Hello,
We don’t have any information on Phase 8 yet other than the scarlet raid. We didn’t get any PvP content in phase 7 and I think it’d be great to have phase 8 bring back PvP.
1. PvP Gear
To bring back PvP first there needs to be worthy rewards. The current PvP gear is far behind PvE gear for multiple reasons
PvE Gear has very strong set bonuses. Speaking for my own class T2 2p/4p set bonuses are way too strong to pass up.
PvE Gear has higher item level. R12/13 gear has lower ilvl than T2. Since then we had AQ and Naxx came out which made ilvl gap even bigger.
Bad itemization. Again i can only speak for my own class. Paladin PvP gear is ret/shockadin (str/int/spell power) hybrid.
For these reasons, PvP gear is much like “of stamina” green items. They give a good amount of stamina in exchange for everything else. We need better PvP gear.
2. Content
What content to bring back PvP?
I think the STV event is the single most unique content SoD has. While it has its problems (aoe spamming shrine etc.) it is worth keeping alive.
Battlegrounds except WSG. Arathi Basin is just good PvP. Alterac Valley needs some adjustments to make it not PvE rush but it can still be a good/unique pvp experience. WSG is beyond saving im afraid. Jumping/climbing weird places, mobility/survivability of some specs + FAP usage, no stacking debuff, no timer limit.
World PvP. Increase honor gain from open world kills. Permanent BRM event honor buff everywhere.
3. The Suggestion
Introduce new PvP gear.
High item level. Something like 88 or 90.
Good itemization for PvP something like Sentinel’s Plate Legguards.
Requires honor rank 12/13/14
Requires Blood Coin/Mark of Battlegrounds to buy. Gives a reason for R14 players to do battlegrounds.
Can be core forged/draconic/silithid(AQ)/frozen(naxx). Allows people to have set bonuses they want.
This will make players more powerful in both PvP and PvE but i think that’s ok since phase 8 will likely last very long time if not indefinitely. More importantly it’ll give PvP players a good amount of content.
BG marks could be grinded not only for pvp weapons but also many things; for instance Consumables ( Just like getting Consecrated Sharpening Stones with Necrotic Runes), new pvp profession recipes like leather worker armor kits like +spell damage or damage reduction vs players and their pets .
I am very afraid this game will die like retail or Heroes of the Storm.
As i see it SoD is a huge beta and let it be it and keep testing.
what i meen is when scarlet enclave is out turn focus to pvp.
Start to develop new pvp items and sets. First of all bring in green pvp items who can be bought from rep and rank. So let us have green set that gives their own set bonuses and the bloue one should have their own as the epic one. Intreduse pvp weaponds erlier to.
Put in pvp quests that is repetabel at serten lvl’s and ofcourse give us experience to from pvp.
So the phase after Scarlet intoduse new sets, new bg’s. Let us do alts who can use both curent sets and use new ones when we lvl up.
From lvl 10 we get WSG, from lvl 30 we get a new BG (insert what ever location who fits). At 40 we get AB and from lvl 52 we get AV. From lvl 60 we get arena 2v2 and 5v5, we also get rated BG’s.
The new sets should counter the pve and also benefit pvp. How you do that is up to devs to find out, but we could in some way maby change curent pve and pvp set to work like Naxx items do. It will be beter whit rank or work or not work as good in the the opposit situation.
Now that we can use all runes from start it should be much easier to balance things out from the start.
Im not that good in pvp but i like it and realy want to see it work properly.
A brand new Battleground, not seen in any other Wow iteration (like some of SOD dungeons/raids) would also be nice.
Doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel, I’ll personally be fine for another flag capture or hill defense, as long as the map is new and fits with the current game universe.
The fact players are still playing WSG, AB (and AV…?) twenty years later is proof enough BG don’t especially need crazy mechanics, but just good balance and cool vibe.
Introuducing new pvp gear in end of sod wont help pvp in any way.
Most people are already exalted in all or most bgs and most ppl are already r14.
What would hapoen is that you give people that already give people that are r14/exalted free gear.
