PVP honor talents = bad idea

[Hawg]

This expansion introduced two major changes to the PVP system, honor talents and gear scaling. Personally I welcome both these expansion changes, alone. But introducing both of them at the same time defeats the stated intent of gear scaling.

What do I mean? Well the intent of gear scaling was to make it so that new PVP players and old players have about the same "power" regardless of gear. The idea was that people don't have to feel left behind by showing up for a BG in ilvl 820 gear when the rest of the bg is wearing ilvl 870. Everyone's gear would be roughly equal, and therefore the battle would be more about skill than gear.

That's good, but with the second change, introduction of honor talents, which are gated behind your prestige level, they have largely eaten away at the advantages of gear scaling. Now a new to PVP player can jump into a bg and while gear is roughly equal, the lack of PVP talents means they will get smoked by experienced PVP players with all their honor talents.

Of course the new player can keep progressing until they get the talents too, but it's a long grind to make when they are so under powered relatively speaking.

So my point is they solved a problem with one hand, only to break it again with the other.

I'm not sure what the fix for this should be. Maybe they make all of your honor talents available immediately, but to reward prestige they give other rewards (better gear and AP per match for higher prestige players)?

[Raxz]

The problem is it's an MMO and they have to reward progress with more character power in some way. Otherwise a lot of people would say what's the point.

My only suggestion: The idea of having people unlock columns instead of rows is nice, but perhaps it would be a bit less harsh if people started out with that entire left column and the work was to get the other two -- that way you're simply progressing towards unlocking more options, rather than having to wait in order to be at relatively full potential. Although this becomes rather dull for classes that just so happen to have either most or almost all of their best talents on the left side.

[Cosmic Janitor]

The problem is it's an MMO and they have to reward progress with more character power in some way. Otherwise a lot of people would say what's the point.

My only suggestion: The idea of having people unlock columns instead of rows is nice, but perhaps it would be a bit less harsh if people started out with that entire left column and the work was to get the other two -- that way you're simply progressing towards unlocking more options, rather than having to wait in order to be at relatively full potential. Although this becomes rather dull for classes that just so happen to have either most or almost all of their best talents on the left side.

Unlocking the first column is already trivial.

[Tenjen]

It is, as said, Trivial to unlock the Pvp Talents as a whole. The talents are no longer even relocked when you hit prestige levels, at which point you get gold and ap turn by turn.

the starting disadvantage is cleared away quickly.

[Hawg]

It is, as said, Trivial to unlock the Pvp Talents as a whole. The talents are no longer even relocked when you hit prestige levels, at which point you get gold and ap turn by turn.

the starting disadvantage is cleared away quickly.

I'm not sure what your definition of quickly is. In my realm horde dominates random BGs, to the point where as Alliance you are likely to lose 8/10 BG's. I've done about 5-6 BG's per week since launch and I am just about to finish unlocking my second column, and am only half way to 50 prestige. Hardly quick in my book.

[Faenskap]

I'm not sure what your definition of quickly is. In my realm horde dominates random BGs, to the point where as Alliance you are likely to lose 8/10 BG's. I've done about 5-6 BG's per week since launch and I am just about to finish unlocking my second column, and am only half way to 50 prestige. Hardly quick in my book.

You also have the PvP WQs and most of them don't involve fighting actual players (exceptions being Bruul arena in Highmountain, Black Rook arena in Val Sharah and Bareback Brawl in Stormheim).

Unrated bgs aren't the only way way of unlocking honor either, there's skirmishes, rated arena and rbgs too. And maybe it was just me, but it felt like unlocking honor in skirmishes was way quicker than bgs.

I like this new system, far superior to the old one. The only time these days I've felt at a true disadvantage was fighting other warlocks with Nether Ward (5 sec spell reflect) or when I don't know someone's trinket choice. But still, that's only 1/10 of the frustration I've felt when I previously would do bgs to gear up a fresh character and get utterly demonlished because I simply didn't have the gear

[potis]

I'm not sure what your definition of quickly is. In my realm horde dominates random BGs, to the point where as Alliance you are likely to lose 8/10 BG's. I've done about 5-6 BG's per week since launch and I am just about to finish unlocking my second column, and am only half way to 50 prestige. Hardly quick in my book.

