Warrior Talent Review for the Whiner in all of us!

[ima_nerd]

I still have some complaints about how much rage I can generate as a non-DPS warrior. I'd like to see the rage from damage taken increased and get some from parrys dodges and misses. When they nerfed the rage I got from damage delt it really hurt my PvE game, especially the beginner 60 instances like blackrock and diremaul. Even tanking Onyxia torments me with "not enough rage".

That helped me while tanking, actually. Of course, my Warrior is in all pre-raiding gear so I suppose I was below the curve of rage normalization in damage and you were above it (while in tanking gear). Damage taken Rage could stand to be increased but that may, again, be seen as unbalancing in PvP for those Warriors with Corrupted Ashbringers or whathaveyou. I really, in my opinion, shouldn't have trouble tanking a single mob against a similarly geared Rogue when I get a 2 Sunder head start, but I do at times. Perhaps it's just lucky (or unlucky) strings of crits.

[Malakar]

I like that idea. It'd help with hunter traps and sheep, and have little effect on fear, which is already addressed by other skills.

I wouldn't complain if it were implemented in a way that allowed the damage portion to be offensively dispelled (purge etc).

I personally think the cooldown of pvp trinkets needs to be re-evaluated, as do many other cooldowns in battlegrounds. The fast-paced nature packs a lot of pvp into a little time; skills whose cooldowns were made for world pvp or pve just don't fit. There's not that big of a difference between a 2 min cooldown and a 5 min cooldown in pve or world pvp, but it makes a huge difference in BGs. There's a big difference between a 2 min cooldown and a 3 min cooldown, yet all the cooldowns skip from 2 to 5 minutes.

Hell, consider intercept's cooldown. At 30 seconds untalented, it feels really long in the heat of battle. The pvp trinket is 10 times longer, for one shot at getting out of stuns/snares (but not necessarily getting into melee range).:rolleyes:

Highly geared warriors' insane damage potential is no excuse for not giving them a way to get out of snares more than once every 300 seconds. Mages that are highly geared can 1shot people from 41 yards away. That's an overall pvp issue with the game, gear scaling dps more than defense, not an issue with warriors.

[ima_nerd]

Hell, consider intercept's cooldown. At 30 seconds untalented, it feels really long in the heat of battle. The pvp trinket is 10 times longer, for one shot at getting out of stuns/snares (but not necessarily getting into melee range).

I've always wanted Improved Intercept to be a 50/100% chance to break current snares/roots.

/wishful thinking

[Frag]

"severe" buffs? So non-severe buffs are called for?

Nay, if anything the things I "called for" are bug fixes or *ahem* hardware upgrades. :lol:

Is it just me, or did you describe something that would require intelligent pre-meditated use to be effective and claim this is unbalancing?

All *I* did was repeat part of a brief conversation I had with a player I ran into, who showed that they had more insight into the dev team than I did. :)

People throw this around too much -- it's a cliche. Everyone does more damage (or heals more) with better gear. Everyone has abilities that don't scale (barring the occasional odd set bonus) -- poly polys, hamstring snares, fear fears. What's changed is that at the beginning of the game, there were "uber" weapons that warriors could get. There wasn't much +dmg gear. So warriors/rogues scaled and casters didn't. Additionally, high stamina PvP gear didn't become truly accessible for a while. Prior to that time, it was true, warriors were "gear dependent", and once they got that gear, they were buff. Blizzard has fixed both of those issues now and now some of the deficiencies in the warrior PvP model are showing.

Being a cliche doesn't immediately disprove it, also gear dependancy isn't about scaling, that's it's own discussion. Being gear dependant means that a warrior with his basic grey 2h he starts with, and no other gear, will have a very hard time versus a level 60 NPC. He has low armor, low parry & dodge. However, as you aluded to, things like Demoralizing Shout or Intimidating Shout work fine. His damage will be low, thus generating (pre-2.0) not nearly enough rage to use even said shouts with regularity until his timely demise. A rogue with the starting dagger will perform better than the warrior due to the reliance on the 20/2s energy tick. The rogues lower hp, possible lack of parry, slightly higher dodge won't come into play quite as often as the rogues' natural abilities allow him to keep the foe incapacitaed while building combo points, which he can trade in for damage. But let's not kid ourselves, the rogue still isn't doing well. A mage then? Again with very low hp, armor, dodge, no parry, and also with a low mana pool still has the potential to kill a level 60 mob without taking more than a couple hits by playing cat & mouse with frost. This is what I mean by gear dependancy. None of this is to show that one class is overpowered, because for the life of me, I can't remember the last time we had to fight back to our bodies to get our gear back! :lol:

Care to provide examples?

