I don’t think it’s all that relevant to talk about PvP balance in a 1:1 situation.
It’s a multiplayer game. Team vs. team is obviously a richer, more enjoyable experience. If it were up to me, a level 1 Mage would be able to beat any melee one on one… because, it’s magic.
Obviously that’s not workable. At any rate, Polymorph might seem like the shit when there’s only one assailant, but facing a party, changing one person into a sheep (who then heals up to 100% almost immediately) while four others bear down on you with their hair on fire… well, whatever. The mage had better have more rabbits to pull out of that there hat.
Considering polymorph causes your healing rate to skyrocket, I find this unlikely… I’m playing a mage right now in the low levels and polymorph is only useful to get rid of a second attacker for a while and to focus on the other attacker. I haven’t used it in PvP, but in PvE the poly spell basically will end up healing all damage and if you cast another damage spell it will cancel the poly early. Also, the instant fire DD Fire Blast seems to cancel Frost Nova’s root.
Considering polymorph causes your healing rate to skyrocket, I find this unlikely… I’m playing a mage right now in the low levels and polymorph is only useful to get rid of a second attacker for a while and to focus on the other attacker. I haven’t used it in PvP, but in PvE the poly spell basically will end up healing all damage and if you cast another damage spell it will cancel the poly early. Also, the instant fire DD Fire Blast seems to cancel Frost Nova’s root.[/quote]
What poly does is allow you get to max health and mana and get max distance. A mage under those conditions is hard to beat because he can lay on so much damage.
At one time in beta mages were gods because they had invisibility. This allowed them to set up their attacks very efficiently. They’d hit you by surprise with a pyroblast crit at maximum distance. It was tough to counter this because they’d hit you with at least a couple of more spells as you’d run toward them.
More or less, that situation has returned with blink and poly. They will hit you while you are helpless in sheep form at max distance with their most powerful nuke and follow it up with a couple of more spells. Even if you get to them blink will have been refreshed by then and they can blink away.
I’m not saying they’re unbeatable, but one on one they are very tough now.
I got the sense from the forum postings that the Shaman class is the first in line to get nerfed… they aren’t really on par with the Alliance Paladin in terms of overall power and are extremely versatile. I found it very easy to just chain kill enemies without resting at all, and my mage has a lot more downtime. The Shaman enjoys a disrupting DD, several DoT’s, leather armor and decent melee, melee weapon buffs w/ some elemental additions, many different types of totems including healing totem, fire blast totem, which can be mixed so you can slap down more than one. A mage by comparison is very boring… A shaman can do this:
Prep by casting lightning shield and frost on your mace.
Slap down earthbind totem, fall back some distance away.
Slap down fire blast totem.
Nuke with shock DD to disrupt spell (either before or after totems are placed, depending on what enemy is doing) and do dmg
If the enemy removes the totems by melee, drop another slow totem and fall back and proceed to nuke a few more times. Drop another fire blast totem or perhaps a fire nova totem if you think they will engage quickly.
This is all without even passing lvl 20… if the mage got hit with your shock then their line of spells will be disabled for a short while. This is bad for a mage who focuses their talents on say, fireball or arcane missiles, for maxing their damage potential. You can sit and lightning bolt and whatever else. If you get poly’d you will get healed and you can down a mana potion when you come out before you shock them on their next spell.
Again, I have no problem with this. They’re mages. If giving up armor and hit points doesn’t result in a significant gain in power, why the hell bother?
I haven’t had to deal with Shamen much yet, but I’m looking forward to Paladins getting nerfed down. It’s just ridiculous how far they outclass Warriors. I don’t think Warriors are in need of much fixing, seems okay to me. Then again, I never played in CB.
Paladins are like cockroaches. They don’t hurt a lot but they are hard to kill. I have to kill a paladin about three times before they die. I get them down to low health and they lay on hands or do some other kind of heal. I literally cannot kill them until I run them out of mana.
