(Sung to the tune of the happy happy joy joy song.)
So FINALLY, after endlessly rambling about stuff, I get to ramble about the specifics. It’s all well and good to call for a split between PvE and PvP, but without giving precise details, I just sound like nut job.
So here we go. Specifics.
1. Eliminate hit mechanics from PvP.
Not all hit mechanics, obviously. Just the base miss chance that all players have against all other players.
Currently, when you cast a spell at an opposing player, you have a 96% chance to hit them. Only 4% of your spells will actually miss, so generally speaking a player without any hit in their PvP gear won’t see very many misses.
What happens to you if that tiny 4% chance to miss pops up right when you cast that super necessary crowd control?
It’s an egregious RNG mechanic that flat out needs to be eliminated. It’s as simple as adjusting a player’s base hit against other players to 100%.
Other than that, nothing else changes. If a DK wants to pick up that Frigid Dreadplate talent, that will continue to work as normal.
Conveniently, this allows for the elimination of all hit from PvP gear, thus placing yet another barrier between PvP and PvE content gear.
2. Eliminate/Change the way spell resistance works.
The current spell resistance system is fraught with RNG.
I propose that the system itself be changed so that it works exactly the same as resilience. Instead of granting random partial and full resists, spell resistance simply reduces the effectiveness of that school of spells by a given percentage.
For instance, having 180 shadow resist would provide a 10% reduction on the damage dealt by all shadow damage, and reduces the duration of all shadow effects by 10%.
Or something. The exact numbers don’t really matter (and I am in no position to assign anything accurate in this regard).
A system like this would still keep generally the same idea, but removes any RNG from the equation.
In the long run, this also allows for more spells in the same line as a priest’s Shadow Protection. Mages bring a Fire and/or Frost protection, druids bring Nature protection… it would also provide a slightly larger incentive for hunters and shamans to use their protection aspects/totems.
It also allows for a whole new level of PvP gear itemization. What if spell resistance came as a defensive stat on many different pieces? And spell penetration came as an offensive stat to counter it? Think of it like the dichotomy between resilience and crit rating.
This would drive another wedge between PvP/PvE gear (something I support). Spell penetration is useless in raiding, as is spell resistance. Well… most of the time.
Note: I am fine with the idea of PvP spell resistance gear being picked up for raiders wanting to do fights like Sapph or any of those other resistance gimmicky fights. I see no issues with bringing gimmick gear to a gimmick encounter.
3. Talents like Sudden Death eliminated, adjusted or toned way the hell down.
I shouldn’t even need to go into detail here.
Sudden Death is a talent that gives Arms Warriors a 9% chance to allow the use of Execute, regardless of their target’s actual health total.
While not nearly as bad as it has been in previous incarnations (doesn’t function exactly like a normal execute), the idea behind it seems rather terrible.
I realize that warriors need some help PvP-wise (and arms warriors need raiding help, too), I don’t think something this RNG dependent is any good for the game. It may be okay for raiding content, but it is not ok for PvP.
I put things like Frostbite, Improved Hamstring, and the (old) Entrapment in the same category.
The way Blizzard has handled Entrapment proves that it’s possible to remove the RNG from these abilities with some thought.
The old Entrapment provided a chance to immobilize targets in the hunter’s frost trap. Now, it simply immobilizes everything when the trap is triggered (the number of traps it effects has been increased too).
4. Change Fear mechanics.
Here we go. Finally, the idea that kicked off all these posts.
Fear is a crowd control ability that forces the victim to flee in some random direction.
The movement part needs to be eliminated.
Rather than having someone run totally at random, the player afflicted instead doesn’t go anywhere. Maybe they shuffle around a little bit on the spot (same way a mage’s polymorph allows movement), but the whole “run out into the middle of the arena” thing is eliminated.
I have a huge problem with the way fear effects currently work.
Positioning is one of the most important things in PvP combat. Forcing another player to change their position, luring players out into the open… these are powerful strategies.
Remember that Blink Master video I linked a while back? There’s some excellent examples of what I mean there. In 2v2 arena combat against a team with a druid in it, the two mages don’t go after the druid until the druid is in the open.
And when the druid is in the open… away from his precious pillars… all hell breaks loose.
But when this change of positioning has nothing to do with player skill, and has everything to do with totally random directions, it’s unacceptable.
Naturally, all fear effects would be changed this way. Fear, Death Coil, Psychic Scream, Intimidating Shout, Howl of Terror…
Forcing a healer from cover because you’re pressuring one of their teammates? That’s cool.
