Although I dont play holy pally/dk/hunter, the general idea is that AMZ can prevent shatters from killing the paladin. The hunter can also keep constant pressure on any target without much difficulty, preventing them from coordinating a burst too often.

Not as bad anymore---AMZ is now a 10 second duration, and it's still a long cooldown. RMP can generally get a burst set up more than once every few minutes.


Lanky;

As far as Mage/Rogue, I absolutely agree with you. But the primary culprit is Rogues--specifically, Rogue openers. In 3v3 (gimp setup of DK/Mage/DiscPriest(me) ), I'm dead in 20 seconds. No amount of Death Grips, Chains, Polymorphs will peel a rogue/dps off me effectively until the rogue has used both Vanishes.

The thing is--they're both stupidly designed specs. If I die to a Rogue in 3v3, that rogue is just as dead as I am if he used vanishes to kill me. Rogues are terrible when the game lasts longer than 30 seconds and they can't reset...and it's because they've designed the class completely around openers and full-energy bursts. (And let's not forget the Deadly Brew makes any healer completely ineffective. I can't move far enough to gain distance, I can't heal enough to top myself through Wound Poison, and I sure as hell can't cast a spell with Mind-numbing.)

But that's the thing with melee interrupts. They've become so noob-friendly, in a way. It used to be (on my warrior) I would have to carefully plan my global cooldowns to make sure I pummel that clutch Cyclone or Flash Heal. Good Rogues had to make sure they had enough energy to kick when they needed it. Now that interrupts are off the GCD it's too easy for someone to interrupt. The interrupter doesn't sacrifice anything for control.

Rogues are even worse now. The -10 energy cost to kick glove bonus, combined with the continuous energy gain (instead of discrete ticks), means that a Rogue with zero energy will be able to kick a Mind-Numbing Poison'ed Flash Heal if they just try to spam the button. They don't have to save energy, they don't have to time their GCD's. They just have to spam the button when they want.

I (holy paladin) run a 2v2 with together with a hunter (sv) from my guild and I can provide anecdotal evidence for mages and rogues being far too strong:

1. Whether they open or not with a sap is completely irrelevant. The mage can simply blink to us and possibly output > 10k damage using INSTANT CASTS, when the rogue is close to us. The cheap shot etc. follows from the rogue.

2. What can I do against this? Hand of Freedom on my hunter (I'm 49/0/22 talented on my side), so he can at least START doing damage (after the other team has done like 15000 already).

3. The only thing I can cast: Hand of Freedom, Holy Shock (I already use divine favor, when seeing a mage!) --> Instant Flash of Light.

4. BUBBLE! This is an absolute necessity. Otherwise I get locked by improved counterspell for 3 seconds and my teammate is dead for sure. This takes NO skill at all as the mage does not even have to actually counter my spell.

5. In the next 12 seconds my hunter and I have to kill one of the two (ice block, cheat death, cloak of shadows and evasion make this "difficult") or they just reset the fight and the same thing start over again without my bubble available. In the 12 seconds my holy light spam is barely enough to keep my hunter alive (50% heal reduction, instantly applied? great idea).

Both classes need massive fixes (read "nerfs") to their abilities. Another thing is that arcane barrage can shoot through pillars as long as it was started in line of sight, so positioning is also completely negated.

Watching paladin/x complain about survivability is a bit of a sour pill to swallow since paladins are an order of magnitude more survivable than priests/shamans or druids. If you think it is bad as a paladin, try doing it as a resto shaman once or twice and then cry yourself to sleep.

About hunter/paladin/DK - just play the match up super defensively, if the match lasts longer than 1 minute, you will have won through vipersting. Don't clump up together to avoid aoe fear, try to avoid sap openers on the paladin, and just abuse frost trap + disengange + bof to kite the rogue nonstop. JoJ on the rogue is very good since it neutralizes sprint.

You'll randomly lose matches where the mage crits 3 times in a row and solo's the hunter, but the match up is very heavily in your favour.

Goes without saying - the DK peels the rogue nonstop, use strangulate defensively to stop the mage burst, and help out with AMZ - your paladin has trinket, bubble to survive two different CCs, use AMZ if it happens once more, and use strangulate if they CC him a 4th time. Be intelligent with peels (don't waste death grip when the hunter is going to disengage) and you can pretty much make sure they will never win.

Absolutely agree with you about "Paladins are an order of magnitude more survivable". Hell--even Sacred Shield and Holy Shocks are more (well, at least similar) absorption/healing than PW:S and Prayer of Mending and Renew.

