SS, healing, toxicity and rating

PVP Arenas
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Hello, I wanna start this thread off by saying that I am 98 out of 100 times never the person who starts to randomly flame and act toxic for no reason. And probably only healers will truly understand this thread. Anyways, I was recently permanently banned for toxicity (No, I was not writing some crazy stuff) it was “mild” toxicity that I am more than willing to share if allowed. Because I had received too many strikes on my account, they decided to close my account. Luckily, I was able to get it back thanks to a very nice and understanding GM. Shoutout GM Latcrick (If I am not allowed to name, a mod or I can edit). With this being said, I am not here to defend toxicity or flame blizzard for banning me, I did deserve a ban, but not a permanent one (in my opinion ofcourse). See, I’ve played this game since release and this account was made Cataclysm, I’ve received some strikes, around 3-4 in 13 years of time. Until now, with the release of Shadowlands and Solo Shuffle, I’ve been banned 3 times in less than 1,5 years. I have been incredibly unhappy with how healing PvP has been and that’s been reflected upon fellow players. I have a final warning, if I get struck one more time, my account is gone.
So for some background: First off, I don’t want to act this way and I don’t want the game to be this way. The solution is simple right? Just don’t be toxic, that shouldn’t be too hard… Well, as a healer (especially in solo shuffle)… First off, it is incredibly unthankful to play a healer in this bracket… In any bracket for that matter but mostly SS, especially if you play something below S-tier. On top of that you have DPSers blaming you in SS for everything that goes wrong, they don’t press CDs, its your fault… They go behind pillar and die, it’s your fault…
Sure, it’s not the end of the world really, that you get the blame… I know that most of the times I am not in the wrong (But ofcourse I throw some games too, it happens everyone, we’re only human). BUT, it gets especially frustrating when you play against the same FOTM classes in SS every game only to realize that the player/players in the lobby that flame you received their first Duelist/Elite in Dragonflight… I am sure A LOT of players are great, don’t get me wrong but lets not kid ourselves, it’s easier for DPSers to gain rating in SS than it is healers. I’ve farmed every class transmog to 1800(playing on higher MMR) except Dh, DK, mage. While that is not high rating, I’ve did it enough times to see the pattern. The downside with playing a DPS is that you have longer queue times.

Anyways, this brings me to today… I tried monk healing for the first time in PvP (and barely played it in PvE either). I am playing on 2k MMR because I go 6-0 the first shuffle and then 5-1 the next. So I have around 1000 or so rating playing at that MMR. Naturally, playing a fistweaver not knowing even 70% how to play the class(I only checked some guides). I get stomped by double melee and get oneshot pretty much in the opener. I get flamed from a DPS in my team, which is “fine” I suppose, I did mess up. Next round, he is still in my team and we play, and he constantly moves out of Faeline Stomp (I am Fistweaver). I tell him mid game “Stand in blue stuff” not toxic or anything, I really watch my tongue since I have final warning. After he whispers me “dogsh*t healer”. So I decide to check his highest experience… Previous expansions, 1800 Rival… In Dragonflight he achieved Duelist through SS. I respond to him by saying “nice rival max exp before DF”.
Now, his words didn’t really bother me… What bothers me is if I can get banned because of that comment.
And this leads me to the reason why I really made this thread.

I think solo shuffle has great potential, I really do… A lot of players enjoy it, and I too enjoy it (as a DPS). But as of right now, it truly is a sh*tstorm. Queues are long for DPSers due to the lack of healers(Which is understandable). The problem I have with it is that on some(most) healers it is extremely stressful to heal due to insane burst and also high consistent damage, the gameplay is unrewarding, pretty much just AFKing in the background to heal. If you try to go for some kind of CC you get instantly punished for it in the form of perma CC or oneshot in a stun (If you dont have trinket), so it’s not even worth going for CC(atleast not on Rdruid from what I’ve seen on streams and my own experience). Some healer classes benefit more from the fast dampening rampup than other, and depending on what kind of DPSers you have in the lobby (which most of the times now are Demos, Rets, Arms, BMs) the game doesnt really last for more than 2 goes.
So what can be done about this?