Well, +30ap on Heroism Shoulders, or +5 Shadow Resist on Shredder Shoulders. Things that take grinds to give a small boost to effectiveness. Or directly, a lurker warrior I once saw wearing a couple pieces of Enchanted Thorium gear with +100 hp librams on them. Showing dedication to a goal, within the limitations of your access.

The comment about us all looking the same doesn't really have to do with anything, just my aesthetic side trying to break out. /back in the box! /smack :whistling:

Cheers!
~Frag B)

[Artega]

For lack of caring to be nicer, that's retarded. Just because someone loves to play a Warrior in a PvE setting, doesn't mean they don't hate Warrior PvP. I'm the perfect example.
Wow, what an idea! Separating idiots from people who think!
SR will be nice, but I'd still prefer a self-inflicted DoT. 4 seconds isn't a long time.
Know who hasn't had deficiencies show? Hunters. I hate Hunters so take what I say with a very large grain of salt but anyone who can hit me from 35+ yds away for 1500 and then sit in Mail armor and melee me with Bestial Wrath popped and win needs to be looked at as a class.

Edit: formatting

A couple of thoughts:

Spell Reflect costs an abysmal 25 Rage (which is a great deal of Rage for any Warrior going sword-and-board, especially since it will not benefit from Focused Rage), has a lengthy cooldown, a noticeable cast effect (about the same as Shield Block's, which means it's not DO NOT ATTACK ME NOW like Retaliation's spinning red swords, but it's there if you look for it), and it does not reflect the spell back with spellpower gear factored in. If the Mage connects that Fireball, it will hit you for 900 or more; if you bounce it back, it will hit him for probably 500 or so (what's the base damage for max rank Fireball anyway?) It's pure PvE fodder, because you likely will not have 25 Rage just sitting around so you can bounce a skillcoil or sheep back at someone. Oh, and you can blow it with a simple rank 1 instant spell or wait out its 5 second duration and laugh at the Warrior's wasted 25 Rage.

The core of the problem with Hunters (this also affects Warlocks and maybe some kinds of Mages, though because they wear paper armor and have relatively small HP pools, it's much less of a problem) is that they have superb tools for keeping a melee-only class like Warriors at bay (Wing Clip, Frost Trap or Freezing Trap, and they can gain numerous root effects from Improved Wing Clip, Counterattack, and Entrapment as well as a resistance to all snares and roots via the Survival talent), yet still have fairly high durability and very high DPS; I frankly do not think any ranged class should be able to out-damage any melee class. The reason I think this is because EVERY ranged class has multiple tools for keeping melee away or at least hampering their ability to do damage.

Mages have Frost Nova, Blink, and Polymorph as default abilities, and they can get Blast Wave, Blazing Speed, and Dragon's Breath from Fire, Permafrost, Frostbite, Improved Blizzard (I've seen Mages cast rank1 Blizzard with Permafrost to quickly snare entire groups of people before doing whatever), and Ice Barrier from Frost in addition to Frostbolt, and they can get tricks like Presence of Mind (instant Polymorph, maybe?) and Slow from Arcane. They have ample tools to keep melee at bay, and their damage is not mitigated by Armor. Their low HP and Armor definitely compensates for this, but I still believe their ability to do burst damage is too strong for their ability to CC people.

Warlocks have a plethora of CC abilities, depending on which pet they're using. They have Fear, Seduce, and Death Coil (a.k.a. Skillcoil, for obvious reasons) as default abilities, as well as Drain Life. True, Warriors do have a method of countering Fear, but it's a short-term effect and doesn't protect against Seduce. With talents, they can gain a recastable ranged snare (Curse of Exhaustion) with no diminishing returns, a life-draining DoT (Siphon Life) and the ability to reduce the amount of damage a Warrior can cause (Shadow Embrace.) If they dip into Demonology, they gain the ability to increase their Armor by a fair amount (Demonic Aegis), the ability to reduce their damage taken by a significant amount while increasing the damage they deal, and access to the ever-popular Felguard, which comes with Intercept as a default ability. In Destruction, they gain access to a life-leech proc and an AE damage-stun.

