Patch 2.1.2 preliminary notes

[Concillian]

BM hunters destroy cloth in 2v2.

Cloth who don't know how to LOS.

I looked at the top 30 2v2 in my BG before the armory appears to have had some problems... no hunters, not even hunters with a minority of games played. Hunters have advantages in PvP, but they don't translate well to the current arenas (small, lots of areas to LOS) if they are facing GOOD opponents.

[Quark]

Based on my PvP experience with rogues at 60 (my rogue is still 60, but I took her very close to rank 12, so I have some experience with it) I'd venture to guess the exact same thing is true of rogues without Prep.

You'd be wrong. Prep is no longer the beast it was before TBC. All it really buys you any more is an extra Vanish. I have been under different specs, believe it or not, and the Mutilate foundation is the most solid for a dagger rogue in PvP. A subtlety dagger rogue cannot generate the combo points necessary to both control and deal damage at the same time. If I was purely PvP specced, there are a few things I would change, but the general basis would stay the same to the various Mutilate builds I've been using since TBC was released. Ironically, the biggest overall change? I'd be more powerful versus other rogues.

Except you can still do major amounts of disruption without prep. They trink out of Sap... that trinket is no longer available if he gets feared or cycloned or blinded.

You're not getting it. I'm already using all these options and can regularly run into issues. But now the best option I have, a once-a-match Blind, is easily removed.

Rogues have one of THE power combinations in 2v2, so I'm not sad to see this affect rogues and druids more than anyone else. Both are still incredibly valueable. Even if someone trinkets out of it, other forms of CC are then applicable.

In fact I just looked at all the 2v2 teams rated >2350 that also have more than 200 wins in my in my battlegroup and 6 have rogues in them, 6 don't. Yeah, warrior paladin is up there, but rogues are way up there in terms of 2v2 importance. Rogues don't realistically have all that much to complain about in 2v2 and 3v3 areanas (5v5 is another story). They still have lots of power in arenas.

I just tried going through that list and found 3 rogues total that weren't dragged up there by others (they actually played a decent amount of games).

[Quark]

So I'm reading a breakdown of the Top 20 teams for each battlegroup/size.

5v5
Warrior: 21%
Paladin: 20%
Priest: 13%
Shaman: 13%
Mage: 12%
Warlock: 8%
Hunter: 6%
Rogue: 5%
Druid: 4%

3v3
Paladin: 17%
Warrior: 15%
Priest: 15%
Warlock: 14%
Rogue: 12%
Mage: 10%
Shaman: 9%
Druid: 5%
Hunter: 2%

2v2
Warlock: 24%
Priest: 20%
Paladin: 15%
Rogue: 12%
Warrior: 10%
Mage: 6%
Druid: 6%
Shaman: 4%

Now, if we're assuming all classes are spread evenly that means 11% would be average. So Rogues in their "power" groups are merely average and drop like a rock as more players become involved.

[Jester]

So I'm reading a breakdown of the Top 20 teams for each battlegroup/size.

5v5
Warrior: 21%
Paladin: 20%
Priest: 13%
Shaman: 13%
Mage: 12%
Warlock: 8%
Hunter: 6%
Rogue: 5%
Druid: 4%

3v3
Paladin: 17%
Warrior: 15%
Priest: 15%
Warlock: 14%
Rogue: 12%
Mage: 10%
Shaman: 9%
Druid: 5%
Hunter: 2%

2v2
Warlock: 24%
Priest: 20%
Paladin: 15%
Rogue: 12%
Warrior: 10%
Mage: 6%
Druid: 6%
Shaman: 4%

Now, if we're assuming all classes are spread evenly that means 11% would be average. So Rogues in their "power" groups are merely average and drop like a rock as more players become involved.

So, rogues are, by that count, above druids, hunters, shamans and mages, and below warriors, paladins, locks and priests. Middle of the pack.

It certainly does seem like warriors and paladins are too strong in the larger groups. And those classes, if I understand the balance correctly, are the big headaches for rogues. I think this is more a metagame issue, with rogues being the victims of the popularity of paladins and warriors, and not any fundamental imbalance in the rogue class. If other classes were stronger against those two, and the rogue left unchanged, I think the rogue numbers would go considerably up, since rogues are better against squishies.

