Friday, December 14, 2007

I No Longer Want In It

What's the point. All that studying, working, and theorycrafting sick arena strats doesn't fucking matter. Jessica Alba. Pregnant. Game over man, game fucking over. And no, she won't be the same to me in a year. I pretty much blame the crowning scene of Knocked Up. Yum, my mouth tastes like vomit.

Speaking of arena (!?), I think we should talk about the new PTR rogue changes. No, I don't really want to talk about it. But I know you do. And I know it's important to you, so it's important to me. So let's talk. I'll listen. I'm a good listener. You smell nice today. Do you think we could maybe, you know, before talking? Okay, yeah, forget it. Let's talk.

The changes to shadowstep basically give rogues an equivalent to the elite and complicated warrior role in 2345:

Harass mage so he can't poly or chaincast, save up rage as best as possible, intercept and OMGBURST with your shaman and mage some noob who totally doesn't understand the complexitity of 5v5 arena. Speaking of burst, that Natalie Portman "I'll burst in your mouth like I'm Gushers" thing still fucking owns. Sorry, we were talking arena. Serious business.

So now rogues can act more like mini warriors, and can shadowstep ambush to warp over and potentially add pain to the assist train. Wow.

The reasons the above strategy ares o effective despite the fact that mages are a hard target in many ways : (in case that nagging extra chromosome you've got makes it non-obvious)
  • No pushback reduction on frost offensive abilities. Only now is there moderate pushback protection on Polymorph. Simply autoattacking the mage CCs him.
  • Mages are still relatively squishy and the combination of the lowest resilience, cloth armor, and a healing debuff makes mages very expensive to heal in the long run. (sucks bad to heal mages a lot in the mana war)
  • If you're near the mage, you're at least momentarily near his pet, and thus will have a good opportunity to kill it.
  • Mage defensive abilities cost a ton of mana. Forcing the mage to use them is a huge advantage in the long game.

Is this better in 5s than simply sticking a mutilate rogue on the target you want to kill? The extra burst damage and more reliable wound are hard to justify sacrificing. Moreover, does this style of play really make any sense for rogue? Either way, there's a million rogues emoing out over on GameRiot if you want to argue about rogue nonsense. Here, we'll be mourning the loss of Jessica Alba. =(

31 comments:

Oppo said...

I just think it's fucking stupid that blizz has the balls to to use the rationale of limiting the dominance of any one spec by nerfing one class's spec into the ground, and not only offering A NEW "cookie cutter" spec that everyone will go to, but doing jack shit about all the other pigeonhole specs. (Hello frost mages...hello MS warriors....)

Whatever, shadowstep is hella fun but aside from that burst every half-minute, i feel like i'm pinching people.

Kolenzo said...

Remember when rogues were easy to kill?

Well AR/prep was probably OP anyway. Time to start retuning 3v3 strats.

Oppo said...

leetninjax gains shadowstep.
leetninjax's ambush crits you for 3121.

...


.....



.......


leetninjax's auto attack hits you for 24.

zarthustra said...

Focusing mages in 5s was really popular for about 10 minutes before all the frost mages discovered that they're frost mages and should fucking start acting like it.

If you're melee, focusing a frost mage in 5v5 is like CC'ing yourself; you're pretty much always snared or slowed. Kiting a warrior/cooldownless rogue (pretty much all warriors are) is as easy as putting on deodorant in the morning, especially when you have a Pally (anti-perspirant) and a Priest (Mountain Spring scent).

If you're a non-warrior or rogue, the mage is probably going to make DPS'ing very difficult by being a complete dick and LoS'ing nonstop. You can run around pillars and not really do a whole lot except snare and keep people busy, and then win the game with a CS, Poly, and 1-2 Ice Lances.

Honestly, 5s is boring as fuck. People say it's complex, but only when you're trying to analyze every single role at once. There's pretty much a checklist for what to do at every moment while playing 5v5 arena as a mage:

0) Is my health low enough to warrant an Ice Block
1) Do I know where all of their healers are, and am I ready to CS them
2) Is CS up, are they healing, and is my target below 75%
3) Is Curse of Tongues on either of my healers
4) Should I poly something
5) Would this be an appropriate time to summon Frederick, Champion of the Hydraxian Water Elemental Clan and use his freeze abilities in tandem with ice lance
6) If Water Elemental is down, should I cast Frostbolt, Ice Lance, or Fire Blast

If you did only these things you'd be playing a mage 'good enough' for 5v5.

Paladin:

1) Heal
2) Cleanse
3) Drink

Warrior:

1) Charge
2) Intercept
3) MS
4) Pummel
5) Defensive Stance/Shield/Spell Reflect

Shaman
2345

Priest

1) Mana Burn
2) Dispel alot
3) Heal only if the Paladin can't
4) Suppress pain

In 5v5 there's so much cross class crutching that can be done that it becomes less about individual skill and more about your group's ability to use ridiculously simple class skills.

zarthustra said...

ok the truth is the entire above post was made just to be contrary so I wouldn't have to think of jessica alba pregnant

that shit is so wrong

zarthustra said...

wait, now I'm remembering that she was in that movie with dane cook and dane cook is a douchebag, so I don't feel bad about it anymore.

kazyv said...

you cant really compare the burst of a warrior intercepting and a rogue that shadowsteps, not only is the damage a lot lower(even with cds like vanish, premed involved) you wont be having a -50% healing debuff up instantly so that burst will be healed up anyway

saqe said...

i agree totally, i do 2s with a rogue and this is basically making him spec badstep just because ar got nerfed for no reason ;(

ps can you plz die i need my nades
SRSLY

Sad :( said...

