Ralask

@Heel

You really think the cost of Arena is to high? I mean how much does a week of arena cost you if you respec like 125g a week maybe? I dont think the reward vs cost of pvp could be much better than it is already.

 

◊ Vectivus

This will vary tremendously from player to player. I respec 2-3 times a week as a raid MT and MS PvPer, and spend (on average) about 1.5k gold/month on switching to and from my Arena spec. I cannot recoup this money easily, nor is it money well spent - it's simply a tax on being capable of participating in the Arena.

I would be happy to see many of the 'costs' associated with the Arena portion of this game (respecs, reagents, durability, etc.) simply be removed altogether, because they are not contributing to the game in any way. Blizzard gives me 'daily' quests to shut down gold farmers, but forces me to shell out 300g if I want to respec on my off-nights between raids for PvP (that being roughly the sum total of the money I can make on the solo-quest dailies in a week at the moment) - how is this discouraging me from buying gold?

 

Tipme

I think PvP daze should be improved, somewhat. PvP daze includes Warrior shield bash, and talents like Warlock aftermath, rogue blade twisting, hunter concussive barrage. When I think of the word daze, I think of some head trauma caused by a vicious blow. I think a -hit% chance while dazed along with the snare is a good idea. I mean, hey, gives prot warriors something to look for. Now I'm not good with balance and numbers so I wouldn't know a good -hit% chance, but I was thinking -20%?

 

◊ Vectivus

I can see where this makes logical sense, but I have absolutely no idea what the point would be in terms of game balance.

 

heel

No, if you don't count respecs, the costs aren't too high. They're very inconsistent from class to class, though, and reagants and water represent another layer of unnecessary tedium. In a typical 5s match, I spend 24s on reagents, around 25s on water, and perhaps another 20s on repairs. A SL/SL Warlock spends close to nothing. There is no reason for this inconsistency; in fact, there's no reason for any of these expenses to exist in the first place.

Let me highlight another example of worthless tedium. Consider an Affliction Warlock in high-end 5s play, before the gates open. He or she zones into the arena, and spends ten seconds summoning an imp to cast Fire Shield. After this, another ten seconds is spent summoning a second pet. Next, eighteen seconds are spent casting Underwater Breathing and Detect Invisibility on every member of the group (including the pet). Another five seconds - if the group is fast - are devoted to creating a soulwell, and then another second goes to picking up the soulstone. Finally, three seconds are spent mounting up. That adds up to 46 seconds - assuming good timing, and no latency - of nothing but preparation. All of these actions need to be taken each and every match.

What the hell is the point of all that?

Well, in a lot of cases, something that seems unnecessary or tedious actually serves a very legitimate purpose from a game-design standpoint. This is not one of those cases.

The buffing process can easily be completed by a player of any skill level (it's not a skill-tester).
The time alotted for buffing is the same, whether you choose to buff or not (it's not a time sink).
You walk out of the starting area with exactly the same resources you had when you went in (it's not a gold sink).
In fact, nothing outside the arena interferes in a meaningful way with the buffing process.
And, the buffing process does not interfere in a meaningful way with anything outside. (there are no broader issues of game balance involved).

The whole pre-match procedure is nothing but tedium, and there is no justification for having it the way it is. All single-target buffs should have group-castable versions, and all group-castable buffs should have their reagent costs removed during prep time. This may not be the biggest issue facing arenas, from the standpoint of balance, but I certainly think it's one of the most important - the problem is well-defined, the solution is easy to implement, and it would be an immediate, direct improvement to the way things are now.

I have very similar complaints about arena water, although I guess you could make an argument as to its value as a gold sink/honor sink or whatnot. I still think that it is way, way, way more tedious than it needs to be.

 

Machinator

Just brainstorming here, would something like having a seperate spec that applies just in Arenas work? You zone into an arena and your talents change to the new one, and skills update as long as you bought them at least once. You can respec your normal or arena tree for normal costs. A prot warrior can be arms for arena without paying more than once, but say someone like a warlock cant be SL/SL for his 2v2 and be UA for his 5v5 without respecing. I think it solves most if not all of the respec side of issues anyway.