-Jester

[oldmandennis]

There's a couple of problems with that statement, Jester. Blizz has decided that 5v5 is supposed to be the premier bracket. Thats why they are hosting a world championship for it, and that's why it's worth so many more points.

The other problem is that it taking balance in the opposite direction of where it needs to go. Paladins see a huge benefit from this, and warriors too, but they are already too strong. Druids are one of the weaker classes in arenas, and this hurts a ton.

MS and pallies need to be taken down several pegs. They are just silly right now. They should rethink the 5v5 > all paradim, which could quite possibly lead to a system where rogues dominate 2v2 but are a liability in 5v5. As long as the point totals are the same, and goodies like the world tournament are the same, I'd be ok with that.

[Xame]

You'd be wrong. Prep is no longer the beast it was before TBC. All it really buys you any more is an extra Vanish.

I don't have a huge amount of arena experiance in 2x2 but with a Rogue and Mage (me) if a fight lasts longer then 10secs when combat starts its a long fight. It took us a bit to work out that bit but its the case. Rogue starts a stun on the victim, mage CC's off target (sheep/slow/counter spell). Then its AP/PoM/Trinket/Pyroblast and standard insta-nukes while the rogue holds the victim in a stun (cheap shot + kidney (need to let the pyro dot continue to work)+ gouge for the cast time of the final nuke). Options/variations are vanish+cheap shot again or blind the victim or CC target. And a lot of time the extra CC isn't needed and the rogue just helps with the dps. Teams that have given us the most trouble have been hunters(BM) and warlocks. With the interupts/CC of the pets its hard to hold good CC while not dieing yourself. +50yard pet charges, choose to CC pet, hunter is on you, CC hunter pet, hunter kills you and pops beast wrath/intimidation at just the right time to mess with you. And don't let me get started with the lack of warlock CC choices. Giving these classes even more ways out of CC is the crime of this change.

I sympathize with you Quark. Rogues have great cc OR great dps. They really don't have both at the same time. Energy is on the metered tic and a rogue has to choose one or the other. I'm sure the trinket change was not intended at rogues since you have plenty of other CC options given the short life of targets. But with a lot of classes getting "one off" CC options, it helps prevent a "first to CC wins".

[Brista]

Why is Rogues being average and Druids being bottom, second bottom and second bottom a Rogue issue? And to cap it all Druids' main defence just got made trinketable.

[Warlock]

To Rogue players it's most definitely a Rogue issue.

Druids are really good in solo and small group PVE, which is more than the class was in 1.x. For levelling and doing quests and instances feral is a very strong spec indeed; I could grind as fast as a rogue with a group-friendly tanking spec. I was the first of my group of friends to 70 by a fair bit and a lot of that is thanks to the power of a feral druid in my favorite content. The lack of specialist equipment is no big deal when everyone else is also in a mishmash of gear and the quested and crafted tanking blues are just amazing. The class does need PVP and to a lesser degree raid help but in the majority of the game Druids are fine. That PVP and raid are the only progression sources right now is a problem but the next expansion will fix it (at which point I'll come back, happily accept my free gear reset and play until I hit raid-or-die again).

[Quark]

Why is Rogues being average and Druids being bottom, second bottom and second bottom a Rogue issue? And to cap it all Druids' main defence just got made trinketable.

I'm average, average, and awful right now and this change would make that worse. That's why it's a Rogue issue. I'm not saying it's not a Druid issue: the three classes that are going to be hurt the most are Rogue, Druid, and Hunter. Going down that list, that makes it a horrible change.

I'm defending the Rogue side because I am a Rogue and I know Rogues, not because I think Druids are getting any less hurt.

[Quark]

I don't have a huge amount of arena experiance in 2x2 but with a Rogue and Mage (me) if a fight lasts longer then 10secs when combat starts its a long fight.

Trust me, it's a symptom of gear. Arena gear really does help in PvP. If I see a priest in all purple (Tier 4), I know I'm in for a pretty easy kill. If I see a priest in all white (Arena), it's going to be a lot harder.

Burst teams don't last as people gear up. Someone's gonna survive the burst, and then everything falls apart. Hell, in my experience so far burst teams don't even last as you play them multiple times. The strategy is evident, and you just find a way to delay them for a short time then it starts to unravel.

