Forum post of the day: Pushback on Pushback
by Amanda Dean 
Aug 6th 2008 at 3:10AM
I remember the day that patch 2.3 was released. I got out of work at six PM as was stoked to get home and try some of the glorious improvements. I had a 25 minute commute then, north on I-15 right past the Las Vegas Strip. Usually by six most of the traffic had cleared and it was pretty smooth sailing- except that day. Some genius decided that it was a good idea to reduce the four-lane freeway to one. My left leg aching from working the clutch and blood pressure rising from impatience and a bit of road rage, it took me about an hour and a half to get home. I should be used to pushback though; I play a caster in WoW.Debigmacca of Aman'Thul believes that Wrath would be a good time to do away with spell pushback. His argument is based on the number of stuns, fears, and assorted other of immobilization effects that abound in the current state of the game. There was some agreement with the original poster that spell pushback is unnecessary as casters often quickly fall prey to melee DPS. There's only so much a trinket can do.
The abolition of pushback could potentially make classes more balanced. Even without pushback casters are still subject to silences and school lock outs, which have little effect on melee classes. Casters also have less armor to mitigate physical damage, though this is somewhat balanced by a lack of magic resistance in melee classes.
The thread had plenty of disagreement though, and the discussion got pretty heated. Some cited a frost mage's ability to rule the playing field and kite melee enemies while beating them senselessly with spells or the explosive damage of unmitigated pyroblasts. Without pushback all casters would become more powerful.
A change to abolish pushback would be seen as a PvP balancing act. In PvE groups casters feel the burn of this mechanic much less. A good tank will keep aggro and let the casters merrily heal and DPS away. Pushback is pretty frustrating when playing solo and there's noone to hold aggro.
Do you believe the time has come to lay pushback to rest?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums, Battlegrounds, Arena, Forum Post of the Day
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Reader Comments (Page 5 of 7)
dpoyesac Aug 6th 2008 12:19PM
"Ultimate" means 'final' or 'best'. "Penultimate" means 'next to final' or 'second best'.
If melee are the penultimate group, that means they are second-best. If "'Melee-Crafters' ... know their days are limited as being in the penultimate position" then that's exciting because it means we are moving up to the ultimate position! Which, of course, makes no sense in the context of Ilnara's original post...
Angus Aug 6th 2008 9:10AM
I'm a shaman.
My melee tree makes pushback very important. I have 1 interrupt and it is tied to my snare and only dot, plus it has a 6 sec CD and is on GCD. I have no way of getting into melee. (Don't say GW, it isn't even close to charge/stealth.)
Me offensive caster tree has no pushback resistance talented. Compare that to everyone else with 70% and it is painful.
My healing spec has pushback resistance. It also has no HoTs so every heal is open to an interrupt and pushback.
With all of these issues regarding pushback, I still have to say keep it. It is the melee's way of dealing with casters having an advantage until you get close. It evens things up.
Yes, if a melee gets a jump on you it is bad, but most casters gleefully forget the number of times they have ambushed some melee class at 36 yards or more and killed the melee before they ever got a hit in thanks to their kiting and unmitigated damage. These casters also tend to have things to reduce that melee damage and yet are fine with melee taking full damage from them.
I don't PVP much, but when I do I don't see casters being dominated by melee unless they are focused on, or just plain bad.
Redielin Aug 6th 2008 9:35AM
@ Ilnara:
Yeah, my spriest is shelved for arenas. For two reasons: 1) yep, spriest is no good at pvp at the moment. 2) Raiders want me in their raids for mana regen so I keep her specced for pve dps not pvp (ie no silence or imp fear bomb).
Now, as a rogue for pve my best dps is done with slice and dice while spamming my combo point moves (SS/backstab/mutilate/hemo) and stacking rupture and deadly poison. I use none of that for pvp, except the combo point stacking, and rupture on rogues.
So in response:
If my shadowpriest were a mage or a warlock (or specced discipline) I would play her in arenas more often, because I would have more trouble finding a raid slot and a better chance at pvp.
As a rogue, I have to "table my best dps spells" in order to stay in range. If I stood there and tried to keep slice and dice up all day instead of shivving crippling or hitting kidney shot how do you think I would do?
I think you miss the point of pvp. Pyroblast (except when POM pyroed), fireball, and scorch, for instance, have little place in pvp. They are for max pve dps. Same as slice and dice, backstab, and eviscerate. They are also for max pve dps. They have some usefulness for creative players (rank 1 fireball dot helpful for keeping stealth classes visible, rupture for the same reason, for instance). All classes have to completely change what they're doing.
