Upcoming Changes to the Ashran, Isle of Conquest, and Wintergrasp Epic Battlegrounds

These changes really show how out-of-touch Blizzard are with their own game.

The buff food change should've happened 6 years ago.
The main problem with mages towers is Jeron's bomb, probably should wait another 6 years for this to be balanced.
Juggling the amount on reins does not have any meaningful impact.
BG is still mainly a deathmatch-style fight (which I like personally).

IoC changes also just stagger the already quite long BG.
I don't know who in Blizzard goes Hangar, but on this planet virtually anyone is going DOCKS.
I wouldn't say it was like that every addon, but I saw this meta before SL.

Originally Posted by Nellise

The problem with Jeron is the knockback from Living Bomb which pretty much sends everybody to their death. The Alliance mage has nothing similar. Hopefully that gets addressed too.

And at least they're finally making Wintergrasp changes. "After 5 minutes, all players in the battleground who do not have a rank (including players who join late) will now be granted the rank of Corporal." Should have been in from the start.

Exactly, I am surprised that horde mage's knock back is not removed.

I hope they are fixing the open world Wintergrasp, too.... so you can get access to the Vault of Archavon

Ah, right... no mention of the 50/50 chance of insane unplayable lag the entire group would get upon zoning into Ashran (seems to be more prevalent at night on NA servers) . By all means, make the games last longer!

Everyone talking about IoC and glaives already being op... have you played IoC recently? Anyone who sneaks in and damages them will likely kill them before they even get stunned/killed. A druid can convoke on top of glaives and kill them before you can react. A hunter will kill them in 5 seconds They're so weak. Glaives have been worthless for a while now as long as there is even a few people defending against them.

I also don't understand in Ashran why they remove mass polymorph but don't change the fact that Rylai is fucking useless compared to Jeron. There's always an idiot that explodes in the middle of everyone causing a wipe, meanwhile Rylai does nothing dangerous whatsoever.

Do they even play their game? The balance issue with the mages is not the pure damage they do, but that the bomb has a huge knockback pretty much killing everyone caught in the blast, and that the bomb can even go onto pets. Rylai has nothing comparable.
Increasing the reinforcements just makes the game just longer (which is especially annoying because only 25% of the games are somehow balanced, most times one faction is already dominating).
And increasing the player count is also quite an interesting decision considering ashran already lags unplayable on weekends. I hope they planned on stepping up their server hardware.

IoC glaives would need a much higher increase than 40k life. Then they have ~140k life, that can still be bursted down by rogues or druids in seconds with CDs (and the average gear gets better every week). The times where docks dominated the game are over for weeks now, and that change will change nothing about going hangar. And 20% more health for the walls also is not going to make the game more interesting, but again just makes it longer.

The Wintergrasp changes seem to be pretty reasonable, though. The changes might be even too drastic, just switching the winning side from def to off. But I guess we can only tell after people got used to it after some time.

The thing that was OP about Jeron was the living bomb knockback that Rylai doesn't have. "Just dispel it" in a raid of 30 casuals distracted by fighting Horde in the tower along with Jeron.

The games don't need to last longer, and the star root tubers/flowers were fine as is. This is coming from an Alliance player by the way.

The changes to Wintergrasp make it sound imbalanced in favor of offense. Still, it's better if Offense is the team that always wins because then games end in 10 minutes rather than 25.

Glaive health increased by 40%.

Basically to help shit Alliance teams who run ahead while a Horde rogue solos the glaive.

Originally Posted by Glasse

Everyone talking about IoC and glaives already being op... have you played IoC recently? Anyone who sneaks in and damages them will likely kill them before they even get stunned/killed. A druid can convoke on top of glaives and kill them before you can react. A hunter will kill them in 5 seconds They're so weak. Glaives have been worthless for a while now as long as there is even a few people defending against them.

I also don't understand in Ashran why they remove mass polymorph but don't change the fact that Rylai is fucking useless compared to Jeron. There's always an idiot that explodes in the middle of everyone causing a wipe, meanwhile Rylai does nothing dangerous whatsoever.

Dont forget horde have a better 'safe spot' than alliance too for their glaives, lol

Originally Posted by Glasse

Glaives have been worthless for a while now as long as there is even a few people defending against them.

I also don't understand in Ashran why they remove mass polymorph but don't change the fact that Rylai is fucking useless compared to Jeron. There's always an idiot that explodes in the middle of everyone causing a wipe, meanwhile Rylai does nothing dangerous whatsoever.

Yes, the people saying "OMG GLAIVE BUFF WTF?" are people that don't play regularly or won once with glaives once upon a time in 1932 and contribute to a loss every time they yell "ALL DOCKS" at the start.

In order for glaives to work, you need the enemy team to be bad. Not saying that doesn't happen, but a strategy for success shouldn't rely on your enemy being dumb.

Living Bomb knockback needs to be removed and Rylai needs to be given a water elemental as her ice shard will be useless after these changes (it can't buff % health abilities).

Mass Polymorph was a stupid ability that would be cast every so often while Alliance players were trying to defend Rylai, only to have her heal the enemies to full. If there were no Alliance players, she still would heal her attackers to full.

Originally Posted by Danvash

The games don't need to last longer, and the star root tubers/flowers were fine as is. This is coming from an Alliance player by the way.

