Blizzard designed themselves into a corner with M+

[Kokolums]

PvP is impossible to balance. I said that as far back as vanilla. The problem is the ELO style rating system sucks. That needs to be fixed. Instead, hand out rewards based on best rating for every possible comp. the best rated team for priest / war / rogue gets glad. The best rated team for priest / priest / priest also gets glad. The best rated team for dk / shaman / warlock gets glad. That will make for a lot of glad but who cares. Blizz can post leaderboards for every class comp. balance becomes irrelevant because you are only competing for glad with your exact class comp.

It may sound dumb at first but you actually fix balance issues.

They can hold a quarterly arena tourney if you want to see different class comps duke it out.

[Craaazyyy]

Considering Arena has existed for a long time, i don't think one should just limit this discussion to a single expansion.
Even back in TBC, specs such as Ele, Enhance, Feral, Ret & Balance were just trash.



Still stands that this change had far more impact in PvP than PvE.
And i've never read "I'm not getting invited into raids because i don't have an interrupt", but i've been seeing quite a lot about people complaining that their class has no interrupt in PvP.

Why? Because Interrupts win games.

Fun side note: Blizzard kept telling Elemental Shaman during Wotlk that they won't buff Ele dps because it would make them too strong in PvP.



No, not really.
Because again, Dispels aren't a huge deal in PvE but are crucial to PvP.

Especially the fact that they changed every defensive dispel to remove all debuffs but at CD is 100% PvP based, because there's barely any situation in PvE present where you have more than a single application of a debuff to dispel.
Dispel roulette was a thing until Cata.

Having a single Priest / Paladin in even in a 10man raid was not a problem, even then you could still use a Warlock Imp as substitute.



I hate to break to you, but no one outside of the highrated Arena bubble cared about WoW PvP as an E-sport.
Because it simply sucks as an E-Sport, one of the reasons being that's absolutely terrible to watch unless you have complete in depth knowledge of the game.

Even people who just play WoW but aren't playing Arena have no idea what's going on.

well i was talking mostly about wrath

also it doesnt matter whether or not a certain spell has more impact in pvp or in pve.. what im saying is that 99% of changes are because of pve..

again im not saying that none of the changes weren't influenced by pvp, but usually it was all about pve, also as i stated earlier blizzard are absolutely awful at balancing, so thats why sometimes they weren't changing classes/specs despite them being op/too weak

i mean i hate to break it to you, but wow pvp was huge in wrath, upwards of 150k(which was huge in 2009) were watching streams with terrible quality on MLG website, it was 3rd-4th(basically tied with warcraft 3) most watched esport at the time behind counter strike and starcraft. Many current big esports organizations had multiple pvp rosters. It all fell apart after blizzard told explicitly that they don't care about pvp as an esport and started making changes to the game that made pvp worse, abandoned pvp pretty much. After that many tournaments(i already mentioned ESL, MLG, WCG, Dreamhack etc.) all dropped wow, same with esports organizations like SK gaming, Fnatic, EG etc. dropped their rosters..

[Big Thanks]

I think there is an (almost) perfect balance in mythic+ rewards compared to raiding rewards.

What im trying to say is, ME, as a noob who ONLY picks completely random people to do mythic+ dungeons with...the "ceiling" before it starts failing is between Mythic 7-8.
I bet a raider I.O user has much more success.

So...noobs like me have a really hard time doing Mythic +10's.
There is no such thing as a "noob" getting IMBA easy rewards.

In terms of game balance...yeah...there is always that problem...nothing new.

[LuminaL]

For me, the fix would be really simple:

Dungeon gear with an item level above baseline mythics can't be worn in raids.

Raid gear can't be worn at all in mythic+ dungeons.

PvE gear can't be worn at all in PvP and vice versa.

Bring back gear sets with different bonuses for all of these activities. Enable players to say "my endgame is pvp/mythic+/raiding" instead of having it all be complementary to each other.

congratz! you just removed 2/3 of the game for a huge majority of players because:

few people play all of the said things above in a competitive way , they either do PvP, dungeons or raids, the best you get are people who do mythic raids and do M+ when their team isnt up but even that is more of a casual activity compared to their main activity.
so what gives? you forced people into playing all of the above activities in a hardcore mode, which guess what? THEY WILL NOT do such (remember cata when raids got x100 harder,devs expecting for people to step up and now suddenly its minority of players activity ? ) and now people will only do 1/3 of the game which means 2/3 less content for players and 2/3 playtime for devs.

playing the game is if not more, as much important as the gear I get. IDGAF if PvP doesnt give gear to me, hell I miss Legion when gears meant little in arenas.
stop trying to make this fossil of a game less and less pleasant and more and more boring AF. so what if M+ is a better way to gear up than other ways? if they want people to play PvP and raids and any other thing in the game they should do so by improving the shitty state of those mods instead of downgrading the one way people enjoy to play.

