[WoW] major water drinking nerf coming in 2.4

[yarr]

did anyone consider the possibility that it isn't solely because of arena? and that maybe there are other reasons for them to implement it? This may be the way they have wanted drinking to work for a while hehe. If it was just because of arena they would just nerf stars tears and make it so mages can't summon water in arenas! Seriously why does everyone immdediately jump to the assumption that this is an arena fix. No blue has stated that.

Also keep in mind that the change is really buggy, i would wait for the non-buggy version to be implemented in PTR before drawing conclusions about how big of a nerf this is.

[Texic]

It's specifically for the arena to reduce the amount of time games take. It's another way Blizzard is changing the game to try and balance PvP when it has and never will be a PvP game.

[Stealthy]

Yeah I posted about this in the other 2.4 thread....they are out of their fucking minds with this change. This's one change that isn't adaptable because of the timed or time-sensitive shit they force down our throats already, escorts, timed events, etc, all because of those stupid fucking glorified duels for free epics...

Quote for truth. If I hear one more "This is being changed because of mechanics in arena" I'm going to get violently ill.

Anyone else remember the days when Blizzard devoted and declared WoW as a primarily PvE game with PvP available content? This was before the PvP gear, and long before arenas. Now it seems that nearly every change made is for the benefit of arena battles and the PvP-only crowd. Nevermind the fact that the world PvP aspect was already PvP favored due to talent spec, now they have their PvP-spec and PvP-epics with mass stamina and resiliance. Don't bother buffing town guards with the release of all this fantastic PvP gear and another 10 levels of experience/gear with TBC - those lowbies are already at too much of an advantage for protection from the gankers as it is.

Now everyone and their mother runs around in Season 3 PvP gear, while many don't even know what the inside of Kara looks like. The fact that many have afk'd/botted their way to their epic gear pisses me off even more. Try to bot/afk your way through heroics/raids.. much less out-roll/dkp someone for the loot. I have no problem with PvP - the players who love it are going to do it regardless of the "rewards." It should only be about bragging rights - not a requirement for defeating another player in world PvP. The Arena/BG PvP system would have been just as great without PvP gear, especially since everyone would be decked out in various forms of crafted/world drop/raid gear, instead of an Attack of the Season 3 Clones. If I wanted identically-geared PvP fights, I'd go back to Guild Wars.. the uniqueness of player gear and skill is what separated WoW from the rest, and Bliz's decisions over the last couple years have seriously hurt these aspects of the game. When did they make the decision to attempt to become Guild Wars - a game focused on balanced PvP instead of PvE content (which was actually very good as well, but also the original concept of WoW)? When did Blizzard sell out the PvE crowd?

I'm all for our multiboxing PvP crowd to go kick as much ass as possible - I can't stand the PvP-only crowd who have whined enough on the WoW forums to get everything handed to them without having to work on other aspects of the game at all.

Ok firstly, I don't see "everyone and thier mother" running around in season 3 PvP gear. AFK & Botting to epics? Yes it happens, and people get the banhammer when caught. It's certainly not being done "en masse" like your post makes it out to be. The honor grind to S1 gear still takes quite a bit of time, the gear isn't just handed out. If it wasn't for the PvP gear, it would be people in T4,T5 & T6 gear running around stomping everyone - meaning anyone not in an end-game raiding guild would be serverely disadvantaged (which would be us btw).

Seriously, you sound like you should be on a PvE server.


Cheers,

Shane

[Ellay]

There has been a pretty large push from a minority of players to turn WoW into an E-Sport, similar to Starcraft and CS. WoW is most likely trying to tap into as many markets as possible while appealing to everyone but not specializing in any.
With that note, I'd like to test out the change myself before I make any comment to see how it effects me in game. (I usually don't chug water that much, so should be ok)

[opt]

With the constant changed to Arenas compared to the whole game it often feels that blizzard cares more about PVP than PVE. However the PVE side is a very stable and works well where trying to find a balance for Arena isnt possible and they are always going to have trouble balancing, because PVP isnt scripted!
Blizzard need to consider the effects of this over the whole game rather than just Arena. Why on earth cant they implement this water only to arena(it was said before) At the moment in arena you can only drink pvp water ( and mage water? ) why not change it to PVP vendored water and change the way it works to this new system and this is the only water viable in arena. Leave the old mage conjured, vendored purchased water which is intended for PVE to work as it has for the past 3 years, without a single problem in the world.

