of mistakes is a big part of why top guilds take hundreds of attempts on certain bosses, after all- nothing can go wrong to score a kill at that point if the gear cycle)- that's not the only purpose.

Many mechanics will, for instance, hit a tank to almost nothing, or combo up on a player leaving them almost dead with damage incoming. Void Shift is massive for these situations.

Void Shift is powerful and interesting, and it's a shame to see it go. It's not the best move ever, however, and it does need a very long cooldown to be fair, which is probably why it is targeted. That and I think it's a level 87 ability and almost all of those are dead in wod

[appro]

It's not awesome. I can see how it could be good for PvP, but at least for PvE it's like a gnomish engineer's Lay on Hands with a 50% chance to backfire that also requires remarkably bad players to actually get a chance to use it, be it DPS standing in fire, awful healers or tanks that don't use ADM.

Its extremely awesome. The priests in my raid used it no less than 25 times in last nights 14/14 heroic SoO clear. Many of these uses were clutch circumstances which would have otherwise have been a death (worth mentioning some of these uses are on trash as it gets a little crazy sometimes).

I don't agree with giving anything non-engineer a chance to backfire. It goes against the theme of the game.

I can understand this spell becoming quite strong in WoD is health bars will spend a lot longer at lower levels but it does seem like a waste of a good spell. Makes me sad to see this spell going.

[Dawnrage]

Come on, this is just retarded. I don't care how good you are (or think you are) and how many parses you shit out on a regular basis. No good priest (especially shadow priest) in their right mind will claim VS is a useless spell and that there's no use for it/if you use it your healers are doing something wrong/blah blah blah whatever excuse you can come up with.

VS is an amazing spell. It's a shame some of the better spriests I see posting happen to be the ones that don't use it either. You can simply say that you don't want to look at raid frames to use it, you know? That's a way better reason than all these bullshit excuses about how it's useless. I can guarantee you that there is always a time VS is useful (ESPECIALLY DURING PROGRESSION). Fucking dumbing down your kit and making excuses about not using a spell like that just means that you play your shadow priest as a turret, that's all. Nothing shameful to admit, but at least it ain't a god damn excuse about why you aren't using one of the better tools to save someone from anything but a one shot in the game.

P.S. @lolalola Dyre not using it during progression because "he needs to squeeze out as much DPS as he can" is a BS pandering excuse. Nothing against you dyre, but saving someone who doesn't need to be brezzed is reason of itself to use it. Even if it was a waste, you can at least say you tried as opposed to never touching it. I really doubt that one GCD~ if you don't have a proper bound key cost you a kill at any point (it might have for some guilds, but that might have also worked out if you had VS someone and saved them eh?). Really, not using it just means your UI isn't set up well for it/you don't think about it. That's it. Like I said earlier, it's a better reason to say you are a turret than to make excuses about why you don't use it or why it's useless. I can't count the number of times I saved people with that skill, but maybe my raid just sucks.

EDIT: Just a random rant that doesn't pertain to the topic, but seeing some of the..."good" shadow priests chime in with their progress and random crap to justify not using VS, I'm really curious what you guys consider a good shadow priest.

Someone that ranks often? I really don't think the top 50 shadow priests in the world mash their buttons any differently than one or the other and it comes down to guild strats/padding/rng so I don't feel that's a good way to judge.

The guild you are in seems to be a way for most people to judge who's a good shadow priest but that isn't accurate at all for obvious reasons.

Being that pro guy who does all mechanics right all the time? That certainly makes you a good player but doesn't qualify for what makes a good shadow priest since that pertains to every player/class.

And we have stuff like that, doing things that your class is designed to do and making the full use of your tool set to turn the odds in your raid's favor, whether because you have people messing up (which is what progression is all about) or just to lend a helping hand.

The final one is the one I feel what really makes up a good portion of what you look for in a good shadow priest.

[DemoBytom]

The number of tanks I killed with that... or annyoing DPS..
"stand in fire till 10%, VS->life grip into fire->watch them BURN" :P

but I also used it to save lives.. Good, a bit underused ability, will miss it..

[Deleted]

I've personally found macroing DP and Void Shift together to be cumbersome due to the delay on Void Shift.
The standard;

/cast Void Shift
/cast Desperate Prayer

requires the macro to be pushed twice whereas the following requires just one push but isn't spam friendly.

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=6.5 Void Shift, Desperate Prayer

Obviously there is some time to be saved in using a macro in ideal circumstances. However there are times when I prefer to use these spells separately, having both the macro and individual spells requires additional binds - something of which I feel is always in short supply.

I like the spell but stated previously its use is ideally tied with healthstone and/or desperate prayer and this makes it cumbersome to use. I'd like the spell to stay but not in its current form, making the swap instant would solve the macro/bind problems I have.

Void Shift adds flavour and can be truly the saviour of particular circumstances (not dissimilar from life gripping someone from being punted off the Galakras towers).

The removal of this spell feels like a small piece of a greater trend that happening, part of this being the removal of abilities; reducing the disparity between skilled and average players. Ability bloat is one thing but I sense that the scale between highly skilled and low is becoming smaller. For evidence of this I suggest taking a look at the discipline's mana managment removal however I digress and will leave this sentiment for now.

You can also use DP first and then do VS. DP is off the GCD so this ensures your Void Shift does even more healing to the dying person since you will likely be topped off. Personally I do not macro any of this though, but my Healthstone, Void Shift, and T60 spell are keybound in such a way they are easy to chain. As for the bugs and risks, well I have even died from Dispersion being up but 0,0x seconds before impact. Sometimes you need to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. If the choice is me maybe dying and the tank survives or the tank dies the choice is rather simple. People who don't opt for that choice, well, egomaniacs all I can say. Even on progress sometimes the tank not dying but you are dead means you can see more of the fight.

That being said it did always felt like a healer utility and hence the name Void Shift and Shadow school did not make sense. Healers getting Saving Grace as talent is a nice way to make up for it.

[Tulani]

Got a chance to ask about this at PAX East. The Dev I asked said (very generally):

We decided we didn't like, across all classes, the healing and cooldown abilities where the consequence for improper use was dying. We want the consequence to be the ability going on CD and becoming unavailable and the higher risk associated with that; not death. The mob should kill you, not your own ability (hence Avert Harm also going away).

But if you ask me, it sounded a bit like a canned answer, especially since - to me - the whole beauty of VS is the drawback in using it. I use it practically every fight, sometimes twice depending on length, and absolutely love the spell. Sure, it has killed me once or twice on progression, and while that sucks, I also realize that while some of the time it's straight-up bad luck, there are also times where I could have been smarter about using it. It makes you really think, and I think that's awesome, especially since it meant it wasn't just a LoH clone. I also think it was a nice secondary CD which the class really benefited from. But I'm interested to see how the new talents play up for the loss.

[Yvaelle]

I feel like if that was the real problem, the solution would be to do something like add a quarter-second debuff to both the player and their targeted ally - that makes you both temporarily unkillable - that way the health swaps and lag isn't a factor - and it would be pretty hard to exploit a quarter-second invincibility effect: and really the computer could probably swap healthpools and heal faster than that - so even a quarter-second may be longer than needed.

There are better ways to solve that problem, if that was the problem, than removing it entirely - so ya - I think they just wanted it gone.

[Deleted]

I feel like if that was the real problem, the solution would be to do something like add a quarter-second debuff to both the player and their targeted ally - that makes you both temporarily unkillable - that way the health swaps and lag isn't a factor - and it would be pretty hard to exploit a quarter-second invincibility effect: and really the computer could probably swap healthpools and heal faster than that - so even a quarter-second may be longer than needed.

There are better ways to solve that problem, if that was the problem, than removing it entirely - so ya - I think they just wanted it gone.

Maybe they are referring to you ending up with 25% health instead of the bug.

[Dierdre]

"stand in fire till 10%, VS->life grip into fire->watch them BURN" :P

Working as intended

[Tulani]

Maybe they are referring to you ending up with 25% health instead of the bug.

I believe that this is what they meant, yes. The "improper use/death" refers to the situation where a Priest VSes a tank on the brink of death, goes down to 25% HP and then gets hit with a random attack for 30% HP and dies. I guess they didn't like the idea that that happens, or that a player would need to bind DP/HS to VS in order to have a better chance of survival.

But like I said, I personally found the answer somewhat unsatisfactory, in that I don't mind having to weigh pros and cons of using my CDs beyond just "will I need this again in 3mins?"

Edit: I'm a dink and used the wrong "weigh".

[Dierdre]

I'm not saying the concept of VS isn't good, it could be awesome... with the WoD model. With the current player health / incoming damage / healing output, VS is just highly overrated. The 2 GCDs (+reaction/targetting time) you spend on VS+Desperate Prayer won't do anything amazing that two flash heals (or equivalent) won't do, without risking backfire.