I still dont see a need for any reagent cost, mana, idols, shards before the doors open. I dont see much a point in them outside arena either but thats a different story.

Buffs might as well be automatic bar things like blessings that vary from person to person. If you have a priest everyone gets fort. Not only do they have to cast it, but they have to heal people up from it to max.

"Information is ammunition."

 

Diao

After having played enough games against druids, I can seriously say that cyclone needs a nerf of some sort, whether making it an effect that can be healed through, dispellable, or put a cooldown on it. There is no other ability in the game that has no counters whatsoever except by pvp trinket, and that on a 2 minute cooldown is nowhere near enough to get on a druid. There needs to be some method to counter cyclone aside from the PVP trinket.

 

Tyjet

lol.
- Cyclone is heavily effected by diminishing returns. If you trinket out of the 1st one, the 2nd one will last under 3 seconds, then 1second, then immune. Trinketing the 1st cyclone is useful for that reason.
- Cyclone is the only thing druids have, take it away from us and we can all kiss arena goodbye.
- There are lots more overpowered things :p
- From your post it sounds like youre whining about resto druids in 2v2. Blizzard has not balanced 2v2, and they probably wont. A warrior has no chance of killing a resilience heavy resto druid on his own without getting very lucky.

What about every single stun in the game? Cyclone is more similar to a stun than a CC - with the exception that you cant be healed inside it, but then you cant be attacked either so it's fair.

 

Celnathor

I disagree with this statement completely:

Pet pushback *USED* to be ridiculous. Back when you could tame a pet that had a 1.0-1.2 attack speed off the shelf, not every healer class had access to a 70% pushback resist talent(and horde didn't have access to paladins/concentration aura), and many pets had extreme run speed, allowing them to easily stick on a target, they truly could destroy many casters' ability to cast.

Now:
-A 70% pushback resist talent on heals, low in a talent tree is the norm(And Concentration aura can potentially be stacked on top of that

-Pet runspeed has been "normalized" (reduced) relative to what it used to be. Pets barely keep up with players, and if they eat a stray frost nova/psychic scream/piercing howl/other random AOE ability that slows/stops them, they're not going to be hitting anyone for a while. Even moreso, the scorpid, the preferred pet for protecting viper sting, has no trainable run-boosting skill. Or, if you want a pet that has dash/dive, you give up the ability to protect viper sting. And now, even with the trainable attack speed buff, our pet attack speed maxes at ~1.5(non-BM), compared to the 1.0 that was previously possible.

With the offensive casters:
-The majority of the shadow priest's aresnal is instant, save mind blast, reducing how much pushback screws them
-Elemental shamans have a proc-based pushback immunity talent, that pets will proc with regularity(in fact, due to screwy resil mechanics, it'll proc at a rate significantly higher than a non-BM hunter's pet crit rate)
-Against mages, pets regularly get caught in frost novas intended for other players and such. Or, even worse, the mage simply has frost armor up, so if the mage is kiting, the pet hits the mage once, gets slowed, and the mage runs away
-Granted, warlocks aren't going to waste CC on a pet, but they have a decent arsenal of instant abilities(and with the glove set bonus, fear casts faster than our pet attack speed).
-Moonkin druids have barsksin and nature's grasp, which limits the value of pets against them.


As far as pets keeping people in combat, that should stay, in my opinion. Remvoing the ability of pets to keep people in combat would be a significant hit to hunters in endurance matches, and pets already have to *HIT* the player to put them in combat, not simply be targetting them(so a slowed/rooted pet's not going to get free in time to hit someone and keep them from drinking).