Hunters have already been mentioned, but we'll go over it again since they are - by far - the worst of the lot. By default, they have both a powerful ranged and melee snare (Concussive Shot and Wing Clip, respectively), the ability to lay traps in combat (one of which is a solid freeze that cannot be broken by any means aside from damage, and the other is a very powerful area-effect snare), and if they choose a Boar as their pet, a brief stun. Additionally, they have the ability to move at 130% of normal speed at will. If they take Beast Mastery, they receive a 5% increase to their total HP and a substantial increase to their Armor, and are also capable of moving at 138% of normal speed. The obvious hallmarks of this tree are Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within, which make both pet and Hunter cause more damage and become utterly immune to ALL forms of CC (including snares, which are a Warrior's only hope of keeping the Hunter in melee range), and this ability is on a short (120 second) cooldown. Marksmanship offers the least in terms of additional abilities to avoid melee combat, but it also greatly increases a Hunter's ranged DPS and it isn't as though they're completely vulnerable to melee with only their stock anti-melee abilities; they can gain (an extremely annoying) proc-based stun for their ranged snare and an instant-cast no-minimum-range attack that disorients the target for 4 seconds. Survival Hunters are, predictably, the hardest to keep in melee range and are likely the hardiest Hunters because of this; they can gain numerous roots via Improved Wing Clip (proc-based), Entrapment (another proc-based), and Counterattack (reactive attack in the same vein as Mongoose Bite and Overpower), they can gain significantly increased durability from talents like Survivalist, Survival Instincts, and Deflection, and they gain a resistance to snares and roots via Surefooted (again, a Warrior's only hope of keeping a Hunter in range.) When you consider that Hunters of all varieties have access to pets with a broad range of abilities (poisons, charge-stun, nature damage attacks, a damage debuff or a damage buff, stealth attacks), it really makes me wonder why some classes can have it so bad while others have it so great.

Priests, the last of the ranged group, are the easiest to keep in range, but aren't easy to kill regardless. Because their Power Word: Shield ability prevents the generation of Rage while allowing them to cast unmolested, we can have a surprisingly difficult time with them, particularly if they're Shadow (who will giggle as they melt our faces) or Holy (who will simply outlast us until we either die or leave due to boredom.) Priests are perhaps the one example of a ranged class I feel is pretty well-balanced; they can put out fairly nice ranged DPS, yet are still vulnerable to melee classes.

Yeah, I realized I started rambling about four paragraphs back, but right now it's extremely frustrating to be a Warrior, yet it's the only class I really enjoy:(

[Artega]

Well, +30ap on Heroism Shoulders, or +5 Shadow Resist on Shredder Shoulders. Things that take grinds to give a small boost to effectiveness. Or directly, a lurker warrior I once saw wearing a couple pieces of Enchanted Thorium gear with +100 hp librams on them. Showing dedication to a goal, within the limitations of your access.

The comment about us all looking the same doesn't really have to do with anything, just my aesthetic side trying to break out. /back in the box! /smack :whistling:

Cheers!
~Frag B)

It could also be evidence of them being a complete moron. While I might have agreed with finding an enchant for your Heroism shoulders if you absolutely could not be arsed to gather the honor for the Defiler's spaulders, it's ludicrous to spend that kind of time and money on them when far better shoulders can likely be easily acquired not far into Outland (I haven't purchased the expansion yet, so I cannot say for certain, but just looking at some of the green drops and quest rewards makes me think this is higly likely.)

Dedication is one thing; having too much gold on your hands or the lack of an ability to think ahead is another:)

[Warlock]

It could also be evidence of them being a complete moron. While I might have agreed with finding an enchant for your Heroism shoulders if you absolutely could not be arsed to gather the honor for the Defiler's spaulders, it's ludicrous to spend that kind of time and money on them when far better shoulders can likely be easily acquired not far into Outland (I haven't purchased the expansion yet, so I cannot say for certain, but just looking at some of the green drops and quest rewards makes me think this is higly likely.)

Dedication is one thing; having too much gold on your hands or the lack of an ability to think ahead is another:)

Roll back six months (so no expansion gear) and assume the character belonged to someone playing perhaps eight hours a week. What shoulders should he have enchanted?

[Artega]

Roll back six months (so no expansion gear) and assume the character belonged to someone playing perhaps eight hours a week. What shoulders should he have enchanted?

