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OFFENSIVE DISPELS
OFFENSIVE DISPELS INTRO
This course will teach you the value of offensive dispels. So if you think dispels are worthless because they do zero damage, or if you think they're only good at countering druid, well think again man.
Dispelling is widely misunderstood and undervalued as a whole. If your class has an offensive dispel, you have an enormous advantage in arena, and we're going to prove it in this course.
GAME KNOWLEDGE CHECK
Really quick though, we have a gladiator question for you. What is the only caster DPS in the game without an offensive dispel?
Almost every caster has one, but who's missing out? If you answered Balanced Druid, you're right.
Even Warlocks have a dispel with their pet, but unfortunately, Boomkins don't have anything. Let's start off by looking at how a 1600 rated team manages dispels on enemy offensive cooldowns.
Here you can see our Warlock Shadow Priest team against an Enhanced Shaman and Ret Paladin. A super important cooldown has been used.
Can you spot it? If we look at the buffs on both the Paladin and the Shaman, they both have Bloodlust.
Some of you smart viewers already know that Shamans can lust an arena using the Shamanism PvP talent. Though the damage during Bloodlust is threatening, it can be dispelled.
And that brings us to another one of our patented gladiator knowledge questions. How many dispels does our Warlock Shadow Priest have to remove Bloodlust?
Think about this for a second because it might be slightly tricky. If you said two, well, count again.
We have Dispel Magic and Mass Dispel from the Priest with Devour Magic from the Warlock's Fel Hunter and the tricky one, Arcane Torrent on the Priest since they are playing Blood Elf. So that gives us three instant cast dispels to remove this Bloodlust.
So let's see what our 1600 team does. Unfortunately, neither the Warlock or the Priest used their dispels.
And since the Paladin only had one buff, it would have been a guaranteed removal of the Pali. While our team didn't take that much damage from Bloodlust here, a higher rated team, could have easily punished our 1600 players with Bloodlust damage.
And if we move on to a later stage in the match, let's see if our Warlock Priest team has learned their lesson and is able to find their Dispel keybindings this time. As you can see, Bloodlust is about to be off cooldown.
But wait, how did I know that? The Warlock doesn't have any add-ons showing the cooldown of Lust.
Once again, our smartest viewers might know what I'm looking at. If we pay attention to the Shaman's debuffs, you can see the Doomwinds debuff on the Shaman.
When this debuff is up, it means the Shaman can't use their Doomwinds. Because the debuff lasts for a while, it's not a good sign that the Shaman can't use their Doomwinds.
Because the debuff lasts one minute, and because Shamans will line up Doomwinds with Bloodlust, you can look at the Doomwinds debuff to see when both their Doomwinds and Bloodlust is coming off CD. As you can see, with Doomwinds about to fade, the Shaman will have Bloodlust available again.
This time though, our Warlock has sacked their pet, meaning it is up to the Priest in order to Dispel. But unfortunately, just like the opener, neither the Ret Paladin or the Enhanced Shaman get their Lust removed.
Fortunately, our team does a good job kiting them, or else this could have been a huge disaster. Now let's check out a rank.
Let's go to rank 1 player and see just how quickly they respond to Bloodlust. As you can see by the Shaman's auras, they don't have the Doomwinds debuff, meaning Bloodlust is likely available.
And with our Warlock's Devour Magic coming off CD, it's up to our rank 1 players to quickly Dispel Lust. And here we can see what we have been waiting for.
Bloodlust has been used by the Shaman, and since the Priest doesn't have any buffs to cover the Dispel, our Warlock will easily be able to use Devour Magic. We should also quickly note how powerful it is to Dispel as a Warlock, because you can do it even while casting other spells, since it is a pet ability.
Pay really close attention to the Priest's buffs now. Instantly, the Bloodlust gets removed by our rank 1 Warlock, reducing the pressure that the Shadow Priest would be able to do.
Think of your Dispel as a pseudo-defensive cooldown. Instead of needing to pop a major defensive to react to enemy CDs, you can simply press an instant cast spell to dramatically reduce the damage you're taking.
Speaking of Bloodlust, we have a Gladiator question for you. Say the Shadow Priest gets dots up while they have Bloodlust.
Those dots will be ticking faster, right? But what happens to the dots if Bloodlust gets dispelled?
Are they still ticking as fast as they used to? Are they still as fast as they did when they had the Lust buff?
Maybe you don't know this, but no. When you Dispel a buff like Bloodlust, Power Infusion, or Dark Soul, the dots on the target will immediately change back to their normal damage.
This is why dispelling damage buffs is so important versus dot classes. The only exception to this is Feral Druid bleeds.
They snapshot their damage with Tiger's Fury and Blood Talons. Other damage increases like Adaptive Swarm and Savage Roar are dynamic and act like other damage increases.
HIGH PRIORITY DISPELS
But Bloodlust isn't the only important dispellable buff you should be looking out for. Really quickly, here is a short list of the most important dispellable offensive CDs you might encounter in Arena.
Bloodlust is one of them, but so is Power Infusion from Priests, Dark Soul from Warlocks, Combustion from Fire Mages, Arcane Power from Arcane Mages, and Icy Veins or Ice Form from Frost Mages.
Combustion is probably the most important dispellable buff on this list, and we have covered it many times throughout our videos this season. And it's for a really good reason, since it is arguably one of the best offensive cooldowns in the game.
Keeping Fire Mages dispelled throughout the game will allow you to dispel their combustion as quickly as possible and will dramatically reduce their pressure. Here we will see how a rank 1 Shadow Priest pre-dispels a Fire Mage in order to make it easier to remove combustion.
