As of now...

[calinass]

What classes are AoEless in Cata?

Live - rogues are AoEless until 80. feral kitties, no idea. I think they get it 50+? I cant think of any more classes than that...escapes my mind

inb4 AoE is nerfed, nub

Are most classes getting AoEs in the early levels? Like..20-30?

[number8]

INB4 that one Mage QQ'ing about Blizzard raising the level that Mages acquire blizzard to level 50's.

[Garekh]

Most classes really don't need AoE that early.

[AggroCrag32]

After shadow priest gets shadow form they don't have an AoE until 75.

[Cerus]

I hope, if anything, all AoE's get nerfed.

They already are and it's intentional.

[Ashareth]

Feral don't get AoE as kitty before around 65 or so, as bear it's maybe a little earlier but not much, dk get it around 56/58 with pestilence/blood boil, pretty mich everything else got it before.

And not AoE-ing trash was what was done in the beginning of WotLK (at least for all the people that weren't in full T6 gear and hence didn't need upgrade until the middle of Naxx25 and were alreayd overgearing hc when they reached 80), it was what was done in ICC5 when it got out for all the people not overgearing it, and it'll be the same in Cata, until end of T11, early T12 (due to the complete gear reset this time) and then people will go all out AoE again.

AoE isn't bad in itself, mindless AoE is, but as is mindless single-targeting.... nothing will change, most of WoWers will still be terribads without brains, and it'll be painfull until people overgear it to get instances done, due to the sheer numbers of terribads out there.

[Deleted]

AoEing trash packs is as good as dead from what I have seen in the new 80+ instances.

[calinass]

Aggro, I forgot about that.

Synthaxx, what I dont understand, is have people not realized that numbers arent done? :/ I mean maybe in terms of scaling AoEs will be nerfed, but Im sure they will do slightly more damage when Cata comes.
I want something like HHoR, which requires strategy for gears that need it, and have the option to AoE when groups dont.

If Blizz can make instances like that, I would love it.
Its going to be hard for me to stop seeing my holy cleave and consecrate holding aggro completely. If anything, I really want blizz to realize how successful they were with the ICC5s. Those were instances that I enjoy running because theres a chance that groups will fail, and theres some nice items that drop there.

[Blinke]

The thing about aoes...I think the new design is to either bring 3 strong ae dps and a strong ae tanker (which will be all tanks apparently) and do it that way, with that exact strategy in mind, or to old school it, and bring some cc and strong single target nuke-age.

Neither are harder or easier than the other. As a tank, holding aggro on multiple mobs can be tricky, especially if things DON'T go right, but it's generally just as easy to hold aggro on a single target. Same goes for dps, ccing a mob and not worrying about it is just as easy as watching threat on 3+ mobs.

The main thing is, that the mobs that are going to swarm should be able to be taken down by a single ae attack. SM Armory comes to mind with their Scarlet Trainees, as a classic example of a true ae encounter while leveling.

[calinass]

Blinke, as a geared tank, holding AoE aggro is easy as shit. Only thing that is kind of hard are the pulls in FoS, where casters arent able to come to me, so some dps go and attack that target, lord knows why.

What do you mean by Swarm?

---------- Post added 2010-08-11 at 06:28 PM ----------

Also, will the AoE nerf affect leveling, or will it scale down as you level? i.e....Rain of Fire does 150% at X level, then at X+10 it does 125, X+35 it does 100%, etc.
Some kind of downward scaling

Or will AoE completely screw over those moments of pure AoE grinding (WPL anyone?)

[Frioz]

Feral; Swipe.

I hope, if anything, all AoE's get nerfed. Tanking ones are going down a few notches, and in all honesty, a good majority of people who rolled in Wrath (quite a lot i'd say) simply won't have learned how NOT to AoE trash. "Crowd Control? Single Target? BLAAARGH NOIMMAAOEITALL OHSHITAGGRO TAUNTPLX", etc, etc.

To clarify, i'm glad i'm getting nerfed for aoe tanking. I'd just rather people also learned what CC, interrupts, and other "desirable" aspects are and how to manage them.

Partly, I agree with you. Mag. Terrace was fun as a mage with the cc/spellsteals, however I do remember SSC/TK, and my guild leader innate fear of breaking sheep. I spent the entire raid trash spamming sheep on my cc target even after I made a focus macro. zomg healer got one shot, mages l2spam sheep! At least spamming blizzard, you rain down deadly ice shards (plus look at all those prtty crits).

