thank you for bringing MoP Classic to life. Many of us remember Mists of Pandaria as one of the most enjoyable expansions for PvP. The systems, classes, and comps back then created some of the most iconic arena seasons in WoW’s history.
I want to share some concerns regarding how resilience (baseline PvP damage reduction) has been implemented in MoP Classic and how this might affect the health of the game if left unchanged.
Resilience in Retail MoP
Early MoP (5.0–5.1): Resilience was still on gear and could be stacked. Shadow Priests had +15% DR in Shadowform, Ferals had deeper CC kits, Sub Rogues scaled well.
5.2–5.3: Baseline resilience was raised to 65%, gear carried little resilience. Fragile specs lost the option to stack survivability.
5.4: Baseline resilience reached 72% and Shadowform’s 15% DR was removed. Tankier overall, but classes like Shadow Priests and Ferals were left with nothing to compensate. Attrition casters like Warlocks finally benefitted from longer games.
PvP trinket set bonus: +5280 resilience (instead of +2600 in retail).
Shadowform offers no DR at all, only +60% armor. (I know one of the mainreasons was Godcomb being basically unkillable)
Impact:
Specs balanced around high-resilience metas (Shadow, Affliction, Feral) feel extremely weak in S12.
They can only exist in “metacombs” with babysitting partners like Frost Mage + strong healer.
Winners are once again Arms Warrior, Elemental Shaman, Windwalker Monk, Frost Mage, Resto Druid, Mistweaver Monk.
Distribution reflects this: Druids are almost entirely Resto, Shamans ~70% Ele, while Shadows, Ferals, Locks, DKs and Subs are barely seen at higher ratings. Warriors/WW Monks with high damage high mobility and and CDs for example feel far more overtuned then back in S12.
Lock combs depend on if youre getting out your gate or not.
Add Instant CCs, High Burst and Strong toolkits you get a allmost fixed meta.
Why It Matters
In retail MoP, resilience scaling across seasons allowed fragile specs to eventually find their place once baseline DR increased. In Classic, if resilience is locked low or only adjusted with small band-aids, these specs will never become viable.
This funnels the entire expansion into a narrow meta of Warrior/Ele/Mage/Monk + Resto, while iconic comps like Shadowplay, Jungle, RPS, Retri-combs are effectively dead after the first season.
Suggestions
Revisit baseline resilience scaling season by season (65 → 68 → 70 → 72%) to recreate retail’s progression and open space for casters later on.
Reconsider class mechanics tied to resilience scaling. Shadowform’s 15% DR was core to Shadow Priest design in early MoP. Ferals also lost CC depth while Warriors/WWs scaled harder. Some compensation may be necessary.
Monitor ladder distribution closely as an indicator of systemic imbalance. When nearly all Druids are Resto and nearly all Shamans are Ele, something is off.
Final Thoughts
MoP Classic can be one of WoW’s best PvP eras again — but not if class diversity collapses in Season 12. Simply adjusting baseline resilience % isn’t enough. Specs that were designed to function in high-resilience metas need support earlier, or they will disappear.
Please consider revisiting resilience tuning and class mechanics so that all playstyles can be viable throughout the expansion.
Everyone keeps saying “in MoP you can play anything” - but it’s so obviously not true. If you’re not playing WW/Frost/Warrior/Ele or (for healers) RDruid/MW you are essentially not viable unless heavily carried by one of these classes/specs.
I usually play Feral, but it’s so abysmally bad due to random mid-season changes and custom tuning that it is essentially unplayable. It is literally subpar to all other melees except DK in every single aspect. Mobility, defensives, offensives, CC - everything. I’ve been forced to reroll something else (in my case Ele).
For the love of god at least just undo the the nerf of removing Cyclone from Predatory Swiftness so that Feral actually has CC again and thereby at least is fun to play.
Note: viable classes list from 3s, obviously (otherwise Hunter would be up there).
I dont know what they did, or how they did it. Maybe things changed or evolved after people could play on priv servers.
But i remember mop pvp to be different. LOTS of different, viable comps.
