|
Re: I can fix PVP
First of all, thank you very much on your post. It is thoughtful and really takes a good look at the big picture.
But just to keep the discussion going, I would like to offer some counter points.
Let's start from the beginning:
Quote:
Pre-BC the best PVP gear was Tier Gear, and with how accessible raiding is now, there's really no reason this shouldn't be something we return to. In the majority of cases, you can clear 10 man Naxx once a week in about 3.5 hours.
PVP gear right now requires more time spent getting splattered in BG's or arenas and then a further investment in getting adroit enough to have a rating to gain an actual improvement.
|
On Gear Acquisition:
The current system is very friendly for all kinds of players. You can access gear from just grinding honor, or get it much quicker using arena points, or use your surplus Emblems to gear up. Either way, this is great for ALL players. It doesn't matter if you are hardcore or casual, there is something for you to work for.
I am a prime example of this, I have a 12 hour work day, and a busy family life. The fact is, I can never guarantee any sustainable period of time to raid, or even do a normal instance consistently. Even a normal instance run requires me to coordinate a week in advance. As such, pre-BC, all my PvP gear is from the honor grind/quests. Anyhow, I am never going to set foot in Naxx/Kara. Raiding is surely a lot more accessible now, but I don't see why the honor grind or 10 arena games are something that we should drop and return to pure raiding for gear. The current system is very flexible and makes everyone happy.
BGs are often frustrating, but they are often very exciting too, when you get the luck to be in a good team playing against an equally challenging opposition. At the end of the day, you don't have to grind BG if you don't want to, but they should let those who like/can grind.
On resilience and forcing people into uniforms:
Think about how resilience came to be before you call for its deletion. Pre-BC, Tier 2 geared players have a field day vs non-tiered gear players. I was on that boat, and lamented that my inability to raid made me completely non-competitive vs players that can get into a raid. So Blizzard introduced the honor system and arena system to allow players who want/can pvp gear up. Resilience is introduced as a stat so high offence, high crit powered dps raid gear won't make PvP encounters painfully short. And it was painfully short most of the time pre BC. Now of course, resilience got out of hand towards the end of S3, S4 as games began to draw out and long, outlast games began to be the norm. The start of Wrath of the Lich King return us to Burstfest. But with resilience getting back up again, a balance is likely to be achieved when new gear is introduced. Anyhow, resilience serves to lower damage, and that is always desirable in PvP.
Saying resilience is stupid is like saying the Hit Cap is stupid. What should I be forced to have +hit gear in order to raid? It is just Blizzard's way to keep subscriber working towards some gear in order to "progress". It can be resilience, it can be haste, it can be armor, armor penetration. I do absolutely agree that we should have a CHOICE in stacking armor if we so choose to itemize it that way. In fact, a lot of arena locks did stack armor items in S3, S4.
Requiring certain amount of certain stats is really part of the business model. I don't think they should remove resilience, but rather, give us a choice to what to stack according to our needs.
On Armor:
The difference between physical damage and magic damage is that physical damage can be mitigated with armor, magic damage cannot be mitigated by anything(aside form cooldowns, or class specific abilities). I don't think necessarily that one is better than the other. You mentioned that classes with not much armor like us cannot mitigate physical damage, that is true. But on the flip side, no class (aside from being stupidly single minded in stacking resistance) can mitigate magical damage much either. So I don't think there are absolutely advantages here, just that the choice of gearing up is too inflexible at the moment. I agree with you that we should be allowed to have mitigation if we choose to, at the expense of whatever we choose.
Quote:
Arcane Mages put the fear of God in just about everybody they run across.
I'm going to use that as a model:
1) They have reliable CC.
2) They have stealth.
3) They have two escape mechanims.
4) They have an instant cast that destroys just about everybody (whether it crits or not).
5) They have an effective snare (that further buffs their damage).
If they are to continue with the status quo (resilience), this class/spec should be held as a benchmark as to the fact that every caster class is a glass cannon.
|
I actually think the opposite in that they are just completely wrong. The amount of escapes, snares, invisibility, and magic resistance give them a huge amount of survivability. However, their dps output is also incredibly high, not to mention supremely easy to execute (instants). This is definitely not a glass cannon, more like a stealth F117A with photon torpedoes....
And this brings us into the next problem. It is that arena design definitely favour a certain style of play where instants, immune mechanics are superior. You can see that classes with these "outs" such as Ice Block, Cloak of Shadows, Divine Shield, anti magic shell will continue to dominate. The more variety of arenas there are, the fairer. For example, demonic teleport is exceptionally effective in BEM, and it is fine as long as we have other arenas that is not as skewed towards that arena.
My suggestions:
The fixes are so simple and obvious that it is quite clear it is NOT Blizzard's intention to have a balance situation at all. They want people to quit their locks and go for DKs. They will do this again and again, for MMORPGs, for their RTS, etc.
It is just strikingly simple, burst is too high at the moment. The simple solution is to nerf burst damage to a point where it is just right. Arcane mages are ridiculously OP at the moment, and not terribly difficult to play. The simple thing is to nerf their damage. If they want to keep the damage, fine, make it non-instant.
An elemental shammy requires set up time to actually get off a cast. That cast should really hurt. The arcane mage jumps around spamming arcane barrage, the damage really should be much lower.
For warlocks, which previously relied on CC to survive, the fact there is fear immune mechanics everywhere is the culprit, in addition to the high burst environment. I mean, what do you do to a Berserked Feral druid? or a DK that chains Anti-magic shell, Lichborne, Strangulate and the tons of snares?
Our dots and nukes, compared to other classes are underpowered. Our CC is ineffective in the face of immune mechanics. We have low survivability and basically no escapes. Make our dots and nukes hit harder to compensate our low survivability, unreliable CC and no escapes. Then there is a good risk/reward decision.
Keep up the good work!
__________________
What if what they really want is for us to herd our demons back into the void like we're doing? Because if we re-roll DKs, General, we do that, and everything that we have bled and fought and died for is over, and they've won. They've already won!
|