Feedback from a returning player ( I want to quit already tbh. )

PVP Arenas
1

Hello there,
Returning player coming back after a long break, and I have to be honest, PvP right now is the least fun it’s ever been for me.
I’ve loved WoW PvP for years, but the current state is really disappointing.

Here’s what’s wrong (and Blizzard, if you’re listening, please tell me what you were smoking when you thought players would enjoy all this, and share some with me, maybe I’d enjoy the game as much as your PvP devs do when they’re that high).

1. The honor grind is ridiculous
It takes 112,000 honor to fully socket PvP gear. That is an absurd, unnecessary grind. Instead of rewarding players for playing PvP, it punishes them with a massive time gate just to be competitive. This isn’t optional, if you don’t do it, you’re behind, plain and simple.

Compare this to Legion, where you could hit 110, queue in green gear, and push 2400 rating right away. No grind. No endless farming. You could just play the game. How did we go from that to this? Why are we locking core power behind an exhausting farm? This isn’t “meaningful progression” it’s a full time busywork.

→ Solution: Reduce the socket cost to 3,000 honor per socket. ( 27 000 honor instead of this 112 000 now. ) This would still require effort without turning it into an endless grind. Players should be spending their time competing, not farming.

2. Melee is completely overtuned
Melee specs right now are just running over everything. Too much uptime, too much mobility, too much damage. If you’re a caster or ranged spec, good luck, you’re constantly on the defensive, barely able to get casts off, while melee sticks to you nonstop. The balance is completely skewed, and it feels awful to play against. Every game feels like getting bulldozed by zug zug comps.

3. Healing is miserable
Healing in PvP right now is straight-up not fun. You’re constantly being interrupted, CC’d, and drained. Between dampening kicking in early, crazy burst damage, and endless pressure, it feels like you’re just struggling to survive or heal you’re mate instead of actually making plays. It’s stressful, punishing, and unrewarding.
Don’t wonder why people don’t wanna heal in pvp anymore.

→ Solution: Reduce EVERY class’s damage in PvP. Slow the meta down so healing, counterplay, and actual decision-making can matter again. Right now, the burst and pressure are so overwhelming that healers and casters barely get to play the game. A slower meta would make PvP more strategic and less frustrating for everyone.

I really don’t understand the design direction here. PvP should be fun and competitive, not a chore. Right now it feels like a grindy, unbalanced mess that punishes players for even trying to participate. I want to enjoy PvP again, but you’re making it really hard.

This isn’t fun. This isn’t rewarding. This isn’t sustainable.

7 Likes
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Dear blizzard bring back 35k honor per off item and 45k+ for main pieces just like in wrath. This way people will appreciate those ( oh devilish ,horrific ,demonical and hard ) farms for those sockets.

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Completely agree that the grind is too much if you just straight up grind it, but you can buy Vicious Bloodstones off the AH and reduce the grind massively.

Yup, infinitely better.

Because people that are MMO fundamentalists and full time streamers screamed and kicked that there wasn’t a feeling of ‘character progression’ and a ‘lack of customisation’ with that Legion system which was infinitely better. Ironic, since the vast majority of people just follow the meta and have the exact same character setups anyway.

Everything else is also valid. Unfortunately the introduction of M+ has completely ruined PvP - too much CC in the game, too much random damage, too much random garbage in the game that just doesn’t make PvP feel like PvP.

They have to completely separate PvP from PvE, it’s almost like it needs to be its entirely own game.

Good points below too:
https ://x.com/metaphorswow/status/1919858350281371718?s=46

1 Like
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Completely agree that the grind is too much if you just straight up grind it, but you can buy Vicious Bloodstones off the AH and reduce the grind massively.

I know you can buy Vicious Bloodstones off the AH to cut the grind, but honestly, that just feels like adding another layer of inconvenience. Instead of grinding honor, now you’re grinding gold. it’s just shifting the grind sideways instead of fixing the problem.

