Something isn't right in PvP

[Rucati]

I prefer what we have now to that, personally... But I'd rather have neither... We went from one extreme to the other, there's a good, balanced middle ground between these two things, and that's where we should be... I really don't want to go back to the days of 15+ minute arena matches where you're just burning time waiting for dampening to stack up because it's impossible to kill anyone.

Honest question then, what's the middle ground? Because right now most arena games last about 5-6 minutes. So if that's still too fast, but 15 minutes is too slow, what are you looking for? Exactly 10 minutes? Because that seems pretty unrealistic.

I'm personally really happy with the current pace of the game, feels like they hit the middle ground right now.

BTW - I have NEVER understood why Arenas is the big Esports thing that Blizzard pushes for so hard. I would think RBGs would be more popular and fun to watch. With CTF, Domination++ its much easier to follow and much easier to understand whats going on without having in depth knowledge of all the classes, spells and so on.

And since Blizzard got a boner for pushing esports into everything - If they pushed more on RBGs, maybe we could get new big pvp maps, new objectives etc.

Arena now is *blow everything you got in the enemys face* and see if they die or not. If non of you die after that initial 10-15 seconds, you might have a interesting fight. Most fights is just NUKE!11!!!!!!! GG end.

It's because esports are supposed to be about player skill. RBGs are not nearly as skill based as arenas, so they'd be a lot less interesting to watch. Sure it'd be easier to understand what's going on, but they'd also be incredibly boring to watch because nothing interesting would happen. Seeing people sitting at a flag for 15 minutes isn't exactly exciting.

Not to mention logistically getting 10-13 man teams together is significantly harder, and flying them out for things like Blizzcon or LAN events (remember LAN events? Good times) becomes much more expensive and inconvenient. Also things like setting up a stage with 20 players on it with 20 computers would be a nightmare.

[Enclave]

Honest question then, what's the middle ground? Because right now most arena games last about 5-6 minutes. So if that's still too fast, but 15 minutes is too slow, what are you looking for? Exactly 10 minutes? Because that seems pretty unrealistic.

I'm personally really happy with the current pace of the game, feels like they hit the middle ground right now.




It's because esports are supposed to be about player skill. RBGs are not nearly as skill based as arenas, so they'd be a lot less interesting to watch. Sure it'd be easier to understand what's going on, but they'd also be incredibly boring to watch because nothing interesting would happen. Seeing people sitting at a flag for 15 minutes isn't exactly exciting.

Not to mention logistically getting 10-13 man teams together is significantly harder, and flying them out for things like Blizzcon or LAN events (remember LAN events? Good times) becomes much more expensive and inconvenient. Also things like setting up a stage with 20 players on it with 20 computers would be a nightmare.

The reason games go 5-6 min is holy paladin being absurdly broken and 90% of healers play holy pal rn
When I play with priests our games never go that long because we either land a kill or he goes oom

[Rucati]

The reason games go 5-6 min is holy paladin being absurdly broken and 90% of healers play holy pal rn
When I play with priests our games never go that long because we either land a kill or he goes oom

Not too sure, I main Disc and yeah we usually lose because of mana but it's also usually around 5 minutes into the game. I don't exactly keep track, but I usually pop Shadowfiend like 30 seconds into the game and I don't remember the last time I went oom before my second fiend came up. And I play Feral/Mage/Priest so it's not like I have tons of offhealing, if I had a Ret on the team I'd last even longer.

I do think the other healers have a bad time, especially Druid and MW, but I mean it's hard to complain games are too fast and then say games are only fast if you don't play with a Paladin. Cause like... you could just play with a Paladin.

[Enclave]

Not too sure, I main Disc and yeah we usually lose because of mana but it's also usually around 5 minutes into the game. I don't exactly keep track, but I usually pop Shadowfiend like 30 seconds into the game and I don't remember the last time I went oom before my second fiend came up. And I play Feral/Mage/Priest so it's not like I have tons of offhealing, if I had a Ret on the team I'd last even longer.

