Mists of Pandaria

[Sheepherder]

Bladestorm in-game now does less damage with a one-hander. You should probably not make assumptions about how it will work in MoP. Consider that whirlwind hits with both weapons when you're dual wielding, for example.

Dude, the tooltip is right there.  150% weapon damage.  Nothing about normalizing for two-handers vs. one-handers or dual wield vs. single weapon.  Also not in the SMF or TG passives either.

And you're massively underestimating the warbringer root. You can charge 6 times during trinket's cooldown, but sure, it will just get trinketed every time, woe is us.

No, it is in fact shit.  It's worth less than one point in (current) improved hamstring, is redundant with the charge stun, and is mostly redundant with the hamstring or rend (with Cripple) you will toss on.  It also telegraphs to the person you're rooting that if they trinket out of your root they have an extra 8s to get distance and beat the piss out of you.

[Ingmar]

Redundant with the charge stun that more or less expires before your GCD comes back up? 

[Sheepherder]

At which point you drop your hamstring or rend, and crisis averted.

[Ingmar]

Which is one more GCD that I'm not dropping a colossus blow burst nonsense move on them, one more GCD for them to get an important heal, etc.

[Wolf]

just curious, are there any people that still play and do mostly pvp? Arenas or casual bgs?

I honestly do not understand why pvp is in Diku MMOs at all. I guess there's a segment that plays it, but what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games.

I honestly wouldn't care but there are a number of broken things in the game that will stay broken forever because of pvp.

[Malakili]

what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games.

Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. 

[Ironwood]

I honestly wouldn't care but there are a number of broken things in the game that will stay broken forever because of pvp.

Like what ?

[Wolf]

Resto shamans are the biggest issue right now.

The way totems work in general and the earthbind & tremor totems in particular.

Frost mages.

Shadow's main interrupt is 45s, because they have an extra instant big CD interrupt that's only usable in PvP. Mage's interrupt is 24s, Hunter's interrupt is 20s. Only thing those clases have done wrong is that they're ranged, so they get a penalty. Because of pvp.

Shadow Orbs exist because of PvP and I hate every last second of it. Why don't we take the spec that has the least RNG and awards consitant play with consitant results and introduce RNG in PvE so there's GREAT BURST in PvP.

Many more examples.

[Merusk]

what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games.

Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. 

 

No, more like because my PC won't handle quake or battlefield and the micromanagement of SC is NOT PvP it's "find a build order and execute it as quickly as possible."  I play WoT if I want something shooter-esque but laugh at the kids playing like it's TF2/ headshot spactic bullshit. Plus, being in my late 30's I simply don't have the reflexes of a 17-22 year old so I'm at an eternal disadvantage.  That's just science.

DIKU pvp is one part gear, one part tactics one part sheer luck and one part twitch.  Plus there's a greater goal than "kill the most doodz."  I'm totally turned off by modern shooters, the last one I enjoyed was America's Army which "Shooter Enthusiasts" panned because it penalized most of their bullshit.  Bunnyhopping, run-n-gun, charge the noob or camp the gun spawn, all invalidated in that game and it was loads better for it than MW/ BF or TF2.

The GCDs and hit points keep me in the fight long enough to out-think and defeat most opponents.  When it comes down to pure twitch I always lose. So, I PVP in DIKU because it offers something 'traditional' PVP games don't.  A chance to use your head.

[Sheepherder]

Which is one more GCD that I'm not dropping a colossus blow burst nonsense move on them, one more GCD for them to get an important heal, etc.

You're going to be applying hamstring, or rend after the charge anyways..  If you don't and whatever you're beating on is the target of an ability to gain range (Blink, Demonic Portal, Demonic Circle, Demonic Leap, Thunderstorm, Disengage, Leap of Faith) you're going to be super fucked.  It's worth noting that most of the new escape abilities have either bleed removal, or slow/snare removal, but usually not both.  In light of this Cripple seems too good to pass up for PvP.

Also, is it just me or is Demonology Warlock about one stat-to-avoidance talent away from being a tank?

[Wolf]

what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games.

Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. 

 

No, more like because my PC won't handle quake or battlefield and the micromanagement of SC is NOT PvP it's "find a build order and execute it as quickly as possible."  I play WoT if I want something shooter-esque but laugh at the kids playing like it's TF2/ headshot spactic bullshit. Plus, being in my late 30's I simply don't have the reflexes of a 17-22 year old so I'm at an eternal disadvantage.  That's just science.