Or, just do the world quests that take 5mins each, and literally get to rank 10 instantly.

Its a horrible excuse to blame the talents for the braindeads in BG's.

I remember getting Prestige 1 moment 7.1 hit automatically and in about 1 hour with just artifact power WQ's and 1 BG i was already like rank 13, 5 BG after, and artifact power WQ's only the last 2-3 weeks and i am rank 43.

The only problem of "PvP" apart from the fact it should be ignored so WoW can become a better more balanced game, is the fact that everyone turns into a fucking braindead mongoloid moment the BG queue pops.

[Metallourlante]

doing honor WQ is certainly a good advice, the amount of honor gained for such small commitment is too juicy to ever pass but I agree that pvp honor system is a pain, especially if you're doing a lot of pvp and you have to grind for several alts. I have now 3 alts at prestige rank 1 and it's so bad to even think about grind for another one

[Metallourlante]

But you dont have to grind past level 1 on your alts and you are essentially done for an entire expansion for a tiny time commitment.

How so? I basically only do PVP in WoW or at least I used to play PVP a lot, mostly RBGs. For sure I'm a minority, but this system stinks imho.
People keep telling me "you always had to grind in pvp, now they replaced gear with talents" that's true but remember conquest point cap increased? Once you fresh ding max level you could gear your alt in no time thru arena, this is not the case anymore..as a fresh lvl 110 you have bad gear (which don't mean much anymore) but you are useless for your team since you have no talents and for some spec some of the talents are too important.
They could just add a multiplier on honor gaining for your alts or something like that, but probably the PVP population is too small to force them to listen to feedbacks

[ItachiZaku]

Sometimes I want to PVP but I don't want to be on my A game. When I had top PVP gear in a rando, I can play as a B or even a C and still be very effective, just based on gear and knowing my class. With the scaling, any jabroni with a CC that catches me with my "trinket" on CD and kill me. That's just stupid.

[Segus1992]

I've played WoW for a very long time, and the initial PvP grind has always been very daunting. Now in Legion with PvP talents and PvP WQs that grind is neither daunting or even long.

Plus, PvP talents are generally way more fun than PvP gear used to be. A great idea, in my opinion, that can be fantastic with some polishing.

- - - Updated - - -

Sometimes I want to PVP but I don't want to be on my A game. When I had top PVP gear in a rando, I can play as a B or even a C and still be very effective, just based on gear and knowing my class. With the scaling, any jabroni with a CC that catches me with my "trinket" on CD and kill me. That's just stupid.

The only "legitimate" PvP complaint (about the revision to the PvP grind, not in general) in Legion is that people with great gear are no longer the PvP kings. Grinding no longer gives you ridiculous advantages over others. Some (like me) see this as a big step forward while others (the ones with more time than skill) hate it.

[TheVaryag]

This expansion introduced two major changes to the PVP system, honor talents and gear scaling. Personally I welcome both these expansion changes, alone. But introducing both of them at the same time defeats the stated intent of gear scaling.

What do I mean? Well the intent of gear scaling was to make it so that new PVP players and old players have about the same "power" regardless of gear. The idea was that people don't have to feel left behind by showing up for a BG in ilvl 820 gear when the rest of the bg is wearing ilvl 870. Everyone's gear would be roughly equal, and therefore the battle would be more about skill than gear.

That's good, but with the second change, introduction of honor talents, which are gated behind your prestige level, they have largely eaten away at the advantages of gear scaling. Now a new to PVP player can jump into a bg and while gear is roughly equal, the lack of PVP talents means they will get smoked by experienced PVP players with all their honor talents.

Of course the new player can keep progressing until they get the talents too, but it's a long grind to make when they are so under powered relatively speaking.

So my point is they solved a problem with one hand, only to break it again with the other.

I'm not sure what the fix for this should be. Maybe they make all of your honor talents available immediately, but to reward prestige they give other rewards (better gear and AP per match for higher prestige players)?

