Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Barrage Coefficient Ninja Nerf

Coefficient on Barrage has been nerfed to 72.8. (Roughly a 10% nerf) They went pretty balls out on the Arcane nerfs -- I think the spec is probably still pretty strong, although I think the relative draw of frost is definitely increasing. (Arcane will still happen with these nerfs -- the real gay part of arcane is the huge damage that comes from blasts but whatever)

39 comments:

kzn said...

There isn't time to cast shit like that in some of the harder matchups for RMP (ie, the matchups you have to win by pure rushdown), and most of the gayness of Arc in those specs was that using Barrage alone, combined with your rogue, could get people into the threshold of health values that could result in instant deaths upon timering.

I think Arcane can still work but its going to be weird as shit compared to all the old Arcane specs.

Anonymous said...

The real nerf is not being able to blast/blast PoM blast with AP anymore, giving whoever youre targetting a lot more time to react.

Raddy said...

What I really dislike is that if you pom pyro, you can't immediately ap+barrage because of the gay 1.5 hard global. (With any haste at ALL, your barrage comes up first) So you can't like spam ap and hit barrage or u'll just barrage without ap -- it's just really clunky and gay and pointless. bleh

venruki said...

We just played like 30+ games, and the nerfs really aren't that bad. The sustained damage of missile barrage and arcane blast is still incredible high.

Hard to say if I'm going frost or not, for now I'm going to stick with arcane.

Raddy said...

Yeah, if it was just the AP change, I'd consider it probably a buff as much as nerf. I like the shorter CD a lot.

venruki said...

To be honest I wasn't even aware of the barrage changed until I read your blog, I even had someone ask me if they made it less damage and I shrugged it off after testing damage for like over an hour.

Anonymous said...

it's only like 200 base damage.

significant in a relative sense, but barely noticeable in practice.

Anonymous said...

Def agree with the clunkiness, what I did was make a separate macro for PoM+Blast+Lightning tricket I can spam and immediately after I spam a AP+engi gloves macro, then blast or barrage. Still annoying though

Kzn said...

I never ran MBarrage in my arcane specs before now, although I was trying to fit it into one even before these changes to try Marmalade style gayness.

I suspect the only way Arcane will ever work now is by abusing AP on MBarrage procs, and saving POM for Pyro/FFB.

Honestly I'd prefer to just be able to play frost though, without feeling like I'm fucking my team over.

Raddy said...

I want to play fire. PLEASE MAKE IT GOOD BLIZZARD. (Although with Prismatic Cloak so deep, that seems unlikely)

venruki said...

The new baller spec!

Run with scorch glyph

frost warding and Molten shields ^_^

0/50/21

George said...

I tried 21/50 on a new 2v2 team (Feral Druid partner for fun) and it worked pretty decently (Combustion into Hot Streak and PoM Pyro was fun as hell; targets pretty much have Ignite on them the entire duration I kill them in), but I just didn't seem to be able to do much damage in fights lasting over a minute, and Blazing Speed disappointingly didn't proc enough, and didn't really matter much against Deadly Brew.

Then I switched to Frost and moved up more; haven't really looked back since, especially now with the Arcane nerfs.

Raddy said...

I swear half you nerds must forget that I bitched that Frost took no skill to play for like a year in tbc.

Is frost maybe harder to play than Arcane? Sure. Is there still a ton of small handed stuff you can do as Arc? Definitely.

kzn - kinda with you saving ap for mb procs but i fear people will learn to recognize/counter it. I did once accidentally kill a druid by tabbing to him and hitting AM. (In 3.08 with the 5% glyph, dying curse proc, gem and AP up)

I'm hoping they will unwind barrage nerf -- it makes the spell not even worth using in PvE

Raddy said...

I actually like the idea of playing fire and think if there would be a spec where top players would stand out a lot, it could be fire. (Assuming massive buffs to the spec)

kzn said...

Dunno how relevant it is now, but 0/40/21 was the fucktard spec for 2345 in S1, while half decent mages could handle 17/0/44

illexiyel said...

40/21 bruh rep that arcane blast like so hard

and for gaywads, 33/28

I ain't no gaywad tho

Anonymous said...

Played a bit today as holy pal/mage with the nerfs. It definitly takes some getting used to (the whole thing just feels clunky) but arcane still works just fine, just less bursty without blast pom blast.

Anonymous said...

Repentance, blast/PoM blast/lightning into stun, AP/IV blast blast barrage still kills people just fine, even with the nerfs.

Niiva said...

"Repentance, blast/PoM blast/lightning into stun, AP/IV blast blast barrage still kills people just fine, even with the nerfs."

I like 2vs1s.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry man but people who play arcane are a disgrace.

I know 2 mages who through s1-s4 NEVER broke 1700 as Frost playing Mage/Rogue and Mage/Priest and are now sitting at 2200 playing Arc Mage/Mut Rogue.

Arcane isn't strong, it's borderline ridiculous. This game has deteriorated so much.

Anonymous said...

"I like 2vs1s"

Sheep the other guy, repeat 1min later if he trinkets the first one.

Anonymous said...

Bullshit on those mages. Even if it were true, it has more to do about WotLK making damage ridiculous and simplifying the game than arcane spec. With mut/arc getting nerfed anyway its not really an issue anymore.

kzn said...

