Being feared into objects, pets pathing into pillars (and getting stuck), and the extra fun falling through the world are bugs blizzard for some reason hasn't fixed, and doesn't acknowledge them as known issues (on the bug forums). All of these things can be absolutely game breaking.
There's no way they can't know about fear taking things through what would be for a normal player "solid objects". Opera Oz event in kara has this happen extremely frequently when you fear Roar, he tends to go for one of the doors, gets stuck against it or goes through the door, and is rendered out of LOS. Not that it's game breaking, just a reliable method of seeing the bug in action.
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.
I am not being touchy, just reacting to your phrasing:
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.
When I read that, it sounded like you thought it was better than the others, which, in most cases, it really is not. it seems we agree, though, so forget about it.
One suggestion I would like to make is have the hunter's arcane shot be either physical or magical type, not both with the benefits of both. It's pretty imbalanced that it's considered a magic effect that goes through BoP as well as armor and thus purges it, but is considered a physical attack that cannot be spellreflected. It should be either one or the other, not both, or make it so it's both magical and physical, and both effects can occur. (ie, it's physical and thus does not remove bop and cannot be spellreflected and is reduced by armor, or is magical and removes bop and can be reflected but ignores armor, or is both and removes bop, can be reflected, and is affected by armor). Another thing that would be nice (although possibly overpowered) would be if bloodrage was changed back to how it was a long time ago, where it put an undispellable self-dot on the warrior while bloodrage was ticking, instead of taking 10% of our base hp instantly.
Offensive dispell: I'm not sure I agree that there exists a problem with your run-of-the-mill buffs being dispelled. I agree that perhaps high end talents should offer some kind of dispell protection, but guaranteeing everyone has all their buffs seems excessive. I know I would feel incredibly nerfed if I could no longer Purge Inner Fire.
There's needs to be consideration of the different types of offensive dispell and who has what. Priests and caster Shaman value GCDs and I don't think that it's unreasonable they can remove the normal buffs for the cost of a GCD. Enhancement Shaman don't bring enough to the table as it is. Mages can't spam Spellsteal due to the high cost, Devour Magic is on cooldown and both only remove one buff. I'm not sure about Arcane Shot, though seeing in the BGs makes me hate it.
But I'm more irritated about the difference between physical buffs/debuffs and magic ones. It's quite possible they deliberately distinguished between them so as to weigh certain matchups in the original game (i.e. Shaman beat casters, but lose to melee, who lose to casters) but it currently feels as though there is a huge disparity between things like Hamstring/Mace Stun/AR and Frost Shock/Poly/AP.
Stuns: I hate stuns. Specifically, Mace Stun and Stormherald. I hate Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot, but I can accept they are abilities with many conditions that must be met before they can be used. Uncontrolled stuns are part of what makes good instant spells so required. Some Rogues/Warriors say they need mace stun to stay in. I don't think this is true, but if it were, why not change all uncontrollable stuns to Root effects? Intercept is one of my biggest pet peeves and the suggestion to turn the 3 second follow up stun to a 1 second stun off DR or a Root effect is a great one. That way you don't get the effect of stuns acting almost like additional silence effects. You can even call it "grogginess" with a 20% increased casting time while the effect is active if a Root effect was too weak.
Resist percentages: I think everyone hates getting resisted on vital CC, dispells, snares and the like. So instead of all the talents, gems and enchants offering a percentage to ignore stuns, fears and what-have-you, why not have them all follow the silence mechanic of decreased duration? Instead of 5% stun resist chance on a meta gem, give it 10% off the duration of a stun. If more items and spells with these effects are added, it could make chain CCing a target alot less routine and reward alertness ("how much stun reduction does that priest have, how do I modify my stun lock to compensate").
On a more biased note, Enhancement Shaman are still extremely prone to being snared and are probably the worst off of all the classes when this happens. Some kind of limited snare immunity and/or speed boost would be extremely helpful. Hell, making Ghost Wolf instant cast with some resistance to snares through talents might be enough.
