WoW 5.2 PvP Changes

[miketehmage]

So blizz are saying that they intend to change certain aspects of gearing for PvP in 5.2. The main points as far as I know are that arenas will be far more welcoming to players who start mid-season as they will have a vastly increased conquest cap to catch up.

The 2.2k set is to be removed as the stat advantage is creating an "invisible wall" for players just below the 2.2k mark. However blizz stated that a vanity set may be added.

And I believe team rating is being changed to work in such a way that teams cannot Zerg at the start of the season until they get above a certain threshold and then just go inactive until the season ends in order to get their titles.

So, current and past WoW pvpers, what are your thoughts on these changes?

Personally I welcome all of them.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

As long as WoW continues to sport a gear gap of any kind in PvP, it's hard to take it seriously as a competitive game. Love WoW, but I'd not single it out as a place to go for quality PvP.

 

[RomanceIsDead]

whether or not you take it seriously it is still very much a competitive game. It requires effort on more levels than skill alone. Time is definitely a factor. But that doesn't mean it doesn't also require skill.

 

[Terminate421]

So long as I can chainsaw through people with ease as my Worgen Frost Deathknight I don't mind what they do.

 

[Ryotknife]

sigh, i miss my druid in vanilla/original WoW pvp. Couldnt kill crap at level 60, but can run away like a BOSS

 

[skywolfblue]

I don't play WoW anymore, but I still do read updates from time to time, all the player whining makes for good entertainment.

arenas will be far more welcoming to players who start mid-season as they will have a vastly increased conquest cap to catch up.

Good thing. The first players got their PvP gear much earlier (like 3+ months earlier), so they already had the "privilege" of being the first for a long long time. Helping new players to be able to climb that mountain easier doesn't hurt anyone else.

The 2.2k set is to be removed as the stat advantage is creating an "invisible wall" for players just below the 2.2k mark. However blizz stated that a vanity set may be added.

I don't know whether that's good or bad. PvP gear has always been a tad overpowered. You could be the best PvP player in the world, but if you were wearing season 1 and the other guy was wearing season 5, you were going to die. So I'm guessing "Good thing".

And I believe team rating is being changed to work in such a way that teams cannot Zerg at the start of the season until they get above a certain threshold and then just go inactive until the season ends in order to get their titles.

Good thing. Having to actively work all season long for your rating means less teams trying to game the system and get a brief win streak and then sit out the rest of the season.

 

[deviltry]

5.2 is fine, it's 5.3 when (or if) they will bring out the shittiest mechanic ever - GEAR UPGRADEZZ.

I mean no "gear gap" is fine, but... I never really understood the cries over pvp gear gap (yeah in 5.1 gear gap is a failure, but 2,2k rating required gear is just fine).

Oh noes he got boosted and got better items than you? So what? Deal with it. Get friends.

Oh noes he won only because he had better gear? A challenge is a challenge. If you don't get a "YOU WIN" on your screen after losing to someone from other country on some god damn computer game and cry - quit wow and spend that money on therapy.

Oh noes Ima betta pvper but i dont get titels qq - really? Knowing that you're better is not enough, you MUST have two words near your nickname in a digital non-existing world or else you're going to cry like a little *****? And dem total strangers on arenajunkies.com are going to say "gtfo scrub"? Again - quit wow and spend that money on therapy.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Eh, I can't be bothered with all of the macros and Resilience gear and such. PvP just isn't what the game is about for me. It's about grinding and 5-man dungeons.

 

[elvor0]

5.2 is fine, it's 5.3 when (or if) they will bring out the shittiest mechanic ever - GEAR UPGRADEZZ.

I mean no "gear gap" is fine, but... I never really understood the cries over pvp gear gap (yeah in 5.1 gear gap is a failure, but 2,2k rating required gear is just fine).

Oh noes he got boosted and got better items than you? So what? Deal with it. Get friends.

Oh noes he won only because he had better gear? A challenge is a challenge. If you don't get a "YOU WIN" on your screen after losing to someone from other country on some god damn computer game and cry - quit wow and spend that money on therapy.

