With Ice Block becoming trainable, the new strong frost talent being 11 points in, and a steady decrease in viability of pets (due to no resilience scaling), don't you think fire might become viable? Fire is unplayable due to the abysmal survivability right now, but ice block (even without cold snap) should help this considerably.
I won't call myself an expert on mages, but it seems like you might want to reserve judgment on the status of mages until that change (and the large gem buff) actually goes in. Mages aren't likely to dominate 2v2 anytime soon, but it does open up some options, as well as straight up buffing the current best (only) spec for larger brackets - where mages are already very desirable due to their unparalleled CC repertoire.
Here's my mage arena beef:
2) Mages need some form of dispel talent post haste. Change Arcane Subtlety so that instead of being -5/10 to enemy resistances it's +25/50% dispel protection on their casted self buffs (wards/armors/shields/combustion/ap/pom). I know that's kinda strong for a tier 1 talent, but it's pretty vital for various specs (mostly frost) to get easy access to without gimping themselves and it really only makes sense to be in arcane. I know it's more dispel protection than priets/warlocks, but mage's self buffs aren't as game-dictating as hots and dots are.
I'd rather they not add more 10-30% resist talents. Losing a game because of 2 consecutive mass dispel resists, or a bop that just wont come off through 8+ purges (4 from each of two players) is just bad. I don't see any real justification for mages having dispel resist for their buffs. If armors are so important make them undispellable. 50% dispel resistance would give mages a hilariously ridiculous amount of dispel "junk buff cover". Just no.
I'd like to see them move away from the junk buff cover mechanic and rework purge/dispel's mechanic if necessary. Randomness can help keep people on their toes so they have to react when something goes wrong, but in some cases it's too much and becomes the sole determinant of win/loss (i.e. shadow priests and silence resistance talents, all other silences are attached to an interrupt). Shadow embrace needs to be undispellable, same with the priest buffs like blessed recovery, inspiration and possibly even inner fire. I think the game would be better off and less random if they gave dispel/purge a cooldown and/or cast time and made only important abilities dispellable, then rebalance classes and abilities from there, removing all the dispel resist talents in the process.
In general, I think most talents shouldn't' be dispellable. If them being dispellable is necessary for balance, then it is probably overpowered anyway. Shaman get particularly fucked by this, but so do priests, mages, etc.
And yeah, the entire dispelling system probably needs a total overhaul at the expansion or so, with some more clear lines on what should and shouldn't be countered via a dispel.
Really so far you have:
1) dispel mechanics
2) fear mechanics/pathing
3) Required talents (like MS, etc)
4) % base resist talents
That's a pretty good list for Blizzard to start with.
In my opinion there shouldn't be any form of spammable dispel whether offensive or defensive. I was having a discussion with someone claiming Arcane Shot having a dispel was overpowered, and they justified their stance by saying it does "good damage." Now an average of 500-600 damage in an Arena every 6 seconds is not my idea of "good damage," but he said something that made me think. He said, "why not give purge 500 damage?" My immediate response was, "it's spammable, use your brain," but after thinking about it, why not? Why not give all offensive dispels a timer or just add them to abilities priests and shaman already have? Why not put purge on a shock cooldown and give it damage, call it Lightning Shock. Do something similar for Priests and put the dispel on something instant that deals some shadow damage. It would make certain abilities more powerful in the early game because you could not just spam someone down and remove every beneficial buff they receive. It would force people to use their cooldowns more wisely and choose who/what they are going to try and dispel. Some things should not be dispellable in the first place, and others need a lot more protection. For example, if Earth Shield were changed so that all buffs on the player had a 35% chance to resist dispel on top of the 35% chance to avoid interuption, it would make Resto Shamans much more desirable for Arenas than they already are.
Defensive dispels are even more powerful in my opinion, and need to go through some sort of change to bring them back in line. Requiring either a Priest or Paladin on any competative 5's team is ridiculous and really makes the game too cut-and-paste when it comes to team composition. A cool down would be nice, but PvE requiring spammed dispels at times really kills any chance of that, and I really do not think PvE should have to change to make way for PvP. So the only real option I see is putting in more buff removal resistance, or possibly a dispel lockout (similar to getting counter spelled, only for dispel alone) any time a dispel is resisted. It is just too easy to remove Crowd Control DoTs, curses, poisons, and debuffs with the way dispel currently works.
