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View Full Version : [Rated BGs] (WOW) State of PvP now? (Gone for 2 years)



Clovis
02-24-2012, 07:31 AM
Hi everyone,

In short, my question is how is the RBG PvP with 4-5 Shamans now?

A bit about my background. I quad boxed shamans in WOTLK and enjoyed battle grounds. Paired with a good healer we could steam roll every node and every pre-made wanted to have me in their group. With a healer partner I did 5s but that was an excersise in frustration. We peaked at around 1950 in Season 7. I came pretty close to paying for the server xfer/faction change to roll with the other boxers on another server but now with cross server premade battle grounds... oh hell yes??

I got burnt out waiting for rated battle grounds and canceled my accounts in Feburary 2010.

Fast forward today. Like a bad habit I re-activated one of my accounts (my tank paladin) and upgraded to Cata. In about a week and a half I went from level 80 to 85 and 385 iLevel PVE gear.
The end game PVE content is kind of disappointing. Dragon Soul is easy on normal mode that after 2 clears I'm bored and ready to cancel my account. I really have no interest in waiting all week to run it in a pug just to maybe hopefully gradually bump my gear towards 397.

However I am interested in running as a PvP setup again.

I re-activated my IS Boxer account and I've been running my shamans through instances. I'm still working on the setup but I found that running my own 5 man is pretty hard but running just as the 3 DPS and letting someone else tank/heal is a lot easier. They're all at maxed level 80 xp.

I have this fantasy of running my quad shamans in PvP again or maybe 5 shamans since I do already have a 5th at level 80 (just rarely played in WOTLK).

My question for you is... Before I drop another $160 to upgrade my 4 remaining accounts to Cata, which in self is a tough pill to swallow (ever feel like Blizzard is fleecing us?), how is the PvP action? Are Shamans still viable? A few people were just starting to run multi ret Pally/DK combos when I left and it looks like that's still going strong but hopefully not the only "real" option left. I'd prefer not to have to re-level a whole new team.

Thanks!

-Clov

Destahd
02-24-2012, 08:21 AM
No response on your other points... But you can buy Cataclysm for $25ish on amazon. Saves a bit at least... http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft-Cataclysm-Pc/dp/B002I0HKIU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330086010&sr=8-1

zenga
02-24-2012, 08:32 AM
1. Welcome back
2. You can only queue up with 5 people at once for random battlegrounds. There is an alternative with an addon called Preform AV enabler, which basically queues up everyone in a raid individually and shows the status to the leader, often getting more (but not all) people from the same raid in the same bg.
3. Ele shamans are the squishiest spec in the game at the moment. With 4 stacked you obviously have some more tools to knock melee away, but it ain't as easy as wotlk.
4. Doing random bg's as 4x ele with friend healer is still a blast.
5. Doing rated bg's as a boxer is not optimal. There are some maps you'll get away with it, but any capable team will lock you down.
6. BG's are no longer restricted to your battlegroup, so (compared to the time you were playing) every bg's is going on 24/7 (back then on my BG there was no nightly AV for instance) with faster queues than in the past.

valkry
02-24-2012, 09:46 AM
i still have heaps of fun in random Bgs with my 4 shams (no healer).

Jeremiah
02-24-2012, 10:55 AM
PvP has become a CC game nowadays. Frost mages, rogues, DKs can silence and slow players down enough to make even the most patient people rage quit.

Ring of frost seems to have been designed to rule out shaman multi boxing :P

I still PvP and box but my shaman team just doesn't have the impact it used to. Not without a priest casting mass dispel every time i encounter a frost mage or two.

If you are keen to PvP in Cata and mists, I'd roll a set of DKs and get them to 80 and then upgrade. Seems like DKs are going to be the main boxing class for now.

I agree with Zenga. Ele shams are about the squishiest class in the game now. Your knockback WILL get resisted about 60% of the time nowadays. No idea why, this is just the case. Chain lightning still destroys though lol. If you get into an AV and find yourself in a turtle, you will still top DPS, KB and HKs. Just you can get destroyed faster now if things go wrong

Regarding RBGs:

You will not be able to use 4 shamans as a viable addition to a rated team. Nowadays skilled PvPers will just slow and silence you down, instead of killing you, in an RBG. If you have your toons following a master, RBG DKs will work together to split you up and force you to res at different times. It's a whole new game compared to BGs. I'd recommend you box 3 toons at most in an RBG and NOT elemental shamans.

