Testing Same-Faction Battlegrounds in Burning Crusade Classic

[kenoathcarn]

Removing racials now won't suddenly fix the issue either. Sounds like people bitching for the sake of bitching, offering no real solutions and just in general being mad that Blizzard has the audacity to let the game exist.

some rebalancing of racials wouldnt hurt, why is escape artist resistable?

the precedent of rebalancing racials was already set back in 2007 when they decided fear ward was too overpowered, nerfed it, and granted it to all priests on all factions.

wotf was also changed shortly after the patch that the game is in now, where it shared a 45 second cd with your pvp trinket i dont see a reason why it cant happen early.

while fixing racials wont just instantly fix the game any step towards the direction of incentivising people to change to alliance is better than a band aid fix that will no doubt make the problem that already exists worse.

this has been an issue that has plagued the game for a long time even in retail and every step blizzard has ever taken has always been "anything other than addressing faction balance itself"...

its simple, add queues to servers when the horde population exceeds the alliance, offer free faction changes, address racial imbalance, literally give the alliance an "overpowered" racial if you have to its better than indulging single faction dogpiling that already exists and will continue to only get worse untill it is addressed directly.

[Kralljin]

some rebalancing of racials wouldnt hurt, why is escape artist resistable?

PvP Racials don't cause the faction imbalances, PvE ones do.

If you don't believe me, riddle me this:
How was Horde able to gain the upper hand despite Alliance being the objectively superior faction for PvP from Wotlk to Legion?

Also, it's resistable because it's a dispel effect, all dispel effects have a chance to be resisted, especially if the opponent has some dispel resistance talents such as Druid.

the precedent of rebalancing racials was already set back in 2007 when they decided fear ward was too overpowered, nerfed it, and granted it to all priests on all factions.

I mean, that's some stupid logic there.

Blizzard also rebalanced classes in TBC, yet Blizzard confirmed that they will not rebalance classes.
I'm not against the idea on principle, but looking for some "precedent" is stupid in this context.

[kenoathcarn]

PvP Racials don't cause the faction imbalances, PvE ones do.

If you don't believe me, riddle me this:
How was Horde able to gain the upper hand despite Alliance being the objectively superior faction for PvP from Wotlk to Legion?

Also, it's resistable because it's a dispel effect, all dispel effects have a chance to be resisted, especially if the opponent has some dispel resistance talents such as Druid.

I mean, that's some stupid logic there.

Blizzard also rebalanced classes in TBC, yet Blizzard confirmed that they will not rebalance classes.
I'm not against the idea on principle, but looking for some "precedent" is stupid in this context.

I know the reason why its mechanically resistable you idiot, im saying "why is it?". there is no reason for it to gain 0.75 minutes longer on its cd and now be able to fail 30% of the time.

every time alliance has had a strong racial it always gets cried about not stop until its nerfed.

early tbc rogues would complain endlessly about stoneform despite having one of the most broken specs in the game in AR prep (with double blind)

solution? reduce the effectiveness of stoneform by making blind no longer a poison and making prep not reset blind.

fear ward considered too overpowered to be on a 30sec cd despite wotf being in the game so lets give it to everyone and replace it for dwarf/dranaei

chastise(the replacement for fear ward) complained about untill it was no longer a 2 second disorient and changed to be a root.

perception, every man for himself etc etc. list goes on

when every racial that has ever been considered objectively good has been nerfed into the fucking ground no wonder people had a bias towards the other faction whos racials have always gone largely unchanged.

if you think pve is what sells racials then why the hell isnt everyone alliance right now? the hit aura from the blue space goats is one of the strongest pve racials that has ever existed.

[loras]

Testing Same-Faction Battlegrounds in Burning Crusade Classic

Hello, Battleground enthusiasts!

As soon as we saw Battleground queue times go way up a few weeks ago, we got to work on our options for addressing the situation. They’ve all been discussed here and elsewhere, as you know, and in addition to following your discussions closely, we looked at game history and data. What was most evident from all of your feedback was: players want to continue to play on their chosen side of the faction conflict, players don’t want to wait in long queues for BGs, and players don’t want a highly convoluted mechanism for getting into a BG.

To solve those issues as best we can, we’ve been internally testing a configuration where the War Games system is used to bring about Horde vs. Horde or Alliance vs. Alliance Battlegrounds from the regular queue, and we’re ready to test it in the live game. Here’s the plan:

• Starting tomorrow (Friday, July 2), we’re going to enable same-faction Battlegrounds.
• You’ll queue for BGs as usual, and the matchmaker will first try to make an opposite-faction match for you.
• If an opposite-faction match cannot be quickly made, you’ll be matched against a team from your faction.
• Rewards such as Honor and Reputation will be assigned as usual.

We’ve been thinking of these like military training exercises, and to help get that feeling across in-game, we’re testing putting masks and tabards on the team playing out of the enemy faction’s base.

Please note that same-faction play won’t be available for Alterac Valley, which was never hooked up for War Games and would be particularly awkward for the team that found themselves fighting alongside a great number of enemy NPCs.

We’ll follow the action closely throughout the weekend, and with scheduled maintenance next week (July 6 in this region), we’re going to return the matchmaker to its regular configuration and analyze what happened.

When same-faction play goes live tomorrow, we’ll open a new feedback thread in this forum. After you’ve played some BGs, please come to that new thread and let us know how it went.

Thank you!

That's one way of admitting their structural failure at balancing the factions in the Horde's favor.

But better to admit failure and deal with it in a very imperfect way than to muddle along as it goes at present.

[Kralljin]

I know the reason why its mechanically resistable you idiot, im saying "why is it?".

Because Blizzard designed it that way.

Same reason any dispel can be resisted, same reason any spell has a 1% resist chance in Classic / TBC, same reason CoS has a 90% resist chance instead of 100%.

Don't insult others when you ask such stupid questions you already know the answer to.

there is no reason for it to gain 0.75 minutes longer on its cd and now be able to fail 30% of the time.

It already had the chance to fail on Classic, except the resist mechanic wasn't working properly there for the longest time.

every time alliance has had a strong racial it always gets cried about not stop until its nerfed.

Meanwhile in reality:
Every man for Himself remained the strongest PvP racial for 6 years.

solution? reduce the effectiveness of stoneform by making blind no longer a poison and making prep not reset blind.

In the same expansion you received the strongest PvP racial, improved Shadowmeld while Horde saw a nerf to Hardiness and WotF.

Mate, stop this nonsense, when this faction imbalance started to slowly establish itself (Wotlk-Legion), Alliance was the superior Faction for PvP.
If you want to pretend this is somehow not true, then say it openly because then i do not need to continue this discussion.

fear ward considered too overpowered to be on a 30sec cd despite wotf being in the game so lets give it to everyone and replace it for dwarf/dranaei

Dwarf Priests are still by far the strongest race for Disc Priest in PvP.
Desperate Prayer + Chastise beats anything Horde has.

if you think pve is what sells racials then why the hell isnt everyone alliance right now? the hit aura from the blue space goats is one of the strongest pve racials that has ever existed.

Horde in the meantime had Berserking, Blood Fury & Command.

And that also ignores that Blood elves are the most popular race in WoW, despite Arcane Torrent never being a relevant racial up until a few years ago.

[BarosanuNr1]

Long battleground queues destroyed my main interest in Classic Classic, to the point that I stopped playing entirely. I'm glad to see that they're trying to fix it.

Racials only make a real difference at the very top level anyway. If you're not at the top, the impact of racials can be outplayed.

[Peacemoon]

If you were looking for a balanced game perhaps playing Classic was not advisable.

[khazmodan]

That's one way of admitting their structural failure at balancing the factions in the Horde's favor.

But better to admit failure and deal with it in a very imperfect way than to muddle along as it goes at present.

Watching Blizzard find new ways to screw up the Classic experience is like watching an alcoholic that can never accept that they will always end up drinking too much if they drink at all. The new circular Blizzard reasoning is; screw it up, ignore proof its causing problems, find new ways to monetize game to cover up the problem.

[Unholyground]

Congratulations to all who used their one-per-account boost on Alliance char only because of instant queues, you've essentially wasted your boost. I did.

Paid boost. Fixed that for you shill.

[kenoathcarn]

It already had the chance to fail on Classic, except the resist mechanic wasn't working properly there for the longest time.

did you even read the blue post about this?

"This means that offensive dispelling in pvp may not always succeed, particularly if the target you are trying to dispel is significantly higher level than you, as level disparity does affect this. Additionally, dispelling of harmful affects in certain pve encounters will also have a small chance to fail."

no one in vanilla ever complained about escape artist resisting, meanwhile people definitely noticed that level 20s who purged world buffs had an unnaturally high success rate compared to how it used to be.

In the same expansion you received the strongest PvP racial, improved Shadowmeld while Horde saw a nerf to Hardiness and WotF.

Mate, stop this nonsense, when this faction imbalance started to slowly establish itself (Wotlk-Legion), Alliance was the superior Faction for PvP.
If you want to pretend this is somehow not true, then say it openly because then i do not need to continue this discussion.

faction imbalance was starting from the very beginning of tbc lol, it never waited until wotlk.

I wouldn't call hardiness a nerf, it was a rebalancing of all "stun resist" mechanics into duration reduction instead of % chance to fail. they did it similar changes with most things that had a % chance to fail, including 1% spell miss chance, snares etc.

in fact it was still pretty fucking good since it stacked with other types of stun duration reduction effects not to mention the removal of the 50% ms from blood frenzy.

shadowmeld on the other hand was a nerf to some classes and a buff to others depending on who you ask. gone are the days of shadowmeld drinking in arena and forcing the enemy team to come and deal with you but i guess rogues and feral druids got a vanish.

Dwarf Priests are still by far the strongest race for Disc Priest in PvP.
Desperate Prayer + Chastise beats anything Horde has.

I don't disagree that dwarf priests are strong, but its one class and one set of racials, consider horde priests for example, both UD and Troll have extremely strong racials for shadow meanwhile on alliance dwarf literally cannot even cast its racials in shadowform (unless you include fear ward as a racial still).

don't get me wrong, i think the fact that dwarf is so much stronger that nelf/human/dranei is also an issue because it means that almost every priest is a dwarf. but it doesn't contribute to faction imbalance quite the way other racials do.

any area that alliance generally have an advantage horde have something equal and just more choices in general that are better.

quote all the horde vs alliance class/race combinations and i bet you will find a reason to pick whatever you want to play on horde, on alliance? its a different story youll find more duds than good ones.

Horde in the meantime had Berserking, Blood Fury & Command.

And that also ignores that Blood elves are the most popular race in WoW, despite Arcane Torrent never being a relevant racial up until a few years ago.

again, if its pve racials selling it, why is the vast majority of rogue/mage on horde undead? they have no pve dps racial at all yet its by far the most picked race.

as someone who carefully chose to play alliance in classic knowing it would be the under populated faction what annoys me is not that horde qq horde get what they wants etc. its that blizzard makes decisions that directly make the problem worse instead of doing SOMETHING no matter how small to address it.

like in what world can you honestly argue that allowing same faction bgs wont just make the problem worse since there is no deterrent to rolling horde. at the very least long queue times for pvp made people think twice before rolling horde but now you can honeslty make the claim that your making the objectively better choice.

[WowClassic]

I've never seen such a ridiculous outcry in the history of WoW. Alliance players are showing what pathetic babies they are.

[Vortsex]

Finally, a fix for alliance not PvPing. You cowards can do whatever you're doing. We'll enjoy our new short queues. The one thing you thought you had over us lmao

[Kralljin]

did you even read the blue post about this?

Then maybe read the whole topic, defensive dispels are also affected by this.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wo...-resist/944750

Happened last night multiple times on Grobbulus, and once with abolish disease on Heigan.

Believe it has something to do with level of spell cast (Cure disease resists more than abolish)

Remove Lesser Curse also had a single resist on Noth.

Dispels as a whole were not working properly for the vast majority of Classic, not just offensive ones, hence Escape Artist was never resisted in Classic.

Add to this that certain slows and roots have gained some dispel resistance with TBC, also adds to this.
Resto Druids for example have a 30% dispel resist on all their spells, including Roots.

faction imbalance was starting from the very beginning of tbc lol, it never waited until wotlk.

I really wanna see the source that confirms that by the time TBC rolled around, Horde was already more dominant.
Especially as Alliance was more prominent in Vanilla.

I wouldn't call hardiness a nerf, it was a rebalancing of all "stun resist" mechanics into duration reduction instead of % chance to fail. they did it similar changes with most things that had a % chance to fail, including 1% spell miss chance, snares etc.

The difference between resisting a stun and reduced stun duration is vastly different.

You are in theory stunned for the same amount of time, but that doesn't mean it has the same effect.
Sitting a 5.1sec CS instead of outright resisting it is a huge difference, when you die within 5 seconds of that CS, that reduction didn't go jackshit, when you resist a CS, then any rogue comp will struggle to land a kill.

in fact it was still pretty fucking good since it stacked with other types of stun duration reduction effects not to mention the removal of the 50% ms from blood frenzy.

Considering a lot of comps featured a Warrior or Rogue, the difference isn't exactly huge in PvP.

Heck, the removal of the debuff is sometimes actually detrimental, against rogues one can use Blood fury to cancel out Wound Poison and thus make it much easier to dispel Crippling.

The change really benefits PvE more than anything else as people can now simply macro Blood fury into their CD's without griefing their healers.

shadowmeld on the other hand was a nerf to some classes and a buff to others depending on who you ask. gone are the days of shadowmeld drinking in arena and forcing the enemy team to come and deal with you but i guess rogues and feral druids got a vanish.

The fact that it became a feign death is pretty solid.

I don't disagree that dwarf priests are strong, but its one class and one set of racials, consider horde priests for example, both UD and Troll have extremely strong racials for shadow meanwhile on alliance dwarf literally cannot even cast its racials in shadowform (unless you include fear ward as a racial still).

Crux is that SP is nowhere near as strong as Disc.

You are basically arguing that a faction is better because it's better for a B Tier spec, while the other Faction is vastly better for an A / S Tier spec.
That's not it works.

don't get me wrong, i think the fact that dwarf is so much stronger that nelf/human/dranei is also an issue because it means that almost every priest is a dwarf. but it doesn't contribute to faction imbalance quite the way other racials do.

And Troll is a dead race as far as PvP is concerned, i think the discussion for racials within a certain faction is another topic.

any area that alliance generally have an advantage horde have something equal and just more choices in general that are better.

