Daze of our lives: The continuing story
by Robin Torres 
Sep 14th 2007 at 9:00AM
Remember back at the end of June when Drysc said that Daze was working as intended? Drysc said that since your base defense skill reduced the chance of getting Dazed, you should try to keep it maxed. He also said we just perceived that we were getting Dazed more in Outland for a variety of reasons including that we ran into more same level or higher mobs in Outland than on Azeroth. Mike called this a "little shaky". It seems that the programmers thought so too, looked into the mechanics a bit deeper and lo and behold we have this note in Patch 2.2:
Daze: Defense skill will no longer reduce the chance players have to receive the Daze effect when attacked from behind by enemies.
Bunnies (female Gnome, of course) called out Drysc on the forums to explain the descrepancy. Happily, Drysc took the challenge:
Shortly after that write up, and due to us going back through the code, the programmers found that a character's defense as a whole was being taken in to account, and not just their base defense as intended. It was definitely our mistake in only looking at what values are taken into account when calculating daze, and not how those values are generated. They're separate bits of code in different locations, so it wasn't easily or immediately apparent.
Drysc went on to explain:
The intention of the mechanic isn't that it punishes some classes or specs more than others, you shouldn't be punished more than someone else because you chose to play a priest instead of a warrior. The complaints that the mechanic was not working correctly and had increased or changed in the expansion is the only reason we investigated the mechanic further, and found an issue that we're now correcting.
So, wait... We complained we were getting Dazed more in Outland, they looked into it and discovered that, in fact, some classes weren't getting Dazed enough?
Drysc is right: Daze is a very unpopular mechanic. He also reiterated what he said back in June -- that it is intended that caution be used when pulling, fighting around the potential of adds and running through dangerous territory.
But Haughty (female Blood Elf, of course) pointed out what I think is going to be the biggest and worst ramification of this "fix": Tanks will be getting Dazed more often, possibly losing aggro to the healer.
Drysc responded that yes, tanking will be harder and that they will be keeping an eye on that. He offers these tips:
However, there are easy ways to adapt, such as simply moving backwards or sideways. Then there are abilities such as a warrior's intervene which can help gain some extra ground. Some fights that require quick and sometimes "long-distance" repositioning, such as Prince Malchezaar, will likely require some adaptation.
Good tanks are already hard to find and now they are going to have to adjust their skills and tactics to adapt to this change.
Do you think the Daze change is going to make a big difference? Or is the whole thing being blown out of proportion?
Filed under: Patches, Bugs, Blizzard, Analysis / Opinion
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
C.A. Sep 14th 2007 9:17AM
At this point I can only shake my head...
Vestras Sep 14th 2007 9:18AM
What a crock! Daze is already the most annoyig feature of WoW and they decide to make it worse? Why? What good does that do?
Very frustrating, and I know my guilds main tank will not like this.
Mephator Sep 14th 2007 9:22AM
Blown out of proportion.
BillDoor Sep 14th 2007 9:30AM
Daze doesn't bother me too much. It's annoying, but I can deal. Fear however, that's the mechanic that I hate the most.
Xonate Sep 14th 2007 9:31AM
Meh, I think I'd like to decide just how much more we're getting dazed before I make a decision. As my guild's main tank, I'm not looking forward to it, but it maaay not be too bad.
Sylythn Sep 14th 2007 9:40AM
An interesting side note that got brought up there is the talk about moving. Fights in outlands, especially in raids, are a LOT more about movement, placing and logistics, rather than just standing in one spot and letting fly. I've come across a few tanks who - used to standing in one place and just doing their thing have a lot of trouble even sidestepping a bit, repositioning themselves or even considering moving during a fight. I've also come across dpsers who will claim, well my dps is X if I don't have to move...no kidding, but if you don't move around you die, so then your dps is 0...who cares what your theoretical max dps is standing still.
It's just interesting to note that people have to concentrate that much more on placement than we did before. Now your dps or tanking ability takes a hit unless you can get yourself in a good, in-range, safe location quickly and return to the fighting.
superfrank Sep 14th 2007 9:51AM
Multi mob tanking is going to become very hard.
When you initially gather up all the mobs it won't be much of a problem to keep them in front of you.
When a DPSer pulls one off you, you then have to run towards that person which will instantly put all the mobs behind you; even if you strafe to the dpser some of them will still be able to hit you from behind.
OK warriors have intervene (30s cooldown) so it won't be TOO bad for them. paladins have righteous defence (15s cooldown I think) which will help avoid getting dazed. however druids are screwed, as are warriors and paladins when the cooldown is in force.
