dazed
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Patch 3.3 PTR: Easing the curve for beginners
The patch 3.3 PTR notes are out, and the most interesting thing to me, after just a first look, is that Blizzard is making some serious tweaks to the level 1-10 experience, of all things. Dazed is getting changed a bit -- characters from levels 1-5 will be completely immune, while characters 6-10 will have a much lower chance of getting slowed down. Health and mana regeneration at the lower levels is being increased (mana costs on the lower levels of spells are also being decreased, though we're not sure yet which spells are being changed and what the difference is). The default equipment is being tweaked, and most notably, rogues will start out right away with dual wield and two daggers do it with.
Daze of our lives, starring Drysc
Drysc has laid out the science on exactly how Daze works. When we all first entered Outland, it seemed like mobs were Dazing us left and right, but it wasn't really clear why or how it happened. Now, months later, Drysc says they've gone over the Daze code again, and it really is "working as intended."Daze, he says, is based on a character's base defense rating as compared to a mob's base attack skill. The standard Daze rating is 20% (so if you're facing a mob of equal level and your defense rating hasn't been increased, then a hit from behind should daze you 1/5 of the time), and it goes up or down from there from 0 to 40%. Characters below level 30, interestingly enough, have a much reduced chance to be dazed (it's almost impossible for a level 1 character to be dazed by an equal level mob), in order to make the game easier when players first begin playing.The reason Drysc gives for us seeing it more in Outland is a little shaky-- he says there weren't many actual level 60 mobs in Azeroth, and there are now quite a few level 70 (and higher) mobs in Outland, which means a fully leveled character will be dazed more. Finally, the reason, he says, for Daze in the first place is that they don't want to make it "safe" to randomly run through a group of mobs. "A cautious and alert player," he says, "is less likely to be dazed than one who is haphazard and careless."My only problem with that is that I get dazed more not when I'm trying to run away from characters (I understand I'm going to be penalized when I sloppily run through a group of mobs), but when I get jumped while fighting. Should the same penalty apply when a single add jumps me from behind? And while we're at it, shouldn't being mounted lower the chance of getting dazed as well? Having a flying mount has made serious dazing tragedies much less common, but for characters still on ground mounts, shouldn't being mounted protect them a little more than being on foot?
Dazed ***** and con******fused in Outland
Have you noticed how sticky the mobs are in Outland? Just traveling from place to place is like running a gauntlet, even on the roads. And don't even bother leaving the roads unless you're ready for a fight-- right below Hellfire Citadel, those Orcs swarm like bees. Get hit once, get dazed, and before you know it, you'll have attracted three or four of them on you. Likewise, in Zangarmarsh, the problem is even worse-- pull a Sentry, and he'll pull a Naga, who'll pull a slave, so on and so forth. Just last night, I fought off eight mobs in a row, just because they kept pulling and pulling each other.Andrael on Shadowsong has noticed, too, that there's a whole lot of dazin' goin' on in Outland, but Drysc says everything is working as intended (and even throws in an "l2p, noob" tone for good measure). It's not necessarily a bad problem-- I play the game to fight stuff, and the more XP, the merrier. But it's not even a problem of levels, as Drysc suggests-- at 62, I was constantly pulling aggro from two or three 60-61s at a time. Nothing I couldn't handle, it's just ***** annoy****ing *****.And if Blizzard's idea of making mobs harder is to add to the chances of getting Dazed by every one (usually, you get dazed only when getting hit from behind, but when mobs aggro like they do in Outland, it happens a lot), they need to come up with something new, because all the stars floating around my head are getting a little old. There's no strategy in being slowed down when you get jumped, it's just something you have to deal with. But then again, there's one surefire way around it: as a couple players in the thread note, you can't get Dazed on a flying mount.
