Can we talk about Meta?

Community General Discussion
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Heyo I’m getting a bit annoyed at how often I tend to see meta being missused/ being used as a justification for denying people playing anything but meta.

Meta otherwise known as “Most effective tactic available” is exactly what it says, the best way to do a specific thing.

Meta is classified as hard or soft meta’s, the first being a defined and rigid one, leaving little room for anything but that and the ladder being one where although an optimal possibility exist it’s mostly unimportant for the average user.

Now here is where I see alot of people missunderstanding what WoW meta is - WoW is a soft meta mostly, with a few historical exceptions, but on average its a soft meta. So can we as players stop acting as if its the hardest meta to exist, atleast in m+ (can’t speak on pvp just going off of what I know).

The WoW meta is insanely soft, but because a funny system called m+ has been introduced with infinite scaling making the meta state shift as we progress it leads to a ton of players missunderstanding what is meta, what makes meta, and why is meta.

For instance, the last dungeon I’ve done with this char that I can remember was a +2 Dawnbreaker, the leader (we’ll call her karen) was looking for 1 more dps, we had a feral (me) a paladin tank that was well geared (ca.619) and a healer that was decent (ca. 609).

Now there were two applicants, one applied first and we were talking about it, a dps dracthyr with 610ilvl, we invite him and then kick him instantly. I ask why and get the response “Didnt have X-trinket” I dont remember which trinket it was, then we look for another dps, declining hte same dracthyr again.

Now I’m typically a really decent guy that is hard to get mad but when I see somebody be denied the possibility of playing a game because someone else doesnt understand how overkill they are being I get a bit annoyed.

I left the group whispered the dracthyr and made a group with him, chill guy, we then do a different dawnbreaker two that we found and it went smoothly. It’s almost like meta is irrelevant in early stages… crazy I know.

TLDR. Meta is the most player driven restriction, and then simultaniously one of the things players complain about the most, I don’t get it.

Sorry for the rant, I just get really heated when something is blatantly missunderstood.

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Just because you came up with it, “soft meta” isn’t a thing.

A tactic is either the Most Efficient or not. It is not “Almost, So Close, Barely Just Most Efficient Tactic Available”, or as commonly known, tge ASCBJMETA

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It is though.

For example a hard meta is where the difference between the average group and the extreme meta is a significant difference and required for most content to the point where unless its used it cant be done.

You can get through Heroic Raid and over 2k rating in m+ without touching the meta, it is a soft meta wher you can actually ignore it and play over 90% of content.

i know, never said that, there will always be the numerically best team/meta, what I’m saying is how important that is varies heavily on what content your doing.

Lets take m+ for example, personally I would say meta start becoming relevant anywhere from +7-+10 depending on your skill/current gear.

Which means even in m+, meta importance varies from irrelevant to neccesary, so its important to know and understand it to avoid gatekeeping when its unneccesary.

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The people that complain about it are (for the most part) not the people that enforce it.

People typically want the road of least resistance. Thats just human nature.

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This is true, but although understandable isnt an excuse.

Taking hte path of least resistance is often a short term answer that will drag you as well as all you affect down too, it closes the community by denying people acces. It enforces the behaviour that unless you reroll every season to play meta or get lucky, you just dont get all the content available. And in the end, unless it was like mythic raiding or a +12 key where you need a certain role filled, it’s just rude.

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Sorry, but this thread is not according to the forum meta posting rules.

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Is that an actual thing?

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of course :dracthyr_nod:

There’s an entire science to min/maxing your rage-bait titles.
Rotating insults into eloquent wording, and infusing DEI discussions.
Then there’s the art of blaming puny.

Posting on these forums is an art, and the scrubs with their sub-par post counts are ruining it!

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People are free to do with their keys what they want though, demanding otherwise is not an option. Rude or not. It simple is the way it is and always has been.

The world is not a perfect place. Not sure what else you want.

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When people are limiting themselves to meta-classes in +2 they are actually hurting their own game. Waiting for the topics on the forums from those people that it takes an hour to make a group, since they can not find those meta-players.

I personally do not really have the experience people ask meta up to at least +10. People go for experience, ilvl, and battleres + bloodlust.

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Ohhhhh

dude I thought you were reffering to an actual forum rule about that you’re not allowed to talk about meta for a reason.

Was about to close the thread xD

This is true 100%. But you have to be aware, the idea that being aware of how you affect your community being a “option” destroys any attempt at having an actual social ecosystem.

The exact people that enforce the “technically they can do what they want” are the exact people allowing others to take a sledgehammer straight to the way people interact with each other in game.

Now if you’re okay with this, then that’s totally fine, and a valid opinion. But then we aren’t able to ask, why wow feels so antisocial anymore, because we literally allowed it to happen.

Then perhaps I’ve simply been unlucky, I do genuinely hope that your experience is the average in this case.

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never trust foxes :dracthyr_lulmao:

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Never trust foxes, but I do trust Keento

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Don’t say I didn’t warn you XD

Now in regards to your thread:

The “meta” is always going to be there.
It doesn’t matter what Blizzard does, what you try to advocate or do, there’s always going to be players that want to have the absolute edge and play this game competitevly.
And they will take every single advantage, and in so create a meta on what’s best.

And the problem is not that there is a meta.
It makes absolutely sense to theorycraft and line out what are the best possible options to take.

The problem lies in people not understanding that these are sims and theorcrafts, and blindly applying this to literally everything.

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I have so much respect for you rn. I couldn’t agree more

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Ah, you have discovered meta slavery.

Yes, it’s a lot of fun, isn’t it?

For 99.5% of the playerbase it doesn’t matter, and even for the last 0.5% a little bit of extra grit will get you in there, and you might even discover new strats by not constantly playing the same thing over and over.

But no. Meta slavery.

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That is actually incorrect. The META is usually taken from real-life results. Usually the highest keys ran or the team(s) with the highest RIO scores.

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Although true, still does not jusstify the forcing it in lower keys, especially when people fail to understand why something is meta, there have been multiple where something worked in a specific comp, but wouldnt work anywhere else.

For instance aug evoker, the most missunderstood meta, because people refused to simply learn why instead of what.

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What Nellja is trying to say is the “meta” is just the composition of the groups who are doing the highest keys. There isn’t any scientific metric this group-composition is actually the “Most effective tactic available”. People are just seeing the highest keys done and try to copy paste.

Like we had a season in shadowlands where out of nothing a group with prot pala, frost mage and resto shaman with consistent damage did the highest keys, while burst damage was played by everyone (all cooldowns aligned and pull big), with for example venthyr holy paladin.

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All that does is reaffirm that the meta is complex and needs to be understood as to why something is performing well as it might be synergy between multiple things and not just “oH wOw MaGEs aRE MeTA riGhT nOW”

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