[Mermeoth]

Well this is pretty much problem of every competive feature that includes rewards. Developers force themselves into balancing game around that.
That what was good in vanilla. People played and compete mostly for fun.

[Kralljin]

well i was talking mostly about wrath

I'm repeating myself by saying that Arena both precedes Wotlk and existed beyond that point of time.

what im saying is that 99% of changes are because of pve..

Which has no basis.
Factually, those changes have been more impactful in PvP and had barely any impact in PvE, yet you want to tell they happened because of PvE.
I'm not buying that explanation and as it sounds like the usual scapegoating of the "other mode".

After that many tournaments(i already mentioned ESL, MLG, WCG, Dreamhack etc.) all dropped wow, same with esports organizations like SK gaming, Fnatic, EG etc. dropped their rosters..

You're free to post a source on this one.
Because ironically, Blizzard is currently the only one who still hosts PvP tournaments.

[Jester Joe]

Except the bar is much lower for M+ and ability to repeat it without lockout makes it much easier.

Which is something you just keep ignoring.

But the bar ISN'T much lower.

https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...ror-season-one
https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...ror-season-two
https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...r-season-three

https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...he-curve-ghuun
https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...ina-proudmoore
https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...-queen-azshara

Far less percent of people have timed all +10s than have done AotC.

I get it, we're on MMOC. Where if you're still progressing in heroic at the moment, you're a failure basically. And if you're not on the last boss on Mythic, you're a casual.

But that doesn't change that statistic wise, M+10s are not as faceroll as the forums want you to believe for the average player.

If you have the key, that gives you the power, they can't do an +10 (of a specific dungeon) without someone having a key.
Anybody can open a group for a raid because no key is required.

So...what, are you proving that it's easier to get gear from raids now because you don't need to try to get a +10 key?

If you don't get everything within a lockout, you come back next week.
Do you have everything after a single lockout?
Probably not, so there's a good chance you come back next week.

Raiding, especially Mythic raiding, has worked for 15 years under this rather simple principle.
M+ bypasses this.

Except... it doesn't. Because a lot of what comes from M+ is rather trivial or not ideal. And on top of that, the strongest thing to come from M+ is azerite pieces, but even then some raid specific traits pull ahead in the right situations (Loyal to the End says hi).

They are using the best builds for Single target.
Feel free to check Warcraftlogs, compare them to what Bloodmallet suggest, it lines up in a lot of cases.

Not really relevant, because the point is that it ignores any circumstances of your character.

And I'm sure I shouldn't have to go into great details, but the top parses all have ideal azerite traits/builds. So someone with less than ideal azerite pieces might pull more DPS in their current situation by picking different talents.

Ret is a good example of this, and you can even see it reflected on warcraftlogs

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/ra...ec=Retribution

Nobody in their right mind would pick SE because that build removes one of the core strengths of Ele, which is gaining single target dps out of multi dotting FS.
If you go for SE, you basically play an entirely single target focused build that gets punished like hell by movement.
And is even worse on ST than the regular MotE / Icefury build.

Yeah, i simmed that one awhile ago.

Unless again, you have less than ideal azerite (No igneous potential), and you have to work with what you have.

And if you check the actual numbers and not just look at the massive bar, you realize that those trinkets aren't even 2k dps apart from the best M+ trinkets.

2k is a huge difference, this isn't Legion where people are pumping out millions of damage. And chances are you're not getting the 445 from an M+.

No, it's just relevant to the ring which you are going to use, but makes no difference in the grand scheme of things.
A socket is just +50 secondary stat, that's all you get out of it, whether it's on your gloves is irrelevant, that's your total bonus.

The socket only causes a massive swing within that respective slot, but that swing is an absolute number, which only has a greater impact on a slot that in itself is rather weak, but the absolute gain remains the same.

