It essentially is…it’s just 6 rounds in a row of it.
And extremely popular because of it.
2’s is literally cheese league. Blow someone up in the opener, or just get the healer with the best dps and the best tunnel dps and just wear your opponent down.
There is very rarely a shortage of healers in epic BGs. Regularly there are 7 plus, even with premades and pugs. Usually, there are 10, even in losing pugs.
I think there is a shortage of healers in solo rated because it is not fun to heal dps in rated solos. That’s as simple as it gets.
There was a mention in the summary of the recent 11.2 interview over on wowhead about Group Finder and Role Shortage. They are at least aware, though that interview seemed to be mostly pve focused.
How they magically make people Q an unfun pvp aspect to heal is a mystery. If it were fun to heal, there’s be plenty of healers. It isn’t, though. Just looking at Q times and various posts in the pvp forums, it just isn’t fun to heal.
No it’s not. Because it’s 6 rounds of “first blood” the habit and playstyle that was created from it make it a different kind of pvp than literally every other mode.
Skirms are just soloque arenas.
Because people tend to go for the quickest rewards.
If the object was just fun. It wouldn’t matter about keeping arena rewards.
But constantly always asking “glad to shuffle” which shows everyone’s intentions isn’t because mode fun, it’s mode easier for rewards.
And yet the pvp is still the same combat that’s in everything else (bgs, wpvp, duels)
Unlike shuffle
That’s because this is truly the most popular mode.
There is a shortage of healers in all modes (and tanks as well in pve) and it’s for the primary reason of responsibility.
When you make a mistake as a dps, very rarely is it identifiable as exactly your fault and oftentimes comes down a situation in which you just “don’t win right there” as opposed to losing.
When you make a mistake as a healer (or tank) in pve/pvp, you oftentimes lose right there and people will blame you because it is your fault.
Most people don’t want that pressure or responsibility, especially in a game.
This is less problematic in bgs, because if you die you can still res and keep playing and attribute the events to something else. This is a big part of why random bgs are the most popular game format by far.
By communicating cds and strats with teammates? Something commonly done in real 3v3.
I prefer this personally.
Considering that in 3s, the team that wins is the team that drew first blood anyway, probably 99% of the time, it honestly feels better to have first blood format imo.
Just seems like an epic waste of time to try pulling something off in a 2v3, when the win/loss result in the overwhelming majority of cases isn’t going to change.
True, but the main reason shuffle is more popular than 3s is more surface-level, it’s really just a matter of accessibility, in particular that of the solo queue buttons (e.g., people can play whatever spec they want, whenever they want, don’t need partners, they aren’t at a disadvantage for not using voice with regular partners, etc., and casuals love this about shuffle).
While certainly nice, the easier rewards are just a side-effect of this tbh.
Legit no one aside from content creators and their simps would do 3s either if it wasn’t for the glad mount/r1 titles. I imagine that all pvp brackets would collapse without there being at least one appropriate reward tied to performance, and 3s would be one of the first to die off completely [e.g., without the glad mount existing to serve as a pseudo-I’m great at the game trophy and/or a pseudo-I’m better than you cuz I do 3s trophy, I can’t imagine most players caring to do 3s].
In any event, shuffle is extremely fun imo, and it has very little to do with the rewards. I have all of the rewards I care to get from it already, and I still play it just for fun. Shuffle is also an amazing way to be able to play off-meta specs and learn them, and it’s far more efficient than pugging 3s.
def agree with you here. I think objective based pvp is always going to be more popular than deathmatch style pvp. Despite the many flaws of blitz, it’s become my new favorite mode by far. I still love me some shuffle when I can stomach the queue times or when I feel like healing, but blitz is amazing overall imo.
Having said that, I wish it had distinct rewards from the other brackets at 1800/2100/2400/etc., aside from titles, so that it wouldn’t ruin participation in the other brackets due to being the path of least resistance for rewards.
That last bit seems a bit harsh [e.g., far worse has come from social media imo, including increased depression, suicide, body dysmorphia, cyber bullying, mental health issues in general, etc.], but I agree with this for the most part.
Can’t really blame the streamers for doing what they do or what they have to do to bring in the $$$ [e.g., after all, we are the ones watching and enabling them]. We’d all be doing more or less the same thing if that was the path we wanted to take and we managed to find success with it [e.g., if not minding the fame and talking in front of a camera for hours a day, playing video games or chatting for a living + with the potential of becoming a multi-millionaire (rare, but it happens) sounds a heck of lot better than working all day at a traditional job imo].
The amount of wins I have gotten simply because the other team used up everything to get the kill, resulting in them losing a member almost immediately after their partner dies and then it turns into a 2v2.
I had a weird situation in BFA were both my partners died and they still couldn’t kill me 1v3 because how stupid corruptions were.
