Just straight up makes the mode not worth playing if you don’t q with a pres. Queing as rogue or dk alone isn’t even enough.
30% of games are autoloss/autowin in a 8v8
10% of games comes down to some kind of comp advantage / someone on your team throwing / afking / win streaker in a game he shouldn’t be in
so you are only left with a 10% margin of error to climb on your own merits to maintain above 50%
Now throw in flag maps that are about 1/3rd of the pool. You didn’t que with a pres. Most duos at high rating did que with a pres. There goes your margin.
Even worse :
you duo’d with a non-pres healer, reducing your margin even further because your odds of rng’ing a pres on your team are now 50% lower
Then add to the final slap in the face :
Your now… at best… 1-2% margin left to climb… you are netting 10 points a game. A complete waste of time.
Personally, I don’t feel like queing pres. Never liked pres much. And my casual friends I want to duo with don’t play pres either. I don’t care about climbing to 3k with them. But they instantly want to quit when they realize how grindy it is and how we almost always auto loss to pres healer duos on flag maps. 3-4 node map wins in a row. Then lose all our progress rnging flag maps a few times in a row.
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Now Pres Evokers are keeping people from climbing? On the toon you are posting on you have a 10 games played as holy, not even out of placements. Pres Evokers are not keeping you from climbing.
Your lock has the most games played, at like 36. I think I have 4 characters played more than that. This stuff can be so confusing. People complain people climb to fast, then they complain it’s to grindy lol.
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While the OP is mentioning pevokers. I don’t think it’s the reason. To me the reason is that you get into a loss streak and lose 50-100 points but your wins are 5-10 points which is the bad design issue in general. That already is extremely punishing for a mode that’s highly RNG dependant with several factors in place that we can’t know pre hand…
Sure duo queue for an advertised SOLO mode is incredible problematic and generate even more balance issues than the current devs seem to care to fix or do something in general about it but nothing can be done about it and just hope for the best.
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Good post OP.
I believe its more stick and less carrot… Game dies without the masses, the player base of paying subs. Players cant get rewards so they leave, take their money to another game. PvP sweats will say good, as they fight the same sweats in dead brackets lol.
To add WoW PvE raiding and M+ is on hard times atm, thats the majority of the game, so that says allot. Its going to be more than a dead season soon. No help coming from the indifferent parent company either…
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Not saying you’re wrong 100% of the time. Playing meta specs and queueing with a meta spec teammate cant hurt your odds but… I never queued Solo BG with anyone else, haven’t even played many games, and I gained lots of rating every week I did play. Sitting a bit below 2300 only because I’ve been too IRL busy to play much the last 2 weeks.
I dont win games on my gameplay alone, but I try very hard. Probably more than half the wins I’ve enjoyed have been due to multiple truly masterful players that are not me being on my team, in that sense I do consider myself lucky. I’ve heard horror stories from other players on the forums saying they lost a dozen or more games in a row, their teammates never know how the BGs are played, ect, and I feel for those people if they are somehow losing, but through no fault of their own. But I’d imagine there must be some way they can improve their own gameplay, not necessarily improve themselves enough to make up for all teammate mistakes in some matches, but everyone makes mistakes and everyone can improve. Games you are losing are still an opportunity for practice.
I have developed the maturity to lazer focus objectives over fun until some massive point difference leaving my team seemily guaranteed to lose the match, then I go hunting. If it looks as though I cant win (so I thought) I feel free to leave objectives. I’ll pick one or two enemies I think I can bully and kill them as often as possible, no matter who is with them, no matter where they go, I make them deal with me and my 11 CCs. Sometimes 5 of 8 enemies will stop going to objectives I’m not at and respond to my aggression with most of the enemy team. A few times when I became enemy number 1 my no longer outnumbered teammates took more objectives and we won the game. Doesn’t always help, but when it does it is very satisfying.
I’d also recommend everyone communicate with pings as usefully as possible. Mark weak or already half dead enemies, remind your teammates with these pings who you are about to put damage into so they can do the same and CC healers during kill attempts. At low MMR players are not communicating and it is causing wasted pad damage into most enemies at the same time while the enemy healer is just healing parsing on everyone who taking mediocre damage. Unhealable damage exists, but it takes more than one dps to do it usually if a healer is nearby. Target call like its an RBG, get kills, take objectives. Don’t yolo your way to losing games.
None of this is directed at any one person specifically, just some thoughts on enjoying yourself and succeeding in Solo BG.
Im not on the pres evoker blame train. Honestly now MW got bonked classes seem fair enough. Duo queue on the other hand I would argue is entirely to blame.
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- Duo queue in a SOLO game mode LOL
You cheeky buggers Blizzard
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Yeah there is rng involved solo queing. But you are actively gutting your rng of getting a pres evoker if you decide to play with a friend that doesn’t play a evoker. BM is also just so mind brokenly OP right now that you can just sit in base on D and it will work out for you most of the time.
I know I haven’t spammed games enough on any 1 toon. But I get games with HUGE mmr spreads between players even after I got out of qualifiers. So I don’t think much will change unless I push to the very top. My mmr is yoyoing between 2500 and 2000 several times already and every single loss streak is FC difference on a string of CTF maps.
Yes certain duo combos can be oppressive. But it’s really not that big of a deal. You are just as likely to get a solid duo on your team as you are against you as a solo q player. The problem is when you duo and it intentionally gimps your odds of winning because you would of been better off getting that high rated pres/x duo on your team instead of playing with a friend. Would you prefer 30 minute que times?