The reason defensive dispels are so powerful is because CC is so powerful. Taking out one player for 10 seconds is a tremendous advantage for classes with CC in arenas, which inherently puts classes without CC at a disadvantage. Just look at the new blind for an example. It's a 10 second unbreakable CC (except through immunities). Another good example is cyclone. It's absolutely unbreakable except by a trinket, and knowing there's a rogue or druid on the opposing team pretty much requires that you save your trinket for that inevitable blind/cyclone. If dispels were reduced in effectiveness then every arena match would be a CCfest with classes like warriors getting left out due to their complete lack of control over opponents.
The reason defensive dispels are so powerful is because CC is so powerful. Taking out one player for 10 seconds is a tremendous advantage for classes with CC in arenas, which inherently puts classes without CC at a disadvantage. Just look at the new blind for an example. It's a 10 second unbreakable CC (except through immunities). Another good example is cyclone. It's absolutely unbreakable except by a trinket, and knowing there's a rogue or druid on the opposing team pretty much requires that you save your trinket for that inevitable blind/cyclone. If dispels were reduced in effectiveness then every arena match would be a CCfest with classes like warriors getting left out due to their complete lack of control over opponents.
It sounds like you are assuming an extreme where all CC is undispellable. That is not what I was arguing for. Currently the pendulum is swinging much too far in favor of dispellers to the point where you cannot compete without them. Only two classes can defensively dispell magical effects, while 4 classes can offensively dispel almost anything, and a 5th can actually steal the buffs. Forcing 5v5 arena teams to take a paladin and/or priest is rather ridiculous in my opinion. Either dispel needs to be spread around, or it needs to be nerfed, or preferably both at the same time.
With Ice Block becoming trainable, the new strong frost talent being 11 points in, and a steady decrease in viability of pets (due to no resilience scaling), don't you think fire might become viable? Fire is unplayable due to the abysmal survivability right now, but ice block (even without cold snap) should help this considerably.
I won't call myself an expert on mages, but it seems like you might want to reserve judgment on the status of mages until that change (and the large gem buff) actually goes in. Mages aren't likely to dominate 2v2 anytime soon, but it does open up some options, as well as straight up buffing the current best (only) spec for larger brackets - where mages are already very desirable due to their unparalleled CC repertoire.
I've never personally needed (or had time for) more than 1 gem in a 2v2 or 3v3, although my teams haven't been very serious up until this point. Considering that blink, slow and spellsteal are around ~600 mana each, CoC is 645, etc and that extra 1100-ish mana from a gem doesn't really help that much when it comes to our pvp/utility spells.
Icy Veins isn't going to help at all, really. It's 20% haste, which isn't the same as a flat speed decrease. I think the math works out to 2.28 second frostbolts (down from 2.5) or something, which is hardly game changing in 2v2 or 3v3 where the mage has a high chance of being the primary target (especially if the opposing team knows you're not frost). It's also subject to being dispelled (along with ice armor which it can feed off of), so it's not all that great for frost mages. It'll probably be a bigger raid dps buff than it'll ever be a PvP buff.
There's already a ton of posts on why non-frost isn't that viable for 2v2/3v3. Certainly Ice Block will help somewhat, but it's not going to make non-frost really viable. There's just very little these specs offer that WE/Shatter/Coldsnap doesn't.
Funny anecdote: the other day me and 3 friends were farming elite demons in Blades Edge. Our pally was tanking for giggles and couldn't do much besides keep himself up when two PoM/Pyro mages decided to try to gib our shaman. We didn't see it coming until the 2nd pyro was about to land. He ate 2 AP/PoM/Pyros + whatever they tried to follow it up with and lived; we thoroughly trashed them after they were spent. Good times.
I'd rather they not add more 10-30% resist talents. Losing a game because of 2 consecutive mass dispel resists, or a bop that just wont come off through 8+ purges (4 from each of two players) is just bad. I don't see any real justification for mages having dispel resist for their buffs. If armors are so important make them undispellable. 50% dispel resistance would give mages a hilariously ridiculous amount of dispel "junk buff cover". Just no.
It's a valid complaint. I agree that just making certain abilities non-dispellable would probably be better. However, dispel resistance is really just a dream I have for the class. I don't have much faith in Blizzard ever actually balancing the PvP game in any significant way apart from the trends they've shown.
