Blizzard designed themselves into a corner with M+

[Kralljin]

it's like you cant even read.. first of all blizzard said that in 2010

Yeah and want a source on that.
I want to read what Blizzard said and not just hearsay.

Blizzard never said that there will be no blizzcon tournament

Never talked about Blizzcon in particular, especially because there are other tournaments outside of Blizzcon.

also you keep saying that what matters the most is how things were before and what was affected by change the most and the thing that was affected the most must be the reason why things were changed, but its not the case.. it's just not

So at this point, your only argument is "no, because i said so".

Your argument in regards to PvE is just horseshit, those changes did_not_have any impact on PvE, they didn't make any classes / specs "more viable" or somehow made things easier or more difficult for people, it just didn't have any impact.

Because any remotely realistic setup had enough interrupts and magic dispels to begin with to tackle any encounter.
Blizzard could have reverted these changes without even damaging the PvE viability of any of those specs, yet they didn't, because they became essential for those specs in Arena.

[Craaazyyy]

Yeah and want a source on that.
I want to read what Blizzard said and not just hearsay.



Never talked about Blizzcon in particular, especially because there are other tournaments outside of Blizzcon.

i wish i could provide source, but pretty much every website that had it is dead.. arenajunkies, gamespot, sk-gaming, mlg websites are either dead or completely changed with articles wiped out

oh and no there arent any more tournaments, the tournaments you're talking about are qualifiers for blizzcon.. so its the same thing

also the abilities had a lot of impact on PvE, you're just refusing to see it.. there was this whole thing blizzard were going for called "Bring the player, not the class" and that's what led to all these changes and all the homogenization.. and it was because of PVE

[Vellithe]

Templates are probably annoying, but it'd be nice to have a "maximum iLvl" per key level, for instance, maybe even the same for Raids. With a maximum iLvl, gear could even get updated as new patches come in, making content never become entirely obsolete. (Gear can't be updated for Uldir because currently it's faceroll with WQ gear, but if Uldir was always nearly as hard as it was on release, then it could reward gear that's OK, but not as good as EP)

They've already made the whole "monsters now scale to your iLvl!" on the open world, though. So the more places they add scaling to, the less reason people will have to go out and get the gear.

I'd be more comfortable just playing to the extent I want to and ignoring everything that annoys me, but a lot of people are driven by the carrot on the stick, so it's hard to say how viable these solutions could be.

You don't 'have' to unless you're pushing for world firsts, and people that push for world firsts are always going to push things to the limit. You don't have to optimize every aspect of play. It is perfectly viaable to raid without touching M+ and vice versa.

People who push for world first are irrelevant, but there's tons of people who are pushing the limits of their respective realms, and while those are not the absolute best, they still need to do everything that's within their reach to improve their performance, if only because they're nowhere near as skilled as those "world first" guys and therefore need the best gear they can get to make up for lower skill.

A lot of guilds survive by having the best mythic progression on their realm, they lose that, they stop getting replacements, they die. To avoid that, their raiders must be up to date with everything. Hell, on smaller servers this might even be true for low-skill Heroic-only guilds. This is nowhere near an issue that affects only a tiny speck of the population. Remember that even some LFR Heroes are trying their best, and the lower your skill, the more relevant gear becomes.

[Kralljin]

"Bring the player, not the class" and that's what led to all these changes and all the homogenization.. and it was because of PVE

Yet this was primarily about support buffs / debuffs.

Unique utility, primarily stuff like Windfury Totem, Blessings, etc..
In Vanilla / TBC, every Buff / debuff from a given class / spec was unique, if you didn't have a Shaman, you didn't have WF and your Melee dps heavily suffered.
So they changed a lot of these buffs to be replaceable with each other, so you could bring a Frost DK instead of a Shaman if you wanted to.

That didn't have anything to do with Interrupts or dispels, because these were already shared among a multitiude of classes since Classic.

This entire "Bring the player, not the class" originiated from the extreme ends guilds reached in TBC where one class / spec was so much more valueable than another simply because it brought this one unique tool.
As said, neither interrupts nor dispels were in any fashion unique.

A lack of Interupts was never an issue in PvE, neither were dispels.

Let's not forget, this philosophy was implemented in Wotlk, not Cata, not MoP, this where it had the biggest impact on the game, yet that's the expansion that you hail as so amazing for PvP.