However, I wouldn’t have gotten to experience any of that had it been a first blood style.
It’s rewards, it’s always going to be rewards.
This is why they had to add incentives to raiding to get people back into them.
Streamers/influencers
Like lets look at
Gym influencers who try to set unrealistic body goals by doing extreme water and food cuts to appear insanely toned.
All so they can sell some routine.
I cam 100% blame them for “doing what they have to” they can go get a real job.
Not prey on the loneliness and weakness of others.
is still miniscule in comparison to the amount of games you’ve played where the team that got first blood ended up winning anyway, or where the time spent playing out a 2v3 ended up in a loss anyway. Please don’t try to gaslight and act as if this isn’t the case.
More power to you for enjoying and advocating for the possible 2v3 turning into a 2v2 and the team that didn’t get first blood turning it around to get the win, I’m not denying that might be an exhilarating experience when it happens, I’m just saying that in the grand scheme of your games per season, the amount of games that end this way is certainly less than 1%.
It’s all personal preference at the end of the day, and I ultimately wouldn’t care if shuffle rules were changed to exactly mimic 3s (e.g., no ramped up dampening, no first blood rule, etc.). In fact I think changing shuffle to mimic 3s would give it more credibility.
to an extent, but we’ll have to agree to disagree on this being the major factor in terms of why shuffle is more popular than 3s.
Perhaps you’re right for some people, but I think for the majority, accessibility is the biggest thing [e.g., if it were really all about the rewards, you’d have a lot more people doing 3s pushing for glad mount, considering 1800-2100 is relatively easy regardless of which bracket you prefer, and there isn’t really any meaningful 2400 reward other than glad imo].
you sound bitter or as if you’re projecting? What is your definition of a “real” job?
Just because you don’t approve of their means for generating income doesn’t make their job(s) any less real than yours.
Also, while I can appreciate the attempt to virtue signal, let’s be real, if you were offered millions of dollars to do something that is relatively easy in comparison to blue-collar and/or traditional office jobs, and the only downside was that random weak or lonely people that you’ll never meet continue to be weak or lonely, you wouldn’t hesitate to take the millions of dollars.
I’d go as far as to say that if someone offered you millions of dollars, but the only way to receive it would be to push a button that makes 10 random people living in various other counties on the other side of the globe drop dead, you’d do it with very little (or no) hesitation.
Just human nature [e.g., tribalism]. It might be sad, but that’s the truth. For those that wouldn’t accept the above, you’d eventually get most accepting it by tweaking the dollar amount and/or the amount of people that would die [e.g., billions of dollars for 100 people, billions of dollars for 1 person, etc.].
Again, don’t get me wrong, I actually agree with your sentiment that social media influencers have had a largely negative impact on society as a whole.
I just don’t think it’s necessarily fair to expect every social media influencer to conform to your personal sense of morality, or to condemn them because they choose a career path that might not rely on your system of virtue ethics [e.g., a career path where weak and/or lonely people are to some extent “preyed upon”].
It is only going to get worse. With no rewards worth getting and no rating inflation what is the point of playing for the average person?
because the game is fun?
Blizzards greed is their own worst enemy. They keep making these cheesy cash grabs (looking at you classic) and they further segregate the games base. There simply aren’t enough players subbed to support multiple platforms of WoW. It’s the most obvious problem in the world. They need to stop with the micro transactions and give us what we’re already paying for. They give us the barest of minimum.
I’m currently the talk of the town my my monkiepie healer!!!
Not that small
You can believe what you want. But it is a large possibility if you blew all cool downs to try to kill quickly.
You might have used up too much to survive.
This is why I say shuffles format isn’t like other pvp modes
Shall I start trying to begin posting you the list of forum topics since the beginning of shuffle’s creation of them asking for gladiator to be added to shuffle?
Be the change you want to see in the world.
You can believe what you want, but my soul and conscience is worth more to me over money.
I’ve chosen plenty of times my ability to look in a mirror without disgust over material gain, if it wasn’t done the right way.
You want to sell your soul for money, go right ahead.
you dont really need a scheduled team you just need literally 1 other person whos willing to play with you and you can pug thirds that are good with ur comp.
I remember in shadowlands and dragonflight having a lot of fun queue sessions just doin this.
wow arena needed a solo q mode really bad. Not having a solo q mode in your pvp game in 2025 is just extremely outdated. Unfortunately shuffle is a trash gamemode that rewards sloppy play and is not what people asked for.
You play the game too way much to call yourself an average player also high ranked 3v3 queue only pops in a 3-4 hour window each day.
That’s when you play your alts at lower cr.
The whole thing that high rated players do when they pretend not to play so much is a really bad lie.
i remember waking up at 6am one time on a weekday and i opened up twitch and saw you in pinkteddyps chat.
What a weird thing to bring up. Why would that even matter?
How are u able to play all night on a weekday