PvP Discussion: Phase 6 - How to Balance the Game around BGs, not classes

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
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The difficulty of WoW is they do not have balance and it is because of the old mindset of PvE and PvP damage was not separated. However, SoD PvP is getting out of control. The issue is, we cannot call for Nerfs because of PvP. So, this becomes the question of how do you balance PvP if PvE is so wildly over-tuned for some classes and not for others.

I think the obvious action is to focus on how did they address Arena’s in Retail, which was to ban certain abilities.
Example 1: Paladins Immunity Bubble is not usable in BGs. How does this solve Paladin issues in BGs? It prevents them from dealing 100% damage bursts with no counter play. But does not nerf their PvE DPS output.
Example 2: Druid (Boomies) Change how their damage is dealt over time instead of upfront damage. Starsurge has its synergies removed from Starfire, Sunfire is instead a dot 100% vs damage upfront and a dot later. Solves some of the Boomie OP, but does not attack their PvE damage.

BGs can incorporate other patches like the pre-patch of TBC which brought DR to CC. The issue with classic and also this SoD is CC is way too powerful. It is far worst than even MoP. Having all CC start at 4-8 seconds, means only in BGs does this happen; but does not change how World PvP works.

BGs need to be where changes happen, not the classes. People want to have montage kill streaks and stuff to flash off how OP a class is in world PvP. But when BGs are the core foundation of honor, we have to look at how can BGs solve the PvP experience. So instead of Nerfing classes because of PvP, change how their damage is done like DoT and focus more on BGs tuning classes instead of devs tuning the classes that affects the entire game.

This is how you can balance the PvP experience without destroying your PvE experience.

3 Likes
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no, the issues with sod pvp are very much class issues due to the hodgepodge of abilities making up specs and the inability for the casual playerbase to adapt. the paladin wombo combo for example is already on cool down more then it is up and the druid burst is mitigated by consumables and CC. and even if you wanted to nerf a class just gutting a class’s entire kit isnt how you do it. if you wanna nerf paladin you do it through introducing mass dispell and balefire-like abilities enabling a skill and knowledge based response…not just flat out removing it.

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The issue with mass dispel and abilities like Balefire, you almost have to give it to too many classes to just solve one issue of one class. It goes down the route of Retail. Arena banned abilities that basically broke Arena like Bloodlust, even though we had classes that could remove it via purge and mass dispel.

Another issue is the game is built around consumables, which some may like and others do not like. I am on the fence of this as it is very much classic to be pro consumable, but FAP is an issue as a single consumable counters many classes that prevents their kill chances and almost everyone has a macro set up to use trinket and then pop a FAP for immunity to Stuns and Impairing Effects for 30 seconds, which has a 2 min cd, so your immune to most CC for 30 seconds and is up again in 1 min 30 sec so when you fight again, you can use the pot all over again. But Again, it is classic.

BGs is how you fix the game for PvP. Fixing classes will just result in the same issues Blizzard has done for years. Lets say they nerf Seal Twisting, Suddenly Paladins have no burst and also their PvE dps meters drop them back down to garbage tier like the nerfs to Enhance Shamans and Elemental Shamans.

They cannot buff Elemental Shamans as they are finally PvP balanced in BGs. This is the problem if you go the route of Balance through class nerfs and buffs, the the game breaks as compared to BGs solving the issue by either removing abilities or changing how they function.

2 Likes
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those arent issues. SoD is a classic derivative its always had a rock paper scissors element to it. especially in BGs were its fundamentally a team activity. your not going to win every encounter thats by design and is healthy for the game. bricking an entire class by removing their kit is a significantly worse outcome. ret paladins arent scary outside their wombo combo and druids starsurge is able to be dealt with if you are using your brain.

its a classic derivative whether you like it or not consumable meta has always been the meta. its even weaker then normal classic as engineering is less impactful. and you were complaining about CC in your OP. FAP, LIP, LAP are all solutions to that issue without a massive rework to CC.

o i understand now its a shaman QQ post. they can absolutely buff elemental shaman with minimal impact to pvp. the problem with elemental shaman in PVE is sustain not burst. they can buff the damage of lightning bolt filler and proc chance of rolling thunder wihtout breaking pvp for example. the aggregated dps variance for top to bottom at the 50%tile where blizzard tends to seek balance is only about 600dps. realistically elemental shamans only need about a 10% buff in overall sustained damage to put them in a healthy state. the issue with shaman in pvp was they had burst + healing + chain armor + deterministic control totems. the healing nerfs made sense and brought them in line. you also arent necessarily supposed to be able to beat paladins and druids (rock paper scissors remember) …pallys and shammys get paired by the playerbase not by actual game mechanics. the devs realized that which is why druids got a windfury analog and hunters kings analog instead of just one to one transfering abilites between pallys and shaman. like you are just going to have to get out of that mindset of thinking paladins and shamans are suppose to be cross faction analogs because they play different mechanically and always have been.

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No its not. This is just my main for PvE. I only did PvP to get the mount on it. I am gearing a Rogue and later a Druid for PvP. Why? because I never did a Rogue to max level before and Druids are OP. You can say all you want if you have a brain nonsense. If you can die in 6 seconds to any class spec, that is not balance. Right now, Alliance players are playing Druids, Paladins, and Rogues. Why do you think that?

  1. Rogues always are PvP BiS as they can still kill you in a stun lock.
  2. Paladins are Seal Twisting for massive damage and killing people in a HoJ or can Bubble and kill you that way as you cannot do anything to them, OR what most paladins do, they play defense and you cannot cap on them, they pop bubble hold until team gets there, rinse and repeat.
  3. Druids (Boomies) are killing anyone with a 1.5 min CD burst combo. You just died to them, you rez and guess what, they have their full burst ready to go again.

The devs already said they do not want to touch the numbers of classic abilities. So buffing damage of Lightning Bolt goes against what they want. Instead they should make changes at the Rune level and they can make changes to the game like BGs, such as when they added the nerf to all damage and healing. My way is a more practical way of focusing on PvP in BGs and not touch PvE and World PvP.

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the only unique class alliance has is paladin. horde have access to druids and rogues and generally better racials to boot.

  1. no they are not, rogues are never S tier in classic or sod. they are regularly A tier and consistent but that not BiS. thats a you skill issue. they cant kill you in a stun lock because LAP exists, how to counter stunlock: either prepot FAP or apply LAP —> dot/stealth prevention skill(FF, etc) —> tinket/cc break the gouge/blind—> apply CC congrats you are at advantage in the fight
  2. prepot FAP/use LAP or stun prevention when you see the horse. then run/speed potion and wait out bubble then murder the paladin. if they are bubble spinning on flag swap target to/ CC incoming allies then swap back.
  3. they project the hell out of it and you know its coming prepot greater arcane resist and CC, or los/gap close them to force them to come closer into range/behind them(depending on class)

BGs are also a team game and you are basically asking for 1v1 advice. rogues cant stunlock a team, paladins and druids can only burst down one person, etc.

they said they werent touching talent trees they made modifications to abilities. they can literally just give you a spell book and not have to do base modifications.

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wanted to post here my thoughts on the subject and havent fully read the thread.

turning off certain abilities or making things hit different in pvp vs pve feels bad.

i dont like hitting a mob for 5k and then a player in a bg or wpvp (wpvp is a joke and isnt balanced at all) for 1.8 k or whatever the conversion rate is.

its not fluid and just jars the senses.

balance really isnt that far off.

there are some classes that are outliers but only in the fact that they can do very big damage while also being either effectively or actually immune to everything other than balefire bolt while doing the damage.

pallies can be countered by purge spam and some kiting but while bubbled they are immune to purge/cc/damage and it is impossible.

moonkin are able to output loads of damage through instants and very low cast time spells (depending on their gear setup) AND have massive pushback that can be countered with stuns or other cc but gl getting a fear off or non instant cc with starfall up. also their 3 min cooldown defensives make them super ultra tanky while still keeping all that damage.

then we get to the tank specs.

like i dont know what to do with the tank specs honestly that wouldnt nuke them in pve and make them generally unplayable.

in a general sense , people should be able to output damage with some consideration to their relative defensive power.

meaning if you can do big damage, your dps suffers and if you are alot less tanky you should get a damage buff.

effective immunities should be nerfed on damage done while “immune” to make it a fair playing field for all.

doing big damage while laughing in your big defensive is silly and the source of alot of frustration.

also this notion that because something else was op it makes it ok for something else to be op is stupid.