Forcing a healer from cover because the RNG decides it wants to take a lovely jaunt in the sunshine? Not cool.
Conveniently, this would also totally eliminate all of those “feared into a wall” geometry issues, and allows any fear effect to become a reliable CC ability in PvE content.
It’s win/win!
While I know you are right… you are right aren’t you?
I must say I love the fact that when I get feared I run away like a little… ummm feared Gnome.
I know I should hate fear, and to be honest I do hate fear, but the idea of it just leaving me like an open mouthed Edvard Munch painting, in a daze leaves me kinda disappointed.
That said, not doing Arenas I had no idea of the use of fear… I will leave it up to my Mage Class lead designer to sort out (That’s you Rip!)
Rofl, I could imagine fear making a target run in a 5m circle.
They even put in that cower emote.
It’s just sitting there, begging to be used for something…
I’m totally behind your suggestions — especially the resistence/spell penetration ideas. It’s about time spell penetration was given a more valuable role.
I’m not sure about your fear proposal though. As a defensive ability, fear is *supposed* to make a player run away. If you remove that element, it just becomes a rather long stun, or a juiced-up frost nova.
And as an offensive ability, it would make fear even worse. At least with the randomness of a fear path it has an equal chance of working *against* the caster as it does for them. You could just as easily run out of sight as you could into the open.
Additionally, there is *some* skill in using fear (I’m not claiming it’s necessarily a lot…) The various spells have limitations:
— some have significant cooldowns, meaning you have to consider when to blow it, knowing the opponent could well break out of it in some form and risk wasting it
— some have a short range, which as a caster means you’re either getting beat on by melee or have to run into melee range on purpose
— some have cast times, which open you up to interupts and lockouts
Not terribly tricky things to skilled pvpers, but enough to show that fear isn’t totally overpowered but is balanced in many ways — and that’s on top of all the talents and tricks players have to mitigate or escape fears altogether.
Fundamentally changing the way fear effects work (which a change like this definitely would do), would, of course, open the playing field to any other mechanics related to fear effects.
Lowering cooldowns, extending ranges, fundamentally changing the way it works to more closely mirror other, more reliable CC effects…
All are open to discussion once we start changing stuff.
I’m not sure if I’m with you in principle or not. Should abilities still be able to crit in PVP? If yes, that would be the biggest RNG left in the PVP game after your changes. If no, that would be a massive massive change to many classes.
Also, I disagree outright on hit rating. Blizzard has provided hit rating PVP items, with just as much resilience and spell power, precisely so that you should never need to see a resist. This means there is no longer an excuse for having zero hit rating on your gear. If you choose not to take hit rating gear (perhaps to stack crit, see above commentary), resists are a consequence of your decision.
I don’t like when I cast a “Slow” on a Druid and that #$%$#% uses Cat Form or another form to run… it’s impossible… you spend lots os mana and that $#%$# guy just transforms.
…
he transforms and his Slow gone.
@ Green Armadillo
I don’t think hit rating has a place in PvP. There’s just no need to have it there. It doesn’t counter anything; there’s no defensive stat on the flip side of hit rating.
All hit rating accomplishes is to make up for a small amount of RNG by tying up item budget.
It’s pointless. (eye em oh)
In regards to crit, I think crits are fine, even necessary. Far too many class abilities revolve around crits for the removal of the mechanic to even be remotely plausible.
But how much of arena is about proper reaction—not just to other players, but to random effects like Frostbite? Isn’t this part of the skill involved?
I’m all for taking major CC effects off the RNG, since a resisted CC that’s usually reliable (Fear, Poly, whatever) typically spells doom, and nobody should lose on a single roll of the dice. But dealing with unreliable procs, whether on the enemy or from your buddies, is a part of the game, no? Sure, maybe some should be toned down, or made more predictable, but the element of random chance needn’t be restricted to crits.
Then again I’ve only dabbled in arena, so perhaps I’ve no clue what I’m talking about.
I support the change to fear. Especially with the cower emote.
However, that would require that Warlocks and Priests get something to make range. Right now Fear is the primary means of making range for both classes, and if the enemy just stands there then Locks* / Priests lose that distance opportunity**.
* Demonic Teleport is a way to make range, but it suffers from one major flaw… LEVEL 80.
