Cheat Death is for PvP
by Zach Yonzon 
Jul 16th 2008 at 9:30AM
Well, it finally happened. The dreaded nerf to Cheat Death was finally implemented in yesterday's Patch 2.4.3, and it seems like more than a few Rogues are unhappy. Oddly enough, the most important change to me wasn't the nerf itself but the adjustment to how Cheat Death works. If I'm not mistaken (I often am, though), Cheat Death is the only talent specifically designed to work with Resilience. No other talent or ability in the game works or improves with Resilience the way Cheat Death does. Because the ability scales with Resilience -- the more you have, the more it works like the old Cheat Death -- it's a clear indication that the ability is for PvP. While there are talents that are more suitable for PvP than others, no other abilities are designed to work specifically with the Resilience stat. In this case, a Rogue would need roughly 442 Resilience points (at Level 70) in order to achieve the maximum 90% damage reduction. It's an ability that requires players to gear a certain way in order to maximize their gains.
Prior to Patch 2.4.3, many Rogues mixed PvP with PvE gear in order to increase their damage output (double Warglaives, anyone?) but were able to maintain high survivability thanks to Cheat Death. With the nerf to the talent, many PvE-geared Rogues suffered a significant reduction in survivability because low Resilience means an inefficient Cheat Death. It's an interesting shift because Blizzard has claimed in the past that it doesn't create trees specifically for PvP. In the future, it's possible that we'll see more PvP-specific talents that require Resilience or reduce Resilience directly. I think it's a positive direction in Blizzard's design philosophy.
Filed under: Rogue, Analysis / Opinion, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Jumpeplowski Jul 16th 2008 9:36AM
Screw em'. Rogues are OP in PvP anyway.
Preston Jul 16th 2008 12:46PM
Why do rogues keep mentioning that Cheat Death is the only talent dependent on resilience? So what? How is that an argument? Besides the fact that other classes are also hit by resilience (those who use dots), I don't get how the fact it's the only talent that relies on resilience is a justification that it shouldn't. Blizzard's going to design the talents however they want to, based on what the game needs. Cheat Death was letting rogues successfully PvP in PvE gear.
dont know Jul 16th 2008 1:12PM
This is not the proper fix for cheat death. This is similar when they wanted to give shamans MS for their flametongue enchant. It's just a lazy band-aid to hush up all the people that are flooding the message boards all day with QQ.
Rogues are suffering from the same problem warlocks did. People hate to lose control of their character. Getting feared and your life dotted away would drive people through the roof. Same way with getting caught in a stun-lock. It's just kind of sad to see blizzard nerfing a class simply because too many people are crying about it - when they could've took the time to 'fix' resilience as a whole and not put a band-aid onto one aspect of one class just to shut people up.
Bottom line, the good rogues are still going to shine - they are still going to shut people down for a majority of the fight. And the pve rogues will still use 4/8 and 4/4. Being a rogue myself, i am just hoping this change gets rid of all the flavor-of-the-month wannabe pvp superstar rogues that fill up every bracket. The good rogues will still be around, the FotM rogues will roll druids and the QQ'ing will shift to another class, and the bandaid wont do much except for those 1 in 100 matches where cheat death changes the outcome.
Was it a poorly thought out band-aid for a broken stat? yes
will it 'fix' anything? not really
will the timmy-power gamers re-roll something else? you betcha!
my 2cents
Ikarus Jul 16th 2008 1:29PM
I disagree with Yousom's comment about "Thunder", the shaman elemental trees 51 point talent, being purely for PvP. I think this has tons of application for leveling, dailies and farming. Raiding = PvE, but PvE does not = raiding. the ability get some space between you and your enemies is useful in far more than PvP, though it will be good there too.
Ikarus Jul 16th 2008 1:30PM
k, that posted in the wrong place. see below
Poems Jul 17th 2008 5:28PM
Rogues are incredible at what they do, DPS. Thats the only thing they can do. They can't heal, they can't tank,they can't really cc like a mage, druid, lock, hunter can(ya they can sap but can't sap a target in combat).Yes a lot of people get beat the crap of by rogues, but the nerf is taking away their damage just to stack Resilience. Survivability kinda of pointless when u cant down a target fast.
yousum Jul 16th 2008 9:45AM
Look at the end-tree talent for elemental shaman. I don't see much utility for it in pve, its almost a pure pvp talent. But it is an awesome pvp talent and will address a lot of the issues elemental shaman have with melee classes. Even astral shift the other elemental shaman talent is pvp based. for those of you who don't know what it is, you shift into an astral space whenever your crit twice in a row for 3 seconds, this makes you immune to all damage for those 3 seconds. I see almost no use for it in pve since you really arent going to be taking damage while your in an instance or raid.
angellusEU Jul 16th 2008 10:13AM
you obviously have never been in Sunwell or Black Temple then, since the constant raid damage on almost all encounters is pretty large
Chuddy Jul 16th 2008 10:16AM
Do you mean the leaked talent thunder? Of course it has pvp implications but it looks like it has uses in pve as well.
