A druid can shapeshift out of COX, a Rogue can vanish out of it, a Gnome can Escape Artist out of it and so on. I don't think anything can remove JOJ short of a dispel.
There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.
Doesn't bother me that much - one cyclone broke every 2 minutes of the 20 I'll cast in that span in a 5v5 game? (of course it would be a 6 sec one broken likely, but whatev!)
A complete reversal of the current situation, where a druid can completely shut a paladin down whenever they want to heal, and trinket out of our only real interrupt.
Yeah, it's a good thing that Druids were dominating Arenas before, this should help to rebalance. Hopefully it'll bring the number of Paladins in high level play up to scratch too?
Anyways, while I like the change overall, I don't know that I like only being able to have 1 trinket option in PvP. Not that the buff changes much for most classes from before, but if every single class is going to wear the same trinket, why not just making it a book or something we can learn and stick on our abilities page? Especially since I'm an engineer, I'd like to try out different trinket combos but instead every single game it's PvP trinket + most obvious choice.
I think that is intended. They've always tried to diminish the effects of "outside sources" like professions in the arena.
As for JoJ not being dispelled by the trinket... laughable. Not a snare? You try escape anyone in catform, travelform or even on mount with that thing on. It might not be labelled as a snare anywhere, but it certainly acts as one on a druid.
Last edited by drole : 06/09/07 at 5:34 PM.
Reason: Spelling
There hasn't been much discussion about how this affects Hunters(mostly Rogue discussion) so I figured I'd bring that up.
Overall it looks like a buff to our old trinket, at least in 1v1's. Having to Spec BM to counter things like fear left the other two specs seriously gimped against Warlocks, who could chain fears on you, making you win against only the most undergeared(burst them down) or bad/unlucky warlocks. Against Rogues it seems like a small buff(if it breaks stuns still).
However, no one really cares about 1v1 and it only matters in occasional gankings anyway...
So while our's seems to have gotten a nice buff, overall I think players trinketing out of traps(30s cd, resistable, etc.), Scatter Shot, etc. will hurt us more. In a lot of situations, our only way to survive was to never get touched, or use our old PvP trinket if we did(1x use get out of jail free card). Now, our trinket still does basically the same thing against a lot of classes, and a little more against others(Cyclone, fear, MC, etc.). However, our already questionable PvP CC(Wyvern, Traps, both pretty easy easy to dispel and both suffer long CDs) now seems basically worthless. So what if I get off 1/2 of my traps against good teams, now they can just be trinketed out of. The other minor annoyance I can think of, is if this doesn't break roots, Hunters might now be even more of a liability on 2v2's and 3v3's, since the chances of them having a dispeller for Roots or Imp. Hamstring in these brackets will be much less than in 5v5.
That being said, I like the general concept of these changes. Arenas probably shouldn't devolve into a mana drain war, they should be more tactical than that. I think CC brings that to Arenas, but pisses people off at the same time(players want to play) and this trinket change is a step to change that. It just doesn't offer a new/better solution than CC as a means to make PvP more than just a dps/longevity race.
So last night I got to see this in practice. Sap breaking was constant, except for the few gimme teams we fought thanks to the reset ratings - a warrior was sapped the entire duration!
The worst was against a fast-reaction player. A mage got sapped, quick hit his trinket, and managed to cast Frost Nova before I got over to his teammate. I simply never recovered from that. The Sap was like a blinding Rogue Here! sign that was used against me.
Before you start to drift, and your soul begins to scream.
I just wanted to tell you, that you're listening to a dream.
Given how hard it was to get a sap off against halfway competent teams, I don't think I'm even going to try anymore. It's too much energy and opportunity cost with too high a chance of me breaking stealth and loosing my opening move for too little reward (use of the trinket).
I'd rather open with a CS. If they break it, fine, you have 2 CPs (more than the 0 sap got you). If they don't, you still have 2 CP + 4s of doing whatever you want (more than the 0 sap got you). I can't see a situation other than fighting someone who's clueless about the new changes / doesn't have the trinket where Sap is useful anymore. Maybe when the game has gone on for a while and everyone has used their trinkets, and you manage to drop combat AND get the other player to drop combat? I can't see that happening enough to really be viable.