** Yes, the Lock / Priest could just walk away from their “Cowering” enemy. Walking won’t be enough, in my opinion.
I don’t really care about the “running” aspect of fear, i just think its utter BS that fear is the only CC that you can continue to damage someone while they are CC’ed. Nerf that aspect and make it fair. How many times have you been out fighting a mob or two, lock lands, dots you up and chain fears you, sending you into 3-4 other mobs. Just ridiculous. You end up dying to mob damage, taking durability hits, etc.
@Euripedes: Hit rating has the same quirks in PVE – it exists only to remove a certain amount of RNG, enemies generally don’t have a way to counter it, and the only thing the mechanic really accomplishes is to force players to tie up some item budget in the stat.
There are a few small choices involved (do you have a Shadow/Moonkin hit buff, and are you willing to trust them to stay alive?), and the urgency of the situation may be different (i.e. missing one of a hundred frostbolts probably won’t cause a wipe, but missing a key polyporph due to a resist may cost you a match). Meanwhile, PVP requires much less hit rating than PVE does – with 3% hit from talents, you only lose something like 1.5% crit to make room for hit rating (inc overcoming racial bonuses).
As to crits, I am aware that removing them would gut classes, but many classes and specs are equally dependent on the random procs you want gone. Even after accounting for resilience (which is both a item budget sink and a massive entry barrier for new players), whether or not your spells and abilities crit can greatly swing your DPS. Is a proc that gives you a third attack for free really that different from your first two attacks both critting? In either case, you’re doing a burst of RNG-determined damage that could swing a match.
Maybe Blizz should go the other way, make hit far more important. Move the RNG factor to 8% or 10%. I don’t see why pvp players feel the need to be coddled all the time. If you cast “a really important CC spell” and it misses oh well, it’s part of the game. It is in fact what makes the game interesting. If you know that you’ll never miss or at least almost never miss whats the point?
Fear should be random, if you fear someone they should be running in a random direction. It would be MC the way you want it, which is no offence, a really retarded idea.
Sorry I’m just tired on PVPers constantly “QQing” (and going by the name and description of the site I don’t know why I’m even posting). PVP should not get all the breaks they want. I relaize Blizz loves their PVP and will continue to cater to all things PVP, but PVPers already get everything handed to them. You have it easy, maybe it’s time for less QQ and more Pew Pew.
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@ Green Armadillo
PvE hit rating is significant. It isn’t an arbitrarily low number like 4%, it requires hundreds of hit rating to reach the cap for PvE.
It ‘s an integral part of the way gearing works, it’s necessary, adds that whole subset to gearing choices that Blizzard loves so much…
I just think it’s awkward and out of place for PvP.
I have to draw a line somewhere. Some random procs, like Missile Barrage, come tagged with a 20% proc chance. That’s a high enough number that it isn’t really all that random anymore, it’s effectively a time delay between opportunities to use it.
Crits are the same way. Nearly every class is going to be running with very high effective crit rates, either from their gear or the way their talents work.
A frost mage that has 22% crit chance, for instance, is effectively going to have a crit chance in the 40-50% area thanks to Shatter.
Don’t even get me started on gear disparity. That particular topic induces even more rage than RNG.
@ Anouke
Easy compared to what?
The goal isn’t to make PvP easier, the goal is to make PvP less reliant on uncontrollable number generators and more reliable on factors the player can control.
Thus PvP matches can be decided by skill, not dice.
RNG does not make for good PvP.
At best, it cheapens it and renders it meaningless; at worst, it completely destroys the whole idea behind player versus player.
Merlot…fear wouldn’t become a juiced up frost nova…it would become POLYMORPH!!! Except ZOMG the warlock can still sit there and dot me up blast away at my face…and my little turtle running around on the other side just got all of his health back….don’t I dare touch him or he won’t be a turtle anymore.
I agree with everything you just said about fear…and would like to add that it should break on damage and heal its target…fear also lasts longer than any polymorph I’ve ever cast on someone in PvP has lasted. So I would call Polymorph a juiced DOWN frost nova…
Fear is just ridiculous…you are running around with your camera view shoved inside a wall while the lock or spriest is just blasting away at you…if they got lucky crits they could kill you before the fear is even off!
@ Anouke…Why should someone run in a random direction when feared? I think adding the /cower emote and standing still would be “fear-like” ie “cowering in fear” not running around like a chicken with my head cut off while being dotted up to Orgrimmar and back.