And as far as Viper Sting goes--this ability has just gotten increasingly fucking broken. Now that is has no dispel protection and scorpids don't have multiple stacks of poison, Viper Sting effects exactly two classes in a meaningful way: Priests, and Mages. How in the hell is it fair to have an I-Win-Button against only 2 of the classes?! Hard-counters in a game like Warcraft is terrible design. It's an embarassment that Priests can't cure poison (at least self-cure) at this point.

Ok i'll bite

1: Blizzard already stated they think burst damage is to high, regardless I do not think mage or rogue for that matter are any worse then the other classes. In your given situation lets change the following: when rogue opens instantly AMZ around, grip the mage and strangulate him, force iceblock right away. Aslong as your in the AMZ you should be safe from most arcane damage, and can get some damage on rogue. If mage tries to cc you use AMS and get loads of time to dps rogue. Even if they play perfectly mage will have used invis, block, evocate and perhaps if he ain't to good AP/POM. Even if you did or did not use bubble you should have a better matchup for the second opener. (I know we are just theorycrafting here, but remember there is absolutely no chance mage/rogue has a chance to kill DK so with more games your likely to win a serie, and just lose the games where some ridiculous crits win the game)

Perhaps even bop the second rogue opens, grip > strangulate mage and force IB and don't let him invis. Its hard to do with 2 players next to you and consecrate/dnd around. Then just aggresive play the mage down. Even if you die the chances your dk losing vs a rogue are pretty slim.

And please, arcane mages just need to faceroll, pally's have to play perfectly. World of Warcraft Arena Ranking | SK Gaming 41.5% pally/dk and 4.3% mage/rogue. Now where did all these amazing pally's and deathknights suddenly emerge from. Perhaps your own classes is so much better then any other healer right now.

2: They just changed arcane, lets see how it works out before calling it broken right away. People using Pom on AB seems more logical since it buffs your next barrage (or next AB) by a good margin. Letting a mage chaincast AB with IV up must be insane damage, but again I dont see much difference from letting a moonkin spam wrath on you or standing next to a warrior in bladestorm.

3: no idea on that one, if it is its obviously bugged and should be fixed.

I can agree burst damage from mage and rogue is high, and probably to high but I do stand by my opinion that the damage any other classes can do is just as stupid. (bladestorming warrior, ret pally in hoj etc)

Melk, in seasons 3/4, where 'damage was not important enough' according to GC, rogues were still utterly dominating and were the 2nd most popular class for all the season basically.

If burst you put out is reduced, by definition burst done on you is also reduced.

I am very well aware of the fact that priest and shamans (and druids if opened on) are even worse than paladins. But EVEN as a paladin, it is beyond any reason. I can only feel sorry for the other healers at the moment as I would not know how to even survive 20 seconds if the other team does anything right.

Okay that's good theory, but I'm sure you can spot the problems yourself. I do like the recommendations. I certainly know that I will need to remain 51 Unholy to keep my paladin alive, that's fine. I've been frost mainly for the mirror, healer / x, and the awe-inspiring power of Hungering Cold. I'll go back once my partner doesn't fall over when I'm not babysitting. There is also definitely room to improve skill-wise. My focus and strangulate timing is fine, but we can coordinate better on HoJing the rogue after his first CloS, and I can yell for Hand of Freedom more (specifically out of Frost Nova).

But I'd like to get back to those two sentences I highlighted.
Mages and rogues aren't any worse huh. Tell that to the moonkins I routinely roll over, because they have absolutely zero ways to stop me from doing so. Moonkin burst is only high if they fight a target with very low resilience, or get 3+ gcds standing still. Slow, Polymorph, and Frost Nova > Cyclone and Entangling roots in this case.

You are correct that other classes are capable of similar burst. When I am Frost I can certainly 2-3 shot any non-healing class, but it requires time to build up runic power, and time setting up.

DK damage gets better as time goes on.
Rogue and mage damage is best right away. Which, frankly, is when it matters at the moment.

Also, "Just losing games to ridiculous crits", is wrong, that's not something any of us should have to do.

No. You can't. If both you and your target are wearing resilience/pvp gear, there is no way to conceivably 2 shot anyone.

As far as the rest of the conversation goes, why aren't more people talking about feral druid burst? The only team in 2v2 that I have felt totally helpless against as shaman/DK is feral/rogue. Ferocious bite crits are absolutely insane.

Probably because
1) It takes 5 combo points to get there, more if you want Savage Roar up
2) requires waiting for a full energy bar (ie. it takes a bit to set up)
3) there's no MS attached, nor a Mindnumbing, nor a blind, nor a sap
4) Feral/Rogue has quite some issues with Paladins, of which there's quite a large number running around. I'll readily admit we've (being: dual feral) blown up Paladins before they got to bubble, but that quickly stopped once people actually got some resilience.