The problem with changing it from a stun to a root is all you solve are being hit by a bad stun either because a Warriors on you or from WW/Cleave but changing it to a root won't solve bad luck like being rooted out of line of sight or an enemy healer living due to luck of procs. I'd rather see a form of hidden cooldown thats shared between BS Maces and Mace Spec, unlink it from the +rage component as well so only the stun is on a cooldown, even if it's only 7-10 seconds it still solves the issue of chain procs along with 2-3 people being hit by the stun within a short period of time.
Intercept being changed to a root would be nice, but that'd make it even worse for Warriors trying to keep up with a Druid since you could just spam shift as soon as you get Intercepted a small 1-2 second stun would be a better option balance wise.
One is that alot of these random resist based talents and items could be changed to reduction in duration. Not as effective in some situations but arguably better. For example, 5% stun resist meta gem and the orc racial hardiness, giving 15% stun resist could instead be changed to 5%/15% reduction in the duration of stuns.
The other one is a big gripe for me: the PvP spell hit cap.
To put it bluntly, there shouldn't be a minimum 1% miss chance on spells (or any ability). If you totally outplay someone, you should be able to rely on the important counterspell, cyclone or whatever actually landing. Make it possible to achieve a hit chance and spell hit chance of 100%, at least in pvp.
The problem with changing it from a stun to a root is all you solve are being hit by a bad stun either because a Warriors on you or from WW/Cleave but changing it to a root won't solve bad luck like being rooted out of line of sight or an enemy healer living due to luck of procs. I'd rather see a form of hidden cooldown thats shared between BS Maces and Mace Spec, unlink it from the +rage component as well so only the stun is on a cooldown, even if it's only 7-10 seconds it still solves the issue of chain procs along with 2-3 people being hit by the stun within a short period of time.
Intercept being changed to a root would be nice, but that'd make it even worse for Warriors trying to keep up with a Druid since you could just spam shift as soon as you get Intercepted a small 1-2 second stun would be a better option balance wise.
I don't see being rooted out of LOS as a problem. That's just part of the LOS game. It's being constantly denied control of your character that's the biggest issue with stuns.
I would like to see Dispel resistant talents changed into something like "Reduces the chance your spells can be dispeled by 100%. However, after absorbing one dispel, all of your spells are exposed to dispel for 10 seconds".
This would add a cool dynamic to the game, where you could use LoS, CC, silences and kiting to protect your buffs, and forces the enemy dispeller to expose more of their GCDs and attention when trying to purge a player. Dispelling is way too easy and effective as it stands right now.
I think Mana Burn (the priest spell) is pretty out of sync with other mana reducing effects on your target. Viper sting is dispellable. Drain Mana is channeled. A Disc Priest with Bloodlust can burn my entire bar faster than I realize he's doing it. It has happened to me more times than I'd like to imagine in the last few days. Sure you can purge bloodlust and change DPS to the priest once you realize that he is mana burning not healing, but that mana isn't coming back(well, coming back at any useful rate at least).
I would like to see Dispel resistant talents changed into something like "Reduces the chance your spells can be dispeled by 100%. However, after absorbing one dispel, all of your spells are exposed to dispel for 10 seconds".
This would add a cool dynamic to the game, where you could use LoS, CC, silences and kiting to protect your buffs, and forces the enemy dispeller to expose more of their GCDs and attention when trying to purge a player. Dispelling is way too easy and effective as it stands right now.
As stated above It would be better to give the buffs stacks, like Inner fire: x mins. y uses. This Y could reduce by dispel. Talents would then increase the stack size.
Last edited by CasT : 12/04/07 at 10:11 AM.
Do not matter how much you play, you will never get the carrot.
I think Mana Burn (the priest spell) is pretty out of sync with other mana reducing effects on your target. Viper sting is dispellable. Drain Mana is channeled. A Disc Priest with Bloodlust can burn my entire bar faster than I realize he's doing it. It has happened to me more times than I'd like to imagine in the last few days. Sure you can purge bloodlust and change DPS to the priest once you realize that he is mana burning not healing, but that mana isn't coming back(well, coming back at any useful rate at least).
