SOD Population Falling Off a Cliff

[Ronstantine-faerlina]

@Fiendw-lone-wolf

we aren’t even half way to BWL in SoD and the population has nose dived, if nose diving populations are a bar of success

Season of Mastery went no where though. Have you played TLP/classic servers before?

It took WoW 15 years to do a classic server and they had a huge population.

@Aguy-grobbulus

Enlighten us. That should be really funny.

The essence of classic WoW is gone. It’s been gone since 2006 and that might be generous. Classic WoW was never stack 20 warriors in a raid and running around gathering world buffs to make MC take 41 minutes.

The essence of classic WoW is leveling as a journey, gearing, open world pvp, viable solo play and long dungeons & raids.

But that’s gone. You could 1 to 1 create classic WoW and the community ruins it.

@Aguy-grobbulus

Most fun? Hell yes. A lot of players can’t hack it though, which is why Warrior has such a dedicated playerbase.

Looks at raids made up of 20+ warriors. Yep super hard only the best can hack it.

[Aguy-grobbulus]

@Fiendw-lone-wolf

I can easily switch to prot warrior in <2 mins for 50s, am i going to? no

Agree with you, but for posterity I’m just gonna remind the thread that you don’t need to respec to heal or tank anything in SoD right now.

I tanked Gnomer in Arms spec week one and went 5/6. Just threw on a shield and was fine.

[Noxranna-bloodsail-buccaneers]

@Contention-benediction

What do you all think is contributing?

The fact that we’re over a month into the phase, SoD’s “new shininess” in general has waned, and Crusader Strike is the streamer server and with the streamers moving on to the next content farm their clout chasers are moving on with them

Also Gnomeregan is a noticeable step up from BFD so the people who just netflix’d their way through BFD while the rest of the raid carried them can’t do that anymore, meaning there’s fewer logs

[Aguy-grobbulus]

@Ronstantine-faerlina

But that’s gone. You could 1 to 1 create classic WoW and the community ruins it.

All they can do is facilitate. I agree that the community isn’t gonna be anything like Vanilla.

If the community has changed, that’s fine, but the game doesn’t need to change to reflect the most negative changes in the community.

[Aguy-grobbulus]

@Ronstantine-faerlina

Looks at raids made up of 20+ warriors. Yep super hard only the best can hack it.

The leveling weeds out a lot of would be fotm Warrior meta chasers, and that’s one of the best parts about the class.

Evidenced by how Hunters are top tier, but more than half of them are dead between the ears.

[Evelýn-faerlina]

@Aguy-grobbulus

People who don’t wanna heal aren’t gonna decide to heal because of DS.

But people who want to heal (i.e. : me) will decide not to because its annoying af to get groups and move to dungeon locations.

[Evelýn-faerlina]

@Aguy-grobbulus

you don’t need to respec to heal or tank anything in SoD right now.

weird take since I doubt an elemental shaman can tank properly or a fire mage can heal well even with the runes. Its no longer just the classic classes in those roles.

[Ronstantine-faerlina]

@Aguy-grobbulus

If the community has changed, that’s fine, but the game doesn’t need to change to reflect the most negative changes in the community.

It does though.

In vanilla trade and LFG chat weren’t filled with GDKPs, boosters and summon sellers.

At some point here you’ll have classic servers with xp pots, random loot crates, teleports to locations.

The question is when does Blizzard leverage people who want classic servers, but are willing to pay to bypass the harder stuff?

[Aguy-grobbulus]

You’re not gonna keep playing Classic anyway, so who cares?

[Aguy-grobbulus]

@Evelýn-faerlina

weird take since I doubt an elemental shaman can tank properly or a fire mage can heal well even with the runes. Its no longer just the classic classes in those roles

You can. 99% of their kit is in the runes, since they didn’t have any tank or healing without the runes.

[Ronstantine-faerlina]

@Aguy-grobbulus

since they didn’t have any tank or healing without the runes

However, enhancement had tanking ideas built in.

It was just never realized. There’s a reason why enhancement shaman are so solid right now… It’s not just runes.

[Evelýn-faerlina]

this is also discounting how bad classic players are in general and how much they need to stack the odds in their favor even for ‘normal’ or ‘easy’ content. People who’ve been playing for a long time don’t often acknowledge that what they can do and what old fossils or newblets can do are miles apart.

[Bakabtw-living-flame]

@Ronstantine-faerlina

There’s a reason why enhancement shaman are so solid right now… It’s not just runes.

Really? I thought it would be the crit immunity, 30% hp, 10% damage reduction, 80% threat gen, and 20% AP in two runes. Easily mistaken for Shaman being “that good” before I guess!

Edited to include Molten Blast, the single highest AOE damage behind LB/Living Flame WITH a threat modifier.

[Teddyboomski-area-52]

Yeah give us old starsurge back!

[Deathsbounty-area-52]

@Bakabtw-living-flame

Exactly why they included such a massive xp boost 3 weeks (yes 3) into the phase. They need hyper players to use 6 characters each to artificially boost the reported logs.

It’s a fun experiment but I’d really just prefer classic fresh at this point. I preferred the gameplay and really expected any classic+ to just be more dungeons and raids with the same playstyle.

The reason they added it is because they werent planning to do 4 month phases for each level bracket… but they underestimated just how long it takes to level 25-40.

People also need to be realisitic and understand playing and raiding 6 characters in Classic wow is an absurd ask. Some people need to come back to reality at some point.

[Aguy-grobbulus]

It’s true there were threat generators in their kit before, but yeah, nothing reliable.

Regardless, you don’t need to be specced enhance to tank. Way of Earth and you’re viable, Shield Mastery and you’re doing great.

[Ronstantine-faerlina]

@Bakabtw-living-flame

Really? I thought it would be the crit immunity, 30% hp, 10% damage reduction, 80% threat gen, and 20% AP in two runes. Easily mistaken for Shaman being “that good” before I guess!

I’m talking about defensive talents, threat generation on two different early abilities. Obviously there was intent there that we never realized.

Bears didn’t have 6% crit reduction either and they were meant as tanks. The issue is not all designs were finished.

[Deathsbounty-area-52]

@Aguy-grobbulus

Shield Mastery

Outside of 2 bosses nobody uses SM, its garbage

[Teddyboomski-area-52]

This is what happened. Us Druids were using our starsurge power to balance the forces of evil. We were able to bring balance to the battlefield by eliminating those who can wipe the whole squad. The fix is easy. Allow us to bring balance once again.

[Deathsbounty-area-52]

@Contention-benediction

Crusader Strike - US has gone from 91,648 registered players to 42,484 (over a 50٪ drop) from 02/10/2023 to 03/09/2023.

Shocking. The server that only existed to suck up to streamers is dying off. Who could have seen that coming.