A refreshing change in spells
by Zach Yonzon 
Jun 3rd 2008 at 2:30PM
I missed the Wrath of the Lich King alpha explosion, but looking over the proposed spells and talents, I noticed an interesting proposed change. New talents and spells are available that refresh the duration of Damage-over-Time effects, such as Corruption and Shadow Word: Pain. While some of these effects are delivered by direct damage spells, the interesting and impacting change that struck me was its inclusion of channeled spells.With the proper talents, Mind Flay would refresh Shadow Word: Pain and Drain Life would refresh Corruption. This gives more utility to channeled spells, which normally require its full duration to run for optimum effect. PvP, in particular, requires constant motion which gimps the use of channeled spells. If the proposed changes push through, this means that channeled spells can be used for a short duration in order to refresh existing debuffs. This is an incredible trend that I hope makes it into live as well as extend into other, channeled abilities.
This change should hopefully see the use of more channeled spells in PvP, with players stopping for the briefest of moments to channel a spell in order to refresh a debuff. Even direct damage spells with casting times will be used to refresh debuffs, making it useful even for PvE. This is significant in PvE DPS cycles because players will no longer need to break a spell cycle in order to accommodate re-casting a DoT, which often activates the Global Cooldown.
The direction that Blizzard is taking with the new spells -- adding more utility and new mechanics -- is an exciting one. It's a small thing that will change how some spells are utilized. I'm willing to bet that in the future, we'll be seeing more flashes of channeled spells bolting through in the Battlegrounds and Arenas. Given that the talents outlined are but a sampler of what will be in Wrath of the Lich King, I'm hopeful that we'll see more of this mechanic across the board. When more Alpha information comes out, it's quite possible that we'll see a Hunter talent that refreshes Stings, or a Rogue ability that refreshes Poisons. From what I see now, WotLK looks very promising for channeled spells and abilities. I can only hope they make it to live!
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Retro Jun 3rd 2008 2:44PM
It would be interesting to see a few new channeled spells due to the nature of their casting (you are basically immobilized and unable to perform any other action except channel the spell). A channeled stun, for example, might make sense for paladins; it offers them a degree of crowd control without throwing them just another stun (after all, they already have two with talents).
Might be interesting to see a channeled spell that can pierce walls with a talent also, but there are obvious balancing flaws to that.
I'm hoping that Blizzard is finally realizing that talents that alter or grant new abilities are much more interesting and exciting to get than talents that tweak statistics and percentages.
Austin M Jun 3rd 2008 6:45PM
And mages just get more bolts and shields... the new talents really seem lackluster, especially arcane. A new mechanic that is more fun than fireballx8 then scorch or spam arcane missiles would be very appreciated. The 51 point arcane is just like fireblast but with 4s or so less CD; not very original. This doesn't look like a good path that mages are going down, even if the is alpha.
Doc Jun 3rd 2008 2:45PM
Um, I thought you weren't supposed to be talking about this stuff or you wouldn't be bff's with Blizz anymore...
laina Jun 3rd 2008 2:47PM
So long, my lovely mage. =(
This game has become increasingly about DoTs, mobility, synergy, and survivability, and you have none of that.
you will be missed.
Doc X Jun 3rd 2008 3:22PM
Yeah, but you've got CC which my Shadow Priest doesn't have. I can't count on my fingers and toes the number of "LFG DPS/CC" messages I've seen. Sadly, they weren't looking for someone to help with Scholo or Strat :\
What would be really useful would be refreshing Vampiric Touch (which has a much shorter duration than SW: Pain and which I find myself refreshing much more). Hell, give me a talent that will refresh all my DOTs on a target with my Mind Flay. This alone will boost my DPS *and* mana regen for others since I don't have to miss the GCDs to refresh the DOTs and can use that time to melt faces. It will remove the 'Spell Priority' system for Shadow Priests as it is right now, but I'd be happy to trade talent points for reducing that particular complexity.
Zarzuur Jun 4th 2008 7:12AM
But a SP is a hybrid, you have the option to switch to a different role (healing) in-combat that DPSes don't have. As a last resort, you can also respec to Holy Priest and get all the dungeons you want even .. pure DPS cannot do that.
