The Buffs & Nurfs of Blizz

[Cempa]

New WoW expansions feel like a see saw, I find a class/spec I like and sure enough by the first round of 'balance' it gets changed so much I need to move on. Any one else has a similar experience?

This time round Ive decided to wait it out and let the dust settle. In any case, WoW has become a P2W game so leveling and gearing is a matter of buying tokens, selling them on AH and using that gold to buy raid and high mythic gear -about two weeks to catch up.

[Baneto]

I understand where you're coming from with this idea, they nerf and balance so much before release its hard to get a good picture of performance.

Personally Im going to main healer, and I chose druid this time around since they nerfed paladins.
The public idea about druids is theyre going to suck in raids and be op in m+, and I dont think they will "suck in raids" at all.
In the end it usually comes down to preparation and knowledge of your class/spec how you will perform anywhere.

[Shaetha]

New WoW expansions feel like a see saw, I find a class/spec I like and sure enough by the first round of 'balance' it gets changed so much I need to move on. Any one else has a similar experience?

Something you should have expected the whole time from a beta. Also, it's not released, and you should still expect radical changes in numbers when you try to play something obviously out of line.

This time round Ive decided to wait it out and let the dust settle. In any case, WoW has become a P2W game so leveling and gearing is a matter of buying tokens, selling them on AH and using that gold to buy raid and high mythic gear -about two weeks to catch up.

I don't know how to tell you this, but if that makes WoW P2W it's always been P2W. You've always been able to buy gold and carries. In fact, every game is P2W because you can always pay someone else to play it for you. (See, it's a bad argument because there's literally nothing with material effect you can't earn by simply playing the game. For something to be pay to win, there has to be power increases that are literally impossible to get outside the cash shop.)

[Nnyco]

When you need to play fotm to compete, your problem might not be balance.

[Cempa]

When you need to play fotm to compete, your problem might not be balance.

When you need to play most optimal comps in arena .. Your same fallacy based argument ..

[Shaetha]

When you need to play most optimal comps in arena .. Your same fallacy based argument ..

When you choose to make yourself a meta slave, you lose all right to complain about the drawbacks of being a meta slave.

[Mysterymask]

When you need to play most optimal comps in arena .. Your same fallacy based argument ..

I mean by that logic you might as well have an army of alts since youll probably end up changing between patches anyway

[mrsohta]

Isn't it normal tho? Why don't you wait until the expansion is close to release date? They can even rework an entire class now and it would be understandable as Shadowlands isn't live yet. It's another story after the expansion starts tho, with all these systems it will definitely be weird and I can't comment on the p2w part as I'm just playing casually.

[Mirishka]

New WoW expansions feel like a see saw, I find a class/spec I like and sure enough by the first round of 'balance' it gets changed so much I need to move on. Any one else has a similar experience?

This time round Ive decided to wait it out and let the dust settle. In any case, WoW has become a P2W game so leveling and gearing is a matter of buying tokens, selling them on AH and using that gold to buy raid and high mythic gear -about two weeks to catch up.

Meanwhile I can legitimately catch an alt up to raiding/Mythic+ standards in the same time without buying anything from AH. Maybe the game isn't the problem here.

[Charge me Doctor]

Isn't it normal tho? Why don't you wait until the expansion is close to release date? They can even rework an entire class now and it would be understandable as Shadowlands isn't live yet. It's another story after the expansion starts tho, with all these systems it will definitely be weird and I can't comment on the p2w part as I'm just playing casually.

Yes, it's normal, OP is just complaining about how harder it is to roll a fotm spec, since everything is still up to change, and people doing math won't give a definitive answer on who will be 1% ahead of everyone

[Twdft]

Something to remember about "P2W" in world of warcraft is, that everything you buy with gold was achieved by the player you buy it from.

You are not winning the game over the guy who carries you through mythic Nathria because he beat it first, you are not winning over the girl who carries you through a +15 because she beat it first and you are not winning over the dude selling you a BoE because... I think by now you get the thought.

[Charge me Doctor]

Something to remember about "P2W" in world of warcraft is, that everything you buy with gold was achieved by the player you buy it from.

You are not winning the game over the guy who carries you through mythic Nathria because he beat it first, you are not winning over the girl who carries you through a +15 because she beat it first and you are not winning over the dude selling you a BoE because... I think by now you get the thought.

remember when boe gear with top corruption were sold for millions of gold? I wonder how those pay to winners were going through these times and how much $$$ they spent on tokens when people weren't buying them with gold as much as they do on "downtime"

[mrsohta]

Something to remember about "P2W" in world of warcraft is, that everything you buy with gold was achieved by the player you buy it from.

You are not winning the game over the guy who carries you through mythic Nathria because he beat it first, you are not winning over the girl who carries you through a +15 because she beat it first and you are not winning over the dude selling you a BoE because... I think by now you get the thought.

