This first part is kind of spurred on by this. Now this isn’t the first time I’ve seen something like this and it’s not a big deal to me, but at the same time it’s a bit annoying to see a rogue try to use my name or hector’s editing instead of being themselves. I’m sure all the nooones, drakkdogs and vurturnes out there might disagree, but if you’re going to spend the time to make a video (or play wow for that matter), I can’t imagine doing it pretending to be another player.
This handsome devil is not me
While I’m on that subject, I want to make something clear. Currently I only play one character, Akriios on Blackrock. I haven’t played much on PTR recently and I haven’t played on TR since it came out. I get tells all the time asking if I’m “Akrios from the PTR”. I’ve had people who met “me” on the PTR and transfered to play with me, only to realize it wasn’t me at all. I had a guy who bought psyhawks warlock first pretend to be psyhawk, talk to me on vent, then got found out. His friend then had a rogue and asked me to pretend I have an alt on some server (I’m assuming this is the same PTR Akrios in <Hawk Gaming>, some made up guild I was told about).
I know this isn’t a new trend and like i said, it’s not a big deal but recently I’ve had people telling me that “Akrios asked me for my account info so I gave it” on multiple occasions. I don’t think it needs to be in the T.O.S., but to make it clear, an Akrios will never ask you for your account info.
Icecrown
This is a sandbox video of Icecrown (no mobs)
I have to say Icecrown does look good. I think with WOTLK raiding, while hardmodes and achievements have been an interesting direction, the biggest problem with the raids is that they didn’t feel like they mattered. I don’t know that much about lore, but comparing BC raiding to WOTLK raiding, a big difference felt like the instances didn’t really mean much. In BC you fought big WC3 names like Illidan, Lady Vashj, etc. So far in WOTLK we’ve re-cleared Naxx, fought some robots, and then did the tournament which just feels incredibly out of place in this game. From any standpoint I think Trial of the Crusader is the worst raid instance in the game, even worse than rehashed Naxx. This is an mmoRPG, and so far WOTLK raiding has felt a lot more like an arcade game.
Icecrown on the other hand is really the raid instance WOTLK raiders have been waiting for. Arthas is one of the biggest characters in the Warcraft universe, so hopefully they do the instance right, and so far it looks like they will. The first impressions really give me that epic Black Temple feel, which I consider one of blizzard’s most successful instances.
The Potential “Adjustments” I Foresee Being Worse than the Current Vanish
When Blizzard first announced that vanish would finally be fixed, they made something clear.
“We have a change for Vanish in place for 3.3. You will get to try it out soon ™. As promised, if it proves a significant buff to rogues, we may have to compensate elsewhere. Just because it hasn’t worked as intended doesn’t mean it will be balanced when it does. “
Fair enough. If rogues are balanced at the moment with the current conception of vanish, then making it work has the potential to make us too powerful. You can’t make a class too powerful in the name of fixing a bug, so counterbalance is reasonable. That being said, I have some guesses as to how they will attempt to counterbalance things should rogues become too strong, and if it goes in any of these directions, I’d rather keep vanish in its current format.
Taking vanish off of prep – This is probably the worst compensation they could make. I’d rather have 2 of the current vanishes than 1 working one. Even if vanish doesn’t work, it’s at least a snare break, an overkill, an immuned instant. The potential for 2 vanishes means more to me than one that works.
Putting Vanish on the GCD – This is what I suspect they will do to balance things if the vanish fix leaves us too strong. Vanish wouldn’t generate a GCD, but it wouldn’t be able to be used while on a GCD. It would make it similar to other abilities in this vein (such as icebock). I am really hoping this isn’t the case because I already think that there are far too few abilities off of the GCD. Vanish is cool because you can make it happen at any time, it can be used on reaction without interfering with your normal gameplay. A move like this would take some skill out of the class.
Forbearance / Hypothermia-like effect – This is another change I could see blizzard making, not being able to use vanish withing x seconds of vanishing. I don’t like this idea either, because it doesn’t really counterbalance much in arena because it’s often better to save vanish for drs and switches unless you are playing a zerg comp. A change like this would only hurt our already abysmal solo viability.
What Counterbalance would be Acceptable?
0.5 seconds instead of 1s immunity – Really, 1 second is far too great a window to not get knocked out of stealth. The reason is that vanish would feel too much like a defensive utility. 0.5 seconds is more than enough time for a rogue to get a vanish reopen. The vanish fix isn’t going to make it overpowered, but making it too long will. A rogue should have no problem vanish –> cheap-shotting within 0.3 seconds.