I don't think balancing around you being oblivious to what's going on makes much sense. You know if there's a Shaman and Priest on the other team that you're going to see some Bloodlusted Mana Burns, so you should be positioning yourself accordingly so your mana pool doesn't get vaporized as soon as Bloodlust goes up, and keeping the Priest as your focus target so you can see his burns casting.
I'd say Mana Burn is infinitely less retarded than Drain Mana - you can LoS a Mana Burn to avoid it, but once a Drain Mana starts channeling you can't avoid it short of dumping mana into cleansing/form shifting/earth shocking. I play a Warlock and I abuse draining through LoS objects as much as possible, but I fully realize how absurd it is.
Specific mechanics changes needed for arena balance.
1. Warlock dots / Curses should require the same directional facing mechanics that other instant cast spells have. If I am playing a shaman, I must face my opponent when casting shocks. On my warlock, I can turn my back on my opponent, run at full speed away, and still cast all my dots.
2. Rogue melee range should be brought into line with other melee classes. Several times a rogue has landed a blind, poison, special, etc while my character was 10 game yards away. There have also been cases where a rogue is able to do melee damage while my character is reporting out of melee range messages. Of course this second case could be the old druid bug.
Specific mechanics changes needed for arena balance.
1. Warlock dots / Curses should require the same directional facing mechanics that other instant cast spells have. If I am playing a shaman, I must face my opponent when casting shocks. On my warlock, I can turn my back on my opponent, run at full speed away, and still cast all my dots.
2. Rogue melee range should be brought into line with other melee classes. Several times a rogue has landed a blind, poison, special, etc while my character was 10 game yards away. There have also been cases where a rogue is able to do melee damage while my character is reporting out of melee range messages. Of course this second case could be the old druid bug.
Warlock DoT aren't inconsistent with other spells in terms of facing requirements. If the spell deals instant damage, you have to face the target. If the spell doesn't deal instant damage (including casting time spells like CCs, you can Polymorph while facing away from someone) then you don't need to face the target. I'm not trying to debate if it should function this way, just pointing out that game mechanics are consistent. Warlocks are clearly where this functionality becomes the most obvious (and arguably the most powerful), but they aren't the only class affected by it.
I think the reason dot casting is different (and doesn't require facing the target) applies to the nature of the spell. Shaman shocks and other instant cast spells are also direct damage (moonfire, paladin seals, etc.); because there is no up-front dmg to the spell (and in the case of CoA, actually scales away from the cast time, reverse to a spell like immolate) it needs no front-facing requirement in my opinion.
EDIT: Guess I didn't type fast enough: what the guy above me said
2. Rogue melee range should be brought into line with other melee classes. Several times a rogue has landed a blind, poison, special, etc while my character was 10 game yards away. There have also been cases where a rogue is able to do melee damage while my character is reporting out of melee range messages. Of course this second case could be the old druid bug.
This sounds like good old fashioned latency. I know on my rogue there have been many frustrating times where my client shows me being directly behind a fleeing opponent, but the server says I'm out of range. Your issue simply sounds like the reverse of that, though caused by the same problem.
After playing for hours in a warrior/shaman 2v2, I realize how out of hand crowd control is in smaller brackets. I do realize that shaman and warrior is extremely poor combination against crowd control teams, but the issue is that of rotating DRs allowing for near infinite CC between the uses of the PvP trinket. Druid root/cyclone rotating DRs and mage sheep/nova and rogue stuns/blind being on a completely seperate DR, means that effectively all you get to do is use your pvp trinket before you partner can be CC'd for over 95% of the time.
My suggestion would be to make DRs based on the target not the type of spell. There should be just one common DR on all forms of CC with different abilities lowering DR by a certain amount. What I mean is have a global 15 sec max CC timer, any incapacitating effect like sheep/fear/sap/blind lowers it by 5 secs, any controlled stun lowers it by the amount equal to the duration of the stun, any uncontrolled stun lowers it by 2 secs, and any roots lower it by 3 secs. DR timer resets to 15 if no CC is applied for 10 secs. When the DR timer reaches 0, it makes you immune to all forms of CC for 10 secs. This would ensure that no one can be CC'd for more than 15 sec straight with any form of CC (which seems to be the intention with the typical DRs on fear/sheep etc). Under any circumstances you'd have control over your character for 10 secs out of every 25 which is fair.
