Pvp in Legion does have good points

[xindralol]

First of all props for using proper English grammar and spelling ... it's a rarity on here.

I disagree that point #1 faction imbalance was a problem and I believe that faction specific titles made it worse. While it was somewhat tough finding people ro play with on horde last expansion it wasn't nearly as bad as finding anyone on either faction this xpac.

#2 - human racial is (at least for priest) even more important - while I agree that racials in general are much less significant than in WoD, human racial is an exception (because gameplay is 99% faceroll pve rotation zerg damage with kills in stun and having an extra stun breaker is huge).

#3 might look better on paper but in practice I have to grind for weeks on end to get my vital pvp talents and that doesnt even factor in 3rd relic slot and artifact level. in wod i had to spend 2-5h in ashran to get my basic pvp set and i would be competitive (at least being able to have fun in aemi high rated arenas while getting my conquest set).
so yeah the new system is MUCH worse for entry into pvp unless you consider doing BGs and just spamming your pve rotation 'fun' - any serious pvp - entry level or not - is awful if you're not allowed to pick your talents freely.

[Deleted]

Pvp in the Legion compare to the previous expansions... doesnt exist at all.
No PvP items and even PvE players can beat you now easly, so what for im playing this PVP nowadays? Just to shoot few spells and go offline i guess, thats sick. Draenor was sucks but PvP in Legion is worst than everything else was before!

[sofos87]

First of all props for using proper English grammar and spelling ... it's a rarity on here.

I disagree that point #1 faction imbalance was a problem and I believe that faction specific titles made it worse. While it was somewhat tough finding people ro play with on horde last expansion it wasn't nearly as bad as finding anyone on either faction this xpac.

#2 - human racial is (at least for priest) even more important - while I agree that racials in general are much less significant than in WoD, human racial is an exception (because gameplay is 99% faceroll pve rotation zerg damage with kills in stun and having an extra stun breaker is huge).

#3 might look better on paper but in practice I have to grind for weeks on end to get my vital pvp talents and that doesnt even factor in 3rd relic slot and artifact level. in wod i had to spend 2-5h in ashran to get my basic pvp set and i would be competitive (at least being able to have fun in aemi high rated arenas while getting my conquest set).
so yeah the new system is MUCH worse for entry into pvp unless you consider doing BGs and just spamming your pve rotation 'fun' - any serious pvp - entry level or not - is awful if you're not allowed to pick your talents freely.

for english press 9 ... im not from england i try my best

#3 you said 1 word pal "ASHRAN" if thats not a """pve rotation raid brailess spellcast faceroll ....(put random word here)""" then i dont know what it is ............
.... but according to your post random bgs are

you try some bgs now with no honor talents you miss some mandragory spells i get it
you try some bgs with green gear in WOD(actually any previous expansion) .... IT DOESNT MATTER IF YOU HAVE the spells you wont be able to press them

i get it most dont like the melee faceroll sometimes i dont too ... nobody here try to convince you that legion is perfect there is no such think as perfect or in our language BALANCED the point is to be able to do what you like and be "viable" but consider all the factors

[DeicideUH]

I think system-wise Legion is very good.

I like Prestige, PvP Templates and so on. I think they fixed a lot of old problems, but introduced several new. The real drawbacks are not in the new systems, but in:

- Gearing up: Since getting PvP gear is so random, a lot of people need to expend time doing WQs and M+ Dungeons instead of PvP'ing. My fix for that: reintroduce Conquest and allow us to buy Conquest items. Keep the random drops, since they would still potentially be better because of possibility of being War- or Titan- forged or having extra bonuses.

- Class balance: Some classes are just too good at surviving right now compared to others. I play as both paladin and hunter and how much more versatile is a ret paladin compared to any hunter spec! Blizzard really needs to change a lot of talents and restore a few removed skills in some classes. IMO, more utility is needed for some classes.

- Artifact power: They introduced templates so gear mattered less, but then introduced Artifact traits, making high-AP characters way better than recently-leveled ones. Thus, they again made a gap based on how long you played your character, and even incentivating more non-PvP activity in order to boost your power faster. I don't like how the artifact system ended up being, but I think it's too late to change it now.

[Seneca]

My 2c. tl;dr down.

Despite all the massive negative feedback on forums, there are things that Legion actually fixed.