Are you really an Alliance player? Giving Horde players a free 15% stat boost (the equivalent to 3.5 extra stat trinkets) is one of the biggest imbalances this game has seen, right after the AV starting cave and the pink boxes of doom in Isle of Conquest.

Originally Posted by The Butt Witch

Glaive health increased by 40%.

Basically to help shit Alliance teams who run ahead while a Horde rogue solos the glaive.

I didn't realize it was only Alliance glaives that were buffed.

Originally Posted by Isaelyn

Took them long enough but I feel like these wintergrasp changes will just make it even easier for defense to win. Starting with sunken ring and broken temple does nothing if offense doesn't also start with vehicles. Then demos and seige engines, which are mostly an offense thing anyway, do even less damage to players which hurts offense more. In addition to that destroying towers knocks more time off, putting more pressure on offense to win quicker but the wall health was only reduced by 20% and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen wall health even drop below 80% since WG became a BG.

So if anything imo all these changes are going to mean is that defense still wins 95% of the time but you're not waiting as long for the slaughter to end.

i disagree with your assessments.
vehicle dmg favors defense, not offense. offense is using vehicles to destroy walls, while defense is using them exclusively to attack players. so a nerf to vehicle damage on players is a nerf on defense.
towers taking off more time should be fine (i'd say preferable) since the only time offense has any chance to win is when defense is preoccupied with south. once defense is done south and they can now all focus on turtling, it's unwinnable for offense anyway regardless of how long you have. this should at least make a defense win less sufferable of a wait for both sides.

Originally Posted by Maleficents

Yes, the people saying "OMG GLAIVE BUFF WTF?" are people that don't play regularly or won once with glaives once upon a time in 1932 and contribute to a loss every time they yell "ALL DOCKS" at the start.

In order for glaives to work, you need the enemy team to be bad. Not saying that doesn't happen, but a strategy for success shouldn't rely on your enemy being dumb.

Living Bomb knockback needs to be removed and Rylai needs to be given a water elemental as her ice shard will be useless after these changes (it can't buff % health abilities).

Mass Polymorph was a stupid ability that would be cast every so often while Alliance players were trying to defend Rylai, only to have her heal the enemies to full. If there were no Alliance players, she still would heal her attackers to full.



Are you really an Alliance player? Giving Horde players a free 15% stat boost (the equivalent to 3.5 extra stat trinkets) is one of the biggest imbalances this game has seen, right after the AV starting cave and the pink boxes of doom in Isle of Conquest.



I didn't realize it was only Alliance glaives that were buffed.

No one attacks the tanks. Tanks already had a way more HP than the glaives and were not soloable material.

Originally Posted by The Butt Witch

No one attacks the tanks. Tanks already had a way more HP than the glaives and were not soloable material.

The demolishers have an 8-yard range attack. They need to be near the gates to deal damage to them, thus can be torn to pieces by keep turrets.

IOC blizz has bounced with the meta on this BG on what is FOTM OP, docks and glaives were the OG meta and too OP. then hangar became the way to win in BFA, that got nerfed. glaives again do insane damage in SL, a 40% buff will return the BG again to the OG meta of glaives with a huge shift in favor of alliance
- Docks is closer travel distance for the alliance, glaives currently are top damage again prior to these tuning changes, buff the armor, damage needs slight nerf
- Hangar is appears closer to the horde , but due to pathing is not. i play horde and ally, both factions reasonably arrive near same time to make it a fair fight
- demos need a wall damage buff also.

Ashran BG has brackets 20-49, 50 BFA capped, 51-59 and 60. doesn't matter which one i have played, the horde mage jeron is gamebreaking especially on BGs below level 60
- Living bomb, the blow back, LOS being ignored even when behind a pillar. nothing is worse that having a 30 point lead and seeing the alliance blow the lead and fall behind, due to 1 NPC. in leveling BGs.

at 60 when on my horde we can send 4-5 players and kill alliance frost mage with ease and usually no one dies. on my alliance 60, Jeron has to be attacked right at the start needing 15-20+ to ensure success, and when you kill jeron, even though you drop 50 points, you lose points due to deaths at jeron, flower area, and road due to the focus on jeron that is required. when i see the alliance do this on my horde we generally only see a 25-30 point drop and get the lead back due to ally deaths and having to reqroup

Originally Posted by Maleficents

The demolishers have an 8-yard range attack. They need to be near the gates to deal damage to them, thus can be torn to pieces by keep turrets.

Lol. Nope. There are blind spots all over the place near the walls, where turrets can't reach you. Also, turrets can be blown up by ranged dps. There is really no comparison.

Originally Posted by The Butt Witch

Lol. Nope. There are blind spots all over the place near the walls, where turrets can't reach you. Also, turrets can be blown up by ranged dps. There is really no comparison.

My post says "near the walls". In my experience in hundreds if not thousands of games, very few players are actually smart enough to use blind spots (and to use them you usually sacrifice ramming the gate which does 100% more damage than the boulder) and those that do use them can be attacked by players. Anyway, no one was actually talking about demolishers. The fact they are tankier is intended because they deal less damage than the glaives, which are squisher. The hangar does not have 100% uptime, but it can't be killed.

Each node has strengths and weaknesses, and these changes aim to spread players out. If glaives are in a position where they need to be killed, that's encouraging PvP as players fight to get to them (or players kill the attackers).