Is Blizzard planning to phase out Mythic Raiding and Arena?

[Wilfire]

It seems like starting with Legion Blizzard began to make WoW less about the "competition" and more about the "journey" and the "fantasy". All of the titanforged RNG, legendary RNG and class imbalances are geared towards making each player's WoW experience unique - some legendaries change the way you play so much that you can build specs around them. Now, this doesn't work in a hardcore raiding environment since specs have to be perfectly competitive or they get benched, and when you have individual players' performance affected by legendaries to such a huge degree you are obviously going to encounter "issues". Now in heroic raiding you are never going to have to bench people based on their dps or healing or tanking since all encounters can be beaten in just an hour or two of progression by executing the tactics they way they are intended - you won't need to bench people based on their dps in order to cheese Cenarius or beat the enrage timer on Guarm. Consequently, it's alright when you have people with utility legendaries - you can even use someone with tankier legendaries to soak some mechanics and whatnot.

Same goes for PVP - some classes can be worse at fighting but better at scouting / ninja capping / anti-capping and it won't cause any issues. If arena was eliminated I bet the number of complaints about class balance would go down exponentially.

What do you guys think? It's a real trade-off between competitive gameplay and more class "fantasy" and "uniqueness" but would it really be bad for WoW's health in the long run?

[TyrianFC]

I think you use quotation marks unnecessarily and too often.

Also, the answer to the OP title question is no.

[Ozyorkbourne]

No. Also it's worth noting that Mythic raid boss timers aren't so tight that everyone in the raid need their 2 best legendary items. A lot of it is dealt with by class stacking, so 3 s.priests or 3 MM hunters, fire mages, strong melee teams (pretty much all melee has 1 exceptional dps spec right now) so the legendary RNG isn't killing mythic raiding. I'm an arms warrior with the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th best legendary items for my spec. Very few people in my guild have the best legendary items, but we still clear content appropriate for the time we play.

I have to ask, do you raid Mythic? Have you done any of the content or are you just speculating? I can assure you that while some guilds will blame bad legendary items for benching people, they're either being benched due to bad dps or standing in fire. You don't need your BIS legendary to do competetive dps in your raid.

In regards to PvP, some classes will always be better or worse at different aspects of the game and anyone who finds this shocking is gonna be sorely disappointed that this won't change.

[ComputerNerd]

Considering there is a graphical update of one of the Arenas, then I would say no.
That update is purely cosmetic, not functional in any way.
So if there had been some long-term plan to remove them, that would be rather a waste of resources.

[Lochton]

I doubt they would even think about phasing those two out. Maybe change the mythic number in the future, but for arena, where a TON of their competitive players hold home, no.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure that's the direction they're going from now on. Dave Kozak was the last supporter of mythic raiding and now he's gone.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nighthold only has LFR, Normal and Heroic difficulty.

I don't see them removing arenas though, since pvp has always been the bread and butter of WoW.

[Wilfire]

No. Also it's worth noting that Mythic raid boss timers aren't so tight that everyone in the raid need their 2 best legendary items. A lot of it is dealt with by class stacking, so 3 s.priests or 3 MM hunters, fire mages, strong melee teams (pretty much all melee has 1 exceptional dps spec right now) so the legendary RNG isn't killing mythic raiding. I'm an arms warrior with the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th best legendary items for my spec. Very few people in my guild have the best legendary items, but we still clear content appropriate for the time we play.

I have to ask, do you raid Mythic? Have you done any of the content or are you just speculating? I can assure you that while some guilds will blame bad legendary items for benching people, they're either being benched due to bad dps or standing in fire. You don't need your BIS legendary to do competetive dps in your raid.

In regards to PvP, some classes will always be better or worse at different aspects of the game and anyone who finds this shocking is gonna be sorely disappointed that this won't change.

I've been raiding mythic and its past equivalents since WoW came out. EN started with most of the people in my guild doing equal dps. 2 months and a half later the disparity between the top dps and the bottom dps just keeps getting bigger and bigger with all the layered RNG to the point that competing damage-wise is no longer feasible or fun.

[Ealyssa]

Both won't go anywhere. OP is full of head fantasy with no ground...

"And" "stop" "using" "quotation" "mark" "like" a "teenager" horrible to read.

[Atherius]

I wouldn't be surprised if Nighthold only has LFR, Normal and Heroic difficulty.

Not sure if you're trolling or actually believe that.. why would they remove something when it's been tested on ptr? Also, they stated that mythic difficulty takes around 10% of the total resources they spend on making a raid..Mythic raiding isn't going anywhere

[MrExcelion]

Don't see this happening, acts as a nice goal of sorts for folks instead of saying they beat the game

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure that's the direction they're going from now on. Dave Kozak was the last supporter of mythic raiding and now he's gone.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nighthold only has LFR, Normal and Heroic difficulty.

