While I 100% agree my point is you can’t play bad covenant and expect it to be as effective as a good one. Cdew and Lontar played NF R Shaman but they did it to counter Moonkin. Does it mean that NF R Shaman is as good as Necrolord one? No. Overall it’s weaker vs most things. Similarly here - you have meme kill potential with convoke the memes but you lose throughput because:
Adaptive Swarm counts to wards mastery
There is a conduit that increases hot healing when Adaptive Swarm is on the target
Verdant Infusion extends the duration of hots (Adaptive Swarm as well).
Fleshcraft with the last conduit will allow you to dodge CC.
Vs comps that can destroy you Fleshcraft is a saving grace since they changed it. You can cast it before arena begins in Bear Form so you get even bigger shield.
Playing something else than Necrolords is handicapping yourself. Can you play something else? Yes, but don’t expect it to be very effective. That’s the whole point of the topic. R Druid is actually extremely good in 2s and in 3s it’s weak because it’s not good in burst healing and meta is too fast for it’s design but give it some time and 2nd and 3rd season it will be better. The other reason is Thoughtsteal that hard counters R Druids and since we have plenty of Shadow and Disc Priests in the ladder it’s hard to perform as Druid. If they changed Thoughtsteal R Druid would be legit and might even appear in AWC.
I mean it’s not monk level. but calling it good is not really true. Don’t get me wrong its much better that 3vs3.
Thoughtsteal that hard counters R Druids
I wouldn’t call that the main problem. Purges are also currently way too strong. Shamans, Priests and Mage can shutdown a monk way too easy. It also doesn’t help that Mages, Shamans and Priests are strong right now and make up 40% of the ladder.
Looking at numbers without accounting for class / spec popularity is basically meaningless.
Your point still stands though because even corrected for popularity the rank order of specs doesn’t change.
As can be seen here. https://luduslabs.org/sotl
This is the author of the webpages conclusion when looking at 2v2 healer data.
[…] Restoration Shamans appear to be in the B tier of 2v2 healers, while Restoration Druids are arguably one step below that. In the dumpster tier we still find Mistweaver Monks who have, unfortunately, been completely abandoned in PvP this expansion.
Pretty on point. Resto Druid is far from fine. Singular exceptions do not make this statement less true.
I want to account for popularity, but I have explained in a past post that the way the data was collected for class popularity is biased on that site. So we don’t have a baseline to compare to.
We have a dispel resistance. the target is healed for 1k when lifebloom is dispelled. And then there is the warlock and priest with a 3s fear/silence and 10k dmg on dispell. Not that i am saying warlock is strong, but our dispell protection is a joke.
Just fyi, that isn’t dispel resistance. Dispel resistance is what used to exist in the game, back in the old days, and provides an RNG chance for the offensive dispel to dispel nothing from the target. Basically it makes purges etc. randomly fail.
Do you feel this way because spec switching is not accounted for?
My guess is that this (switching spec once you reach the leader boards) happens so infrequent that it doesn’t skew that data in a significant way.
Nvm that though, relative class representation on the leader boards is skewed towards hpal in such a massive way atm that it is clear as day that the spec is way over performing, basically regardless of player skill.
Representation is only the part of spec being viable or not. If you have to play certain covenant for PvP if other is better for PvE spec is already losing.
For paladin it’s simple - you play Kyrian as every spec in both PvP and PvE. Venthyr and NF are rare alternatives for PvP but they are significantly weaker.
Necrolord is bis for raiding and PvP as R Shaman.
Venthyr is bis for every Priest spec in PvP also.
For Resto Druid it’s NF in PvE and Necro in PvP while other specs prefer NF or Kyrian. Also R Druid needs proper conduits and legendary while other specs are just buffed by theirs.
This drags people away from this spec but in 2s it’s actually very good. It’s underperforming in 3s 100% due to Priests and bursty meta but if Thoughtsteal will be fixed we will see R Druids way more.
Do you feel this way because spec switching is not accounted for?
My guess is that this (switching spec once you reach the leader boards) happens so infrequent that it doesn’t skew that data in a significant way.
Not really, if you take a look at BFA spec representation from last season you will see huge shifts from what specs where played compared to now.
Before 95% people were frost mages now 95% of people are fire mages.
For your druid example: resto druids were 80% of the ladder in BFA and now they are 15% of the ladder in shadowlands. This is a very significant thing.
But this is not the main reason. When we look at class/spec popularity we need to take into account that people make the decision on what spec to play in pvp BEFORE playing their first game in the arena. I a player decides 1 day he wants to play arena, he might check to see what spec is played in arena and switch to that spec. For us that means that if we want to gauge the true class popularity we can’t just gauge how spec popularity changes as you climb the bracket, we also need the data before people set foot in the arena.
An example on how the bias appears on that site:
We can expect that specs inside a class would be played somewhat equally if performance wasn’t a factor. This doesn’t apply only to pvp it applies in all types of content.
