I agree that for new players it might very difficult to start play for example arena. But there might be few things which might be improved, by not making it boring.
- create a interface usable in PVP, im playing with disc priest and its not possible to play without many addons. I mean this is OK that there is addons, but make also default UI usable in PVP. Create default UI improvements for PVP .
- Create some kind of quest line for each class and spec, like training PVP quest against NPC. For example for disc priest it might be how to avoid and track Cyclones, how to avoid mage sheep with PWD etcâŚ, what to do when burst damage comes in etc⌠Just at least basics.
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Add DRs to that. I feel like a lot of players have no idea about DRsâŚand the fact that you NEED an addon for it is cray crayâŚ
I mean they tried improving the UI this exp which is pretty good but still has a lot of workâŚfrom all the upgrades they did I think Im only not using Bartender anymore, the default bars with quick bind and customizations are pretty good imo, but still using rest of the addons I used before 
Every single hecking class has 10 forms of cc. My omni CD LITERALLY OVERLAPS. I HAVE 14 OMNIBAR SPELLS ON MY SCREEN BRO. Every second spec is full of passive healing and passive crap to make them survive randomly. Sometimes you even rotate through defensive cooldowns against classes like Ret Paladin, if you miss the small kill window. Every class has so many ways to just break cc randomly, or just become immune all of the sudden. Half the specs have like 3 micro DPS cooldowns and 1 big DPS cooldown. The way cc shares DR is also completely uncomprehebsible. Youâll need a degree in wow to just understand all the abilities and how the dps of most classes works. Itâs a completely stupid mess, and I uninstall it today and I only reinstall, if they remove 30% of all abilities at least. I put this in my cancel sub reasoning. The pvp mode is completely trash currently and itâs really messy.
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To add to that, I just saw a Twitter post by Nahj, where he posted an excel sheet of all his keybinds from like 2 days ago and heâs also rocking over 60 binds, not counting targeting binds, as a rog player, so I guess my shaman list isnât even that crazy after all.
I used to watch Nahj back in WOD and remember vividly him being annoyed about this dude Nessper cos he played fotm red buff combat
Interesting to see how far heâs come tbh
But yeah
That many binds is wild
Meanwhile slinks 1 2 3 âŚdid I win ? 
I mean im not even close to Naahjs level and i got 60+ keybinds too xD
Step 1: implement baseline visual effects for every major offensive and defensive cooldown. Good examples are ret wings and ret bubble.
Bad examples are sub gloomblades or boomy incarn. Ideally, have a glowy icon like marker of the classes active offensive and/or defensive float over their heads when active
Step 2: remove proc based offensive cooldowns. If you see an offensive used, you shouldnt have to quickly check the duration to see if its a proc or the ÂŤ big one Âť.
Step 3: rework the default arena ui, replace what is currently in place with the awc tournament frames (showing cooldowns). Add a DR to this
You can still replace this or customize it by your own addons, but the barrier to entry needs to be drastically reduced. Once that is in place, work needs to be done on incentives to play
Step 4: cosmetics. Instead of having pvp set be a recolor of the raid set, have an entirely unique pvp set. Make it come in multiple colours, unlocked (full set at a time) 1.6, 1.8, 2.1
Same for enchants, one colour at 1.7, one at 1.9, one at 2.2
Step 5: inflation. Remove it.
Step 6: remove the shuffle format. Solo Q should put you in one team, versus another, in a best of 3 match. You can duoQ into this automated matchmaking. Rewards are the same as the premade 3s bracker (including glad).
PvP is dying because of a lot of reasons.
- Weakaura / Addon requirements (completely unfriendly for new players)
- Poor class balance (eternal problem)
- New players having to learn what their own class does, what all other classes and specs do, what a team class combination does
- Lack of participation gatekeeping good rewards like Glad mounts and Elite titles
- Learning positioning
- Elitism - double-edged sword. Nobody wants to give a new player a chance, but at the same time, 98% of the times you do, you are vastly dissapointed at the performance and end up wasting your time.
- General toxicity (unavoidable in competitive game modes in any game)
- Lack of a good LFG system
- Long solo queue, which is tied to healers not wanting to queue, which in turn is tied to people not having access or not giving the time to become better as DPSâes thus making healing them a complete nightmare
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After thinking about this whole topic more yesterday, I realized that there is no solution.
You canât make it newcomer friendly, which would require to heavily dumb it down in almost all aspects, without alienating itâs current playerbase. On top of that itâs questionable, whether drastic changes in direction would even lead to improvements, since it would probably just cause even more people to quit at a faster rate, while not introducing enough new players to the game, to replace the quitters.
I think no matter what Blizzard does at this point, even their best efforts will just lead to people quitting at a slower pace, but at the end of the day, itâs not gonna get any better. A hype expansion might bring back more players on initial release than for example DF, which is a good expac but lacks excitement, but at the end of the day, even if it brought back more players, most of these additional players would still end up quitting again after a month.
Best course of action is prolly to just make it as good as they can for their current players and try to maintain a healthy playerbase for as long as possible.
After thinking about this whole topic more yesterday, I realized that there is no solution.
Rewards has entered the chat.
