Camouflage was introduced as the level 85 ability in Cataclysm. It has one of the coolest visuals in the game, better than stealth, but it is one of the more underused abilities. Warlords of Draenor is introducing perks that “buff” the ability such that it will have real applications in PvP and PvE.
Based on some comments and conversations there seems to be concerns over whether this ability will be overpowered. I alluded to this yesterday, although my worries centered around Survival and the possibility that combining it with other healing effects like Exhilaration would make it too good. More on that in a minute, but first let’s take a look at the Camouflage ability and how it will work in Warlords of Draenor.
You blend into your surroundings, causing you and your pet to be untargetable by ranged attacks. Also reduces the range at which enemy creatures can detect you, and provides stealth while stationary.
You can lay traps while camouflaged, but any damage done by you or your pet will cancel the effect. If cast while in combat, lasts for 6 sec. Otherwise, lasts for 1 min.
The important thing to note is the in-combat versus out-of-combat duration, there’s a big difference here. Out of combat the duration is one minute, but during combat it’s six seconds. The effect is also breaks when the Hunter does damage or if the Hunter takes damage. The risk of taking damage is mitigated by being untargetable by ranged attacks, although the Hunter is still susceptible to damage from melee attacks.
This is how Camo works now, and it’s not changing for 6.0. It will benefit from the new perks, and that will change how Hunters use this ability in Warlords.
The two perks that affect Camo are Enhanced Camouflage and Improved Camouflage. Enhanced is available to all specs, while Improved is for Survival only.
What this means is you’ll definitely want a keybind for Camo and be prepared to use it when you need some healing. Survival Hunters really benefit from this as they can continue do damage, as well as get healed while taking damage. Remember too, that if you stay stationary you will be stealthed which is nice for PvP.
In combat the most that Hunter will heal himself for is 30%, because the duration is only six seconds. Out of combat the Hunter will heal a lot more, so it has potential as nice way to heal up after a fight.
Camo isn’t just affected by perks though. The cooldown can be reduced by Readiness (the new stat) making it usable more frequently. It can be used with Deterrence, and it can be used with Disengage and the Glyph of Liberation and Exhilaration for additional healing. The Glyph of Camouflage also allows you to be in stealth while moving.
It’s not clear what combination of abilities will be best to use with Camo, but there are many options. The big question is, are these healing combinations overpowered?
Bendak from Eyes of the Beast replied with some good arguments to allay those fears.
@TheBrewHall It’s a strong combo, but spirit bond would also heal you for 12% during that time (they nerfed each tick to 2%).
— Bendak (@BendakWoW) April 15, 2014
@TheBrewHall Also worth noting Exhilaration was nerfed to 22%
— Bendak (@BendakWoW) April 15, 2014
@TheBrewHall So it seems they nerfed both healing talents to help make room for the camo heal
— Bendak (@BendakWoW) April 15, 2014
Camouflage needed a change, and Blizzard has found a way to keep it as it is, but make it better by building in synergy with talents, perks, glyphs and other abilities. The utility of Camouflage in Warlords in Draenor is tremendous, and is one of the nicer changes coming in Warlords.
I assume the remaining duration of Camo will be adjusted when entering combat.Otherwise, an SV hunter would have almost 60 secs of DPS (+ lots of healing) while being untargetable and invisible, which might be a bit unfair in PvP.
In any case, we’re looking at lots of self-healing which can certainly make hunter-only raids interesting 🙂
It will be interesting to do some stopattacks/cancelcasts with them. Will FeignDeath work in PvP? We can currently do two interesting things: 1) Have the pet attack while we’re in camo and we stay in camo. 2) We can FD and then camo until we get back in combat. These will have interesting implications with the perks.
When we camouflage so does our pet and I assume its camouflage duration is the same as ours. With the glyph it might be possible for SV to have a stealthed pet attacking enemies for up to 60 secs.
Camouflage might also make SV pets the perfect ranged off-tanks if the hunter can stay out of combat with FD. Since growl will be ranged the pet doesn’t even need to get into melee range.