You need to start looking at the greater picture, not just razor focus on a single slot.
Rings are trash, a 445 ring gives you a total of 540 secondary stats, of course a proc that basically gives you 50 additional secondary stat has a huge swing in comparison to other rings, but that doesn't change the total value of gain those 50 secondary stats have on your dps.

You literally defeated your own argument here.

A socket on a ring is more powerful than a socket on gloves, not because it's "magically giving more stats", but because as you admitted yourself the extra stats ON a ring is far more of a swing than on another piece of gear.

There's a reason why my 400 ring on my priest sims higher because it has a socket over 445s even, yet gloves with a socket at 440 doesn't outsim my 455 gloves without a socket on my lock.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm sorry, but no... I know plenty of raiders who do not enjoy M+ at all.

They are different types of content, and while there is some overlap they also have their own populations who solely focus on this type of content.

When I feel like I can commit a lot of my time to a schedule you'll find me raiding mythic and shunning m+.
When I feel like I can't commit to a schedule then you'll find me doing m+ and getting annoyed that there is gear I can't get from mythic raiding...

It doesn't matter if they don't enjoy it, it IS PvE. So to say "i'm sorry, but no" to calling it PvE is a bit weird.

[Big Thanks]

But the bar ISN'T much lower.

https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...ror-season-one
https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...ror-season-two
https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...r-season-three

https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...he-curve-ghuun
https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...ina-proudmoore
https://www.wowhead.com/achievement=...-queen-azshara

Far less percent of people have timed all +10s than have done AotC.

Thank you for proving my point.

Ive felt the difficulty of doing Mythic+ with "randos" myself...and i have a HUGE hard time completing +7's and +8's even.

I am, like you, of the opinion that there is no "easy loot fiesta" being destributed to "noobs" like myself.

[Jester Joe]

Then you've shifted the goalposts of the discussion.

It being different parts of the game, each with their own dedicated community, was the point of the OP, and I agree with him.

Coincidentally I was thinking about tier sets earlier in the week and came to the same conclusions: they most likely don't exist anymore in part because it messes with M+.

It isn't a goalpost shift.

It's "You cut out 99% of my post to focus on a single thing". If you re-read my post, I acknowledge there are people who enjoy M+, and people who enjoy raiding.
Just like there's people who enjoy questing, and people who enjoy rep grinds.

Those are all PvE though.

It's not like someone who hates PvP because they don't like the stress of dealing with going against actual players, which is a reason why someone would avoid PvP over PvE. And there's people who prefer PvP because they LIKE dealing with other players instead. It's a drastically different field.

Thank you for proving my point.

Ive felt the difficulty of doing Mythic+ with "randos" myself...and i have a HUGE hard time completing +7's and +8's even.

I am, like you, of the opinion that there is no "easy loot fiesta" being destributed to "noobs" like myself.

I've pugged my fair share of keys trying to gear up alts, I think the worst I had was a +4 or +5 UR that ended with like, 30 deaths and didn't time it.

It's one of those moments that make you realize when you're used to playing with people who push keys like the 14-18 range, that there is a world of difference between them and the rest of the playerbase.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, M+ scales up for that very reason, so people can find the point they're comfortable with and repeat it.

[exochaft]

There is a balancing act that can be done to tune for content... it's just that Blizz will only do it on specific cases instead of across the board. The most common is the balance between PvE and PvP, where you can have completely different spell/ability scaling in the two areas of the game. However, a less common balance that is done in the game is where spells/abilities behave differently in M+ than in raids. As an example, Tranquility behaves differently in raids than it does in M+ (100% more healing when not in a raid), because one-size-fits-all for the ability makes the spell overpowered or underpowered in one of the settings. While Blizz does have the ability to do this with all spells and abilities across all specs/classes, it's a daunting task considering the sheer number of spells/abilities that would have to be adjusted with fine-tuning nobs that activate in different settings.

Now someone said (maybe the OP, can't recall) that set bonuses have disappeared because of M+, and I would have to say yes and no at the same time. In order for M+ to be an equally viable/powerful gearing method to raiding, you'd need set bonuses to drop in M+, but from a lore/<insert reason> perspective it doesn't quite make sense since gear is usually tied thematically to where it drops. However, considering the Azerite system in BfA and the direction of gear design, the system for set bonuses was going to disappear regardless of M+. Be that as it may, there's certainly ways to have tier set bonuses exist in the game without having to lock gear slots or ostracize certain non-raid activities. For example, you could implement the Essence system as a replacement to the tier set bonus system, where you can obtain set bonus tokens via your preferred content that allows you to gain powers and mix/match as you see fit. Doesn't have to be a complete copy-and-paste, either, as you could have certain powers only equippable in 2-set/4-set/6-set slots or something along those lines, but the main point is that it doesn't have to take up gear slots and can be obtained from various forms of content.