I do think the other healers have a bad time, especially Druid and MW, but I mean it's hard to complain games are too fast and then say games are only fast if you don't play with a Paladin. Cause like... you could just play with a Paladin.

Paladins are getting nerfed in 2 days so we'll see how meta adjusts
Also damage scales better than defense because of how versatility works(versa has 2/1 ratio of damage/dmg reduction) so with more gear damage will get higher and games will get shorter

[Dristereau]

It's pretty crappy to say the least, at least from a 2's perspective. For certain Classes and Specs Gear means more than skill and you're on the back foot because you're under that much pressure. Play Warr/Priest into Ret/Shaman and interrupted 5 Hexs. Ret pummelling away until eventually a Hex got through and I fell over. Shaman never cast anything besides Hex because Riptide/Earth Shield. Afterwards I found out they were 220 at 1400, we were 190ish.

Convoke the Spirits is stupid as well. Removing Full Moon does not remove the triple 15k Starsurges at minimum if you can't interrupt it. I've played my Druid in 3's and can tell you've I've killed people without noticing it. I've had friends tell me they were chasing someone and killed the guy behind them. It's just that strong. I feel if the damage ramped up over the duration it would function better.

My idea of playing my Death Knight as UH has already gone. It feels like a mess with Necrotic Strike being not even worth taking and I've given up and gone Frost for meme streak. The lack of Balance besides these minor changes has been sad to see. Being a Paladin is a good time right now, all three specs have Lay on Hands/Word of Glory. In the Arena I've done so far I've seen maybe two Mistweaver Monks total, with the majority Holy Paladin, followed by Resto Shaman and Disc Priest.

My favourite is still Rogues. Def Stance Warrior opened on, had to Racial/DbtS the opener to live. Rogue vanishes, I kill the healer and he doesn't come out. A minute later he's back, full kidney in Shadow Duel and through Earth Shield/Def Stance and full HP I died. It was one of those, welp, Shadowlands Arena games.

I can't really say I've been enjoying Arena so far. FOTM comps are everywhere (Prot Paladin/Boomking) and it's rare to see Demon Hunters, Death Knights and Warlocks. I'm not massively complaining about the lack of DH though, having been to 2396 the last season of BFA and losing the 2400 three times to a Mana Burning DH.

[Cored]

Thank god for that the pace and flow has changed.

Before arena was a complete snoozefest, where you could mess up frequently and your biggest punishment? Fall behind on mana by 2%.. oh gee'

Atm. if you're not aware, not keeping track of the enemies cooldowns and you waste yours, you get blown up.

It's much more reactive and requires you to pay way more attention than previously.

you play ret pala or mage?

[Twistnectar]

I had the same experience, I wont say I'm super well geared, but I'm at 204 and I'm starting out at the very low end. the first match I have some rando rogue bugle his stealth opening by running into my AoE, he uses his blind then pops a 3 second kidney shot, I'm thinking "well we got this one in the bag, this guy sucks", But ohh no somehow my HP drains from full to almost dead in 3 bloody GCD's as a plate class, and me not expecting this level of crazy didn't have the reaction speed to pop all cooldowns so in the end I die without having done much of anything... And his team mate wasn't even helping him...

So I go on to try matches for another 60 min or so and nearly every single one of them is over for one team in the opening 3-9 seconds of combat, you literally spam everything you got and hope someone on the other end blows up. Some classes seem like they can kill whole teams on their own (Looking at druids here...), and some feel completely useless. I'm not saying that we haven't had fast metas in the past but I never remember things being this absolutely crazy. I normally move on to healing shorty after testing the waters in arena, but after seeing this.... ya no...

Hard to take people like you seriously.. My friend and I on undergeared clothies (shadow priest / Aff lock) were lasting much longer than 10 seconds in ALL of our 2's matches. We were just doing weekly cap, and are usually only around 1800 rated players (we finished capping last week around 1k, so not high at all). But it was quite easy to live openers, "one shots" as everyone keeps calling them. You just need to understand how classes and abilities work, and use your defensives appropriately.

