A Hex on both your houses
by Michael Gray 
Jul 1st 2008 at 11:00AM
Hex was announced for Shamans at the WWI and there's a little bit of confusion out there about Hex. That's okay -- Hex is a little confusing. As explained by the dev panel, Hex is meant as a kind of "emergency" crowd control -- used in the same situation you'd see a Hunter throw a Feign Death or Scatter Shot. A brief moment of "Oh, crap!" to defend yourself, and hopefully your tank (or arena team) will snag that sucker off you before you're dead.To sum up the spell, Hex transforms its target into a critter. It's fast, just short of an Instant -- Hex has a .5 second cast time. Here's where things get a little more confusing, and where some of the "what the..?" starts. According to some sources, the specifics of the spell read "while moving the hexed target cannot attack or cast spells." That means your victim can either walk, or they can fight. They can't do both at once, but they can still act. From Tom Chilton's description of the spell, a mob will likely completely freak out and be erratic. I took that to mean, however, that a player might be a frog -- but it'd still be pumping out damage or heals while ribbiting at you.
In this sense, "Hex" isn't really crowd control -- it's a more a kind of debuff. It forces the subject to be either rooted in place, or unable to cast or attack, but it leaves the choice of which up to your victim. A new spell is still good news for the Shaman class, but it isn't quite the good news we have been hoping to hear.
Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King, Worldwide Invitational
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Ravenswing Jul 1st 2008 11:14AM
Surely that can't be right. I mean, it simply doesn't affect spellcasters who can't move and attack at the same time anyway (well, much).
I guess it makes it impossible for a melee user to run down the Shaman.
Algorithm Jul 1st 2008 11:44AM
That's my understanding as well. I mean, think about it, you could even stop moving for a split second to cast an instacast and then continue to book it.
My main is a mage, so I'm naturally happy about this limitation of hex, and it's lack of limitation (more or less) on me.
For a rogue, I'm not even sure it would make much of a difference either, honestly. Snare you, run up to you, and stop so they can attack. Now they're next to you, and you couldn't move out of melee range before they stand still and eat you.
Of course, it might be one of those things where there is a .5 second transition period between movement and casting/attacking. That would make more sense to me.
Or. It's meant as a PvE crowd control primarily and a PvP crowd control for people that don't know how to work around it.
Heilig Jul 1st 2008 12:23PM
I'm sure it will be just like controlling a critter. You can attack, but it will do 1 damage or somesuch, like when crabs attack you after you fear them accidentally in SV.
The movement is there so the CC'd target can run back to their healer and get cleansed in arena.
iapetes Jul 1st 2008 5:02PM
zzzzz
The spell on the alpha wiki has a typo. It should say "while hexed you cannot cast or attack". It's CC that lets you still move at a slowed speed, but not attack or cast at all.
doyesac Jul 1st 2008 11:16AM
We need to file this post under pure speculation. The problem is that the spell tooltip doesn't read:
"while moving the hexed target cannot attack or cast spells."
It reads:
"while moving, the hexed target cannot attack or cast spells."
That comma creates a great deal of grammatical ambiguity. I suspect that it ought to read:
"while MOBILE, the hexed target cannot attack or cast spells."
...which would mean the hexed target can move but cannot cast or attack. But the poorly-worded tooltip makes it tough to really understand the spell.
Makros Jul 1st 2008 11:24AM
This was my understanding as well. The player will retain his freedom of motion, but will not be able to attack or cast spells.
Wulf Jul 1st 2008 12:06PM
I agree with this interpretation, that definately seemed to be what they were getting at. Its just that its been poorly worded that seems to have caused this confusion.
zappo Jul 1st 2008 12:06PM
This seems to be what I thought it was then, basically the same spell that Shadowpine Hexers put on you - you turn into a chicken and they beat on you.
I am however wondering how (or if) this will be categorized in PvP diminishing returns, as this technically does not make you lose control of your character. Therefore I'd have to assume this would not be affected by Medallion of the Alliance/Horde at all. Seems like a pretty powerful spell to me.
Khanmora Jul 1st 2008 12:56PM
I thought the panel at WWI actually reinforced this concept of the spell, whereas the tooltip was very ambiguous prior to that.
Elmo Jul 1st 2008 11:19AM
I thought it was more like a Silence, pacify and slow in one.
you are slowed cant cast or attack but you can run around freely.
Scott Jul 1st 2008 11:25AM
Now, the final step to make PvE shaman happy: an aggro drop ability.
hellshire Jul 1st 2008 1:01PM
Wont happen, stop asking. Threat shouldn't be a problem anyways if your running with a good tank.
Scott Jul 1st 2008 4:15PM
Well, lets give you an example of the tanks on my server. When I would try to get in a heroic Magister's Terrace group I would find a group all ready to go but one DPS (a tank, two dps with cc, and a healer) and when I'd ask if they needed another dps the response I would usually get was "sorry, we need cc." Even when they already had 2 cc classes.
Hopefully that gives you more of an insight.
Frank Jul 1st 2008 11:24AM
I don't see why it would be different than hex in the game now. You can move, but nothing else.
Lhivera Jul 1st 2008 11:29AM
Simply a tooltip error, I expect. In general, when looking at alpha/beta spells, if there's a major disconnection between the tooltip and the reasonable and/or established behavior for the type of spell in question, it's a pretty safe bet that the tooltip is incorrect and will be fixed later.
grofer Jul 1st 2008 1:34PM
still sucks for enhancement shamans in regards to Magisters Terrace and the like. It sucks that PVE is pretty much dependent on having one and often two mobs taken out in every pull. And even in instances where it isn't as bad as Magisters players tend to prefer having easy mode with maximum CC.
Troy Gates Jul 1st 2008 4:07PM
You can have one target in the group hexed and dps it down in the first 10 seconds. It will just sit there as a frog and die. I think it works well for 5 man cc's.
K Whitt Jul 1st 2008 11:27AM
From what I've been reading around from various sources, despite how the wording goes, they will not be able to melee or cast while hexed. However they still will be able to move, albeit at at 75% reduced rate.
So they can still come after you, just not very quickly, and they have to wait for the hex to break or be cleansed before they can smash your face in.
doyesac Jul 1st 2008 11:28AM
Here's what I'm wondering: does hex break on damage, like a sheep? When hexed by mobs they can still beat on us (think that annoying troll priestess in Jintha'alor). If they get to run around while hexed, we should be able to try to squish em while we can.
Savant Jul 1st 2008 11:28AM
This mechanic isn't new, it's what engineers get with their 'Gnomish Poultryizer' trinket. It turns the target into a critter (chicken) which can run around but cannot cast spells or attack. It can actually attack with a simple melee attack, but getting pecked for 1 damage isn't really what people consider an attack. Whether this will be the case with a frog is debatable, but frog critters can attack in the game (simple melee for negligible damage) so I can see that happening with hex too.
Why mention it? Only reason to consider the attack is for sake of possible pushback on spell casting if the frag attacks a caster. However, I don't know much of an impact there would be.