The talents are a fun idea, but badly Implemented. Why Is It Intervene was taken away from me, a fury warrior, and only have It available In PvP In the form of "Intercept" but intercept enemy or friendly. What? Some of the talents are just stupid, with ones being obviously better then the rest, and those best should just be perma. PvPing should be smashing Alliance skulls, while getting more honour/conquest to spend on something, although beyond spending It on the best gear before It had no use. As well as get achivements, such as the saddles for mounts, or just get more Honour Kills, there was always something to do.

And It strikes me as bizzare they only NOW realized, how resetting your Prestige Is a bad idea eachtime you reach 50 Honor. And still, the biggest problem I have, as a PvPer since old times passed, Is RNG can screw us over badly, It can take 3-4 months to get proper PvP gear, that Is even roughly equal to the player that had the best RNG which gave him the best gear. Where as before, you spent 2 months at best getting your Honour Gear, then Conquest gear and.... that's It. You're equal, those who don't work towards that gear just can't be as competative It's as simple as that, If It aint broke don't fix It and frankly It wasn't that broken. And this surely Isn't a good fix for It.

Not all classes were equal obviously, they never were and never will be. And this won't help equalize them for sure.

This is a horrible example, but like In society, you can't have people be complely equal In what they own or posses, or how rich they are or poor. The Communists tried and look how that's worked In the Soviet Union, and I say that as a russian myself. For a society to work, the difference betwenn poor and rich has to be as close as possible to the middle, but not right In the middle. And It definitely can't be too far apart, there can't be more rich or more poor, which is how It is In russia right now. And that = less business opportunity, less private companies and less freelancers driving the economy and more state-operated and controlled business with monopolies. That's not a political view, It's fact you learn In school just to point out - but that's besides the point, like In PvP not all can be equal, but should be roughly equal In the middle but never too apart to have like warriors, warlocks and rogues the richest (Strongest), and the others the poor (Weakest) And Blizz Is trying to have them be completely equal, and they won't be sadly.

[Lightbull]

After you get your first column, you're pretty well equipped for PvP. Only a select few specs can't function well without later talents, like Frost Mage.

I still think there should be baseline PvP abilities when you enter PvP, as well as the PvP talents.

[Metallourlante]

I still think there should be baseline PvP abilities when you enter PvP, as well as the PvP talents.

Totally agree with you on this

[Vargur]

My suggestion is to remove PVP entirely.

[Tharkkun]

This expansion introduced two major changes to the PVP system, honor talents and gear scaling. Personally I welcome both these expansion changes, alone. But introducing both of them at the same time defeats the stated intent of gear scaling.

What do I mean? Well the intent of gear scaling was to make it so that new PVP players and old players have about the same "power" regardless of gear. The idea was that people don't have to feel left behind by showing up for a BG in ilvl 820 gear when the rest of the bg is wearing ilvl 870. Everyone's gear would be roughly equal, and therefore the battle would be more about skill than gear.

That's good, but with the second change, introduction of honor talents, which are gated behind your prestige level, they have largely eaten away at the advantages of gear scaling. Now a new to PVP player can jump into a bg and while gear is roughly equal, the lack of PVP talents means they will get smoked by experienced PVP players with all their honor talents.

Of course the new player can keep progressing until they get the talents too, but it's a long grind to make when they are so under powered relatively speaking.

So my point is they solved a problem with one hand, only to break it again with the other.

I'm not sure what the fix for this should be. Maybe they make all of your honor talents available immediately, but to reward prestige they give other rewards (better gear and AP per match for higher prestige players)?

So do world quests for 300-500 honor a pop, chain skirmishes or some 2's/3's for a few days and you'll be caught up. I was honor level 35 after doing just world quests for the 1st week.

[Tinykong]

I'm not sure what your definition of quickly is. In my realm horde dominates random BGs, to the point where as Alliance you are likely to lose 8/10 BG's. I've done about 5-6 BG's per week since launch and I am just about to finish unlocking my second column, and am only half way to 50 prestige. Hardly quick in my book.

I've already hit Prestige 2 just doing the Warden Towers and Free-For-All PVP WQs on and off since launch.

[Banquetto]

Unlocking the first column is already trivial.

Agreed, I'm virtually a non-PvP'er, and I unlocked the first column ages ago from a handful of BGs and a few world quests.