Invisahealz
02-24-2012, 01:33 PM
roll as enhance. when i 5 box i use 4x enhance and a prot pally. the 4x healing stream totems grants me 5k heals per second as long as all my shamans and pally are in same group + 80k+ instant shaman healz when needed are amazing. I rarely ever die in bgs. And I have a flag carrier (prot pally) which is awesome. Then when u pop ghost wolves you heal your self as well a lot. Enhance is pretty awesome right now

Clovis
02-24-2012, 02:08 PM
Thank you for the replies, insight and advice!

I hated Circle of Blood. There were so many games that we ended up losing despite killing 3 off the bat. A lot of teams had 3 or 4 ressers and the two surviving members could just evade us and sneak off to res while line of sighting us to the point even a elemental mastery+lava burst couldn't go off.

I hadn't thought about 4x enhance and prot pally. I already have the prot pally.

With the DKs are people rolling 4 DKs and pairing up with a healer or running with their own pally healer?

Ualaa
02-24-2012, 08:50 PM
I'd have to say, for WotLK + Cataclysm, the top boxing team from a PvP perspective has been 4x Death Knights (Frost) with a Healer.
If you're running Arena, the top choice is a Paladin but a Holy Priest is good because they can continue to heal after their death.

The main DK attack is Howling Blast (Frost Rune).
With talents and the glyph, you're hitting everyone within a 10 yard radius at a range of 30 yards from the DK.
Anyone hit has Frost Fever on them, which besides being a DOT also snares them to 50% movement.
Most of the DK abilities do additional damage, based on which diseases are on the target.
Necrotic Strike (Unholy Rune) does damage and negates some healing the target would receive.
You can 2x HB and 2x NS, plus 2x (or 1x + 1x) either or the other ability on a full set of runes.

You also have Obliterate (Frost + Unholy), which is single target and hits really hard.
And hits harder with more diseases on the target.
This combines well with Hungering Cold, which is an point-blank AoE freeze, like a Hunter's Ice Trap.
Disease damage does not break this, but any other damage will.
You can 3x Obliterate on a full set of runes.

Death Strike is the third attack option.
This can heal the DK's for a decent amount, but once your healer is down... it's not a good situation regardless.

DK's have two resource mechanics.
They have their Runes, two each Frost, Blood and Undead.
Frost spec DK's always have their Blood Runes count as Death Runes (wild-card runes).
They also have Runic Power, which is like Rage... you gain it with the use of your Rune abilities.
Frost Strike (melee range) and Death Coil (ranged) are both Runic Power dependent moves.

DK's have a few cooldowns, which in battlegrounds can be used on demand, but in arena can be used preemptively.
- Icebound Fortitude breaks Stuns and increases their damage dealt.
- Pillar of Frost makes the DK's immune to knockbacks like Typhoon or Thunderstorm.
- Lichborne makes the DK's immune to Fear, Charm and Sleep effects for the duration.
- Anti-Magic Shell reduces spell damage taken and prevents the application of any debuff with an icon for its duration.

The DK's essentially negate snares/root effects uses against them, because of Death Grip.
They can be snared, but Howling Blast will snare for an equal amount which essentially means being snared is not a penalty.
And while rooted, they can Death Grip anything into melee range (plus Howling Blast and Death Coil are ranged attacks).

Here's a write up of my DK method.
http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/37658-My-4x-Frost-DK-Paladin-Setup-Based-on-DK-Manifesto

EaTCarbS
02-24-2012, 09:18 PM
roll as enhance. when i 5 box i use 4x enhance and a prot pally. the 4x healing stream totems grants me 5k heals per second as long as all my shamans and pally are in same group + 80k+ instant shaman healz when needed are amazing. I rarely ever die in bgs. And I have a flag carrier (prot pally) which is awesome. Then when u pop ghost wolves you heal your self as well a lot. Enhance is pretty awesome right now

The main problem I had with enh shamans was roots. those freakin mages, man!