Or if you prefer, we can get rid of spell pushback and give you warrior armor. Then, you can stand 0 yards from me and cast your scorch/fireball and I will stand there, stack hit, keep up slice and dice, rupture and evis once in awhile. Lets see who will win?
Offhand Aug 6th 2008 9:39AM
It's pretty funny that no one has pointed out why pushback even exists. You get a ranged attack over classes that NEED to be up next to you for any effect. Whether or not its balenced one way or the other is another issue.
No pushback? Sure, I'd like a 30 yard cheap shot. Sounds about right IMO
Ilnara Aug 6th 2008 10:28AM
We mentioned it, you just ignored it.. you can EASILY close on us in 2.5 seconds, thus most times, we only get off ONE of our MAIN damage spells before you're in our face hacking our noses off.
Nice try though.
Offhand Aug 6th 2008 11:33AM
So I suggest not casting the extremely mana efficient, ranged, high damage nuke and instead kite.
As was also mentioned earlier, I'm blowing all my combo points and half my energy just to get you to stay put. Shouldn't you be putting the same effort into keeping me away?
dpoyesac Aug 6th 2008 1:01PM
Melee needs to get close to casters. Casters need to STAY AWAY from melee. The equations are simple.
If kiting is too hard for most mages, priests, ele shammies etc. to learn I have no sympathy for em -- roll a ez-kite-mode class, like a hunter. But if casters don't have the built-in talents or skills to kite properly that's a different story entirely.
But, still: the big problem ISN'T spell pushback -- it's the difficulty casters have kiting melee. So IF melee/caster matchups really are imbalanced, buff insta-cast kiting spells, rather than taking away pushback.
Ikarus Aug 6th 2008 4:28PM
Cheepshot doesn't have a 36 yrd range? feels like it sometimes
Mazjin Aug 6th 2008 9:41AM
I think removing it altogether would be a bad idea, but adding some way to mitigate it would be excellent, maybe make resilience give a percentage chance to resist pushback? (seeing as it doesn't really affect pve)
mindmaster Aug 6th 2008 9:46AM
My only argument to the pushback mechanic has always been this: Melee damage is not interrupted by spell damage. So it's not about who is skilled but rather who is melee. Melee can literally sit in front of the caster making no attempt to evade anything if the caster even attempts to cast. Pushback itself would be fair, but not with the number of stuns and interrupts in this game. The concept doesn't even make sense from an rp standpoint because one would think after a mage or priest had been adventuring for oh.. 60 seasons they probably would have figured out how to cast under focused fire.
As it stands now melee or uninterruptable ranged (hunter) are completely favored in pvp. I'm not saying melee shouldn't be challenging but right now if you play a caster and aren't a disc priest you pretty much can just go afk and enjoy your free ride to the graveyard. That's a just little too extreme.
Asa Aug 6th 2008 9:58AM
And casters can literally stand 35-40 yards away and cast 2-4k dmg spells without so much as being farted on. It swings both ways.
Zali Aug 6th 2008 11:01AM
@ Asa:
Yes, but it takes 3 seconds to fire off that shot. And if you're lucky you won't get charged and have your spell interupted.. or blinded, or silenced, or whatever. You get that 2K shot off... but you better make it count cuz its the last one you'll get.
Cougar3429 Aug 6th 2008 10:04AM
Anyone play EverQuest? One hit completely interrupted any spell cast regardless of how far along the cast was.
Spell pushback is annoying, but nothing is more OP or imbalanced than stun. REMOVING STUN FROM THE GAME. It completely eliminates any skill needed and has gotten so far out of hand it needs to be gone. It's ridiculous...and I don't even play a caster.
Aeo Aug 6th 2008 10:14AM
Have to say that I agree here on this matter...Spell pushback either needs a major reduction/diminishing returns, or taken out all together...as a healing priest now (also have a 70 lock I pvp'd with before I rolled priest, and no way would I go into BGs w/o instant Howl of Terror) its almost as if my talent into Healing Focus becomes null and void when the Grim Reapers (I.E. rogues) come around.
Granted I’m not trying to do any dmg, I basically have to pray I live long enough to Fear (Which they either resist or trinket out of, forget trying this on a warrior), Bubble, PoM and Renew myself while, in most cases, follow it up with spam flash heals on myself. This is all while trying to make sure I’m spinning around enough that they cant get behind me again, till someone comes to help....and all that rogue is basically doing is auto attacking making spell pushback and throwing in OP stuns that last until he can stun me again...(which in my opinion is not a stun with the length of time it lasts...its more of an incapacitate, even more so when they follow it up with kidney shot) and don't get me started on that long as crap crippling, mind numbing poisons.