Defiler's. Might take a while, but AP and other shoulder enchants aren't exactly cheap.

[ima_nerd]

Huge post is huuuuuuge:)

A couple of thoughts:

Spell Reflect costs an abysmal 25 Rage (which is a great deal of Rage for any Warrior going sword-and-board, especially since it will not benefit from Focused Rage), has a lengthy cooldown, a noticeable cast effect (about the same as Shield Block's, which means it's not DO NOT ATTACK ME NOW like Retaliation's spinning red swords, but it's there if you look for it), and it does not reflect the spell back with spellpower gear factored in. If the Mage connects that Fireball, it will hit you for 900 or more; if you bounce it back, it will hit him for probably 500 or so (what's the base damage for max rank Fireball anyway?) It's pure PvE fodder, because you likely will not have 25 Rage just sitting around so you can bounce a skillcoil or sheep back at someone. Oh, and you can blow it with a simple rank 1 instant spell or wait out its 5 second duration and laugh at the Warrior's wasted 25 Rage.

My roomate was watching a beta PvP Mage video and saw a clever counter to SR - Ice Lance. It does trivial damage to the Mage since none of the special conditional damage goes to him. Instant cast, low as #$%& damage and easy to have on your bar for an off-cuff break of SR.

The core of the problem with Hunters (this also affects Warlocks and maybe some kinds of Mages, though because they wear paper armor and have relatively small HP pools, it's much less of a problem) is that they have superb tools for keeping a melee-only class like Warriors at bay (Wing Clip, Frost Trap or Freezing Trap, and they can gain numerous root effects from Improved Wing Clip, Counterattack, and Entrapment as well as a resistance to all snares and roots via the Survival talent), yet still have fairly high durability and very high DPS; I frankly do not think any ranged class should be able to out-damage any melee class. The reason I think this is because EVERY ranged class has multiple tools for keeping melee away or at least hampering their ability to do damage.

My Warrior in very nice blues got rocked by a Hunter in half Dungeon 1, half Teir 1 in a fight that was full melee the whole time. We stood there, toe to toe, and he beat me with his pet.

Mages have Frost Nova, Blink, and Polymorph as default abilities, and they can get Blast Wave, Blazing Speed, and Dragon's Breath from Fire, Permafrost, Frostbite, Improved Blizzard (I've seen Mages cast rank1 Blizzard with Permafrost to quickly snare entire groups of people before doing whatever), and Ice Barrier from Frost in addition to Frostbolt, and they can get tricks like Presence of Mind (instant Polymorph, maybe?) and Slow from Arcane. They have ample tools to keep melee at bay, and their damage is not mitigated by Armor. Their low HP and Armor definitely compensates for this, but I still believe their ability to do burst damage is too strong for their ability to CC people.

Mages aren't a huge source of pain for me. At least in world PvP, when I get the Charge on them (so I can Intercept their Blink), I can pull of a win around 60% of the time. Of course, pre-Pummel I lost every time but pre-38 is an insignificant amount of time.

Warlocks have a plethora of CC abilities, depending on which pet they're using. They have Fear, Seduce, and Death Coil (a.k.a. Skillcoil, for obvious reasons) as default abilities, as well as Drain Life. True, Warriors do have a method of countering Fear, but it's a short-term effect and doesn't protect against Seduce. With talents, they can gain a recastable ranged snare (Curse of Exhaustion) with no diminishing returns, a life-draining DoT (Siphon Life) and the ability to reduce the amount of damage a Warrior can cause (Shadow Embrace.) If they dip into Demonology, they gain the ability to increase their Armor by a fair amount (Demonic Aegis), the ability to reduce their damage taken by a significant amount while increasing the damage they deal, and access to the ever-popular Felguard, which comes with Intercept as a default ability. In Destruction, they gain access to a life-leech proc and an AE damage-stun.

As a Fury Warrior through and through, Warlocks are less of a concern to me than Arms or Prot Warriors. If they have the Succy out though, things can get very painful.

