PvP with the Blues is underway with playtesting the new rated solo queue battleground mode, Rated Battleground Blitz!
Rated Battleground Blitz
Rated Battleground Blitz is the rated version of the Battleground Blitz Brawl that came in the Embers of Neltharion content update. It is a solo queue rated 8v8 battleground game mode with an accelerated pace and new mechanics to make the battles faster.
The map pool is the same as the Brawl version, with the addition of the new Battleground, Deephaul Ravine.
Please use this thread to leave your feedback following this test.
There still seem to be an issue with the Scoreboard not updating and not possible to Sort.
Also in the Rated Panel, it might not be obvious that “Solo” is for Blitz, we have 2 categories called “Solo”. I think adding Blitz somewhere in the name like “Solo Shuffle” and “Solo Blitz” could help.
There should be an indicator for the player who holds the objectives since both factions are mixed. For example: if they are in your team add a green indicator/highlight and a red one if they are on the opposite team.
In temple of Kotmogu it is hard to track who has the orbs unless you click on the player manually, same goes for flag maps where you see, in example, an alliance player taking the flag, but it is taking it to the horde base.
Some new players or people who does less pvp might get confused by this.
Got into a Deephaul Ravine in the blitz queue. First impression is that it seems to have a lot of depth to it (no pun intended) but we didn’t get a chance to really explore all the alternate objectives.
It feels like people were mostly eager to try out new talents and abilities in a mega team fight on one cart, which I like as sort of a surface-level option if people choose do do that.
I’m not really sure how the flag or crystal come into play, but I really like the idea that there are options to win the game without just zerging the other team. I can’t give any feedback on the value of going for alternate objectives over playing for domination yet, but we will see
Thanks for the new content!
EDIT
Got another Deephaul! This one was more back and forth so I’m kinda getting a feel for how the flow of a battle can go on this map. Having an objective in the center kept a constant team fight going, but it wasn’t just a big ball of death in the middle. The team fight was somewhat spread out which is cool cause it allows for some amount of repositioning and flanking.
My largest piece of feedback about Rated Battleground Blitz is a larger focus on rewards/incentive to keep players in the mode season to season. More people playing the mode means better queues and healthier mmr population. Here are some of my thoughts:
Same or similar rewards tied to rank as in Shuffle/3s. Imo glad mount (or recolor) should come from 2400 in either of these three modes. I think it’s time for the glad mount to stop being gatekept behind 3s. My best thought for this is 3 mount colors a season. I like the idea of a different title for 2400 in BGB tho.
A seasonal participation reward track. Simple as a PvP “renown” track, with rep tied to honor or games played. Unique cosmetics or toys for PvP.
I think the rating system is extremely outdated and confusing to many. The same rating number shouldn’t feel so different to play season to season or at different times in a season. I suggest the industry typical Bronze, Silver, Gold… etc format.
Absolutely love Blitz and can’t wait for this mode to be rated.
I only have a few concerns:
How will Bloodlust be balanced? Will each team always have one class that can Lust? Personally, I think Bloodlust shouldn’t work in Rated Blitz/BGs, as it’s very influential, but it’s fairly common for a Lust-viable player to forget to use it (which greatly handicaps their team.)
How will tanks be balanced? Flag carriers have never been balanced, with either Guardian or Vengeance being the only viable FCs for most of Rated BGs’ lifespan. Will there be an effort to make all tanks specs just as good as the others for FCing?
Arathi and Deepwind Gorge are the only Blitz maps that I find inferior to their Rated/Random BG counterparts. I would decrease objectives to only 3 active at a time, restore node capture time to 6 seconds, and increase the node invulnerability time (or remove this function in favor of three nodes.)
5 objectives just feel like too much for 16 players. It feels like you never want to have more than 2 players at any one base. It’s very hard to influence the match when you can only contribute to 1/5th of the objectives at a time.
4 second capture times devalue killing players. With 4 second capture times, matches tend to incentivize players trying to cap bases with CC chains instead of killing enemy players. To me it feels like the optimal way to play Arathi/DWG is to CC cap a base, spin it until it’s invulnerable, and repeat after the timer is done (or run off to a new base.) It feels like trying to kill an enemy player is frequently the wrong decision and a waste of time. Additionally, 4 second capture times make certain specs excessively influential. Rogues can capture a flag in a Sap, Gouge, Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, Blind, and Smoke Bomb. That’s 6 different mechanics across 3 DR pools. There’s just no way to effectively 1v1 Rogues for bases as most classes. Mages/Druids/Hunters are great at dueling for flags too, but to a lesser degree, while something like Warrior or Enhance are very, very bad. Classes just weren’t balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 CC chains (which is effectively how Arathi/DWG are played in Blitz.)