[Bolty]

I realize that this has no bearing on your specific issues when it comes to 2 vs 2 arenas but I'm cheering this change. The only thing I can offer in battlegrounds is to heal the dps (usually warriors, rogues and warlocks) long enough for them to take down the opposition and maybe I'm just a n00b but any competent rogue can lock me down for as long as he wants...

The main problem, and what Quark is rightfully complaining about, is that this change hurts classes the most that have powerful, long-cooldown crowd controls. The longer the cooldown and the more powerful the crowd control, the bigger the nerf this represents.

I'm a bit confused as to why Druids would be all that upset about this change. Yes, it means that Cyclone can be breakable by all enemies, but Cyclone is a spammable CC with no cooldown. If someone trinkets out of it, you just cast it again. The PvP trinket can only be used once every 2 minutes (if you have the advanced version, and not having that in PvP is...fatal). Using a trinket to break Cyclone only makes sense under dire circumstances, because chances are you'll just get Cycloned again, and you've lost the use of the trinket for any future, worse CCs for 2 minutes.

Now, Rogues...ugh. The least-repeatable, longest "cooldown" CC in PvP is Sap. Since you can trinket it out of it now, that is a huge nerf to Rogue PvP. Period, that's fact. The typical response of "if I break Sap, I'll just get Blinded anyway" fails to take into account that before this change, you'd be Sapped and THEN Blinded. Now you can break one of the two. It's a flat out nerf, and it's a nasty one.

Priests will feel little impact except when fighting Shamans. Everyone else already breaks Priest fear within a second or two of casting with a trinket or WotF now anyway. Warriors are essentially unfearable. As for Shamans, as a Holy Priest, I can't beat them to begin with unless they're awful. What's the difference? Priests are so used to their only CC being at best a 1-2 second disruption to an enemy that this change could almost be a buff. After all, I can use it to break Sap. :)

Rogues ARE their cooldowns. This trinket change takes a number of their best, most powerful cooldowns and nerfs them. They have a right to be upset.

The classes that make the least use of long cooldown, powerful CC options will get a significant buff out of this. Those classes? Warriors and Paladins, already considered two of the three most powerful in PvP (Warlocks being the third). Warriors lose Intimidating Shout as a guaranteed CC, that's about it. Everything else is a quickly-spammable CC, like Hamstring.

Example for those who don't PvP/Arena much:

Quark and I play as a Holy Priest/Dagger Rogue combo in 2v2 Arena. It's a solid combo, with its current weakness that I'm not very durable. I have a PvE healing spec with two points in Focused Casting and very little resilience (until next week). On the other hand, "control" fights play into my favor since my regen and healing power is way up there.

We had two matches against a double-Rogue team this week. A double-Rogue team has one obvious playstyle: CC one enemy, burst down the second. Both of these Rogues had Master of Deception and were pretty much invisible until they were on you.

In the first match, they made a critical error. They decided to CC me and burst Quark. Oops. After I was sapped they immediately opened up on Quark. This little ability called Evasion allowed Quark plenty of time to avoid damage while waiting for me to get out of the Sap, after which I instantly hit Psychic Scream and PoM'ed Quark for a quick heal. Psychic Scream was immediately trinketed out by both Rogues and one went to Blind me. I popped Stoneform, and it was all over by that point. Unable to burst one of us down while the other was CC'ed, we won via attrition against an enemy unable to heal themselves.

They learned from this.

Second match, they did the smart move and CC'ed Quark. Quark and I were bunched together with me randomly casting Rank 1 Holy Nova, a typical defense move against stealth teams to try to catch them. It failed. First came the Sap. With Quark controlled, they both immediately started wailing on me. There was no way I'd survive more than 5 seconds with 2 Rogues beating me senseless, so I trinketed out of the Cheap Shot, began running away, hit Stoneform to clear the Crippling Poison, slammed Psychic Scream to gain some separation, and Shielded to avoid a chance of Daze. I broke clear and strafed to the other side of the arena, much to my surprise. Apparently the Rogues had burned their Sprint to get in for the Sap in between my Holy Novas, and since I have the speed enchant on my boots they couldn't close the gap. All I had to do was survive long enough for Quark's CC to end and we win. So far so good.