Hunters have already been mentioned, but we'll go over it again since they are - by far - the worst of the lot. By default, they have both a powerful ranged and melee snare (Concussive Shot and Wing Clip, respectively), the ability to lay traps in combat (one of which is a solid freeze that cannot be broken by any means aside from damage, and the other is a very powerful area-effect snare), and if they choose a Boar as their pet, a brief stun. Additionally, they have the ability to move at 130% of normal speed at will. If they take Beast Mastery, they receive a 5% increase to their total HP and a substantial increase to their Armor, and are also capable of moving at 138% of normal speed. The obvious hallmarks of this tree are Bestial Wrath and The Beast Within, which make both pet and Hunter cause more damage and become utterly immune to ALL forms of CC (including snares, which are a Warrior's only hope of keeping the Hunter in melee range), and this ability is on a short (120 second) cooldown. Marksmanship offers the least in terms of additional abilities to avoid melee combat, but it also greatly increases a Hunter's ranged DPS and it isn't as though they're completely vulnerable to melee with only their stock anti-melee abilities; they can gain (an extremely annoying) proc-based stun for their ranged snare and an instant-cast no-minimum-range attack that disorients the target for 4 seconds. Survival Hunters are, predictably, the hardest to keep in melee range and are likely the hardiest Hunters because of this; they can gain numerous roots via Improved Wing Clip (proc-based), Entrapment (another proc-based), and Counterattack (reactive attack in the same vein as Mongoose Bite and Overpower), they can gain significantly increased durability from talents like Survivalist, Survival Instincts, and Deflection, and they gain a resistance to snares and roots via Surefooted (again, a Warrior's only hope of keeping a Hunter in range.) When you consider that Hunters of all varieties have access to pets with a broad range of abilities (poisons, charge-stun, nature damage attacks, a damage debuff or a damage buff, stealth attacks), it really makes me wonder why some classes can have it so bad while others have it so great.

Yeah, you pretty much summed it up. Kind of sad it took oh so many sentences to list the strength of one class. Hunters are my main beef right now on the PvP front. I think the only reason they got mail was to prevent Rogue/Hunter gear fights. As a balance issue, it makes no sense for a very powerful ranged class to have the second highest armor type in the game.

Priests, the last of the ranged group, are the easiest to keep in range, but aren't easy to kill regardless. Because their Power Word: Shield ability prevents the generation of Rage while allowing them to cast unmolested, we can have a surprisingly difficult time with them, particularly if they're Shadow (who will giggle as they melt our faces) or Holy (who will simply outlast us until we either die or leave due to boredom.) Priests are perhaps the one example of a ranged class I feel is pretty well-balanced; they can put out fairly nice ranged DPS, yet are still vulnerable to melee classes.

Similar to Warlocks. I'll be fear immune for 50 seconds so I'll be in their face but still, the chances of wearing down a Holy/Disc Priest or outdamaging/healing a Shadow priest is iffy. I actually have a chance, so no complaints against Priests.

Yeah, I realized I started rambling about four paragraphs back, but right now it's extremely frustrating to be a Warrior, yet it's the only class I really enjoy:(

Yeah, I first rolled a Warrior on my first 60's server (didn't roll one initially due to WoW page saying they were "gear dependent" and I was coming straight from D2 where that means something entirely different), got him to 44 before leaving the server due to guild drama. I then rolled another Warrior who I leveled to 60 and geared up as much as possible without raiding before quitting the game in boredom. Now, I'm leveling yet another Warrior for play in the expansion on a new server. Have a 60 Rogue and a 60 Priest on the side and they just don't compare to a Warrior:)

[fractaled]

Mages aren't a huge source of pain for me. At least in world PvP, when I get the Charge on them (so I can Intercept their Blink), I can pull of a win around 60% of the time. Of course, pre-Pummel I lost every time but pre-38 is an insignificant amount of time.

I think you're playing bad mages. If they see you coming they can ensure you never get a charge off (counterspell). Even then, it usually goes Charge -> Blink -> Intercept -> Frost Nova -> dead. If your trinket is up, you can break out and have a chance of killing the mage, but they can still kill you. Fire mages have dragon's breath and blazing speed as escape options. Frost mages can bring out ice block or their water elemental.

[Artega]

I think you're playing bad mages. If they see you coming they can ensure you never get a charge off (counterspell). Even then, it usually goes Charge -> Blink -> Intercept -> Frost Nova -> dead. If your trinket is up, you can break out and have a chance of killing the mage, but they can still kill you. Fire mages have dragon's breath and blazing speed as escape options. Frost mages can bring out ice block or their water elemental.

Not sure about the water elemental's abilities other than Frostbolt, but even Frost Mages are trivial in world PvP. Of course, I'm an engineer.