Oh noes Ima betta pvper but i dont get titels qq - really? Knowing that you're better is not enough, you MUST have two words near your nickname in a digital non-existing world or else you're going to cry like a little *****? And dem total strangers on arenajunkies.com are going to say "gtfo scrub"? Again - quit wow and spend that money on therapy.

As much as I'm opposed to Blizzard nerfing content and handing out freebies, this isn't entirely bad. Okay you may be good, but lets say you come in a little late, like now, and you're a skilled player, you put the effort in, you do the time etc etc, however! you can't progress because there's a fuck off wall created by previous seasons players being massively better geared than you hanging around the lower brackets,(which does happen) that no matter how good you are, you're going to get smashed and the only way to get past is to wait ages, and ages, and ages until you finally have enough points to even /begin/ to compete.

Someone beating you because their gear makes them see you as a fly is NOT a challenge to you, it's a steamroll. You could be the best player in the world, but if the dude is wearing overpowered gear relative to you, you are NOT going to win.

It's a huge problem if you want to make balanced PvP, now not I'm suggesting we get rid of gear in pvp, that would be naff, but it's never going to work /properly/ as long as it exists, so they might as well do the best they can to let people who get a late start at least get a foot in the door before they get their throat torn out.

Also, don't really see the massive issue with gear upgrades, (if they even put it in, given they weren't happy with the last iteration of it and thus removed it) you still have to do the work to upgrade them, and you can only do it to certain items as far as I'm aware. It's handy because not only does it not improve them /that/ much, it can be a bit of a pain in the arse if you have to wait fucking ages to upgrade your gear by conventional methods, it can help speed up your raid group as a whole, if the gear you need for the raid just isn't dropping.

 

[miketehmage]

snip

So people who don't enjoy losing unfairly should seek therapy?

It's not like we're dying to raid bosses and screaming for unecessary nerfs. Blizz are just trying to make competitive play fairer.

 

[VanQ]

I liked WoW PVP but didn't really get into it as much as I'd have liked to because I spent most of my time in dungeons or raiding. I quit at the beginning of Cataclysm because that had become stale and I didn't like Isle of Conquest. I assume that Blizz has added more Battlegrounds and a new Wintergrasp/IoC-esque zone since Pandaland happened?

It's almost tempting to go back just to do some PVP in WoW for old times sake but... I'll just play TF2 in stead. Where I don't have to play constantly just to keep up with gear ratings to remain competitive.

 

[suitepee7]

I liked WoW PVP but didn't really get into it as much as I'd have liked to because I spent most of my time in dungeons or raiding. I quit at the beginning of Cataclysm because that had become stale and I didn't like Isle of Conquest. I assume that Blizz has added more Battlegrounds and a new Wintergrasp/IoC-esque zone since Pandaland happened?

It's almost tempting to go back just to do some PVP in WoW for old times sake but... I'll just play TF2 in stead. Where I don't have to play constantly just to keep up with gear ratings to remain competitive.

new BG zones, no new big pvp zones a la WG/IoC, although they redid the entry requirements for those 2 so they're both at level 90 now, if that makes sense.

personally i think all these changes are a good thing. i would welcome the idea of a vanity set for 2.2k+, but i hate the gear wall. i've never managed to get past that wall myself, only took arenas seriously in LK, towards the end of the expansion where you just got facerolled by dual shadowmourne teams /sigh, and have only been casual and an altoholic throughout MoP (seriously, every class feels so different, i stopped playing a month or 2 after cata and only got it back a week before MoP launched). once i finally settle down on what class i really want to make my main i'll be taking pvp a bit more seriously again, and to me the crying seems to be:
"waaa, i can't have an easy ride because i have 2.2k gear advantage, i'll have to actually use skill to be good!!" which, to me, sounds good. personally i felt the conquest weapon made too much of a difference, and now its easier to obtain the gear gap won't be as significant, which i welcome heartily.