The moment Sap wore off, Quark popped Sprint and headed for me, only to be met with a Blind. By this time, the other Rogue had caught up to me at the far side of the arena and commenced pwnage. But still, I can survive for a while against one Rogue due to my powerful heals. In seconds, the second Rogue was on me and I was fading fast. I needed Quark to get in there and disrupt them. My Psychic Scream still had 4-5 seconds left on cooldown when Quark ran up to them - and got Blinded again.

I went down in a hailstorm of stuns and stabbing. With the fight now a 2 on 1, the end was decided. At no time did Quark ever get a chance to really do anything.

Am I complaining? No. The fight was balanced. The key was the Sap - Quark got Sapped and they didn't, because they could see him before he could see them. Now, with the new Trinket, one of the three CC's those Rogues used to keep Quark out of the fight long enough to take me down is almost instantly removed, and the balance shifts to our favor. Why? Because Rogues are so dependent on their cooldown crowd control abilities.

Now, you could argue that in our Rogue/Priest team, Sap is still useful because it forces a trinket use early, making my Psychic Scream more applyable without an instant break. I'd agree if it weren't for the fact that fear remains such an easy-to-break crowd control mechanic. Loss of Sap means loss of initiative for our team.

-Bolty

[Treesh]

And for those folks without the dwarf racial that you keep popping or a druid/shaman/pally around? What then Bolty.

[Legedi]

What I got out of Bolty's post is the problem rogues have always had. They require the use of lots of cooldowns to be effective. But the use of that many cooldowns is not fun for the rogue. They have to use them all effectively to do well. Classes that can avoid them (either a dwarf stone forming out of blind, an orc resisting stuns, or a warrior zerking out of sap/gouge) get a big advantage.

It also isn't very fun for people on the receiving end of all the rogue cooldowns. Even though Quark is a rogue himself, I can't imagine it being very "fun" to get sapped -> blinded -> blinded. And everyone that isn't a rogue gets even more upset. To most people it doesn't matter if it's "ballanced", they want it to be fun. That's where crys of nerf come from. And a common one has always been the "feared from 100-0" "stunned from 100-0". So blizzard has always been nerfing these cases.

What blizzard needs to do is counter ballance these changes. IMO priests have been screwed from the constant nerf to fear, which are mainly from warlock chain fears. Rogues are getting nerfed from the trinket change. These nerfs make PvP more fun for other classes. So something should be done to offset these changes. What they should do, or what they might do, I have not idea. But I can easilly see why these changes where made.

[Quark]

What blizzard needs to do is counter ballance these changes. IMO priests have been screwed from the constant nerf to fear, which are mainly from warlock chain fears. Rogues are getting nerfed from the trinket change. These nerfs make PvP more fun for other classes. So something should be done to offset these changes. What they should do, or what they might do, I have not idea. But I can easilly see why these changes where made.

Yes, exactly. I understand the change. By itself, though, it's horrible. It needs more, or else the teams that needed the least help got the most.

Also, about that Rogue/Rogue team, three critical things helped their victory. One, they both had MoD and I didn't. One also had the insane Perception racial. Two, I was too close to Bolty before their opener, making me an easy spot. Three, I Blinded the guy who already had Blinded me, instead of hitting the guy who still had another CC.

I fix my mistakes, we get some actual PvP gear, and that combination becomes easier to deal with.

[oldmandennis]

I'm a bit confused as to why Druids would be all that upset about this change. Yes, it means that Cyclone can be breakable by all enemies, but Cyclone is a spammable CC with no cooldown. If someone trinkets out of it, you just cast it again.

Because cyclone is already subject to brutal DR. I don't know the exact DR mechaninc off the top of my head, but its something like 6->2->1->immune. It's only real upside was it was irremovable. Only the first cast buys you enough time to do anything, the rest of the time you are babysitting it and effectively trading you druid for one of their team members. The way druids are in arenas, that's usually a good trade :/

[Monkey]

So I'm reading a breakdown of the Top 20 teams for each battlegroup/size.

Now, if we're assuming all classes are spread evenly that means 11% would be average. So Rogues in their "power" groups are merely average and drop like a rock as more players become involved.