First off, they really must do something about MMR. I’ve played in 2,6 K MMR lobby and had a player with 350 rating play in that very same lobby… And while yes, they could be high on their second or third spec… How does that make them able to play THAT one spec? Ofcourse generally players do know their class decently well if they managed to climb some rating, but I still don’t like that idea. Its better they re-grind from scratch then. Also, this contradicts itself as I have myself, today, played in 2k lobbies on a low rated Monk that I’ve never played solo shuffle on. Also they need to reconsider rating gains across the board in Solo Shuffle, or atleast MMR. You get ultra punished if you have a bad lobby, but if you have a good one, you get so much MMR it doesn’t even matter if you only win 1-2 game sometimes, you can still receive rating… It’s not really realistic that a 2,6k healer is going 6-0 against a 2,4k healer (just an example). And this also applies for DPS, in my experience it’s even better for DPS… I think I farmed my elite mog going 1-5 on my Rogue IIRC, all because I had a good lobby the game before, which I find kind of funny…
(This can also encourage people to report for griefing. I’ve seen it with my own eyes… A low MMR player that actually only had a good starter lobby playing on around 2k MMR losing every game and then getting flamed/report for it.) I don’t know if Blizzard actually acts upon reports like this, but it would REALLY suck if someone would get a strike/banned for something they simply cannot control. Blizzard report system is not known for being perfect as we’ve seen many times before.

Secondly maybe they should get rid of dampening ramping up that fast in SS. (I guess we’ll have to wait and see how S2 turns out to play out, but from what we’ve seen it doesn’t look like damage is going to be lower, maybe even higher than it is now…

How do we make more healers play solo shuffle? I am not sure what the exact fix is to this, but I can see why new players don’t want to start healing. The toxicity received and the stress it brings is not worth the fast queues, really… It isn’t. I’d like to consider myself an above average healer, and sometimes I feel helpless… So how does a new player get into PvP? That aren’t aware of trading CDs, not overlapping CDs, tracking trinkets/DRs etc… I don’t see how anyone new to the game would enjoy the healing experience in PvP. Not trying to be a crybaby or anything, just my honest thought.

How do we get rid of the Toxicity? Well… This will probably be the point where I get a lot of hate, but honestly… As it is right now, they should just disable chatting in solo shuffle. And hear me out… The majority of SS games are not tactic discussing, it is to find the weakest link in the lobby and train the h*ll out of that player (I can’t talk to the 3k+ rated guys, but I can between 1-2700 MMR)…

Lastly, “Solo Shuffle killed regular 3s”… It kinda did… That is ultimately the biggest reason for this thread. I would never play solo shuffle as a healer if I could queue up 3v3 all day, really… I mean that. But it is a struggle to find groups in 3s, even as a healer… I can only imagine how it is for a DPS. It was already hard enough before Solo Shuffle was implemented. I don’t know the fix for this… Better rewards for 3s or worse rewards for Shuffle, not sure… Or up the rating required for elite transmog/illusion/tabard in shuffle and let it remain in 3v3? I don’t know, as of right now the only “real” reason to play 3v3s is for the Gladiator mount and R1 title, which most of us average joes don’t aim for. A lot of players, myself included just wants the transmog/illusion/tabard. Maybe in S2 if 3s is alive one might actually try for gladiator x)

Either way, that’s my rant/thoughts. Hopefully I don’t get permad for that comment and hopefully something good can come out of this thread.
Peace, Dendario

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I think your post would’ve been better w/o including your 3x ban / perma ban story. There is a lot to be done with RSS but your problem in particular is literally all on you and can be solved by just muting your chat.

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I read your post with your HOTS story before you had edited and you not believing I got banned for “mild” toxicity, provide me your Discord and I will send you all of the 3 bans, and exactly what was written (sent to my by Blizzard themselves).

You’re probably right, maybe its uneccessary info and I should probably unbind my chat-key. But that was not the point of the thread. The ‘story’ was also a heads up for people, so they don’t end up in the same boat that I was/is in. Maybe some are not so lucky to get their account back. And claiming my problem is solely a ME problem, is clearly not true. I do absolutely have flaws, and I can and should work on a lot of things. But I believe you have not read the entire post if you believe its only on me as a player. SS is kind of known for its toxicity at this point.

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Both dps or healer will go 0-6 if they’re bad. For healers being bad is less punishing and there’re alot of healers whos real mmr is 500-1k lower because how current meta is on it takes no real skill to heal this war/ret/bm/demo comps which you will encounter most of the time. Also people shouldnt recover from permaban as its all on you and you’re the part of the reason why SS is toxic and pvp community is questionable.

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That comment in itself contradicts itself, you first state that healers will go 0-6 if they are bad, but right afterwards you say that it takes no skill to heal this meta… Meaning exactly what? People getting randomly oneshot? That should reward the bad healers moreso than the good ones in that case. Also, it’s the other way around. I believe even Lontar stated that if you’re 2400 on healer in SS, it compares to being 2700 as a DPS. Sure, his word is not law. But he is a VERY experienced player, with many hours and classes played in Solo Shuffle.
Maybe you are right with that last part, at the same time… Naturally, if someone flames you, it’s easy to lose control sometimes. Is telling someone “You s*ck” warranted for a permaban? Maybe, maybe not? I digress. You could have had a really bad day and the last thing you want is to get flamed. Ofcourse, you should always try to be the mature person not reacting. But that happens, in games and also in life. Eventually someone will get on your nerves. It happens. But again, it’s not what the thread was about. We should all, together, try to work for a better community in my opinion.

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Ill give an example - SL 1 season (after nerfs) was very hard for the healers to play as there was alot of firemages/boomkins who just oneshots people if healer is CC’d and position/cooldowns/dispel was very important. Currenly you can be CC’d only if you go into melee and random zug throws stormbolt onto you / kick you. Some healers dont even press their big CD’s when DK pops 10/10 of hes buttons on open and dont dispel lock curse which is a game-losing for most of DD’s (its 2400+ and I dont even want to imagina how bad it is below). Heal just do the pve rotation as they cannot be most of the times long-range CC’d/kicked.

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I didn’t play a lot throughout SL, but I did farm elite mogs during the expansion for the armor classes when I felt like it… And I do remember Season 1, very well… Because that is what made me take a break from WoW. The PvP was insanely bad in Shadowlands… Especially in the start of S1… Current DF reminds me of it. That’s why I involved the part with burst damage and consistent damage being too high. I am not quite sure what you are trying to say, I am not sure I understand clearly. But yes, it’s bad not to trade cooldowns, but the damage is still too high outside of CDs, or dampening ramps up too fast. (In solo shuffle)
I haven’t played a lot of regular 3v3 yet, only to 2k. But the damage is kinda-ish healable(as resto druid), but that is due to dampening not ramping up as high, and also the fact that I’ve been on voice with the players I’ve played with, so that we’ve traded CDs and not overlapped most of the times.

What you’re saying as healers doing PvE rotation, is exactly what I personally want to get away from. It’s really not fun to be a healbot in PvP, that’s not what got me into restodruid to begin with. I feel like the reward you get for cloning is not worth it, because the punishment is too high/cost you the game many times. Only sometimes I really find the right window to go and clone, but that is very seldom. You don’t afford going for CCs, because you have to keep healing the damage, but also it can cost you the game very fast.

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You can’t argue with fotm players below 1800 rating because if they where good players they would be higher.

And if they understood what they where doing wrong they would probably be higher.

Also since they don’t understand that they don’t play good themselves they blame the team.

When they die and don’t understand it’s their own fault, who do they blame?

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The way you post (unnecessarily long posts) tells me that you talk too much that is probably why you got banned.

Soloshuffle getting nerfed, next season 3s will probably see more play.

You are a healer, if you do not aim gladiator mount like you say you could just have your rewards via legacy 3s because you say you are an average Joe.

As a healer you can easily find people and climb to 2.1

3s has been alive enough to climb till 2100 since season’s start.

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What do you mean talk too much? Maybe this post was unnecessarily long, but that’s just how I am, even in real life. I don’t want to leave any details out, it’s also to build a picture. Anyways, I disagree. It appears you have not played a single game of regular 3v3 this season. If you had done that, you would’ve also known that for a very long time between 1800-2100 MMR, you queue into rank 1 players that are farming alts or even mains. That has probably changed now as it is late in the season, I don’t know. Haven’t tried pushing for some weeks. But that was the case for a very long time. The rating was deflated in 3s, that is also one of the reason why it took time before they broke 3000 Rating. Also, the rewards are at 2400, not 2100. If you want them all, again, not talking about Title or Mount.
Okay, I must have missed that point. In which way is shuffle getting nerfed? :smile:

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  • Honor and Conquest rewarded through different rated content has been redistributed for better balance of acquisition between them.
    • Developers’ note: Going into Season 2, we took a look at honor and conquest distribution to have a better balance between acquisition for the currencies in different rated content. In today’s PTR build, you may notice that redistribution, with honor and conquest gains being slightly less for Rated Solo Shuffle and higher in grouped Rated PvP content (2v2, 3v3, and Rated Battlegrounds.