//edit: That said, GC has mentioned Bite might be 'too' bursty. If they change it, I expect (or, possibly more accurately, hope) that they remove the Energy to Damage conversion on it. This would improve it for PvE considerably and tone down the burst in PvP a bit. I don't think anyone's complaining about the rest of Feral burst, just Ferocious Bite.

Yes, I can, its just not nearly as easy as it is for a mutilate rogue.

The only classes that can mitigate the following sequence require 2x 2piece resilience gear or an immunity effect to do so, since it can be done inside of a silence chain:

(Deathchill or KM proc)- Frost strike. Averages 6k.
white swing, averages 3k crits on cloth, low 2ks on other classes.
Obliterate, Averages 6k if it crits.
Obliterate
White swing.

That happens in 3 GCDs, and it does kill people. Switch that around to 2 frost strikes and an obliterate if the target is a paladin or shaman. At maximum, I would need a 4th GCD if neither Obliterate crits. I wear only 500 resilience these days, although I have access to upwards of 700.


The point is not who can burst and who can burst more. My point is instead: How easy is it to burst? What are the odds of a DK 3 shotting someone? Pretty low, our strengths lie elsewhere. But what are the odds of a Mutilate rogue doing it?

Yes, I do believe that you can 5 shot someone while they are being chain silenced and every one of your hits is a crit. I was saying your original statement was a bit absurd. Don't take it the wrong way, I enjoy reading your input - I just had to call you on that 2-shot claim.

I'm not sure taking melee interrupts off of the GCD was such a hot idea. It really makes it so rogues (the biggest offenders) and warriors/DK's can spam damage and not worry about whether they will be able to interrupt when they need to.

Rogues used to have a lot to worry about in terms of energy conservation, and planning their GCD's around interrupts. Now they can just burn cooldowns and go balls to the wall. They don't need to burn energy on shiv to keep poisons up......basically everything that used to slow down their dps is no longer an issue for them. Crippling poison just being auto applied every hit etc etc.. The list goes on, but no matter how many devs play rogue it just can't go on like this.

I am perfectly fine with Interrupts going back on the GCD, unfortunately the only real difference for rogues would be a small wait after their stun chain in which to prioritize interrupting the obligatory heal. Fix Burst First! Then look into more meaningful ways to apply pressure, be it mana, gcd pressure, sustained damage, what-have-you.

The burst that an arcane mage + rogue can put out now is ridiculous and needs to be fixed.

Few things wrong here. Crip poison is not auto applied every hit. With deadly brew it is applied everytime Wound poison is applied, but Wound poison still has to proc. Don't forget that blizz just nerfed the double OH proc of poisons, which without deadly brew is usually crip. Also I agree that taking Kick of the GCD might have been a bit much but you have to remember they did this (& the energy reduction on gloves) instead of a range interrupt on Deadly throw. So its either give rogues back the ranged interrupt (please!) or keep kick off the GCD.
Blizz also put the ranged interrupt into a talent deep in the combat tree where it is useless for pvp so don't expect anything to change.

Also we all really know Devs play locks so just stop that!

As far fetched as it may be this was their logic, the energy reduction buff for kick on S5 gear proves it all that much more. This change happen at the same time. This isnt just an 'insert random buff here' for 'insert random nerf here'.

interrupts of the gcd was a compensation for the new spell interrupt by damage mechanics, which made casting alot easier if you are getting hit - as long as you do not get interrupted. Which was possibly intended as a buff to casting that kinda backfired tho.

Well for one, stuns differ from "cc" because A: they almost always have a cooldown, whereas things like Warlock fear, Mage polymorph and Druid's roots/cyclone do not. And B: They are approximately half the duration of conventional "cc". If you'd prefer rogues to have 10 second stuns with 30 yard range and no cooldown, that'd be just fine with me.

An argument where every person defines CC in the most convenient way for them to claim their class is underpowered and every other class is OP is silly. That being said, you neglect to mention the balancing factors when you compare stuns to other CC - stuns cannot be removed easily for most teams, they do not break on damage, they don't have a cast time, heal the person CC'd while active, or run them out of line of sight or range of your team.

Interrupts were taken off the GCD because the change in spell pushback mechanics means that you're pretty much guaranteed to always cast a spell no matter how much fire you're taking.

As well, it was a 'quality-of-life' buff for anyone who's ever had to hold back their GCDs (and by extension their DPS) in anticipation of taking out a key boss spell.

I think a lot of trouble could be saved by switching the talent location of Shadowstep and Preparation. I also think that pvp-wise the old interrupt with deadly throw and kick on the global cooldown would be preferred by most rogues. The problem is the possibility to chain the cooldowns in such a way with preparation. A single set of cooldowns but with a lot more mobility would solve a lot of rogue issues or better to say issues other classes have with rogues. This would mean that using Vanish offensively would be alot riskier than it is now.