The talent you mention is simliar to the Priest talent in the disc tree, and I agree it's more pvp oriented than pve. But, to be honest, on all 4 of my 70's,my shaman is enhance, I don't fear elemental shamans. Though in arena they're mean. I'm ok with adding some help to that tree.
But this post is about rogues. :-)
sephirah Jul 16th 2008 10:22AM
The 51 points talents for all the three warlock trees seem more useful for PvP that for PvE...
yousum Jul 16th 2008 10:44AM
@ angellusEU
I have never been in either sunwell or Blacktemple. However i still don't think its a matter of taking raid damage. do you take crits twice in a row often enough to spend points in the talent? I think we(elemental shaman) are so desperate for something, anything that just about any talent that looks like it might help against rogues is making us happy and we are trying to find ways to justify it working.
And yes i know this discussion is about cheat death, but still its interesting to talk about other stuff too. And i dont think anyone is going to sympathize with rogues over the cheat death nerf anyways. Their ability to bring pve gear into arena without any of the adverse effects that other classes have is annoying. Imagine if a raid geared dps warrior brought in his tier 6 gear into arena( ive seen it before, works ok in lower rankings, not so well in higher ones)
Mike Jul 16th 2008 11:42AM
yousum is right in his thinking astral shift is a pvp talent, anyone claiming it's for pve is smoking crack. As an elemental shaman who raids in both BT and Sunwell the "raid damage" is rarely anything that could crit you twice in a row. It's generally AoE magic spells that hit you for massive damage (can't remember the last time I was crit by this) or DoTs and auras such as RoS or BB. The only time I'm getting crit frequently is when a tank dies or I pull aggro, even then...twice in a row? Personally I'm disheartened by the lack of PvE utility being added to our tree and am hoping that more changes by release date (wtb decent spell pushback).
As for Cheat Death nerf, I love it! Srsly anything that can help me in my uphill struggle against a rogue is wonderful. Used to be you'd work so gd hard to get them to low health while somehow surviving only to have them cheat death and rape you while you do 100 dmg a LB/Shock.
Smrt1 Jul 16th 2008 12:09PM
Yeah, No one ever takes damage in an instance or raid!
Ummm wait yes you do!
yousum Jul 16th 2008 3:26PM
People do take damage in raids and instances. Crit damage twice in a row is what doesn't happen often enough to justify putting points into this talent is my point.
And if your levelling or soloing a lot 6 yard push back isnt all that great(2 yard base plus storm reach is what ive heard). If you really want to put distance betwen yourself and mobs your better off going instant ghost wolf talent and then frost shock kite them. or earth bind and then running away to a fair distance while frost shock kiting them.
Not saying its a bad talent, but if mobs are close enough to you in instances that your forced to use this, it means your pulling aggro and a bad move for the most part( unless your on caster spell lock-kill duty, in which case it might be useful, since they try to hit you in melee when they can't cast)
Introit Jul 16th 2008 9:49AM
@yousum,
Not the best in PVE but it definately has its uses in encounters where the raid will be taking a lot of damage.
yousum Jul 16th 2008 9:55AM
Then again this is all on alpha talents. so im sure blizzard is going to change them to also work in pve. I would hate to see a end-tree talent thats purely meant for pvp.
Philibert Jul 16th 2008 10:13AM
I am intrigued as to whether this will signal a movement of Resilience as a stat into the PvE side of things.
I am not a Rogue, but this doesn't seem like a real nerf to me (or not a serious one). If the talent is only really useful for PvP... Shouldn't you already have the Resilience?
angellusEU Jul 16th 2008 10:20AM
resilience already has a place in pve, bear tanks anyone?
it also helps a lot on resistance fights like hydross, anetheron, illidan and quite a few others for tanks at least.
sephirah Jul 16th 2008 10:24AM
Rogues in PvP were so OP they didn't even need resilience...
Dathaniel TDK Jul 16th 2008 10:35AM
A rogue is angry because he can't survive another five or six hits when he gets reduced to 10% health. Now he can only survive up to five or six hits more with no guarantees.
Five or six hits was still plenty of time for them to come in, gouge, and score another back stab or K of damage.
Bottom line is that Cheat Death was grossly OP and Blizzard made the right call with this nerf. The rogues in PvP can just learn to live with it and fight a little smarter. This will benefit their players as well. Easy sauce might taste sweet, but it is unhealthy.