You haven’t proven anything and if anything I have shown how you are trying to back pedal with your own quotes. You are only interested in data that supports your bias. You literally ignored and dismissed the class/spec representation from +8, +10, and +12 which encompasses 99% of the players.
Which in your opinion can be an indicator of potential of the specialization? I pass 10 keys with my eyes closed, just for the weekly completion of The Great Vault, if I did not manage to do 8/8 m+ dungeons in a week due to other aspects of the game. Anything below 11 keys is not an indicator at all, I only agree that most likely the highest keys are also not a pure indicator, something in between is needed, but alas, for now I have to spend hours looking for a group in my specialization, unfortunately I am not a prot pal like you.
Just because you can do it with you “eyes closed” doesn’t make keys below that inconsequential for balancing. Do you realize that they balance M+ for the top rewards and below?
You are dismissing 99% of data and players because you are only focused on yourself.
Lmao.
Again, I was playing Prot before the .0.5 patch when we were bottom. Go cry in a corner.
No, because it is quite easy to achieve, for players who are not very good, I do not consider myself better than they are, I consider myself average, that is why I urge you to look above my level of skill, but not stupidly in the meta at the very top.
Thank you for allowing it.
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Again, there will always be a meta regardless of balancing. I’ve stated multiple times now that there should be better balancing, but that it won’t change the community perception of favoring meta specs and classes. Top players will always reroll to the classes that are better even if the differences are small. The average Joe will see them swap and imitate. That’s how metas form.
Okay, I understand what you mean, I’ll try to ask the question differently, why is it in the meta now ret paldins, enh shaman, frost dks, assa rogues (we don’t take into account augs now, I’ll try to explain why later), elemental shamans, in your opinion? I’m talking about damage-dealing specializations now, one of which I play myself. Do you think it’s just a matter of synergy??
It’s true, and I don’t argue with it, this is the very top of the ladder.
I don’t think it’s fair to try and boil things down. Synergy is definitely a part of it. Obviously #1 is DPS potential, then we have to look at covering the basic utilities like Lust and BR. We also need enough stops and interrupts. At the top end, we usually see a shift late season once strats and mechs are figured out where class defensiveness becomes important in being able to survive boss abilities.
I think I’ve said this enough that it’s like beating a dead horse. Aug is and has been unhealthy for M+ since it’s creation. I get that it’s a cool and new idea, and at first I had a positive view on it. After S2 of Dragonflight though, man it just enables a meta to unhealthy levels. Again, 92% of all title keys timed since it appeared have Aug in them. Do I have an answer on how to fix it, no and I doubt anyone has a good answer.
When it comes to 12+ keys, there are still some other classes that are in an unhealthy state. That being Shaman and Paladin. Do I want them nerfed, no not really. I just don’t want to go into LFG and see groups that are 3 to 4 Paladins and a Shaman, or 2-3 Shaman and Paladins. I’m currently looking to get the rest of 13s finished and it usually is hours before I get selected. Why? Because I’d roughly guess that 85-90% of groups start off with Prot Paladin, Ret Paladin, Enhance Shaman, and Resto Shaman. There is also a heavy amount of Disc Priest, but they are not the problem. The amount of synergy with the big 4 right now is just insane, and in my opinion is in an unhealthy state.
[Big 4 being: Prot Paladin, Disc Priest, Aug, Enhance shaman].
Until other classes start getting more synergy the current meta will not change.
Let me make my guess, in my opinion, Aug taken in groups precisely because it buffs the two other most broken damage dealers of the season, that’s why aug is meta. Every time I see an aug in a group, I don’t even try to join this group, because I understand that I’m not the top damage dealer of the season and we simply won’t have good enough damage for key, of course I might be wrong.
Often after an invite, I think about the adequacy of the group leaders who invite me (devostation evoker) to this group, I think, dude, look how many shamns, ret paldadins, augs in LFG, and you invited me, really?
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While that is kinda part of it, it’s boosts most classes pretty well. No, it’s ability to push classes over survival break points is why it’s meta. If you look at a lot of the current meta groups (PUG or not), it usually breaks down to playing Protect the VIP. The VIP is usually the Enhance shaman. They’ll get PI, they’ll get spell warding, and most attention. Basically completely negating the weakness of Enhance, the fact it can be kinda squishy.
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Yeah, bringing an Aug is a dps loss, but they enable groups to survive far more than any third DPS. Zephyr, rescue, dispels, knocks, roar, tank shield… Their value this season is maybe less than previous, but especially when you’ve got the meta DPS specs absolutely blasting, the hurdle isn’t the DPS check. This is also why Aug is really meh in mid keys and downright bad in lower ones.
People conjure up whatever to justify the current meta.
Like people believed Druid was forever meta because of mark of the wild, and mage because of intellect.
I agree. One specs top end should never be another specs average. Seeing BM hunter, Dev Evoker, Havoc DH all doing 31% to 29% less damage than Enhancement sham in 12+ keys or higher is just disgusting. Add that this is the most unforgiving M+ season so far Blizzard should be buffing all the lower preforming specs in spades rather than this gimp tuning they have been giving out so far.
I think it’s more of a ‘keys are easier to fail than the last couple seasons’ situation. Last few seasons once I hit the 2500 mark I may not have got instant invites, but if I sat in LFG and applied for a few minutes I could get an invite to a mythic vault key. Now if I want to log on and play I’m running 8’s and 9’s, or just getting a wall of declines (and frankly sometimes it takes a few minutes to get into an 8 lol).
Which, I know how M+ works (the run your own key thing), but even when I’ve got a 10 key of my own to list it can still take an absurd amount of time to fill it if it’s not something like Dawnbreaker.
I get what you are saying, but scores are relative per each season so a 2500 doesn’t have the same weight from one to the next. This is especially the case after the score rework where we don’t have [(1.5 x Top Scoring) + (.5 x Alternate)].
I felt like before the rework the point where you got decent invites and had a fairly consistent experience with competent players was about 200 IO above max rewards. In this season, +10s across should land you somewhere around 2600 which means around 2800 is where you should stand out among others looking to fill vault.