What chicken said. A shaman can effectivly negate the fear on his whole group. You do get the interrupt, but if he drops the totem right as he gets his resist message, you don't even run a yard. In some fights, Archimonde comes to mind, this is rather important.
Technically it is possible to do this without a fearward on the shaman, but then you are really at the mercy of the current latency of the shaman player, dropping it right at fear start time minus his latency.
So you can chose either to make one non-shaman player immune to fear and not getting interrupted in what he does, or give it to the shaman to minimize the impact of the fear and basically degrade it into an interrupt with a duration < 1 sec for 5 players. At the moment fearward can be easily dispensed with its relatively short cooldown and long duration. With 2.3 that changes dramatically, even though all Priests get it then. So chose wisely whom to give it, and plan ahead is what I say.
* Creature AI has been changed to no longer prioritize attacking unfeared targets over feared targets.
This removes a lot of the need for stance dancing/fear ward on Fear based fights unless I'm misunderstanding.
Sure, Nightbane possibly turning towards the raid to follow a feared Druid, and doing his breath cone could still be dangerous, but it's not as bad as it currently is.
I would think you'd still want your tank to avoid the fear. The biggest change is likely to be others in the raid don't have to eat the fear just in cast the tank takes it. E.g fury warriors can pop zerker rage and go on dpsing through a fear without worrying they tank will get feared leaving them with aggro and getting one-shotted.
I would think you'd still want your tank to avoid the fear. The biggest change is likely to be others in the raid don't have to eat the fear just in cast the tank takes it. E.g fury warriors can pop zerker rage and go on dpsing through a fear without worrying they tank will get feared leaving them with aggro and getting one-shotted.
And miss out on their aggro dump?
What confuses me about the patch notes is the fact that they're putting silence on diminishing returns for PvP and yet school locks remain untouched. Getting counterspelled/earth shocked to death is the real issue.
Theorycrafting procedures per role:
DPS = Theory -> Spreadsheet -> Practice
Healing = Theory -> Practice -> Logs
Tanking = Theory -> Theory -> Theory
Lockouts use a distinct mechanic though, and are at least partially client side. They probably didn't put it on dimret yet because they haven't quite figured out how to put it on dimret yet.
Considering there are only 5 factions, and nobody ever does Keepers of Time heroics, you're basically saying you were only revered with one faction, Cenarion Expedition. Ironically enough, you can hit revered entirely from questing, and even if you don't turn in any plant parts, you'll only be 1-2 Steamvault runs from revered (I recently hit revered on an alt I've been playing after a single Steamvault run, turning in only the plant parts I got while leveling in Zangarmarsh). Lower City is honestly the only instance which requires substantial runs to hit revered with, the other ones are fairly easy from questing.
If you're capable of running heroics before you're revered with any factions, by all means I think you should be able to. The heroic keying system was kind of stupid before. There's no real reason to think that because someone did a half dozen Shadow Labyrinth runs, they're suddenly ready for Heroic Sethekk Halls or whatever.
You clearly missed my point and perhaps that was because I didn't make it very well. My point was that most classes currently need a decent amount of gear from the level 68-70 instances to be effective in either heroic instances (other than perhaps the three easiest) or Karazhan. Since acquiring most of this gear requires mutiple runs through the instances that also earn rep toward heroic keys today, the current system almost assures that you will have at least certain key pieces of gear before going to a heroic (unless you are really really unlucky).
I totally see your point about not being interested in grinding rep once you have properly geared when you have other level 70 characters. Perhaps you are underestimating the number of people who play WoW that have never read anything about their class. But a large number of WoW players are completely casual players that wouldn't recognize a decent piece of gear if it beat them over the head. I foresee that this change will either result in a severe lack of PUGs for heroic anything will (since half of them will be wipe fests of undergeared people) and/or a Spanish Inquisition to join a heroic group (what's your AP, what's your hit rate, what's your +healing, what's your spell damage, etc...).
I imagine people will just look at your gear when you get to the heroic instance in question, laugh, and boot you from the group when it's obvious you're still running around in a bunch of level 65 greens.
Having said that, I really liked the idea of keying being tied to your account so you wouldn't have to do the rep grinds on alts, but this change takes care of that in just a different kind of way.
6 priests to keep for example, Sanguinar from fearing the tank. We usually run with 6 priests but still, I wouldn't want to be cycling 6 fear wards as a counter for fear. Shadow priests have to leave shadow form, etc.
I as a paladin tank am of course happy for the (possible) change to fear mechanics, then the whole fear ward nerf won't really hurt.