Well, that doesn’t make much sense if by “power” you mean overall power (rather than, say, damage-dealing ability). If a mage “gives up” armor and hit points and thereby gets enough magic to allow him to kill enemies with little or no risk, that’s unbalanced. I would then look at the inverse of what you said: if keeping armor and hit points doesn’t make you equal to a mage, why the hell bother? Everyone should just play a mage.
IOW, the ideal situation is that the mage and warrior are different, but roughly equal in power. The mage is more fragile but does much more damage. Assuming close levels, the winner of a mage-vs-warrior fight will be whoever uses the best tactics (including getting the drop on the enemy). Mark is saying that right now, the winner is almost always the mage. That’s a problem, if it’s true (I wouldn’t know).
Of course, it’s nearly impossible for a MMO to hit that ideal. Some classes are better soloers, some are better grouped. Balancing the classes to make them all useful for PvE (which Blizzard has done admirably, in my experience) sometimes means classes are gimped or extra-powerful in PvP.
Well, that doesn’t make much sense if by “power” you mean overall power (rather than, say, damage-dealing ability). If a mage “gives up” armor and hit points and thereby gets enough magic to allow him to kill enemies with little or no risk, that’s unbalanced. I would then look at the inverse of what you said: if keeping armor and hit points doesn’t make you equal to a mage, why the hell bother? Everyone should just play a mage.
This is the same stupid line of reasoning that turned mildly enjoyable DAOC RVR into hopelessly retarded RVR.
I don’t think you really understand how little armor and hitpoints we actually have. At level 20 my armor is in the low 300s and my hitpoints are in the low 500s. To kill myself I would have to land 6 lvl4 fireballs or 3 blizzards. That’s about 20 seconds. Considering other classes have over 1000 hitpoints at that level, it would take me a minute or so assuming no resists or healing or potions. In that time, I would have to contend with my mana pool, which has enough for about 10 fireballs, and interrupts, and the fact that I am barely able to absorb damage at all.
From all reports, mages aren’t super high damage dealers, being below rogues, and equal to several other classes in varying configurations. Some flexibility is what we apparently gain by losing hitpoints and armor.
Save your spittle for someone else. Like I said, I personally have no PvP experience and no idea whether mages were balanced or not. Mark said–contrary to what you are saying–that mages have a killer combo in blink + polymorph, and are essentially unbeatable in (at least 1 on 1) PvP. Jafd seemed to be saying that that was okay, because they “gave up armor and hit points.” All I’m saying is that “giving up” armor and hitpoints is meaningless and unbalanced if, in exchange, you get spells so powerful that nobody can ever even attempt to strike you. (Incidentally, your post says nothing about that. It doesn’t matter how many more hit points or armor points other classes have if, in fact, you have spells that effectively stop them from ever attacking you.)
Again, I’m not saying mages are balanced or unbalanced. I don’t know. But when people respond to the “mages have a spell combo that prevents combat” complaint by saying “Yeah, but look how lousy their hitpoints and armor are!”, that doesn’t inspire confidence.
The last week of beta a bunch of us dueled. We had a couple of level 60 rogues, one level 60 warrior, a level 60 priest, a level 60 warlock, a level 60 shaman, and a level 58 druid. We all took turns dueling a level 60 mage. Out of about 50 duels he lost once, to the warlock, though the mage beat him like a drum in other duels.
Against melees he just blinked and poly’d and it was game over. Against casters he could also counterspell. Hey priest and warlock, guess what? You can’t fear me because I’m counterspelling it.
The mage just has a very tough arsenal of spells for one on one battles. Group PvP is of course different.
IMHO, PvP should be balanced based on team combat with a variety of classes, not 1v1. Traditionally, a mage should wipe the floor with a melee class at range and a melee should dice a mage up close. That’s the way it is. If you’re a melee and you’re stupid enough to tangle (solo) with a mage at range then you deserve to get roasted! Next time, bring a friend…
That’s not to say that superior tactics and/or the use of surroundings, items, element of suprise, etc. to counter an opponent’s inherent advantages shouldn’t be viable in a 1v1 scenario. Viable yet challenging…
Your post also reminds of early DAOC PvP stupidity. At the onset, Archer types were unstoppable killing machines due to one shot kills at long range while stealthed. There was an understandable outcry on the message boards. Despite the fact that things were clearly out of balance, you would see numerous posts from Archers claiming that they were not at all overpowered, and those that don’t play Archers don’t understand just how tough they have it, and if you didn’t play an Archer to level 50 then you don’t know anything so STFU NOOB.
