Reflections on current progress

[Ellay]

Typing on an iPad so spelling and format may not be the best.
My team of 1 resto Druid 3 frost dk and 1 enhance shaman.
All have the fully upgraded t1 weapon and 2-3 pieces of malevolent each with the rest being honor gear. I'd say its about middle of the road. Started late in the season and it could be better.

my thoughts thus far... Some of this may be a rant so apologies in advance. I find after typing out my. Thoughts it helps progress myself

I stomp bg's, literally any big I walk into now if it's not a full pre-made we could turn it into a multiboxing highlight reel. The synergy is amazing and the "up time" is extremely enjoyable. Yet I'm still not completely sold on my layout, and after a run of 5's vs some 1800 rated teams I was completely humbled by how devastating full t2 teams are.
Enhancement shaman dps through constant modification of macros and talent layouts is continually improving, to the point where it contends and even exceeds single target dps in arenas and bg's vs the DK counterpart. When aoe is involved dk's reign supreme, as you progress to higher ratings though the aoe is less significant and the single target is more important.

Which leads me to my gripes and possible changes.
First - rated bg's give an insane amount of points for your rating and appear to be extremely easy to game the system. Going up against players with full t2 in arenas that can't even break 1800 yet have an rbg with 2600 giving them an insane amount of points per week is a joke. No other way to slice it. 5's needs to have more value to it.

The gear gap to me is insane. A fresh 90 can't compete at all against a player using a tier 1 weapon which only starts out at ilvl470 and they are slightly fixing this in 5.2 on that same token though a fully tier 2 equipped character is so far off of the charts. I have never seen anything with such disproportionate disparity before. Back in the day you could hit max level. Grind out some honor gear and be a contender. Or even play the pve game and still have a shot at winning. Now.. I can't even fathom how the playing field is considered 'fair' if it ever was. They really need to close the gap. It's not even about balancing classes. The gear gap spread becomes too much for anyone to contend once the space is created.

That's my gripes.
Secondly after greatly improving my shamans dps performance both in burst and sustainability. I feel placing 3 possibly even 4 back in the mix is a good thing and even a reality for success. The grip from a dk is largely important and I find many times thinking damn I'm not sure I could have done this without but at the same time. Wind walk plus tremor totem greatly increase performance in group settings.
Gt nothing else for now. Wife just had a baby so it's more theory rafting for me and less playing.

[Fat Tire]

Which leads me to my gripes and possible changes.
First - rated bg's give an insane amount of points for your rating and appear to be extremely easy to game the system. Going up against players with full t2 in arenas that can't even break 1800 yet have an rbg with 2600 giving them an insane amount of points per week is a joke. No other way to slice it. 5's needs to have more value to it.

Rbgs are here to stay and will only become more popular, arena population is at the lowest its ever been. It has been proven, but people are welcome to do the numbers themselves.

The 1500-2100 crowd has found out rbgs is the progression path of least resistance. Higher cap, rating stays with you, much easier than arena as you dont have to set up focus or chain ccs for kills, doesnt require you to know all the enemy class abilities and if you mess up/get blown up you get to rez and youre right back in the fight. Once you get 2200-2400 in rbgs go into arena and tank your 2s rating to 800-1k mmr and get a fast max point cap every week for the rest of the season.

Blizzard has stated that they have considered removing 2s, 5s as recently as last week(gc twitter). I can read the writing on the wall, if they cant get rid of them right now they will continue to disincentivize arena and give more incentives to RBGs. Illustrated by the point that in 5.2 the losing team will also get conquests points. Arena has taken alot more of developers time in terms of balance issues that rbgs alleviate.




Grats on the baby.

[Chivalrous]

Hey Ellay glad the baby arrived safely! Tip the stork and all that. I can't comment much on the pvp stuff but you know your business!

[Owltoid]

Congrats on the baby!

I was watching some of your streams tonight. Unfortunately, I don't believe your current mix will be able to carry you 1800+. The losses I watched weren't necessarily due to gear (though being outgeared certainly hurt), the losses were due to an AOE stealth opener with rogues (that really seems to screw you), or just a couple of AOE CC's that know what they're doing. Combine a rogue and a mage against you and I'm not sure you'll be able to overcome it, unless the opponent makes a big mistake.

You mentioned it in passing before, but it may be worth trying a rogue in the mix for the AOE stealth. Boxing is all about burst and getting the jump on the opponent, and with the 5.2 buffs to rogues you're going to see a lot more of them everywhere.

Perhaps druid, enhance, 2 DK, rogue?

[Ellay]

I am also concerned about 5's for arena. There will have to be a refocus or shift I think for bg's and the era of rbg's.
every evening there is always teams playing 5's but just not enough. It seems like 10 man rbg's are the sweet spot. For pve and pvp, and definitely agree it's easier to balance in that situation.

As far as class comps go I always love to revise and tune. I think a combat rogue could work well since they are less dependent on positioning and requiring stealth.

[Shodokan]

I am also concerned about 5's for arena. There will have to be a refocus or shift I think for bg's and the era of rbg's.
every evening there is always teams playing 5's but just not enough. It seems like 10 man rbg's are the sweet spot. For pve and pvp, and definitely agree it's easier to balance in that situation.

As far as class comps go I always love to revise and tune. I think a combat rogue could work well since they are less dependent on positioning and requiring stealth.

the difference is now boxers can't chain queue for 5's. you have to get your 4-5 wins a night and call it quits before people catch on since the likelihood of you facing more than 3 different teams is really low.