Everything else is also valid. Unfortunately the introduction of M+ has completely ruined PvP - too much CC in the game, too much random damage, too much random garbage in the game that just doesn’t make PvP feel like PvP.

Excessive CC isn’t inherently a problem when the meta is slower.
But in the current state, it’s simply zerg gameplay with overwhelming burst and crowd control, leaving little room for reaction or counterplay. It’s chaotic rather than strategic.

Because people that are MMO fundamentalists and full time streamers screamed and kicked that there wasn’t a feeling of ‘character progression’ and a ‘lack of customisation’ with that Legion system which was infinitely better. Ironic, since the vast majority of people just follow the meta and have the exact same character setups anyway.

Yes, I’m aware many players were complaining during Legion, but honestly, it’s disappointing. Legion was one of my favorite expansions precisely because everyone started on equal footing, and skill was the deciding factor. They could have preserved that system for rated PvP, while offering all the customization options for battlegrounds, world PvP, or other casual content. Instead, they scrapped a fair and competitive system and replaced it with unnecessary grind walls.

It feels like they “fixed” something that wasn’t broken, to the detriment of the competitive scene.

Anyway, after seeing the first reply to my post, I’m honestly not surprised we’re stuck with this system. Some players seem genuinely happy grinding endlessly, and that’s exactly why we ended up with this mess. I guess they are happy with this fast meta too. I’m probably to old for this game now. :man_shrugging:

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Grind feels even worse when you know many skipped it entirely with the crafting bug

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As for the gems, do the math of how little impact per honor and gold they have. I know we all want to min max, but don’t sweat it about gems. You are not held back by that. If you really want to get all gems, then do it slowly over time. The season is another 3 months at least.

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You’re being ridiculous.
Never in the history of wow could you (almost) fully gear by doing a bunch of world quests (bloody tokens), not to mention first battleground win gives you tokens for 3 items of maximum quality, and honestly when i am gearing my alts i end up buying just like 3-4 honor items total before i can jump straight into arena.
Not tomention all of the extra honor gains added throughout the expansions:
15% bonus honor from flasks
15% bonus honor from the guild battle standart
Chests falling every 30 mins in each zone, which you could also go to Dragonflight zones right after and catch a few more of them.
Every 3 hours theres a Unbound Spoils in a random TWW zone which literally gives you 100% a gem enchant or a Vicious Bloodstone directly.
Along with Assasins being marked on you map and you can just wait for them to die and loot their corpses for extra chance of a bloodstone + honor and conquest.
Every Epic BG with exception to Isle of Conquest has a honor/concquest points quest that grant you over 1k honor and 200~ conquest and usually takes close to no effort to accomplish.
Ashran has you sneak in enemy base and grants you 600 honor for freeing prisoners- there weak patrolling (x3) guards on the oposite side of the horde base (right side of the bridge) that you can kill easily for 2 of the keys and theres 1 more key u can take from a guard right inside of the prison itself, you can also loot the teleporter from the prison in one of the cages and teleport back to safety to return your 1x quest for 1 000 honor too.

Never in the history fo wow was honor grind so easy.
Stop being a baby.

it was 59k for main pieces.
Kills were granting a tad bit more honor but it was still crazy grind i remember grinding an entire day for a single piece, where if unlucky that would take me 2 days.
We would wait for reset to do these honor quests in wintersgrasp who admitedly would result you having almost enough honor for 1 more item, admitedly.
In total in a week you would get 2 to maybe 3 items which wont even be of maximum power as for today you can get BIS gear in a day.
And you wont even be forced to PVE for weapons and offparts which was usually the case in the past.

If OP is truly a returning player, he never really did any of that, hes probably a BFA baby.

8

Maybe unpopular opinion, but I enjoy gem grind, at least honor points got purpose, finish gems slots and spare can sell on AH.

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Did I ever mention being fully honor-geared anywhere? Getting full honor gears is easy and I did done that in 1 days.
I’m only talking about getting all the gem sockets to be competitive with other players as much as possible for a new or returning player.