I have a suggestion for Mace Specialization. Instead of a 3 second stun proc, what about a proc that decreases melee/casting speed and movement speed? The proc itself wouldn't be as potent as daze/hamstring mechanics or curse of tongues; I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of 25-30% movement speed debuff, casting speed increase, and time between attacks. This is in keeping with the "flavor" of mace spec (powerful blunt-forced blows that leave the opponent, for lack of better words, stunned or concussed), and still grants the victim control of his/her character, albeit at diminished effectiveness. Possibly lengthen said debuff to 4 or 5 seconds, as it is not as powerful as a plain stun. On top of being less frustrating, the proc would be an useful (though not reliable) PvE debuff, as the melee slowing effect is greater than that of Improved Thunder Clap.
Here's one I forgot: Pets. I hate their impact on arena at present due to pushback and keeping people in combat. A pet is supposed to add damage to the hunter/warlock and to add utility for the warlock. A felhunter is basically devour and spell lock on a stick and maybe some minor damage. But because of the side-effect of something hitting people it is also a 2nd curse of tongues and an in-combat debuff. Everyone has tried to cast a spell without pushback resistance while CoT and a pet was on them, and everyone learnt not to do it a second time because you're never going to cast that spell. Every time people ask for buffed pet survivability I cringe because while I think that yes, pets are too easy to kill, I also LIKE that they are easy to kill because they're currently broken to my mind.
If they could somehow rig a way for pet attacks to not cause pushback and not keep you in combat I'd be a happy man.
I don't think balancing around you being oblivious to what's going on makes much sense. You know if there's a Shaman and Priest on the other team that you're going to see some Bloodlusted Mana Burns, so you should be positioning yourself accordingly so your mana pool doesn't get vaporized as soon as Bloodlust goes up, and keeping the Priest as your focus target so you can see his burns casting.
I'd say Mana Burn is infinitely less retarded than Drain Mana - you can LoS a Mana Burn to avoid it, but once a Drain Mana starts channeling you can't avoid it short of dumping mana into cleansing/form shifting/earth shocking. I play a Warlock and I abuse draining through LoS objects as much as possible, but I fully realize how absurd it is.
Heres the numbers I just pulled off wowhead.
Mana Burn: 3 second cast (2 with talents), 355 mana cost, 1021 - 1079 mana burned.
Drain Mana: over 5 seconds, 455 mana cost, 1000 mana drained
Viper Sting: over 8 seconds, 270 mana cost but has a 15 second cooldown, 1368 mana burned.
Even with Drain Mana being annoying, it still means the Warlock has to spend at least 2-3 seconds draining which is time he's not fearing or DoTing, as much as I hate Viper Sting it still has a cooldown so you can't spam it you just have to be aware of when you're going to need to cure it.
I haven't been playing 5s lately, but in the lower brackets at least it's not that uncommon to be hit by a stun followed by eating 2-3 mana burns, or you get fear bombed because you had to move out a bit in order to CC a healer or chase down your own team mate.
Warlock DoT aren't inconsistent with other spells in terms of facing requirements. If the spell deals instant damage, you have to face the target. If the spell doesn't deal instant damage (including casting time spells like CCs, you can Polymorph while facing away from someone) then you don't need to face the target. I'm not trying to debate if it should function this way, just pointing out that game mechanics are consistent. Warlocks are clearly where this functionality becomes the most obvious (and arguably the most powerful), but they aren't the only class affected by it.
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.).
On the other hand think how different fighting a mage with ice/molten armour to fighting one without either is. Mages and locks are clearly balanced around these armours being up, so having them so easily dispelled doesn't really make sense. I'd almost go as far as to say they should be made similar to paladin auras, or at least into undispellable buffs akin to battle shout.
I'm not saying this is a good idea for buffs like AI, MOTW, of PWF which are castable on other people, but for important self buffs it almost seems ridiculous that they are so easily removed.