They might also ninja nerf inflation of Shuffle and make it more difficult to climb.

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I see, thanks. Nerf to inflation in shuffle I stand behind 100%.
The conquest thing is not relevant IMO. Most players don’t play shuffle to farm honor and conquest points. Especially not in the mid/later stages of the season.

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His problem is not all on him, freedom of speech should be protected. This is suppose to be a American video game company. Yet blizzard seems to behave more like the CCP.

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Thank you. And you’re right. The issue is that Blizzard seems to only take the text-chat out of context, and don’t look at the bigger picture. I was banned during Classic SoM while I was tryhard ranking, I was in a BG that was very even and we could’ve easily won, but we had a guy afk on his mount(And I know, there are many AFKers in BGs not a big deal normally, but this BG was so close to either team winning), horde was literally standing beside him and he could’ve easily anti-capped the flag. I fought as hard as I could to defend but eventually I died. I call him out by saying “hey (name) stop afking ffs” he arrogantly responds back something along the line “cry more noob” and I call him an idi* ot and tell him that he ‘sucks a *s’, only to realize he had premade friends in the group, mass-reported and banned. Stupid of me to even type in the BG chat towards the guy, but it is what it is. I’m not trying to defend toxicity. It’s bad, it doesn’t do anyone good. But if you get flamed, you flame back sometimes. In this case I called the guy out for his “bad behavior” and he managed to trigger me. It’s more the principle than his words, because I don’t care about the words honestly, thats why I never report people most of the times xD… I should probably start. Either way what I am saying is that at times, even in real life, you ‘defend’ yourself when people act up. Most of the times you just move on, but occasionally you bite back aswell.

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I can never tell if people are trolling when they post stuff like this. On one hand, it is a clear troll, right? But on the other hand, people believe in the flat earth, so anything is possible.

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Look if you cant handle what other people say on the internet perhaps you should go get yourself evaluated by a psychiatrist.

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Which of yours would you recommend?

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Classic Blizzard move. nerfing the bracket that people actually enjoy and that is the most played bracket because some whiny people can’t reach their 2400 rating cause they are missing the Cannon fodder in 2s and 3s.

They should have left the honor and conquest gains as it is. If the majority don’t wanna play 2s and 3s then don’t artificially force them into it. If people wanna play solo shuffle then let them play. If only a small minority wanna play 3s and 2s then don’t invest in those brackets.

But blizzard is making the same mistake they made the last 20 years. They only listen to the top 1% of players and that will again cost them subscribers.

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I have no horse in the race and I don’t favour any of these game modes but it is safe to tell Soloshuffle hurts social aspect of PvP.

Since BfA till DF I always created new friendships and had teammates but during S1 I saw no incentive to do such a thing, for the first time since I started playing arena.

It is easy to just login que play and leave and not bother with creating new virtual social circles. Soloshuffle is not a bad addition and it was a necessary experiment but it should be debated whether it should be the primary choice for players or not.

It has its pros and cons and further divides PvP playerbase. It should be monitored for 1-2 more seasons.

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I can see your point. But if the majority of people want to play solo shuffle then that is what blizzard should let them do. I fear blizzard will once again become the one that tells us how to play and enjoy their game even if it differs from what players want.

This is what blizzard did over that last expansions and what costed them a lot of subscribers. Blizzard is not in the position to tell me or anyone how to play and enjoy WoW.

All other modern games thrive because of their solo queue. League of Legends, Fortnite, whatever call of duty is the most recent one, PUBG, world of tanks warships whatever, dota. All of them have solo q and that’s the most played bracket.

I for one don’t care if 2s and 3s die. I never liked them and never enjoyed the elitism that was rampant there.
If those brackets thrive next season I don’t care either. I just don’t want blizzard to make solo shuffle so unrewarding that I feel forced to play regular 2s or 3s. I don’t want to face meta comps all day if I even get into a group with my off meta spec.