[Rucati]

Paladins are getting nerfed in 2 days so we'll see how meta adjusts
Also damage scales better than defense because of how versatility works(versa has 2/1 ratio of damage/dmg reduction) so with more gear damage will get higher and games will get shorter

The Paladin nerfs are basically irrelevant tbh, they'll still be top healer by a mile and still have basically infinite mana and never cast.

And you're forgetting versatility increases healing done. So yeah the damage gets higher but the healers will be able to heal it just as well, and you'll have more HP since you have better gear so the burst will still be about the same % of your health.

[muto]

I'm a 218 disc 30.5% versatility. I would pwn any 180 hunter lmao. They have a bursty opener but that's on you not being able to react to it now WW or Boomie Convoke or Mage burst now thats a different story.

Mage is a problem because they have the triple shield legendary to help protect combust getting dispelled. And Windwalkers, don’t get me started.

[crusadernero]

Honest question then, what's the middle ground? Because right now most arena games last about 5-6 minutes. So if that's still too fast, but 15 minutes is too slow, what are you looking for? Exactly 10 minutes? Because that seems pretty unrealistic.

I'm personally really happy with the current pace of the game, feels like they hit the middle ground right now.




It's because esports are supposed to be about player skill. RBGs are not nearly as skill based as arenas, so they'd be a lot less interesting to watch. Sure it'd be easier to understand what's going on, but they'd also be incredibly boring to watch because nothing interesting would happen. Seeing people sitting at a flag for 15 minutes isn't exactly exciting.

Not to mention logistically getting 10-13 man teams together is significantly harder, and flying them out for things like Blizzcon or LAN events (remember LAN events? Good times) becomes much more expensive and inconvenient. Also things like setting up a stage with 20 players on it with 20 computers would be a nightmare.

Yeah I see your point. But still, domination based RBGs would atleast be somewhat interesting maybe? Different fights happening, teams gotta prioritize who goes were etc. There are more tactics involved in BGs if Blizzard wanted them so.

I have liked doing pvp since vanilla, but I have never given any care for the arena Esports scene. When watching that, im missing 90% of the stuff going on, and i've played this game for a long ass time. The screen gets cluttered with all kinds of spells going off at once.

I am by no means a very good player, and maybe thats the issue in the end. You gotta be deeply involved into arena in order to get out enough information about whats going on during fights.

[Rucati]

Yeah I see your point. But still, domination based RBGs would atleast be somewhat interesting maybe? Different fights happening, teams gotta prioritize who goes were etc. There are more tactics involved in BGs if Blizzard wanted them so.

I have liked doing pvp since vanilla, but I have never given any care for the arena Esports scene. When watching that, im missing 90% of the stuff going on, and i've played this game for a long ass time. The screen gets cluttered with all kinds of spells going off at once.

I am by no means a very good player, and maybe thats the issue in the end. You gotta be deeply involved into arena in order to get out enough information about whats going on during fights.

I think the problem with domination based RBGs would actually just be viewing everything that's happening. If there's a fight at two different nodes you'd either need to splitscreen (which as we saw with MDI looks horrible) or you just ignore one fight. And I also think that if arenas have too much going on to keep track of in a 3v3 then a 10v10 is going to be completely impossible to tell what's going on.

Personally I don't really think it's that hard to tell what's going on in arena tournaments with the new UI they have, it does a good job showing everyone's major CDs and their health/mana. But then again I've also done thousands of arena matches, so I can't really say if it's good or not for a new viewer.

[Hexme]

The power creep in PvP needs to DIE IN A FIRE

So sick of fighting against 226 people who can mongo face roll win in 3 seconds. The fact I just got out of a BG with a resto druid in 226 gear doing 930k dmg topping both teams in dmg is ***** stupid.

