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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsForum post of the day: Freakin' frogs
by Amanda Dean 
Jul 2nd 2008 at 3:15AM
Ftoomsh of Aman'Thul is hopping mad that Shamans will be getting Hex in Wrath of the Lich King. Green with envy, she feels that Mages are already being rendered obsolete in PvE. Polymorph as a unique ability should not be added to a pool of skill for more classes to draw from. The original poster jumped to the conclusion that giving this ability to Shamans make Mages completely useless.
Baah, I say. Hex is similar to Polymorph, but is definitely not the same spell. You might even say it doesn't go the whole nine yards. Several of the responding post reminded Ftoomsh that the Hex ability in its current form only lasts ten seconds. On top of that it set to a one-minute cool down while Polymorph has no cooldown but diminishing returns. The frogged character will be in control of their movement, but ill not be able to cast with the debuff. I'd like to add that Hex does appear to lack the healing mechanic of polymorph.
From what I understand Mages shouldn't be counted out just yet. During the Mage discussion at WWI, Blizzard promised an increase in damage for Mages, and the addition of a Frostfire Bolt spell to combat resistances.
This kind of reminds me of the phase when everyone seemed to be getting Mortal Strike. First Hunters were given a healing debuff in their Aimed Shots. Rogues have the option of running Wound Poison on their weapons. Blizzard threatened to give Shaman's Flametongue Weapon a similar debuff, but that change was quickly rescinded.
This leads me to ask two questions: Are Mages becoming obsolete? Should classes have abilities all to themselves?
Filed under: Mage, Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Classes, Buffs, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
grofer Jul 2nd 2008 5:22AM
with a feared mob running aruond like crazy and likely pulling more I consider fear to be the worst crowd "control" and very situational.
jaxson_bateman Jul 2nd 2008 5:29AM
A decent lock knows how to pull the fear target back to give more room to move, and put up/take down Curse of Reck to stop dangerous flee paths.
Fugmug Jul 2nd 2008 10:09AM
Kat,
Context > Research.
You can nit pick about the minutia of what Radiophonic said all you want, you're not countering his overall point.
For example, Hammer of Justice and Cheap shot can be classified however the hell you want, the point that you are missing is: Shaman have !NOTHING! like that.
At best Shaman can slow someone down by 50% with frost shock. Thats it. They bring !NOTHING! to the table as far as crowd control goes. Not a two second, not a five, nor eight nor ten second one.
So HOWEVER you want to category whatever it is you want to call it, Radio's point still isn't diminished.
Shaman have nothing similar, and when they do get something that has limitations, (target can move and 1 min cooldown) you get people crying unfair.
Make rogues' moves mana based, and take away Cheap shot, blind, and sap, then you're at the current CC level of Shaman, and tell me how unfair it is.
Fug
twh Jul 2nd 2008 8:20PM
HoJ nor Repentance are CC.
The former's a stun, the other is a disorient. Neither a CC.
gareth Jul 9th 2008 4:30AM
Same decent lock can't do any real dps though while fear+Curse of recklessness chaining, hence you've controlled one mob at the cost of one of your party....
fatkat Jul 2nd 2008 4:33AM
And what about spellsteal? Giving Mages an offensive dispell that buffs the caster with the buff dispelled is just ridiculous. It's purge on steroids. Oh, Mages getting a Shaman spell! And don't even get me started on Arcane shot and Felhunters.
From what I can see, hex will have a 1m cooldown? How is that going to replace polymorph in PVE?
Like has been mentioned before, they are over balancing the classes which is unfortunately resulting in a mish mash of everyone having similar abilities.
Shamans have been crying for a long time for a form of CC. In my opinion they need to fix existing abilities first. Tremor totem is still a piece of crap, dispite many tweaks: I often get feared out of its range in between pulses. Defensive totems like stoneskin and tremor should move with the shaman.
The shaman is still a fun class to play, agreed we are nowhere near the god mode status of years gone by, but it's a challenging and rewardable class.
What I'd really like to see is a MS type ability for the shaman. Then again, give everyone a healing debuff ability, everyone an offensive/defensive dispell ability, everyone a crowd control ability ... and what type of game are we left with?
Wode Jul 2nd 2008 4:38AM
@Adorenko
Yeah Shamen are just aweful... total crap... that's why they are considered totally indispensible for all high end raids.
Muppet!
BTW to complain that Hex is like Polymorph is also pretty stupid, it is far more compairable to Blind; in that outside of something having gone totally pete-tong it will never get used in PVE.
DontLetsStart Jul 2nd 2008 4:48AM
Never used in PvE? As it stands, it supposedly doesn't break on damage. 1 minute is enough for it to be up every pull, and 10 seconds is long enough for a decent group to burn a mob down.
If unchanged, I can certainly see hex being used on the skull target. The group burns that down while the tank gets much threat on the remaining non CCed targets.
Maybe they'll change the break on damage bit, but if not, hex is a wonderful PvE ability, every bit as useful as polymorph but in a completely different way.
Zonique Jul 2nd 2008 4:49AM
Save your tears for when it goes live people, im sure Blizzard wont leave mages out to dry, the best thing about that thread is the Ryan Seacrest guest appearance, made me chuckle.
Tom Jul 2nd 2008 4:52AM
In WOTLK, warlocks will be given a new spell "Fel Brilliance" which increases the intellect of the target equal to Arcane Brilliance. In addition, it will grant the target a 10% bonus to all healing effects cast upon the target.
