Test Realm Patch Notes: 2.4.3

[Gregorius]

I'm seeing reports that the Alacrity dagger is NOT on the S4 vendors at this time on live realms, so they appear to have decided against it. Seems there is some major disappointement among high ranked mages.

Is the mace also gone? Not that I was going to have the rating to use it, but it looked...interesting.

[Taelas]

I have to admit to being confused by your attitude. You've got between 2k and 3.8k HKs a piece on three toons - of which the highest is a fire mage. You would think that you would have run into a few frost mages in that time on one of your melee. Though given the rep it appears you spent most of your time in AV the least pvp of the battlegrounds so you may not have run into too many frost snipers.

Trust me. Its a big deal as a melee (aside from rogues who have more get out of jail cards) to deal with frostbite. A shammy could usually blow through that with purgespam and grounding totem and a ret pally with BoF. If its not purgeable it becomes much much harder to manage.

It isn't Frostbite that is not purgable. It's Ice Armor. Frostbite is the same as it's always been.

Please stop drawing conclusions based on the Armory. It doesn't show the extent of my experiences, and experience is not the only thing that matters in a discussion.

[Swiss Mercenary]

It isn't Frostbite that is not purgable. It's Ice Armor. Frostbite is the same as it's always been.

Please stop drawing conclusions based on the Armory. It doesn't show the extent of my experiences, and experience is not the only thing that matters in a discussion.

There seems to be two points of confusion.

1. Enhancement shamans, with their lack of anything mobility-oriented are helpless against ice armor without frostbit. (Frost shock spam sounds like a great idea, until you realise that mages can blink, and putting earth shock on cooldown = sheep or a frost bolt in the face).

2. Having played a mage for quite a while, I cannot believe any claims of frostbite = useless. It's an amazing source of damage, it prevents intercept, it forces rogues to blow cooldowns to avoid that incoming damage, and it makes shamans stand there picking their navel. I wouldn't consider playing a frost spec without the talent.

Edit: While we're on the subject, is there any particular reason for why Fel Armor is undispellable, while _____ Shield is? Are warlocks seriously getting a permanent passive 100 spell damage, +20% healing?

[RTM]

Edit: While we're on the subject, is there any particular reason for why Fel Armor is undispellable, while _____ Shield is? Are warlocks seriously getting a permanent passive 100 spell damage, +20% healing?

Technically not permanent, since Fel Armor is being changed in WotLK. Demon Armor will have +armor, +healing where Fel Armor will have +spell damage +mana regen.

I imagine there will be all manner of inconsistencies and relative over/underpoweredness going on as they ramp up skills till the expansion. Hopefully the change will be more gradual than the 2.0 patch before TBC was, where they dumped all the new talents on us which introduced some wacky builds. The Curse of Elements/Curse of Shadow change says that they may be doing things more gradual this time, but I guess a month or two of 1 or 2 classes dominating PvP or PvE isn't going to make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things.

[Tal]

It isn't Frostbite that is not purgable. It's Ice Armor. Frostbite is the same as it's always been.

Please stop drawing conclusions based on the Armory. It doesn't show the extent of my experiences, and experience is not the only thing that matters in a discussion.

*sigh* You're missing the point. Its the combination of Frost Bite and Ice armor that would be so rough on a melee class.

I'm not drawing any conclusions off your Armory that I hadn't already reached from what you post on the forums. More reinforcement than anything else.

[Pantalaimon]

It isn't Frostbite that is not purgable. It's Ice Armor. Frostbite is the same as it's always been.

Yes, but the most direct way for shamans to deal with frostbite is to purgespam the ice armour:)

[Artega]

It isn't Frostbite that is not purgable. It's Ice Armor. Frostbite is the same as it's always been.

Please stop drawing conclusions based on the Armory. It doesn't show the extent of my experiences, and experience is not the only thing that matters in a discussion.

Are being intentionally obtuse here? Or is it just because you don't PvP much that you don't realize how massively this hurts Enhancement Shammies? Hell, it probably hurts all melee, even Rogues.

You realize that a mage has a 50% greater chance to crit against a frozen target, right? And that ice lance does triple damage against frozen targets? So that instant cast spell is now capable of doing six times normal damage (thanks to Ice Shards, before Resilience adjustments.) It's entirely possible to have Ice Lance - an instant-cast spell with a massive 36 yard talented range - crit for 2000 or more against high-resilience targets. Against low-resilience targets, it's not unusual to see numbers going beyond 3000.