If you know that you will never miss….then the other person knows they will never miss also…it brings it all down to skill…it would actually make PvP harder…because your opponent is exactly the same as you and it comes down to who is better.
“Fear should be random, if you fear someone they should be running in a random direction. It would be MC the way you want it, which is no offence, a really retarded idea.”
^– Just makes no sense at all no “offenSe” to you…but it doesn’t…I didnt see him say anywhere that fear should let the warlock move you where he wants you to go
because thats what MC is…yarr Mind Control lets the priest move you where he wants you, and if fear making the enemy stand still or wander in a 5yrd radius is “a really retarded idea”…then THANK YOU…because thats what polymorph does along with healing the person back to full health and not being able to do damage or it breaks.
PLrAYnERg vs. PrLAnYEgR rulez
Heck, let’s not be picky – let’s remove all RNG from PvP entirely! Every ability and heal will hit for -exactly- the same amount each time you use it. No crits. And no chance for breaking CCs.
I think the randomness and ‘luck’ are part of what makes PvP fun. I know that people who obsess about PvP and do everything to max themselves out get very angry when someone who isn’t ‘technically’ better than them wins. But randomness is what makes games fun!
Can you tell me of a game where there’s no element of randomness? Even Poker… no matter how great you are at it, if the cards aren’t dealt your way, tough luck.
Changing Fear to not cause the target to run doesn’t make sense to me. Fear has a balance – you are sacrificing control of the target for the ability to continue to attack while they cannot for a high duration with no cooldown.
Ummmm what you just said doesn’t make any sense either lawl. There is NO sacrifice.
“– Fear has a balance – you are sacrificing control of the target for the ability to continue to attack while they cannot for a high duration with no cooldown. –”
“you” are sacrificing control of the target. <—I don’t see who you’re talking about here “you” as in the warlock? If so…the person that got feared just “lost control of their character”…
other than that everything else in your sentence is slapping me in my face right now and screaming ” OP OP OP OPOPOPOPOP OP OP OP” at me.
Continue to attack while they can not for a HIGH duration with no cooldown. lol “plox explainz haow that izz balinced” in your explanation….please compare it with polymorph as to how “balanced” fear is with polymorph…noting the pro’s and con’s to both…except polymorph…because there are no pro’s to polymorph. So just explain the pro’s of fear and the con’s of polymorph and how they’re balanced. thankoooooooo
If you are talking about PvE? No one here is talking about warlock fear in PvE really…warlocks aren’t needed for CC in PvE so the “not being able to control the CC’d target” I guess you mean feared mobs pulling other groups? Well thats fine then…make polymorph so that it doesn’t break on damage and the sheep run waaay far away…I would be joyful not to have to sheep another mob in PvE. Anyways I don’t think I’ve sheeped a heroic instance mob in ANY of the wrath dungeons…so they definitely don’t need to be feared.
We’re talking about PvP…and again he didn’t say anything about making all the damage and heals the exact same…there is still gear to make one persons skills hit harder than anothers.
Randomness and “luck” might make it fun if you’re half brain dead and can’t see what is going on and why some scrub just beat you because a game mechanic failed.
People that max themselves out have a right to get very angry when some noob beats them because they happened to get “lucky” which isn’t luck at all its some stupid mechanic that blizz coded in wrong and hasn’t fixed yet…so “luck” has nothing to do with it.
FYI…poker is gambling…lets compare it with Boxing.
That is really the closest thing to PvP. One person battling another person.
Okay so boxers come into the ring…and we give one a revolver with one bullet in it spin the barrel and say FIGHT!
Wellll…..the other boxer might think that is an unbalanced fight…but come on man you have a 5 in 6 chance that the bullet won’t come out when he pulls the trigger…
So…….Brajana…….you’d be okay with that 1 in 6 chance winning a fight in a boxing match…and you would call it a “fair fight”?????
~ RNG is how people die playing russian roulet. ~
Think that’s going to be my new quote…
Let’s not forget that flaming each other is not acceptable in the comments here.
Angermage, I’ve slightly tweaked a couple of your comments that were needlessly hostile and patronizing. I’ll put up with a lot here, but insulting or attacking others crosses the line.
@ Brajana
There is no problem with the RNG system as long as the RNG does not cause wins or losses in PvP.
Whether one team wins or loses should be decided by the skills of each team.
Where RNG becomes a problem is where matches are decided not by the players, but by the number generators.
I have no issues with things like critical strikes or critical heals. Those aren’t going to instantly decide a match by themselves.