I am a little disappointed that balancing (or suggested tweaks) are in the near exclusive mind set of 5v5 arenas thus leaving 2v2 and, to a lesser extent, 3v3 balancing a little wonky. Rogue + Mage combo in 2v2 has me pulling my hair out. Sap is near impossible to avoid (paranoia + detect invisibility and you will still never see the bastard) and should things go south with sap, you have sheep right there to cover anyhow.

It is possible I just suck at pvp though.

Detect Invisibilty doesn't detect Stealthed units.
[edit]Detect Invisibility does detect pets like Succubus and mages who are invisible. At least, I'd tend to think so.

If you have a felhunter out, you won't be able to see the stealther if he comes from behind. However, if he uses Vanish to enter improved stealth, then you won't be able to see him either when he's coming right infront of you.

Paranoi gives you 30~ stealthdetection points, and Vanish gives you 370 stealth points according to thotbott. 370 > 30(duh :P) You won't ever see a rogue if he's Vanished. However, it does mean that he won't have vanish up for later in the fight if he decides to use it to get a sap off.

You can't balance 2vs2 or 3vs3 really without causing issues in 5vs5 or pvp in general, Blizzard already knows this which is why you take a 80% in 3vs3 and a 70% in 2vs2 point reduction.

Unless both of you have different sets of gear DeeNogger, your HP/Resilience is more likely the issue since you can be focused fired before sap wears off depending on the spec of the Mage you're going up against.

the problem I find reading this thread is that reduce the function of x spell/ ability because it makes Y class overpowered is not balancing imo. I really do think that Arena as is now is balanced except for Mortal strike which scales with the number of healers, is undispellable and has no DR. I have balancing issues with abilities/ skill that you cannot counter. Bring more healers is not the answer to mortal strike since it scales with the number of healers.

I also like to think that 5v5 is quite balanced at the moment, with maybe exception to MS, which just seems to be a bit too good.

Make it magic and removable, and you'll get nice synergy with UA, or make it only 20% base reduction to healing and +3% for each point in Imp. Mortal Strike for instance. Later would cause nice dilemma when designing arena specs, because it'd be a choice between 4 nice PVP-talents: Imp. MS, Imp. Intercept, Deathwish and Tactical Mastery.

Detect Invis will always show you Mages with the Invis buff up and the invisible Succubus. It also will detect Warp Stalkers when they use their stealth buff.


The best use I see as purge protection (more stuff to protect the good buffs).

Nerfing MS isn't the magic fix everyone wants it to be. Already a lot of top teams end up in endurance matches where people don't die (or maybe 1 person on each side dies) until healers run out of mana, and that's with MS in its current form. If you hose the healing debuff on MS that's just going to make matches take even longer, and the manaburn subgame is just going to get that much more important. Rogues and warriors that can keep on chugging regardless of mana get even better, caster dps gets shafted, and having a mage so you have water to drink gets that much more important. Is that really a better alternative?

Well the idea is to make it so that you can actually create a top performing team without a mortal strike warrior which unless you're clan hex seems awfully difficult to do.

If a healing debuff is a vital part of 5v5 it should be in the hands of more than just warriors and rogues I would think

That will shift the focus to other ways of atrition - warlocks draining mana, priest mana burning, hell even viper sting can work if you overload dispellers with UA.

You can buy water from a vendor ? Or is vendor water not usable in arenas. Genuine question, I am not sure.

You can't drink water in Arenas unless you have a Mage on your team conjure it in the waiting area. Same with food.

edit: beaten to the answer >_>

Because 2 classes can offensively dispell (3 if you count the felhunter) and 3 classes can offensive mana-drain - hunter/priest/warlock. Besides, the only reason manaburn is godly is because of the meta-game, manaburn teams are an answer to paladin teams, because paladins are highly vulnerable to manaburn - once a paladin is no longer required in every team, then manaburn will no longer become a viable strategy.

Paladins complaining about their problems is like Bill Gates complaining that he has a scratch on his car. Yes, your stuff has counters. But so does everyone else's. That does not change the fact that your stuff is more powerful. By your logic, nothing is any good. Damage? Heal. Curse? Decurse. And so on.

If everything a pally brings can easily be deatl with, why does every single top 5v5 team run with a pally? Did their mages not get the memo to counterspell the pally? Did their priests not train mass dispel? I don't think so. It is just that even after all is said and done, the pally stuff still shines. And the "slow to react" argument does not fly. Looking at videos of top teams, they dispel at amazing speed. And yet they still field a pally.

One final word. Cyclone is nowhere near overpowered. It lasts 6 seconds and has a 1.5 second cast time. Even the mediocre teams I am facing know how to kick my butt when I stop running. On top of the spell school lockout (that pallies also have to worry about) I am a prime stunlock target when I am not in constant movement. In 3v3, yes cyclone is quite useful as the number of counters is limited. In 5v5, it is hard to get off consistently. In short, I would gladly trade it for the "oh so weak because its dispellable" bubble.

Mana burning will always be a viable strategy since the top teams play outlast games, not burst damage...and being able to burn through your enemies healers mana bar reduces how long they can outlast.

It's kind of funny, really.

Currently 4 of the 5 tactics that can quite easily negate any benefit I add to my team come from some of the least played classes. Mana drain, cyclone, tongues and offensive dispels cripple me in all the ways that matter. Together with counterspell, paladins are quite easy to lockdown (and good teams DO lock me down, don't mistake that).