Related posts:
first
Comment by mcan88 — October 7, 2009 @ 11:04 am
the new vanish is looking too good tbh
Comment by Horrorz — October 7, 2009 @ 11:12 am
nice post Akrios and yes it’s give a huch rogue’s with your name, but it’s a big difference from this rogue’s and you, you have skill you play your rogue right and kenn felling who blinding you or vanish sap.
but I have a question, your gemming your gear now of ap and crit from t9.25 legs and gloves, but why have you atm 1400on 2vs2 and 19003vs3 rating ? playing you arena inactive ? and when fix vanish going vanish sap yet or blind vanishing ?
and please make evis x final
Comment by Falus — October 7, 2009 @ 11:21 am
Don’t give us this ‘we dps real well so vanish doesn’t really need to work’. Vanish is a huge part of Rogues, you can’t just pass it off as something that isn’t really an issue.
Just today I was in Arathi getting the Honor for some Relentless off pieces and I was Mortal Strike’d out of stealth. Yes, the Warrior saw me use vanish so he MS’d and got me out.
Secondly this Mage saw me use Vanish so he popped slow, and boom. I’m out.
Not to mention every single time I vanish with Melee, I get hit out by auto attack. This is REDICULOUS. You would NEVER let Paladin’s Bubble have this drawback. You would NEVER let Mages Ice Block have this drawback. You would NEVER let this happen. But I guess because Rogues are dpsing well in ToC, we don’t need Vanish.
Fascinating logic, Ghostcrawler. First time I’ve ever seen you say something incredibly stupid. I’ve usually agreed with you about Rogues needing toning, but this is rediculous.
Comment by nast — October 7, 2009 @ 11:25 am
thats caop/paste i made but what a true story
Comment by nast — October 7, 2009 @ 11:31 am
Why would they make you at least 1 sec in stealth
but not letting you use any ability by putting 1,5 GCD on it.
Its not 1 sec immumunity, it’s making sure you are considered stealth
for 1 second.
Comment by Tfz — October 7, 2009 @ 11:58 am
Akrios when u will upload your next pvp vid pls tell me
Comment by strekanschnautzbart — October 7, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
“Vanish: For the first half second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability.” I’m sure you’ve just seen this as I have! Blues taking cues from roguerogue!
Comment by impliedofnathrezim — October 7, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
On the PTR currently today, Vanish gives a 0.5 second immunity…which I am very happy about. I’m glad to see Blizzard doing this, it was annoying seeing Rogues able to vanish without taking into consideration DoT ticks and still get that CS off.
Comment by Evolas — October 7, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
…/facepalm for not making sense. Akrios said don’t tell him to hurry up and finish Eviscerate X, he will do it at his own rate.
Comment by Pasinius — October 7, 2009 @ 4:48 pm
” Vanish: For the first half second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability. ”
this is on the new ptr build , also i dunno if you tried it before that , but from what i experienced on thr ptr the 1 sc Wasnt that long , it look pretty op when you read it , but when you play with it , its really not a big deal , most class have 1.5 gcd so they already cant react to a vanish and deny most of that bullshit pretending that they can break our vanish
am fine with the 0.5 its enough for a clean vanish ( at least for pple like me who play at around 120-140 ms ) , but the most important part is that vanishing a Hoj/blind/debuff aplication ( Sp , lock )/ whatever Aoe/nova will no longer just make us imune , but also succefully put you in stealth an that is great , also note that you can be rooted/snared on a vanish but sill stay in stealth
Comment by EssentheyMy — October 7, 2009 @ 9:59 pm
Hey again man,
First, what you say about Lore, Wotlk PvE, is just right… The Tournament thing is just perfectly inappropriate, it’s strange that Blizz did that. I once (well, it was before the BC, maybe they saw things differently then) read an article of an important guy of Blizz (like the conceptor, something like that) who was saying that Blizz would stick to the authentic Warcraft lore, would never let it become something out of control. I hope with the Citadel, Arthas etc., Wotlk PvE will finally become decent.
About vanish fix, I doubt they would remove it from preparation. Prep would then be too useless (sprint/evasion/CB are not enough for a 10min CD ability)(btw CB on 2 min wouldn’t hurt I think
)
Putting Vanish on a GCD would be terrible and completely absurd considering the “spirit” of this ability. Vanish is an emergency / escape / reflex move (the kind of ability that makes a difference between a normal rogue player and a good rogue player); considernig a rogue’s surviviability, putting a GCD would just suck and frustrate players. Vanish must be available on demand.
The Forbearance thing would not hurt me too much, provinding it’s not like a 1 min duration.
That said, I think we don’t necessarily have to worry too much about Blizzard nerfing vanish right after they fix it. They just want to warn players that they “might” make some adjustments, so that other classes don’t start crying on forums about rogues being too powerful, but I don’t think that experience will show that a fixed vanish will make rogues overpowered.
P.S.
