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