Sort of makes me wonder why, if people consider paladins so irreplacable, they don't take more advantage of these tactics. If people made better use of them, paladins would be less valuable. Paladins ARE valuable because people don't usually make effective use of anything aside from mana drain. It's a catch 22, really - if you just mindlessly mimic the top teams things will not change (one of the teams we LIKE facing are ones that are mirrors of us). Some of the hardest teams we fight include a druid, for instance.

You want to know how to make paladins less effective? Here's how.

My BoFs/BoPs are rarely dispelled. Only a few teams have ever come straight for me and mass dispelled my bubble (but the ones that have have won every time). Yes counterspell cripples me but I've gotten good at cancelling in time and if all you're depending on is CS to lock a pally down no wonder you can't deal with them. Yes, it takes tactics to nullify a paladin but it takes tactics to nullify a good afflock or a tank priest. I think it's pretty stupid to complain about BoF or BoP when they can be so easily nullified.

Without the four support abilities I bring (DS, BoF, BoP and cleanse), it's really quite pointless to bring a paladin at all. There is no line you will walk with the paladin class that will put them between 'good' and 'useless'. Paladin abilities, when used correctly, can make the difference in a match - as can the counters to those. The difference is that the counters are more readily available and useable than the paladin abilities. I get one shot to DS. I get one (maybe two) to BoP. I can only BoF every 20 seconds and nothing stops you from switching kite targets.

Kings is ultra powerful? Please. I'd trade it in the arena for fort in a heartbeat.

Because there are never ever wrong threats, but there are wrong answers. If you make a meta-game only team that beats paladin teams, you will lose to all non-paladin teams you run up against. Paladin based durability teams instead crush random teams, but have a less than stellar record against meta-gamed teams.

It becomes a stupid game of rock/paper/scissor where scissor beats paper but loses to everything else, while paper crushes everything but sometimes loses to paper. You might argue all the theorycraft in the world, but in the end the real world data totally destroys any point you might have - there is a reason why every single team at the high end has a paladin, and that's because regardless of the counters available, paladins are the strongest class in arenas right now.

I thought there weren't any non paladin teams? At least, that's the opinion I got from this thread. I realize it's en vogue to paladin hate in the 5v5 world but really, when we get bent over by a priest/druid/2x warlock/ele shaman team I really can't see why people can't take advantage of our weaknesses.

That type of team totally negates BoP and BoF and can drain mana/chain fear and render our pally/priest/shaman/warrior/hunter team pretty gimp with incredible speed.

Cyclone a healer and focus mana drain the other while chaining fears/CC. When that healer's out of mana, switch cyclone target and repeat on the other healer. By the time diminishing returns kick in on CC both healers are out of mana, bloodlust and the "uber pally team" dies easily.

Pally DS's to prevent chain cyclone? Mass dispel and recyclone.

I'd make 2 changes to Cyclone at this point

1. 100% Dimishing returns. One cast and then the target is immune for 20 seconds.
2. No more Aura canceling.

They could bump the duration to 7 seconds in return. Then cyclone would be fine. But with decent timing I can be kept from healing for over 10 seconds and then I still need to reactivate my aura. That's just way too good.

Of the top arena players, 20% are paladins and 3% are druids. At this point I'm pretty much numb to pallies asking for druid nefs due to the arena...

Think of things like a pegboard.

Druids are sort of an oddly shaped peg with only a few holes they can fit into.

Paladins are the universal peg that can fit into many holes.

That doesn't make paladins overpowered individually, it just means there are alot of roles and alot of teams that paladins can mesh with. Druids can be extremely powerful ... in the right team.

You can't fit a druid well into a warrior, rogue, priest, mage team, for instance. To continue the analogy, that's like using a square peg in a round hole and complaining that your mallet isn't big enough to hammer it in. Yes, you can get a bigger mallet (better gear, etc) but you're still trying to force the wrong peg into the hole.

When you DO find the right hole for the druid, however, the abilities they bring are EXTREMELY powerful.

The # of people in the top arena teams is entirely insignificant. Paladins fit well in most teams because of high physical mitigation coupled with a few key abilities. Paladins can drop into alot of situations and do 'ok'. But here's the catch ... that's what the class was built to do.

In the right team a druid is more valuable than a paladin. In the wrong team a druid is a liability. Find the right team.

The nature of the arena beast is that not all class combinations are going to work. If paladins were nerfed there would be another 'must have combo' that provided the most bang for the buck. Maybe priest/warlock. The key here isn't how many of what class are in the top 20. Thinking like that is dumb. The key here is how to make the most effective use of your character and building a team that meshes and works well together.

Druids ARE good in 5v5... with a team built to make use of the druid's abilities. When used right cyclone is the most overpowered CC in the game.

2. Is a bug.
1. Is actually a buff to cyclone. Cyclone is already affected by extreme diminishing returns of 6s, 3s, 1.5s, immune. I would take a 7s cyclone over that any day. Maybe not in 2v2, but in 3v3 and 5v5 for sure.

Ok you convinced me. But I am too blind to see such setup myself. So for me to improve, please link me some 2500+ 5v5 teams that are the right teams for a druid and not for a pally. If there are druid team setups that are more powerful than teams built around pallies, that druid team should crush all the pally teams and cruise to the top of the rankings.

So, please enlighten us ignorant druids by listing a single 2500+ 5v5 team that runs a resto druid and no pallies. Surely if you can see the superiority of the druid, other people can, too (before you waste your time: the highest rated resto druid is 2468, lower than a whooping 19 pallies. And that druid is an alternate on the team and has the lowest win percentage).