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IDK, this has dissolved into a macro and micro style PvP discussion. My concerns is I do not want PvP to affect PvE. That has always been an issue of why cant Sub rogues be good in previous versions of WoW and it was that Sub was always the go to PvP spec for rogues. Granted in SoD I like the Mutilate Build for PvP.

I still believe that solving PvP issues should be stuck in the BG area and not make changes to the entire game for the sake of a segment of the game experience.

Maybe one way to do BGs is to add an auto damage reduction nerf to OP specs when you que into the BG. Since we cannot change specs once you enter a BG, this would allow developers to micro manage burst of specs to keep it in line to be a battle of classes instead of a few selected OP classes.

BGs are a team objective, but can you really call it fun or fair when a Premade Alliance run 6 Paladins, 7 Boomies, and 1 Healer of Druid and Priest? Explain how you can fight that off? There is no way you win vs that set up, the burst damage is too high and it is impossible to face them. That was an example of 2 games I had this morning with a few less boomies and they had 2 warriors.

That is not fair or fun because it is obvious they are only doing this style of game play, because it is broken. People always take the path to least resistance and people always play the flavor of the month. Right now, post Shaman Nerfs, it is 100% obvious that Alliance have way to much power in BGs. So more horde players will come to the forums and QQ and the devs will make nerfs and then that changes the meta again. I think instead of changing meta, change the aspect of the game mode and focus on how can you close the gaps in DPS meters of other classes. Warriors are already top DPS with Rogues behind them. It is end game now, so there is no more power creeping going on and classes like Shamans, Druids, and Mages are falling behind. My guildies always talk about how trash Mages are now and how they love it. That is a problem and so far, Blizzard has provided no real solution.

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Or just add mass dispel and/or shattering throw. Disabling abilities in BGs, even rated bgs, has never been done before, and for good reason. No iteration of the game has banned bubble from Arena either. This would make the game feel immensely terrible if abilities you rely on just suddenly stopped working.

Or just add resilience.

This should just be baseline. They should have used TBC prepatch to fix a lot of the areas of the game that are busted in vanilla.

This is a dumb philosophy. If you just take power away from classes in BGs, it’s going to make bgs feel horrid.

Or again, add resilience.

Yeah, it’d just… destroy the PvP experience instead.

Arena did this, but BGs NEVER did.

Trinket is a 5 minute cd, not 2.

Or they just use living action potions now instead.

Stuns =/= most cc. You know what I do against someone who pops fap against my rogue? I blind them, and spam sap on them until it goes away, then I reopen on them and murder them in stuns again.

Or, here me out, they could put a PvP stat on PvP gear, either to reduce, or add damage in PvP combat, and balance around that, since each class has their own unique sets for PvP.

There’s quite a few classes in this that can dunk rogues, although they’re always a formidable class in pvp.

can be dropped down to 45 seconds with 6 set t1.

Your way would have no type of consistency in game.

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You have no idea what you are talking about. CC needs to be 100% nerfed. In PvP, Stuns, fears, interrupts, and anything like that should max out at 2-3 seconds in PvP. More global cooldowns so you can’t be stunned twice in a row, feared twice in a row, kicked twice in a row, etc. Damage on spells and abilities should be reduced by 20% in PvP and healing should be reduced by 10% in PvP. You can have separate times for PvE and PvP on abilities and spells. A 5-minute cooldown trinket doesn’t do anything, only useful in duels. They can easily separate abilities and spells crits, damage, and healing in PvP and PvE. They can have different procs, etc. People shouldn’t have to be forced to spend tons of gold for FAPs, etc just to play the game. Players like you ruin the game IMO. Blizzard could easily fix these issues in this game, they have the staff and money to do so.

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Something you should say to yourself in the mirror every time you’re about to post in the forums.

This is dumb.

This is also dumb, and not at all how GCDs work. Fears and stuns already have GCDs, and even with your suggested changes you would be able to do them back to back.

There is already a damage reduction and healing reduction in PvP.

Generally a matter of wanting consistency.

Most important cd in the game, but okay?

There is no such thing as an easy fix in a MMO, especially one where people’s opinions on what the game should be are polar opposite from person to person.

Again, something you should say in the mirror before posting on the forums.

