Upcoming Cataclysm Dispel Mechanics

[Entity]

You're a fucking moron, and you're just sipping the Blizzard kool-aid.

Haste and Crit also "only" increase melee (physical) damage through a different formula, why aren't you getting rid of those too?

ArP vs. other stats isn't even close to the same as Spell Healing vs. Spell Damage. Both of those stats added to spells in the EXACT SAME WAY, just that one of them applied to less spells than the other and cost less item points.

ArP isn't even CLOSE to being the same as AP. ALL offensive stats simply "boost melee damage" for physical classes, are you saying we should go down to 1 stat on gear?

Stop buying the Blizzard PR about "complexity is bad design." You sound like a moron parroting back what Ghostcrawler put in your mouth.

Don't like being told that you can't design video games, do you?

Here's the bottom line: AP (which is STR, AGI, whatever form it comes in) makes the baseline number above the mob's head bigger. ArP makes the baseline number above the mob's head bigger. They're the same effect.

Crit throws a multiplier onto the baseline number above the mob's head.

Haste makes the number above the mob's head show up more quickly.

The latter two are different mechanics that represent something very different in the game world than simple attack potency, which is exactly what AP and ArP are. By potency I mean how much damage your character is capable of wielding in a single strike. Crit would represent placement of a strike in a choice location and haste represents ability to attack quickly with a weapon.

Oh, in case you didn't know, at least some superficial grounding to reality is necessary to make a game like this at all meaningful (and not in a moral sense). You have to have something that people can relate to for the non-real world part of the universe to take off from. (Just because I see the "WoWz isn't real nub" argument coming a mile away.)

WoW's _massive_ popularity has never been due to complexity of stats. It's a piece of the game that plays to a minority audience (the hardcore metagamers) and one that Blizzard has evaluated and found certain parts of to be unnecessary. I don't need Ghostcrawler to make clear the problems of gratuitous complexity. I've known about Ockham's Razor a lot longer than this game has existed.

If you want a Rube Goldberg MMO why don't you go pitch it to some game companies and see how far off the ground it gets. I'll bet it'd be a real winner.

[Sylvan]

Strictly from a PvE standpoint, losing dispels as prot/ret saddens me. Most of the time healer's don't even bother with paying attention to different magic effects so I end up cleansing them myself, willingly I might add. It adds another aspect to the class.

While I see the reasoning for it, I think it's a bad move. It's one of those things that differs a great tank from a good tank.

Cleansing also differentiates good healers from bad healers. Requiring a good healer is part of encounter design. As a PVE healer, I'm happy to have some responsibility in raid success. One Cataclysm goal is to make healing more interesting. Blizzard is adding spell variety including dispels; sounds more interesting.

Still hoping encounters are more fun for tanks. Being an off-tank in a saber-lash fight (Morrowgar, Blood Queen) can be pretty dull. I do understand that taking away dispels from pally tanks (and only pally tanks) can make tanking less interesting for paladins.

[Offhand]

Ok so stick with me guys. Because this is a long stretch.

When I read about the hybrids losing their defensive dispels and in the case of shaman their offensive ones, a light came on. Maybe they will be making it to where certain specs lose the ability to heal therefore justifying 100% dps balance. There will no longer be "Oh hybrids are going to be 5% behind because they can semi heal."

Or am I dreaming?

Maybe the frontpage blue posts literally saying the hybrid tax won't be changing in Cataclysm? Seems pretty straightforward that they're just nerfing hybrid utility without any proposed tradoffs. Well, the "proposed tradeoffs" for classes like paladins and shaman literally said "we're removing this ability that you already have baseline and make you spend talent points as a healer" instead an actual, you know, trade.

[fxrs]

I don't play any of the classes affected and can tell this will be a cluster...................................good call gc.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Interesting stuff... I'm sure there'll be some shaman and paladin crying coming, though.

Paladins is still the weakest disspellers in pvp imo. fine we can disspell all movement except curse but then again offencive disspell is Way better.

[Offhand]

Nah, you're alone. Spir/MP5 and ArP/AP are two stats that do the same thing, so might as well bag one since they are redundant.

Kinda irritated about the shaman changes, but not surprised. From a pve perspective, cleansing totem was either OP and negated boss mechanics entirely or totally useless (LK p1, Rotface). From a pvp perspective they threw out so many dispell resist mechanics on their precious little rogues that poison cleansing has been useless for some time now.

You should probably read what I wrote instead of just skimming the topics instead.

Spirit for all healers makes sense in the fact that spirit should do what it always had done baseline, regen mana. The changes to spirit literally require all healers to spend talent points on meditation style talents so spirit can have an actual effect in combat. This isn't "fun and interesting talent choices" that are supposed to be happening. Especially when you plan on going ahead and making spirit a healer only stat, why is it necessary to force all healers to spend talent points on the same ability to make the same stat useful? Seems like the better plan would be making spirit work as regen right off the bat instead of only working when out of combat or not casting. Likewise, making all 4 tank classes talent out of crit chance from bosses instead of making bosses incapable of critting makes for dull, boring, repetitive talent choices instead of what's being advertised.