Nikita
02-25-2012, 02:34 PM
Elemental shamans doesnt work these days when multiboxed in arenas. Your able to get your cap ofc, but doubt you`ll get any high ratings. Stealth teams are a bitch to counter, FMP + 2 random, RMP + 2 random, and all sorts of teams with stealthers are gonna be hard to kill. Ele shamans die within 1 smokebomb if your healer is too far away. Your best bet is to go 4 DKs or 4 Rets with a healer friend for 5v5. Ive shelved my shamans now, since Im struggling @ 1600 rating. Losing to sub 1500-1700 players aint fun in the long run.

With LFR weapons/trinkets on most players the dmg is too much for a single healer to handle. Im patiently waiting for MoP to hit, I`ll be tearing arenas up then with my 4 ele shamans :)

Shodokan
02-26-2012, 09:40 PM
Nothing really works well these days to be honest. DKS cap out real fast unless you and your healer are incredibly skilled and your setup is perfect with ISBoxer.

MoP ele shamans aren't really getting anything it seems nikita... I'm waiting for rets in MoP.

Nikita
02-27-2012, 08:41 AM
I was going through old post in the PvP forum last night, and on every page from 15-25 you could find 1750, 2000, 2200 achievement posts. God I wish ele shamans/rets/Dks were in the same state as back in WotLK.

I must say that ele shamans in MoP seems pretty fun. Repulsion totem, 40 % of the dmg you do converts as healing to the lowest target, 15 sec of lava burst without CD. Astral shift, reduce dmg taken by 50 %, but reduces dmg done by 30 %. Alot of talents/totems seems pretty decent for PvP. But we`ll just have to wait and see :)

Clovis
02-28-2012, 11:13 AM
I went ahead and upgraded my accounts to Cata. Thanks for the amazon.com suggestion but the most copies any vendor had were 3 so after paying for multiple shipping it was about the same to just buy from Blizzard.

I'm leveling up my shaman group running through instances. Basically I'm running quad ele and getting a random tank in LFD -- chain lightning stuff down and cast 4x healing surge on the tank. About half the tanks don't like it but the other half ask to run some more instances. We're clearing just as good as a group and I only roll one time on the green / BOEs :)

The plan for PvP is to turn my paladin holy and lead/control through that character and make the shaman enhance and then via interact with target send the group off on players while I heal.

The more I think about it, the better I think this setup is going to be because if I'm not having to chase a player I can sit back and watch the bigger picture which means a greater situational awareness.

Shodokan
02-28-2012, 04:13 PM
I went ahead and upgraded my accounts to Cata. Thanks for the amazon.com suggestion but the most copies any vendor had were 3 so after paying for multiple shipping it was about the same to just buy from Blizzard.

I'm leveling up my shaman group running through instances. Basically I'm running quad ele and getting a random tank in LFD -- chain lightning stuff down and cast 4x healing surge on the tank. About half the tanks don't like it but the other half ask to run some more instances. We're clearing just as good as a group and I only roll one time on the green / BOEs :)

The plan for PvP is to turn my paladin holy and lead/control through that character and make the shaman enhance and then via interact with target send the group off on players while I heal.

The more I think about it, the better I think this setup is going to be because if I'm not having to chase a player I can sit back and watch the bigger picture which means a greater situational awareness.

If your only wish is to do BGs then go for it, but enhance is in a very poor place overall in arena at the moment. I'm not saying don't do it but think about your spec a lot more before deciding and best of luck either way.

Palee
02-28-2012, 05:19 PM
Nothing really works well these days to be honest. DKS cap out real fast unless you and your healer are incredibly skilled and your setup is perfect with ISBoxer.

MoP ele shamans aren't really getting anything it seems nikita... I'm waiting for rets in MoP.

Shodokan, so rets seem to be strong again in MoP? How about DKs? I saw they get some really nice stuns or cc immunity.

Fat Tire
02-29-2012, 11:06 AM
I see ret/dk still being the best combo in Mop. With maybe ret/monk or monks in general taking over dks depending on what burst/defensive abilities they get. Ret/dk is alot of fun in 2s and is great practice for 3s, add another player playing a disc priest and its a really good comp, or add another ret either yours or another player and its a decent 3s comp. As long as they leave wog alone, I like rets/dks/monks.

ebony
02-29-2012, 03:32 PM
Warlocks look like they got some good choices in MOP for casters anyway, (playing them atm and love them so fun.)


