AriasImmortal

While that is Blizzard's stance on arena balance, there certainly have been changes in the past that directly affected the lower brackets and did not change a single thing in 5s. The gear swapping nerf was a 2v2 change, the HARP nerf was a 2s/3s change, and I'd like to think that the bosac/freedom nerfs were also 2s and 3s nerfs, since class representation in 5s was not changed as a result.

I'm hoping for significant changes. Blizzard was able to balance Disc priests so they could succeed in all 3 brackets without being significantly better for any one. They can do it for paladins, druids, and shamans as well.

 

Chirality

Adding the blues is actually a pretty big improvement, assuming they're more-or-less the old HighWarlord / GrandMarshal pvp blues. The huge issue in arena is the 200k+ honor to be even halfway competitive vs. someone in season 2. This makes getting a bit of revered (I hope) or exhalted with a few factions put you a bit closer to not having zero resilience and just falling over when a well-geared player looks in your direction.

Of course, I'm assuming that the 'factions' are Sha'tar, Cenarion Expedition, etc. If it's WSG? AB? It makes no difference at all.

 

Chirality

I would like to add to your list the 'Drains are affected by Mortal Strike' 'correction' to SL/SL Warlocks, which single-handedly took that spec from being the most ungodly-powerful spec in the history of the game to reasonable....at least vs. Warrior/Rogue teams.

Edit: For the question about what endless rage does right now...It really only improves your rage generation by about 5%--or at least, that's the number that I hear thrown around. The rage generation equation looks roughly like

Rage(damage,type_of_hit) = a*damage + b*type_of_hit

Where type_of_hit = 2 for a crit, 1 for a hit, 1 for an offhand crit, and 0.5 for an offhand hit. For me swinging an s3 sword, the second term ('rage normalization') is responsible for generating about 1/3rd of my total rage.

I believe--though I may be wrong--that Endless Rage only increases the value of the one of the two coefficients, instead of both. Thus, Endless Rage does not, in fact, give the full +25% rage gained bonus.

 

Malan

Its already been clarified that the reputations will the outland ones, not the BG reps.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

• Playered

How are CoH and Chain Heal going to be massively effected by this? the latter should be completly un-changed by this due to its cast-time, the former will receive very little gain on cast time at the high cost of the +healing power which scales it so well, if anything it should remain close to unchanged.

Concerning the disparity of bosses dropping 2 items and T6 ones dropping 4 items... well its still a nice gain regardless - considering most non T6 bosses are 'walk-overs', do bosses like Naj'entus, Supremus, Akama, Rage, Anetheron, Kaz really deserve dropping 3-4 items themselves? Gurtogg and RoS perhaps being the only two non-T6 bosses which are somewhat worthy of it.


To the 'nerf druid' crap in arenas, could you bring up some numbers of Druid+Non-Warrior teams in comparison to counterparts without a Druid in? Warriors remain so very dominant in every bracket (and currently ignored) and now that Druids do well in 2v2 its a crime which demands a global nerf on all Druids?

 

Aphyrax

You still need 100 or so hours for the non-set pieces. On my alt I am not even bothering with the S1 stuff, because by the time I have all the other pieces I have enough arena points to buy most things.

 

Touf

There is a blue str/agi gem from heroic SV.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

 

Doroteasenjk

The major benefit to mages is that the GCD change no longer screws up rotations. With a 1.3 second Fireblast as part of a 2.6 second Fireball x 2 rotation, you can still see that extra DPS without jumping through hoops to get things lined up just right.

I won't disagree that this will help other classes *cough* D-locks *cough* more.

 

◊ Birdemani

In regards to an additional tier token dropping. My hope is that the system returns back to the way it was in AQ40 where one of each token would drop from a boss. This was by far the best loot system for the class drops and I was confused to see Bliz take a step backwards by making the token drops suffer from the RNG in Naxx and beyond. It was easy to gear up a new guild member or reroll via the AQ40 setup and made roster attrition less painful. Trying to do so these days is an excercise in futility if luck isn't on your side. I look forward to seeing this change implemented.

