January News/Discussion

[Mirajj]

Jan 6 News

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In an interesting start, Amanda Dean wonders about those little tidbits of info that everyone knows, but no one knows. I have myself, despite playing for almost 4 years now, learned a thing or two from reading the "Helpful tips" on the loading screen. What sort of little thing do you know that you think everyone does...but might not?

For the PvP'er's among us, it seems that Ghostcrawler is hip to the problem of healing in arenas (as in, it's currently a joke...) and will be looking into it. Look for your solution "Soon" (Blizz tm)

2008 really changed the face of WoW, especially for Casual players. Robin Torres lists her thoughts on the 5 biggest changes for casuals. What are your thoughts on them?

And now, for the Warlock Buffs....'cause everyone knows the poor, maligned warlocks need buffing.;)

[NiteFox]

Jan 6 News

~~~
In an interesting start, Amanda Dean wonders about those little tidbits of info that everyone knows, but no one knows. I have myself, despite playing for almost 4 years now, learned a thing or two from reading the "Helpful tips" on the loading screen. What sort of little thing do you know that you think everyone does...but might not?

You can fish while sitting or even sleeping. Seriously.

Okay, 3.0.2 broke this for a while, but you can just park your butt at the water's edge and cast off; which to me makes more sense than standing around like an idiot. If you're going to be fishing for hours, why not do so from the comfort of your own butt?

[Lissa]

Jan 6 News

And now, for the Warlock Buffs....'cause everyone knows the poor, maligned warlocks need buffing.;)

Quickest and best fix for the shard issue is to get rid of them and replace them with a buyable reagent for Soul Well, Summons, Stones, and non-imp demons. I might actually start using Soul Fire then.

As to rotation, right now Warlocks, not just Affliction, have the craziest button mashing rotations out there and I kinda like it. I typically hit 7 to 8 hotkeys now during my rotation as a Destro Warlock (Chaos Bolt, Incinerate, Conflagrate, Immolate, Corruption, Curse of Agony, Life Tap, and Drain Soul if I need a shard). It adds a level of complexity now and forces you to pay attention to a lot of things versus the way it use to be. Probably the least complex build right now for a Warlock is Demonology.

As to the demons, I do concur with a couple aspects, the Imp dies very easily in heavy AoE fights like Sapphiron where the imp stays in one place to attack (even with full raid buffs, the Imp rarely breaks 11k health). To an unskilled micromanager, this means the pet will die (and even to a skilled micromanager, it can die as you're typically paying attention to a ton of things as is between your spell rotation, avoiding AoEs/environmental effects, and other players on fights where being in close proximity can be an issue). It's pretty rare to see any Warlocks running around with a VW or Succubus now once they're 70+ and those two demons definitely need some love.

[Tal]

You can fish while sitting or even sleeping. Seriously.

Okay, 3.0.2 broke this for a while, but you can just park your butt at the water's edge and cast off; which to me makes more sense than standing around like an idiot. If you're going to be fishing for hours, why not do so from the comfort of your own butt?

This is good news.

[Sir_Die_alot]

On the subject of teleportation, If you're Horde, you should really save the Goblin Transponder that you use to port from Booty Bay to Gnomeregan. It can help for raiding Ironforge.

Unessesary to keep it. Just get a new one from the NPC next to the teleportation device when you want to go. Do i win the game now? B)

[Mavfin]

Unessesary to keep it. Just get a new one from the NPC next to the teleportation device when you want to go. Do i win the game now? B)

I've heard rumors that you can no longer get up the elevator out into Dun Morogh as Horde if you came in via teleporter....

[Swiss Mercenary]

For the PvP'er's among us, it seems that Ghostcrawler is hip to the problem of healing in arenas (as in, it's currently a joke...) and will be looking into it. Look for your solution "Soon" (Blizz tm)

Ghostcrawler... <Refraining from swearing profusely>

He's got plenty of gems... One worse then another on the subject of these changes. Apparently, raw damage (With no regard for smart CC, interrupting, positioning) should be a valid and successful arena playstyle... Otherwise the "Raw DPS" classes (What are those? Maybe Warriors..? But they have a pummel.) feel left out.

:wacko:

The way this arena season's going, "Badiators" will be a good way to describe drake-winning Hunters, Rogues, Death Knights, and Mages... While, if you're a Warlock, a 1700 rating will put you into the top 5 for your class on some battlegroups.

[Quark]

He's got plenty of gems... One worse then another on the subject of these changes. Apparently, raw damage (With no regard for smart CC, interrupting, positioning) should be a valid and successful arena playstyle... Otherwise the "Raw DPS" classes (What are those? Maybe Warriors..? But they have a pummel.) feel left out.