[Eteocles]

If it was just because of arena they would just nerf stars tears and make it so mages can't summon water in arenas!

Well duh, that would make sense, and that's not what Blizzard does "Blizzard, Cat form's melee range is in the middle of the body rather than the front! We found a temporary fix by using Noggenfogger Skeleton while in catform, but could you look into this?" Blizz: SURE D00D -wait a few weeks- Blizz: HAY DR00DS, WE NERFED NOGGENFOGGER TO DISPEL IF YOU SHIFT INTO CATFORM HAVE A NICE DAY LOLZ "......."

If someone managed to get away long enough to drink in arenas in the first place they deserved it; some spriest high up at blizz probably got pissed all his mana burning was for naught when he got incapacitated and the other guy drank and killed him with his newly replenished mana. It is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY to nerf the pve aspect. As for those above saying "I don't drink much so eh", yer not the only ones that play, keep the rest of us in consideration as a good faith gesture; only giving a shit when the change affects you specifically won't earn you any sympathy points later ;p This change is VERY bad for escort quests, other gauntlets, and Hyjal due to the way trash "pulls" work there; you do not HAVE time to drink longer than 4-6 seconds, and if you wipe from being oom in Hyjal you have to reclear ALL the trash EVERY FUCKING TIME.

[-silencer-]

Ok firstly, I don't see "everyone and thier mother" running around in season 3 PvP gear. AFK & Botting to epics? Yes it happens, and people get the banhammer when caught. It's certainly not being done "en masse" like your post makes it out to be. The honor grind to S1 gear still takes quite a bit of time, the gear isn't just handed out. If it wasn't for the PvP gear, it would be people in T4,T5 & T6 gear running around stomping everyone - meaning anyone not in an end-game raiding guild would be serverely disadvantaged (which would be us btw).

Seriously, you sound like you should be on a PvE server.


Cheers,

Shane

Here's a specific scenario I'm referring to..

Pre-PvP gear availability:
A guildie says they're being harassed by a PvP or two while questing, so I show up and have a decent chance of helping him out. Sometimes that PvP enemy would have an Ony/Naxx epic or two, with generally a mix of pretty good gear. Even though I wasn't in a raiding guild, and only had 5-man instance & crafted/world drop gear, I could usually help out well enough to stop or delay the harassment for reinforcements to arrive, and that was part of the fun and challenge of WORLD PvP - something PvE servers don't have much of. Only the very rare, fully epic'd, player would pretty much be undefeatable. They put in the massive work to earn that gear in a guild pushing end-game content, so even though I knew I couldn't take part in it, I respected it.

Post-PvP gear availability:
A guildie says they're being harassed by a PvP or two while questing, so I show up only to find they have the entire Season 1/2/3 set with 350+ resiliance and 10k+ stamina. There's a big fat *zero* chance of killing someone with that much health and that I can't crit as a lvl 70 PvE-talent spec rogue in heroics/Kara gear.

There's a reason they're dubbed welfare epics. A week and a half to two weeks of playing 2v2, 4v4, and 5v5, and you're guaranteed one kickass piece of equipment. I considered it lucky to end up with 1 good raid epic every 2-3 weeks, and the lack of resiliance/penetration makes them near useless in world PvP anyway.

As for the afk/botting to freebie epics.. it happens more than you think. I've had players tell me they've done it, and I've reported them, only to see that weeks later they're still playing in that gear. Does it happen today? I don't know - I don't bother much with BGs anymore.. but many of those players who did cheat to get their gear never got this banhammer. The massive quantity of complaints in the forums about the BG botting problems should tell you enough - sure Blizzard made attempts to lessen the chances of it happening again - but too many got away with it already. Now you've got the problem of players 'selling' their arena rating or being a season 3 mercenary for new teams to help boost them to easy arena points.. the influx of welfare epics continues.


I understand the desire to please multiple styles of play, including Bliz's obvious desire to crack into the competitive gaming market. I just wish they wouldn't screw over so much of the main content of the game for PvP issues as they relate to the Arens & BGs. I don't have a problem that the PvP gear exists - just that it is allowed in world play. There wouldn't have been anything wrong with keeping the PvP-gear strictly to only the arenas/battlegrounds - that's where the PvP players want to prove their worth, so keep it there. Allowing it throughout the world is like forcing the PvP'ers who don't like raiding to raid on a daily basis. That's what the raiders who enjoy world PvP now have to go through.