In TBC?
Yeah i agree.
Past TBC?
No, Alliance was favored in PvP due to EMFH and i want to reiterate that disputing this is pure insanity.

again, if its pve racials selling it, why is the vast majority of rogue/mage on horde undead? they have no pve dps racial at all yet its by far the most picked race.

I'm not sure whether that is true for the population as a whole, for PvP, yes, but when talking about the enterity of the population, then i think Troll mage isn't as uncommon as one might think.

It's also a situation where aesthetics play a big factor, Trolls aren't exactly a popular race (at least without transmog) and rogue fantasy also doesn't mesh that well with Orcs.

as someone who carefully chose to play alliance in classic knowing it would be the under populated faction what annoys me is not that horde qq horde get what they wants etc. its that blizzard makes decisions that directly make the problem worse instead of doing SOMETHING no matter how small to address it.

Because the repercussions aren't reasonable.

Sorry, but it's like when someone who chose to play on a low/medium pop server starts to complain that Blizzard shouldn't add Layering as the people who chose to play on a high pop server are sitting in hour long queues.

People on low/medium pop servers never have queues but have a harder time finding groups.
People on highpop servers have long queues but have a much easier time finding groups.

It's pretty much the same thing.

like in what world can you honestly argue that allowing same faction bgs wont just make the problem worse since there is no deterrent to rolling horde.

I never argued that, i however did say that it at least solves the short term issue of Alliance being driven off PvP servers due to people farming honor in the open world.

I want to reiterate, i think Alliance should get some bonus (at least those on a PvP Server) but a lot of Alliance right now are glossing over the fact that this at least solves the most immediate issue of any Alliance player on a PvP server.

[Queendom]

Paid boost. Fixed that for you shill.

How is that related to my post?

- - - Updated - - -

'dont fix the problem becuase i paid to fix it for myself!'

Why do you quote my post with some random quote that doesn't even relate?

[kenoathcarn]

Dispels as a whole were not working properly for the vast majority of Classic, not just offensive ones, hence Escape Artist was never resisted in Classic.

Add to this that certain slows and roots have gained some dispel resistance with TBC, also adds to this.
Resto Druids for example have a 30% dispel resist on all their spells, including Roots.

Again, You missed the point of my post, in VANILLA not classic, escape artsist never resisted, whatever they fixed was a classic-only fix, if escape artist was resisting in classic there would have been uproar about it.

secondly, defensive dispels are only subject to resist if the entity that applied it is significantly higher level than the person dispelling it, in same-level combat it doesnt apply.

I really wanna see the source that confirms that by the time TBC rolled around, Horde was already more dominant.
Especially as Alliance was more prominent in Vanilla.

lol, i remember people having the same discussion about queue times back in tbc and it got worse and worse over the period of tbc.

The difference between resisting a stun and reduced stun duration is vastly different.

You are in theory stunned for the same amount of time, but that doesn't mean it has the same effect.
Sitting a 5.1sec CS instead of outright resisting it is a huge difference, when you die within 5 seconds of that CS, that reduction didn't go jackshit, when you resist a CS, then any rogue comp will struggle to land a kill.

Considering a lot of comps featured a Warrior or Rogue, the difference isn't exactly huge in PvP.

again, this was part of sweeping changes to almost every class to remove a lot of the "RNG" from the game, you call it a nerf but the racial was still strong relative to every other racial.

Heck, the removal of the debuff is sometimes actually detrimental, against rogues one can use Blood fury to cancel out Wound Poison and thus make it much easier to dispel Crippling.

The change really benefits PvE more than anything else as people can now simply macro Blood fury into their CD's without griefing their healers.

this only applies to TBC, wound doesnt apply because of a "more powerful spell" being active, in wotlk you can have multiple MS style effects(ms, wound, aimed shot) and the most powerful one is the one that is active, same goes for slows, you can have multiple debuffs with slow but you will only be slowed by the strongest one.

The fact that it became a feign death is pretty solid.

debatable, you couldnt eat/drink while melded anymore etc. like i said, depends who you ask, many healers saw this as a nerf.

Crux is that SP is nowhere near as strong as Disc.

it doesnt really matter how much stronger you consider disc than shadow, the fact is undead/troll disc priests are perfectly playable, yeah dwarf is strong but its not so strong that you wont see undead priests in arena.

shadow on the other hand... lets be real, if your not horde you fucked up.

You are basically arguing that a faction is better because it's better for a B Tier spec, while the other Faction is vastly better for an A / S Tier spec.
That's not it works.

the point is that horde racials are universally better in more aspects of the game than alliance ones.

sure we can make the point that perception is pretty damn broken in hyper specific scenarios, but wotf? its usefulness extends to outside of just arena, ask any alliance warrior how he feels playing against horde teams in bgs where your 3minute cd fear is literally a useless ability.

how many rogues can say the same about perception outside of arena?

sure dwarf priests are a bit tankier when they themselves are getting trained, but thats not every game lol.