DIKU pvp is one part gear, one part tactics one part sheer luck and one part twitch.  Plus there's a greater goal than "kill the most doodz."  I'm totally turned off by modern shooters, the last one I enjoyed was America's Army which "Shooter Enthusiasts" panned because it penalized most of their bullshit.  Bunnyhopping, run-n-gun, charge the noob or camp the gun spawn, all invalidated in that game and it was loads better for it than MW/ BF or TF2.

The GCDs and hit points keep me in the fight long enough to out-think and defeat most opponents.  When it comes down to pure twitch I always lose. So, I PVP in DIKU because it offers something 'traditional' PVP games don't.  A chance to use your head.

If you have a machine that runs anything, it will destroy quake live. And it will play it in your browser. And you're wrong about starcraft, but that's a whole different conversation. It requires a certain ammount of speed, I won't argue that. I'm actually much better at starcraft now, then I ever was when I was younger. I just didn't have the patience 10 years ago.

Ok I get you, but isn't a moba about what you're saying though? (mostly) Without bullshit imbalances and gear to play in the picture?

[Kail]

They're not really analogous experiences.  Playing StarCraft or LoL or whatever is about playing the match.  Playing an MMO is about playing your character.  The fact that it's YOUR character and YOUR gear that you earned and so on carries a fair amount of attatchment.  You're advancing your guy.  You're improving your stats.  You've got a goal to work towards.  In StarCraft, you get none of that.  Once you finish your game, you're done, your next game will be pretty much like the last one.  That's why even modern shooters are tacking on unlockable guns and hats and crap onto persistent characters, to keep people playing through the times when the game gets boring or frustrating.

That said, I do wish devs would pick a game and balance it, rather than trying to shackle them together.

[Rokal]

Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. 

You're also given an easy out for losing. You can always say "they had better gear" even if they didn't. Remember that being able to justify your loses as being something other than your own lack of skill is important for modern games, and it's why Valve put crits in TF2. They wanted you to be able to say "lucky crits" even if you were crit 0 times, as you'd be less likely to get mad and stop playing the game if you thought that the loss was just bad RNG.

No, more like because my PC won't handle quake or battlefield and the micromanagement of SC is NOT PvP it's "find a build order and execute it as quickly as possible."  I play WoT if I want something shooter-esque but laugh at the kids playing like it's TF2/ headshot spactic bullshit. Plus, being in my late 30's I simply don't have the reflexes of a 17-22 year old so I'm at an eternal disadvantage.  That's just science.

DIKU pvp is one part gear, one part tactics one part sheer luck and one part twitch.  Plus there's a greater goal than "kill the most doodz."  I'm totally turned off by modern shooters, the last one I enjoyed was America's Army which "Shooter Enthusiasts" panned because it penalized most of their bullshit.  Bunnyhopping, run-n-gun, charge the noob or camp the gun spawn, all invalidated in that game and it was loads better for it than MW/ BF or TF2.

The GCDs and hit points keep me in the fight long enough to out-think and defeat most opponents.  When it comes down to pure twitch I always lose. So, I PVP in DIKU because it offers something 'traditional' PVP games don't.  A chance to use your head.

League of Legends is DIKU-style pvp without persistent gear. Tactics plays a bigger role, twitch is about the same, and luck is de-emphasized compared to WoW.  It also runs on just about anything (like WoW). The only reason to play WoW pvp at this point is if you get your rocks off by owning players who are poorer geared than you.

It's why most of the WoW pvpers have moved onto LoL. I mean, look at these recent statistics. I always thought LoL was actually one of the big reasons that WoW was in decline, because it effectively removed an entire portion of the game (PVP) for a large amount of players. Without that as an option when you ran out of PVE stuff to do at 85, you had even less of a reason to stick around.

[Ingmar]

I liked playing our gimpy prot warrior/moonkin duo up to challenger in the face of people with better comps, better gear, etc. "Oh god there's no skill involved" is just not true.

And I'm hardly some epically awesome player, if I can find the fun in it I don't really understand why other people can't.

[Merusk]

I play LoL as well, and the reason to play WoW vs LoL is more varied gameplay.  LoL is 2 game modes.  WoW PVP has  AB, WSG, AV (not really pvp unless you feel like defending.) TB, TP, EoTS, Arena, Gil (which is just a variation of AB but much better for it.) SoTA and IoC.  Loads more games than LoL offers, but both scratch a different itch.

[Rokal]

On the other hand, LoL has more variety in each match on those same maps. Because you don't need to level your champion to 85 before you pvp, or gear your champion up, you're free to switch champions at any time. You're also (most likely) going to be doing a different item build each match, so even if you do play the same character there is a bit of variety. Which lane you play also impacts how the game goes. Playing the game as a jungler or solo top is a much different experience than a duo lane.

WoW has more BGs, but I found that when I PVP'd in WoW people really only played 2-3 of them. The rest usually had much longer queue times.

