So sad - how did game fell so hard ?

PVP Arenas
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Imagine when you come as a shadow priest…

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But again, isn’t that how it is in any competitive sport or game? If you want to be the best, then you pick the best, otherwise you’re effectively hurting your own chances of winning.

It’s not a problem per se, it’s just the nature of the beast. Once you look at the Live servers and the lower rating levels, then you suddenly can play a lot more than the few specs played by the pro players. Low-rated players aren’t playing at a skill level where they’ve narrowed their margin of error down to the same degree as the pro players. And let’s be honest, we’re not all pro players.

I remember a former developer who said (years ago) that they wanted to ensure that each class had at least one viable spec. More than that was a goal to strive toward.
So from a player perspective that’s probably the mentality to approach it with - at least if you want to be comeptitive.
Rather than stubbornly insisting on playing that Holy Priest in an effort to reach Rank 1, it may be worth recognizing that Discipline and Shadow are stronger, and then play those instead.

I didn’t say it was. I merely said that small-scale PvP demands more balance scrutiny than large-scale PvP does. And WoW errs more toward small-scale PvP with its Arenas, whereas GW2 errs more toward large-scale PvP.
But the same discussions about what’s overpowerd, underpowered, viable, meta, and so on, exist in GW2 as well. Let’s not pretend that they don’t. They exist in any multiplayer PvP game.

But why? I mean, to me that doesn’t sound like an issue of balance or anything like that. If you’re just casually playing 3v3 Arenas, then you can find success with just about any of the healing classes.

Sure, if you’re trying to qualify for the Blizzcon Arena Tournament, then you might narrow your choice down to Restoration Druid right now. But if that isn’t your top priority, then you can do fine with all the classes.

I think there’s a bit of a tendency to blame all loses and lack of success on Blizzard and the class imbalances, when in many cases it’s probably more a Learn2Play matter.

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1st: Don’t ignore my posts, you big meanie.

2nd: The guy you answered was more than likely talking about the strength of the trickle-down effect becoming stronger and stronger in the effects seen in the game itself.
That has nothing to do with the existence of a meta or how good a player is. It has to do with the strength of the impact in the gameplay itself, and how far that absolute effect on top is seen at lower ratings, i.e. how it trickles down.

It’s also further aggravated by how players can pick talents according to what they’re facing. I know it’s not something people dislike, but it makes these contrasts in strength between different classes and comps more absolute. Because as soon as the cookie-cutter builds sets in for a patch for what talents to pick and when, and how to play, then the effects of getting roflstomped due to almost that alone is seen more and more on all kinds of ratings.

In other words, the differences in strength affects the outcome more not only at the top, but also on lower ratings too.

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Too lofty for me at this hour, I’m going to bed. :yum:

Regardless, Blizzard will balance PvP to the best of their ability. And then it is up to the players to figure out how to approach that game balance so that they have the highest chance of success.

Too often the mentality seems to be: “What should Blizzard change so I can start winning?”

Whereas it should be: “What can I change myself so I start winning?”

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I don’t disagree with this per se. But you’re forgetting the example of “I’ve figured out how to win, but it’s soulcrushingly boring and I don’t want to be forced to do only that.”
It’s not all black and white, there are also shades of grey.

Which brings me back to:

I’ll change the metric for you so you get on the track of what other people are following.
It’s not about specific things per se, it’s about the combination of everything. About how it lacks individuality. The immersive aspect keeps going down because of the quote above and how they keep trimming gameplay and deciding factors.
It’s a problem embedded in the game’s very core due to all of the changes since the early days of WoW, and how it has lost its identity over the years.
Because people are ok with small things. Small things are constantly overlooked. But if there’s nothing distracting players from those small things, then they turn into a big mess. So Blizzard has kept trimming what successfully distracted many people in the past, and kept adding more small problems on top of each other, and so the accumulated effect has built up. Nobody has tried to confirm vanilla was perfect. Nobody has tried to confirm BC was perfect. Nobody has tried to confirm WotLK was perfect. Yet by the players who played 'em, they’re still favored much more.
Now you can use the meme “nostalgia goggles” if you don’t want to admit to criticism (much like Blizzard themselves), but what was different back then was the amount of distractions. In other words, the small problems didn’t seem as impactful then for most people.

Distractions means things that kept the brain engaged, not things that made people want to shut it off. (Daily quests probably being the most suitable example of the phenomenon of people being distracted but for the wrong reasons so it just amplified the focus on problems overall.)

So it’s fine if Blizzard never creates the hypothetical “perfect WoW”. But what they need to accomplish is to create more engaging distractions that doesn’t annoy people further.

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Hmm, actually feels like Rshaman>Rdruid due the manachange. Anyways, Manarift is just a joke right now.

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I see two main problems here:

  1. Blizzard priorities pve > pvp. First they balancing pve and only after, if they have time, pvp.
  2. Blizzard think that arena is the only important pvp case. But it is so small/unexistent part of players playing it. Much more players like bg and wpvp / mass pvp. But Blizzard don’t want balance it and can’t make working infrastructure (all that have more then 8 ppl in the world will lag horribly, I don’t even tell about raid vs raid or real city attack).
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In the current game there is nothing a MM hunter can do to start winning…

That is exactly the problem!

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Then isn’t the player solution to simply play another Hunter spec?

I mean, if your objective is to win, then why insist on playing a spec you’ve identified as incapable of winning? :thinking:

And yes sure, Blizzard can always make more changes and distribute buffs and nerfs here and there. But as a player you still have to navigate the current gameplay environment, so do that? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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That pretty much contradicts with your statement !

How can both be true ? I thought you wanted to say its the players fault.

Now you admitted the MM has no room to improve and fight in an equal level.

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No. I said if you’ve identified the spec as incapable of winning, then you should probably consider playing another spec, assuming your objective is to try and win.

I’ve no idea whether MM is any good or not. I’m just saying it’s up to the players to navigate the meta in a way that increases their chances of success, assuming they play to win.

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But isn’t that the big problem? Why is it that only like 20% of specs are now viable and competitive (not necessarily in terms of tournaments) while the others are left in the dirt and forced to reroll if they want to find even remotely similar success?

This is the whole problem (imo) to begin with. Back in expansions like wrath & mop you had an overwhelming majority of specs viable at more or less any level of play, so if you were a certain hunter spec or rogue spec player you could still find great success playing if you were good and played the good comps for those specs. Now you’re forced to reroll to the minority fotm specs that by default beat out everything else even if you get outplayed to some extent.

That’s just bad, boring, and incredibly stale.

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obviously that are always classes and combs that are better but the problem is that the balance drifted too far apart.
We have seen tournaments or pvp in general before and there were at least a little more choice.
Now in the lower skill brackets the variety was much higher than it is now

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I agree. I like to play frost mage but right now no…u MUST play a rDruid, a Destro,SP,Unholy maybe Boomie also.

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frost mage has 2 S tier comps btw

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Are you kidding ?

Frost Mage is at the same level as Ele, Destro & Healdruid.

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