 

Zaq

I don't disagree with your conclusions, but these are some fairly suspect statements. Mindblast, Mindflay and VT all suffer from melee pushback. Hunter pets make just about any casting as a warlock and adventure, the best we can get on our own is 70% resistance on destruction spells, and 50% for fear. And if you can get a druid to waste barkskin or Nature's grasp on your pet, that should allow you to really put a hurt on them. The problem with pet pushback is that you cannot really afford to waste an active defense against a pet, because then you don't have that against the next player(s) coming your way. And in general pushback is a very frustrating mechanic, each time you get pushback it's more likely to get interrupted and you're more likely to get a school locked out.

Pets certainly do need to bring worthwhile utility to the table, I just wonder if pushback as a whole needs an overhaul.

"I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions. I'm just, like, inviting you to join me on the bandwagon of my own uncertainty." -Taylor Mali

 

Borland

I can't say anything for the other classes but pet easy eats frost armor alone - it is not reduced by armor/resil.
And on top of all , you are speaking for the case when pet hits mage ice armor - the one that you dispell every 6 seconds.

 

Amera

I'm not on the nerf cyclone bandwagon because druids would need some serious other changes if you messed with cyclone, but this is a pretty silly list. Cyclone has DR like all CC, but what about the second round, or third round of cyclone rotations? You only have one trinket per 2 minutes, so that's ~10sec of undispellable CC every time the DR resets. And since druids are typically on outlast teams, this is really significant. Also, saying "there are lots more overpowered things" isn't a defense for anything. Just because one thing is broken doesn't mean everything should be broken.

And yes, we all know the game is not balanced around 2v2, but the points about cyclone are relevant in other brackets too.

 

Celnathor

I realize casters really hate the dispel on arcane shot due to what it does to armor/shield spells, but in my mind that's an issue primarily confined to smaller fights. Obviously 1v1 this will be the case, and in 2v2 it wouldn't be uncommon either. As you add more players, not only are you less likely to be focusing all your arcane shots on a single player, but there are also a lot more buffs floating around that you have to work through to get to a specific buff. While the arcane shot dispel is pretty nasty in 2v2 and still relatively strong in 3v3, once you get up to 5v5 it's certainly no substitute for a real dispeller(shaman/priest), when it's not unusual for each player to have 6+ buffs to go through.

 

heemo

I apologize if this is slightly off-topic, but I haven't posted here in a while and can't create a new thread. I think it's relevant enough, and I haven't found any mention of it anywhere. Anyway, here goes.

I noticed last night that Shadow Embrace is no longer padding debuffs. Example: I dueled my priest friend last night to test something I thought I observed earlier in a BG, and sure enough that observation was right. I dotted him with Corruption and Siphon Life, which creates three debuffs including Shadow Embrace. He was able to dispel all three debuffs with a single cast. Anyone have any insight into whether this is a bug or an intended mechanic? Am I missing something?

 

Rockstar

If I remember correctly, Shadow Embrace is a 'passive buff' which applies only when you have another debuff on your target.

From the text of the talent: "Your Corruption, Curse of Agony, Siphon Life and Seed of Corruption spells also cause the Shadow Embrace effect, which reduces physical damage caused by 1%". If the dispel hit Corruption & Siphon life, then SE would be removed because neither of the debuffs required for it would be active.

 

Angeron

*Beaten to the punch*

Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.

 

heemo

You're exactly right. Never even thought of that. Thanks!

 

◊ Vectivus

Shadow Embrace is not a separate debuff - it is a secondary effect applied by the presence of another debuff (Corruption, Siphon Life, etc.). If those debuffs are removed, Shadow Embrace's effect will cease to be applied.

EDIT - I clearly need to just post what I'm thinking, rather than going off to do the research to verify it. Apologies for the triplicate information.

 

Deris

What blows my mind is how simple it is to obtain 2200+ ratings with 4dps teams, as compared to running with any healers whatsoever. All you have to do is focus the opposing teams Warrior until they make a mistake - focusing the warrior shuts down any real dps they have, and eventually every team makes a mistake.

I'm running a 2345 again this season, but more leaning towards Hunter over Ele Shaman, and the brackets are just THICK with 4DPS teams, which obliterate the "Mana War" strat, and requires little to no thought process. Focus the Warrior - if he doesn't die, jump on the Priest or Mage (any clothie) and stay on it while everyone blows CC on the Paladin.

If I didn't outgear the other team by a mile basically most of our close wins would be losses. I really wish they'd reduce burst in the Arenas and make the game more about strategy instead of "lol its ovr in 30s".

p.s

2v2/3v3 Balancing is utterly atrocious, its so bad that I even brought my Priest out of retirement to play competitvely in those brackets, and don't even bother anymore with my Paladin.

 

Grailyn

Agreed paladins have it rough in 2s and 3s. There are a few very good ones who can do fairly well in very specific teams but they are basically relegated to the status of Season 1 Rogues.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...ther&n=Grailyn

 

Davidson

I've been thinking about a way to fix this. Not sure how this would change everything, but removing all the LOS obstacles in arena, and lifting the resilience cap, while jacking up resil values on S2/3 gear (they are basically the same as S1) so we have people running around with 600-800 resilience could turn the pace down a bit. However mana would also need to be addressed for this to work, or drain teams would become the only real viable strategy.

 

Kaber

He did not mention that Balance druids have a talent that reduces pushback on their nukes the same as most other casters. Resto druids have a talent that does the same, though why would we take it when most of our healing is done with HoTs. Mages run with a 2 piece T4 set bonus or just put up their shield for pushback immunity. You know who pet pushback hurts the most? Hunters. They have no pushback skills to protect steady shot and it accounts for half of their DPS, and getting off an Aimed shot? Forget about it. Pets are more of an annoyance than anything else, save for Felgaurds that do substantial damage or Felhunters that dispel and silence.

Unless a Hunter specs BM their pets do pathetic damage (and BM is not a standard Arena spec because it is horrible for protecting viper sting and lacks utility for dealing with casters), the pets have very little survivability, and they don't even effectively pushback casters anymore. Once again, people just lump all pets together when the real issue is that certain Warlock pets are incredibly powerful, and people just toss Hunter pets in there with them.

 

doogless

I've honestly never understood why people consider 2345 to be more "skillful" than 4 DPS. Is it just because the games take longer, or what? Perhaps I'm trolling a bit by asking, but why would it be considered a hard matrix to play when it made up about 70% of the top 10 teams in practically every battlegroup this past season? Did all the good players decide to play 2345, or is it just that that setup is absurdly good?

 

Calantus

Felhunters don't really bother me to be honest. Devour? Ok mr felhunter you take away my blessed recovery, I can take it. Spell lock is likewise not that huge a deal for a priest since I hardly ever need to cast a heal when a felhunter is around. I DO however dislike them for the fact that they keep me in combat and do pushback. Mana burn is the biggest reason I hate pushback from pets. Fair enough that a warrior/rogue on me can shut it down if they play their cards right, but a pet turning it into a 4 second cast by virtue of the fact that its owner hit a button at the beginning of the match is annoying as hell. I won't even bother if I have CoT on me. When I played 2v2 (it's not worth 10 minute queues) warlock+healer were annoying SOLELY because of their pets. Kill the pet and we win easily because I can actually drink. They can keep their spell locks and devours because they're not outdamaging my instant cast heals while I have a blue bar. They can keep their SL and their demonologist buffs as well because it's all secondary to the fact that the pet robs me of thousands of potential mana over the course of a match.

 

Celnathor

I'm not sure that removing LoS obstacles would fix this - it would more likely have the opposite effect. LoS obstacles are primarily used defensively - if you remove the LoS, such that players are basically fighting in a big square/circular box, there is absolutely nothing to stop an incoming barrage of damage from a team with ranged DPS - the DPS-heavy team will simply crush you with raw damage.

Ring around the pillars gets annoying, but removing them is an example of something where the cure would definitely be far worse than the disease.