 

Torael_7

The difference is you might actually have a chance. Terribads at 1500 with full s2 wont necessarily roll over a team of capable but undergeared alts simply because the alts are undergeared anymore.

 

Chirality

According to sk-gaming.com, for 2v2 Arena teams in the US over 2200 rating.

War/Druid = 27.3%
Rogue/Priest = 16.7%
Warlock/Druid = 10.6%
Hunter/Druid = 6.8%
Warrior/Paladin = 5.3%
Rogue/Druid = 4.5%

Warrior teams: 32.6%
Druid teams: 49.2%

As an aside: I'm a firm believer that Hunter/Druid is only as low as it is due to the comp only being good post 2.3, and a lack of high quality hunters.

 

tessarji

Good point. Warriors also need the nerf bat.

The tokens change is a very big deal in guilds in SSC/TK content like mine - since the KZ loot was improved and the Vengeful PVP gear is common, offset drops in SSC/TK are almost worthless from any boss that isn't Vashj or Kael.

This change will mean many more people in this content will get 4/5 set bonuses from T5, since no one likes killing Vashj or Kael more than absolutely necessary.

 

AriasImmortal

Druids do well in 2v2 and 3v3. But if you're curious why, a warrior is only as strong as his healer. If druids are nerfed (without buffing the other 3 healing classes) then warriors will no longer be well represented in 2s or 3s.

For example, druid/warrior. Incredibly powerful combo, right? But if you replace the druid with a paladin, suddenly it's much less powerful. How many pally/priest/shaman+warrior teams do you see in the top 100 in 2s compared to druid/warrior? How many pally/priest/shaman+warrior+warlock teams do you see in the top 100 in 3s? People want druid nerfs because without a druid, warriors are balanced in lower brackets.

The best course is a happy medium. Nerf druids, but not substantially. Buff other healers (specifically paladin/shaman), but not substantially, so that all four healing classes are equally as viable and so group compositions that lack healers or are light on healers (2 DPS, 3DPS, or 4DPS teams respectively) are also viable.

TLDR Versions: Warrior representation (at least in lower brackets) is proportionate to the power of a healing class. Right now, druids are the most successful lower bracket healers and incredibly powerful. Nerf druids and you indirectly nerf warriors. It's the exact same philosophy that went into the Paladin nerfs at the beginning of season 2.

 

Melador

And only 31.6% of over-2000 teams, which isn't too out of whack. I'm not sure it's wise to optimize based on the very tip-top of arena rankings.

Yes, druids might need somewhat of a nerf in 2s, but doing so would require somewhat of a buff in 5s, and their issues at that level aren't easily fixed. I wouldn't expect anything sweeping to happen for 2.4, unless we hear otherwise.

 

Lithose

Rogue's are the most populated class in 3v3 now. Just saying. (32% vs Warrior 20%)

 

Mearis

...

 

◊ Lord BEEF

I'm pretty sure that Blizzard can come up with a way of reducing the dominance of druid in 2s and 3s without adversely affecting them in 5s. If I can think of a few ways for them to do it, so can they.

 

Torael_7

Paladin/warrior is pretty strong, even with the unnecessary nerfs to Paladins in season 1. It just gets overshadowed by druid/warrior because druid/warrior does a lot better against teams that give paladin/warrior trouble; namely, anything with a warlock on it.

 

Chirality

The discussion of nerf X/Y, especially in 2s and 3s, must include the counter-comps that lead to 'balance' in these brackets.

For example: A druid/warrior team does well in 2s because it counters teams like Warlock/Healer and is very competitive against 2dps teams by drawing out matches. There are more reasons as to "why druid/warrior is so common" than just "druids and/or warriors are overpowered".

 

Grizlor

The druid issues in 5s stem mostly from people not knowing what to do to support druid healers in 5s. Druids' gripe that they die easily when focus fired in 5s is a bunch of crap, because every class, barring a paladin for 12 seconds, drops quickly when focus fired. A druid can at least avoid shatter combos and either drop into bear, or continue healing through instants, which is usually more than a shaman or paladin can do while being clobbered by 1-2 melee and having various interrupts flung at them. It's not like Barkskin and Natural Perfection are useless either.