Oh, and for immitators, I just completely understand how annoying this is. I once transferred my rogue to another server an had to rename it. I had a list of like 15 nicknames, and all were already taken on the server. I was so desperate that I tryed “Akrios” mostly for fun/curiosity and guess what, it worked. I didn’t realize how lame it was on the moment, I just wanted to play my rogue and not meditate for one week about his nickname. Even if I was doing fine with my rogue, though my stuff was nothing compared to yours, it just didn’t feel right to “play” the rogue I admire most. My conscience came into play, and something like 3 days later, I used the epic customization to change my name (and make a female UD btw ^^). I wish every Akkrios, Akrioss etc. do the same…
Comment by baruch — October 8, 2009 @ 12:07 am
i found out that if my mage iceblocks i will aggro the dks gargoyle knocking me out of stealth.i vanish and because my mage is still in iceblock i still get fucking knocked out. how pathetic is it that one of our tactics is have mirror images / ele out when we reset to reduce the chance i don’t aggro the fucking lolgoyle.
tbh with the vanish buff on you, you should just straight immune all single target pet damage. i don’t see that as overpowered atall
Comment by irpete — October 8, 2009 @ 1:23 am
Always knew that Akrios on PTR was fake. First because he was terrible. I beat him 3 times out of 3 on my premade characters in full deadly. Second because his gear choice was totally different from real Akrios. And Third because he was trying to hard to prove that he was Akrios.
I played PTR a few days ago and all I can say about vanish is that besides being fixed it’s also a little too op. Mostly because I get to reopen with a bunch of bleeds/dots on me without timing it. Hopefully they don’t change any of those 3 possible changes you mentioned, because then I’d rather have my broken vanish than fixed one as well.
Comment by coolstorybro — October 8, 2009 @ 2:16 am
# Vanish: For the first half second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability.
Comment by Délilah — October 8, 2009 @ 3:53 am
I like his editing … and…. well that’s all
Comment by Voruc — October 8, 2009 @ 4:49 am
about vanish – they made 0.5sec immune:
“Vanish: For the first half second after this ability is used, neither Vanish nor Stealth can be broken by taking damage or being the victim of a hostile spell or ability.”
Comment by Deadlycuts — October 8, 2009 @ 7:19 am
p.s. not 1 second like it was posted here be4.
Comment by Deadlycuts — October 8, 2009 @ 7:20 am
Personaly, i think the vanish should be .2 second immunite, this would prevent instant abilites from knocking us out but still force us to time dots. I just like blinding rogues/saping rogues out of vanish too much to want a 1 second immunity. It would take alot of reflex and skill out of the game, especially in rogue vs rogue situations.
Comment by Jack — October 8, 2009 @ 10:00 am
sweet that’s right… its half second now.
Comment by coolstorybro — October 8, 2009 @ 12:36 pm
One thing you have to realize is if the immunity on vanish was only 0.5 seconds players with higher ping (us australians) may not even benefit from the change. We can’t all have low american ping, I for example play on 250-320.
Comment by Letszumba — October 8, 2009 @ 7:32 pm
There’s a Curse 3: Duel now published in WCM
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=127739
What I tried vanishing in PTR, I already got a cheap shot trough vanish the first time I did it, tbh I think it’s because of the 500ms in PTR but hopefully it’ll be balanced in live servers.
Comment by Deedlol — October 9, 2009 @ 3:59 am
Akrios would you be so kind as to update your wowarmory link with your avatar at the top right of the website? Thanks.
Comment by Usada — October 9, 2009 @ 1:53 pm
On the subject of 3.3 our t10 set bonuses
* 2 Pieces: (Updated) Your Tricks of the Trade ability now grants you 15 energy instead of costing energy.
* 4 Pieces: (Updated) Gives your melee finishing moves a 13% chance to add 3 combo points to your target.
Comment by JuliaSwift — October 9, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
How do you pronounce Akrios, anyway? How about the origin also?
Comment by Ack cree oos? — October 10, 2009 @ 8:37 am
ok first of all I don’t see our class being so over powered I mean yes we can dish out some dmg but not that much to some class’s (clothy’s and leather) but the thing is they will more then likely live through our dmg just as a plate would, not as good as a plate but still can get out long enough to counter us, also people don’t look at the fact that they can 2 shot us I mean after stunlock and vanish’s (if they even work) and cloak we are dead and in arena you have to be quick you can’t sit there and wait for your cd’s while your partner is fighting (unless you are 1v1 someone which more then likely they will just get eye mount up and hit you) Vanish isn’t intended for us to do quick opener’s which it is useful but it is to get away it’s our class we are rogue’s we should be able to get away easily, so my point is I don’t see us being dominant in pvp as blizzard think’s we are, and as for pve the vanish ability isn’t gonna help us get any better even though I don’t see us being that dominant in pve as well so my opinion the rogues are balanced xD at the moment and some of the other class’s need nerfed
Comment by Quickslash — October 11, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
yeah like ret pallys still havent figured out how we fight those
Comment by UNEMPOLOYMENT — October 11, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
yeah like ret pallys still havent figured out how we fight those
Comment by unemployment — October 11, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
Tier 10 2 piece set bonus are fucking lame.