Ok here's what I don't think you're understanding about Arena.
Every single class only has one viable spec per role, it's not just limited to Mages. If they make fire good enough that people take it, EVERYONE will take it. In the narrow format of Arena, if a spec becomes 2% better than another, everyone takes it. Sure there are different team make ups (4 dps, 3 healer, etc.) but even then specs have followed the cookie cutter rules.
Healing-role Priests and Rogues are a good example of this. They buffed subtlety and discipline and now 90% of arena players in those classes are those specs. Holy is still 'viable' I expect, by your reckoning, but no more than Fire is now. It's clearly worse than Discipline now, so no one specs it. Warlocks are the only class I can think of with more than one spec per role, and even then, that's just the two SL 'tank' specs; they still only have one dps spec.
Oh, and the day they make things like Earth Shield, BoP, Blessed Resilience and Inner Fire un-purgeable is the day you kill off Rogue (and probably Warrior) damage in Arenas. Just how would you re-balance this? We're already ONLY effective with an offensive dispeller on our team...
Healing-role Priests and Rogues are a good example of this. They buffed subtlety and discipline and now 90% of arena players in those classes are those specs. Holy is still 'viable' I expect, by your reckoning, but no more than Fire is now. It's clearly worse than Discipline now, so no one specs it. Warlocks are the only class I can think of with more than one spec per role, and even then, that's just the two SL 'tank' specs; they still only have one dps spec.
The 3 vs 3 winning team ran a holy priest, not a disc one.
Yeah, but one of those things is not like the others.
All warriors in arena have MS, all shaman have NS, all mages have Ice Block. Unfortunately one of them got a trainable skill out of the deal and everyone else is still tied to core talents which they can't ever drop. I guess I really don't know where the line ends. Do you think all Warlocks will get Soul Link in the future? What about NS for shaman? If not, why not?
I like the way they were going with Innervate when they made that trainable, it made druids have a lot more diversity in the specs. Ice block seems to be going the same route (And I secretly hope that it will create more fire mages, because they're a lot easier to deal with, Ice Block or not), but I guess I'm confused why some classes get the talents they need as core skills, and others are still tied to 21 or 31 points in a particular tree. Where is the line drawn? What is the criteria for having a talent turned into a base skill? These are questions I'd like to know the answer to, that's for sure.
This is not how it will work. Firstly with so many priests in every bracket now (many with the -cast time off Mass Dispel), Ice Block not nearly as powerful as it used to be. I don't think for a second Ice Block was made trainable to suddenly make fire the pvp spec, I think it was done because at the moment Fire mages are fragile to the point of hilarity. Honestly did you see how fast the AP/Pyro specced mage went down in the Dreamhack final?
2 Water Elementals, and every other bonus full frost with cold snap brings (such as 2x Ice Barrier or Frost Nova within 2 or 3 seconds) are huge and sadly fire, either full or arcane hybrid, can't compete on burst damage let alone survivability.
It sounds like you are assuming an extreme where all CC is undispellable. That is not what I was arguing for. Currently the pendulum is swinging much too far in favor of dispellers to the point where you cannot compete without them. Only two classes can defensively dispell magical effects, while 4 classes can offensively dispel almost anything, and a 5th can actually steal the buffs. Forcing 5v5 arena teams to take a paladin and/or priest is rather ridiculous in my opinion. Either dispel needs to be spread around, or it needs to be nerfed, or preferably both at the same time.
I wasn't assuming that CCs would be undispellable. Let's look at it in a hypothetical situation. Put a cast time on dispels to make it harder to remove a dispel. If you make it anything less than a 1.5s cast, it ends up being exactly the same situation as it is now, except that people can no longer dispel on the run. If you make it 1.5s then they become vulnerable to being locked out of the healing school (and paladins are already too easy to lockout). On the other hand, if you put a cooldown on dispels, then you can drop a CC on one person, watch it get dispelled, then immediately CC the target you actually want CCed and now the dispeller can't do anything to counter it. The final option is to simply increase the mana cost of dispels to equal the cost of the spell being removed, or something to that extent, but then it just becomes a mana war. If there was a good solution to CC without dispel being required, then the problem of dispels being too powerful wouldn't exist in the first place.
In general, I think most talents shouldn't' be dispellable. If them being dispellable is necessary for balance, then it is probably overpowered anyway. Shaman get particularly fucked by this, but so do priests, mages, etc.