Lastly, it feels like 45 second invulnerability timers are too short, at least for DWG. That map is so big, by the time you reach a new base and cast a few spells, it’s time to go back and recap the base you came from.
My first question is I wondering if there will be class/spec limits put in in order to not have games stacked with certain classes. Is this something that will be done by the time it goes live in WW?
This is by far the biggest issue with blitz right now. AB and Deepwind are popping a lot and the mechanics in this one suck all the fun out of them. Incentivizing small, spread out fights that take place across a 15 man map makes for very boring encounters which usually just end up in someone getting CC capped. It’s like playing 2v2 or 3v3 arena but without dampening, nothing dies. You just CC, get the node, leave everything alive and continue on. By the time you can disengage from the fight and try to mount to go elsewhere it’s already time to turn around, go back and repeat the same process at the same node
The point of the fast cap times and the 45 second lock time was supposed to incentivize not having to sit a base, but I’m constantly having to sit bases. Going elsewhere isn’t always a helpful thing but sitting the node and re-capping or spinning it is.
Having 3 nodes instead of 5 would be way more fun. They could work like Gilneas which is a far better design when considering you only have 8 players per team. Have BS be a constant base with 2 of the outer nodes being the starting area for each team. The nodes can always form a triangle so you get even combinations.
That could be good, I would just disable Stables and Farm, make them default GY spawn. And the game revolves around LM/BS/GM for Arathi.
In DWG I would do the opposite Corner + Market
Start with Quarry/Market/Shrine.
When Quarry/Shrine is reset, the other 2 nodes become active, so when Quarry is capped, then reset, Ruins become available and Quarry is disabled.
Same thing on Alliance side when Shrine is capped and reset, Farm becomes available and Shrine is Disabled.
Graveyard:
I think there’s something clunky about how the graveyard are working when a node becomes disabled and you get almost double rez timer as you get ported to another GY. I think the GY where you are should still spawn you and not port you to another GY. I don’t know how else to make it work, but it can be frustrating.
Queue Pops:
Can you make it Auto-Accept for 2 minutes after I hit the first Accept Queue instead of having me click 8 different Accept everytime someone drop the queue?
Part of me thinks you might need to give the prot pally treatment you gave solo shuffle to other tanks, (where prot pallys can only face other prot pallys). Guard druids are really on another level as flag carriers.
If not there’s other things you could maybe do to help non-guardian/veng tanks, like give Blood DKs the speed boost while carrying, let prot pallys bubble with flag but make it a wall instead, or make stagger actually an effective mechanic in PVP for monks. Tanks work well enough in conquest maps across the board, but there’s a clear gap in CtF.
Been playing Prot a bit the last few weeks in BGs. Still undergeared but Prot Pally is def a good support class. Even with no gear it takes a while to kill me with my self heals and ESPECIALLY if I have a healer on me. I can’t kill anything of course. I don’t think you can’t put prot pally into the heal spot though in a BG setting however.
Yeah maybe some miscommunication on my part. I meant that druids are just on another level as flag carriers, and blizz should consider guard druid vs guard druid only instead of guard vs other tanks, because they outclass any other tank for that role in those maps.
Prot still can’t bubble with flag, and are very dependent on self healing, which stacking flag debuff impacts.
All that to say, the outcome of a game for the entire team can be dependent on if you ended up with a blood dk as your tank vs guard druid on flag maps.
Can anyone speak to whether RBG Blitz wins are granting credit towards the RBG tint of the Mage Tower artifact appearances from Legion? That should be a perk of this if Blitz is eventually intended to fully supplant the classic RBGs, but honestly it’s just a good idea even if the latter doesn’t happen right away (or at all).
Oh ya Prot Pally is not the best EFC. I can do it but it’s almost easier if I can find a healer or DPS on my team willing to do it and I support them.
Outside of the good points mentioned about larger maps in BGB, the only one that can be awkward to play in is Eye of the Storm.
Rushing open towers while outright ignoring flag seems to be the winning strat, because if you can secure both towers, flag is irrelevant - they’ll bring it to you while you rack up points, and at that point you don’t even want to cap because you control the board and the GYs.
That plus most players don’t seem to understand the locked/unlocked tower logic. I suspect this will change as more people play though.
All that to say, it’s clear that some maps are great with the smaller team sizes and rulesets, while others work, but are clearly shoehorned in to make them work.
If it’s a hit, I’d love to continue to see new maps rolled out that can be made from scratch with this mode and the team sizes in mind.
Don’t feel like you need to invent brand new mechanics either! New maps of CTF or smaller conquest maps with less points can still be a hit!