On top of it, I can think of 2 conditions that could be p2w. First is competition, second is having a very limited time on that competition. They only thing fitting that is the world first race on raids as far as I can think right now. You don't really "win" much else in WoW let alone being required to pay for it other than the game time.
Edit: I think some people jsut confuse winning with earning

[Eurhetemec]

remember when boe gear with top corruption were sold for millions of gold? I wonder how those pay to winners were going through these times and how much $$$ they spent on tokens when people weren't buying them with gold as much as they do on "downtime"

The big raiding guilds didn't buy the gear with gold from them selling tokens, dude.

The source of the money is well-discussed. The guilds had a lot of money from selling boosts and so on. The rest they borrowed from the WoW mega-rich (some of whom have hundred of millions or over 1bn gold), and paid back later by selling boosts and so on (or it was gifted/written off by the same people).

The idea that big raiding guilds are buying bazillions of tokens and selling them for the paltry amounts of cash they offer is a fantasy.

If you want to talk about tokens, the issue is the people buying boosts, not the raiding guilds etc. That's where the tokens come in - a guild offers a boost for 180k gold or whatever, and people thinking like the OP buy a token, sell it for gold, and then buy a boost from the guild. So tokens factor in, but they're indirect.

[Charge me Doctor]

The big raiding guilds didn't buy the gear with gold from them selling tokens, dude.

And i wasn't claiming that in my post

[Saltysquidoon]

New WoW expansions feel like a see saw, I find a class/spec I like and sure enough by the first round of 'balance' it gets changed so much I need to move on. Any one else has a similar experience?

This happens every patch, hell it happens in every patch of every competitive game ever. If you want to play the meta you have to roll with it.

This time round Ive decided to wait it out and let the dust settle. In any case, WoW has become a P2W game so leveling and gearing is a matter of buying tokens, selling them on AH and using that gold to buy raid and high mythic gear -about two weeks to catch up.

Nani?
It's about to be a new expansion, how can anyone be selling gear before the content has been released? Even then a new expansion is likely when this is happening the least.

[exochaft]

When you choose to make yourself a meta slave, you lose all right to complain about the drawbacks of being a meta slave.

Glad I'm not the only one that holds this sentiment.

With respect to the OP's post, there's literally nothing that's been a see-saw on retail with the implementation of the pre-patch, aside from some literally broken interactions that got fixed over time. If you're talking about the alpha/beta... it's the alpha/beta, stuff's going to change all the time, even drastically, potentially even up to release. If Blizz makes drastic changes after the expansion content goes live, alright, you got a reasons to be upset with that. However, there will be post-launch patches to fix stuff, it cannot be avoided at this point. Once the real mass testing begins (aka, Shadowlands goes live), there's going to be many more issues brought to light... or as my cynical side says, issues that were known and reported but take a massive amount of players complaining to fix!

The real things to keep an eye on is Covenants. My prediction is despite what Blizz has said publicly, there's a ripcord in place, and they only said there wasn't one because they want to keep their Covenant model at least until 9.1, later if possible. Blizz will definitely attempt tuning and rebalance of Covenants after Shadowlands goes live if there are glaring issues before pulling said ripcord, so I wouldn't expect it to be pulled (if it ever does) anytime before 9.1. I've been a proponent of how they want the system to go, but there are some issues I still have that absolutely must be solved... else the system will explode on itself eventually. While I hope Blizz gets it right when Shadowlands goes live, I also realize that they need to have the system itself fail if there's any chance of pulling the ripcord.

- - - Updated - - -

Nani?
It's about to be a new expansion, how can anyone be selling gear before the content has been released? Even then a new expansion is likely when this is happening the least.

Almost forgot to talk about that. Yeah, the reality is that P2W isn't going to happen on a large scale (if at all) for a long time. If you're talking paid carries, okay, that will happen eventually, probably as soon as Torghast. However, literally buying gear that puts you at the top-tier of gearing isn't going to happen. You can buy base items for legendaries, I suppose, and that's going to get a little expensive if you don't do anything yourself to craft your own gear, or contribute to creating it. However, everyone's going to be in the same boat when it comes to legendary base items, and the Soul Ash currency will be time-limiting to the point that you cannot P2W w/o some time investment to get the best legendaries. Heck, you need to go out and get the powers themselves, which no amount of gold will increase your chances of getting them beyond anyone else doing the same content.

If people want to dump gold to get carried through content or buy stuff off the AH, I will certainly take their gold for it. However, anyone can do it, and it doesn't require buying tokens to achieve this. Anyone can have millions of gold at their disposal w/o ever touching a WoW token.

[XDurionX]

If your enjoyment comes from playing the FOTM-class, then you're the problem.

[PenguinChan]

This is why you play classes / specializations you enjoy regardless the state it is in on the leaderboards. Had you said Blizzard remakes and changes classes too often then I agree - but the numbers game is really only pertaining to try-hards and top end players.

[blankfaced]

As a mage players....nope. They stay the same so much I look elsewhere for change.