Let's rebalance those numbers based on class population. I just grabbed this distribution information off warcraftrealms.com (and yes, it's only level 70s):

Druid: 10%
Hunter: 13%
Mage: 14%
Paladin: 9%
Priest: 11%
Rogue: 12%
Shaman: 6%
Warlock: 11%
Warrior: 15%

I'm using the formula: QAP/WCP = SR where:
QRP: Quark's Arena Percentage
WCP: Warcraft Realms Percentage
SR: Subscription rate, or the rate at which a particular class is selected for top arena teams.

An SR of 1 means the class is selected with parity to the general distribution of the overall population. Greater than 1 means it's more popular, less than 1 means less popular. These are sorted from most to least popular.

Code:

5v5
Paladin: 2.22
Shaman: 2.17
Warrior: 1.40
Priest: 1.18
Mage: 0.86
Warlock: 0.73
Hunter: 0.46
Rogue: 0.42
Druid: 0.40

3v3
Paladin: 1.89
Shaman: 1.50
Priest: 1.36
Warlock: 1.27
Warrior: 1.00
Rogue: 1.00
Mage: 0.71
Druid: 0.50
Hunter: 0.15

2v2
Warlock: 2.18
Priest: 1.82
Paladin: 1.67
Rogue: 1.00
Warrior: 0.67
Shaman: 0.67
Druid: 0.60
Mage: 0.43

Hmm, maybe I should reroll as a Paladin.

[Taelas]

I'm a bit confused as to why Druids would be all that upset about this change. Yes, it means that Cyclone can be breakable by all enemies, but Cyclone is a spammable CC with no cooldown. If someone trinkets out of it, you just cast it again.

Maybe if they removed the diminishing returns. With this change, whenever your trinket's up, Cyclone can take someone out for maybe five seconds tops before they become immune--without time to actually do anything other than keep spamming it.

[Watto44]

Two cents incoming.;)

I'm very non-plussed about the trinket changes. The vanillarizing of PvP continues. I can see exactly where Quark is coming from here and I can also see why druids are complaining about it. While it will be difficult to tell until the changes go live, sap and cyclone have basically become ways to draw the use of a trinket rather than CC. (Given that cyclone is not dispellable and gets hit hard by diminishing returns, I can see why someone would trinket out of it rather than, say, fear or blind, both of which break on damage and can be removed by other means.) While the ability to draw the trinket will probably turn out to be quite powerful, I still don't like the change. (Another reason that druids are a little cranky about this change: judgment of justice is not affected by the trinket.)

Rogues and druids aside, the change is also a major buff to burst teams, who are already very successful, and a nerf to control teams.

A minor aside: (MS) warriors and (holy) paladins have always been, and probably always will be, gods of moderate to large scale PvP. On the warrior front: large health pools and good physical DR, good burst damage and an array of excellent debuffs. On the paladin side: good physical DR and short cast time, highly efficient, healing spells in addition to good to excellent buffs and the ability to live through twelve seconds of assist-trainage. In my opinion, there really is no comparison to these two classes for group PvP.

[Brista]

I'm a bit confused as to why Druids would be all that upset about this change.

If you were referring to my post Bolty I'm not upset about the change per se, but the perception that

Top = overpowered
Average = broken
Bottom = working as intended

Rather than

Top = overpowered
Average = working as intended
Bottom = broken


I just wondered if there is some feeling that Rogues deserve to be top since they're a pvp/killer class. (Which is something I have found quite a few players think). Imo WoW would work best if all classes were so balanced that you choose for taste and style (like Starcraft) not because the class you pick gives you many many more wins. So on that thought it's the classes at the bottom that need work, possibly some nerf to the classes right at the top but whoever is average is absolutely fine

I'm not sold on the idea that this trinket change breaks Rogues. In your example of the two Rogue team they actually do quite well since one trinket proc will remove one effect from 2 saps, 2 cheap shots, 2 blinds, 2 gouges, 2 kidney shots. So they're going to get something on if they play it right. And they have Clos (which they didn't use when you were spamming your Holy Novas nor did they anticipate your fear with it). If the argument that Rogues have so many different incapacitating effects that they can ride this change holds any truth then surely it holds more truth for a 2 rogue team

[oldmandennis]

I think druids are just less vocal about it, for what ever reason. Personally, I'd already more or less accepted that arenas are not for druids. Rather then agitate for a change to that, I spend most of the energy I have for the subject arguing in favor of BG's that work.