[Craaazyyy]

Yet this was primarily about support buffs / debuffs.

Unique utility, primarily stuff like Windfury Totem, Blessings, etc..
In Vanilla / TBC, every Buff / debuff from a given class / spec was unique, if you didn't have a Shaman, you didn't have WF and your Melee dps heavily suffered.
So they changed a lot of these buffs to be replaceable with each other, so you could bring a Frost DK instead of a Shaman if you wanted to.

That didn't have anything to do with Interrupts or dispels, because these were already shared among a multitiude of classes since Classic.

This entire "Bring the player, not the class" originiated from the extreme ends guilds reached in TBC where one class / spec was so much more valueable than another simply because it brought this one unique tool.
As said, neither interrupts nor dispels were in any fashion unique.

A lack of Interupts was never an issue in PvE, neither were dispels.

Let's not forget, this philosophy was implemented in Wotlk, not Cata, not MoP, this where it had the biggest impact on the game, yet that's the expansion that you hail as so amazing for PvP.

it had the biggest impact on pve maybe, but not on pvp(in wrath)

also again your only explanation as to why it wasn't such a big deal in pve is that guilds were still able to kill the bosses so it's fine.. but that's not the point, people were able to kill bosses with 10 of each class, kill them solo etc., that doesn't mean that it's optimal or that it's how it should be

also things that i was talking about happened AFTER wrath, not during wrath or before, interrupts weren't unique but many classes didn't have them.. and that was the problem, especially in 10 man, which was by far the most popular type of raiding, especially during and after Cata when they made 10m and 25m essentially the same. I have personal examples of how we probably wouldnt have killed some bosses in Cata if ret didn't have kick, or at least we would've killed them much later with more gear maybe. Like, Halfus was easy, but you absolutely needed a kick on pretty much every melee, or you needed to bring more than you really wanted

they added many bosses with interrupt mechanics and dispel mechanics and that was the reason they gave all healers dispel to bring them closer together so you dont feel like you absolutely need a paladin and a priest in your raid, same with ret kick.. if you think that pve players weren't complaining about rets not having kick then i dont know what to tell you, because they absolutely did

[Kralljin]

also again your only explanation as to why it wasn't such a big deal in pve is that guilds were still able to kill the bosses so it's fine.. but that's not the point, people were able to kill bosses with 10 of each class, kill them solo etc.,

It wasn't an issue even in Wrath, because no boss required having almost every raidmember an interrupt.
Same goes for dispels, if you were in a 10man and had a single person that could dispel, you were fine, which was absolutely not difficult to achieve.

also things that i was talking about happened AFTER wrath, not during wrath or before, interrupts weren't unique but many classes didn't have them

"many":
Priest
Hunter
Paladin
(non feral) Druids

.. and that was the problem, especially in 10 man, which was by far the most popular type of raiding

Mate, i've been telling you multiple times by now that it wasn't a problem, that didn't change because you now suddenly write that paragraph.
If you had a remotely balanced raid setup, you did have enough interrupts, because only 4(!) classes didn't have one.

Like, Halfus was easy, but you absolutely needed a kick on pretty much every melee

You didn't.
You needed like 2-3 interrupts.
So as long as you had 2-3 of the following, you were fine:
Shaman
Warrior
Mage
Warlock
Death Knight
Rogue
Feral Druid

And if your setup didn't even have 2-3 of the classes above, your setup might be tad imbalanced to begin with and most likely lacked even a shit ton of buffs.
For example, not having a Shaman / mage meant no Bloodlust, unless you forced your Hunter to BM.
Let's not forget, they even changed abilities like Silence, Silencing Shot, HoJ to also interrupt Npc's, so you could still throw them in if necessary.

that was the reason they gave all healers dispel to bring them closer together so you dont feel like you absolutely need a paladin and a priest in your raid

Considering that Paladin / Priest could be virtually of any role, i don't see the problem.
I mean, they limited Bloodlust to three classes and Bloodlust wasn't even an encounter specific effect.

If you didn't have a Priest or Paladin healer, you just looked for a Prot Pally, Ret Pally, Shadow Priest or Warlock.

[pinelakias]

Wait, people think mythics are "end-game" content? LUL, thats a nice joke xD

[Clash the DK]

Just make set bonuses for Raiding
Set bonuses for M+
And set bonuses for PvP

Raiding ones' effects do not activate in M+ or PvP and vise versa.