If cast upon a mage, it will afflict the mage with an "Arcane Taint" debuff which will cause all spells cast by the mage to consume 10% more mana.
Tom Jul 2nd 2008 5:04AM
In all seriousness though, it's not really a big deal that shaman are getting this.
I think you just see greater mage insecurities airing themselves wherever they feel appropriate.
jaxson_bateman Jul 2nd 2008 5:32AM
How on Earth would mages become redundant compared to shammies with this one little change? Last I checked they were one of the premier damage dealing classes which won't be affected at all by this change. It just means that being able to CC will be less of a reason to bring an underperforming mage to an instance.
Now all we need to do is give paladins a short duration CC similar to Cyclone and we're set (they can take our bubble for it if they really want).
Meira Jul 2nd 2008 6:03AM
It's so embarassing when a mage whines for no good reason.
I'm a mage, and i'm happy that shamans get a good CC, even if it has cooldown. And no way it will replace polymorph, not even a chance. Cheers for shamans!!!
doc Jul 2nd 2008 8:17AM
heck - I have a mage and a shammy... hex is NOT true CC. I think it fills a different role - and does it great! Sheeping (or 'makin the bacon') takes a mob and puts it to the side until you decide to deal with it later (especially with focus macros). Hex is closer in operation to fear or cheap shot - temporarily keep the mob from hurting anyone. The one minute cooldown keeps it from being a lockdown like polymorph - I agree with the above comment that the primary purpose of it will be to hex the initial kill of a set of mobs (usually skull) - burn him down, then keep the hex ready once it comes off of cooldown to freeze up any mobs that go after the healer - so the tank has 10 secs to regain aggro (pretty easy as the mob can't continue to beat on the healer - forcing the healer to heal themselves)
I do think that the heal component should be removed from polymorph - but have the 1st damaging attack not cause any damage. That way it's protected from the poly/nuke/poly/nuke cycle that justified the healing in the 1st place...
I was kind of hoping that shammies would also receive a CC over elementals (control earth elemental totem, etc...) - a 2nd class to cc elementals would be good, but hex has a lore history with shamans - so it's cool w/ me...
Pygasos Jul 4th 2008 3:26AM
I am a Mage and I have no problem with hex. It's going to be more usefull in pvp thougth. Hex doesn't heal the target and has a cd so it's not sheep. The think that must worry mages is the famous mage vs lock encounter which is in the air. With what ability bliz going to balance this encounter??? more damage??? frostfire???I think not
Izzyasha Jul 2nd 2008 9:01AM
Lol what im laughing about is im a mage and i dont care i was more insulted we diddnt get much info on frostfire... it saves us a respec during fights? Does frostfire have a ignite effect when it crits stacks a crit bonus when it debuffs... creates a magic dot slows target...? does 80 xs damage as frost bolt and fireball? It wasn't fair our panel was so short.
And the damage increase are we talking huge huge increase or are fireballs still gonna frail in comparison of a shadowbolt? i wanna see a op fireball make locks jealous of our huge crits not vice versa
TURN THE TABLES BLIZZ TURN THE TABLES! They get demon form hah give mages dragon form for fire make us start oping people... no dragon brath dragon form rawr!!!!!!
sorry... inner nerd was begging for release...
i say kudos on shammy oh shit button there button was a after your dead kinda thing and was more useful in pve. So stop it it wont replace sheep and if it did so what... you know how much we have to stop to sheep consistently wouldnt u like it better to stand and sheep or keep focus fire and annihilate the creeps!
Haderic Jul 2nd 2008 4:36PM
Shamans getting hex is no big deal for PvE mages. It might even give us a extra security net when a pull is collapsing and it is hard to get a sheep off with pushback. Mages are comming out of the woodwork and QQing about this because, we are a broken class, at least we feel that way. Mages were advertised as a glass cannon, I believe the quote on blizzard's mage info page was something like "no other class can do as much damage as the mage, only the rogue can come close" Mages did not get any real dps buffs in TBC, while many other classes did. Thus resulting in lower overall mage dps and non-traditional dps classes picking up where we once stood strong. In WOTLK mages are getting a straight damage buff, so no worries my arcane slinging friends, lets sit back, relax and wait for the boom in WOTLK
Andy Jul 2nd 2008 4:15PM
There are a lot of bad feelings surrounding this claim from Blizzard. Before the release of BC Blizz said the same thing, mages were going to get a damage boost and were touted to be the class to beat on the damage meters.
The issue isn't that mages haven't been promised anything in wrath, it's that most of them aren't holding their breath a second time for damage buffs that they've been promised before but never got.
Andy Jul 2nd 2008 9:59AM
At first I was bothered. "A POLY FOR SHAMIES, WTF?" then I saw the description. It is totally different from Poly. It's like a glorified snare ability that prevents attacks, whoopie!
As far as Polymorph goes, I would like to see the healing effect removed and maybe a couple of more forms. The main thing I want to see for mages is a cool new AoE and a new type of non-talented direct damage attack other than frostfire bolt.
As for Shamies being underpowered. I myself love having a shamie in my group, a good enhancement shammie can a lot of times rival rogues on damage, and at the same time offer good utility to the rest of the group.
Adorenko, I have leveled a shamie to level 40, I have seen countless people say that it is a "weak" class, I respectfully disagree. You just need to understand the mechanics of the class and use them to your advantage. I find it to be one of the easiest classes to bring up. Of course this is my 6th toon......
STereo Jul 2nd 2008 12:13PM
Hex sounds nearly useless to me. If Kalgan played a shammy it would be an AOE cc that lasted 8 seconds