Man, you people love taking stuff out of context.

2 DPS should be able to kill 1 Healer. We all know it's too far in one direction right now, let's not make it too far in the other to compensate.

[Tal]

Ghostcrawler... <Refraining from swearing profusely>

He's got plenty of gems... One worse then another on the subject of these changes. Apparently, raw damage (With no regard for smart CC, interrupting, positioning) should be a valid and successful arena playstyle... Otherwise the "Raw DPS" classes (What are those? Maybe Warriors..? But they have a pummel.) feel left out.

:wacko:

The way this arena season's going, "Badiators" will be a good way to describe drake-winning Hunters, Rogues, Death Knights, and Mages... While, if you're a Warlock, a 1700 rating will put you into the top 5 for your class on some battlegroups.

Wow you really didn't read his posts at all.

[Sir_Die_alot]

I've heard rumors that you can no longer get up the elevator out into Dun Morogh as Horde if you came in via teleporter....

So I thought to myself "this can't be true" so I went and tested and it kind of is. Initially it would not let me on but I noticed there was still some collision with my camera so I tried jumping up and down thinking I could land on it and that worked like a charm.

[ryan4nayr]

That was a weird bug. Back in patch 3.0 / pre-WoTLK I wanted to get the backdoor key from the one of the Gnomer bosses. The first toon I sent in was my draenei shaman. Attempting to exit the area, I couldn't get back on the elevator. The GM who answered my ticket only said they were resolving it but I never got a confirmation whether it's fixed.

I am happy warlocks are getting a second look, my demo lock is the same bleh toon that he was in patch 2.0.3. Going on an even more obtuse tangent, I pity GhostCrawler. Surely he knows there is no appeasing us subscribers.

[Swiss Mercenary]

Wow you really didn't read his posts at all.

This was the post by Ghostcrawler:

But when all is said and done, there still needs to be a place for damage dealers. Killing a healer, even in the absence of crowd control, silences or whatever, still needs to be a viable tactic at the end of the day.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to read it as "You should be able to bring 2 DPS classes into arena, don't put effort into draining, CCing, silencing... And still be capable of killing a healer."

Which may have been fine if the broken DPS classes didn't have CCs, silences, and uh, Mortal Strike. Or all three of those combined, if they are a rogue.

I fail to see what else he could possibly mean by that statement.

I sometimes watch my brother play his warlock in arena. He's a completely capable player, despite having no PvP experience in BC. His partner, who was a 2000/2200 Disc priest in S3/4... Says that if they played in BC, they'd have made Gladiator no problem.

I get to see him die to a rogue/mage during the duration of a counterspell on his priest partner (And a stunlock on him). He's at 600 resilience.

[Taelas]

All those crowd controls either have diminishing returns or cooldowns. I believe that Ghostcrawler is simply saying that when those crowd controls (or stuns or silences or whatever) aren't working (for whatever reason), pure damage should still be able to do the job.

And if you think there's no skill in pure damage, well...

[Quark]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/27/1413309410...t--healers.html

Yes, I said that. If you are disagreeing with that remark, then you are essentially saying "It shouldn't be a viable tactic to kill a healer."

If you aren't saying that, then all we're really quibbling over is a matter of degree.

I didn't say it should be trivial to kill a healer. I purposefully didn't specify how many people it should take to kill a healer. I didn't say that we were happy with how easy it is to currently kill a healer. But if you are anticipating a point where you just laugh at warriors or shamans or other classes without brutal CC and drains, then you might be disappointed.

They're trying to get away with a staple of Arenas in TBC - 15 minute matches because it required perfect alignment of cooldown usage to burn down someone in 3v3 when only one healer was supporting them.

[Tal]

This was the post by Ghostcrawler:
I'm not sure how I'm supposed to read it as "You should be able to bring 2 DPS classes into arena, don't put effort into draining, CCing, silencing... And still be capable of killing a healer."

Which may have been fine if the broken DPS classes didn't have CCs, silences, and uh, Mortal Strike. Or all three of those combined, if they are a rogue.

I fail to see what else he could possibly mean by that statement.

I sometimes watch my brother play his warlock in arena. He's a completely capable player, despite having no PvP experience in BC. His partner, who was a 2000/2200 Disc priest in S3/4... Says that if they played in BC, they'd have made Gladiator no problem.