I end up doing a lot off old dungeon runs and just framing out AV/ioc i find i get more honor winning in AV then losing nonstop in Random BG's. av done a bit off LFR as well but kinda not very good dps in pvp gear all to change in mop and am very happy about that change. its just how lucky you get with the other group now a days. i still stay death kights are probs the best but the setup seemed to automated for me.

Shodokan
02-29-2012, 06:40 PM
I see ret/dk still being the best combo in Mop. With maybe ret/monk or monks in general taking over dks depending on what burst/defensive abilities they get. Ret/dk is alot of fun in 2s and is great practice for 3s, add another player playing a disc priest and its a really good comp, or add another ret either yours or another player and its a decent 3s comp. As long as they leave wog alone, I like rets/dks/monks.

Its changed to;
Selfless healer = instant cast FoL after 2 judgements
WOG has no cooldown anymore
Easier to get holy power
Rets also get absurd burst IMO with 5 TVs in a row while guardian is up, or the whole wings and infinite hammers.

If that DK ability with 50% haste and chance to do 50,000 damage if your target is under 35% in 5 seconds... combined with the new healing abilities and such they are getting via talents. They look to be decently solid.

Fat Tire
03-01-2012, 11:15 AM
For me alot of it has to do with how they scale melee down in MoP and I see the changes really hurting dks and rets most, but yes I look forward to the dks execute ability.

"Melee Ability scaling across the board has been reduced by up to 50%. This means damage in PvP is not going to be frontloaded so much when melee classes connect, and staying in melee range of the target is going to be much more important since autoattack damage should take up a larger fraction of overall damage."

Palee
03-01-2012, 12:42 PM
Wow what bullshit. How the hell are we going to kill frost mages with 50% less scaling? No melee can stay on them. Or is there increased mobility coming up too?

Fat Tire
03-02-2012, 05:34 PM
Wow what bullshit. How the hell are we going to kill frost mages with 50% less scaling? No melee can stay on them. Or is there increased mobility coming up too?

Well mage's control is being ajusted as well along with dispels in general. I am sure if it isnt working out during the beta how they envisioned there will be changes or it may go live and get overbuffed later.

Ualaa
03-02-2012, 05:48 PM
We don't know enough to comment on if this is good or bad.
If health was scaled back by say 75%, then a 50% reduction in melee damage would be a substantial boost.

We don't know what a mage will have, in terms of damage or control either.
Or what hit point pools will look like.

Basically, everything they release is bits and pieces... which doesn't really mean a whole lot.

Multibocks
03-04-2012, 01:33 AM
Mages wont have the easy Frost Armor that slows people for infinity. They stated that there was no skill involved in that so I'm sure its going away in MoP. Plus mages have to choose between a few things on their talent trees between damage and CC. I hope they nerf em to the ground.

zenga
03-04-2012, 09:30 AM
Wow what bullshit. How the hell are we going to kill frost mages with 50% less scaling? No melee can stay on them. Or is there increased mobility coming up too?

Melee damage is way too high at the moment, so a nerf was really necessary. Yeah frost mages are way OP, but other casters get blown up in a matter of seconds.

valkry
03-04-2012, 10:26 AM
Melee damage is way too high at the moment, so a nerf was really necessary. Yeah frost mages are way OP, but other casters get blown up in a matter of seconds.
Truth

EaTCarbS
03-04-2012, 11:39 AM
I hope they nerf em to the ground.

Have mages ever been nerfed? lol.

valkry
03-04-2012, 02:05 PM
Have mages ever been nerfed? lol.
They think they have, but it's just a case of one spec being buffed less than the others

Mosg2
03-10-2012, 08:14 PM
If you look at the current MoP Paladin talents... They're insane. They removed all of the randomness to their rotation and made healing with them cake. You get WoG plus insta-cast FoL plus a 20 second cooldown attack that also will group heal your 5 Paladins. Plus, for every HP you have you get an extra 10% movement speed? Stacks up to 5 times? They're going to be blenders.

They look head and shoulders above anyone else's talent previews. DKs are a distant second.

zenga
03-10-2012, 08:57 PM
What mosg says ... and it's the reason why I started with a new paladin team that should hit 85 before MOP starts, but is not supposed to do anything but levelling in cata.

Jeremiah
03-10-2012, 09:46 PM
I don't know guys. From what I can tell, the attitude at Blizzard towards PvP has been one of minimal effort, if any.