All talent points impacted mightily by dispel mechanics.
And I have to add, that while I hate the ease with which shaman and priest purge/dispel, (and the insignificant mana cost- particularly compared to the craptacular spellsteal) the one that really irritates me is the hunter. I have no idea and simply can not justify their purge on top of an already powerful damage shot that already was in their rotation.
But it is nothing for me to have every buff removed within seconds of an arena/bg, and with the mana regen of priests it makes me wonder if the talents I spend on frostbite/impact/imp. dampen magic are even worth it and if buffing before matches is more of a ritual than anything else.
Originally Posted by Kaber
Only two classes can defensively dispell magical effects, while 4 classes can offensively dispel almost anything, and a 5th can actually steal the buffs.
That actually sounds more impressive that it really is- unless you think overwriting your own arcane brilliance with 2 minutes of arcane intellect is game-breaking. Spellsteal has it's very limited uses here and there, but to put it in the same category as the ritual purges/mass dispels that take place in every combat setting, much less to make it sound BETTER, is to dramatically overstate the value of the spell. Seriously.
I wasn't assuming that CCs would be undispellable. Let's look at it in a hypothetical situation. Put a cast time on dispels to make it harder to remove a dispel. If you make it anything less than a 1.5s cast, it ends up being exactly the same situation as it is now, except that people can no longer dispel on the run. If you make it 1.5s then they become vulnerable to being locked out of the healing school (and paladins are already too easy to lockout). On the other hand, if you put a cooldown on dispels, then you can drop a CC on one person, watch it get dispelled, then immediately CC the target you actually want CCed and now the dispeller can't do anything to counter it. The final option is to simply increase the mana cost of dispels to equal the cost of the spell being removed, or something to that extent, but then it just becomes a mana war. If there was a good solution to CC without dispel being required, then the problem of dispels being too powerful wouldn't exist in the first place.
This is a good analysis, and what I draw from it is simply that, at the moment, everything is actually working reasonably well in the dispel/purge/lockout/kiting/CC war...
Dispel mechanics definitely have to be looked at. There is an undeniable advantage for teams have which a Priest/Paladin compared to teams which don't. Making dispel have an increased mana cost (a lot, like spellsteal) or a cast time would go a long way to balancing it. Dot-based classes are nearly helpless unless there is a UA warlock in their group as a priest can remove buffs faster than a Balance Druid/SPriest/Non-UA Warlock can put them up. Magic based CC is largely ineffective compared to alternatives (Cyclone/Blind). And the most retarded issue, teams are required to essentially load up on useless buffs at the start of an arena match just to help "protect" more important ones. How dumb is that? What is the point of even allowing people to cast party buffs if they are going to be purged off the entire team within 45 seconds of the fight starting? It seems like a pretty dumb mechanic to me. Reactive abilities like HOTs, shields, NS, Bloodlust should most assuredly be dispellable, but not things like Fel Armor, Inner Fire, MOTW, etc. And dispel resistance is not an interesting option either; do you really think a priest is going to stop mashing dispel because he got a few resists? Do you think a shaman is going to stop spamming purge on someone who is pain supressioned because he got resisted? Of course not.
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Forcing 5v5 arena teams to take a paladin and/or priest is rather ridiculous in my opinion.
Though I can see your point, isn't it the same with -healing debuffs? I am by far no 5vs5 expert, but a MS warrior/rogue seems absolutely necessary in that bracket, and that's only two classes as well, not counting in hunters here as their options are somewhat limited considering the rather long cast time/short duration of the aimed shot effect.
About nerfing defensive dispels, I am completely fine with that as long as they remove the ridiculous number of trash debuffs and dispel resists, if I get a risky dispel off (it would have to be risky of course), I want to be able to rely on it removing the CC effect on my partner, that would really need some tweaking though.
Ok here's what I don't think you're understanding about Arena.
Every single class only has one viable spec per role, it's not just limited to Mages. If they make fire good enough that people take it, EVERYONE will take it. In the narrow format of Arena, if a spec becomes 2% better than another, everyone takes it. Sure there are different team make ups (4 dps, 3 healer, etc.) but even then specs have followed the cookie cutter rules.
Hunters can go TBW or marks. Shaman can go resto or elemental. Warlocks can go SL or UA. All 3 priest specs are viable. Even rogues seem to have some choices with deep combat and hemo/prep. They're not all as viable depending on team makeup or bracket, but I would consider them specs that can work.