1. Faction balance.

If you look at all the ladders today, you'll see a 49-51% ratio. Compare it to end of MoP and WoD with 96-4% (total Alliance domination).

A side note, I think that analyzing the higher ratings (+2400, where the best gear comes from) have the enormous advantage to give a picture about what a given faction/race/class/spec can do at its highest potential, at the same time it has the enormous disadvantage of implyng a very small sample, which ofc skews the datas in a more or less impactful way. Keep both things in mind.

Said that, faction balance seems too be extremely messed up at higher ratings and partially in all ratings.

60% for alliance, 3s wise (+2400)
60% for horde, rbg wise (+2400)
51% for horde, 3s wise (all ratings).
57% for horde, rbg wise (all ratings).

The only, somewhat balanced, numbers, are about the "3s, all ratings" filter (51% horde).

Many variables could be the reason of these %s. Maybe some bg/arena maps are way more in favor of a faction in particular? (For example goblins have definetely an edge in xyz maps)

57-60%+ is not certainly something I would call balanced.

2. Human racial + problematic trinket procs

Race is no longer a big deal, since proc trinkets are disabled in instanced PvP now.

See point above.

3. PvP entry level

Any casual can get into PvP much easier now after just dinging 110. Thanks to templates, the margin between high and low ilvl is not that high as it was with greens / PvP gear in previous expansions. Also, you can get plenty of 840+ drops very quickly.

I think it has never been this bad. I mean, back in the past you had to be smashed for 1 week, until you had your honor gear.

Now the difference is about:
- Item Level. 900 IL rather than 800 IL means 10% less stats (if the ratio is still +0.1% stats per IL). You need way more than a week to get your IL up to par.
- Honor Talents. Specs are way less powerful without all the pvp talents. I think 1 week is enough to get them all but this week is as horrible as fresh level capped players doing pvp in the other exps.
- Class Hall stuff. "Minor things" like second legendary, third relic slot, and so on.
- Artifact Traits. The biggest offender, no doubt. The difference between a fully powered weapon and a half powered weapon is huge.

I mean, sum all those things. I would go back to the older exps in a heartbeat, as far as this point is concerned.

4. About class imbalance

YES, of course, there are class imbalances. But it's been always this way, since the first patch of WoW. Name one season where some class / spec wasn't imbalanced.

Class balance is horrible. The fact that pvp has never been balanced enough or was worse in WoD doesn't mean that in Legion it is good, or good enough if we want.

To be completely honest, it should be the opposite, meaning, one could argue that after 11 years pvp should be way, way more balanced than, let's say, after 2 years (tbc, for example).

//

Other things I would add which don't necessarily concern performance or power level.

1) Most important point. Class design (this affects pve too, mind you). Class design is horrible imho. Many specs lost their soul, their key points, their flow, both fantasy (role) wise and gameplay (mechanics) wise.

For example, long time ago (I could mess up a few things) dpriests were among the few who could dispel things. Among the magic dispellers, they were also, definetely the most powerful (could dispel 2 debuffs in a row, had both defensive and offensive dispels, had mass dispel). Now in a way or another the gap between the priest and the other dispellers is way way smaller.

Part of their fantasy (the absolute best dispellers by a huge margin) has been altered, removed.
By a more general point of view, a huge part of their fantasy/role (most aggressive healer for many reasons) is not there anymore.
Part of their gameplay ("aggressiveness" in the form of dispels, shields, (mana) burns, shadow word spells, etc) was severely dumbed down or outright removed.

I do not even play a priest mind you.

2) Pruning. Linked to point 1. Many specs got butchered and got nothing in return.

I don't care that the game is perfectly balanced if the specs I used to love now are about spamming 3 buttons, 1 for doing damage, 2 for reducing the damage taken, 3 for ccing. Not that the game is balanced anyway...

3)Overhauling specs/classes. Linked to point 1 too. Many specs got altered but the alteration was a failure (see survival hunters). Changing/overhauling specs is not bad by itself, but it has to be done in the right way. Also, aren't there already 20 melee specs? Melee specs with permanent pets? Unholy dk. Melee specs with temporary pets? Enhancement shaman, frost dk. Melee specs which shift in pets? Feral, guardian druids .