[Jester Joe]

To me it is quite irrelevant whether they're both PvE or not.

The same sort of divide exists between raiding and M+ than exists between the older PvE and PvP divide.

There is a different sort of social dynamic and expectations between each.

That doesn't change that they are both PvE though.
Nor was me pointing that out moving goalposts.

[Trend]

To me it is quite irrelevant whether they're both PvE or not.

The same sort of divide exists between raiding and M+ than exists between the older PvE and PvP divide.

There is a different sort of social dynamic and expectations between each.

Have to disagree. I've always done both PvE and PvP and have found the crowds extremely different with limited overlap. Mid-to-high mythic+ and mythic raiders are largely the same people with a more limited number who only do one or the other. Even the mythic+ people who do not raid do not do so because they would find it objectionable.

[Shelly]

Multiple difficulties were added in the first place because casuals complained that raiding was too hard for them.

Multiple difficulties were added because Blizz found them to be extremely popular in WotLK. It required multiple iterations on the system until finally they really hit a good balance with SoO in MoP that has continued now since WoD. Prior to that having groups split between heroic dungeons, 10 man raid, 25 man raid was too hard for them to balance given that some fights were laughably easy or much harder depending on whether or not you had 10 or 25 people. Also they condensed the loot table in Cata because they had overly inflated gear to reward heroic difficulties - we were as powerful leaving ToGC heroic 25 as we should have been finishing ICC.

LFR was added because even with the dead-easy puggable 10 man normal difficulty that was added in WotLK, casuals still wanted even easier.

LFR was added because it allowed the majority of the playerbase to see content that required the largest amount of time and money to make. LFR democratized the content so that now more than just 10% of the playerbase could actually raid. It wasn't about casuals complaining it was literally an in-house decision to justify development costs.

Titanforging was added because casuals weren't satisfied with running the same content as raiders. They wanted to be as geared as raiders too.

Titanforging was added as a way to maintain interest in farm content raids. Blizz would find a dropoff in raiders and wanted to keep up MAUs.

Alternative forms of progression were added because casuals weren't satisfied with getting sick loot from LFR. They wanted sick loot from roflstomping daily quests too.

Daily quests have always been a form of catchup mechanic. From Vanilla when doing stuff for the Argent Dawn would get you items, to badge gear that lasted until the end of MoP.

Legendaries were a shit system that were equally bad for both raiders and casuals alike. And that's why Blizzard BTFO'd them in BfA.

Eh, no real argument here, although you are aware we are getting a legendary cape in 8.3 right? And that we'll have "build a legendary" system coming in Shadowlands that revolves around the Torghast tower right?

Basically Blizz has decided the method of attainment was bad and have iterated on it to create a new attainment system.

Which were added because casuals wanted to repeat the same content ad nauseum instead of moving on to more difficult content.

After the first month or so most raiders are repeating the same content ad nauseum and we know from WoD that when your main game content is raiding that it's a failure.

So why is it okay to pander to casuals but pandering to raiders is a sin?

Every feature you've complained about, excepting the legendaries, was either for raiders or meant to create raiders. So I really don't get your point other than you want to throw around the word "casual" like it's some sort of insult.

- - - Updated - - -

Faster shifting meta? The meta for m+ has been the same since at least 8.1, with very small differences. Majority of push groups are rogue + dh + rdruid + prot warr (now also monks came up for top tank spot but warrior is still there) + 1 flex spot. The meta is stale as fuck and seasonal affixes change nothing, season 1 was rogue / dh / range, season 2 was triple melee but could work with 1 range as long as it had burst aoe, season 3 is again rogue / dh / range with some triple melee teams as well.

The only difference is blood dk was king of legion and season 1 in bfa, then got completely dumpstered with nerfs, and since then it's warrior or warrior / monk reigning supreme. Monk healers had some small appearance in season 1 as well when blood dks covered battle rez, but since they got pushed out, it's resto druid no contest.