I'm not sure whether that is true for the population as a whole, for PvP, yes, but when talking about the enterity of the population, then i think Troll mage isn't as uncommon as one might think.

It's also a situation where aesthetics play a big factor, Trolls aren't exactly a popular race (at least without transmog) and rogue fantasy also doesn't mesh that well with Orcs.

check out any of the census data, undead is by far the most picked race. also troll is definitely not a dead race in pvp as priest its just that undead is more versatile.

Because the repercussions aren't reasonable.

Sorry, but it's like when someone who chose to play on a low/medium pop server starts to complain that Blizzard shouldn't add Layering as the people who chose to play on a high pop server are sitting in hour long queues.

People on low/medium pop servers never have queues but have a harder time finding groups.
People on highpop servers have long queues but have a much easier time finding groups.

It's pretty much the same thing.

yeah this response is just bs, if i dogpiled on the same faction like everyone else id get the "well why dont you join the alliance" response unwinnable.

I never argued that, i however did say that it at least solves the short term issue of Alliance being driven off PvP servers due to people farming honor in the open world.

I want to reiterate, i think Alliance should get some bonus (at least those on a PvP Server) but a lot of Alliance right now are glossing over the fact that this at least solves the most immediate issue of any Alliance player on a PvP server.

personally, as someone who has leveled 3 alliance toons to 70 already, can honestly say its nowhere near as much of an issue as you think or the crying on forums would suggest.

a bigger problem tho? being at the mercy of 5+ red name tags at every quest hub you venture to because blizzard has done nothing and continues to make poor choices over faction balance.

this change will directly make the latter scenario worse, that is not to say its not a problem that wont get worse on its own because blizzard doesnt address it, but at least it doesn't give an incentive to make it worse.

[Kralljin]

Again, You missed the point of my post, in VANILLA not classic

I'd love to see anything that confirms there is a mechanical difference between the two in that aspect.

escape artsist never resisted, whatever they fixed was a classic-only fix, if escape artist was resisting in classic there would have been uproar about it.

So...why does it resist in TBC, then?

lol, i remember people having the same discussion about queue times back in tbc and it got worse and worse over the period of tbc.

Okay, i don't recall serious queue time issues in TBC, i even recall instant queue pops in AV because Horde had like a 20% winrate there.

again, this was part of sweeping changes to almost every class to remove a lot of the "RNG" from the game, you call it a nerf but the racial was still strong relative to every other racial.

I don't deny that's still a strong racial, i am pointing out that it got nerfed.

this only applies to TBC, wound doesnt apply because of a "more powerful spell" being active, in wotlk you can have multiple MS style effects(ms, wound, aimed shot) and the most powerful one is the one that is active, same goes for slows, you can have multiple debuffs with slow but you will only be slowed by the strongest one.

So, it's basically a zero sum game, because Wound poison also does not have 5 applications anymore in Wotlk.

debatable, you couldnt eat/drink while melded anymore etc. like i said, depends who you ask, many healers saw this as a nerf.

The only relevant NE healer is Druid, which incidentally is the only one with stealth and can use it to drop combat.

yeah dwarf is strong but its not so strong that you wont see undead priests in arena.

...because those are mutually exclusive to each other?

If you play with Alliance, you can't be UD
If you play with Horde, you can't be Dwarf

Tauren are also worse than NE (at least with buffed Shadowmeld), but you still see Tauren Druids, because Nightelves aren't an option if the rest of your team goes Horde.

shadow on the other hand... lets be real, if your not horde you fucked up.

I'd give you a point if Shadow wasn't some B tier spec.

I can also argue that Horde is OP because Command is the best racial for BM Hunters in PvP.
Is this true?
Yes.
Is the reason why people are Horde?
No.

the point is that horde racials are universally better in more aspects of the game than alliance ones.

I don't disagree, i do however point out that
(1) In PvP, the situation is not as clear cut as some people portray it
(2) Primary reason for that imbalance have been PvE racials, not PvP ones (as Alliance had objectively superior racials from Wotlk and onwards)

sure we can make the point that perception is pretty damn broken in hyper specific scenarios, but wotf?

This "hyper specific" scenario is a hardcounter to the one of the strongest PvP Class (if not the strongest) in TBC and also is pretty decent against Druids, which is arguably the strongest Healer in TBC.

Like mate, we are talking about the scenario of "encountering a rogue in Arena", if this "hyper specific" to you, then i suggest you should queue some Arena to find out how "hyper specific" this is.

its usefulness extends to outside of just arena, ask any alliance warrior how he feels playing against horde teams in bgs where your 3minute cd fear is literally a useless ability.

Do you really want to bring world PvP into this discussion?
Where BM Hunters just turn Bestial Wrath and walk over everything?

sure dwarf priests are a bit tankier when they themselves are getting trained, but thats not every game lol.