[Mac]

As for the afk/botting to freebie epics.. it happens more than you think. I've had players tell me they've done it, and I've reported them, only to see that weeks later they're still playing in that gear. Does it happen today? I don't know - I don't bother much with BGs anymore.. but many of those players who did cheat to get their gear never got this banhammer. The massive quantity of complaints in the forums about the BG botting problems should tell you enough - sure Blizzard made attempts to lessen the chances of it happening again - but too many got away with it already. Now you've got the problem of players 'selling' their arena rating or being a season 3 mercenary for new teams to help boost them to easy arena points.. the influx of welfare epics continues.

Off Topic:

I recently did the honor grind to get my s.priest his FULL S1 set including boots belt bracer trinkets everything, all his quest greens and blues were replaced with epixxx!! He was just logging in doing x-mutes and pulling weeds, and he'd get pwnd every time he had to fight for a node out in the world, so I put him on the Charles Atlas PVP program and now he can almost defend himself, but S3 toons just pwn him.

It was HOURS of miserable battlegrounds losses to get that full set... I cant tell you how frustrating it was to try and play with all the botters and afk leeches in the BG, not to mention the people who were trying to group up to loose on purpose X( just to get their marks because they think they have no chance against the horde in the BGs... which is mostly true unless your in a premade. In my battlegroup, Ali pugs loose what seems to be about 95% or so of EotS, WSG, AB and about 60% of the AVs. Its very frustrating to see people doing the same thing with bots and going afk and getting the same gear in the end and bragging about it and nothing is done.

I don't know what to think about smurf teams, I respect their ability to get high ratings and their entrepreneurship in selling them out to noobs who have more gold then ability, but I can't help but feel like the whole pvp thing is broken. I can't help but feel somewhat empty now, I don't have a great sense of accomplishment, maybe its the class, maybe my pvp skills sux, but I agree with Silencer, pvp just doesn't feel the same anymore post-tbc. But hey, thats progress.. right ?(

On Topic: Its painful for me to think they are making this change to drinking, especially as a class that spends most of my time trying to keep my rage bar RED. The longer I have to wait around for people to drink, the slower the instances go. Thats aggravating. In regular instances I will tell people to just sit and drink and catch up when they can... heroics is a different story though you need everyone mana'd up on each pull. I was thinking I guess its a good thing that I'm rolling a prot pali with my 4 shamen, that way they can all sit around and drink together after each pull, kind of like a little tea party celebrating each successful pull... :wacko:

[Tehtsuo]

I can second that botting for s1 epics is more widespread than it sounds. I joined one of the major pvp guilds on my solo priest on The Underbog, and it astonished me to hear people talkinga bout botting/afking. They weren't even tactful about it, they would blatently talk about botting in guild chat. It makes me wonder if I'll see guilds disappear someday if Blizzard decides to run a parser on guild chat logs serverside for bot-related conversations. I also have had several folks in s3 epics come up to me while I'm multiboxing my team and say "Hey that's really cool, let me know when you hit 70 and I can get you a good honor botting program" I tell them no thanks, I like to play the game.

[-silencer-]

I can second that botting for s1 epics is more widespread than it sounds. I joined one of the major pvp guilds on my solo priest on The Underbog, and it astonished me to hear people talkinga bout botting/afking. They weren't even tactful about it, they would blatently talk about botting in guild chat. It makes me wonder if I'll see guilds disappear someday if Blizzard decides to run a parser on guild chat logs serverside for bot-related conversations. I also have had several folks in s3 epics come up to me while I'm multiboxing my team and say "Hey that's really cool, let me know when you hit 70 and I can get you a good honor botting program" I tell them no thanks, I like to play the game.

Season 1 for BGs, yes it's very common. The people I was referring to though - they're the ones botting the arenas for freebie Season 3 gear. Even though they lose 95% of the time, it's still at least 750 FREE arena points per week for all 3 teams. I specifically know a mage and warlock on Kalecgos server with a full set of season 3 gear, done exclusively through botting their 3 arena teams. And they talk of it as if they've met quite a few others who've done it as well..