I can safely say we absolutely never have 6 priests. And I'm not sure we've ever had more than 4 non-shadow priests. Spending >1000 mana to leave shadowform and cast fear ward and return to shadowform is not going to happen.
It's reasonable to conclude in a 9-class game with 25 raid slots, that there are at most 3 priests when building game mechanics. In other words, building an encounter assuming any more than that is unrealistic. Given that the typical boss fight is 10 minutes, with a fear ward rotation and 3 priests, you either have a minimum CD of 1 min between fears or you presume fear ward is not part of the encounter.
I'd say the change is basically going to have the effect of removing fear ward from the PVE raiding game as an important spell. Essentially, it's going to remove it from the game as a spell at all. Perhaps it'll be there as an insurance policy for your tank should he fail at a stance dance, but it's going to be nothing more than that.
Still curious how encounters like Nightbane -- trivial with fear ward, chaos often without -- are going to be handled. I'm sure many guiilds have downed him repeatedly without it but I'm also sure a lot of groups have just had it there. It's not important I suppose, but it'll be interesting to see if the cast time of the fear is changed even a little or if warriors will be in the same position as non-warrior tanks: deal with it and get the boss back.
Still curious how encounters like Nightbane -- trivial with fear ward, chaos often without -- are going to be handled. I'm sure many guiilds have downed him repeatedly without it but I'm also sure a lot of groups have just had it there. It's not important I suppose, but it'll be interesting to see if the cast time of the fear is changed even a little or if warriors will be in the same position as non-warrior tanks: deal with it and get the boss back.
I'm assuming they'll be handled by "Creature AI has been changed to no longer prioritize attacking unfeared targets over feared targets." Still, that makes me wonder what the purpose FW is even supposed to be now. With a 3min CD it's not really even useful in PVP anymore.
Originally Posted by Bekah
Then go put your dick in a car door and slam it a couple of times to finish proving how awesome you are and report back to the IMANG thread.
I can safely say we absolutely never have 6 priests. And I'm not sure we've ever had more than 4 non-shadow priests. Spending >1000 mana to leave shadowform and cast fear ward and return to shadowform is not going to happen.
It's reasonable to conclude in a 9-class game with 25 raid slots, that there are at most 3 priests when building game mechanics. In other words, building an encounter assuming any more than that is unrealistic. Given that the typical boss fight is 10 minutes, with a fear ward rotation and 3 priests, you either have a minimum CD of 1 min between fears or you presume fear ward is not part of the encounter.
I'd say the change is basically going to have the effect of removing fear ward from the PVE raiding game as an important spell. Essentially, it's going to remove it from the game as a spell at all. Perhaps it'll be there as an insurance policy for your tank should he fail at a stance dance, but it's going to be nothing more than that.
Still curious how encounters like Nightbane -- trivial with fear ward, chaos often without -- are going to be handled. I'm sure many guiilds have downed him repeatedly without it but I'm also sure a lot of groups have just had it there. It's not important I suppose, but it'll be interesting to see if the cast time of the fear is changed even a little or if warriors will be in the same position as non-warrior tanks: deal with it and get the boss back.
The same way Horde has dealt with it for the past 3 years. Suck it up and learn to Stance Dance if you're a warrior. They lengthened the cast time so that you didn't have to stop casting in order to have your GCD up. With the fear mechanic changes, it should be much easier for a Bear/Pally to tank as well.
The same way Horde has dealt with it for the past 3 years. Suck it up and learn to Stance Dance if you're a warrior. They lengthened the cast time so that you didn't have to stop casting in order to have your GCD up. With the fear mechanic changes, it should be much easier for a Bear/Pally to tank as well.
I have no issues with fights where the fears are at least 35+ seconds apart, so a warrior CAN stance dance it. Nightbane is just fine for this; if you can't dance Nightbane, re-roll.
But what about a fight like pre-2.3 Kael'thas? We have yet to kill the shield before Phase 3, and we've killed him 5x now. We get it to 50% life, maybe, before the transition ... and then we prioritize Thaladred > Bulwark, so our Sanguinar tank *never* gets a shield (until Phase 4, when he grabs one from a mage just to have it).
We manage it by fear warding him for every other fear, since Sang's timer is flaky, and can be anywhere from 25 to 40 seconds. We have seen our tank get feared when the fear comes 3 seconds before the cooldown on zerker rage is up ... when he timed it perfectly the time before. That's when FW is useful, and we use it.
So saying "suck it up and learn to stance dance" only applies if Blizz actually sets the fear timers to be 30+<random> seconds, instead of 30+/-<random>. If they truly expect tanks to dance, they should make it possible to do so.