Clearly, everyone’s idea of fun PvP is the ability to completely own everyone else. Good luck Blizzard!
This is so true. Look at any MMO class boards – 80% of classes will be complaining that they are underpowered, 10% actually are underpowered and don’t even rant about it anymore because they have developed learned helplessness, and 10% will say “I don’t think we have any glaring weaknesses – we’re probably average”
It will be this final group that is currently wiping the floor compared with other classes and are most likely to be nerfed. See blasters in early City of Heroes, enchanters & the dire charm ability in EverQuest, and archers/stealthers/smite clerics/savages at various points in time for Dark Ages of Camelot.
I’m predicting an uproar from shamans in WoW soon. Par for the course for those uncivilized Horde people :-)
I played DAOC for about two years but haven’t picked up WoW yet, wondering if you guys could answer some questions:
When you die, I believe you have to go back to your body. Are your items actually there a la EQ or is it just a way to avoid this spirit healer cost?
How does the contested area thing work? Is it kind of like DAOC’s frontier zones, where there are safe areas and then PvP areas?
How much do items affect PvP? Levels I can understand, but I’m more referring to twinking than levels.
Has anyone tried any group PvP yet, and if so, how is it?
(And basically any other comparisons you could make between WoW and DAOC’s systems would help. I’ve seen game mechanic discussions but I’m more curious about how PvP works.)
It’s a way to return quickly to where you died so you can continue what you were doing before dying. Moving as a ghost is faster. The spirit healer cost exists just to avoid to transform death into a way to go quickly back to city.
How does the contested area thing work? Is it kind of like DAOC’s frontier zones, where there are safe areas and then PvP areas?
There are areas under your faction control, areas under your opposite faction control and contested zone where noone controls them.
If the area is under your control an enemy player cannot attack you. But you can. When the attack is started your opponent can fight back obviously. If the area is an enemy area it happens the opposite. You cannot start an attack but you can be attacked.
In a contested area, instead, it’s free for all. You can attack when you want, same for your opponent.
How much do items affect PvP? Levels I can understand, but I’m more referring to twinking than levels.
The levels don’t affect PvP. The effect is really minimal. But you obviously have more hitpoints/skill/spells to use as you level. The equipment is everything. Items are level restricted and the most powerful items cannot be traded. This puts a limit on the twinking.
Has anyone tried any group PvP yet, and if so, how is it?
Fun. A lot. But there’s no purpose/reward at the moment. Just fun gameplay.
(And basically any other comparisons you could make between WoW and DAOC’s systems would help. I’ve seen game mechanic discussions but I’m more curious about how PvP works.)
Considering other classes have over 1000 hitpoints at that level
Uh, who has over 1000 HP at level 20? My warrior buddy has pretty insane equipment and he is just barely pushing 1000HP at 23. My Shaman has +19 stamina (63 total) from gear and is barely pushing 680 at 24. 500 hp at 20 ain’t bad. But yeah, 300 AC does blow.
I don’t think Shaman will get nerfed, really. We’re good at a lot of things, but not that good. My heals suck, about 50% of my 900 AC comes from my shield (the one I’m going to dump when I get my 2-H talent next level), totems have 5 HP and don’t move with you, etc. The range on my nukes is pathetic, my best weapon buff is the one that adds a shitload of threat. Can’t use a moving buff on anyone but myself, and only get two of those… etc.
Also keep in mind that as a Shaman I have exactly zero escape skills. Zero. I don’t really consider self-reincarnation an escape skill, since once you reincarnate you’re likely to just get boned again. Ghost Wolf is probably the closest thing I’ve got, and that’s not saying much.
