• Maligne

Mostly 2's and 3's, around 1700. That's downright dirty with sacrifice. I'll keep that in mind though and use poly more as an interrupt as opposed to a crowd control on pallys.

What better cc is there for a druid than polymorph?

 

Thelgrom

Definetely, interrupting people and just annoy them with constant polymorph is underestimated and can be very effective. Regarding Blessing of Sacrifice it has it's downsides. The player who has the blessing needs to take damage for me to break from the cc's. Therefor I need to cast it on the player who the opponents team are damaging ofcourse. And sometimes it also gets dispelled, so it is nowhere near as solid as a friendly dispeller, but quite effective nonetheless.

 

Ghostz

We played some teams that used to have their mage focus mainly on cs and rotating polys through the whole team and forcing the healers to use global cooldowns on cleanse and it was somewhat effective, but their burst suffered quite a bit.

 

Vazu

Alot of our Paladins are using Furlbog form to fake out CS/Kick/Pummel. The casting animation is something like 1.5 seconds and looks exactly like a heal. Actually, I would imagine any healing class could get away with faking people out like this. Druid animation is totally different with green glowing hands, but most people just see/hear a healer casting and their first reaction is to interrupt.

..but yeah, people catch on. I wouldn't expect it to work forever. Some people just don't watch casting bars.

 

Fiola

In my 2v2 experience for teams that both have paladins - first one to bubble, loses.


On that other post about using the furby trinket as a fake heal . . Some people completed that quest. QQ

(And it probably wouldn't work on any dedicated high rating opponents, who probably have a spellcast notification mod installed)

 

Monsanto

You can get around this with either a mouseover macro (as already listed) or a focus target macro.

/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus] Counterspell

That would be the focus target version, instead of [target=mouseover].

And if the mage's UI shows the focus target's cast bar (ag unit frames and others do this), then it's impossible for a mage not to know when you're casting.

Druid: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...hol&n=Monzanto
Warrior: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...n=Thundershaft
Warlock: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...gos&n=Valdamar

 

Fjord

I stick to pillars in arena specifically for mages. As long as they're out of LoS you can safely heal.

 

Shawn

As a rule of thumb:
- The more players you have that are capable of healing, the more useless gets a counterspell.
- Standing still in the open and healing draws attention to you.

I think the key to not getting counterspelled is to hide from the mage as good as you can. And by hiding I don't mean always standing somewhere in the back. Adapting is important - I remember a fight where the opponent's Druid sneaked between our healers and was able to cast a couple of Healing Touches until our healer finally pointed out what was happening. Pillars are a great way to avoid a counterspell, too. Things like silence reducing armor or talents are just a backup.
Oh and another thing: Faking heals just doesn't cut it against watchful players. I'll try to get a counterspell off when I definitely know that you'll have to heal.

 

• Symbul

I'm almost never in a position to fake out heals. In the situations where it's possible (throwing FoLs at stray shots or smth) I don't mind eating the CS that much. We run 2.5 healers so the CS alone won't shut us down. Situational awareness wins the day on the CS vs Paladin standoff usually. If I see a mage conspicuously standing apart and not trying to tear into someone I'll bubble before I need to throw a life-saving heal. If he looks busy I'll take my chances.

I also tend to stand in the opposing healer camp when they give me the chance. Not so much to avoid CSs but to create a gap between myself and the others on my team and throw a HoJ/Torrent if my dpsers call an opening.

 

◊ Eej

[Improved Concentration Aura + Talisman of the Breaker] + Counterspell = Hilarity in the making.

 

GamingManiac

Imp Conc Aura + Talisman of the Breaker + Focused Mind (Shaman talent to resist 15% more) = even more awesome.

I've had a mage yell WTF LUCK when I resisted his CS with only Focused Mind and thrashed him in a 2v2. I just yelled back: TALENTS > YOU. Too bad Talisman doesn't drop for me yet

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...n101/sigP2.jpg

 

Kink

I was going to say this =).


Basically if you are a main healer, and the othe rteam knows it, the mage will set you as his focus target. Add along with that the fact he can get mods to show him what his focus is casting, he will ONLY CS you during a heal. He can also CS you instantly without changing targets.

Basically this means the only real way you can avoid a CS is to a)Kil the mage, or at least harass him enough that he is more cncerned about surviving than he is about CSing or b) fake a HEAL and cancel it.

Other tricks will only work on the "poorer" teams. But any organised PvP team will not be fooled and all you will do is waste time.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem is, it's often an incoming train.

 

• aya

The Foreman's Enchanted Helmet (http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=23838) for that extra 10% resistance can't currently be made, due to it requiring "Shadoweave Cloth" (instead of "Shadowcloth"). Don't level up Engineering and learn this the hard way like I did - wait for it to be fixed before bothering.