Please tell me how :
dream flight + deep breath with flag
nul shroud
plate armor
2 walls
immune to slows perma
bleed clear (can’t die to assa/feral)
commune while stunned (can’t die to sub)
rescue
verdant leap
2 hover blinks
is perfectly fine when the next best FC has…
2 torpedos (that does nothing if snared)
1 snare break 30s cd, no immunity
leather armor
1 heal while stunned (1/3 the healing of comm)
1 wall
and for some reason pres evoker also has lust, rewind, and big aoe healing so they don’t even sacrifice power on mines/team fight maps
I hear you and I even agree with you. Unfortunately Solo BG at least on the live game always had Duo Queue, it is how it was created. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t or shouldn’t change, but Blizzard gets to decide. I don’t think the outcry of people that pefer to solo q and would want to only have people solo queuing will be loud enough to get Blizzard to change it.
Oh, and to the person that named his character Fatnose(not an insult from me). I tried BM but I dont find it fun so I play MM and now a bit of Ret, again. I don’t care if BM is god mode until I have to face one. I still wont play it.
I think its by design now, they opened the flood gates to shady money making activities.
Nah, they are called Random Battlegrounds, not Solo Random Battlegrounds. They also don’t have a rating system. Any other ranked system in any other game I’ve ever played will indicate if its Solo, Duo, Trios or Solo/Duo. Even Blizzard has as there’s 2v2 Arena, 3v3 arena, Solo Arena.
This is Solo Battlegrounds with a little 1 line disclaimer when hovering over the tooltip that you healers CAN duo queue with one DPS lol. It was only added, alongside specific healer builds being completely broken as flag carriers, for boosting purposes
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I don’t care about 5 or less people grouped to play Random BGs. I support 5 mans without supporting queue syncing shenanigans.
I do think there is a growing number, possibly not the majority, of players that when they first read Solo arena and Solo Battlegrounds they initially expected no Duo Queuing and no Queue Syncing. It would of course be players like me that only ever Solo Queue into Solo Battlegrounds that could prefer everyone else also Solo Queue. In a players mind, if everyone must queue by themselves exploitation is more difficult, queue syncing is harder, stacking specs and classes is harder, the expectation is to be and face less organized teams than the also available Rated Battlegrounds optional content. I dont dislike Solo BGs because duo queue is possible, I do like Solo BGs very much. I have mild feelings against duo queuing, not strong ones, if duo queue stays I’ll be just fine.
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Its not going to hit queue times. I’d argue queue times would lower because healing becomes viable outside playing in a Duo. I refuse to heal because of Duo queue. If I don’t have a Duo queue as a healer I am just destroying my own teams chances. Healing Blitz is nowhere near as bad as SS because its easier to gain rating by comparison (the healer vs healer situation)
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Usually when people are pushing for rewards early season and end of season for example, 2v2 is flooded with healers. Above a certain rating it can be equally hard to find a dps or healer.
There’s also a ton of low impact/pad caster specs that healers don’t want to duo with (that are also very popular). Not because they are bad, but because it’s boring to play with them and if they don’t RNG objective based specs on the team, it’s going to suck.
This doesn’t apply to you if you can push past that into rogue/dh/feral/hunter land, but for the majority of players just going for 1800/2100, it probably does.
Personally I don’t think I would ever que up solo as healer for bgs. I either want a MS class following me around or someone I know will play objectives. And someone to goof with so I don’t fall asleep.
Even then my motivation to play healer in bgs is extremely low. I would rather just do it in shuffle with fast damp games (in a magical pretend land where healer MMR isn’t artificially lower than dps). If random/epic bgs are any indicator, nobody wants to play healer in a pure solo que. Even in 40 man epics, sometimes there’s only 2 healers per side.
What they DO need though, is a LFG section for duo blitz. Because I’m too scared to even try because I heard people are griefing and spam reporting anyone who does that. Plus there’s hardly anyone in 2v2 lfg as is.
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Massive player dropoff is going on, and they will not come back, a Dead season… And factor in the troubles going on in PvE its about to be a dead expansion.
Almost like they sold Blizzard to a liquidating company, Kmart style lol.
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The grind just isn’t worth it for me personally. Bad map design. Terrible class balance. Allowing some players to Duo queue in a solo bracket. And if you aren’t playing a healer or with one, you’re waiting for about 15 minutes in between every game. Also, blitz rewards quantity over quality, so the average player is forced to queue more games to reach whatever goal they’re aiming for. Huge time investment for mediocre rewards.
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True! There is a reason there are hundred dollar mounts and special rewards to sub for 6/12 months.
When they do that it tells me, its going to be long content drought, and low player population for a long time. Anyone remember WoD, waited a year for a selfie camera lol. OHH they gotcha money, laters, see ya in 6 months lol.
I mean obviously pevokers and mw monks are still very problematic for balance issues when it comes to carry the flag bgs. But even if you have those on your team it doesnt mean that you instantly won the game in any of those bgs… some people have their reality a bit twisted if they think they will win any game specially a blitz game if they have X or Y class without knowing who’s playing X or Y…
People is also tired of the slow climb in general. I did check solo shuffle despite me saying that I wouldnt but the climb seems quicker than blitz… 
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Healers carry hard enough in Blitz. I mean the main talking points of this season so far is MW Monk and Pres Evoker. They really don’t need a Duo DPS buddy to swing the pendulum even harder in their teams favor.
That’s why I would be more than happy to heal since I know I can climb without banging my head into the wall like with SS. But also once again I won’t heal Blitz because I don’t Duo queue therefore I would be messing my own team up
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They did lol Activision. They literally allow streamers to cheat so that little kids buy their games. These big companies run by people that don’t even play video games only care about money. If they can make it by ruining their game, they will. It’s their goal to destroy gaming.
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