As for CC, yes mage polymorph on beasts/humanoids is most useful, but it is situational according to the dungeon -- several classes including SP each have a good CC for certain monster types. SP CC ain't so bad!
Blacksabre Jun 3rd 2008 2:47PM
Uh, Zach? Most lock DoTs are instant cast. Where's the advantage, aside from losing the higher top end damage by restarting in the middle, which don't seem to me to be helpful, much.
BitterCupOJoe Jun 3rd 2008 3:13PM
Because, even tho they're instant cast, they still activate the GCD, meaning that you're losing 1.5 seconds to do something else in the middle of your casts. On top of that, given that, especially during raids, the best way for a lock to keep going is Life Tap -> Drain Life when they're running low on mana, this makes for an excellent change. In addition, it's not just DL that's set to refresh it, but also Shadowbolt.
Corruption, the spell that DL and Shadowbolt will refresh, assuming this all goes live, has the shortest duration of any of the warlock DoTs at 12 seconds. It gets a lot of buffs from the afflic tree, but it's still chewing into the cast rotation time enormously as things currently stand, if the caster attempts to make it permanently on the mob. However, with the new rotation that this allows for a lot more damage to be squeezed out in the same time, assuming the caster is using either DL or SB every 12 seconds or less, which is likely.
sheepe Jun 3rd 2008 3:19PM
I assume he means channeling a spell for a fraction of a second in pvp to refresh a duration. Unless the mana cost of drain life is significantly less than the mana cost for corruption it does seem rather pointless to me as well.
Also corruption can be cast while running in any direction but to start channelling you would have to stop and face your target.
Emoroan Jun 3rd 2008 3:59PM
Corruption is 18 seconds
BitterCupOJoe Jun 3rd 2008 4:08PM
I actually disagree with Zach that it'll potentially mean much in PvP. I think it's actually going to be a lot more useful in PvE. I'm not saying it won't be useful at all; if it refreshes off of Shadowbolt, then Nightfall becomes that much better, even if it's still only sporadically useful at a 4% proc rate.
Also, Emoroan is right; I was misremembering. Still, being able to skip 1.5 seconds out of 18 ain't bad.
thebitterfig Jun 4th 2008 11:44AM
there is a problem with refreshing dots: they do less damage.
typically, every 3 seconds a dot will deal damage, but if you refresh the dot after 5 seconds, it will be another 3 seconds until a tick of damgae instead of 1. dps lowered.
bad plan.
matrix_dragon Jun 10th 2008 8:01AM
Its not like Blizz can't change the delay before Dots tick?
Well god knows what Blizz will do.
Saelorn Jun 3rd 2008 2:53PM
I was under the impression that a typical DoT doesn't deal damage until 2-3 seconds after you cast it; if I refresh the spell every second, then wouldn't that effectively prevent it from ever doing damage?
Greg Jun 3rd 2008 4:04PM
That's the primary concern amongst the Warlock community right now - if they can't make it reset duration without resetting the tick timer, the talent is absolutely worthless. As of right now, I'm told (third hand, but reliably) that the talent is completely non-functional on the beta realm, so no-one knows how it will work at all as yet.
Iskur Jun 3rd 2008 4:35PM
It would be the same as a mages fireball dot. It refreshes but the timer on the dot continues as normal ticking every 3 sec no matter when the debuff is reapplied.
Kasumi Jun 3rd 2008 3:00PM
WOTLK = World of Rangecraft part II? :
Rudolphe Jun 3rd 2008 3:06PM
They always cater to ranged dps... there are so many fights where melee are forced to move around so much it's hard to keep a constant stream of damage going on the boss. While ranged can stand back and pop off arrows or spells or whatever. Death and Decay on Archimode comes to mind... if it lands right at his feet melee basically have to gtfo until he gets repositioned by the tank while ranged don't have this problem. You spend so much time chasing bosses and mobs around... ridiculous...
Zarzuur Jun 4th 2008 7:01AM
But melees aren't lumped with flimsy cloth armor like most casters.
Charneldeath Jun 4th 2008 8:50AM
Ya, until you fight Archimonde, and the ranged have to run around like tards from the Doomfires. The melee get to stay put and straight up DPS. Every fight has different mechanics. PvP in itself is favored towards physical DPS as well.