TLDR:
Good idea but implementation was not that great.
My few thoughts and feedback on this change
first of all the idea “that we need to balance PVP and PVE separately” is a good one.
Otherwise, we will just be going around one-shotting each other and the ranged classes will have complete and utter dominance in Battlegrounds
like in what world is it balanced for PVP when a shadow priests void plague dot hits harder or the same as a warrior with the best 2h available in the game?
With that said there are problems with how they implemented this test of dmg reduction, the first problem was that it’s flat across the board essentially the high dmg classes should in theory just become even stronger and the low dmg classes become worse unless you can bring utility to compensate.
Ofc melee will be better in BG because they can actually survive for a little while but still high damage ranged classes get a buff from this compared to low dmg ranged classes and the same for melee.
So my point with this is that it’s very unjust to treat unequal classes/specs equally in PVP essentially to get a somewhat balanced PVP scene you need to balance individual abilities for PVP.
or if you really want to do it easily if you are a “small indie company” at least treat the different classes as different classes for balancing.
The second problem with this test was that the damage reduction was way too high so some BGs became very frustrating and were unbearably long and tedious to play. Yes, I’m talking about Warsong Gulch, Because with a good Druid as the enemy flag-carrier you have almost zero chance of stopping them from taking the flag and running across the map with it.
So your best bet is to have a Druid flag carrier on your team as well and hopefully the enemy Flag carrier has to leave due to boredom or dinner or you can just farm HKs and let them win.
Personally with BG experience under my belt both before, during and after the damage reduction I can say that as melee I’ve found it more fun to play with the damage reduction than without it and that is because with it you are allowed to take a few hits before you go down. Then if you have someone healing you you can actually tank quite a lot of damage and be a real annoyance for the enemy with cc and interrupts.
But then again you hit like a wet noodle with the damage reduction so healers and tanks are very very hard to kill when you land that interrupt or CC just because you don’t deal any damage.
On the other hand as a ranged class I’d say I’ts a little less fun because you have to actually try instead of going around with a 30+ yards golden gun and you all know that that is actually fun.
Now you need to actually play the game and keep melee away from you with CC and stuff since they don’t just melt when you look at them.
overall in my view, it made world PVP ± the same since it is so much about when it happens It’s nicer if you get jumped, but worse for some fights takes too long etc just impossible to kill Restoration druids etc,
Also, I found that Arathi Basin became more enjoyable with longer fights, more CC is needed and I found that I can now play the map more than I could before, like if you go for simultaneous attacks you can create good distractions on the side of the map where you want the enemies to be etc.
thanks for reading.