4) PvP templates. They fix a few things, but break a few others. Many abilities/talents and so on are useless by default thanks to the templates.
For example, if a spec gets only 50% crit from its stats it means that all talents based on critical strikes or have an high affinity with crit rating are way less powerful.
Also, if spell A is 50% less effective in pvp, probably there's no point in taking talent a1 and a2 which both empower that spell (considering that a1 and a2 are in balanced row), and so on.

5) Stats. Stats dont matter in pvp anymore. As above, it fix some things but breaks others. It sucks not being able to customize your stats. I remember back in the past I would stack resilience on some specs so I would not get globaled or mana regen so I could endure longer fights etc.

6) Gear. I hate the fact the everything about gear in PvP is rng. You do not have any power on the items you take, so it is frustrating when your cloak sucks IL wise but you get your 20th amulet in a row. What I liked a lot about pvp back in the past (among other things) was the fact that rng was minimal. Now basically something that sucks a lot in PvE (if these forums are of any indication too ) has been added in PvP too.

6) Transmog/old sets. Same as above. Again rng ruins it. You do not have any power on the items you take, it is frustrating when you miss the head piece but get your 20th cloak in a row. Or when you do not drop the tokens necessary to buy the old pvp sets.

7) Lack of new PvP environments. Meaning new bgs, new arenas, updated maps or art and music in general. New open world zones. (see next point, I know something was added, like the updated nagrand arena, but I think all in all they didn't put great efforts, as far as this point is concerned).

8) Lack of meaningful PvP environments. Even if they added something here and there (like Black Rook Hold Arena, a free for all area) they are not meaningful. Take that place. There's 0 reason to go there. If you want to smash faces you rather join a bg. Noone goes there on purpose, unless the world quest is up. You don't get any particular reward, nothing actually changes in the environment, there's no any reaction from anyone/anything. It's just there, a zone where pvp is enabled by default, the end.

9) Lack of interesting PvP environments. Something whish feels alive. Zones to control, forts to capture, things which, while you are out there gathering herbs, makes you say "oh shit this fort doesn't belong to my faction anymore, oh shit there are 30 alliance/horde players who are smashing each other out there, let's go help boyz). Even, let's say, villages to defend (and make the defending faction able to buy stuff or simply have a discount) or points of interest to guard (so the opposite faction has to be careful and risk to deal with players and npcs of the opposite faction if they want/need to go there).

10) Lack of new, interesting mechanics. Let's say, a XvXY bg where the players of the less numerous faction (X) given up to the legion and are empowered by it. So, for example, a 5v15 bg where the "5" players do more damage/healing, take less damage, and/or simply have new overpowered abilities/spells to make up for the numbers.

11) (fixed) The prestige thing was horrible, luckily prestiging doesn't remove all your talents anymore.


Can't think about other things for now.


tl;dr: All in all, I think PvP in Legion sucks a lot, and if I had to summarize in a few points the reasons, they would be, in order of importance:
1) unbalanced as hell
1) horrible class design (fantasy and gameplay wise)
2) rng fest
2) no customization/predetermined-forced stuff
3) no new, interesting pvp stuff.

[netherflame]

4 - you are reasoning about class balance based on top. That's a non-starter. It almost does not matter what happens at the top. What matters is what happens where 90% of the people are. And there we have melee roflpwning casters, and big imbalances with some specs being idiotically easy to play at 80% of their potential with others are very difficult to play at the same potential.

This, I feel like pvp at mid to lower high levels is just melee trains finding the caster and just sitting on them until they are dead because they essentially don't get to play with all the interrupts and stuns. That team also gets to not worry about dying because there isn't enough damage coming out when you've essentially turn the fight into a 2v3.

[Caolela]

My 2c. tl;dr down.

You've basically said it all with that post, Seneca. Which is to say...what's wrong with PvP now is a whole helluva lot.

[Deleted]

They are talking about balance in terms of the top because that kind of balance is easiest to do. You see some specs under-represented, you boost them. This likely ruins the mid-levels if the spec was over-represented there or if its counters were under-represented (happens all the time), but since you are concerned with your top, you get your representation and pretend (or worse, actually think so) that things are improved. We have been in that idiotic mode of balancing the top for at least three expansions already, now on fourth. Look where it got us. Balance never stops being stupid broken. Going for visible results at the top is part of the reason why.

[Deleted]

i seriously dont get why they dont implement the pvp templates in wpvp, lores response was so bad that it made my heart explode.

[Myztikrice]

Faction imbalance is entirely in the opposite direction. Alliance win ratios now are being propped up entirely by Isle of Conquest. Remove that and it's more like 30-70 A-H

New PvPers are gated behind artifact power (traits in their weapon smoothing out their spec and providing a noticeable stamina increase)

[Theed]

Anyone who completed this weekly skirmish quest knows why many players quit pvp:

Melee dominance. 90% of every arena game has at least one melee if not two melee players mindlessly charging in and blowing every cooldown. Melee is too successful with little effort compared to pretty much any caster or healer spec. Looking at arena represantation at arenamate confirms it.

[Deleted]

3. PvP entry level

Any casual can get into PvP much easier now after just dinging 110. Thanks to templates, the margin between high and low ilvl is not that high as it was with greens / PvP gear in previous expansions. Also, you can get plenty of 840+ drops very quickly.

Tell that my freshly dinged 110 rogue who gets trashed by 80% of people in arena/bg, because he lacks ~20% of his health pool, ~30% of his damage (artifact yay!) and important PvP talents that have to be grinded out.

[Deleted]

Tell that my freshly dinged 110 rogue who gets trashed by 80% of people in arena/bg, because he lacks ~20% of his health pool, ~30% of his damage (artifact yay!) and important PvP talents that have to be grinded out.

That's the funny thing, gearing actually takes LONGER, because you have to walk through the entire process in tiny steps as it is attuned for PvE and the massive timesink of repeating the same content dozens of times over to slowly get up there.

[sofos87]

i dont understand you.....

who is better to repressent balance? WE? the srubs of the mid??? when the classes taht we play can easily be found at the top by other better players? i dont get you guys

i start to think that the "PROS" who spam L2P are right lol

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Tell that my freshly dinged 110 rogue who gets trashed by 80% of people in arena/bg, because he lacks ~20% of his health pool, ~30% of his damage (artifact yay!) and important PvP talents that have to be grinded out.

my fresh elemental shaman dont get stomped! is taht a balance issue? like eles have better defence tahn rogues? no offence but i only see rage
... and in the end wanst your rogue trashed by 80% of the poeple in WOD? untill you gear up? i see nothing here legion if not better is the same ....

[rda]

i dont understand you.....

who is better to repressent balance? WE? the srubs of the mid??? when the classes taht we play can easily be found at the top by other better players? i dont get you guys

The mid. Not the top. Ie, if some spec is terrible unless you use it for 800 arenas to master it, the vast majority of the weight is on "it is terrible". Because that's what 90% of the players experience. (When WoW PVP matures and stays constant for a couple of years, things might change, but even then, not significantly.)

[xindralol]

for english press 9 ... im not from england i try my best

#3 you said 1 word pal "ASHRAN" if thats not a """pve rotation raid brailess spellcast faceroll ....(put random word here)""" then i dont know what it is ............
.... but according to your post random bgs are

you try some bgs now with no honor talents you miss some mandragory spells i get it
you try some bgs with green gear in WOD(actually any previous expansion) .... IT DOESNT MATTER IF YOU HAVE the spells you wont be able to press them

i get it most dont like the melee faceroll sometimes i dont too ... nobody here try to convince you that legion is perfect there is no such think as perfect or in our language BALANCED the point is to be able to do what you like and be "viable" but consider all the factors

Agreed that Ashran is/was terrible. But it was a short grind in comparison. I'd rather suffer thru 5h or however long it was and be done with it.
Disagree about green gear in wod - they had minimum itemlevel in pvp at least during the last season in wod. Even if you argue that during wod (and certainly mop with pvp power where you did zero damage without a pvp weapon) you couldn't reasonably play bgs in greens, the same sure as hell wasn't true in tbc/wrath (to a lesser extend cata). Cata had the problem of random self heals on pretty much every class so it was very hard to make progress if you didn't do enough damage. In Wrath you could essentially play naked because gear only amplifies your damage and if you played say mage rogue you could still kill someone in a stun (even if you had to shatter twice instead of once) even without gear. Sure gear helped. But part of what made wrath such an amazing expansion was that even the best gear wouldn't make you auto win. I played with people who had 2-3 seasons lesser (hmm) gear than our opponents and they still did more damage because doing 'perfect' damage required far more than just spamming the same 3 buttons.
Also dispel didn't have a CD (I know this is kinda not on topic) so you didn't have to waste your MD to triple dispel your partner and then couldn't MD the mage iceblock >.>

For me a good pvp game requires two things: fun, engaging gameplay and (to a lesser extend) decent rewards. Legion has neither.

[sofos87]

The mid. Not the top. Ie, if some spec is terrible unless you use it for 800 arenas to master it, the vast majority of the weight is on "it is terrible". Because that's what 90% of the players experience. (When WoW PVP matures and stays constant for a couple of years, things might change, but even then, not significantly.)

im sorry i cant understand what are you trying to say, my english are not the best from what you see,,
from what i understand you say taht the mid is better to represent balance, a "x'' spec needs 800 arenas to master example, so the expierience these players get is terrible? but why isnt that a skilled spec with high learning curve? or if we make that spec easy for mid rank players to master and get reward out of it wouldnt that make the spec overpowered?? like frost dks every mid player can make it work (like what you discribe) now thats balance representation?? if we agree on something is that frost dks are op right now. again balance comes for people who can make it work not for everyone, these poeple are not the 1600+ myself included, no offence

i really couldnt care less for statistics i just want to understand the logic.. like if we had all these sites about statistics showing like 10% for each spec(balanced?) would that make you love legion? or any expansion it wouldnt make me love it because statistics dont solve my every day problems ...

i previously said why i enjoy legion its not perfect by any means but i consider it the best after tbc/wrath and about wrath it wasnt that good guys except if you played a retri,mage,rogue,lolstorm warrior,dk, .... i hated the fact taht we had no weapons,the burst was the same if not higher, dont forget bryntroll melees,and shadowmourne, armor penetration stat, it wasnt perfect no expansion was,the point is to satisfy you demands,sure the grind is here with legion but it was here before legion your telling me taht you had the patience to farm bgs for pvp gear and now you dont have that patience for you honor talents?again its the same or better i dont see why its worst....wow has always been like that bursty,grindy, and generally slow legion didnt create these factors,

now factors like fun,balance,easy,skilled, are a matter of opinion, ... example: people say frost dks are op, frost dks say but i dont have cc if you take my burst away they wont get me in an arena team (3s) if you combine this (burst,cc) into a class the class(frost mages since the begining)that class become overpowered because it has everything, but then poeple claim thats a skilled class i dont and the cycle goes on th point is everyone to bring something on the table or 3v3 arenas thats what blizzard tries to do with legion i think, your team needs some burst and cc you go outlaw,if you team needs control you go subtlety, and if your team needs full burst you go assasination, again thats not ideal in legion but you get teh point same aplies to all specs except fury,holypriest, maybe arcane mage

because the base of this convertation is always 3s not because i choose so but because as said before blizz balance things according to 3s (i dont like that tbh but thats how things always been)these do not make legion worst it was always like this

[rda]

im sorry i cant understand what are you trying to say, my english are not the best from what you see,, from what i understand you say taht the mid is better to represent balance, a "x'' spec needs 800 arenas to master example, so the expierience these players get is terrible? but why isnt that a skilled spec with high learning curve?

Yes, that's a spec with high learning curve. I am saying that if some specs have high learning curve and others have low learning curve, that's a problem. Specs with high learning curve are at a disadvantage at mid ranks. Even though they are fine at the top. There are other examples which don't affect the top ranks, only mid, too, gearing among them.

Balancing has to be concerned with mid ranks first and foremost. Top ranks second, or not at all. Because the majority of PVP happens at mid ranks.

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PS: Obviously, with regard to high vs low learning curve, we are talking about big differences (ie, big enough to screw participation). Small differences are OK and expected.

[Deleted]

Anyone who completed this weekly skirmish quest knows why many players quit pvp:

Melee dominance. 90% of every arena game has at least one melee if not two melee players mindlessly charging in and blowing every cooldown. Melee is too successful with little effort compared to pretty much any caster or healer spec. Looking at arena represantation at arenamate confirms it.

If "with little effort " is the problem that's what should be fixed instead of neglecting the issue by making something else op.
And btw meeles left too - just because you get to be op doesn't mean you enjoy boring gameplay.

[Deleted]

ah.. no it has not... most not fun anti pvp expansion.