Not only this, but because enhancement shammies and rogues - who dual wield and thus attack very quickly - are going to have a much higher chance to proc Frostbite. Rogues can probably get out of it if they need to via Cloak of Skill or their other get out of jail free cards, but for a shammy, the only option he has is to try and dispel ice armor, which they're seemingly intent on changing. This now leaves you with the option of either trinketing (and just being rooted with frost nova, freeze, or another frostbite proc a few seconds later) or bending over and grabbing your ankles.

Moreover, any melee attacking the mage will now be moving at 70% speed because of the chill effect; for Warriors and Rogues this isn't a major problem because they can just keep Hamstring/Piercing Howl/Crippling Poison on the mage and keep up just fine. But for Retribution Paladins, who will be reliant on Blessing of Freedom (which can be stolen or dispelled), and Enhancement Shamans, this is a serious issue.

[Taelas]

*sigh* You're missing the point. Its the combination of Frost Bite and Ice armor that would be so rough on a melee class.

I'm not missing the point. It only affects melee classes with purge, i.e. only Enhancement shamans. Retribution paladins can still get out of it with BoF and Cleanse, so why mention them?

It only affects non-purge classes if they are paired with a purge-class. Ice Armor being undispellable means jack to a Ret paladin unless the Ret paladin is relying on a shaman or a priest or a warlock's Felhunter to remove Ice Armor.

In any event, Frostbite is still not a big deal. Good warriors exploit Frostbite to throw a crit back in the Mage's face via Spell Reflection, rogues can get out of Frostbite any number of ways, paladins can Cleanse it even if their BoF is on CD, and the rest of the classes have ranged spells, meaning that it doesn't affect their abilty to retaliate. An Enhancement shaman would have the most problems with Frostbite, yes -- but I still don't see the problem. I consider slowing effects on warriors far worse.

Are being intentionally obtuse here? Or is it just because you don't PvP much that you don't realize how massively this hurts Enhancement Shammies? Hell, it probably hurts all melee, even Rogues.

You realize that a mage has a 50% greater chance to crit against a frozen target, right? And that ice lance does triple damage against frozen targets? So that instant cast spell is now capable of doing six times normal damage (thanks to Ice Shards, before Resilience adjustments.) It's entirely possible to have Ice Lance - an instant-cast spell with a massive 36 yard talented range - crit for 2000 or more against high-resilience targets. Against low-resilience targets, it's not unusual to see numbers going beyond 3000.

...

You're not a mage, obviously. 3000? Are you nuts, or do you just think it's appropriate to add a Berserker buff to everything? Ice Lance doesn't hit for 500 unless you have upwards of 2500 spelldamage. It's gets a 14.29% coefficient, and the base damage is ~174.

It's a great spell, but you're VASTLY overestimating it. Ice Lance is amazing when you combine it with a Frostbolt, or if you manage to get off three or more Ice Lances against a target affected by Frostbite. On its own, it's not something to worry about.

Just to give you an estimation, you'd need around 1300 spelldamage before Ice Lance crits for 2000. Without considering anything else.

Also -- the talented range for Ice Lance is 33 yards, not 36. At least try to get your facts straight.

Not only this, but because enhancement shammies and rogues - who dual wield and thus attack very quickly - are going to have a much higher chance to proc Frostbite. Rogues can probably get out of it if they need to via Cloak of Skill or their other get out of jail free cards, but for a shammy, the only option he has is to try and dispel ice armor, which they're seemingly intent on changing. This now leaves you with the option of either trinketing (and just being rooted with frost nova, freeze, or another frostbite proc a few seconds later) or bending over and grabbing your ankles.

Moreover, any melee attacking the mage will now be moving at 70% speed because of the chill effect; for Warriors and Rogues this isn't a major problem because they can just keep Hamstring/Piercing Howl/Crippling Poison on the mage and keep up just fine. But for Retribution Paladins, who will be reliant on Blessing of Freedom (which can be stolen or dispelled), and Enhancement Shamans, this is a serious issue.

What, you never use Cleanse?

Yeah, it's a serious issue for Enhancement shaman. So what? The game isn't balanced around 1v1.

Oh yeah -- shaman will effectively get Cleanse themselves in WotLK.

[oldmandennis]

Even though the task of balancing 27 specs against solo, 3 arenas, and a couple of BG's is difficult, you would think that eventually they would start to get close. The fact that after 4 years and hundreds of millions of dollars they still aren't even close is pretty depressing.