Bingo. This is the correct answer.

[Celestraza]

M+ was a disaster for raiders that don't have the time, luck (titanforge) or connections (friends with same gear type for trading) to spam M+ all day.

I won't be coming back to retail until I can do mythic raids properly and competitively without having to spend 12 hours a day grinding AP and M+.

- - - Updated - - -

Competitive players clear content 6 months before everybody else and while not having looted anything from the new raid.

You talking about us plebs. Stop refering to competitive raiders just to make your points valid.

Those guys clear stuff with common gear if they have too.

This is nonsense. It was true for maybe TBC where I heard people killed Illidan in Classic gear.

But right now gear/ilvl is the single most important factor for progress and realm firsts. All guilds focus on raising ilvl as high as possible and think of truly sick strategies for it.

An example: When personal loot was introduced top guilds couldnt abuse split runs to get artificial high ilvl. So what they did: they gathered a sick amount of gold, bought high ilvl for each slot so they could once again funnel gear/ilvl efficiently to who they wanted.

I even see it on my realm. Certain players are BiS in just 2-3 weeks of raiding for each tier. It is always the same. PL did temper this somewhat but not much.

[rohoz]

M+ was a disaster for raiders that don't have the time, luck (titanforge) or connections (friends with same gear type for trading) to spam M+ all day.

I won't be coming back to retail until I can do mythic raids properly and competitively without having to spend 12 hours a day grinding AP and M+.

- - - Updated - - -



This is nonsense. It was true for maybe TBC where I heard people killed Illidan in Classic gear.

But right now gear/ilvl is the single most important factor for progress and realm firsts. All guilds focus on raising ilvl as high as possible and think of truly sick strategies for it.

An example: When personal loot was introduced top guilds couldnt abuse split runs to get artificial high ilvl. So what they did: they gathered a sick amount of gold, bought high ilvl for each slot so they could once again funnel gear/ilvl efficiently to who they wanted.

I even see it on my realm. Certain players are BiS in just 2-3 weeks of raiding for each tier. It is always the same. PL did temper this somewhat but not much.

"I won't be coming back to the game because i cba to get geared before raids"

Okay bye.

[Aleksej89]

Honestly i dont care if they implement "templates" - i actually liked them in pvp.

However the current BFA class design is utter boring shallow dog poo.

[dcc626]

Honestly i dont care if they implement "templates" - i actually liked them in pvp.

However the current BFA class design is utter boring shallow dog poo.

yeah, they tried templates in pvp and people responded by crying thatgear didnt matter and that they couldnt outgear and kill noobs.

i dont think we will be seeing templating again anytime soon.

[Jester Joe]

This is nonsense. It was true for maybe TBC where I heard people killed Illidan in Classic gear.

But right now gear/ilvl is the single most important factor for progress and realm firsts. All guilds focus on raising ilvl as high as possible and think of truly sick strategies for it.

An example: When personal loot was introduced top guilds couldnt abuse split runs to get artificial high ilvl. So what they did: they gathered a sick amount of gold, bought high ilvl for each slot so they could once again funnel gear/ilvl efficiently to who they wanted.

I even see it on my realm. Certain players are BiS in just 2-3 weeks of raiding for each tier. It is always the same. PL did temper this somewhat but not much.

It's not really "nonsense" though.

Sure, they're not doing it in common gear, and they will have loot from the new raid hence split heroic clears and reclears for mythic, but they're done with the content far before anyone else is.

They're not sitting here months later doing M+ over and over again until they burn out. They're waiting for the new raid, where they'll go at it full force again for the first month about and then be done again.

[ID811717]

Remember when Arena World Championship was Blizzard's big event? Nobody gives a shit about that anymore. It's all about the Mythic Dungeon Invitational now. But it can only last so long until bad balance starts to drive people away. The writing is already on the wall with some meta classes (looking at you, rogues) being almost mandatory.

Nice, this is a rare post I really agree with. Except for the quoted part. This year the Blizzcon AWC finals had 50k viewers on Twitch, and Blizzcon MDI finals had 20k viewers. That is also the opinion I hear from nearly all friends, both casual and hardcore M+ players: AWC is much more fun to watch than MDI, even for people who only play M+ and never Arena in game.

[Jastall]

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.