Also, I remember how it was in BFA, thanks you. I did a thread back in the day to ask for a pvp vendor back or legion system back where you didn’t have to farm at all, And just enjoy the competitive parts of the game. Not everyone have time to farm 5hrs per days just to be BIS for arena :).

Anyway, It seem players are happy with this endless farming. I’m not gonna answer to this thread anymore.

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2 gems are mandatory for some specs. After that though, meh

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You reframing stuff isnt helping truth.
You are under a frustration spell currently, its human, we can all understand that.
Gems being the way that they are is ideal for the economy, helps pvpers make gold too, and on top of that - if you’re impatient and dont want to farm honor, you can get the gems from AH and just gather 20k honor.
I make 20k honor in a day.
Any previous expansion wouldnt give you such highly geared character so soon.
And you complain that you need to put 1/6 of the time that used to be neccessery to be functional (not even bis) to get some yepity poopity gems ?

its an MMO, dude.

12

The thing is people have jobs 20k honor in a day is from playing the game all day it used to be a lot higher in the past yes when we was all kids most of the wow playerbase is now in their late 20s early 30s and the new generation of kids are not going to sit on a game for 12 hours a day when they can play cod or another game for that ammount of time and just be rewarded with fun and not 30 minute queue times for a shuffle.

Simply add other things for people to farm not the gear cosmetics/mounts etc it should never be things to play the actual game.

3 Likes
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And you think I dont ?
Im working and im also studying currently.

Ill be 30 soon.

So you’re telling me… that PvP is dead because of … gems ?
I wouldve thought its the premades, the elitism, the way PvP balancing is neglected, the absurd mechanics that you’re supposed to predict, the overstimulation on the screen… but no…
its the optional gems…

And the fact that OP writes this complaint while Comp Stomp is active is crazy btw.

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So you get around 20k honor per day while working full time? and studying? thats around 300-400 honor per comp stomp win after the first daily win it is probably lower thats 66 comp stomps to gain 20k honor in 1 day.

its around 40 battle ground blitz to earn that honor in 1 day with a 5-15 minute queue depending on your MMR so thats at best case 200 minutes of queue time just to get the 20k honor not taking into account the time it takes to complete the match.

Yes you might be and you clearly have a lot of time on your hand to play the game if you are farming 20k honor a day people have other hobbies to do outside of playing wow after they have finished their day at work.

No its not because of the gems its because the kids these days do not find it fun to farm honor over and over and the gems are such a tiny upgrade that it makes no sense for it to be that much honor anyway when instead they could have added some more rewards for farming honor just look at the honor levels once you get over lvl 500 there is nothing there at all anymore.

most of these problems are from there been no new players it should not be so hard to get into pvp for a new player in my opinion he should not even have to level because thats just again another part that a new player does not want to do.

open up to the possibility that a 15 year old kid who wants to get into a new game is not going to sit there for 10 hours leveling because you know for a fact he wont be able to just do it in a speedrun as he wont understand half of what is going on.

to then become top level and have to farm 13700 honor in terrible gear vs people who are full conquest gear to then have to find a way to farm conquest gear while also spending money on a wow token or doing a 112k honor farm for the gems its a lot to take in and a new player wont even know about comp stomp and if they do find out about it its not here all the time for them to farm.

If you are afraid that they will take away the chance to earn gold with honor then that is simple replace the bloodstone with a token that awards 2500 honor and is sellable on the AH while also adding more rewards the token will never go down in price because the rewards and honor farm can be put in the millions that way you can still play to achieve stuff without it feeling terrible for new players also bring back templates everyone is in the same gear now they had to remove shadowlands having a higher ilvl than lower ranked players for this exact reason no need to have it in the game if its just a farm and not to do with your skill.

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Not everyday, every now and then ill have a free day and all i was saying is that u can get it in a day.
You technically can gear up and gem up in 2 days.
Never in the history of WoW, we had such easy and timely progression.