 

[anthony87]

I don't really PvP unless I'm looking for a quick way to farm Valor Points for heirlooms but making it so that people just starting out don't constantly get steamrolled is always a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Colt47]

World of Warcraft has kind of felt like it's two different games ever since they introduced arena and resilience. I'm not much of a fan of it as resilience so far has mostly served to kill flexibility in strategy and has only managed to redirect balance issues elsewhere: Balance issues whose solutions have had a long range impact on both PvP AND PvE. Truth is they should really have resilience built into character advancement and just have gear with different statistic focuses for play style. There was nothing wrong with people getting pvp gear that could rival pve gear of the same tier and vice versa. It provided options for character advancement at end game and the only people it angered were those entrenched in an older mind set, myself originally included.

 

[Shraggler]

I hated WoW pvp. It's not fun fighting people on an uneven playing field and unless you play non stop to get all the gear, it's never level.

I was a horrible pvper in WoW when i played, but because i had a friend who was amazing at it who played my account, i could join random BGs and do 'ok' just because i had some gear.

This is why I've never understood "competitive" gaming in general. WoW, LoL, whatever. It's all based on chance and gear. Hard numbers and RNDs (for lack of a better general term). It's not really based on attack timing or skill, finding an opening after a parry if you will. It's confusing to me when I see people as into the "strategy & tactics" of a DoTA game as a chess game, where the latter seems to have more "strategy & tactics" than the blind number luck of the former.

I just don't see how someone can really be considered professional. Take LoL for example. Granted, I don't really play it and have only played it a handful of times, but my little experience tells me that the general strategy is to amass gold as fast as possible to then spend on the best upgrades for your character at the most opportune (or efficient) time to maintain a higher DPS/damage and/or defense rating than the opposing team to push them back to their spawn/nexus. There's very little chance in a comeback at that point. Sure it happens every now and then, but not usually against a team that plays 20+ hours a week together. There's no, "Oh schnappo, that mofo forgot about the knight and now his queen is gone, his bishop can't do shit and he's in check. Oh sheeeeeeit!" kind of stuff happening.

To me, it depends entirely too much on a variety of factors that a player doesn't have control over. To give someone the title of "pro" when the games rely heavily on chance for a victory condition (WoW's chances to hit, crit, proc for example) seems to be inappropriate.

When I played WoW, I rarely PvP'd. It was just such a total crapshoot shit party. Even if you knew what you were doing, you'd still get owned if you lacked gear. This update may even the playing field a bit, but it seems like Blizzard is trying to compensate between keeping their "hardcore" PvP subscribers who've undoubtedly sunk hours upon hours obtaining their gear, and the potential new base of "fresh meat" that might be interested in spending some time in PvP without getting stomped 10 seconds into the match.

 

[miketehmage]

snip

I bet you're the kind of person that says there's no skill involved in Poker.

Just because there is an element of luck in a game does not mean that there is not skill involved. To say that a MOBA "all comes down to gear" in a dismissive manner is kind of, well I don't know how to say what I want to say but the fact is in order to get superior gear to your opponent in a MOBA in the first place you must outplay them.

RNG is involved but most MOBA players and WOW players know roughly how much damage they deal/ their opponents deal and play accordingly.


EDIT: Also to your "find an opening after a parry" Here are some examples.

In LoL we see the enemy ad carry pushing bottom lane. This is our chance to take baron. This has nothing to do with gear or random numbers the fact is the enemy is out of position and we are capitalising on that.

A wow example. The priest class has a spell called shadow word: death which in certain cases, a short while after casting deals damage to the caster. Priests with fast reactions can use this to break polymorph like so:

1. Mage casts polymorph on priest.
2. Priest casts shadow word death towards the end of the mage's cast.
3. Polymorph changes the priest into a sheep, shadow word death hits the priest and breaks the polymorph.

This is all down to reactions and timing. Nothing to do with gear or RNG

 

[Shraggler]

I bet you're the kind of person that says there's no skill involved in Poker.

Just because there is an element of luck in a game does not mean that there is not skill involved. To say that a MOBA "all comes down to gear" in a dismissive manner is kind of, well I don't know how to say what I want to say but the fact is in order to get superior gear to your opponent in a MOBA in the first place you must outplay them.

RNG is involved but most MOBA players and WOW players know roughly how much damage they deal/ their opponents deal and play accordingly.

