Homogenization started in wrath. TBC was built off of the vanilla framework and had more complete versions of those classes, adding a few new spells and fixing useless specs. They didn’t start handing out the same fundamental abilities and buffs across multiple classes, every class still felt unique and distinct.
Adhoms and no arguments, the good ole’ whiny concession. MoP was boring due to homogenization to the extreme. It was the transition away from an RPG where classes were turned into fighting game characters, all with slightly different variations of the same fundamental abilities, yawn.
Ok so you seem to me like you just need a TBC era server because it sounds to me like you just prefer to play arena, or want to turn BGs into arenas. Cata RBGs are dead, and they have things you are asking for. I have friends sitting on the front page who quit because it’s dead.
Before I deem these bad faith arguments it might help if I know a little bit about you to help me understand why you think this way
What server did you play on in classic? Did you have a regular team of players/premade you were in regularly? Do you have a main toon and did you play season of mastery? Or did you just appear out of thin air when sod launched
<3 I always give Breed freedom, excluding when he is playing his orc warrior then I hope I got strong zugs because he hurts. Pala backed warriors are legit the dream; come make one when you’re done ranking horde.
Cata in general is dead, because cata sucks. I do RBGs on there, and I am aware. I would easily jump ship for a fresh proper vanilla or preferably TBC, cata is the stopping point I quit retail WoW and so far it’s as unremarkable as I remember.
I played on whitemane and did premade occasionally.
I mained warlock since classic and didn’t really dabble with alts much. Replaying the trilogy I can say TBC >= vanilla > wrath, and cata plain sucks.
TBC imo was basically vanilla but fixed most of the problems. The biggest mistake of TBC was shrinking the world down to Outland and flying. TBC had better raids, classes improved, better attunements, better PvP. Vanilla was better for the world PvP, larger relevant open world, the 1-60 experience, the prebis grind, etc.
Classic+ would benefit by taking some of the fixes from TBC, which was classic+ before classic+ was even a concept. Taking TBC class design as a baseline to make very modest improvements too would have been far superior to the dumpster fire of the SoD rune system for example.
We had final patch of TBC where resilience affected dots, so warlocks weren’t disgusting OP like they were in early patches of OG tbc. They were strong but not a god class.
Ret/resto is one of the strongest comps in 2s and 3s. Holy pally was great in 5s and BGs where they could cast. It could definitely use some spell pushback protection but every classic had glad viable comps in arena.
PVP balance and arena stuff are just delusional/unrealistic in vanilla, at least not for the current blizzard, they are incapable of making that happen (successfully).
Talking about arena stuff, TBC is only playable after vanilla or a TBC arena server alone. Fresh TBC without vanilla will die fast.
A 2-3 years recycling of vanilla → TBC is the easiest and only way for lazy Blizzard to print $$ without changing anything.
There are like no paladins in top teams season 1 tbc. The very few are ret. So already a game that had great representation of every class (vanilla pvp), has been downgraded from the start of tbc.
You can you enjoy that pvp more, but I personally find it to be much worse and the classes far less balanced. If you did arena with vanilla you’d have way better class representation imo. And you would also see way more diverse and interesting specs able to get top spots in the ladder.
Also tbc removes eng, consumes, and most of the gear flavor from pvp. Almost everyone at a high level has the same gear in TBC.
Resilience forces everyone to use the same item for each slot - whereas in vanilla you commonly have 2-3 bis options for each slot that you can tailor to specific playstyles.
No, keep esports out of classic. BGs in classic are an excuse to fight. That’s why it’s fun. You progress to rewards either way. That dynamic needs to be maintained for all pvp meta.
totally agree - I am positing that vanilla classes and mechanics are superior for both formats.
Do you think in vanilla there is any comp that would break arenas or defeat all others?
Personally, I feel like it would be fun to play vanilla-arenas on all the classes I have experience with, and many combos seem like they could be viable.
So when I think of arenas, I think about their updated CC dr timers and tables and also the lack of engineering first and foremost.
Then when I think about arenas in vanilla I think about sap that wont heartbeat - sheep that you cant disco ray - etc. So I never gave it much thought because I do not think it would work very well at all unless it was literally a for-fun skirmish mode.
I know for certain priest paladin wil be the only healers. You will see no rshams, you will see no rdruids (maybe the odd one here and there with a rogue)
I just think that most games will simply be decided the moment one team executes the first major cc being sheep or sap, which is why i think pally will be the best healer - and then the game ending before that duration is up especially without engineering.
But that is just my opinion.
I do understand the language Delvin is speaking, though. I don’t bring it up much because I simply don’t care to play past vanilla but I played alot of arenas in OG tbc and wrath. my first glad was s2 rsham/lock. my next one was in wrath in s6 running L.S.D @ 2600. We were one of the only teams running this in s6 before it became overbearing in s7-8, where we actually swapped to LSPaladin in order to counter beastcleaves which were wrecking L.S.D in those years. Went from clones to blanket cs on shaman into bop to deny bop dispel into chaosbolt emcl etc 1 shot. with a hammer on their healer.
Sometimes i regret not giving tbc or wrath a real go for this in classic but Its come to the point where I cant play wow in an expansion where I dont like the “game as a whole”, even though I like bits about the expansions.
I skipped cata entirely and came back in MOP, ran thunder with my paladin from wrath, instantly got 2300 in bad gear, quit like a quarter into first season just wasnt having fun. Havent played live since
I agree with you that vanilla design is superior for BGS, but I do believe if they went with a conservative approach to tbc design (as in all class roles in vanilla realistically stay the same even with a tbc design conversion) would work too. However I still stand firm that vanilla damage values are BIS forever and resilience is never going to be needed. My argument is players do not need to be doing a billion damage at all times to have fun - and somehow in sod it is this way and everyone quit.
All classes are used in all bgs on almost every team. there is no majority spread besides clases you run two of, like priest/mage. Most people who make a semi serious bg team has at least 1 to 2 of every class available to their faction
But take a rsham/war against a mage rogue and it’s an automatic loss. Sap the shaman to deny grinding or shock on poly.
Poly war open on sapped shaman games over right there. The shaman doesn’t have what he had in wrath that could somewhat help against that like sham rage for ex. He just dies instantly
I agree they have a good chance of winning, but any mistake and it is likely loss for the mage / rogue.
The war shout / shaman fire totem / cat eye googles / lucky nade can cause a rogue being caught into a instant fire shock or bleed.
I am pretty sure poly / sap on same DR so if they have to chain CD it is counting down fast.
Also the shaman can reflector + lip + tuber + rocket helm rogue + AQ40 trinket / AGM to extend their life through the zug. The shaman can even use https://www.wowhead.com/tbc/item=4381/minor-recombobulator to remove sheep from the warrior - I also believe it gets really good +healing but that doesn’t really matters since they are likely full hp from sheep anyhow, well, since it is on it would provide an extra instant heal in the case they don’t need to break a sheep.
A random spec that could be decent in vanilla arena is like feral druid. They actually do quite a bit of dmg, are very hard to burst down, and can give innervate, etc. It’s interesting because one rarely thinks of feral druids as being viable in vanilla pvp, but if one is stuck in an arena with them, they have some interesting aspects (especially that they are good versus all the melee and mages).