I get to see him die to a rogue/mage during the duration of a counterspell on his priest partner (And a stunlock on him). He's at 600 resilience.

But you shouldn't need to drain/CC/Silence AND burst on a healer to kill them. Ever try to take down a resto druid in pvp? Or a disc priest? Or a resto shammy? And no I don't mean the terribad players - the good ones. It shouldn't take three dps to take them down - and this is coming from someone who arena'd as the black sheep of healers - a holy paladin. Thats what GC was talking about.

[Swiss Mercenary]

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/27/1413309410...t--healers.html
They're trying to get away with a staple of Arenas in TBC - 15 minute matches because it required perfect alignment of cooldown usage to burn down someone in 3v3 when only one healer was supporting them.

Which had everything to do with how slippery Resto druids were, and how easy it is for one to jump off the middle, drop combat with the pet, and drink in Blade's Edge arena. You didn't see those kinds of games on Ruins of Lordaeron, unless both teams were playing far too defensive.

And that was in particular, a few problem teams, based around a single problem class. HOTs were way too powerful with full S2/3/4 gear.

And I'd take a game like that any day over 10 seconds of button mashing deciding the game.

But you shouldn't need to drain/CC/Silence AND burst on a healer to kill them.

What do you mean you shouldn't have to BURST to kill a healer? Are you saying that a healer should be brought down from 100% to 0% during the duration of a silence/stun/school lockout without having to be bursted? Or that simply draining a healer should be enough to kill them? Or that they should be able to be bursted down without draining, silencing, and CCing them first?

I wasn't aware that Arena was supposed to be about doing your PVE DPS rotation on a healer, and then watching them die.

Ever try to take down a resto druid in pvp? Or a disc priest? Or a resto shammy? And no I don't mean the terribad players - the good ones.

I'm somewhat biased when talking about disc priests, since purge shines against them, but they bleed and die like everyone else. Shamans would get destroyed by mortal strike + interrupts. I'll give you resto druids as a freebie - only warlocks could kill them reliably (Shadowmeld was a HUGE offender, and has since been nerfed...)

You didn't need 3 DPS to kill a healer. A single DPS chipping away at them, and then combining cooldowns with his healer assisting with purge/fear/interrupts/CC on the partner were completely capable of killing a healer. Double DPS was completely capable of killing a healer. Certain DPS were less effective against certain healers, but that's Rock/Paper/Scissors for you.

It shouldn't take three dps to take them down - and this is coming from someone who arena'd as the black sheep of healers - a holy paladin. Thats what GC was talking about.

Question... Does any one of those three DPS on you know how to kick?

[Artega]

But you shouldn't need to drain/CC/Silence AND burst on a healer to kill them.

Uh, yeah, you should.

You should need to go train Kick and learn how to use it. You should have to burst the healer hard while he's locked out of his spell school so that he can't keep up with the deficit when he can start healing again.

Arena is not supposed to be about button-mashing, ten-second matches. The entire purpose of adding the Resilience stat into the game was to prevent exactly this. Remember vanilla WoW PvP? Where there was no Resilience and even the PvP gear wasn't loaded down with STA? High-end Warriors would instagib people (and clothies in particular) right and left; there was almost no point to healing at all, because there's no way you could keep someone up when they're taking 3k crits every 2 seconds out of a 5k health pool. And it's disturbingly similar, the way it is now, only the numbers are bigger; you're seeing people eat 4-5k crits out of a 16-18k health pool. Yeah, you'll live a little longer, but it's still very hard to keep people up when they're eating that much raw DPS, especially if the healer's the one that's getting it.

I do think that increased Resilience (and I seriously think the S5 sets need more of it; Blizzard is starting us out much too low) and Stamina will reduce the amount of instagibbing we see right now, but part of it is that DPS is somewhat too strong right now; I don't think there's anyone out there that will tell you that Retribution damage is completely fine and do it with a straight face.

I'm fine with them wanting to lessen the likelihood that you'll run into 15-minute 2's matches (though I personally enjoyed them), but removing the thinking part of the game ain't the way to do it. To kill a healer with less than three or four people, you should be required to use your abilities intelligently, and a single DPS killing a healer should require excellent timing and prediction.

For most teams, healers are their most valuable resource. You shouldn't be able to go tell your Retardin or DK to go over and instagib that annoying healer; it should be a fight to get rid of the healer, not the casual stun-judge-swing-dead crap we see now.

