Is Mortal Strike the new black?
by Zach Yonzon 
Feb 29th 2008 at 2:00PM
Enter Patch 2.4 in the PTRs. When Kalgan finally descended upon the Shaman forums, he said that Shamans were definitely getting buffed just in time to quell the wake of an uproar to the nerfs made to the Elemental spec. Along with the reversal of the Nature's Swiftness and Elemental Mastery shared cooldown, the current iteration of the progressive patch is seeing a change to the Shaman's Flametongue Weapon and Totem, which happens to be -- surprise, surprise -- a Mortal Strike-style debuff. Yawn.
While it's certainly a welcome change, considering that Shamans get so little love, frankly it's getting a little boring. Allie mentioned calls for putting the buff on every class (Mortal Sheep or Mortal Portal for Mages is a classic), so this begs the question... is a Mortal Strike-type ability the only way to make a class or spec viable in the Arenas? Aside from the fact that Mortal Strike Warriors are conceivably the most popular class & spec, healing debuffs are clearly one of the game-breaking abilities in Arenas. With Resilience making crit-based and burst damage specs less and less viable, is there really a need for another Mortal Strike? Can't Blizzard make another buff to make a spec Arena-viable without using the same old trick? What do you guys think? How much more creative can you be?
Filed under: Hunter, Shaman, Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Hawker Feb 29th 2008 2:08PM
Why not a debuff that reduces resilience by 50%?
Emoroan Feb 29th 2008 2:23PM
Wouldn't that basically make that class required in arenas?
Remontoire Feb 29th 2008 2:07PM
I think someone did this exact topic yesterday.
Khanate Feb 29th 2008 2:16PM
It'd be fair if Shaman had to spend 31 talent points to get their MS. As it is, this is ridiculous.
Remontoire Feb 29th 2008 2:50PM
Thats a a great point.
The argument can't be said for aimed shot because its a long cast and you must be still.
This is passive and very OP.
Good_Idea Feb 29th 2008 3:58PM
It's not hard for a hunter to stand still for 2 seconds, even when getting kited around a pillar.
Ranged MS is op. Giving MS to melee classes make a lot more sense.
Remontoire Feb 29th 2008 4:54PM
Perhaps, all I can say is when I was doing arena with my holy paladin it was hard enough to heal 1.5 sec Flash of Lights let alone 2-2.5 second Holy Lights.
Instants FTW
amasen Feb 29th 2008 6:14PM
Earth Shock Rank 8
535 Mana 20 yd range
Instant cast 6 sec cooldown
Instantly shocks the target with concussive force, causing 658 to 692 Nature damage. It also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 2 sec.
So while attacking a healer... Healers only get to cast 4 out of every 6 seconds. And now they also get -50% healing for those 4 seconds that they can heal. Now with spell pushback from a duel wielding opponent, I can safely say i won't get more than 1 flash heal off... 2 if I'm lucky... So that's roughly 1k healed if I'm not lucky and a max of 3k healed every 6 seconds if I am lucky... This is against a class with some of the most burst DPS in the game...
My priest is very scared. VERY
Tom Feb 29th 2008 2:17PM
Arena is ruining this game, if you haven't noticed.
Solex Feb 29th 2008 2:44PM
I agree 100%, if you ever notice there's a lot of raiders who stop raiding, then start doing bg's... which is a little elitist. Then when they really want go be the elite of the elite they do arenas and find a team that supports all of the games imbalances, MS wars? check. Resto druids? Check SL SL locks? you bet! Then they howl that "WTF PVE IS EASY, TRY PVP IT'S SO MUCH HARDER" it's really not it might be hard to find those two other classes to make your 3's team unbeatable but once you're there 2000 arena points are your's friend! I don't know if you've noticed but when people say this class is OP or UP it's always in direct relationship to pvp. Seriously, I want bg's and arena but right now they're ruining the game for everyone.
Xeren Feb 29th 2008 3:44PM
Blizz is trying REALLY hard to make Arena's the new global sport, at the expense of everything else. I predict that if anything weakens WoW to the point that another future MMO can take over, it will be Blizz's sacrificing the much more played, much more important, much more substantial part of the game: PVE.
What's worse, they're failing at their goal, so now it just looks pathetic.
Clem Feb 29th 2008 6:47PM
"Arena is ruining this game, if you haven't noticed."
So far, so true. My destructo lock used to be a force in the BGs, now he's ez kill. And each step of that lock's descent into worthlessness has been a nerf to make arenas 'balanced'.
I've never even played a 'for real' arena.