As for the discussion at hand, I've yet to discover fancy moves that allow avoiding CS beyond the most obvious one: Disrupt mages spellcasting yourself. Arcane Torrent, Rocketlauncher/Mortar followed by HoJ after the blink, or simply just Silence, Spell Lock or CS from your own DPS-casters all give you a window for safe healspam. This stuff does need good communication though, and might be hard to pull off without Ventrillo or the like.

 

Zeku

I miss counterspells most often when I'm forced to switch targets to something that is not in my immediate frame of view.

Paladins that successfully annoy me are newbing it up, forcing me to respond in an unexpected way. Closing to melee range, and hammer of justice forces a blink in many cases, which places the paladin behind me. I know better than to actually attack the paladin himself, so if he is managing to stay out of my visual range, his heals require a very fast reaction on my part. Staying mobile is what makes a player really good, imo.

We have such elevated concepts of what is or isn't competent pvp, but in reality, the interference provided by a paladin simply swinging his weapon at a caster shouldn't be underestimated, as long as he knows his true role is to heal if possible. This could be coupled with fake-heal staggering to really screw a mages mind.

The threat of a heal is just as important as the actual heal? Actually that may be incorrect against the current level of burst. But once you are CSed, you no longer heal or threaten to heal, you are nothing.

Is it feasible to heal instantly? Deliberately close to range, start a heal, let it be CSed. 10 seconds later you no longer have to worry about the mage. I don't think of that as a good strategy, it's just something to consider against a team with limited burst and countering.

 

levk

I can usually survive one cs with about 11k buffed hp.

Most trouble is stacked AP mages team. With them I usually bubble right away, they loose focus not being able to reassist for long enough to at least kill one off. Once there's 2 left it's not that bad I might survive. These are the only teams that actively try to kill me.

For cs resistance - paladins on good pvp teams will have talent and necklace from BF heroic for at least 30% interrupt resist.

 

Shawn

I'd like to discuss counterspelling again - this time the other way around. How can I as a Mage work against talents like the Shaman's Focused Mind, skills like the Paladin's Concentration Aura or items like the Talisman of the Breaker?

Do I have to stack +Spellhit? Or Spellpenetration? Do talents like Arcane Focus (for Mages) or Shadow Focus (for Shadowpriests) counter the things mentioned above?

 

◊ Lord BEEF

I don't think you can do anything about those talents/effects at all.

Check out my friend's bitchin' Lord of the Rings Art

 

DiscW

I don't have experience with this, but couldn't mages (especially in 2vs2 and 3vs3) just spam spell steal until they yoink the BoS without breaking the cc on the paladin?

 

Fjord

Thats one of the moves that sounds better on paper. Paladins still have multiple other ways to get out of polymorph so its hardly worth the effort.

 

Ramielle

BoS is a blessing that the paladin casts on the target, so you'd have to spellsteal him. Also, any time you're yanking off BoS is time you're not bursting down the target, and as already mentioned, pallies have a number of ways to get out of polymorph.

 

Thelgrom

Absolutely. This is a very good strategy if you suspect your opponents have very few buffs. And as you know a paladin can only have one single Blessing up on a friendly target at the same time (If you for example see the Blessing of Freedom graphical effect on the other players feet you can polymorph the paladin without worrying about spellstealing). If you meet a paladin in 2vs2 I would almost guarantee you that the other player has Sacrifice on him. If I get polymorphed and for some reason don't have sacrifice up I often use my trinket right away and then spam sacrifice on an ally that is currently taking damage. I rarely find myself annoyed with polymorphing mages, my biggest fear is the counterspell.

As Lord BEEF stated I also believe that there currently are no talents or effects that lowers your opponents chance of "resisting interrupting/silencing effects" or anything similar. But I haven't spent the day looking this up so maybe there is. But I doubt it.

 

Crossbones

I've run blood furnace almost every day for the last three weeks and I've yet to get my talisman to drop. I'm also a 375 goblin engineer, but of course the helm has been bugged since release (shadoweave cloth doesn't exist). Also, it is 25% not 10%, so you can get some extremely high resistance when you stack imp conc. with both items.

I can't speak for 5v5s since I can't stand them and don't have much experience there, but playing a mid 1900s 3v3 thats been steadily rising since we started it, I find there's a few dps heavy team configs where bubbling early to pre-empt any kind of interrupt is very effective. Generally the mage/lock on my team will either kill something or throw the momentum so far in our favor that we've just about won. Since I'm the last one targetted 90% of the time, the anti-cc factor of DS is more useful than using it to save my life.

Don't just start spamming spell steal, that mana cost will kill you. Detect magic and then either steal it or keep an eye on it -- BoSac is only 30 seconds so it might fall off and give you an opportune time to poly.