Let’s look a ladder representation for dual role classes, which is the baseline used to gauge the spec popularity on the site.
Monk: WW 5% MW 0.9%
Priest: Shadow 5.5% Disci 6%
Paladin: Retri: 6.7% Holy: 6.5%
Shaman: DPS: 4.1% Resto: 4.8%
Notice that for the monk spec distribution is vary skewed compared to the other healer. Main point is, the decision to play a certain spec is made before the point where data starts to be collected.
If we had the data for class popularity overall as a baseline ( popularity which is not influenced by the type of content you play PVP/Raid/Mythics) we could then compare it to class popularity in pvp to see how the representation changes from the baseline.
This is only a problem for people at low ranks, as you go higher rank the resto druid covenant converges to necrolord. Night fae is only taken by 20% of the resto druids at high rank. And keep in mind that necrolord is only useful for resto pvp. While night fae is good for all the other specs as well, and also for other types of content. So out of those 20%, there will be some who take it for the above reasons.
This drags people away from this spec but in 2s it’s actually very good. It’s underperforming in 3s
How is it good in 2vs2? It’s second last place. 80% of people play necrolord, for the data i gave earlier. So saying covenant is the reason its less represented doesn’t hold much ground.
Representation also. At the end of Legion Outlaw was the best Rogue spec in PvP yet it was least represented. Representation isn’t always accurate.
As I said you also have to keep in mind that the fact that you are viable isn’t only depending on your spec/class. If you counter (in this case any Priest spec) is popular you are significantly stronger. Beta tier lists were way different because people thought that Fire will be worst Mage Spec and H Paladin will be worst healer but since they figured out it’s different then the whole healer’s spectrum changed.
Most of the ladder is also going towards easiest possible way. Every healer rerolls paladin now because it has best cds and thanks to Kyrian and Legendary - the best output.
If Thoughtsteal didn’t block you from using Rejuvenation for 20 sec R Druid would be viable and we would probably see it in AWC. Just this single thing makes them not viable.
Meta will shift sooner or later and if this gets fixed R Druid might actually be the best healer. It has the best sustain healing if played well.
At the end of Legion Outlaw was the best Rogue spec in PvP yet it was least represented.
What?
If Thoughtsteal didn’t block you from using Rejuvenation for 20 sec R Druid would be viable and we would probably see it in AWC. Just this single thing makes them not viable.
It’s not the only thing. Currently 3 classes have spamable purges, even if thoughtsteal wasn’t a problem priest can still purge hots, which apart from being use offensively, will also make you lose the mana game.
As I said you also have to keep in mind that the fact that you are viable isn’t only depending on your spec/class. If you counter (in this case any Priest spec) is popular you are significantly stronger.
2 out of the 4 other healers counter druid. MW is unplayable so i wouldn’t even count it as a healer. If half the other healers counter you its not a counter its simply that the class is weak.
If you argue from the point of view that perfect game balance implies equal chances for every spec to reach the leader boards, the reason why a class / spec is chosen becomes irrelevant. As does spec distribution.
I get your point being that class popularity is heavily influenced by the meta game and which classes do best. But the way the data is analyzed is designed to mitigate that effect. The baseline thought being: “A fairly balanced game means, equal chances for every spec to reach the leader boards, no matter how many players the spec has.”
If you simply look at how well a spec does(i.e. how the percentages shift when you compare ladder over all with the leader boards), and you gather a sample size big enough so that individual player skill averages out, the data is valid and shows how likely (read: easy) it is for a given spec to reach the leader boards.
The site I linked does only collect data from active PVP players (arbitrary number of games played), >50 i believe), so players only playing PVE are not factored in.
To emphasize what is said above. This is irrelevant. Only thing relevant is how likely is a given spec to reach the leader boards. Or in other words how easy it is for an average player to reach the leaderboards with a given spec.
This then can be compared across all possible specs to achieve an over all ranking, which is based on the premises listed above.
There is no perfectly balanced game. Every game evolves and since I played multiple games that are designed around being competitive (Dota 2 for example). You can’t really balance them because buffing one spec is effectively nerfing other.
Instead there are shifts in the meta and that’s what we experience. If the game will slow down it’s a buff to Resto Druid and MW without buffing specs. WoW is a game that isn’t designed around 2v2 or 3v3 arenas. Specs are designed for M+ and Raids and because of that there are such situations. Sooner you will realize it and accept it sooner you will stop being frustrated because it’s not going to change.
there should be no bad covenant or class. Paying £10 a month to be told that you can’t join this group or compete at X level because of poor balance is horrible.
But there is and everyone knew there will be from the first moment we’ve seen Covenants on Blizzcon. If you thought Blizzard can balance it you didn’t play their games for years.
Then blizzard are failing there game as a whole if they can not balance around there own game design. I can understand some specs etc been slightly stronger but not to this degree