I don't see them removing arenas though, since pvp has always been the bread and butter of WoW.

pretty sure theyve tested M nh on beta already. And if blizz is gonna remove arena and/or Mythic it will at start of new expansion.

[Deleted]

No

........

[Queen of Hamsters]

Not likely, no.

Don't see this happening, acts as a nice goal of sorts for folks instead of saying they beat the game

Only most people go through LFR and THEN fool themselves into thinking that they "beat the game". Or they get full Random Battleground geared and THEN consider themselves champion PVPers.

[SirBeef]

It seems like starting with Legion Blizzard began to make WoW less about the "competition" and more about the "journey" and the "fantasy". All of the titanforged RNG, legendary RNG and class imbalances are geared towards making each player's WoW experience unique - some legendaries change the way you play so much that you can build specs around them. Now, this doesn't work in a hardcore raiding environment since specs have to be perfectly competitive or they get benched, and when you have individual players' performance affected by legendaries to such a huge degree you are obviously going to encounter "issues". Now in heroic raiding you are never going to have to bench people based on their dps or healing or tanking since all encounters can be beaten in just an hour or two of progression by executing the tactics they way they are intended - you won't need to bench people based on their dps in order to cheese Cenarius or beat the enrage timer on Guarm. Consequently, it's alright when you have people with utility legendaries - you can even use someone with tankier legendaries to soak some mechanics and whatnot.

Same goes for PVP - some classes can be worse at fighting but better at scouting / ninja capping / anti-capping and it won't cause any issues. If arena was eliminated I bet the number of complaints about class balance would go down exponentially.

What do you guys think? It's a real trade-off between competitive gameplay and more class "fantasy" and "uniqueness" but would it really be bad for WoW's health in the long run?

Personally I do not think Blizzard ever created anything raid wise in regards to the competitive scene outside of the delayed start, limited attempts and such. The competitive nature of some players created it. They will always have hard content for those that strive to do it regardless of competition. I do think they want raiding and Arenas to be more accessible and approachable for everyone.

[Justpassing]

No. Next question.

[SirBeef]

Not likely, no.



Only most people go through LFR and THEN fool themselves into thinking that they "beat the game". Or they get full Random Battleground geared and THEN consider themselves champion PVPers.

What does it matter if non raiders think they beat the game after LFR or not. In a game whit multiple difficulties, and multiple levels of skill, each individual defines what is their zenith. If LFR or getting a full set of random PvP gear is it for them then, they essentially beat the game. This whole notion I read here daily that people need to aspire to better through harder challenges is nonsense. If someone wants to only run LFR and they are happy with that, they are entitled to fell accomplished. Yuou may not. I may not, becasue we want different things from the game. There is nothing wrong with being satisfied with a lower lever of success if you will.

[Queen of Hamsters]

What does it matter if non raiders think they beat the game after LFR or not. In a game whit multiple difficulties, and multiple levels of skill, each individual defines what is their zenith. If LFR or getting a full set of random PvP gear is it for them then, they essentially beat the game. This whole notion I read here daily that people need to aspire to better through harder challenges is nonsense. If someone wants to only run LFR and they are happy with that, they are entitled to fell accomplished. Yuou may not. I may not, becasue we want different things from the game. There is nothing wrong with being satisfied with a lower lever of success if you will.

I only ever care when they come to forums and go "The game requires no effort anymore" after only completing the content tuned for the lowest common denominator.

Other than that, I couldn't care less if people consider themselves to have "completed the game" after questing to max level, done 500 pet battles or finished LFR.

[Deleted]

Emerald Nightmare is a introductory raid for new raiders. These raids were traditionally easier than usual mid and end tier raids.

Wonna see you beating any mythic ToV boss with 1-2 hours of progression. Especially Helya says hello with less than 30 kills world wide.

[iperson]

raid finder will be removed before mythic raids. they'll just let the gear fall farther and father behind until no one runs raid finder and then just kill it for "lack of interest".

[Blacken]

I don't think mythic raiding is going anywhere, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if tuning starts to be very forgiving in the next tiers, compared to ToV's tuning...

I feel like EN was intentionally undertuned (regardless of what they say) and ToV was intentionally overtuned to get various data of participation, burn-out, motivation, overall mythic raider skill ect. so they can setup a better and universally retaining tuning for mythic going forward.

In my opinion it's not viable for them to tune this game for hardcore raiders anymore; before they could control the flow of player-power but this expansion they've made it grindable 24/7, if you have the time and put in the effort you can be far more powerful than someone who would be considered 'semi-hardcore', but if your entire guild is doing this, don't expect a quality challenge in raids if that what you seek.

Could be completely wrong with this theory and NH could be exactly like ToV with extremely tight fights, but somehow I doubt they're trying to target the satisfaction of that tiny hardcore demographic-- and I'm fairly positive they hate the world race from a developers standpoint and everything those guilds do to compete.