Really, I have no problems with Mages and Priests as far as ranged-v-melee balance goes, and only trivial concerns with Warlocks (no Rage from dot damage, skillcoil.) Hunters, however, make me want to go skin a kitten:(

[bonemage]

Really, I have no problems with Mages and Priests as far as ranged-v-melee balance goes, and only trivial concerns with Warlocks (no Rage from dot damage, skillcoil.) Hunters, however, make me want to go skin a kitten:(

I find this interesting. As a prot warrior in PvP, I've become used to losing. I don't even hope to win in 1 on 1 vs. warlocks, mages, or priests (group vs. group I can cause them grief) or anything that isn't a rogue or hunter. Hunters I seek out and have very rarely lost to a hunter, even ones with a big gear advantage over me. It usually takes superior gear and great skill on their part to defeat me, and I don't think I'm that good. Is this 60 bracket, or are you still talking about 49, as that difference could be a big one. (I was in ZG/MC epics with a few blues).

[ima_nerd]

I think you're playing bad mages. If they see you coming they can ensure you never get a charge off (counterspell). Even then, it usually goes Charge -> Blink -> Intercept -> Frost Nova -> dead. If your trinket is up, you can break out and have a chance of killing the mage, but they can still kill you. Fire mages have dragon's breath and blazing speed as escape options. Frost mages can bring out ice block or their water elemental.

Hence why I said if I get my charge off<_<Charge counters Blink, Intim Shout counters FNova, dead Mage. Snares don't matter sh*t to me due to Hamstring and Piercing Howl. Short of a root or Blink, Mages can't get away from me.

Hunters, however, make me want to go skin a kitten:(

/comfort

[fractaled]

Hence why I said if I get my charge off<_<Charge counters Blink, Intim Shout counters FNova, dead Mage. Snares don't matter sh*t to me due to Hamstring and Piercing Howl. Short of a root or Blink, Mages can't get away from me.

Bad mages still. A frost mage has at least 2 more tricks up his sleeve than you: Iceblock, Freeze (pet's frost nova), + cold snap which means he gets both of those twice if necessary. Plus if his ice shield is up (which it will be on a good mage), your source of rage is charge + bloodrage, and then nothing else till you beat through the shield (which will be the 2nd hit at earliest), so I'm not sure how you can burn 25 rage on intimidating shout (and have enough for hamstring/piercing howl). Also, a mage can sometimes get the blink off before you get your snare in (and I think that will be outside the PH range).

And if the mage has the initiative (i.e. polymorph or the 6s cast spell), they can burst you from full to dead before you can get to them.

[Sir_Die_alot]

again, be seen as unbalancing in PvP for those Warriors with Corrupted Ashbringers or whathaveyou.

I don't see how. If you're taking that much damage you aren't going to be alive long. If you have a pocket healer whoever is pumping the damage into you is goofing up and deserves to die.

[Artega]

I find this interesting. As a prot warrior in PvP, I've become used to losing. I don't even hope to win in 1 on 1 vs. warlocks, mages, or priests (group vs. group I can cause them grief) or anything that isn't a rogue or hunter. Hunters I seek out and have very rarely lost to a hunter, even ones with a big gear advantage over me. It usually takes superior gear and great skill on their part to defeat me, and I don't think I'm that good. Is this 60 bracket, or are you still talking about 49, as that difference could be a big one. (I was in ZG/MC epics with a few blues).

Primarily -49. I've fiddled around with my tier0 warriors on other servers and don't have much problem with Mages and some Warlocks in my gear range (the few that remain), but that could be as much my skill > theirs as it is class balance.

In -49, I can kill pretty much any class 1v1, though Hunters are by far the most aggravating, especially if they're Survival. A good Survival Hunter is one of the few classes that give me grief, along with Frost Mages (Ice Barrier isn't a big deal, since I can just Shield Slam it off) and Affliction Warlocks. Everyone else is either easy HKs or normal HKs.

In 60, where offense has far surpassed defense, it seems the other way around a lot of the time. Hence why I've stayed in -49 for so long<_<

[Watto44]

Hence why I said if I get my charge off<_<Charge counters Blink, Intim Shout counters FNova, dead Mage. Snares don't matter sh*t to me due to Hamstring and Piercing Howl. Short of a root or Blink, Mages can't get away from me.
/comfort

You're still fighting bad mages if they're blinking out of charge.:)(I think that's the second, maybe third thing you learn is mage school.)