"sure Will of the Forsaken is strong, but that's not every game lol".

check out any of the census data, undead is by far the most picked race. also troll is definitely not a dead race in pvp as priest its just that undead is more versatile.

I really want to see the census that shows that Undead is overall the most popular race.

And yes, Trolls are a dead race in PvP, the only people playing Troll that
(1) Like to play Troll and still play PvP
(2) Play Troll for PvE reasons and still PvE

Trolls are the worst PvP race in TBC, even Tauren with Warstomp are better than Troll.

yeah this response is just bs, if i dogpiled on the same faction like everyone else id get the "well why dont you join the alliance" response unwinnable.

It's not, the point is that when the repercussions aren't reasonable and it's entirely possible to fix them with a reasonable solution, then it should be solved.

personally, as someone who has leveled 3 alliance toons to 70 already, can honestly say its nowhere near as much of an issue as you think or the crying on forums would suggest.

Considering a few servers have turned from 40-60 to 30-70, i'd say it's an overall issue.

This is such a nonresponse, some servers also saw Alliance dominating during Classic Phase 2, yet we all know that on most servers, Horde was the topdog overall.

[kenoathcarn]

I'd love to see anything that confirms there is a mechanical difference between the two in that aspect.

how many videos do you think were investigated when putting together vanilla private servers and not one of them included a version where escape artist was resistable...

So...why does it resist in TBC, then?

Vile Poisons...

Okay, i don't recall serious queue time issues in TBC, i even recall instant queue pops in AV because Horde had like a 20% winrate there.

I cant say we were playing the same game then, on NA Rampage battlegroup. its also pretty widely accepted that tbc was the start of blizzard not really caring about faction balance anymore, prior to tbc (and for a brief period at the start of tbc) they would offer single-faction transfers to other servers in an attempt to do SOMETHING about balance and server population.

I don't deny that's still a strong racial, i am pointing out that it got nerfed.

and im saying i wouldnt call it a direct nerf, a direct nerf is when they choose to change chastise from a disorient into a slow. its not like they targeted the ability for a nerf it was just caught up in a bunch of similar changes.

So, it's basically a zero sum game, because Wound poison also does not have 5 applications anymore in Wotlk.

doesn't change the fact that it was buffed... not sure where ur going with this.

The only relevant NE healer is Druid, which incidentally is the only one with stealth and can use it to drop combat.

it was relevant to priests as well...

If you play with Alliance, you can't be UD
If you play with Horde, you can't be Dwarf

Tauren are also worse than NE (at least with buffed Shadowmeld), but you still see Tauren Druids, because Nightelves aren't an option if the rest of your team goes Horde.

you managed to miss the point. Dwarf priest isnt so brokenly overpowered that YOU MUST BE A DWARF OR YOU CANNOT PLAY DISC, as is evident by the fact that there are probably more undead priests currently on the arena leaderboards than dwarfs, meanwhile find me a shadow priest who isn't undead/troll... you wont find many.

sure dwarf biggest advantage is vs double dps in 2v2 because they can live a little bit longer, but take a step back and look at what happens in 3's because theyre often not the first person to die anyway so it becomes largely irrelevant and wotf becomes the superior racial.

who the hell are you talking to that thinks nelf druid is superior to tauren? what? stomp cyclone + 5% stam vs shadowmeld? how is it even a contest.

I'd give you a point if Shadow wasn't some B tier spec.

Shadow is considered B-Tier because the racials impact it so fucking hard, look at the endless 3v3 tournament won by shadowplay (wl/spr/rsham) because its literally enabled by the priest specifically being Troll.

but then you want to play 2v2? now u gotta be undead.

if you could respec your racials it definitely would not be B-Tier.

I can also argue that Horde is OP because Command is the best racial for BM Hunters in PvP.
Is this true?
Yes.
Is the reason why people are Horde?
No.

your pet only accounts for 20-25% of your damage including kill command, a net 1-1.25% gain is rarely going to result in the difference between a kill or not a kill.

so yeah a bit of an unfair comparison considering most of the alliance spriest racials (as bad as they already are for shadow) cannot even be cast in shadowform.

I don't disagree, i do however point out that
(1) In PvP, the situation is not as clear cut as some people portray it
(2) Primary reason for that imbalance have been PvE racials, not PvP ones (as Alliance had objectively superior racials from Wotlk and onwards)

were gonna have to agree to disagree man, cuz this has not been my experience.

This "hyper specific" scenario is a hardcounter to the one of the strongest PvP Class (if not the strongest) in TBC and also is pretty decent against Druids, which is arguably the strongest Healer in TBC.

im calling it hyper specific because it applies only to the opener in mirror matches which largely comes down to the fact that one way or another someone is getting the opener, most high rated druids will just play as if the enemy team is going to catch them out and sit in bear form at the start anyway.

like i said before tho, the people who see the power of perception are only a small subset of classes in a small subset of comps in a small subset of the game, and only in a few scenarios will it drastically alter the outcome.

wotf is just more useful more of the time, its always there ready to be used, perception requires a specific setup to make it strong. the closest thing alliance ever had to wotf was stoneform back when blind was a poison, and it was deemed too strong and got nerfed.