So last night I got to see this in practice. Sap breaking was constant, except for the few gimme teams we fought thanks to the reset ratings - a warrior was sapped the entire duration!
The worst was against a fast-reaction player. A mage got sapped, quick hit his trinket, and managed to cast Frost Nova before I got over to his teammate. I simply never recovered from that. The Sap was like a blinding Rogue Here! sign that was used against me.
If you can make them burn it on Sap you're in a pretty good suitation, you can Blind, snare or stun them...unless you're running a gimmick team you aren't going to lose automatically without Sap.
Just makes Dirty Tricks more useful it sounds like.
My teammate is a slacker, so hopefully I'll be able to play more 5s and 2s tonight.
Everyones perspective on the trinket change is heavily influenced by their class, and team composition. I've seen a lot of generalized statements made that only apply from that particular perspective. I am an undead affliction warlock, I 2v2 with a shadowpriest. That being said, here is how the world changes for me with the new trinket:
1) Warrior/Paladin honestly remain pretty much unchanged. If the paladin gets a heal off before bubbling then we screwed up. If the paladin hesitates to bubble, or tries to heal and is spell locked then the warrior is already dead. If the paladin bubble early to heal the warrior then even without mass dispel we can generally outlast the bubble. Well geared lock/SPriest vs Pally/war isn't all that dictated by the deathcoil, and we could already break anything else that was thrown at us. As such the fight won't much change.
2) Rogue Against an imp sap rogue it was a 2v1 for 20 seconds, nothing really to be done about it. Competant opponents with a rogue partner were generally waiting in a location that could be appropriately 'guarded' by the rogue so that we couldn't get in combat. Healer/rogue would get a pretty hefty advantage in the first 20 seconds of the fight, and dps/rogue would most certainly kill one of us. In very rare cases I could live the first 20 seconds and my Spriest partner could heal me up, potentially saving the match, but generally only if the rogue was slow on shiv and didn't get any lucky poison procs.
My partner and I finished 49th on Cyclone, we relaxed at the end of the season in a place that we thought would give us a drake. At out best we were ranked 18th. We could beat most teams in the top 10, but against almost any team with a rogue we could at best win 10-15% of our games (games where we avoided the sap). Rogues being a counter to casters is something I'm perfectly ok with, but most of these games left us feeling like there was nothing that we could have done differently.
It seems to me these changes make it all the more important to get improved sap. The sap is now neccesary in order to get full use of your blind.
I know that many rogues will feel this is a serious blow to their pvp viability, but meeting double rogue teams that could work on me for 30 seconds, cloak of shadows, vanish, and come back 1 minute later to do the same thing to my partner was a bit out of hand. 1on1 rogues are still the most likely class to beat me in a fight, you're just very good at shutting down both my dots and my casting. We'll see how the games play out with only 10 seconds of 2v1 time.
3) Shamans/hunters This is actually where the trinket change is going to hurt me. I can already dispell traps off myself or my partner (although it can take up to 8 seconds with felhunter cooldowns) but prior to this shaman and hunters were situationally weak to fear. Either waiting for 'the beast within' to be down, or catching them before they use it with a fear was always a very strong tactic against hunters. Getting them as low as possible before they became immune to your CC was the best way to go. Similarly, catching shaman out of their totem farm or deathcoiling them out to fear them was a great way to counter their amazing burst damage. TBH on average I didn't have THAT much trouble with most hunters or shaman in solo or small group settings (dps shaman at least), so giving them a reactive solution to my CC seems reasonable, and I'll just have to adjust.
4) Everyone else. You all break my fears anyway. The childish side of me feels good about the change, since now all classes understand what it's like to have almost every person out there with at least 1 break of your CC. 'Nerf fear' threads crack me up. Not that I think it needs a buff, but in competitive arenas (which imo are one of the best ways of looking at game balance mechanics) fear is very very hard to make stick. Now all CC feels a similar pain, which all in all will do good things for fear classes.
P.S. I also play a resto druid with a rogue partner in a far less competitive setting. I won't go into it in detail, but this change is going to make me a heck of a lot squishier :P
Given how hard it was to get a sap off against halfway competent teams, I don't think I'm even going to try anymore. It's too much energy and opportunity cost with too high a chance of me breaking stealth and loosing my opening move for too little reward (use of the trinket).