Tbh the raid meta has been stale since BODA as well with the only difference of fire mages coming back to meta.

This leaves a lot of specs without any niche in pve, can't speak about pvp, but atm in pve melees that aren't rogue / dh / warrior struggle to find a spot, dks did see some usage in "mass pull" m+ and do a bit better in EP than BODA but nothing hot. WW Monks could be used for the buff, but since brewmaster is so widespread in both raiding and m+ that makes WW obsolete.

Same with tanks, monks everywhere with some warriors in m+ and some dks in raiding but the other 3 tank specs have no niche to excel in.

At least with healers is a clear split, druids for m+, priest / paladin and some shaman for raiding, still that leaves monk completely out of meta in pve.

Seasonal m+ affixes were meant to shake up the meta, yet only affected it by tiny amount.

Every class can complete a +10. For anything beyond that it's catering to min/Max playstyles and meta.

This meta changes around the type of gear that's available and the affixes. Due to the power of Shroud every group runs at least one rogue, but after that there's a lot of room for off-comp play. Unholy DKs aren't too great in most raids, but due to how M+ works at very high levels they are damage gods when paired with a good tank and healer. Demon Hunters are always training wheels to high DPS but when placed into a small group environment having a DH can change the relative value of the other players, same with monks.

You saw a lot of interesting off-meta comps in the MDI and Blizzcon. Some succeeded, others didn't, all did better than you and I do.

[sam86]

the problem of M+ is it is always relevant content in exp
why do actual work, when all u need to do is increase mythic dungeon difficulty for more ilvl for doing exact same things forever?
I didn't like ToC style of raids since its introduction, and i don't like mythic dungeon either
They should actually do new content for new reward, instead of just recycle the same dungeon for 1502 time

[Kralljin]

Far less percent of people have timed all +10s than have done AotC.

First off, isn't this just data from wowhead profiles?
Which raises the big question on the data itself.

Secondly,
Those achievements are attained by all dungeons +10, within the time limit.

If i just do Atal'dazar, Freehold, Underrot, etc. (basically the "easy" dungeons) all the time, and just skip over Dungeons like Kings rest or Shrine, i'm not going to earn that achievement.
Or if i simply deplete a key, i still get loot + Weekly chest, but i'm not going to get that achievement.

This "statistic" is shite, i could do literally every M+10 all the time and just skip over Kings Rest (or flat out deplete the key) and i wouldn't show up in this statistic.
Leaving out how many people actually buy the AotC achievement, whereas for this achievement, i would have to buy 10(!) seperate +10 boosts.

So...what, are you proving that it's easier to get gear from raids now because you don't need to try to get a +10 key?

No, you are not understanding it.
A shit geared player with a key is the door opener for M+, whereas in raids, he's nothing special could be replaced.

Except... it doesn't. Because a lot of what comes from M+ is rather trivial or not ideal.

M+ is pretty varied due to its big loot table.
For example, EP rings are pretty bad for certain classes, because there are only three.

And on top of that, the strongest thing to come from M+ is azerite pieces, but even then some raid specific traits pull ahead in the right situations (Loyal to the End says hi).

Meanwhile, there are BiS pieces from M+ which are completely unattainable if you just raid, which are BiS without having the requirements of traits such as Loyal to the end.

Unless again, you have less than ideal azerite (No igneous potential), and you have to work with what you have.

Good thing there's a weekly chest which gives me a currency to buy Azerite pieces.

2k is a huge difference, this isn't Legion where people are pumping out millions of damage. And chances are you're not getting the 445 from an M+.

Yes, assuming you are doing 60k, it's whooping 3,3%.

Besides, chances of getting a 445 Font aren't exactly high either if you're not killing Mythic Azshara.

A socket on a ring is more powerful than a socket on gloves, not because it's "magically giving more stats", but because as you admitted yourself the extra stats ON a ring is far more of a swing than on another piece of gear.

That example would only work if those items have virtually the same stats, which i am going to assume they don't have.
I'll repeat it, it doesn't matter on which piece the socket is in terms of total gain, as the total gain from the socket is not tied to the piece it is on, it's still just +50 secondary stats.

Repeating "but it's super important on ring!" just doesn't hold up when viewed in absolute gains.
If i have a 445 Ring without a socket but 445 Gloves with a socket my dps would be identical to having a 445 Ring with socket but 445 Gloves without socket.
The absolute gain from the socket is the same.

Even if i had a 430 Ring with a socket (which only has 510 secondary stats) as opposed to the same Ring in 445 without socket (which only has 540 secondary stats), that Ring with socket will only have like 20 additional secondary stats.
Which is only a lot if viewed in percentage gains, but isn't if viewed in absolute gains.

Of course, if i add to a small gain (because rings are only a minor upgrade) a big absolute number, the % increase is huge, but the absolute gain remains the same.

But if you are so damn focused on having sockets on your rings...guess which mode is the best one to acquire the right rings with sockets?
Oh yeah, it's M+, because there is no lockout and i could just farm a dungeon.

I get it, we're on MMOC. Where if you're still progressing in heroic at the moment, you're a failure basically. And if you're not on the last boss on Mythic, you're a casual.

Rather funny that people always try to bring up the "skill" argument.

I've never compared an M+10 with a Heroic / Mythic boss, because it would be stupid comparison, M+ wildly varies in terms of difficulty due to weekly affixes and dungeons, especially if we're talking about doing them in time.

Let alone that bosses from the raid itself can't be that easily compared; Azshara is a totally different beast than Blackwater Behemoth, regardless of difficulty.

However, if you want my personal opinion on M+ as a game mode.
It's a worse designed mode in comparison to raiding, from the fact that i'm doing virtually the same dungeon(s) over the course of the entire expansion, having a rather hamfisted way to achieve its difficulty, Affixes being shit and simply scaling up damage / hp isn't exactly a good way to achieve "difficulty", to that i am virtually hunting the very same pieces every new season, i have multiple reasons to not like M+.

M+ is easier to organize in comparison to raids, which makes it easier to gear, but i doubt that's a point of debate, let alone having anything to with your ability as a player on a technical level.

But regarding its difficulty in comparison, i am not going to comment on that, because difficulty = More Rewards is not necessarily a healthy thinking for a game.
If that were the case, Rank 1 Gladiators should have the best gear, because are doing the "most" difficult content, which is Arena, yet Arena is absolutely unrewarding.
It's a factor that needs to be taken into account, but it shouldn't be the only deciding factor.

[Khallid]

Raiding can't award powerful items because it will make raiding mandatory for M+ players. M+ can't award powerful items because it will make M+ mandatory for raiders. This is also why tier sets don't fit into the current design paradigm. When they tried to have unique and powerful rewards from different forms of content, Shadowmourne in WotLK arenas happened.

There is an answer to this but no one wants to hear it. Templates for M+ and raiding. But since WoW's carrot on a stick is gear progression, most people won't stick around if you remove tangible gear rewards. If people don't feel their characters get stronger they'll start asking, what's the point of doing this? This is especially true in modern WoW's gear-centric RNGforged / corrupted design.

Tl;dr: Ion, you can't have both tight tuning and different forms of endgame content. Pick one. Super-competitive e-sports with tight tuning or casual gameplay with a variety of game modes. Can't have both.

There's actually many ways to solve that problem if you start thinking a little bit more creatively. I'm not even sure what you mean with the word "template", so I can't comment whether I think that's a good idea or not. It's probably fine if your template can be improved by doing the content it is intended for. Weird thing is Blizzard doesn't even seem to think it's a big deal.

You could have a gear-designed approach. The simplest solution is with localized bonuses. We already have bonuses that only apply in raid. So also having bonuses that only apply in dungeons would basically make the raid and dungeon balance independent. Obviously raid bonuses should drop from raid and dungeon bonuses should drop from dungeons. There's other ways to modify gear in a way that gear that drops from mythic+ becomes useless in raid and gear that drops from raid becomes useless in mythic+. You could do sets. You could use legendaries. You could change the dungeon affixes to have special effects that can only be countered with gear that drops from mythic+. Etc.

You could have an encounter-designed approach. Embrace the cleavefest and make Mythic+ much more AoE-centric (including the bosses), while also removing large packs of adds in every raid encounter so cleave becomes useless in raid. Stats and talents naturally get skewed in a different direction for each type of content as long as the content is designed to not overlap, so they can be balanced separately.

You could have a systems-based approach. Instead of worrying about balancing individual abilities that rely on class fantasy and all that, you could tie most of your power to progression. If your power scales with your progression you can just split the raid progression and the dungeon progression into two independent systems.

You could have a math-based approach. The tuning issue is a byproduct of complexity. If you simplify the output math so it's easier to predict you could tune classes much more easily. This goes in line with pruning abilities or simplifying secondary stats, so I assume it won't be a popular measure.

Those are some random ideas I can come up in a few minutes. If you spent a few days thinking outside the box you can come up with dozens of workarounds to make the balancing from one content independent from the other. Blizzard just isn't trying to do that seriously.

[GreenJesus]

PvP is impossible to balance. I said that as far back as vanilla. The problem is the ELO style rating system sucks. That needs to be fixed. Instead, hand out rewards based on best rating for every possible comp. the best rated team for priest / war / rogue gets glad. The best rated team for priest / priest / priest also gets glad. The best rated team for dk / shaman / warlock gets glad. That will make for a lot of glad but who cares. Blizz can post leaderboards for every class comp. balance becomes irrelevant because you are only competing for glad with your exact class comp.

It may sound dumb at first but you actually fix balance issues.

They can hold a quarterly arena tourney if you want to see different class comps duke it out.

I'll play prot paladin / brewmaster / holy priest so we can get glad at 1500 rating.

[Dalexian]

There is an answer to this but no one wants to hear it. Templates for M+ and raiding. But since WoW's carrot on a stick is gear progression, most people won't stick around if you remove tangible gear rewards. If people don't feel their characters get stronger they'll start asking, what's the point of doing this? This is especially true in modern WoW's gear-centric RNGforged / corrupted design.
.

League of Legends is a thing. It illustrates that you can base everything around templates and people will play it for years if the content is engaging. It would just take a design philosophy shift.

[Jester Joe]

First off, isn't this just data from wowhead profiles?
Which raises the big question on the data itself.

Secondly,
Those achievements are attained by all dungeons +10, within the time limit.

If i just do Atal'dazar, Freehold, Underrot, etc. (basically the "easy" dungeons) all the time, and just skip over Dungeons like Kings rest or Shrine, i'm not going to earn that achievement.
Or if i simply deplete a key, i still get loot + Weekly chest, but i'm not going to get that achievement.

This "statistic" is shite, i could do literally every M+10 all the time and just skip over Kings Rest (or flat out deplete the key) and i wouldn't show up in this statistic.
Leaving out how many people actually buy the AotC achievement, whereas for this achievement, i would have to buy 10(!) seperate +10 boosts.

So do you have a better statistic then or...?
And I'm pretty sure it works the same way all data like that works, by using the information off the website itself.

And that's a really really weak way to dismiss it. There isn't enough people buying boosts to heavily sway a statistic like that. You really aren't showing much of anything with this though, you claim M+10s are easier to knock out than the raid, yet the statistic shows otherwise.

If they were as simple as you said, people would be banging out the achievement for completing all of them.

No, you are not understanding it.
A shit geared player with a key is the door opener for M+, whereas in raids, he's nothing special could be replaced.

Except again, it's not that simple. You think that single Waycrest+10 isn't already in a sea of Waycrests+14-16s?

Can you hope to get those geared/skilled players just by having the key, yes. But you are making it sound like it's an absolute when it's not.

And there is the high chance someone will join, see you're terribly geared, and just leave. Because they don't want to just carry you.

M+ is pretty varied due to its big loot table.
For example, EP rings are pretty bad for certain classes, because there are only three.

And yet there's a ton of terrible rings in M+ too. More variety doesn't inherently make it better.

Meanwhile, there are BiS pieces from M+ which are completely unattainable if you just raid, which are BiS without having the requirements of traits such as Loyal to the end.

Good thing there's a weekly chest which gives me a currency to buy Azerite pieces.

Almost as if I said that was the strength of M+ over raiding from the very first post.

But you still ignore that if you want an azerite piece fast, the raid is the best way to go about it.

Yes, assuming you are doing 60k, it's whooping 3,3%.

Besides, chances of getting a 445 Font aren't exactly high either if you're not killing Mythic Azshara.

60k lol.

Leaving aside whether there's skill or not, 445 geared players aren't even simming for 60k single target, aside from some outliners.

Try more like, 45-50k. And 3.3% is still a decent chunk for that extra edge.

That example would only work if those items have virtually the same stats, which i am going to assume they don't have.
I'll repeat it, it doesn't matter on which piece the socket is in terms of total gain, as the total gain from the socket is not tied to the piece it is on, it's still just +50 secondary stats.