The only specs mages have is 17/0/44 and 0/x/51+, which play pretty much the same.
I really feel like the two biggest problems are related to dispelling and -healing debuffs.
Offensive dispelling is just obscene right now. You can almost literally purge a holy priest to death, and you know something is wrong when paladins value the arena libram not because the buff it gives is any good, but because it adds another junk buff to protect your short blessings. A lot more things need to be immune to dispell (and when I say that, I mean that dispell won't select them as a target, so that you aren't stuck trying to dispell something that can't be dispelled), and purge/priest dispell need to be on a cooldown. Also, get rid of dispell resistance talents.
As for defensive dispelling it needs to be spread around more, and given the same treatment as offensive dispells.
Finally, -healing debuffs need to be spread around a lot more. They don't need to be as powerful as MS/Wound Poison, but I think that the majority of classes should have them in some form. It is kind of silly that you are almost required to have either a warrior or a rogue if you want to have a shot at killing something, especially in 5v5.
Most classes that put up magic based debuffs or CCs have plenty of trash debuffs that dispell usually eats off first. Winter's Chill, shadow embrace, scorpid poison, etc, that are almost constantly reapplied. Trash buffs like underwater breathing, etc are almost never reapplied after they're gone.
I don't think it's reasonable to say that defensive dispelling needs a nerf, when in most cases to remove that CC or sting or whatever takes multiple GCDs at the expense of casting heals, and many times you don't even remove what you were attempting to until it's already gone.
Plus the fact is that in 5s if you are dispelling a lot, you are not healing. So unless you're facing a dot based team, you really can't spend full time dispelling dots on a focused character when they have a warrior with MS beating on them or some other high dps class pushing out direct damage.
...not things like Fel Armor, Inner Fire, MOTW, etc. And dispel resistance is not an interesting option either; do you really think a priest is going to stop mashing dispel because he got a few resists? Do you think a shaman is going to stop spamming purge on someone who is pain supressioned because he got resisted? Of course not.
If you were to make things like Inner Fire, Molten Armor, Fel Armor, PW:F and similar undispellable, how would you re-balance other classes to make up for the increased strength of the casters that use them as opposed to classes with no buffs? (Shaman, Warriors, Hunters, Rogues...). A Disc priest NOT being spam purged is almost unkillable (e.g. 1v1 / BGs, etc.).
Right now intercept/charge/intervene are bugged. You can jump off blades edge bridge and intervene back up to a healer as long as said healer is in line of sight. The same can be done in wsg. You can intervene all the way up to the roof from the flag room.
Fear was mentioned multiple times but once again it would be nice to have some consistency. And fearing someone through terrain is probably the most frustrating thing ever.
This last one is not specific to arena but I believe it is notable. Soulfire and Shadowburn should have their soulshard requirement taken away. I would also like to be able to get my shards back on horde I kill.
That actually sounds more impressive that it really is- unless you think overwriting your own arcane brilliance with 2 minutes of arcane intellect is game-breaking. Spellsteal has it's very limited uses here and there, but to put it in the same category as the ritual purges/mass dispels that take place in every combat setting, much less to make it sound BETTER, is to dramatically overstate the value of the spell. Seriously.
Actually I did not put it in the same category as dispel because I did not believe it was as powerful. It sounds to be like you are just being touchy.
Though I can see your point, isn't it the same with -healing debuffs? I am by far no 5vs5 expert, but a MS warrior/rogue seems absolutely necessary in that bracket, and that's only two classes as well, not counting in hunters here as their options are somewhat limited considering the rather long cast time/short duration of the aimed shot effect.
About nerfing defensive dispels, I am completely fine with that as long as they remove the ridiculous number of trash debuffs and dispel resists, if I get a risky dispel off (it would have to be risky of course), I want to be able to rely on it removing the CC effect on my partner, that would really need some tweaking though.
I agree that MS is very powerful, and fairly unbalancing. The thing is there are some successful team line ups that do not feature warriors. Even though 4 DPS + Resto Druid can be viable, you still basically require a shadow priest for offensive and defensive dispelling, or if you run with a Paladin healer replace the SP with an Elemental Shaman. I cannot think of a single successful 5's team that does not feature dispel.
12/03/07, 1:14 AM
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