Matdredalia Mar 1st 2008 4:43AM
I, sadly, have to agree with you here. However, one thing that has, in my opinion, always set Blizzard apart from their opponents is excellent customer service (save where hacking is concerned), and an ability to listen to their player base.
I honestly believe that if enough players step up to Blizzard and say "Look, you're basically damning all of us who do not enjoy Arena's and choose not to participate in them to the fiery pits of the Nether, and the last time we checked, this was WORLD of Warcraft not Arena of WarCraft. We pay our money to play, too, and while you seem to be desperate to cater to the casuals, there are those of us who want content we can enjoy and characters that we can enjoy playing, so please, step up Blizz", they will listen. It may take time, but I truly believe in the long term, they will listen.
In my opinion, it is the best thing we can do, as just stating our opinion to other people who believe it at places like WoWInsider and other fan sites isn't going to solve the problem. We need to take it to Blizz's doorstep and say "enough is enough".
Good_Idea Mar 1st 2008 8:59PM
>>Arena is ruining this game, if you haven't noticed.
That "argument" would make a lot more sense if the flameshock change actually affected pve. QQ?
brittwilson Feb 29th 2008 2:20PM
Though my main is a priest, I have a 70 hunter, and I thought the mortal strike element added to Aimed Shot was pretty dumb, but the fact that its such a long cast and high mana cost, that it wouldn't be overused, and it doesn't seem to be, at least on my battlegroup Stormstrike.
But adding this to Flametounge is downright crazy. not only is it a cast once on self, keep up with hits on target MS, but to make it happen with the totem too, giving the entire party MS? How does that make any sense at all?
They say they want to balance Arena. To me, it seems they want there to be no healers in Arena. Why would I take my clothie squishy in there to do half healing the entire fight because they have a shaman, a hunter and a MS warrior?
Plus, what happened to different abilities? Blizzard until now has done a pretty decent job giving each class its own unique abilities, and even some that are similar, but different at the same time. Now they are just using ctrl+V on MS code to fix things?
Zamboni Feb 29th 2008 2:32PM
"They say they want to balance Arena. To me, it seems they want there to be no healers in Arena. Why would I take my clothie squishy in there to do half healing the entire fight because they have a shaman, a hunter and a MS warrior?"
Easy fix: put everyone's skills back they way they were and just reduce healing in arenas by quarter/third/half. Everyone gets hit with the Arena Healing Debuff when the bell sounds and the rest of us can get on with our game without interruption.
(I'm still annoyed that Life Leech is affected by Mortal Strike, yet it's not affected by + healing gear. Now they want Life Tap to scales inversely to your stamina? Just stop...)
brittwilson Feb 29th 2008 2:40PM
"Everyone gets hit with the Arena Healing Debuff when the bell sounds and the rest of us can get on with our game without interruption."
The problem Im seeing here is that with decreasing the healing and keeping the damage the same is not fixing anything. And that would put mortal strike warriors out of an arena job if everyone got it.
I dont know what the right solution is, I wish I did. But it seemed to me it was a lot more fair and balanced back in the day win PvP and BGs were about doing as much damage as possible, not lasting the longest with resilience. People would heal, people would fight, and people would die. You didnt have these 30 min arena matches with 2 druids left, that just keep stealthing and healing. The delaying of death is the biggest downfall they put into BC in regards to PvP IMO.
Manatank Feb 29th 2008 3:43PM
I think people are missing the point here. Healers are way overpowered in Arena without an MS style debuff (as their gear gets better they heal for more and take less damage). Because of this, successful arena teams typically need to have a class that can provide a healing debuff. If you want better representation of a dps class in arena you have to give them a way to bring something to counter healing.
The simple fact of the matter is that an MS style debuff is the easiest way to counter healing with a minimal impact on PvE. Other options would include nerfing healers, providing a mana stealing ability, or increasing a class's CC/spell interrupt abilities, but all of those options have implications in PvE that are game changing.
I like the idea of a debuff that could be applied directly to the healer to perhaps lower their +healing. That would be an interesting twist, and would also maintain a minimal impact on PvE, but it might actually be more overpowered than an MS debuff.
eROKv Feb 29th 2008 2:22PM
its amazing when you consider that wow rakes in millions of dollars a minute that they cant put some dev time in on something a little more creative than this. even considering you can go on the class forums and pick and choose new ideas given by players for free.
bigstain4 Feb 29th 2008 2:22PM
You summed it up in one word: yawn. Seriously, is this the best they can do? And on flametogue? - it just feels so clumsy and forced. I can't even see shaman getting really excited about it. Kind of anticlimactic - we're expecting a buff (the tension has been building) and then we find out it's just another healing debuff. Boring.