Like mate, we are talking about the scenario of "encountering a rogue in Arena", if this "hyper specific" to you, then i suggest you should queue some Arena to find out how "hyper specific" this is.

the subject is faction balance, theres more to the game than just arena and all these aspects of the game contribute to faction balance and wotf is a fucking huge one

I really want to see the census that shows that Undead is overall the most popular race.

before blizzard broke it, there was a census addon people would use to constantly /who people on every realm and create statistics, undead was by far the most played race.

funnily enough, it was also the subject of faction balance on servers and blizzards solution was to mask it by breaking the addon.

It's not, the point is that when the repercussions aren't reasonable and it's entirely possible to fix them with a reasonable solution, then it should be solved.

why is it unreasonable to do free one-way faction transfers?

[Alex86el]

The reason is that Horde went out to farm Alliance in the outdoor because of their long queues.
When you sit an hour in queue for a BG where you possibly only earn 50-100honor per BG (pre mades are still common), then killing a few Alliance for 21honor/kill is surely enticing.

I personally don't really mind the outdoor ganking, it is part of the game, it is honor points.
(Within reason of course, i don't kill "greys". Waste of my time)
So, Merc mode fixes nothing for me.

Yes i suppose it is an attempt to fix it. But they didnt think it through in the slightest.
It fixes the Horde's long queues, but it makes the game as a whole worse.

The reason why Horde have hour-long bg queues, while alliance have 1 minute, is because the majority of players find them more appealing, especially on pvp servers.

Which also causes Alliance to have a small player pool to do anything in the game.
And many Alliance PvE guilds to switch sides.

The few PvP fans that chose Alliance did so because of the short queues, and sacrificed the nice Horde racials.
I am one of them. Of course i'd love to be a tauren feral instead of a nightelf. But i prefer short queue times over good racials.
Seriously considering switching to Horde now, since being in the Alliance has no advantages at all, only the disadvantage of fewer players to play with.

By adding mercenary-mode Blizzard only encourages even more players to pick one side (Horde), since it now has no disadvantages.

[Kralljin]

how many videos do you think were investigated when putting together vanilla private servers and not one of them included a version where escape artist was resistable...

Considering that not a lot of videos exists and it's questionable whether such a scenario was actually displayed in videos, makes me wonder whether private servers are accurate in every aspect.

Vile Poisons...

Increases dispel resistance of poisons.
Escape Artist is a dispel effect.

Considering that Vile poison already existed in Classic, it seems to more like an oversight that supposedly Escape artist could not be resisted in Classic.

they would offer single-faction transfers to other servers in an attempt to do SOMETHING about balance and server population.

Server population and overall population are two different shoes.

and im saying i wouldnt call it a direct nerf, a direct nerf is when they choose to change chastise from a disorient into a slow. its not like they targeted the ability for a nerf it was just caught up in a bunch of similar changes.

I'd call it a nerf because it ended up weaker than previously.

doesn't change the fact that it was buffed... not sure where ur going with this.

The buff is primarily relevant for PvE, not PvP, as the MS debuff is pretty heavily represented there.

YOU MUST BE A DWARF OR YOU CANNOT PLAY DISC

Okay, how is this different on Horde side?
Is Troll viable?
No.
Is Bloodelf viable?
No.

Can you stop opening unrelated discussions because these factions specific imbalances have little to do with faction balance overall?

but take a step back and look at what happens in 3's because theyre often not the first person to die anyway so it becomes largely irrelevant and wotf becomes the superior racial.

Maybe Dwarf priests don't get focused because they are a tad bit harder to kill as RMP?

Like, first you claim that "you can't pvp unless you're dwarf", now it's "it actually doesn't matter".

who the hell are you talking to that thinks nelf druid is superior to tauren? what? stomp cyclone + 5% stam vs shadowmeld? how is it even a contest.

Wotlk and onwards?
Yeah, because Endurance got nerfed in Wotlk and Shadowmeld allows you to avoid CC's on range, whereas Warstomp triggers the stun DR and you need to run to people.

Shadow is considered B-Tier because the racials impact it so fucking hard, look at the endless 3v3 tournament won by shadowplay (wl/spr/rsham) because its literally enabled by the priest specifically being Troll.

Yeah, sure.
Let's just ignore the small detail that Hex of Weakness is a curse and thus gets countered by two prominent classes, Mage and Druid.

your pet only accounts for 20-25% of your damage including kill command, a net 1-1.25% gain is rarely going to result in the difference between a kill or not a kill.

The fact that you even pick this up just shows how you completely missed the point.

so yeah a bit of an unfair comparison considering most of the alliance spriest racials (as bad as they already are for shadow) cannot even be cast in shadowform.