In your case (feral), i remember FLS/Kitty/jungle/FMP, but i havent seen much of that this season.
Barely any affli teams, no shatter/godcomps, no mls.
Baseline resilience was a PvE nooblet fix years ago when they cried about getting ganked(lol) on a pvp server (looool). The result was HC geared nooblet raidbosses with 1 million health backpeddling and killing PvP geared players.
This rant aside, MoP was always an unbalanced mess (and I’m glad people can get to experience this mess again, as I was tired of hearing “mOp wAS THe BeSt pVp XpACk” from cata babies), with some classes being hilariously stupid and easy to play(warriors, hunters, druids, frostmages). Spriest is moreso shafted by starting arenas with 0 orbs so they can’t even emergency Horror at the start to survive against this brainless meta. The 15% DR wouldn’t help them that much currently. They’ll still have to cosplay as shadow while only spamming heals to try and survive every brainlet tunneling them.
On twitter they wrote they are literally not allowed to do any PvP balance changes, so once again, the PvP crowd gets shafted.
just check-pvp-classic
just compare it with historical data from previous seasons
here ironforge.pro/pvp/charts/EU/3/
there has not been a single season in cata or Wrath that had less class/spec variation then right now.
I would like to see some changes, but we all know they wont change core mechanics as long as its not greatly affects pve raids somehow…
I totaly agree this mop we are playing now dosent fell at all as the original mop. resilience i a dead stat u can gem it or enchant it not worth it at all. I think you are on something here i hope they read maybe atleast think about change something
keep in mind that modern pvp community sense of viable, if your specc isnt in the top 3 dps its bad.
And this is reflected in LFG, not beeing one of the meta speccs in 3s for example you will have it significantly harder to find ppl cause noone wants to play not the best possible.
Im queing ww boomy rsham for example on 2.2-2.3mmr, ever seen that comp ever. Idk how US is but eu is absolutely tryhard and sweating.
Well. I would not argue with you what healer the strongest is, but compared to shamens, priests and paladin druid is not that easy to play. We can hate on resto druids and warriors together, but with facts
The fact is me witnessing a backpeddaling resto druid, barely CLICKING his abilities, unable to be beaten by people that played competently enough and with a far higher skill level. If a priest was backpeddaling as that druid was, he wouldn’t even last 20 seconds. Sorry to burst your bias bubble mate, but facts are facts. Playing druid at a high level? Yea, probably difficult for people with sub 20 APM, but I wouldnt say any more so than other classes. They have a lot more tools to make it easier in a lot of aspects, like being able to prevent polies, or even having access to a blanket silence.
i agree on priest to a certain level (beeing a healer is allways difficult in pvp, much more responsibilitay). For hardest Healer id put Rshaman higher that rdruid because of the lack of the overblaoted tool rdruid has for example, the limited mobility reliance on hardcasting and totem timing, more vunrable to specific cc’s.
Hpala is super easy compared to other healers, but it’s not the strongest so. The biggest balance outlier at the moment is warrior with it’s stupid high deep wounds damage that deals more dps than two main shadow priest dots combined. There are other strong specs for 2s and 3s, like frost mage and hunter, or ele and affli for 3s, but warriors are on their own tier at the moment.
I do not play Hpal, so i dont really know, but i think its difficult to compare since this healer is a bit different from the others.
The difficulty of Hpal is mainly about CDs rotation and having a good knowledge of the Game to Know what to trade and when.
As I Said, I play Hpriest, rogue and feral, and I think everything is viable, even if time to time you have to play well better than other class for the same result/rating.
some speccs may not have many comps that are top tier but every specc/class i think has atleast 1 viable comp that is top tier.
sp has godcomp even tho sp iteself isnt that great atm
rogue has rmp and thug even tho rogue itself is at its “weakest” state
feral has jungle and kitty cleave
destro mld is top tier even now
all hunter speccs are good with beastcleave or kfc actually
boomy with lock is top tier and rest is well really good anyways with many many top teir comps
I could kill a glad druid and you before you can even click your bear form kiddo. Your reading comprehension is as bad as your skill issues playing a swiss army knife