I wonder who this change is supposed to be balancing back into line? It's a nerf to melee paired with priests or shaman while fighting casters... I haven't been paying much attention, is priest/rogue or warrior/shaman destroying the 2v2 bracket?

Yeah, it's a serious issue for Enhancement shaman. So what? The game isn't balanced around 1v1.

Well the problem is it bones Enh not just in 1v1, but in all arena brackets. And Enh is already very weak in PvP, so I can understand the frustration.

[Tal]

I'm not missing the point. It only affects melee classes with purge, i.e. only Enhancement shamans. Retribution paladins can still get out of it with BoF and Cleanse, so why mention them?

It only affects non-purge classes if they are paired with a purge-class. Ice Armor being undispellable means jack to a Ret paladin unless the Ret paladin is relying on a shaman or a priest or a warlock's Felhunter to remove Ice Armor.

In any event, Frostbite is still not a big deal. Good warriors exploit Frostbite to throw a crit back in the Mage's face via Spell Reflection, rogues can get out of Frostbite any number of ways, paladins can Cleanse it even if their BoF is on CD, and the rest of the classes have ranged spells, meaning that it doesn't affect their abilty to retaliate. An Enhancement shaman would have the most problems with Frostbite, yes -- but I still don't see the problem. I consider slowing effects on warriors far worse.

Glad to see we've come full circle and you're understanding what Artega initially posted:

Should be noted that there's possibly a "stealth" change going into this patch that's causing Ice Armor, Fel Armor, Demon Armor, Mage Armor, Molten Armor, and all the other magical armor effects for Warlocks and Mages to be classified as physical effects and thus undispellable effects.

Hopefully this gets changed, because if it doesn't, it's a huge problem for Enhancement Shamans (and possibly Retribution Paladins as well) because of Frostbite. This wouldn't be the first time of Blizzard's left hand failing to communicate with the right hand (12 mp5 on the S4 Enhancement Shaman chest?), but it gets tiring having to wait for another patch to fix a stupid decision.

[Skandranon]

Well the problem is it bones Enh not just in 1v1, but in all arena brackets. And Enh is already very weak in PvP, so I can understand the frustration.

It's clearly a change targeted at 5v5. It obviously weakens Enhancement in 3's, where Priest/Mage/Rogue is pretty popular still. Less so in 2s because mages are simply not present at high ratings in that bracket (mage/rogue is decent, but definitely not a top comp in any way). However, one of the new cookie-cutter comps is War/Rogue/EnhShm/Priest/Paladin, the team most people refer to when they reference "triple melee". In Season 3, composing like this was an automatic 2k in 5s, and I would imagine Blizzard isn't that happy about it.

[Concillian]

I'm not missing the point. It only affects melee classes with purge, i.e. only Enhancement shamans. Retribution paladins can still get out of it with BoF and Cleanse, so why mention them?

Again, lack of PvP knowledge comes through. Also effects arena comps with dispels, which is almost all 5v5 combination and about half to 2/3rds of popular 3v3 combinations (most notably RMP and Druid / Warrior / Enhance).

The undispellable armor change is HUGE for mages in the 3v3 bracket. RMP is THE nut to crack in 3v3. Tournament winners are generally either RMP or direrct counters to RMP (druid / rogue / rogue was a recent tournament winner, druid / warrior / enhance also). But this will give a significant amount of strength to RMP, an already very strong combo with the amount of extra opportunities for reduced DPS on the mage (often 1st focus target, but not always) and especially the increased pressure on the opponents due to additional damage done by ice lance and/or additional opportunity for shatter.

And it doesn't just affect enhancement shaman, it's is MUCH further reaching than that. As I said, it causes major re-writes to the basic strategies for a majority of high ranked 3v3 and 5v5 team compositions.

The change is HUGE for arena PvP combat. To argue otherwise is just a demonstration of ignorance. Just admit that you're clueless about PvP aside from basic "theory-duels" and move on.

[Taelas]

To argue otherwise is just a demonstration of ignorance. Just admit that you're clueless about PvP aside from basic "theory-duels" and move on.

I never claimed I wasn't, y'know.<_<

Fine, I'll shut up. I was just expressing my opinion, but apparently that's not allowed.

[Artega]

It's very unlikely that Cleanse will get you out of Frostbite if you have a stack of Winter's Chill on you, especially if you fail to dispel - which happens a lot when you really need it dispelled immediately, per Murphy's Law. It's possible, but you'll probably eat a Frost Bolt or Ice Lance before you can get out.