A stun shouldn’t last more than 3 seconds….5-6 with talents imo. Dazing should be done with altogether.
Tweaking down or taking this mechanic out would make playing a priest somewhat better knowing that I at least have a chance to outlive the rogues/warriors attacks that much longer and can rely more on my own spells and not gimmicky trinkets that are negated almost immediately after using them.
P.S….give priests some form of poison removal, even if its self only. Never heard tale of a priest that couldn’t cure poison till I came to wow lol, that’s just dumb. Most powerful healing class can’t take off the most basic of inflictions. Priests should be able to cure all with other healing classes specializing in a certain area of curing.
And dwarves don’t count with their racial, because A) alliance not for the win and B) I don’t like dwarves.
turkeyspit Aug 6th 2008 10:29AM
So many bad players in this game lol...
- Remove spell pushback
and then you can
- allow Spells to be Dodged / Parried / Blocked
- allow Armor to Mitigate the damage of spells
- apply Diminishing Returns to all DoTs, Debuffs, Slows, Stuns/Movement Impairments
From what i'm reading here, it seems like casters have a hard time dealing with Rogues.
Rogues are OP in PvP, or didn't you people know this?
LOL..so many bad players..
loladin Aug 6th 2008 11:01AM
two things,
one: to all the people who keep quoting 70% puchback resistance "from talents" I don't see this number anywhere. Oh, you mean priests? that is only healing... Arcane missles only for arcane mage. Nothing for frost mages... ect. Please check this stuff twice before quoting the numbers if you don't play the class.
two: There is a nice mage talent called icy veins. This is low enough in the frost tree that any mage spec can pick it up. This talented spell gives haste and 100% pushback immunity. Judging by the things that you all have said in these posts pushback immunity would make caster overpowered and unstoppable in WoW. Yet mages are not. I know because I play one. Also, I have never seen anyone crying about how OP Icy Veins is in pvp.
(yes i know it can be purged or spellstolen or arcane shotted away, but still)
Wulf Aug 6th 2008 10:27AM
Personally I'd like to see it removed for PvE rather than PvP reasons. I've had my 70 shaman specced Elemental for the last year and i love it, but come Wrath I know i'll be respeccing to enhancement to level up because of pushback. At the moment I can kill most 70 mobs okay before they get into melee range with me, but not all, and when they do its a pain in the arse, you just have to wait through ridiculously longed pushbacked casts, or just shock every 6 seconds. Once that changes to fighting mobs higher than myself in Wrath it simply won't be feasbile.
Ultimately I'd like to see pushback reduced in severity, or removed and replaced with some much more minor inconvenience. It does make sense to have some penalty for a caster to be being hit in melee, but the current mechanic can be crippling.
Zali Aug 6th 2008 10:32AM
Right now druids have Barkskin, which doesn't provide 100% mitigation of spell pushback, and is only really useful for casting before a tranquility spell or hurricane.
Spell Pushback is by far the single most destructive force for a caster. I wouldn't even argue that spell pushback has to go all the way away, but would be happy if, like roots, had the ability to be talented away. In Balance I can give myself a 100% chance to avoid interuption on Roots. I'd be happy to give up five points somewhere to give myself a 100% chance to avoid spell pushback on Wrath or Starfire spells. I'd be happy to spend 300G on an Inscription to help me avoid pushback on spells.
Aeo Aug 6th 2008 10:38AM
@Cougar3429
..yes i came to wow from EQ and i actually wish spells were handled more like they were on there than in wow....atleast in EQ u could cast though stuns w/o interruption (via AAs) and your casting would not actually stop or be pushed back when u were getting hit by melee attacks...they would however stop when u were *STUNNED* and i mean a real stun (paladins come to mind), that stuns u just for a moment not the OP lock methods of rogues.
EQ really was more about skill, with gear coming in at a close close second but the balance issues made it impossible and unfair for pvp regardless (even with pvp being as borked as it was in that game towards the later expansions, laughable in most cases no balance whatsoever..forget even trying as an enchanter with as many stuns as we had, level caps on the stuns, resistances, and not being able to charm people made it impossible...and mezzing...LOL, right. and DPS...well if you played EQ, you know where enchanters are on DPS, scraping the bottom with clerics)
But also keep in mind EQ didnt have a whole lot of instant spells like wow (most were AAs that i came across, i played a raiding enchanter and a cleric), that also makes a huge difference.
Brian Aug 6th 2008 12:05PM
All casters should be able to talent up to 70% resistance but totally removing pushback would be totally unfair to classes without many stuns and interupts. ex. BM hunter. I only get 1 stun every minute. My only defense against casters is the fact that between my pet and I, we can hit more than twice a second.