In seven years , they haven't tried to come up with a solution to blown out queue times for one faction. At present, I have to wait 10-15 mins to get a pop that is good enough for the boxers that run with my pre made group.

Frost mages and rogues are insanely OP at the moment (in single toon & boxing) and there has been no attempt to even out the classes (ele shams and thunderstorm being resisted 90% of the time anyone.....?).

Of the last 3 patches, the only change to PvP has been the addition of cross realm rateds and cross realm group queuing. Still no ability to cross realm raid for BGs or Arenas. It seems to me like PvP compatibility is just something slapped on the back of all the PvE changes.

I don't hold much hope for mists and the PvP side of the game. If you want any proof, just peruse all the patches from 4.0 +

The only new BGs we got were rehashes of WSG and AB :'(

How much would it cost to bribe blizzard to give us new 40 man BGs :)......

zenga
03-11-2012, 12:22 AM
In seven years , they haven't tried to come up with a solution to blown out queue times for one faction. At present, I have to wait 10-15 mins to get a pop that is good enough for the boxers that run with my pre made group. Matter of fact, where I play (EU horde), queue times have gone down from 10min to instant/couple of minutes ever since the release of cataclysm. They in fact DID come up with a solution: merging battlegroups. Many of the reasons of long queue times are player related though: not paying attention to when it pops (so they had to extend a player his slot), players who dc due to crappy connections, ... etc.

[/QUOTE]Frost mages and rogues are insanely OP at the moment (in single toon & boxing) and there has been no attempt to even out the classes (ele shams and thunderstorm being resisted 90% of the time anyone.....?). [/QUOTE]

Yes in cataclysm there have been really OP specs, and often they were toned down a bit later (warriors & ferals at the start, frost dk's with 4.2 ...). Matter of fact frost mages without any pve pieces are actually fine. The OP thing is the pve gear and the human racial. The pve gear will most likely be addressed in MoP (check new stats system). They might have it wrong, yet they do attempt to fix it.


Of the last 3 patches, the only change to PvP has been the addition of cross realm rateds and cross realm group queuing. Still no ability to cross realm raid for BGs or Arenas. It seems to me like PvP compatibility is just something slapped on the back of all the PvE changes. The only thing you can't do cross realm is do arena, due to the existence of battlegroups. Anything else can be done cross realm. I wouldn't really call that a small change. It's a massive comfort of life thing for players that you can team up with other realms, both for pve and pvp.


The only new BGs we got were rehashes of WSG and AB :'(

Twin Peaks and gilneas were very well received by pretty much everyone who run bg's. And in my book they are awesome maps. I don't know how many new BG's you expect each patch, but every expansion 1-2 new bg's seems pretty fine with me.

I'm sorry but many of the things you wrote are simply not true. Which doesn't mean I agree with blizzard all the time, matter of fact they screw up things quite often.

Jeremiah
03-11-2012, 01:22 AM
Matter of fact, where I play (EU horde), queue times have gone down from 10min to instant/couple of minutes ever since the release of cataclysm. They in fact DID come up with a solution: merging battlegroups. Many of the reasons of long queue times are player related though: not paying attention to when it pops (so they had to extend a player his slot), players who dc due to crappy connections, ... etc.

Exactly. I queue alliance and my times have gone up from instant to 10-15 mins. Like I said, the queue times have always been good for one faction, awful for the other. With the merging of battle groups, it just compounded the problem. Add a battle group that has 1:1 alliance to horde with another battlegroup that is 3:1 alliance to horde and it effectively penalises one of the battle groups.

The issue I highlighted was related to one FACTION, not specifically Alliance or Horde like you tried to suggest.

[/QUOTE] The only thing you can't do cross realm is do arena, due to the existence of battlegroups. Anything else can be done cross realm. I wouldn't really call that a small change. It's a massive comfort of life thing for players that you can team up with other realms, both for pve and pvp.[/QUOTE]

Again, you're misinformed. As I said, you can cross realm RBG and group queue. However, it is not an inbuilt function in the game to raid queue (as you can do for any PvE content). At present, I have all my users using preform AVenabler but with 10-12 of us queueing simultaneously, it's still extremely difficult and a long process to get a perfect pop or at least 80% into the same BG. All the changes to the queueing so far have made it harder to make premades, not assisting them in anyway. In contrast, all the changes with PvE cross realm is designed to make it easier to queue together.