This is overall a pretty bad change for tanking no matter what anybody says.
superfrank Sep 14th 2007 9:53AM
@5 - it will be a 5% chance to be dazed for every attack from behind. If you have 5 mobs attacking you at once from behind with a 2s swing time, you have a 56% chance of lasting 4s without getting dazed.
superfrank Sep 14th 2007 9:58AM
(this is for mobs of the same level as you if you have maxed out defence skill)
p3ngu11 Sep 14th 2007 10:06AM
agreed with 3
and tanks often face mobs higher level than they are.
but they face TOWARDS the target they are tanking (you know, so they can hit them...) and thus not get dazed.
srsly, how many targets do you tank with your butt?
Dcruize Sep 14th 2007 10:11AM
Oh well, at least with our flying mounts for 70-80 we can skip out a lot of the annoying dismounts that happened from 60-70. As long as Blizz don't screw us over with that as well....
Indigo Sep 14th 2007 10:57AM
Daze only slows run speed, it doesn't slow attack speed.
How is this going to be a threat generation problem?
If a tank lets something get behind them, they're doing it wrong anyway. You cannot dodge or parry blows from behind, so you lose about 30-40% of your overall damage mitigation when the mob is behind you. If you're chasing something down that got loose, you can intervene(yeah, intervene doesn't work most of the time, I know) or you can just back over to it. Chances are you'll now be backing over instead of running over.
spellproof Sep 14th 2007 10:32AM
ZOMG, they want to make the Prince fight even more annoying and luck-based than it already is? Ugh.
Wulfhere Sep 14th 2007 10:29AM
Number 7 hit the nail on the head. Anyone who doesn't understand why this is bad for tanking, read what he wrote.
Seppe Sep 14th 2007 10:32AM
Yay! All my pally was good for sans healing was being able to happily tank huge pulls all at once, yay. Now I can't move AND I only have a messed=up reverse-taunt to play with.
Tiem 2 healz moar.
Pzychotix Sep 14th 2007 10:32AM
Blown way out of proportion.
Multi-mob tanking gets a little harder. True. But only if one of two things happen:
1) Your DPS is unorganized.
2) You have no idea how to multi-mob aggro.
Both can be solved by L2Play.
L2Play folks.
There is a lack of major fights in raiding that require major repositioning, and I really don't forsee daze being a major problem there. People just love to complain about anything.
Heraclea Sep 14th 2007 10:36AM
I am so glad to have respecced my warrior main out of tanking. Won't go back until Prot's soloability gets fixed.
I am also glad to have already gotten to exalted with Sha'tar Skyguard already. You can say goodbye to Skettis, and to 23 gold a day, and to 2 healing potions. At least if you still decide to go there, you can clear the mobs on the way up to the prisoner escort, since if you do it at all you will be approaching from the ground. And you won't have to worry much any more about anyone ningeing the prisoner.
Wulfhere Sep 14th 2007 10:37AM
@14 - how can any tank learning to play have any effect on whether the DPS is organized? Oh, right, it doesn't. I can understand how to multi-mob aggro just fine and if some overzealous nuker pulls one off of me, there's nothing I can do to stop him, and now if I try and get it back I'll probably be getting dazed for my trouble and losing the rest of them.
As usual, a cocksure idiot (that's you) used a meaningless phrase like "l2play" instead of taking ten seconds to actually think. Par for the course.
Eyegore Sep 14th 2007 6:45PM
For boss tanking, warrior tanks, you should already NEVER be turning your back to them to avoid crushing blows, strafe run if you have to reposition fast (keeping shield block up), or back up if it's not a huge rush (this also allows healers that may not be paying as close attention to sat in range easy).
For multi-mob trash pulls it is going to suck pretty hard though.
bonse Sep 14th 2007 10:44AM
dont think tanks should be the ones to worry overly much to be honest, intervene and intercept for warriors if really pushed.
My concern is it seems to be the poor ranged classes that will be pulled off their mounts by lower level mobs more frequently as they very likely have a base defense value equivilant to melee classes many levels lower (due largely to not getting hit)
I've never really been too concerned about dazed when tanking, it's annoying but its part of the whole mechanics, i hate it more when i want to get somewhere fast and get dazed-dismounted-swarmed-killed.
Personally however, i don't expect to significantly notice a difference, and so will reserve judgement until I have experienced the change to be able to comment one way or the other