EDIT: Also to your "find an opening after a parry" Here are some examples.

In LoL we see the enemy ad carry pushing bottom lane. This is our chance to take baron. This has nothing to do with gear or random numbers the fact is the enemy is out of position and we are capitalising on that.

A wow example. The priest class has a spell called shadow word: death which in certain cases, a short while after casting deals damage to the caster. Priests with fast reactions can use this to break polymorph like so:

1. Mage casts polymorph on priest.
2. Priest casts shadow word death towards the end of the mage's cast.
3. Polymorph changes the priest into a sheep, shadow word death hits the priest and breaks the polymorph.

This is all down to reactions and timing. Nothing to do with gear or RNG

Absolutely not. I believe there's a tremendous amount of skill in poker. In fact, I play fairly regularly because of that very reason.

I wasn't saying just because there's chance involved, there is no element of skill. All I'm saying is that with these type of games (and their mechanics, specifically), my impression is that there is more chance involved than skill. Of course, this would've been made more clear had I not written

It's all based on chance and gear.

without any qualifiers.

I'm not trying to be dismissive at all towards the games, more towards the title of "pro" that seems to get tossed around so often that it's become as meaningless as "hero", "awesome" or "epic" have in our lexicon. I understand my first-hand experience isn't robust enough to come down on an objective conclusion about the game(s), but the labels being given to certain players seems to lack an amount of credibility.

I mean, in the Priest versus Mage example, sure that takes a level of situational awareness that comes with PvP... but let's get it down to gear: The Mage is stacked in PvP gear, Priest is not. "Goodbye Priest. What were you even doing here, fellow of the cloth? QQ and geer up, nub, then play." That's my experience with WoW PvP anyway. If you lacked specifically PvP gear, despite being the same level and dungeon running for decent gear - if it wasn't PvP, you were pretty fucked. That is the chance I'm talking about. It's sort of rigged from the outset, especially for players just getting into PvP. To misquote an oft used meme, one does not simply play PvP.

 

[miketehmage]

le snip

I see I'd agree that in the priest/mage example if the priest had no gear then there is no need to polymorph in the first place as the mage could just blow him up. But yeah, gear definitely has a huge impact, more so than player skill I'd agree. That's the reason I'm so happy with these changes. Blizzard trying to minimize the gear gap.

And I agree the word "pro" has been devalued.

However; As far as I know in tournaments with actual professional players, these guys are given whatever gear/gems/enchants they want. Meaning that at the start of the arena, players stand on equal ground. So the only element of chance is in the RNG. I don't believe that the RNG has a bigger impact than player skill. Similar to Poker (there is a random element as to which cards you receive) which you agree takes alot of skill.

 

[Shraggler]

I see I'd agree that in the priest/mage example if the priest had no gear then there is no need to polymorph in the first place as the mage could just blow him up. But yeah, gear definitely has a huge impact, more so than player skill I'd agree. That's the reason I'm so happy with these changes. Blizzard trying to minimize the gear gap.

And I agree the word "pro" has been devalued.

However; As far as I know in tournaments with actual professional players, these guys are given whatever gear/gems/enchants they want. Meaning that at the start of the arena, players stand on equal ground. So the only element of chance is in the RNG. I don't believe that the RNG has a bigger impact than player skill. Similar to Poker (there is a random element as to which cards you receive) which you agree takes alot of skill.

Right, tournaments would be a place where the playing field is relatively even, so actual skill, awareness and strategy become prominent factors in achieving the victory condition. RNG at that point seems to be just a factor of play and not a massive contributor toward victory conditions, whereas in common play I think it leans more in the other direction.

Poker is about how you play the cards you're dealt, and how you play your opponents. There is a large "human" factor in poker. It's also a classic example of turn-based strategy and, while WoW has some aspects of this, they're not directly comparable.

I agree with you regarding the changes Blizzard is making. It looks like they're sort of taking a Guild Wars 2-like approach to team/group play. After doing a bit of WvWvW in GW2, I can say that it's far more satisfying on a psychological (and "fun") level than anything I'd ever experienced in WoW.