Yeah because complete terribles never broke 2200 just thanks to Druid/Warlock EVER BEFORE RIGHT?

its nothing fucking new, 2s has always been where the complete baddies got their rating.

Wizardspike said...

Yes, let's not play the fun spec.
Let's play the spec that makes me bash my head into the table because everyone and their grandmother has 165 ways to interrupt your casting.

Never mind fighting more than 1 person at once - have fun lance'ing.

Anonymous said...

People who play arcane are a disgrace? wth do you take this game for anyway? Your a disgrace to your family for taking this game too seriously.

Jimi said...

Why are you baddies whining about frost being so bad all of a sudden? It's probably stronger than ever, I may not be at 2500 but I haven't had any trouble as frost against any setup yet till like 1900ish. The burst of firing multiple shatters with FoF and Deep Freeze is more than enough to kill most classes, even if they are being healed.

For the whole interrupt comment: Faking casts isn't a bad idea you know.

Anonymous said...

"...It's probably stronger than ever..."

Yes, nerfs make a spec stronger. In related news FAS is increasingly common among members of the World of Warcraft's player base.

Anonymous said...

frost is still very strong, obviously ppl getting used to easy mode arcane to much ... (i don't think frost is that hard to play as well) give mages a skill spec plz :P

Law said...

Neither frost/arcane is hard to play at all. But I wish arcane wasn't so incredibly retard friendly - and when I say "retard friendly" I mean like door knob humping, slobbering, I can almost bite-my-own-ear retard friendly.

I'm all for everyone being able to enjoy *some* success at arenas, but you shouldn't see people who have never broken 1900 in the 2200s just because they can kill an enemy priest before his rogue can reach him because he's on THE WRONG SIDE OF THE PILLAR, not even across the map... (wtb astro-glide).

I think they need to make arcane spec require more cooldown management. They took a small step in this direction by separating AP from PoM, but it's not enough. The reason I like frost so much more than arcane is really cold snap. Having on demand control over my cooldowns adds an extra demention to the spec (hai preparation?). It may not be difficult AT ALL to manage for anyone who can tie his/her own shoes, but it involves more thinking/skill/coordination than button mashing slow-ab-slow-ab-slow-ab-amgpompyro-slow-ab-APAB-MBAM-ab-slow-ab-etc. till someone drops dead from constant pressure which can be applied while almost never stopping to cast or exposing their major spell school. Half the time you don't even need to sheep anymore, just focus slow spam the cc-target and ass-ram their partner. Not to mention all you need this season is blanket silences to get kills, why do we even have the interrupt mechanic if we don't need to use it?

PVPFire would be so fucking baller. Dragon's Breath is easily my favorite spell in the game. I'd give Kalgan the "dutch-rudder" to receive a triggerable Blazing Speed and a fire version of Ice Barrier.

icicles said...

fire has huge potential, it already makes melee look silly in small fights but needs d vs getting trainwrecked (deep fire ice barrier equivalent that reflects 30% of all dmg taken to your target instead of absorbing it for 15 seconds every minute or so?). God bless blast wave and dragon's breath <3. 0/50/21 is already incredibly fun most of the time.

in general I think more classes need the defensive options like those available to dks pallies and hunters (not the exact versions, obv) more options = more room for skill > overbuffing resilience and turning arena into snoozefest wld mirrors again

Jimi said...

Cold snap is another tool in Frost that raises the skill cap (Neilyo logic yo).

Desummon WE/resummon/freeze/Deep Freeze is a nice and powerful peel, not to mention you can get off two shatters if you think your target is not gonna recover from it by resummoning elemental in a Sap > CS > KS stunlock.

Vontre said...

Man kiting people with my 3 roots on separate DR and 30% insta snare sure is challenging.

Frost actually got a large indirect buff because of the global nerf on spell slowing mechanics. Like slow. Which is what royally fucked frost mages so much.

'course I'm a DK main now so what do I know. :V

George said...

Oh, and another thing...

Why is Restokin/Enhancesham so fucking ridiculous to fight against as Frost Mage/Feral Druid? It's like the only comp at this point that actually manages to steal points from us (I'll say legitly because fighting melee/Paladin is stupid enough), and I have no idea how to counter.

kzn said...

The issue I have with the arcane nerfs (the only issue) is that arcane was the only resort we have against broken bullshit like locks/hunters and their retarded sustained damage/peels.

Frost needs significantly more non-cast burst or its always going to get countered by warlocks/hunters. That, or it needs replenishment.

Anonymous said...

Isnt frost getting replenishment (instead of imp WE) in 3.1?

Anonymous said...

Improved Water Elemental – this talent has been removed and replaced with a new talent that grants Replenishment (similar to Shadow priests)

kzn said...

Blizzard are also intending to remove replenishment from arenas entirely, which will return mages to the status quo of getting raped by outlast.

Anonymous said...

Is that a joke? Replenishment is roughly 250mp5 for an arcane mage. It's nice to have, but we burn through mana much faster than that. The only thing that allows us to stay viable late game is evo and mana gem.

kzn said...

I dont recall saying anything about replenishment for an arcane mage.