All they would have to do is walk to an npc and buy it or the current gear they already have would be upgraded.
Theese kind of changes should habe been in phase 4 when pvp was alive and mattered.
I feel sorry for people that joined in phase 5-6 and came late to the party. It is what it is i guess.
New open world event (or do a BG) in azshara, king of the hill/battle royale but solo play only. Players win tokens based on their kill count (brackets for kill counts etc). The more kills the more currency/tokens. This currency, is then used to purchase new gear (use ear buff from hardcore as kill count). Heavily layered with max 100 players from ally/horde per layer. Once you are allocated your layer you are then locked in for the duration of the event (no layer hopping). Add BG DMG/healing reduction in this zone during event as well as HP boost.
New currency from above event (new BG mark?) used to purchase new PvP runes which are pve set bonus (similar to shoulder enchants) and are only useable/effective against players. Balance pve set bonuses accordingly by limiting combinations (all 2 sets on 1 rune slot, all 4 set bonus on 1 rune slot, all 6 set bonus on 1 rune slot). PvP runes slots can be new (trinkets, neck). Cannot stack pve set bonuses.
New PvP balancing Patch where runes are split pve/PvP in terms of damage. All cc is reduced to 10 secs.
Combination of all BG marks can be turned in for a PvP real box containing PvP consumables faps, lips, laps, resi pots, rejuvenation pots etc and some gold to cover repairs.
Nerf all range classes, nerf sheeps, blinds, sup, delete starfall and nerf starfire, delete all tank runes from all tank classes, or nerf dmg tank classes 60-70 %.
Make a zone like runescape wildy. Maybe Grim’Batol or something. Build on further on the bloodmoon event.
Make it high risk high reward. Players succeeding in this wildy zone can achieve very good rewards. When you die but members of your party are alive you can still ress, when party is dead you need to wait for a 24hour reset. In needs some kind of king of the hill feel.
Make engineering even more usefull for pvp. Items/trinkets that can help you against this bursty meta.
i hope they add like rank 15 an 16 and a bunch of super pvp gear along with it, solely to see the tears from cringe “pvp” guilds that bothered everyone in orgrimmar and other cities by killing all the npcs (civilians) and de-ranking in the process because they figured they got their pvp items so de-ranking wouldn’t matter.
now you might say “just fight them off” and normally i would agree with you, except you don’t understand; that’s what they want, and they aren’t looking to actually pvp, they’re just griefing with safespots etc, camping in huge groups to keep flight master killed, paralyzing traffic world-wide, and unless you can get a raid to consistently form to fight them off all hours of the day (cus they did this constantly all hours of the day) it is a pointless endeavor.
that all being said, while i was a little bit bothered by it, its more of a “rolling my eyes” sort of way rather than gamer rage where i smash the keyboard and break my mouse.
I think a new game mode is needed. Lets take the learnings from other FPS
WSG - Capture the Flag
AB - Domination (this is super popular in CoD)
AV - Team Death Match-ish
STV - Warzone
Arena - This is its own category
The other popular game modes in FPS are Hardpoint ( fighting over a moving objective area) and Search and Destroy.
Maybe these wont work, It was just an idea.
I am against the idea of making PVP gear so high item level. Increase it a bit but not higher than PVE gear. If people want ot go into PVP with PVE gear because its high item level and high damage, they know it comes at the cost of less life. I like that balance
That whole list of changes is something i could get behind. I would appreciate any new PvP-content but the low hanging fruits here must be revisiting the itemization of PvP gear and introducing more incentives for people to do PvP-events and world PvP like BRM.
Some rework on AV and a new BG/gamemode would have me even more exited and i hope Blizzard takes this opportunity to test some of their ideas out.If they introduce a new currency or rank in order to get new gear they shouldnt just tie it to one event/BG and make people “farm” that event/bg. It could be solved by making the currency available for other events and/or make it exchangable or by far the easiest solution: bring new ranks in.
This might be an unpopular opinion but the balancing of classes is OK atm. It might need small reworks with the introduction of new gear/bonuses but it’s not a huge problem.