Along with more improvements and revamps
From my point of view, there is still loads left to do and attempt
At the end will remain only you playing the pvp game. Even me as an old casual player i m disgusted by the number of elites and streamers i meet in solo shuffle at even 1.2 rating. When u meet an elite player at 1.1 rating every second game you realize there are no more others players left to play the game. i quit any way, i m fed up.
I know this probably wont help with the way you are feeling
but I am beating people on Gladiator mounts more and more , some with 2700 achievements
Yeah itâs âjust solo shuffleâ , but playing well is playing well
Keep at it , the only way is up
Did it ever occur to you, that these players prolly bought their mounts/titles for gold or even real moneyz and they are actually 1.2k players? Because if they werenât, they would be higher. No one starts at 1.2k, they start at 1500, so going down to 1.2 means they were not good enough for 1500 and got farmed.
Generally, if you meet players at that rating, itâs because they belong on that rating because they are equally good or bad, however you wanna see it. If they intentionally scubadove their rating, to farm low players for content, there is a report option for it. I donât remember what itâs called exactly, but itâs something along the lines of âintentionally derankingâ.
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The game is broken
It needs to be pruned
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Random BGs are awesome. I only play random BGs and have no interest in arena at all.
Why would I play an MMORPG just to play a 3v3 deathmatch mode? There are other games that do that style of game better.
I think thatâs the fundamental problem here - WoW was never intended to be a competitive eSport. Itâs an MMO. Most of us got into the game because the appeal of being able to kill dragons with a bunch of strangers sounded cool. I doubt many people got into WoW just for PvP.
Fixing PvP isnât going to attract new players. They donât care about PvP. If I want to play a competitive PvP game Iâll go play Overwatch or League.
Nothing is unfixable,
A lot of people in the past played PVP as their main content and did other pve and world content as a bonus something fun. 90% of those players are gone now.
They just need to make pvp more friendly to casual players
To make the game easier with less CC less spells less buffs less debuffs and more rewards
To revamp the PVP progression systems or replace them with modern ones.
To allow players to progress towards the season rewards in which pvp content they want eighter trough BGâs or arenas.
Allow solo Q and party Q in all pvp content 2v2 3v3 and rated battlegrounds except solo shuffle of course
Its a lot of work. A lot of Veteran pvp ers will be very angry
But people will start playing PVP again.
And gearing must be easy just the honor and conquest gear nothing else no enchantments no embellishments nothing so people can start Queueing as soon as possible.
It already is dead.
-too many cheesy abilities and poor spec balance.
-caster vs melee vs healer balance is really bad. To the point that casters and healers are unplayable in BGs, and melee classes are unplayable in arenas.
-BGs and arenas need to be fully separated, with templates for balance. Balancing around 3v3 kills BG balance.
-too complex, by which I donât mean that classes should be pruned to having just 4 abilities again, because that is really boring. The documentation of what abilities and classes do is very poor. I get the feeling that even sites like Icy Veins donât help much.
-gear is still way too important, and gearing is still too complex. We were promised a WoD-style gearing system, but it is largely the same as the SL system, only with setbonuses instead of ranks. The entry threshold is still silly high.
-honor gear is useless.
-no new BGs since 2018.
-premades.
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conquest is literally liquid gold at this point, having to rely on the alliance or horde respectively to not make you go on a loosing streak unless you submit to the cheaters they call, pre-mades.
Complex gameplay + fast games does not work .
If you think about it is fairly obvious .
If your rotation is 10 spells , but you get 100-0 in 5 seconds , what do you end up doing ? Using only 5 spells in those 5 globals you get . Add to this interrupts , stuns blinks and you end up not using nothing , so yea .
Simple looks good , but it is not .
Why ?
Fast gameplay requires simple classes > Simple classes require less skill > Less skill means you learn faster > Learning faster means achieving your goal faster > Achieved goal means you get bored and quit .
Also I said It back in Pandaria .
STOP PUSHING 3V3 as the perfect bracket ! It is not . It causes only problems .
It brakes 1v1 . It brakes 2v2 . It brakes Battlegrounds . It brakes world content . Classes feel useless outside healer +1 dps .
Thatâs why people have quit over the years .
You go out in the world in warmode and get slaughtered by some random broken class which is immortal and does your damage x10 .
Most of your hard earned PVE gear is completely useless and feels like greens.
Are you even gonna try bgs or arena after that ?
You look at your abilities and donât even know that most of them âdonât work like thatâ in PvP , because âreasonsâ .
Now go explain to someone , who never tried PvP that it is better in 3v3 .
If by some miracle they go try 3v3 they get asked for rating . Get called scrub , loser and worseâŚ
They would never even consider playing PvP after this and thatâs why no one plays it .
TLDR > Short Story :
1: Classes should be self sufficient and be able to 1v1 anyone and not feel like they are 40 levels apart when they are not in 3v3
2: Spells should work like they work in the tooltip and not have âhiddenâ rules .
3: All modes should be equally fun and rewarding , which means you should be able to get PVE gear for PVP and PVP gear for PVE , so that you can jump back and forth easily .
4: And lastly and most importantly : GET OVER YOUR EGO . Stop treating PVE players or new players like dirt .
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