One of the hurdles keeping normal people from doing pvp is all the addons we’re using to stack the odds HIGHLY in our favor. Addons are so powerful at this point, they make you seemingly clairvoyant to what everyone is doing 100 yards around you.
Pvp participants are maybe 1-2% of the playerbase, and dropping. It’s probably time to start thinking about giving newcomers a fighting chance. Maybe have a single pvp game mode without addons.
I know the sweatlords who get a foghorn warning every time I begin to cast arcane surge aren’t going to like this idea-- but hear foghorn–>drop grounding totem isn’t skill, it’s just cheating.
It’s not just a matter of addons show too much but also that the base game shows too little. Purposely not getting addons is just handicapping you and your team. Not being able to tell when certain classes have popped defensives or offensive cooldowns because there’s either no or little indication they’ve done so? That should be in the base game. An easily identifiable visual that’s just missing in tons of abilities.
Not having something like BGE and having to go back to /target player to figure out where they are? No thanks lol
Having to sift through 2 rows of buffs just to figure out what cooldowns have been popped? No thanks
Addons have gone a bit far in what they can do though
If the game was better at communicating important information, we would not need to rely on using addons.
PvP is a nightmare in terms of abilities to understand and track and the game does next to nothing to help you.
If I had the time, I would put together a WA pack that simplifies all the abilities to help people get into PVP. Something that simply shows damage buff %, shields% to start. So at the very least you know when to avoid getting hit and when to avoid dumping your damage.
I don’t, but I wish Blizzard would do something like this.
Yeah you need like a 48" Ultra Wide just so you can see a little of
the game screen next to all the info thats popping up.
Whats worse is when people leave a BG and new people enter during a fight my frames always have a hissy fit and re-arrange everything at the worse possible time, sometimes I need to drop combat and reload it lol. Makes me look really bad when that one player is like ‘where are my heals bro?’
Ive given up caring at this point.
Having information delivered to you in a clear and concise manner isn’t cheating. Improving on the UI isn’t cheating. Being able to see a Psyfiend in a sea of pets isn’t cheating.
The majority of addons in PVP exist because of the deficiencies in the base UI. If blizzard improves the UI, then there wouldn’t be any need.
I pretty much agree with you. I don’t use many add-ons, but the ones I do help me a ton. Even though I don’t currently use weak auras or any other add-on to tell me what enemies cool downs are available, or aren’t available or what diminishing returns are currently going on, I wouldn’t play the game without the few add-ons I have now unless they were built into the game somehow. I’m odd and lazy and use GSE for some macros, plus some game UI macros, healium to make using paladin utility much easier for me, dominos when it doesnt break for easy keybinnds and actionbar customization, BGE to help me find the target I’m looking for on the map, details for basic combat info that is not looked at in combat, and that might be it.
No add-ons from the beginning until now may have been doable, but now many players wouldn’t stay subscribed to the game if they were removed now.
We shouldn’t deny people information, learn to juke.
What should happen instead is that 90% of the PvP addons should be rolled into the base UI. The fact that we didn’t get this in DF is a testament to how little Blizzard commits to WoW PvP.
If I use essence break my blade dance and chaos strike do nearly double damage for a short window.
If I play felscarred and use sigil of flame I have 21% more damage for a short window.
If i play the inertia/momentum builds I have the 6-18% damage buffs for a short time
If i press blur I have 20-30% damage reduction depending on talents
If I use darkness I have a dodge change plus 35%? damage reduction (i forget how this works in pvp)
Imagine if the UI actually just grouped these somehow. I should not have to remember what the icon or name of every ability for every spec and why it matters to me when my opponent uses it. Eventually, people might get there (like when competing at AWC), but most of us could just use a heads up: e.g. 35% shield. 21% damage buff.
My dream PVP UI would be something close to what guild wars had. I don’t want to track 3 different defense boosts and 3 different offense boosts per class. I want to know if they have any temporary power boost enabled and some indication of how powerful the cumulative boosts are. This way I can make a decision of if its worth CC’ing, ignoring, burning, etc etc etc without parsing through a dozen icons.
Yeah GW2 used shared conditions across all specs. That game could use some help when it comes to what the heck an enemy is doing though, I sure felt blind a lot of the time in PVP. I think you actually had to memorize animations to really succeed there.
Speaking of UI/Addons in PVP, another challenge is the effects/ilvl of everything in PVP. Why do I need to go to a website to figure out what the PVP modifiers are? Why can’t I compare the PVP ilvl of items on the vendor with my own gear?
Can’t my ability tooltips just update in real time so I don’t need to wail on a target dummy? How hard does blade dance hit for now? What if I press essence break first?
there is a lot of information that you have to bring to the game and the more opaque it is the harder it is for anyone to actually begin playing.
After playing ESO some years, I can say that this was my biggest draw to ESO. No matter what class you play, and how many abilities you potentially have access to, you can only use a total of 12 at any time.
You have a Front Bar with 5 ability buttons and an Ultimate ability, and a Back Bar with 5 ability buttons and an Ultimate. You have to decide what’s your priority for your build. (A lot of players set up Offensives on one Bar and Defensives on the other)
Of course, in ESO the armor sets are different and have all kinds of set bonuses and procs which effect the overall build, but yeah, in combat, I’m looking at a total of 10 skills and 2 ultimates. I wish Wow had this simplification. I love ESO, but came back to WoW for the new expansion. WoW is my first love, so to speak…