On Topic: It seems they are spreading the aoe to a lot of classes. Some are more efficient of course but not something a raid will be left out I believe. Mages have the biggest aoe arsenal atm thanks partly to the ye old philosophy of a aoe built class.

[Russelcoight]

What classes are AoEless in Cata?

Live - rogues are AoEless until 80. feral kitties, no idea. I think they get it 50+? I cant think of any more classes than that...escapes my mind

inb4 AoE is nerfed, nub

Are most classes getting AoEs in the early levels? Like..20-30?

Not sure really. I know its an issue for priests , ferals and rogues leveling up atm. But you did say yourself aoe is being nerfed so its not likely to be a huge issue. But with blizzard changing alot of the levels which players gain abilities its possible they will change aoes in the future. But as of yet i have not seen anything done.//

[snowblind]

And not AoE-ing trash was what was done in the beginning of WotLK (at least for all the people that weren't in full T6 gear and hence didn't need upgrade until the middle of Naxx25 and were alreayd overgearing hc when they reached 80)

Not true. As long as your tank was half decent and your healer was awake, you could AoE trash right from the start. Maybe not 2-3 groups at once, but the first time I saw somebody use CC in a level 80 heroic was when a mage randomly sheeped the humanoid in the middle of the 5 packs on the hill of Pit of Saron. It was promptly broken. Every time.

---------- Post added 2010-08-12 at 03:02 AM ----------

Synthaxx, what I dont understand, is have people not realized that numbers arent done? :/ I mean maybe in terms of scaling AoEs will be nerfed, but Im sure they will do slightly more damage when Cata comes.

Doubtful. They really don't want people AoEing the shit out of everything. Best way to ensure that is to make AoE really unattractive to use for less than some number of mobs, probably 5 or 6.

I suspect we'll see some areas where there will be a lot of little mobs to AoE down, but the days of using your AoE abilities on anything that is more than one target are over.

[calinass]

I guess, but I mean what are they going to do? 100% scaling on mobs of 2-4, and 150% on mob groups of 5-7? :/
I dont get how they will make AoE more useful in larger packs. And if they want CC, why make large packs in the first place. A challenge? I guess...
But a challenge for WotLK is HHoR. On wave 9 you can really be screwed over. The hunter slows an area, the rogue does amazing damage, the healer can heal anyone near to full health, and the soldier does some moderate dps. I mean, that could be a real hard fight where AoE isnt exactlyyyyy useful but it could get the job done.
If we have to CC, will we take the sloppiest way by AoEing the hell out of mobs like my example, which could work depending on the group? Or will we try to be effective by using some strategy.

Also, warlock AoE is damn good ;]. Makes it bad on the healer though, but I can AoE my heart out with Life tap, and maybe drain life if I want to be nice.

[snowblind]

I dont get how they will make AoE more useful in larger packs.

AoE's automatically scale with the number of mobs they hit (until the AoE cap...).

Hitting two targets for 700 damage with Blizzard is pretty pointless and a waste of mana, especially if those two targets have decent hitpoints. Hitting 5 targets for 700 damage starts becoming more useful, especially if they are lower in hitpoints like most AoE packs tend to be.

They don't need to do anything special... just that right now, anything more than one mob seems to warrant AoE from everybody since AoE damage is just that high. When they nerf it, you need more mobs to make it worth AoEing.

[calinass]

They do? So what, if I use an AoE on one mob, each tick I guess will do X damage? but add on 3 more mobs, it would do X+10%? Numbers are obviously not right but is the idea right?

So will paladins likely use Seal of Vengeance/Corruption instead of Command since mobs wont die in 5 seconds? I could see that. 5 stacks of vengeance > command proc

[Ashareth]

No what he meant was that AoE are, by construction, scalling with numbers, since it does a fixed number/target, making it more efficient for each mob above 1 you hit (till 10 where it's becoming capped anyway).

Hitting 5 mobs for 700 means 3.500 dp/s, while hitting 2 means 1400. It's called scalling.

[Deleted]

Warlocks....o wait.

[Deleted]

It's such a pain while dungeon leveling when theres no AoE. My warrior toon is now 45 and when there is no class with AoE at that level around I'm still the best dps. Just like the start from level 15 to mid 30 something, just because of the ridicolous Thunder Clap.
While leveling in green gear Rogue dps sucks anyway, leaving FoK at 80 certainly doesn't help. I'm just glad I finally got my Rogue to 80 a while ago.