[Ingmar]

They all pop regularly if you random queue.

[Rokal]

Is that what people use these days? It's surprising because, even during BG weekends during TBC, you'd still see the most popular maps with really short queue times even if they weren't the BG that weekend. There was a lower potential reward, but people gravitated towards the maps that gave more consistent rewards.

[Ingmar]

For the most part people use it, yes. Random queue = bonus rewards. There really aren't very many maps that devolve into interminable suck anymore.

[Zetor]

Yeah... SOTA can be very annoying, but at least it's over quick. I don't really have a problem with any of the others, even in AV/IOC you can go pick fights in a small group if you want to (while still being useful). In 4.3 you will be able to get conquest points from random BGs, which is just awesome for me (I don't have an arena or RBG team due to timezone issues).

There's definitely skill in WOW pvp (especially in high-end arena), and (for me) it also can be fun fighting against the odds. It's obviously not as skill-focused as an FPS, but it's not meant to be. Guild Wars did the entire thing right: pvp-only characters that started at max level, a low level cap that you can hit in a day (20), and a flat hp/mana curve with very minor gear advantages -- there IS some benefit for using a shield that has 1 less skill requirement, but it's nothing compared to Johnny Levelinggreens fighting Bob Threepointfivekresilience. The issue with GW is its clunky control scheme (edit: and UI, thanks for the reminder Ingmar :p) and reliance on sub-100ms reaction times that just isn't happening in a MMOG with any latency... heck, I play with a constant 700 ping, interrupting 1/2-second casts is fun I tells ya.

I'm not an amazing player either with my Rival title from season 3, but then again if you use keybinds and turn with your mouse you're automatically better than, oh, 2/3 of the random BG population.  

[Ingmar]

My problem with GW pvp was entirely that I cannot train myself to recognize the debuff icons, they're too vague and pastel for my color-blind self.

[El Gallo]

what I don't understand is why they don't play quake, starcraft, battlefield or a moba of choice. You know actual pvp games.

Because they like the fact that they can replace actually being good at the game with just farming better equipment. 

Serious PvPers basically never play against teams that don't have the same gear they do.  People on top-notch arena teams are just amazingly good individually and even better in concert.  It's a very different feel from fps gameplay, and I can certainly understand why some people like wow pvp more than counterstrike.  I'd much rather be an excellent WoW pvper than an excellent FPSer or moba-er.  Starcraft would be a closer choice for me, but you're missing the social aspect entirely.  Luckily, I'll never need to make that decision, since I suck at each and every form of competitive gaming.

[Malakili]

You're also given an easy out for losing. You can always say "they had better gear" even if they didn't. Remember that being able to justify your loses as being something other than your own lack of skill is important for modern games, and it's why Valve put crits in TF2. They wanted you to be able to say "lucky crits" even if you were crit 0 times, as you'd be less likely to get mad and stop playing the game if you thought that the loss was just bad RNG.

Crits are in fact the single biggest cause OF rage for me.  Playing something as well as I could've and losing because of an RNG is pure rage factory material.  The number of times I know I can kill someone assuming we both hit everything we should, but then he gets a crit...well, that made me alt-f4 TF2 more than anything.   Meanwhile, getting kills I shouldn't have via crits just make it feel cheap.

Anyway, back on the topic of WoW PvP

Serious PvPers basically never play against teams that don't have the same gear they do.  People on top-notch arena teams are just amazingly good individually and even better in concert.  It's a very different feel from fps gameplay, and I can certainly understand why some people like wow pvp more than counterstrike.  I'd much rather be an excellent WoW pvper than an excellent FPSer or moba-er.  Starcraft would be a closer choice for me, but you're missing the social aspect entirely.  Luckily, I'll never need to make that decision, since I suck at each and every form of competitive gaming.

I understand this, but this isn't actually the way WoW PvP is played for what, 99.9% of players?  Its practically a different game in that case.  If they want this to be PvP in WoW, just give everyone the same gear in PvP areans/battlegrounds, and really make it even.  But they don't, because they know that's not why the huge majority of their players actually play it.

In any event, I still hold by my original statement. 

[Malakili]

They're not really analogous experiences.  Playing StarCraft or LoL or whatever is about playing the match.  Playing an MMO is about playing your character.  The fact that it's YOUR character and YOUR gear that you earned and so on carries a fair amount of attatchment.  You're advancing your guy.  You're improving your stats.  You've got a goal to work towards.  In StarCraft, you get none of that.  Once you finish your game, you're done, your next game will be pretty much like the last one.  That's why even modern shooters are tacking on unlockable guns and hats and crap onto persistent characters, to keep people playing through the times when the game gets boring or frustrating.