The change to mob AI is a solution ... just a particularly inelegant one.
Well if its truly a problem then just prioritize killing the shield before Thaldred? Depending on what role that tank plays in tanking (if he's tanking Kael, which it seems he is not) you can use a PvP Trinket to help out as well, not to mention a carefully timed Tremor Totem can work too.
edit: I probably didn't fully understand what you were getting at so sorry if that is the case.
Finally the change is fine by me, in regards to mob AI to feared units. Resisting fears before the tank (by talents) only to have a boss turn to whack you or run off into a range DPS class sucks big time.
I have no issues with fights where the fears are at least 35+ seconds apart, so a warrior CAN stance dance it. Nightbane is just fine for this; if you can't dance Nightbane, re-roll.
But what about a fight like pre-2.3 Kael'thas? We have yet to kill the shield before Phase 3, and we've killed him 5x now. We get it to 50% life, maybe, before the transition ... and then we prioritize Thaladred > Bulwark, so our Sanguinar tank *never* gets a shield (until Phase 4, when he grabs one from a mage just to have it).
We manage it by fear warding him for every other fear, since Sang's timer is flaky, and can be anywhere from 25 to 40 seconds. We have seen our tank get feared when the fear comes 3 seconds before the cooldown on zerker rage is up ... when he timed it perfectly the time before. That's when FW is useful, and we use it.
So saying "suck it up and learn to stance dance" only applies if Blizz actually sets the fear timers to be 30+<random> seconds, instead of 30+/-<random>. If they truly expect tanks to dance, they should make it possible to do so.
The change to mob AI is a solution ... just a particularly inelegant one.
I've tanked Sanguinar every single week for my raid group for months now, Never get fear ward and rarely get a shield. The fear is quite easy to break with Berserker rage, and if it pops early he will simply run off for 2-3 seconds to a healer miles away usually before turning around and running back to you when you break the fear.
I do Sanguinar as well (still learning fight though). We have a rogue or feral cat pick up the shield and trade it to me as soon as they're done with the weapons. Depending on how you pick him up, you may not need to stance dance the first fear at all (he'll fear before he gets to you). So you won't "need" the shield until either the 2nd or 3rd fear.
Gluth might be a bit harder now with that fear change
I was thinking the same thing for whatever reason :P
Gluth depended on the current fear aggro system to force a tank switch to the OT so his debuff would drop from the MT and also had a fear on a shorter cooldown than berserker rage or the current fear ward.
I was thinking the same thing for whatever reason :P
Gluth depended on the current fear aggro system to force a tank switch to the OT so his debuff would drop from the MT and also had a fear on a shorter cooldown than berserker rage or the current fear ward.
Someone pointed out the most likely change to it, making the stack cap earlier than 10. It's not really an issue until they retune naxx for wotlk release anyway, unless for whatever reason you feel like going to naxx at level60.
What confuses me about the patch notes is the fact that they're putting silence on diminishing returns for PvP and yet school locks remain untouched. Getting counterspelled/earth shocked to death is the real issue.
I think part of this may be that silence is proactive; school locks are reactive. Except in the cases of a felhunter, it's possible to outplay someone trying to shut down a specific school.
Previously if the target was feared the mob would drop aggro on that target so resisting the fear would get you gibbed. Now that it stays on the feared target it sounds like the target keeps its aggro. It sounds like there won't be an aggro dump anymore.
This thread is crying out for some naming convention. Getting feared may have lost you aggro, but it never dropped your numeric threat at all - you were simply not being prioritized as a target. Resisting a fear was only dangerous if your tank missed it.
[Edit] Onyxia may have had some different behavior, but the above still stands.
Update on engineering:
* Potion injectors no longer require engineering to use
* 110g (new) repair bot has 5 charges
* 74a (old) repair mats "simplified" (no mention of charges?)
* Jumper Cables XL no longer a trinket (I assume normal cables still are)
These are currently not in Hortus' test realm post, but they are either up on the official patch notes page or mentioned in the test realm forum.
Yay potion injectors YAYAY. I don't even use potions that often, so it only saves me like 2 bank slots, but I damn I bet you healer types are ecstatic. And I'm glad they realized their repair bot mats were so stupid.
Also, stuff for leatherworkers:
* A new recipe is available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers to make a 20 slot bag to hold leatherworking supplies.
* The ogres in the barrier hills are rumored to have a pattern for a 24 slot bag to hold leatherworking supplies.
Not as exciting as potion injectors.
10/23/07, 11:19 AM