ArP is simply a failure to balance a stat when you insist on having melee classes that are heavy on magic damage and those who are largely (and in the case of warriors, almost completely) physical damage. ArP only effects physical damage the same way crit only effects abilities that are capable of critting. One option is to just remove the stat the other is to actually attempt class balance. Something they managed to do successfully for all DK specs but seem to have given up on it in relation to muti rogues, ret paladins, enhance shaman, etc. Due largely to the overwhelming amount of ArP on dps gear, you get this problem, then, due to poor itemization in plate dps items, your BiS now involves multiple pieces of leather which is a hassle for everyone involved.

You could, of course, dilute the amount of ArP on gear with the introduction of another stat or simply make the existing stats like haste more prevalent, but it doesn't seem to be Blizzard's course of action. What's more offensive is the excuse we're getting as to why ArP is being removed.

[Amabael]

Purge removes offensive magic; so, looks like Purge is going to stay:

But if so, are only resto shamans going to be able to use it now? Ugh.

[Dark_Spirit]

So... goodbye cleansing totem :\

[Arthas]

i see buff for them ;D

[aramco007]

My priest approve!!!

[Northy]

Rogues didn't need the help, but now I'm sure they're in heaven. They'll really be fucking shit up.

[NathSB]

I do wanna believe they will balance things anyway but... where's the trade-off for paladins? We only lose something ;D

Cool story bro'.

The "defensive magic" is on the ENEMY, you know. Omg, I need to l2read.

All in all, seems like some damn good changes!

[The_Nightmare]

I don't really PvP on any of my characters, as I prefer low-level PvP as it's less competitive and serious, and more fun in my opinion, so none of these changes annoy me too much. However:

When I levelled up my first character, a Druid, I remember wishing that I had a dispel Disease spell. Then, I levelled up my Shaman and was in bliss to know that he could dispel both poisons and diseases - and AoE ones to boot with my Totems! ... Now I'm not going to be able to dispel either of them? Well ... that's certainly going to take me a while to adapt to.

Shamans already have an Offensive Dispel, Purge. The also already have a talented dispel Curse spell, Cleanse Spirit. The only thing we're gaining is a Defensive Magic Dispel, which I'll assume will make Purge exactly the same as Dispel Magic - purges magic effects off of allies and foes.

I'm not too bothered however. Admittedly just throwing out a Cleansing Totem isn't challenging me at all and it is in fact rather lazy gameplay, so I commend Blizzard's attempts to make gameplay more engaging. As a DPS, I always used to throw out my cleansing totem or a dispel out to help out the healers, and I suppose we'll still have some utility with dispelling curses.

It's a shame because in lore Shamans can pretty much dispel everything, being healers of the body and spirit, but obviously that'd be OP in gameplay.

I guess it'd be cool if some of the healers (I'd probably vote for Priests and Paladins) being able to dispel Bleed effects (think - cauterising the wound?) - but that might be too OP.

Overall I'm 50/50 with the announcement, and I'll wait for Cataclysm to come around before I make a judgement.

[soffa]

well i say fuck hybrid classes....shadow priests and boomkins r pretty much mass dpsers and mass healers...i dont see how ret pally is a hybrid class...2 holy lights and a few cleanse and we r OOM SP a Boom heals is wat needs the nerf bat fuck our heals off all together give us a few lill heals like judge of light buffs and fuck this hybrid shit off

[Monogus]

I haven't read comments but this was actually announced in Blizzcon

[Chin Music]

They should just make Cleansing Totem like Earthbind Totem and give it 5-10 seconds of anti-disease/poison on a 30 second cooldown instead of removing it completely.

[Jantasir]

well i say fuck hybrid classes....shadow priests and boomkins r pretty much mass dpsers and mass healers...i dont see how ret pally is a hybrid class...2 holy lights and a few cleanse and we r OOM SP a Boom heals is wat needs the nerf bat fuck our heals off all together give us a few lill heals like judge of light buffs and fuck this hybrid shit off

You sir.. need a valium. If you do not like hybrid classes, then by all means pick the others.

[Willis]

I don't know what is a scarier thought. How screwed over shamans are going to be loosing poison and disease dispel (not even thinking about the totem) to get defensive magic while every other class gets left alone... or the fact we're going to see every healer (especially druids) running around with the ability to dispel defensive magic. (insert any magical spell that can be used to screw up resto druids)

Yup, PvP is balanced this way, PvE is balanced this way... let me guess those fancy magic dispels still don't count on a paladins bubble? Nope I didn't expect them to.

Take away offensive magic and curses for the shaman any day over poison and disease. Blizzard seems to want to play a rule of three for the class's so one for you:

Dispel Defensive Magic: =Priests +Druids +Shamans =Paladins
Dispel Offensive Magic: =Priests -Shamans +Paladins
Dispel Poison: =Druids =Shamans -Paladins
Dispel Disease: -Priests =Shamans =Paladins
Dispel Curse: +Priests =Druids -Shamans

In other words, if you took what blizzard wants to do... just trade paladin poison for shaman offensive magic, and the priests disease for shaman curses. Lookie! Now someone gets to trade!

[Phraun]

What I'm seeing is rampant swinging of the nerfbat towards magic-based CC abilities... Especially poly where druids are concerned >.> Not only are they immune to it, but now they can DISPEL it Blizz had better be making dispels cost a hell of a lot more than they do now to cast (or maybe force a short debuff onto a target that's been dispelled recently?)

Also, I feel bad for shaman. :/

[Heldamon]

The 1million dollar question is


Who is gonna snare druids?