Daze of our lives: The continuing story
Remember back at the end of June when Drysc said that Daze was working as intended? Drysc said that since your base defense skill reduced the chance of getting Dazed, you should try to keep it maxed.
He also said we just perceived that we were getting Dazed more in Outland for a variety of reasons including that we ran into more same level or higher mobs in Outland than on Azeroth. Mike called this a "little shaky". It seems that the programmers thought so too, looked into the mechanics a bit deeper and lo and behold we have this note in Patch 2.2:
Daze: Defense skill will no longer reduce the chance players have to receive the Daze effect when attacked from behind by enemies.
Bunnies (female Gnome, of course) called out Drysc on the forums to explain the descrepancy. Happily, Drysc took the challenge:
Shortly after that write up, and due to us going back through the code, the programmers found that a character's defense as a whole was being taken in to account, and not just their base defense as intended. It was definitely our mistake in only looking at what values are taken into account when calculating daze, and not how those values are generated. They're separate bits of code in different locations, so it wasn't easily or immediately apparent.
Drysc went on to explain:
The intention of the mechanic isn't that it punishes some classes or specs more than others, you shouldn't be punished more than someone else because you chose to play a priest instead of a warrior. The complaints that the mechanic was not working correctly and had increased or changed in the expansion is the only reason we investigated the mechanic further, and found an issue that we're now correcting.
So, wait... We complained we were getting Dazed more in Outland, they looked into it and discovered that, in fact, some classes weren't getting Dazed enough?
Drysc is right: Daze is a very unpopular mechanic. He also reiterated what he said back in June -- that it is intended that caution be used when pulling, fighting around the potential of adds and running through dangerous territory.
But Haughty (female Blood Elf, of course) pointed out what I think is going to be the biggest and worst ramification of this "fix": Tanks will be getting Dazed more often, possibly losing aggro to the healer.
Drysc responded that yes, tanking will be harder and that they will be keeping an eye on that. He offers these tips:
However, there are easy ways to adapt, such as simply moving backwards or sideways. Then there are abilities such as a warrior's intervene which can help gain some extra ground. Some fights that require quick and sometimes "long-distance" repositioning, such as Prince Malchezaar, will likely require some adaptation.
Good tanks are already hard to find and now they are going to have to adjust their skills and tactics to adapt to this change.
Do you think the Daze change is going to make a big difference? Or is the whole thing being blown out of proportion?