Assume whatever u want, Andy.
Im studying, working 40 hours, I get 5k honor just by drinking my coffee with my breakfast in the morning.
Its super ez.
Literally only psychos complain about honor farming in todays wow.
Its a madeup problem.
Making gems easier to get will diminish their value, and ruin goldmaking via pvp for the majority of people.
If you struggle so much with time that you cannot invest 2 days into gearing and gemming up, playing a game where u also gotta buy expansions and subscription is just a dumb decission.

I absolutely agree.
Ban premades then?

Leveling used to teach you about how to roll your class to a beginner-casual level.
Now its almost gone and you can see how overwhelming it is for people.
You start a new class you get thrown all sorts of abilities by the time you read them and try them out you got 6 new ones, by the time you learn any of the mechanics of your class you’re already 80, and now you also gotta find information on what to do next, and how to do endgame content, gearing up and so on.
Leveling in fact should be a lot slower.

As for honor farming- you’re all just crazy.
Any beginner will without a choice choose to play battlegrounds religiously, as there is no other beginner content anyway.
He will have to farm regardless not just honor but mostly skill. As funny as this sounds.

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Your not trying to find new players for the pvp community then you are trying to find new players for the game in a whole which is not struggling its pvp that is struggling you need to make sacrifices on the MMO part if you want to attract the players who just want to pvp they can learn the game while playing pvp there is no need for all this lvling and other things untill it happens wow pvp will continue to die.

and its currently faster to gain full gear in cata its just a shame it takes a lot longer to level.

Also as i said this coffe/breakfast routine would take you around 2-3 hours thats a normal ammount of time the average player has to play in a full day im not sure why you think in your head its normal for a 30 year old to be able to play this much? that right there is the elitism that you was talking about earlier on it might not be a long time for you but for someone who works 8 hours a day has kids might do the gym after work i dont know where you are getting 2-3 hours of playtime right before the day starts.

As i said everyone has different hobbies yours is wow i get that it was not a dig but the vast majority of players will have this problem with this game especially the 30 minute queue times for shuffle.

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What are you even saying dude, in Cata bis gear is from the raid itself, weapons and trinkets and you gonna get those once in a blue moon.
In retail you’re full BIS in a few days with just Rated content. Not to mention you got access to conquest gear even if you dont do Rated content, its just slower.
These are not the reason why PvP is struggling.

Dude, then gaming is not for you ?

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I think every player above decent quality agrees with legion system being crazy good for pvp. You even catered to the nolifers with the small 0.1% increases you got from farming for your artifact weapon. Remember you could create a new char, boost it and play it to glad in greens same week as season ended . Could also spam play with LFG randoms since the gameplay was more technical with cc mattering and less PVE dmg/heal pump. Now there is no point playing since you have no carry potential compared to before. A great example is how good players could double boost to 0,5% glad at least, something not doable anymore

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Yes cata has a problem with Pve gear its an old expansion im talking about the actual pvp gearing system you can gear up a lot faster from just doing PVP the conquest gains are a lot higher also a new player wont be going straight into rated content because they wont be winning 3 games in shuffle no1 will be taking them to play 2s/3s the community is very elitist all asking for 2.2k xp even at 1400.

Who said i had these problems? i can play the game when i choose im talking about getting a bigger community for the game and this right here is the elitist part of wow 2-3 hours on an afternoon is enough time to play most pvp games out there on the market now its only wow where you would have to invest 2-3 hours a night for 2 weeks to be able to be on an equal playing field with 1 class when there is multiple classes.

so again you saying gaming is not for them = wow is not for them and if it does not change we wont get any new players because of this mentality.

You can load marvel rivals up right now and get almost instant queue games for 2-3 hours from the login screen as a new player if you dont see where the problem lies with wow pvp then i dont know what to tell you it will just carry on like this untill the aging community dont want to play anymore.

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That would be because we lost 50% of the playerbase to classic wow and the rest quit for other games even a current 1800 player would have been 2.2-2.4 if we went back in time the game just has no casual players left and also weakauras made it so awareness is not really a skill anymore as all the info is given to you from copying a top players premade interface.