Comment by Fluidride — October 11, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
If blizzard removes a vanish from prep I’m quitting the game.
Comment by Fluidride — October 11, 2009 @ 3:15 pm
Thought Akriso was bad? This kid tried to emulate you with everything.
http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=127931
Comment by CheckIt — October 11, 2009 @ 11:44 pm
well our tier 10 set looks sh1ty but atleast a ”new look” ?:)
Comment by Herfan — October 12, 2009 @ 3:46 am
This is very intriguing to me, to be quite honest. I messaged Akrios about 6 months ago and personally asked him for his approval to use his tribal design UI (from bc) and in all honesty i used that UI for about 6 months or so, before and after asking him. He said he didn’t mind at all. However because i’m in process of making a pvp video, i just simply can’t afford to have similar UI to his, especially if i showed it to the WoW public, which i will. So i reverted back to the blizzard UI, with a few changes. I developed my rogue skill and playstyle through Akrios but never wanted to immitate him. It’s very interesting to know there are many Akrios immitators. The reason behind me wanting to have the same UI was because i believe it looked amazing and different; quite aggressive, which reflected my playstyle.
Atleast i believe i had a legitimate reason for it
Anyway the vanish change is going to hurt us one way or another. with vanish removal of prep, debuff elsewhere etc etc. So i’m not too keen on this but we’ll see.
Comment by Septicflesh — October 12, 2009 @ 4:48 am
And WOW, watching COS PLAY of Akrios! atm. I can’t imagine the amount of hours spent on getting clips that pretty much completely copy not only the abilities and outcome of the original clips, but also the movement.
Comment by Septicflesh — October 12, 2009 @ 4:56 am
Hi, I thought your comments on WotLK raiding compared to BC raiding reflected my thoughts on the issue really well. The raiding in the current game doesn’t compare to anything that BC offered. Kara, Gruul, SSC, TK, BT were amazing raid instances with a feel about them that wrath hasn’t been able to emmulate.
I’m not really QQing about the game, I still love it. But the world (and I mean current content) doesn’t feel as dangerous as it did at the previous level caps. I think a big part of the missing atmosphere is due to the decreased skill level of the game (yes, being casual should not mean you don’t have skill and don’t enjoy challenging content!)… the tank n spank nature of the game combined with no need to CC raid mobs and abilities that make taking threat from the tank a near impossibility take the fear of screwing up a mob pull out of the equation. The lack of unique class utility means it is rare that we have a specialised role in a fight, and this goes for most classes. It’s these factors, not just the design of the instances, that really create that epic feeling of entering somewhere tuly dangerous and challenging.
Cheers : )
Comment by Dreadheart — October 12, 2009 @ 7:54 pm
Oh, and from a lore perspective you are spot on as well.
Comment by Dreadheart — October 12, 2009 @ 7:56 pm
Akrios had an Akrios look-a-like contest and came in 3rd. True story.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In all honesty if people are giving up their account information to some guy claiming to be Akrios without trying to verify anything … well … they deserve what they get.
Comment by Lajia — October 13, 2009 @ 8:01 pm
I think that for Vanish it should make you immune to aoe direct and pet damage…because vanish is a “imporved” form of stealth and really the only SOLID FORM defense that we have. It should not how ever make you immune to DOT and bleeds on you…because that would be really cheap… it defeats the purpose of locks mages etc to put dots on us if we can just vanish from 10 yards away run up and reopen. Vanish should work to get you out of trouble and “turn the tables” so to say in our favor.
An additional thing I have notice in my years of play is that I still don’t think blizzard has really noticed/realized the imbalance of defesive to offencive capabilities. And the Plate classes are my main concern. Example if a rogue and lets say a warrior were left to auto attack eachother the warrior would hands down win because of the huge disportionate balance of damage output to defensive capabilities. I am not saying that rogues should win with just auto attacks…that would be lame and skilless but it something that needs to be looked at.
And blizz is retarded rogues are definiatly not dominate right now in pvp or pve. i wonder if they even play the game theirselfs and take notes on what happens
As for the envenom thing I will have to try it. I was getting 12k evenom crits on bosses in ToC and the new Ony so i will have to see.
Comment by shadowmunger — October 19, 2009 @ 4:52 am