Regarding hunters and warriors having no buffs, battleshout/commanding shout and true shot aura/aspect of the x are hardly trivial buffs and they are all undispellable already - and 3 out of 4 are actually group buffs.
edit: In fact I'd love to hear the justification on why hunters can dispel but aspect of the hawk/trueshot are both impossible to remove. Not only this but hunters can dispel for 135 mana at level 70, cheaper than any other class as far as I know. I don't mean to pick on hunters here but this seems like a GLARING inconsistency to me.
Randomness is not necessarily a bad thing in competitive gaming/sports. Look at poker. No one suggests that poker is anything but a game of skill. In the long run, over a theoretically infinite number of hands, the best player will get all the money provided short-term swings don't eliminate him/her from the table.
Arena can work the same way. A classic example of this even exists within my own guild. I have basically perfect gear for pvp warriors - stormherald, 5/5 merc, all S2 honor gear, the new badge cloak, etc. I am rated around 2100 in 2s and 3s. Another warrior in our guild has literally *the exact same gear*. He can't push himself over 1700 to save his life. Am I lucky with mace stuns? Is he unlucky? No, I'm just plain better. Over the long run of many, many arena matches, I may win a few games with perfect mace stuns, I may lose a few when I get no mace stuns, but my superior skill allows me to win more matches than my mace stuns ever could. Over the long run of a season, given no dishonest rating-boosting tactics (in my dreams, sigh), the best arena teams in each bracket get all the arena rating points, just like the best poker player gets all the money.
Even something as non-random as chess has a luck element, especially in tournaments when you face many different opponents. You might get opponents that will choose openings you are unfamiliar with, or direct the game to fights over space, when you are more of a tempo expert. In long world-championship style matches, an opponent might select a series of openings you haven't prepared for, too, forcing you to play for a draw when a win might be possible in openings you know better.
Plus, bad players would just stop playing if they couldn't blame some vague random factor for their losses instead of skill. I dueled a feral druid and went something like 5-0. He blamed mace stuns every time, even though I was at about 50%+ hp left at the end of every duel. In fact, it doesn't matter that there were only 1 gladiator and 3-4 duelist level warriors out of the dozens on horde-side on my server -- the scrubs just think it's stormherald giving us autowins.
Mana Burn: 3 second cast (2 with talents), 355 mana cost, 1021 - 1079 mana burned.
Drain Mana: over 5 seconds, 455 mana cost, 1000 mana drained
Viper Sting: over 8 seconds, 270 mana cost but has a 15 second cooldown, 1368 mana burned.
Even with Drain Mana being annoying, it still means the Warlock has to spend at least 2-3 seconds draining which is time he's not fearing or DoTing, as much as I hate Viper Sting it still has a cooldown so you can't spam it you just have to be aware of when you're going to need to cure it.
I haven't been playing 5s lately, but in the lower brackets at least it's not that uncommon to be hit by a stun followed by eating 2-3 mana burns, or you get fear bombed because you had to move out a bit in order to CC a healer or chase down your own team mate.
I agree that Mana Burn is a very strong ability, and I mainly objected to the complaint that Mana Burn should be reevaluated because the poster claimed a Priest "can burn my entire bar faster than I realize he's doing it." If you don't pay attention to and defend yourself against a potential threat, you should pay for that mistake.
Originally Posted by Lodi
What about searing pain?
What about it? It has a facing requirement just like all other DD spells.
I agree that Mana Burn is a very strong ability, and I mainly objected to the complaint that Mana Burn should be reevaluated because the poster claimed a Priest "can burn my entire bar faster than I realize he's doing it." If you don't pay attention to and defend yourself against a potential threat, you should pay for that mistake.
What about it? It has a facing requirement just like all other DD spells.
Yea, I certainly agree with that if you stand out in the middle and leave him alone you deserve to have most of your mana burned. You don't have to overhaul the ability or anything, just increase the cost to maybe 500-600 mana or reduce the mana burned to 600-700 so it's a bit more in line with what Warlocks and Hunters have.
12/03/07, 7:17 PM
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