[/QUOTE] Twin Peaks and gilneas were very well received by pretty much everyone who run bg's. And in my book they are awesome maps. I don't know how many new BG's you expect each patch, but every expansion 1-2 new bg's seems pretty fine with me.[/QUOTE]

Like I said before, it's a rehash. It's the same BG with a different play style, not different objectives. I'd expect at least one new BG with new objectives. Not just shifting the same idea onto a new map....

[/QUOTE] I'm sorry but many of the things you wrote are simply not true. [/QUOTE]

This quote of yours I agree with but send it straight back at ya :) You seem to have your optimism shades on....but that being said... I used to wear them too. It's just hard to sit and play WoW and see the problems we have in PvP get solved by other games (RIFT, SWTOR). And they're solving the problems in their first year!

"The new Mercenary mechanic in Warfronts is included in 1.7 as well. As the number of people participating in PvP has been going up recently, certain wargroups and brackets have become too-Defiant or too-Guardian favored, causing the other side to suffer extended queuing. The mercenary mechanic aims squarely to fix that, by having people from the more populous side standing in as Mercenaries to ensure the queues are flowing as fast as they possibly can."

If you have the mechanic in the game to fix this, why not implement it. WoW certainly has it. In rated BGs, alliance teams often verse one another. In certain instances, you are given a night elf skin or a human skin. It isn't that difficult to put a horde skin on a toon and play as the horde? If RIFT can identify the problem in their first year and fix it, why has WoW allowed it to go on for years?

Come on RIFT/SWTOR for mac.... :P

Shodokan
03-11-2012, 07:59 AM
If you look at the current MoP Paladin talents... They're insane. They removed all of the randomness to their rotation and made healing with them cake. You get WoG plus insta-cast FoL plus a 20 second cooldown attack that also will group heal your 5 Paladins. Plus, for every HP you have you get an extra 10% movement speed? Stacks up to 5 times? They're going to be blenders.

They look head and shoulders above anyone else's talent previews. DKs are a distant second.

I think the 1 dk 4 rets will come back... the AOE stun is just too good imo.

I think a lot of the changes are great in general, even the DK ones. Especially the damage healing talent for a rune that is instant and does 3x howling blast damage.

zenga
03-11-2012, 09:11 AM
Exactly. I queue alliance and my times have gone up from instant to 10-15 mins. Like I said, the queue times have always been good for one faction, awful for the other. With the merging of battle groups, it just compounded the problem. Add a battle group that has 1:1 alliance to horde with another battlegroup that is 3:1 alliance to horde and it effectively penalises one of the battle groups.
You said they didn't do a single thing in 7y to reduce queues for 1 faction. As a matter of fact they did solve that. Queues in europe are acceptable, very acceptable. Just because they merged the battlegroup. Think about infrastructure, this is a huge thing they did. What you don't seem to realize is that you do something that is out of the ordinary: queue up for random bg's with groups, and true then you get longer queues. The vast majority queues up alone, and you rarely have to wait longer than 5min to get in, both as horde and as alliance.


Again, you're misinformed. As I said, you can cross realm RBG and group queue. However, it is not an inbuilt function in the game to raid queue (as you can do for any PvE content). At present, I have all my users using preform AVenabler but with 10-12 of us queueing simultaneously, it's still extremely difficult and a long process to get a perfect pop or at least 80% into the same BG. All the changes to the queueing so far have made it harder to make premades, not assisting them in anyway. In contrast, all the changes with PvE cross realm is designed to make it easier to queue together.

The philosophy ain't that hard to understand: queue up alone (or with a limited group) = random bg; queue up with a premade = rated bg. This is exactly why they removed the ability to queue up with a full raid for the non 40m bg's. You want to queue up with 10 or 15 people for random content while you know that the chances you end up vs an organized team is like 99%; and you expect them to facilitate you with this. If you wanna do full premades, do rbgs. Or use a preform addon and try to trick the system (which I've used as well btw), but then deal with downside of that as well.


Like I said before, it's a rehash. It's the same BG with a different play style, not different objectives. I'd expect at least one new BG with new objectives. Not just shifting the same idea onto a new map.... Well that is personal flavour, I'd be perfectly fine with 2 more capture the flag maps instead of isle of conquest and sota.