I'd rather open with a CS. If they break it, fine, you have 2 CPs (more than the 0 sap got you). If they don't, you still have 2 CP + 4s of doing whatever you want (more than the 0 sap got you). I can't see a situation other than fighting someone who's clueless about the new changes / doesn't have the trinket where Sap is useful anymore. Maybe when the game has gone on for a while and everyone has used their trinkets, and you manage to drop combat AND get the other player to drop combat? I can't see that happening enough to really be viable.
TBH, rogues that take this oppinion make me very happy. If rogues start speccing out of imp sap and stop using it as much things will be far better than any trinket change. Who needs to break sap when no one even uses it? :P
If you can make them burn it on Sap you're in a pretty good suitation, you can Blind, snare or stun them...
Except as already stated if you're trading the sap for the ability for them to remove you from stealth via a nova, totem drop, fear, holy nova etc.
I would agree on the Dirty Tricks comment, however rogues don't need any reason to dump points into Subtlety and gimp their damage when your team leaders are already considering replacing you with a warrior or more useful class.
Improved Sap is a trained ability, Dirty Tricks is the one that increases the range at which we can sap at and reduces energy cost.
I know that many rogues will feel this is a serious blow to their pvp viability, but meeting double rogue teams that could work on me for 30 seconds, cloak of shadows, vanish, and come back 1 minute later to do the same thing to my partner was a bit out of hand. 1on1 rogues are still the most likely class to beat me in a fight, you're just very good at shutting down both my dots and my casting. We'll see how the games play out with only 10 seconds of 2v1 time.
Thats mainly why I like the change, it's a lot harder to lock someone down for a long period of time, even if 2vs2 isn't balance it still will be nice in 5vs5 for Cyclones mainly.
Are you and your teammate not mounting up? Pretty much if you stay 25-35 yards from eachother on mounts sap is useless if you're paying attention, as soon as someone is sapped you run as far away from them as possible, once one of you is sapped you rush over to the other and get in combat as soon as possible.
Except as already stated if you're trading the sap for the ability for them to remove you from stealth via a nova, totem drop, fear, holy nova etc.
I would agree on the Dirty Tricks comment, however rogues don't need any reason to dump points into Subtlety and gimp their damage when your team leaders are already considering replacing you with a warrior or more useful class.
Every build is going to have a downside, Mutilate lets you pick up sub where as AR doesn't, unless you go for a Combat/Sub build for Preperation.
Kind of like how Warriors have to respec to Arms to be useful in Arenas?
Improved Sap is a trained ability, Dirty Tricks is the one tha increases the range at which we can sap at and reduces energy cost.
Thats mainly why I like the change, it's a lot harder to lock someone down for a long period of time, even if 2vs2 isn't balance it still will be nice in 5vs5 for Cyclones mainly.
Are you and your teammate not mounting up? Pretty much if you stay 25-35 yards from eachother on mounts sap is useless if you're paying attention, as soon as someone is sapped you run as far away from them as possible, once one of you is sapped you rush over to the other and get in combat as soon as possible.
Kind of like how Warriors have to respec to Arms to be useful in Arenas?
We've had mixed success with doing that. I think we focused a bit too much on trying to get in combat, which was something the rogue was trying for. I also generally prefer to be dismounted to try to get my pet on the rogue after I'm sapped (if they don't have imp sap, or maybe don't have MoD).
Anyway, on out way back up we may give it a try.
Edit: Oh, and my bad about calling 'dirty tricks' imp sap. I knew they changed the name when they changed function of the talent, I just call it 'imp sap' out of habit :P
We've had mixed success with doing that. I think we focused a bit too much on trying to get in combat, which was something the rogue was trying for. I also generally prefer to be dismounted to try to get my pet on the rogue after I'm sapped (if they don't have imp sap, or maybe don't have MoD).
Anyway, on out way back up we may give it a try.
Stealth buff spawns after roughly 1 minutes 30 seconds, so they'll pretty much have to attack you before then since they increased the range at which you can see stealth players.
Have any rogues had any luck double sapping someone?
The trinket doesnt grant any short term immunity, it just clears what you have.
Seems like you could sap, wait for trinket, then resap again instantly. I understand this wont work against tough quick reacting teams, but for the many situations I think this would be pretty neat to try.
06/09/07, 12:40 AM