[Tal]

Uh, yeah, you should.

You should need to go train Kick and learn how to use it. You should have to burst the healer hard while he's locked out of his spell school so that he can't keep up with the deficit when he can start healing again.

Arena is not supposed to be about button-mashing, ten-second matches. The entire purpose of adding the Resilience stat into the game was to prevent exactly this. Remember vanilla WoW PvP? Where there was no Resilience and even the PvP gear wasn't loaded down with STA? High-end Warriors would instagib people (and clothies in particular) right and left; there was almost no point to healing at all, because there's no way you could keep someone up when they're taking 3k crits every 2 seconds out of a 5k health pool. And it's disturbingly similar, the way it is now, only the numbers are bigger; you're seeing people eat 4-5k crits out of a 16-18k health pool. Yeah, you'll live a little longer, but it's still very hard to keep people up when they're eating that much raw DPS, especially if the healer's the one that's getting it.

I do think that increased Resilience (and I seriously think the S5 sets need more of it; Blizzard is starting us out much too low) and Stamina will reduce the amount of instagibbing we see right now, but part of it is that DPS is somewhat too strong right now; I don't think there's anyone out there that will tell you that Retribution damage is completely fine and do it with a straight face.

I'm fine with them wanting to lessen the likelihood that you'll run into 15-minute 2's matches (though I personally enjoyed them), but removing the thinking part of the game ain't the way to do it. To kill a healer with less than three or four people, you should be required to use your abilities intelligently, and a single DPS killing a healer should require excellent timing and prediction.

For most teams, healers are their most valuable resource. You shouldn't be able to go tell your Retardin or DK to go over and instagib that annoying healer; it should be a fight to get rid of the healer, not the casual stun-judge-swing-dead crap we see now.

I wasn't clear - my apologies. You shouldn't have do do ALL of those things together to be able to kill certain healers. I'm not saying that healers shouldn't have a fighting chance (I did after all play a paladin healer in arenas) nor am I saying good tactics should replace dps. But in the situations GC was talking about - 2 dps on a healer - the dps should win.

[Tal]

I'm not saying that at all. I was saying you shouldn't need to do ALL of those things to kill certain healers. Thats all.

From the thread Quark linked to:

I didn't say dps should be able to faceroll healers. I said it should be a viable strategy to kill them. What I meant was that we want to avoid situations where players say "No matter what I do, I cannot keep that guy from healing." (Unless of course, the healer just totally outplayed them.)

I think what got me in trouble was the "etc.". My intention was not that dps should be able to autoattack or faceroll their way to victory.:)

My point was that we don't give every spec the ability to stunlock, sheep or silence. And we're not going to. But those specs still need to feel like they can contribute in an Arena. Understanding the concerns now, I should have said something more like "It should still be possible for warriors and shamans to take on and sometimes defeat healers (even if it takes 2v1 or 3v1 or whatever)." Crowd control should not be the dominant factor in Arenas. Neither should burst damage.

You and I are arguing from the same side of the fence I think.

[Bolty]

Uh, yeah, you should.

You should need to go train Kick and learn how to use it. You should have to burst the healer hard while he's locked out of his spell school so that he can't keep up with the deficit when he can start healing again.

Kinda surprised you had this viewpoint, Artega, since I know you don't play a healer.

Last week I was in SotA and a Rogue took me from 20,800 hps to zero under stunlock, with 475 resilience. Yes, I was PvE spec'ed at the time, but it's still ridiculous. I don't expect to win a 1v1 fight vs a Rogue in a PvE spec. I do expect that I will at least be able to do something before dying. At no time did I have control of my character. It wasn't even a fight; it was just button mashing and death. Clearly, I was outplayed.

Could I have trinketed? Well sure, then I'd fear, then he'd trinket, then I'd die anyway. Without even touching the Rogue at all. Maybe I'd get off a PW:S to draw the fight out another second or two.

Yes, that was a 1v1 situation and not group pvp, where it would be assumed someone could peel the Rogue.

I am playing atm waiting to see what Blizzard will do to correct the situation. In the meantime, I'm not going to take arenas very seriously as long as the current dynamic exists, where the classes with burst dps + outs are dominating (Rogues, Paladins, DKs, and Mages).

-Bolty