Repeating "but it's super important on ring!" just doesn't hold up when viewed in absolute gains.
If i have a 445 Ring without a socket but 445 Gloves with a socket my dps would be identical to having a 445 Ring with socket but 445 Gloves without socket.
The absolute gain from the socket is the same.

Even if i had a 430 Ring with a socket (which only has 510 secondary stats) as opposed to the same Ring in 445 without socket (which only has 540 secondary stats), that Ring with socket will only have like 20 additional secondary stats.
Which is only a lot if viewed in percentage gains, but isn't if viewed in absolute gains.

Of course, if i add to a small gain (because rings are only a minor upgrade) a big absolute number, the % increase is huge, but the absolute gain remains the same.

But if you are so damn focused on having sockets on your rings...guess which mode is the best one to acquire the right rings with sockets?
Oh yeah, it's M+, because there is no lockout and i could just farm a dungeon.

I'm honestly done with the ring argument at this point.

You keep trying to argue "but the value is the same as it being on gloves" which is irrelevant to the point that rings. do. not. have. primary. stats. which. makes. a. socket. more. valuable. than. ilvl.

There is A REASON why people sit on rings that can be a +30 ilvl upgrade because their 410 has a socket. You WON'T see that happening with gloves.

Trying to twist that by comparing the gain on other slots is irrelevant when all other slots have primary stats. That is a huge difference here, one that you're missing out on by trying to compare them.

The "absolute" gain is irrelevant because guess what, you're not comparing rings to your gloves. You're comparing rings to rings.

Rather funny that people always try to bring up the "skill" argument.

You're the one that claimed it's easier to get M+10s done than it is heroic. And when less of the population has done all M+10s than have done the raid, I'm going to point out there's obviously something wrong with the assumpion +10s are easy to get.

I've never compared an M+10 with a Heroic / Mythic boss, because it would be stupid comparison, M+ wildly varies in terms of difficulty due to weekly affixes and dungeons, especially if we're talking about doing them in time.

If you're not doing them in time, you're only getting 2 pieces of gear at the end, which is less than what drops from 10 man raid kills on average. Not really an argument that it's "pointless to raid" like being said.

Let alone that bosses from the raid itself can't be that easily compared; Azshara is a totally different beast than Blackwater Behemoth, regardless of difficulty.

I mean...yes? The second/third boss is easier than the last. Not entirely unexpected.

However, if you want my personal opinion on M+ as a game mode.
It's a worse designed mode in comparison to raiding, from the fact that i'm doing virtually the same dungeon(s) over the course of the entire expansion, having a rather hamfisted way to achieve its difficulty, Affixes being shit and simply scaling up damage / hp isn't exactly a good way to achieve "difficulty", to that i am virtually hunting the very same pieces every new season, i have multiple reasons to not like M+.

Then don't do it? There are people who genuinely enjoy it and that doesn't mean it should have to change just because you don't enjoy it.

As you've said, you don't consider 2k DPS a "huge" difference, so why do you need to hunt the same azerite pieces, just use the raid ones.

M+ is easier to organize in comparison to raids, which makes it easier to gear, but i doubt that's a point of debate, let alone having anything to with your ability as a player on a technical level.

Ease to organize doesn't exactly translate into "getting gear". Again, an entire M+ can take 15-20 minutes. If you time it, 3 pieces of gear will drop, if not, 2.

It isn't exactly the most lucrative source of gear, unless you're getting chain carried through them. Which again, can be done through raid too where each boss will drop more gear than the average M+ run.

But regarding its difficulty in comparison, i am not going to comment on that, because difficulty = More Rewards is not necessarily a healthy thinking for a game.
If that were the case, Rank 1 Gladiators should have the best gear, because are doing the "most" difficult content, which is Arena, yet Arena is absolutely unrewarding.
It's a factor that needs to be taken into account, but it shouldn't be the only deciding factor.

I never said to compare the difficulty itself, I took issue with your claim that it's easy to get through M+10s for gear.

[A Chozo]

Raiders feel that it's mandatory to do rewarding content, and you think this is Blizzard designing themselves into a corner?

Nah mate, what is drying in a corner is those players' brains. The game is currently very well balanced, and there's content for different parts of the playerbase - the opposite of the dreaded Warlords of Draenor's Raid or Die.

Facts and coherent information with sources

Sir. Sir. We don't do this here.