If we look at the cooldown bar below, you will see that Combustion is about to be off CD. Recognizing this, our Shadow Priest starts spam dispelling the Mage's buffs.
The Mage will try and cover the combust with shields, but our Shadow Priest will constantly mash Dispel. If we look at the cooldown bar below, you will see that Combustion is about to be off CD.
If we look at the cooldown bar below, you will see that Combustion is about to be off CD. If we look at the Mage's buffs when they pop Combustion, you can see that they still have some shields to cover their buff.
And with our Paladin stuck in a Polymorph and our Mage counterspelled, it is up to our Shadow Priest to dispel the combustion. To instantly reduce pressure, our Shadow Priest AoE Fears and continues mashing Dispel until the combustion is removed.
He is also able to remove the Hot Streak buff in the process, preventing the Mage from using an instant cast Pyroblast. And with this Dispel usage, our Priest is able to instantly shut down the Mage's damage.
And with this Dispel usage, our Priest is able to instantly shut down the Mage's damage.
ANOTHER GAME KNOWLEDGE CHECK
And speaking of mages, we have another gladiator question. Without looking it up, what do the three mage barriers do?
Of course, they all absorb damage, but what other effects do they have? Well, Blazing Barrier will deal damage to melee when it's hit, Ice Barrier will reduce movement speed to melee, and Prismatic Barrier reduces the duration of harmful magic like dots and CCs by 25%.
If it wasn't clear by now, it's super important to dispel barriers. With that in mind, let's see how a 1400 rated player handles dispels against a fire mage, and this time they have found themselves in a 1v1 situation against another fire mage, so dispelling barriers is going to be huge for this duel.
As you can see, our mage has just landed a full counterspell on the enemy mage's arcane tree. If we look at the mage's buffs, they have all of their barriers available.
Now, if we kleptomania all of their shields, they won't be able to steal them back since they are locked on arcane. On top of that, we have meteor to do big bursts and we still have our ice block to fall back on.
Unfortunately, our 1400 mage hesitates a bit, and instead of spell stealing all of their shields, they can't steal them back.
So instead of using all of their shields, they will use their meteor into the mage with full shields, and as you can see, the meteor basically did nothing because most of its damage was absorbed by the shields.
Even though our mage had the high ground with the polymorph CS, they failed to capitalize by instantly dispelling the shields and bursting. This allowed the mage to live, even though we probably could have procced cauterize on the shieldless mage.
Later on in the game, our mage will find himself in another advantage state, having the enemy mage low while ice block is on cooldown. Now let's see if he is able to use his dispel properly and finish out the game.
If we pay attention to the enemy mage's buffs, you can see that they have combustion and a barrier that can be dispelled. If our mage is able to dispel both of these, they will be able to reduce damage while turning around pressure with the enemy's own combustion.
Once again though, they failed to capitalize on this, allowing the enemy mage to get full value out of their combustion. Our 1400 player does force the cauterize, but only after trading ice block in the process.
If they would have instantly stolen the combustion and barrier, they probably could have ended the game right here. Now let's see how a rank 1 team uses their offensive dispels to remove shields in order to burst an enemy fire mage.
Once again, by removing shields, you will do significantly more damage while also being able to quickly remove combustion when it's used. Here you can see the enemy fire mage has just used their barriers, and with each barrier absorbing several thousand hp, the mage basically has a second health bar.
And instead of damaging through the shields, our rank 1 team will spam dispel the mage's barriers. If you think about it this way, each dispel on shield is effectively dealing 6k damage, so if you dispel 1 shield per second, you are dealing 6k dps.
If you are able to dispell the shield on shield, you are dealing 6k dps. And as you can see, this winds up paying off, as our rank 1 team is able to force cauterize from the mage simply by mashing dispels to remove barriers.
The value of a dispel against fire mages with shields is often greater than the value of any other damaging ability you can press.
ALTERNATIVES TO DISPELLING
At this point I know what some of you are thinking. What if I don't have a dispel?
What should I do against buffs like Combustion? Well, luckily you probably have a CC or interrupts.
So the next best thing you can do is either CC targets during their damage or interrupt their spells to prevent them from getting value from their cooldowns. Here we see an enemy fire mage use Combustion right after counterspelling our rank 1 mage on Polymorph.
This means that our mage won't be able to instantly dispel Combustion so they are completely screwed, right? Well, not so fast.
Because they immediately use their Panda Ratio on the mage to shut down some of the pressure from Combust. That's right, even something like Panda Ratio can be used to shut down damage, acting like a pseudo-dispel for the duration of its CC.
So even if you don't have a dispel on your team, you should still use your CC options to shut down enemy damage during their important CDs. Interrupting spell casts is another alternative to reduce pressure when dispels aren't available.
Using kicks on Shadow Priests with Power Infusion, Warlocks with Dark Soul, or mages with Combustion act as a pseudo-dispel for their damage. As you can see here, the enemy mage has used Combustion, and with our priest stuck in Polymorph, we don't have any dispels available.
On top of that, the mage gets Power Infusion, but makes a small mistake by casting Scorch. Our Paladin quickly interrupts this, and now the mage is locked on fire, shutting down the damage they would be able to do with Combustion.
So even when you don't have an offensive dispel available, you should look for workarounds like CC and interrupts in order to reduce the pressure from enemy CDs. And there you have it!
By learning to use your offensive dispel more, not only will you be able to reduce damage on your team by dispelling important enemy CDs, but you will also be able to deal more damage by getting rid of things like shields and hots that prevent you from getting pressure.
By incorporating more offensive spells into your gameplay, we guarantee that you will start winning more games. As always, thanks for watching, and see you soon.