I agree with that. What’s interesting, though, is that Mark is saying the blink + polymorph combo allows a mage to make it so every combat starts at range, with the mage getting the first strike–for example, even if a warrior starts a battle right next to a mage and starts the combat using his best special attack (meaning the warrior should definitely win), the mage just blinks, polys, rests, goes to max range, and then cancels the poly by hitting the warrior with the mage’s best special attack–in effect, he gets to start the whole encounter over whenever he wants to, and gets to start it in the way that puts him at maximum advantage.
I know HRose anwered these already, but I thought I’d toss in .02 just to make sure the answers are clear. When you die, you have three options:
If you have someone who can rez you, you get rezzed. You come back to life standing next to the rezzer (not right where your body was) with all of your equipment and XP intact. I believe you have rez sickness for a short period (although I don’t remember having sickness when I was rezzed now that I think about it, so maybe this was removed). Your equipment takes a small durability hit because you were killed. In short, there’s really no penalty at all–just a tiny money hit.
If there’s nobody to rez you, you reappear in the nearest graveyard as a ghost. You can then run back to your body in ghost-form. Ghosts move faster than normal and cannot interact with the environment, so you can’t get attacked while you’re running back. Like a rez, you can “reincarnate” once you get close to your body but don’t have to be in the exact same spot (maybe 20-30 feet away or so). You revive with all your XP and no rez sickness. Your items take a small durability hit because you were killed. In the early levels, at least, the graveyards are plentiful and CR runs are usually only a minute or so. And, unlike other games, they’re risk-free (can’t get killed again while running to your corpse). In short, the penalty here is time–about a minute or so, depending. Plus the tiny money hit.
If you reappear as a ghost but for some reason can’t, or don’t want to, run to your body, you can have the Spirit Healer NPC (there’s one in every graveyard) rez you. You will reappear immediately, right there in the graveyard, with all your items and XP. All your items take a 25% durability hit, which can be expensive especially as your level increases. I believe you have rez sickness if you come back this way. The penalty here, obviously, is the significant money hit, so this is best avoided. I’ve only done it once (I was running across a high-level area, got killed, and my ghost appeared at a graveyard that was much further along my route, so I figured it was worth the cost to save time and aggravation).
As for PvP, it works differently on PvP vs. PvE servers. On a PvP server, there are three kinds of territory: Horde, Alliance, and Contested. In your own territory, enemy players cannot initiate hostilities against you. If you do anything hostile (including aiding another player who is fighting the enemy players), you are flagged PvP and enemies can attack you, I believe for a set period of time. In other words, home territory is a safe zone where enemy players can appear, but can’t hurt you unless you take action against them first. In contested territory, both sides are full-on PvP and can attack each other at will. It seems like most of the mid and high-level zones are contested. In enemy territory, conditions are the reverse of friendly territory: enemy players can attack you, but you can only attack them in self-defense. You can attack any NPCs, of course, including town and quest-giving NPCs. Each side gets some (higher-level) quests that require them to go into enemy territory and kill specific NPCs there, which encourages the “home team” to defend in PvP.
I have no experience on a PvE server, but my understanding is that there is no PvP (other than duels) in the regular gameworld. There are some “battle zones,” similar to the frontiers in DAOC, where players can go if they want to try free-for-all PvP. But most of the game zones are non-PvP, and you could presumably advance through the whole game without ever doing PvP (this is not true on the PvP servers, where all of the mid-high level zones are “contested” free-for-all PvP zones, as nearly as I can tell).
Found myself on the wrong side of the PvP fun equation last night. I was headed toward Southshore (contested zone) when I stumbled upon a whole horde of, um, horde. I was dispatched pretty quickly.
There was a whole ton of them there and it looked like they were in for the long haul, so I decided not to return to my body where it fell because they would almost certainly be camping it. My ghost popped up in the Southshore graveyard and since that’s where I was headed anyway I figured I’d take the cash/durability/sickness hit and use the Spirit Healer.
It was at this point that I realized that the horde group had assigned an undead shaman (Level 44!!!) to camp the graveyard and instantly kill anyone who rezzed there. I was spawn-killed about three times before I finally managed to get away. That was NOT fun.