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deep sub is never going to be top tier dps because of how the tree is. theres a bunch of dead talents for pve in the front end. 1 hemo rogue might actually be viable in a melee heavy comp. and tbh the backstab build in SoD is competitive in both PvE and Pvp right now but zg set is required.

what you are really asking for is a segmented game and blizzard isnt going to invest time into that because of population dynamics. love it or hate the vast majority of the playbase is carebear and tend to not engage in pvp. BGs or otherwise. you would have to solve the engagement issue first and thats simply not going to happen in a 20 year old game.

you beat that with a horde premade. premades going to win against pugs the vast majority of the time. thats always a problem because blizzard has a hard on for not putting in a solo que.

thats the crux of the issue for any kind of balancing. FotM exists. if you implemented the changes youve suggested you havent changed anything. it will just be paladins being crybabies and 10 stack FotM premades and one faction not quing for bgs.

again they balance pve dps largely around the 50 percentile in sod where all dps(except arms warrior whose dumpster tier) are within 20% of each other and its warlocks at the top in this range. they dont balance around the top 0.5-1% because it creates to much exclusion for the general playerbase due to spec differences. basically, you lose flavor/class fantasy and end up with 1 to 2 playstyles if you balance that way. which is why in vanilla classic for example your choices are warrior and thing that supports warrior.

in pve? mages and druids are fine like across the board. both feral and balance are preforming well depending on which percentage bracket one spec is in the top 3. mages are also doing pretty well. the 1 minute spellfrost mage is solidly in the upper half of the dps average and fire is competitive with the right comps. and rogues arent right behind warriors. 100 percentile its fury, demo, ret. 75 is demo, balanced, combat and 50 is demo, balanced, melee hunter/shadow. also everyone basically agrees mages in pvp need a buff and arms warrior in pve…its a buff thing not a nerf thing in these cases.

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again i want to say there should be considerations for the damage people have vs the defensives they have.

this includes the 3 big outliers and a few under them in current pvp balance.

moonkin are by far and away the biggest outlier due to their huge damage output (and massive spell pushback) along with defensives that can cause them to be very tanky while also still being able to output most of their damage at the same time.

pallies are right under them in terms of being op but mostly because they are capable of 2 globaling people WHILE ALSO IMMUNE TO EVERY CC/PURGE/DAMAGE source other than balefire bolt.

then you get to tank specs with the most outlier one being ele/tank shaman and to a lesser extent other tank specs. but i dont know what can be done with this without nuking them in pve.

the consideration of damage vs being able to be countered with damage/cc/ect is a big one and would go a long way towards actual balance.

my suggestion is they get to keep the damage but while their defensives are running they get a 50% damage output reduction.

i dont know about the tank specs though cause it would wreck their pve .

1 Like
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No your changes completely gut the classes and the boomkin change destroying thier pve dmg

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I’m pretty noob about it, but what are ppls’ thoughts on resilience? Was that a good or bad thing?

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It was a hit and miss issue.

One issue with PvP is they put reductions in place for Healing and Damage, but not Temporary Hitpoints. So classes that could have bubbles to absorb damage became super powerful Healers.

1 Like
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All these shaman coming out and asking for pvp balance.

Where were you the last 4 phases.

Bunch of sooks

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I hate that PvP isn’t focused on more, adding some marks to rewards or something. Like 10 marks equal 1 currency, 50-100 of that gives you some toys or cosmetic stuff, or bind on pickup consumables usable in battlegrounds only

Battlegrounds and dungeons are the biggest thing we have in replayability but more time is spent on a raid you use for an hour a week. It just seems like a win win to give players something to do and play more

1 Like
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There is an easy fix actually. Especially a game that has been around since 2004. Stop with excuses. Look in the mirror? Okay, bud haha… uhh it’s pointless to argue with you. How is a 5-minute cd the most important? use your brain please, do you know how long 5 minutes is in a game like this? The damage and healing reduction is currently wrong and not done as it should be. No, my suggestion would stop people from getting CCed repeatedly, how do you not understand that? I don’t know why I am wasting my time replying to you. You know nothing.

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It’s the strongest offensive and defensive cooldown in the game, because if you’re CC’d, you aren’t killing your target, and if you’re being locked down by a rogue, you’re likely going to be dying without a cc break. Granted it should be a 2 minute cd, but even still.

Almost like your arguments can’t hold up to mine.

How exactly would more global cooldowns stop people from being cc’d repeatedly? Do you even know what a GCD is?

Ah yes, the person with loads of pvp achievements from both back in the day and from more current versions in fact knows nothing.