I don't think that's true. Now sure, some people just stick to m+ or raiding, but in my experience they are absolutely the minority. You'd be somewhat hard pressed to find a Mythic raider that doesn't have an at least decent RIO score, and you'd also be hard pressed to find a person with 1.5k+ score that doesn't at the very least have a couple H Azshara kills. The two modes complement each other more than a lot of people let on here. In my raiding guild I know of all of one person that doesn't like M+; anecdotal evidence I know, but still, the number of them who hate PvP is FAR higher. The divide just isn't the same.

[ID811717]

You don't 'have' to unless you're pushing for world firsts, and people that push for world firsts are always going to push things to the limit. You don't have to optimize every aspect of play. It is perfectly viaable to raid without touching M+ and vice versa.

But it's a cultural thing that is not contained to world-first players. There are many players who want to do keys as high as possible. They plateau at different world ranks depending on their time investment, social maturity, mechanical skills, and other factors. Most of these players raid mythic as a prerequisite. I have myself plateaued in world 300-800 ranks (depending on season and free time), and I know several players around my ranks who even transferred to alliance full time because of shadowmeld. In comparison, the raiding is a basic requirement that stretches much deeper down the world ranks.

[TickerDS]

The only thing is I don't really want to have to carry around all these different sets/items in my bags again especially as a paladin

Basically already doing that with Azerite gear sadly.

It was so nice the last few expansions to have gear just switch to spec specific when you changed spec.

[ID811717]

Again, no one is getting into M+10 after just hitting 120 unless you have a group willing to carry you. Hell, you're not getting into M+ in general until you gear up yourself. Unless you have a group willing to carry you.

To be precise, experienced players can jump straight into M+ on new alts, and easily push their own keys up to +10 and higher through pugging. I have done it myself on my alts. At those key levels, the knowledge of mechanics is so much more helpful than 30-40 extra item levels.

But I don't think it undermines your general point. For new players, grinding from M+2 to M+10 is a real progression ladder requiring to learn dungeon mechanics and to understand their own class.

- - - Updated - - -

Just realized that I didn't mention this in my initial post, but the current iteration of M+ is way more toxic than even the worst iteration of arena.

In arena at least you had to communicate. In M+ everything is predetermined to the point people just join groups and never talk to each other. And then when the inevitable fuck up happens because people didn't talk, the raging starts. "Great" game design indeed when you can clear "group" content communication-free.

And another similarity: sitting for hours in a queue getting declined because your class is not meta. Reminds you of anything?

This comparison misses the point. The level of communication depends on how committed/hardcore you are in a particular type of content.

It is expected that everyone will join discord and speak on voice starting from mid-level M+ pugs. If a group does not use voice comms, then to me it's an indication that it's a farm/weekly/meme run where I do not need to concentrate.

As a newbie arena player, I will never get on voice comms with anyone on arena (unless I'm playing with friends). I see no reason, I'm just not at that level of play.

[Shelly]

Getting a carry in a M+ is significantly easier than getting carried in a raid. All you have to do is list yourself as MY KEY YOUR CARRY and you can easily run 10+ keys. I did it on an alt of mine and while you do have to work through a few low level keys at first, if you're willing to put the 'effort' into making your own group then it's very easy to get carried.

In a raid, the only thing you can really try to offer is a specific boss lockout, which doesn't give you nearly as much bargaining power.

Well that's skewed, I mean pug wise it certainly makes sense, but if you're in a guild with any difficulty on farm you can bring in anything and provided 4 players share an armor and weapon type with you and are geared you'll typically leave at least 10 item levels higher than when you went in.

I can see you definitely getting gear faster on a single week basis in M+ if you wanted to spend a huge amount of time, but with just a two to three hour commitment once per week gaining +10 item levels seems a very hard efficiency to beat when broken down per hour.

[ID811717]

I don't think that's true. Now sure, some people just stick to m+ or raiding, but in my experience they are absolutely the minority. You'd be somewhat hard pressed to find a Mythic raider that doesn't have an at least decent RIO score, and you'd also be hard pressed to find a person with 1.5k+ score that doesn't at the very least have a couple H Azshara kills.

Doing heroic requires nearly no effort for the more skilled players. I don't think it's a good representative of "raiding" for any discussion. It's all about mythic raiding, which requires to commit to a guild with a regular raiding schedule.