And we're still discussing a spec that's barely relevant for the overall PvP Meta.

im calling it hyper specific because it applies only to the opener in mirror matches

Wat.

Any match where a rogue / druid is on the enemy team makes Perception extremely OP, it doesn't have to a mirror match.

wotf is just more useful more of the time, its always there ready to be used, perception requires a specific setup to make it strong.

Once again, pure horse shit.
Perception is strong whenever a stealth class is on the opposing team, same way WotF is strong when there's a fear class.

the subject is faction balance, theres more to the game than just arena and all these aspects of the game contribute to faction balance and wotf is a fucking huge one

I find this paragraph pretty poorly worded, as it essentially is: "There is more to faction balance than Arena, See OP Arena racial!".

Also, earlier i pointed out that in my opinion, Horde having superior PvE racials for such a long term caused this imbalance, not just Arena.

You naturally disagreed with that assertion, so it seems pretty odd to read that now:

if you think pve is what sells racials then why the hell isnt everyone alliance right now? the hit aura from the blue space goats is one of the strongest pve racials that has ever existed.

before blizzard broke it, there was a census addon people would use to constantly /who people on every realm and create statistics, undead was by far the most played race.

funnily enough, it was also the subject of faction balance on servers and blizzards solution was to mask it by breaking the addon.

Is there any actual reference to the data of this addon before it was broken?
Or at least some form of evidence of it working correctly?

why is it unreasonable to do free one-way faction transfers?

Where did i claim that's unreasonable?

[kenoathcarn]

gonna skip over a lot here because were honestly just argueing in circles at this point.

Okay, how is this different on Horde side?
Is Troll viable?
No.
Is Bloodelf viable?
No.

your not gonna convince me that troll is not viable dude, its literally S-Tier in specific comps.

if you play mage disc priest, troll is good, if you play priest warlock, troll is good, if you play shadowplay or shadowshatter, troll is good, in all of these comps its literally just as good if not better than undead.

Wotlk and onwards?
Yeah, because Endurance got nerfed in Wotlk and Shadowmeld allows you to avoid CC's on range, whereas Warstomp triggers the stun DR and you need to run to people.

on a 2minute cooldown you *might* avoid a CC if properly used, warstomp will always be a reliable stomp -> cyclone escape for melee.

Yeah, sure.
Let's just ignore the small detail that Hex of Weakness is a curse and thus gets countered by two prominent classes, Mage and Druid.

hex of weakness is spammable and cost 35 mana for rank1, you are using it on a comp that probably has the highest damage pressure in the game, you will not have the globals to decurse, i suggest watching some vods of it from private server gameplay you might be surprised how strong it actually is.

Any match where a rogue / druid is on the enemy team makes Perception extremely OP, it doesn't have to a mirror match.

Once again, pure horse shit.
Perception is strong whenever a stealth class is on the opposing team, same way WotF is strong when there's a fear class.

no, perception is STRONG but it does not always result in an auto win or a win that would otherwise be impossible. it might change who gets the opener but at the end of the day the game plays out more or less the same as if you got the opener normally.

double ud mage rogue against priest yeah gl cuz ur playing a different game to everyone else.

double ud mage rogue against warlock healer? as uphill as this match is for mage rogue, gl doing it without wotf.

the list goes on.

Funny, earlier i pointed out that in my opinion, Horde having superior PvE racials for such a long term caused this imbalance, not just Arena.

You naturally disagreed with that assertion, so it seems pretty odd to read that now:

No, i just think that the overall effectiveness of horde racials *IN PVP* but not just Arena is insane, i disagree with the notion that pve racials create faction imbalance, again, like i said, if this were the case everyone would be alliance because the hit aura is objectively better in every way.

in fact, Draenei Priests/Symbol of Hope are better in every single way for pve than other races and yet you don't see everyone rerolling for it.

The only time in which i can think of that pve racials were just out of control were ToT/Troll/Beastslaying(mostly because every alternative had been nerfed into the ground by this point and 5% beast damage in a beast heavy raid was an oversight.) and Mythic KJ/Goblin but these were mostly limited to high end raiding guilds.

at the end of the day if blizzard add this change and do nothing to compensate or incentivise being alliance its just gonna be a snowball effect of alliance bleeding more and more players to horde.

and personally id rather see them at the very least make the racials less shit (like i mentioned escape artist being dogshit now, longer cd, resist etc.) and theres just no reason for it to be when its competing against things like wotf if not make them at least seem as powerful as wotf of some of the other horde racials.

Is there any actual reference to the data of this addon before it was broken?
Or at least some form of evidence of it working correctly?

what reason would there be for it working incorrectly? it literally just /who'd every combination of letters untill it cycled the whole server and stored the data.

blizzards response was to protect the api so it couldn't do it automatically and thus killing it.

im sure you can find archives of old reddit posts where people ran it on various servers for weeks at a time and posted there results, it was pretty common at the time because everyone was interested in the total population numbers(cuz retail haters etc.)