Nooo jessica nooooooooo

I can't believe it, best looking girl ruined :( Lets track down and suffocate the guy who knocked her up with the condom he should have used! for crimes against humanity!

Raddy said...

"The condom he should have used" is actually my penis.

It avoids pregnancy issues by preferring women's hair and by being attached to a man claiming his name is, in fact, Nick Digger.

Anonymous said...

RIP Jessica Alba

Anonymous said...

everything i feel a mage needs to work in arena now is pretty much what warlock has. something to do besides cc when you cant drop someone. cs on a fucking pet how more easy mode can you go. and some synergy when playing with a healer. should i even bring up how oped shadowdamage is

Artanias said...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Jessica..... and i had the perfect plan to nail her when i visited the states.

Anyhoo, i play with a rogue in 2s, 3s and 5s so yea i think this blows a hole lot, i just hope they would buff mutilate in some way seeing as i personally really enjoy playing alongside a mutilate rogue(dont ask me why i just do)

Anonymous said...

Blizzard 101:
1) Nerf all other classes to fix yours
2) Claim that Pallys/Warriors are the top of the food chain in PvP and buff all other classes
3) Ignore the fact that 1 and 2 contradict each other
4) Claim that rogues are fine in PvP
5) Claim that hunters are fine in PvP
5) Announce at Blizcon that Rogues and Hunters are not fine in PvP
6) Buff Rogues 4x, Nerf 2x, reread #3
7) Ignore that Spell Reflect is broken and needs to be fixed
8) Ignore Arena Exploits that are widely known because it would interfer with #1
9) PvE what?
10) Have no solid long term plan for PvP and outsource your PvP choices to other gaming sources that do not understand the gaming paradigms you have created

Anonymous said...

focus macro question i have seen some macros that look roughly like
[target=focus] counterspell (i know i fucked it up please correct. my questions are when you use these macros is that just a macro that makes all of your counterspells go to that target regardless of who you are targeting? I'd like to get some poly and cs macros set up while I nuke but could use help.
/flamemenowplease

affix said...

"If you're near the mage, you're at least momentarily near his pet, and thus will have a good opportunity to kill it."

WOW WHAT KIND OF A TERRIBLE MAGE DOESNT PUT DISTANCE FROM HIS PET? UR SO BAD GODDAMN GTFO













ps: anal plz

Antoine said...

alba already had the herp, got it from derek jeter

Anonymous said...

You just ruined my world when you said Jessica Alba is pregnant, HOW COULD SHE? How could she do that to me? :(

alexial said...

Shoulda said "preggers" in this post bruh

I thought you were all up in that celeb shit...

Anonymous said...

quick recovery, fleet footed, imp kidney, and vile poisons still make the mutilate viable imo. i think with on the ball dispellers, that a rogue can be kept free enough to not warrant shadowstep really.

Anonymous said...

lolwarp

shadow warp

warp

drole said...

"i think with on the ball dispellers, that a rogue can be kept free enough to not warrant shadowstep really."

Fat chance for dualhealer setups.

"random warriors hamstring hits randoms rogue for ROFL@rogue-factor20"

now back to mourning

Raddy said...

I'm on PTR dueling as various terribad fire specs as Yddar. I'm only on for a little while longer, but come get DB'd in face! ^^

holtz said...

very nice duels

alexial said...

Fort Minor

M Shinoda

Styles of Beyond

Ryu

Takbir

Machine Shop

Anonymous said...

Go back on PTR ROAR!

Anonymous said...

You live up to the hype

Raddy said...

I'm doing 3s right now for those who care, I'll be on PTR evening/later. WHO WANTS SOME POM PYRO.

cracken said...

hey - I was talking to you in game about dueling other mages as 33/28. You said that the strategy you were using against all the Water Elemental mages wouldnt work against stronger players, what did you mean by that? Are there any classes you think you can now beat in 2.3.2 that you couldnt before? I didnt see you lose to anybody today.

P.S. Your metagem doesn't work.

Raddy said...

@cracken: Basically I was hitting the tree of every one of those mages and forcing them into a situation where they had to block without any chance of trading shots in the open while their pets were out, which is pretty GG. They should either kite me and try to tank me oom with shields, or aggressively blow CD to get some big lance crits at the start and try to force me to block. I'll talk about it with you more later if you're on test.

And I think the obvious classes are still problems in 2.3.2, Icy Veins if you stay WE changes little in duels, and AP/Fire is still not enough to overcome resto druids and sl/sl locks probably. I'm not sure though, since I'm still like 120-0 as AP/Fire LOL

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it takes a lot of skill to beat people when you take them to 50% with 3 spells.