[Toybox]

The power creep in PvP needs to DIE IN A FIRE

So sick of fighting against 226 people who can mongo face roll win in 3 seconds. The fact I just got out of a BG with a resto druid in 226 gear doing 930k dmg topping both teams in dmg is ***** stupid.

It's an MMO, so gear should matter in all elements of the game where combat is involved. I'm enjoying the lack of scaling & the burstier nature of PvP, even if dying to Rogue/Mage in 2s is getting a bit tiresome at this point

[Hexme]

It's an MMO, so gear should matter in all elements of the game where combat is involved. I'm enjoying the lack of scaling & the burstier nature of PvP, even if dying to Rogue/Mage in 2s is getting a bit tiresome at this point

MMO doesn't even imply to getting gear dude, you do realize that's just Massive Multiplayer Online right??? that literally has nothing to do with gear power. The RPG aspect of the game aka getting gear is stupid atm considering you have conduits/class abilities also amplifying that gear/power creep.

Also I don't care if you're 100% bis with the best gear in game, a healer should never be top dmg in a BG doing 930k dmg

[Th3Scourge]

The power creep in PvP needs to DIE IN A FIRE

So sick of fighting against 226 people who can mongo face roll win in 3 seconds. The fact I just got out of a BG with a resto druid in 226 gear doing 930k dmg topping both teams in dmg is ***** stupid.

Total damage in a BG is utterly irrelevant.

[daverz]

The style/pace of arena and pvp in wow has swung back and forth a lot, which isn't hard to imagine given the age of the game. This bursty style of pvp has been around in earlier xpacs and the slower pace has dominated more recently. Some people prefer bursty, some don't - but just because it isn't your preferred playstyle and you can't get your previous rankings in it does not mean "something isn't right in pvp". Come back later in the xpac and it will have likely slowed down with higher health and vers. /end thread.

[Wilfire]

PvP in Shadowlands is ridiculous. You can melt your brain trying to push rating in RBGs. Or you can set group requirements to 220+ ilvl, invite 3 boomkins, 2 disc priests and a vDH and then pat yourself on the back about your masterful leading abilities.

[Kalisandra]

And I do not like it. This is not the same game. WoW PvP has been closer to a real-time card game for the past several years; Shadowlands is almost an FPS.

It's much like early Lich King, and like that it will fade as gear improves. The tournament already shows this with some fights going way into dampening.

My concern is that once gear is sufficient that competent teams can survive a burst attempt games will just grind on and on because outside of burst most high damage specs have very little damage and thus little sustained pressure. So games will be nothing but "burst... wait 2 mins... burst" or sustained pressure specs and 20mins of nothing while they wait for dampening to overtake the healers.

We need a little less burst (including burst healing) and more sustained - allowing for gear (so probably just a bit more sustained and a slight nerf to the best burst healers).

- - - Updated - - -

Makes sense. Disc priest is the 2nd most played class in 2500+. It's really really strong. Holy Paladin is the only one above it as healer. Other healers are dumpster tier and can't do anything.

So how come Resto Shamans are more common at the top of the 3v3 leaderboard than Disc Priests are?

Funny how everyone complains about this stuff, and not things like every just about Alliance PvPer that can be a Night Elf is a Night Elf.

[HCLM]

Negative.

I've seen 230 geared players nearly one shot by hunters around 180 ilevel.


I have too much experience in PvP over the the past six years to think it's still the same game.

The flow and pace has changed radically.

There are no players geared with full set of 230 ilvl items. And it is literally not possible to get one shot by 180ilvl hunter. Hunter can do much dmg if you stand afk when he does his Kyrian combo, but it is telegraphed, so you can easily play around it.

No offence, but this season requires much more skill than previous sessons, where you could afk tank all damage.

[kukkamies]

So how come Resto Shamans are more common at the top of the 3v3 leaderboard than Disc Priests are?

Where are you getting this?
Because all the stats online say not even close. Disc priests at over 10% representation and shamans at below 5%. So over double the priests compared to shamans.