This is just a poorly designed change. Maybe it'll make sense in the expansion, but that's still months away and it seems absurd to make such a major change now, instead of the v3.0 (or whatever it'll be) patch that arrives concurrently with the new expansion.

As for the damage and range and whatever, I only know what I've had used on me and seen used on others. I've seen people saying the range was 36 yards talented, but I guess they were wrong. I have seen huge Ice Lance crits, however - it's possible that trinkets and other junk were involved, but not all PvP takes place in arenas. At least, not on PvP servers:P

I haven't bothered to look for Alpha information on WotLK, because most any game that's in alpha stage will change significantly on the road to beta, and even more as it arrives at release. I'm still waiting for them to give Shamans Hex. I'd also like to see Warriors get Shockwave:)

[Skandranon]

As for the damage and range and whatever, I only know what I've had used on me and seen used on others. I've seen people saying the range was 36 yards talented, but I guess they were wrong. I have seen huge Ice Lance crits, however - it's possible that trinkets and other junk were involved, but not all PvP takes place in arenas. At least, not on PvP servers:P

It is 36. That said, I already explained why they made this change. Blizzard clearly sees PvP balancing and Arena balancing as one and the same - and have said so on more than one occasion. Mages in Arena gear versus other Arena geared players are looking at 1700 Ice Lance crits, or thereabouts (my 5's topped out at 1952 in S3, so my experience isn't of the really high brackets, but I know a little something). Blizzard was concerned about Mages and, particularly, Warlocks getting railed by triple melee in 5s. To that extent, this probably isn't even enough of a change.

In that sense, it's not poorly designed; it's quite deliberately designed as a baby step toward melee balancing in 5's arena, and possibly 3's arena too. I can understand your frustration because it harms you in the kind of PvP you do, out in the world and in battlegrounds, but Blizzard's made it clear enough that they don't care about it, or at least not enough to consider the impact of Arena-based changes on it in any meaningful fashion.

[Taelas]

It is 36.

... I need to learn to shut the hell up. >_< Arctic Reach has two ranks. Urgh.

Mea culpa.

[oldmandennis]

Blizzard clearly sees PvP balancing and Arena balancing as one and the same - and have said so on more than one occasion.

QF MF-ing truth. It's the single number 1 reason I'm looking for something to replace WoW. Funcom, get your act together.

When you drew up the order of battle in WC3, did you carefully pick even sides, and wall off the heros to micro their way around each other for 10 minutes at a time? Or did you scout and probe for strategic locations, amass your forces as fast as you can, pick a strong point that will turn the battle, and unleash mass fire and brimstone?

[Artega]

QF MF-ing truth. It's the single number 1 reason I'm looking for something to replace WoW. Funcom, get your act together.

When you drew up the order of battle in WC3, did you carefully pick even sides, and wall off the heros to micro their way around each other for 10 minutes at a time? Or did you scout and probe for strategic locations, amass your forces as fast as you can, pick a strong point that will turn the battle, and unleash mass fire and brimstone?

Dunno about how you played War3, but I generally just massed grunts and demolishers and finished up with raiders before they ever got to tier 3. Not much strategy involved - kinda like WoW, huh?

I'll be playing Dawn of War II, but probably not Starcraft 2. The ADD make-lots-of-the-same-unit style of RTS gets boring quickly.

[NiteFox]

I'll be playing Dawn of War II, but probably not Starcraft 2. The ADD make-lots-of-the-same-unit style of RTS gets boring quickly.

To be honest, there really wasn't a lot in Dawn of War I that couldn't be solved by massing huge numbers of infantry and just attack-moving into the enemy base until you get the Annihilation victory. DoW was a huge step down from the intracity of, say, Homeworld 2, and DoW2 looks to be even more basic and bare-bones.

But I digress. To be honest here (and this may seem like cheering for the home team), the best PvP system in any MMO out there at the moment is Guild Wars. Especially now the devs have figured it out and have started making huge strides in segregating PvP skill balance from PvE (So that a skill can be both extremely OP and useful in PvE, but scaled back to more balanced levels in PvP.)

[Pantalaimon]

Especially now the devs have figured it out and have started making huge strides in segregating PvP skill balance from PvE (So that a skill can be both extremely OP and useful in PvE, but scaled back to more balanced levels in PvP.)

Merits and arguments about Guild Wars aside, I'm sure this is a lesson that a large number of WoW players wish OUR devs would learn.