That said, I do wish devs would pick a game and balance it, rather than trying to shackle them together.

In Starcraft of LoL is my "stats" that are improving.  I'm advancing "me."  I've got that as a "goal to work towards."   Each game is just a single round, sure, but to say each game is basically like the last one is just ignorant of the genres.   I'm not sure about that last part either.  Counter Strike, arguably the most popular shooter of all time (is CoD matching it?  Maybe), never had any of that progression bullshit.  The ability to buy weapons within a map is hardly comparable either.

[Fordel]

People PvP in MMO's for the same reason kids have snowball fights in winter.

[Kail]

In Starcraft of LoL is my "stats" that are improving.  I'm advancing "me."  I've got that as a "goal to work towards."   Each game is just a single round, sure, but to say each game is basically like the last one is just ignorant of the genres.   I'm not sure about that last part either.  Counter Strike, arguably the most popular shooter of all time (is CoD matching it?  Maybe), never had any of that progression bullshit.  The ability to buy weapons within a map is hardly comparable either.

That's kind of the point of the whole MMORPG genre, though, y'know?  Maybe off in the clouds somewhere, someone gives a shit about what their ranking is on some stats page somewhere, but maybe he doesn't.  If he's ranked nine millionth place or eight millionth place, who the hell cares, he just wants to earn enough tokens to finish his gear set or buy that newer, spikier dragon mount or whatever.  For someone who doesn't care about ranking, WoW gives them a goal to aim for, and StarCraft doesn't.  WoW has always been very good at giving players breadcrumbs: the game gives you a lot of goals to work towards, both in the short term and the long term.  Achievements, rep grinds,  questing, raiding, crafting, pets, mounts, it's all about giving players a lot of targets to hit and letting them decide which ones to aim for.  Deciding you want to improve your ranking is fine, but it's just one of many goals in WoW, as opposed to the only thing you can do in StarCraft.

That's why I was making the whole "character/player" distinction, and why I was saying that every game of StarCraft is the same.  I didn't mean they were tactically identical, I meant that there's a lot of ways you can advance your character in WoW, but if you want to advance in StarCraft, you're going to be playing basically the same game every time.  Not in terms of specific strategies, but in terms of mechanics, it's the same every game (training SCVs, harvesting minerals, building structures, etc.). In WoW, by contrast, if I get bored of raiding, I can spend the day picking flowers, or play the auction house, or solo quest, or do some PvP once in a while, and they're all quite different experiences, and all viable ways of advancing my character in some way.

And as for "FPS are adding progression," I did say "modern."  CS was released something like ten years ago.  CoD has outsold it by more than 2:1 according to the figures I'm seeing, and there are more people online playing CoD and Hat Fortress 2 than CS right now.  You might not personally like progression, but I don't know that you can really deny that it makes for VERY popular games.

[Malakili]

If you just see WoW PvP as another place to farm stuff for your character, then fine I guess.  I just assumed PvP actually meant people want to you know..play against another person for the purpose of competition (even if not "serious" competition).

[Merusk]

People PvP in MMO's for the same reason kids have snowball fights in winter.

Clearly we're having fun wrong, Fordel. 

[Wolf]

if you're having fun more power to you. I just find diku pvp frustrating and, well, un-fun. Was just wondering what the other side to that coin is :)

[Kail]

If you just see WoW PvP as another place to farm stuff for your character, then fine I guess.  I just assumed PvP actually meant people want to you know..play against another person for the purpose of competition (even if not "serious" competition).

You're starting to sound a bit "No True Scotsman" here.  Obviously there are people who compete in this game.  You can enjoy playing PvP even if you're not into the whole "lamentations of their women" thing to get gear, that doesn't mean that nobody takes arenas seriously.

[Fordel]

Apparently they updated the Talent Calc: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657433947?page=1#1

We trust you’ve all had ample time to plug away on the Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator. You may have even found a few mind-bottling class changes in the works (you know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle?).

To that end, we’re pleased to announce we’ve just released an update to the calculator! In addition to bug fixes, we've made some changes as a result of your feedback.

Keep in mind this is still a very early preview of the Mists of Pandaria talent system, which will likely continue to evolve during development of the expansion. We also don’t plan on making further updates to the calculator until we get much closer to our testing phase, but rest assured we’ll still be considering your feedback throughout the development process.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator

[Ingmar]

Oh shit, Storm Bolt!

[Sjofn]

You're so easy to please. <3

[Ingmar]

I can finally be a Mountain King, just in time to move on to a new game. 

[Sjofn]

Clearly that's why you can finally be a Mountain King.