Think about a mage. What is the first thing that comes to your mind? (Apart from our general awesomeness and brilliance of course.)
Probably you’ll say something about "squishy". You think of someone who for some strange reason thinks that a think silk gown is an appropriate way to dress when you’re about to face a big evil dragon. You imagine someone who is so vulnerable that he or she will die instantly if the monster as much as look in their direction.
We’re supposed to be fragile, not to say suicidal. If there’s anything in the game that we’re good at, it’s to die quickly. We’re the Masters of Corps Runs.
Now is the time to inform you that you’ve got the wrong picture. As a matter of fact I’ve recently become more and more annoyed with my inability to die.
While we've been struggling with Sartharion + 3d, it happens all the time that wipes are called for different reasons. We've lost a tank, we've lost too many healers and there's no point in continuing. It’s standard procedure that the RL will order us to die ASAP in order not to lose precious raiding time to a futile attempt.
And this is when my usually so weak mage for some reason suddenly becomes surrounded by some sort of magical shield, making her more or less impossible to kill. (And mind you, I’m not a frost mage!) I plunge into fire walls, I look all over the place for void zones, I wave at the add elements and dragon whelps, begging them to make the procedure short. No result. I end up chasing Sartharion himself, begging him to kill me out of pity. And as one of the last persons in the raid I’m finally allowed to release and run.
What kind of a joke isn’t that? Where is all that survivability when you actually need it?
Probably you’ll say something about "squishy". You think of someone who for some strange reason thinks that a think silk gown is an appropriate way to dress when you’re about to face a big evil dragon. You imagine someone who is so vulnerable that he or she will die instantly if the monster as much as look in their direction.
We’re supposed to be fragile, not to say suicidal. If there’s anything in the game that we’re good at, it’s to die quickly. We’re the Masters of Corps Runs.
Now is the time to inform you that you’ve got the wrong picture. As a matter of fact I’ve recently become more and more annoyed with my inability to die.
While we've been struggling with Sartharion + 3d, it happens all the time that wipes are called for different reasons. We've lost a tank, we've lost too many healers and there's no point in continuing. It’s standard procedure that the RL will order us to die ASAP in order not to lose precious raiding time to a futile attempt.
And this is when my usually so weak mage for some reason suddenly becomes surrounded by some sort of magical shield, making her more or less impossible to kill. (And mind you, I’m not a frost mage!) I plunge into fire walls, I look all over the place for void zones, I wave at the add elements and dragon whelps, begging them to make the procedure short. No result. I end up chasing Sartharion himself, begging him to kill me out of pity. And as one of the last persons in the raid I’m finally allowed to release and run.
What kind of a joke isn’t that? Where is all that survivability when you actually need it?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could be given a suicidal spell to be able to finish our lives on short notice when needed? That wouldn’t really count as OP, would it? And if not, why not let the alchemists come up with something? Let us make a lethal potion for suicidal purposes. Honestly, I think there’s a market for it.
17 comments:
Let it be a first aid recipe, with the ingredients being the rogue poisons you can buy from the vendors. I say first aid needs more recipes, and this way everyone can craft them for themselves. Make it an alchemy potion if necessary, but I'd still love to make something with rogue poisons as a reagent.
Heck, you could even make them somewhat expensive, with the caveat that you won't take durability damage from dying this way. Of course, that's pretty bad for tanks... they've got the highest repair bills AND are often the first to die in a wipe situation.
Of course, Blizzard won't ever do anything like that, I mean, what kind of message does it send to people when your character can craft (and might actually earn money selling) assisted-suicide potions?
Though the game already teaches us things like "it's perfectly okay to kill yourself as long as you're naked" and this isn't too much worse I suppose.
This is one of the reasons that I wish classes weren't completely separate, but were instead almost like specs of a core class. So with this, you could be a slightly more reckless mage and get hellfire, or self-living bomb.
You're doing it wrong. See the problem is that you are tying to kill yourself and that cuts against the grain of the game: the monsters are supposed to kill you. The best way for them to kill you is by drawing their attention. They best way to do that is to cast a big nasty spell that says, "you'd better kill me before I kill you." That's the way u do it.
I will say this, my mage has 100% more survival in cloths than druid in leather. If you really want to draw arrgo, cast a heal. In this sense, DPS are in their own little world. The real battle over arrgo is between the tank and the healer. 9/10 times when the tank loses arrgo it's the healer that's gonna get hit, not the DPS. And that's why you find it so hard to die. Truthfully, the boss doesn't give a damn abut you.
Two things. If you are on Sarth and the call wipe, the door is not that far. Invis, blink and run out. Save yourself repair bills.
If you are really just wanting to die, frost nova some mobs and stand in the middle of them. If they cant hit the highest aggro, they hit what is nearest.
I like the idea of Suicide being trainable under first aid, but it should be taught by a NPC named Kevorkian, or there should be a Kevorkian achievment title for assisting with other's suicides.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
funnily enough, paladins have a suicide spell =X
You may need a suicide spell for other content. But Sarth the door is right their. Put wings to your heels and run or duck into a portal and hide from sarth. All you need is too survive 15 or seconds either way, until sarth resets. My record I actually managed to keep my food till it wore off.
@Kiryn: that’s not a bad idea to be honest! I’ve got a rogue and I think combining rogue shade dealing with first aid is pretty cool. About the message: yeah, I don’t think you should worry too much about it. There’s quite a lot of normal behavior in the game that you wouldn’t want to see in real life…
@Klepsacovic: oh yes! Another use for living bomb, assisting everyone in the raid in committing suicide! Not a bad idea either!
@DeftyJames: but isn’t it odd that I can be pretty high up on the aggro list during the fight, but that when it comes to wiping, this position miraculously seems to be gone and I get an invulnerability ability….
@Darraxus: I have managed to flee a couple of times, but not too often. Frost nova isn’t a bad idea, I should try that.
@Anonymous: Keverokian??? Don’t quite follow….
@HP: OP.
@Ngita: well done! But yeah, Sarth was just an example. There have been other fights when I’ve wished for such a spell.
@Larisa
The arrgo list (really, the threat list; arrgo and threat are related but not the same concept) is not an absolute list but a relative one. Your placement on the list is based upon your actions relative to what other players are doing. When a wipe is called for, player behavior changes drastically versus a normal fight. Mage threat tends to be threat generated over time; they have very few weapons to generate a high level of threat quickly. Tanks and healers have many ways to generate a lot of threat quickly either via taunts (tanks) or via direct healing (for example, the Druid's Healing Touch spell generates a huge amount of threat.)
I suspect that what is happening is that during a normal fight off tanks and healers are actively managing threat (they should be at any rate) so as not to take threat away from the main tank. This makes your mage's threat appear larger than it actually is. But when a wipe is called for, these players go hog wild and your true inability to generate threat is revealed.
I understand that this may seem counterintuitive to you given the reputation mages have as "glass cannons". Just remember that all threat is relative to what other players are doing and has no meaning outside that context. Unless you have played them, and tried to do it, you would be amazed how much threat other classes can generate if they wanted to. It's just that typically, in a normal fight, they don't want to because it's counter productive.
Flame breath, cleave, adds, thunderclap (not about sarth)..
just rtt usually does the trick :)
@Larisa: Kevorkian was a doctor in the States who was infamous for assisted-suicide with the elderly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevorkian
Your responding, does it mean you're back from Winterspring? I hope you had fun.
@Lily: hm... I bet I could make it if I was a bit more cleaver. But admit that a suicide spell would fill a void!
@Klepsacovic: yep! I'm back. The last few gold spam comments are gone, the bar is open. Come and share your stories about what's happened in Azeroth during my absense... :)
@Defty James: thanks for your explanation on aggro. This was new to me. Much appreciated!
Welcome back from your trip - hope it was a very lovely one :)
as for suicide spell - maybe we need a taunt for just such occasion? I don't play my mage nearly enough but on my hunter - I have a shot that draws attention to me no matter what and on my shammy - I can always try and use frost shock :P
if all else fails - you can always just sit in lava :P
I only wold consider suicide if the process includes some mighty powerful and/or visual attractive effect :-)
For sartarion....Invisibility and run to the entrance door save some golds... and I really love when rogues argue that they been robbed of her "unique" dismiss ;-)
The only probably with suiciding on 3d is that you need to do in such a way so it doesnt pollute the how you died stats when they are looking at to see how many people got hit by a wall. chasing after sarth seems to be the best way ( and the most immediate when you get their attention)
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