Blizzard updated World of Warcraft and the news is not good for compLexity fans
J.P. McDaniel breaks down the damage Patch 3.09 has done to the coL squad’s game and speaks with the players about the future.
Patch 3.09 was a welcomed patch by all WoW players. It solved the woes of all opponents facing off against Rogue / Mage. For CompLexity, it destroyed their team. Elliott ‘Venruki‘ Venczel had this to say on the topic:
“The thing that bugs/worries me the most is how much time we put into learning a new play style and then Blizzard randomly deciding to “fix” classes they felt were doing too much burst damage. It’s unfortunate that rogue/mage got nerfed when classes like Death Knights, Hunters, Ret Paladins and Feral Druids continue to consistently out DPS and still even occasionally out burst even the likes of an Arcane Mage.”
So for the CompLexity fans out there that don’t follow WoW too much, what exactly happened in the latest patch? Two things:
Mages: Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown. Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
Rogues: Mutilate damage will now do 20% increased damage against poisoned targets, down from 50%.
The composition that coL.WoW runs (Druid/Rogue/Mage) revolves around using their cooldowns (abilities with a reuse timer) to force the opposing team to use even more cooldowns and play defensively from the beginning of the match. After the initial burst (using Arcane Power and Presence of Mind, making an instant-cast Pyroblast do a ton of damage) the team would be ahead most of the time in cooldowns and can usually win the fight from here.
Now with nerfs to the damage of Mages and Rogues, they have to play the composition they’ve practiced with for so long trying to outlast the other team instead of playing aggressive from the start. The team has to find a way to open up kill opportunities without using cooldowns. Against Death Knight and Hunter teams this is almost impossible due to the defensive timers they have on such short cooldowns.
“My role hasn’t changed since the Patch; we just kill stuff slower so I die before we kill them. It doesn’t matter how good I am, if I’m focused without perfect peels I am dead once my trinket and Nature’s Swiftness [instant heal] are down. I am easily killed with a Death Knight’s pet using Gnaw [a stun] or a TnT proc from a hunter [random stun from the Explosive Shot ability]” said Alex ‘Sodah’ Ringe, Druid of coL.WoW.
Still even with the nerf to the team, Venczel looks to the future. “Germany will be interesting; no one can say for sure they’re going to win. With no tournament realm up right now it would be foolish for a team to assume they have an answer for everything.”
Speaking with the team they still have some tricks left in the bag. Hopefully come Germany they will have perfected these tricks and will be able to take a win home for their first tournament under the coL tag.