You seem to have your optimism shades on....but that being said... I used to wear them too. I'm not optimistic, but if you some form of objectivity ain't to bad at all. e.g. I'll totally agree with anyone saying that blizzard has no fucking clue when designing pve content what the implications are going to be for pvp (vengeance scaling this patch for ferals & blood dks, vial & cunning trinkets, ... rogue legendaries, ...).

Ualaa
03-11-2012, 02:50 PM
The only way to balance queue times for BG's will be to move from an Alliance vs Horde system... to a Blue Team vs Red Team system.
That way, everyone for both factions is in the same pool of players.

At the moment, for any given BG (forgetting Random, at the moment), whichever faction has fewer players queuing gets Instant queues... while the faction with more, has some form of wait time.

If it was Blue Team vs Red Team, the BG could launch when there were 60+ players interested in an AV/IoC, with a total of 30+ players on each side.
As a horde or alliance wanted to join, they'd be added to whichever side had fewer players.

Wait time would be identical for both factions, and be based on the total number of players (US-wide or EU-wide) who wanted to run a given BG.

Not going to happen, likely ever.
Arena allows Horde vs Horde or Alliance vs Alliance...
But you cannot play Alliance & Horde on the same side.




I'd like BG's, that have different objectives...
WSG and Twin Peaks, are the same idea on different maps.
As is AB/BoG.

But its hard to come up with variable objectives, that are fun and easy to implement.
EotS is good, in that you have both AB style objectives to hold and WSG style flag to run.

IoC/SotA are vehicles/bombs vs fixed defenses.
I find IoC to be very fun, and SotA to suck, at least as a boxer.

What kind of objectives would you put in a 10/15/40 man BG...
That is not "Hold X Locations", "Destroy this Gate", or "Capture X" flags?

Jeremiah
03-12-2012, 12:26 AM
I'd like BG's, that have different objectives...
WSG and Twin Peaks, are the same idea on different maps.
As is AB/BoG.

But its hard to come up with variable objectives, that are fun and easy to implement.
EotS is good, in that you have both AB style objectives to hold and WSG style flag to run.

IoC/SotA are vehicles/bombs vs fixed defenses.
I find IoC to be very fun, and SotA to suck, at least as a boxer.

What kind of objectives would you put in a 10/15/40 man BG...
That is not "Hold X Locations", "Destroy this Gate", or "Capture X" flags?

Yes, I totally understand what you mean. The existing BGs can be categorised fairly easily into what the main components of a winning team are (although not exhaustively):

AB,BfG: Mobility: Speed between nodes and ability to move people to counter enemy offensives

WSG, TP: Gear Fight : Ability to split team into two groups (Offensive and Defensive) and work together. But mainly relying on the gear and skill of individual players in those two groups.

IoC, AV : Synergy: Ability for multiple groups of players to work together to complete small objectives or concentrate firepower on a certain target (Galv/Belinda, Gate of Keep, Node/Tower)

SoTA: Pure CC fight. Team with most frost mages, rogues, hunters and DKs will win 99% of the time.

EoTS: As you said, combination of a Mobility and Gear fight. With enough mobility, you can outmanoeuvre a team to cap 3 nodes constantly and rule out the gear factor.

I love IoC. Must be my favourite game to play as a boxer. Certainly the easiest to wield most power in and have fall back positions when pugs fail.

Was thinking about what you said about new kind of PvP games.

What are your thoughts on a single flag CTF game? Same WSG map or TP, but with the sole flag spawning in the middle of the map and taking 10 seconds uninterrupted to pick it up.

If you think about it, IoC is similar to the world PvP Wintergrasp. Take vehicles to destroy walls and get in to a final objective (relic or king). Killing the enemy doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme but destroying things does.

What would a BG based on TB look like? Similar to EoTS but without the flag in the middle? And with siege engines/ vehicles? You could do a timer based game like SoTA where your goal is to cap the 3 nodes fastest by player numbers and control. Could be fun

Ualaa
03-12-2012, 08:44 PM
You could do a Capture the Flag type game...
With say three flags, instead of one.


Not sure if it is traditional PvP, but something like a raid-scale Arena match...
Two armies battle, with so many players active on each side.
Maybe players can rez?
Could be a long one though.