So i am on a lot of discords and alot of guilds on a lot of realms. Retail , classic and classic TBC.
I spend a lot of time talking to players. Now I will grant you this a small pool of players. So yeah no need to point out , this can not be a representative general sentiment of all players.
Now that out of the way , we were discussing about WoW. Things they liked and disliked about it. Close to all of them mention how they didn’t like the " Min Max meta" in game. How it’s spoilt their enjoyment. How they are experiencing difficulty reaching places in the game because of it. Preventing them from enjoying certain specs and classes they enjoy the most.
So i would like ask you guys this ? When did the min max attitude start ? Was it in Legion when Mythic + became a thing ? Was it TBC when competitive arenas came around ? Has it always been around ? If so how is it was never so prevalent until BFA/SL
Do you feel under pressure to perform ? Do you think the Min / Max is more just talk than reality ? Have you experience the Min / Max culture in your game experience.
Will it ever go away or is it here to stay ? Did outside influences cause this ?
Like to hear your thoughts on how it started , how it’s prevailed and what can be done about it ? If anything ? Is it even a negative ?
Thanks for the read.
2 Likes
It is not the huge issue people make it out to bein mythic+, can’t speak to pvp/raiding, just look at the class distribution on raider.io on any keys below 20, the meta is not massively over represented. It is only at the cutting edge that it matters and most people realise that.
People blame meta for not getting into groups, but the reality is that there is a shortage of tanks and healers, so all dps are competing for places. Moonkins and fire mages don’t get in my groups unless they have the gear and experience, I’d rather have an experienced and geared survival hunter.
4 Likes
COPIUM but true , anyway i never see survival hunter , nobody play that spec
for the min maxing i think , its the meta now , League of Legend developped this mentality through the years and almost everbody played League, where you want to have the best win condition in your ranked ( champions ( specs ) , stats wr % ( rio ) , team composition )
League of legends and WOW shares the same players , lot of famous Pro league players plays WOW for example , so they have the same mentality approaching the game
I’ve seen 2 in 6 months, not quite as rare as rocking horse poo.
It’s been in the game since the beginning, to a one degree or another. In Vanilla it was really limited to Raiding though. You couldn’t Raid Molten Core unless you Min-Maxed to the Nth degree. Warriors could only tank as that was their Max potential. Shaman could only heal.
In dungeons it didn’t really matter. I remember being an orc warrior in the Barrens at around level 25ish being whispered by some randoms saying they needed a Tank. I didn’t have many protection talents and used a 2 handed sword. Nobody said anything and (with a few wipes) we did the dungeon fine.
In TBC it creeped into Heroic dungeons as they were incredibly hard at the time. Tanks needed 102.5% avoidance (miss, dodge, block and parry) to survive and Healers need a certain level MP5 to maintain mana for a whole fight, and DPS needed to be good enough to kill things before the tank / healer ran out of mana / health.
In Wrath the GoGoGo thing started when dungeons became quick ways to earn badges, so Min-Maxing became about Speed rather than about capability to complete certain content. DPS meters became the key criteria for being kicked.
M+ just put this on steroids.
2 Likes
Min-maxing has always been there. I’ve played since wow first came out and raiders wanted specific specs. Everyone min-maxed their own characters by checking on wowhead for the best build and stats.
3 Likes
I don’t think min/maxing itself is a bad thing, I do mind when devs put convoluted crap in the game and expect me to start doing maths in order to figure out what is an upgrade or not.
Why can’t it just be simple and straight forward.
6 Likes
The meta is fine, the people who only do WQ’s and Torghast while following and demanding meta aren’t lol it’s literally that simple.
Anything below +20, Mythic Raids and definitely +15 and below can be done by any class, on any affix week, with any covenant. Ask the guild leaders of any top guild if you don’t beleive it.
Also, I’ll just say it out loud, and not that I’m a WoW pro myself by any stretch, but most people use the “meta bad” arguement because they are bad and it gives them a get-out-of-jail-free card, simple as.
Meta = fine.
Since vanilla!
I remember I played resto druid because it is the only spec that I can be in raids and dungeons.
2 Likes
People allways mix maxed. What changed is how much and easily accessible data we have. Playerbase is more connected so everyone can share what’s good and what isn’t.
Also even some of the easier content we have now is harder than classic end game.
And at the top level you have to min max to actually clear the content.
For most of the playerbase the min/max issue is just in their head.
You can play what you want as long as you play it well for most of the content of the game.
I feel like most people that complain about mix/maxing are just bad at the game and they blame mythic raiders for their shortcomings.
2 Likes
I played a Priest and used to get really annoyed at druid and paladin healers taking cloth upgrades as they were better for healing. That’s the ultimate in min-maxing, a resto paladin rolling on any cloth/leather/mail/plate item that was an upgrade and too bad for the other healers that can use less types.
There are Psybearslat and Mandl at least as “somewhat known” people of the WoW community. But yes, there aren’t many.
I also very much enjoy my survival alt. Love the Moby Dick class fantasy. It’s fun! … and the damage isn’t as bad as people say…
My M+ team has one 
Meta is something else than min-maxing. My M+ team has a survival hunter, ret pala and demo lock. And they also try to get the most out of their class. They also sim. We record runs to analyse back and run of course logs. We’re pretty serious while we all play the class/spec we like. I am a kyrian holy paladin instead of the venthyr meta 
It has always been a thing. I mean, vanilla featured meme specs, which we could translate by : those are not worth bringing at all. Sure, it’s nowadays more obvious because of data being more easily accessible and the game being harder in some areas. I have been benched because ret paladin was so bad in some given situations, even if it feels bad because the spec is bad, not me.
On the other hand of the spectrum, any spec can get KSM (even timing 20) and get ce (In late CE guilds), even if it requires more dedication and persuasive arguments.
1 Like
dude that happened in classic fury warrs and ret palas needing on leather people lost their sh*t
Min Maxing is as old as this game. Cookie cutter always existed as did the so called bis lists etc. The way we acquired gear changed and as such people are more prone to sim everything as its hard to make out if something is an upgrade or not (dependent on item obviously because of main stat)
2 Likes
i dont think i need to repeat what 10 people have said before me.
i still vividly remember people min maxing and going crazy with stat soft caps and whatnot. its just that the system as a whole got more convoluted and thus more noticable, however, people tend to see the past through rose tinted glasses so i d take it with a grain of salt.
Back when I played on an LK server, I did have to minmax with a few of my stats, but never hassled about it. I even taught a paladin to tank, because he was really excited, and we became friends after a while. As for the harder content, I was all about acceptance, I knew raids can be completed after a modest amount of preparation, so all I asked for an ICC10 or 25 was something like 4.5-5k GS which can all be obtained from dungeons. I mostly had good experiences with pugs back then.
It started since 2004 beta of WoW,it wont go away ever,because people like to improve and thats human nature
Because the raids and classes were easier back then. As long as Blizzard is pushing for overlapping mechanics if dps is low, then the community will keep pushing for min maxing.