As a resto shaman, I mostly play like a gimped elemental shaman in 5s, because if I don't have concentration aura, healing is almost impossible even with so much as a pet hitting me.

 

◊ Anias

Take the arena composition argument out of this thread and into some other thread. It's cute, but I had a much better post on the pvp change that I've withheld from this thread simply in an effort to make it coherent while you banter back and forth and decend to ellipses, only to arrive back and find the post I'd intended to respond to has been scrolled off by "druids and warriors and rogues and paladins and and and need the bat". Short one line posts serve no meaningful purpose asside from spamming the thread messenger style.

In the interests of keeping this thread firmly on topic regarding upcoming 2.4 changes - has there been any word yet on the new dailies that are likely to mimic the aq opening event? I'm hoping to see a website with a partially constructed boat that gradually fills in as your server supplies materials, personally. As a tribute to the opening the gates website.

The spell haste changes have very real repercussions for strategic AOE, and particularly for warlocks due to life tap. More on this subject when I've had time to adjust spreadsheets and simulator.

(If you want to see my questions regarding the pvp system, honor, resilience, and currency then you will have to wait. I'll post it as a seperate thread shortly.)

Math is very easy, explaining math is quite difficult.

 

• Playered

Warriors, Paladins, Priests are all over-represented (maintaining a 100% attendance in 2000/2200 with exception of Paladins being 84%~ in 2200) in 5v5s, even Shamans are doing better in this bracket. Druids are represented once out of those 12 options (6 2200+, 6 2000+).

While you may call a nerf for Druids (in 2v2 which you seem to instead just call for in general) do not neglect a need for a buff in 5v5, the 'zomg nerf cyclone' crap shows ignorance and personal frustration rather than looking at the whole picture.

Its hard to remain objective with so many variables in class balance in regards to PvP, you have 3 seperate brackets that ideally should all be equalized, and you also should maintain adjustments in a PvP fashion only, without disrupting PvE at all.

Anyway we should really try and keep on topic of new 2.4 changes rather than chewing over old arena-soup

 

AriasImmortal

Out of curiousity, what ARE druids issues with 5s? 2s nerfs would most likely consist of cooldown and/or shared DR on cyclone. Would that honestly have a substantial impact on your 5s performance? If you're not able to compete in 5s even with cyclone in it's current form, how much would a nerf even change? Would not a nerf to some of your current abilities make Blizzard more likely to buff other abilities that could increase your viability in 5s?

However, if there is a druid nerf, I really don't see buffs happening. Though I can't honestly say there is any pattern in what Blizzard does, there have been substantial nerfs to other classes that severely reduced their viability in lower brackets without a) significantly changing their viability or representation in 5s or b) resulting in those classes getting buffs for 5s.

Blizzard has not, will not, and probably will never, focus 100% on 5v5s. They may make more changes with 5v5 in mind, but they have in the past and will continue to make balance changes as needed in 2s and 3s. Those changes may not come as often as 5s changes but they will occur nontheless. The reasoning for this being is that points, titles, and mounts can be obtained from those brackets causing imbalances in the lower brackets invalidate 5v5 as a competetive bracket in WoW and undermine Blizzard's attempts to make arena a popular e-sport.

 

Cheeky

Moving the [Barrel-Blade Longrifle] to BoE means BM Hunters have no PvE weapon upgrade until Archimonde (with haste). In one fell swoop Hunter ranged weapon progression is going to depend on how fast you can farm gold to AH it. That is, unless there is an as-yet-unannouced change to Hunter DPS mechanics.

And I think the Honor change is going to mean premade vs. PUG WSG will be the worst possible PvP experience possible.

The other changes all look great!

Cheeky of Havoc

 

• Snowy

Stop with the 2v2 discussion right now. This has nothing to do with 2.4 details at the moment.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah