PvP Discussion for recent Dev Watercooler

[Dispersedshadow]

I actually agree with this ^, there are allot of PVP balance problems for some specs that could easily be solved by a pvp mastery & it would give them allot of options for how to address said problems.

At the same time there are some specs out there that do not have that many problems (see frost mages) so a PvP mastery wouldn't really be of much use to design for them.

Frost mages may be in a good place now, but the performance of any spec varies over time as they make changes. That's why I think the PvP Mastery passive would be a must for each spec – because it does provide an adjustment knob to turn should they want. Like I stated above – I initially see the PvP Mastery passive simply as a means to make the PvP Defense and PvP Power stats able to be tuned on a per spec basis: a piece of PvP gear would provide x amount of PvP Mastery to the player, which once the specs unique PvP Mastery passive is taking into consideration, would break down into PvP Defense = y and PvP Power = z.

If we imagine a hypothetical scenario where they've managed to hit a spot where all the specs are performing very closely to other specs of that role in PvE, yet they need to adjust the survivability or damage output of a spec or multiple specs in PvP, it becomes clear why it would benefit them greatly to have a PvP mastery attached to the spec itself to make those adjustments.

Say, for example, that the aren't happy with Arcane Mage survivability in PvP. Under the current system and the proposed plan, they have a few options:

1) Increase stats (Resil/PvP Defense) on Mage specific or cloth PvP gears. This buffs survivability of other specs and classes that may not need it. It also either a) depends on players obtaining the gear that they've chosen to re-itemize or b) requires them to make itemization changes to more pieces of gear because they can't predict which gear players will obtain first.

2) Change how an active spell works. No matter what they do, this will damage PvE balance.

3) Make an active spell work differently in PvP vs. PvE (for example, each Arcane Barrage cast that hits a player character has a 10% chance to reset the cooldown on Blink). This causes confusion for new players and has been something they have done sparingly and reluctantly in the past because it's not the most elegant solution.

The PvP Mastery passive gives them a new option – tweak exactly how much PvP Defense and PvP Power the spec gains from the PvP Mastery on their gear. If they want to increase Arcane Mage survivability in PvP, they tweak the numbers in that spec's PvP Mastery passive so that PvP Mastery on gear provides them greater damage mitigation. Adjust one number and "Done!" - without unbalancing PvE or unbalancing other specs.

That being said I think they should just add passive mastery effects to the specs who have problems in PVP & make sure those added mastery effects only really have much of a use in PVP.
(for instance adding a backlash effect for buffs & debuffs provided by ret paladins, boomkin etc... woould go a long way to help them PVP vs offensive dispels, slows etc... but not require a new mastery & would not effects PVE much if at all.

True – there might be cases where they'll need to make the PvP Mastery passive more complex that just providing y amount of PvP Defense and z amount of PvP Power. They may want to limit hybrids so that their PvP Power only amplifies damage and not healing. That type of thing would definitely be possible with a PvP Mastery passive in place.

[Feranor]

This is all rather beside the point - which isn't surprising.

No change to how gear is dealt with will noticeably improve PvP as long as the focus remains on Arena and PvE balancing takes precedence.