PvP vs PvE

[Iannis]

I'd love to play a game designed that way myself. The need for it is obvious, as the problems that arise from balancing pve/pvp into the same combat mechanic are easy to anticipate. They are obvious even on paper. One imagines they'd be especially obvious to the team involved in the initial design.

But the game, whatever game it is, has to be designed with that internal dichotomy initially -- not retooled for it at stage X. What patch version is wow in right now, 10?. It's just too late for WoW. It was probably too late by beta3. Shades of SWG spring to mind. DOOOOOOM.

I agree, pvp and pve should be subject to seperate mechanics and influenced in unique ways. You're talking time, you're talking money, and neither in insignificant measure. The design would be the easy part.

We're looking at a case of better luck next time.

[WarderX]

Originally Posted by Esmo

If you're going to do that you will have to gimp melee dmg also. Mages, Warlocks and Priests have a hard enough time surviving in pvp. Screw with those cc abilities and you'll find pvp will only consist of stealths, mail and plate classes who can take more than 3 melee hits and live.

I play all the cloth classes as I love being a caster. AV is the only one worth doing on my priest because people actually kind of work together and make my job worth it. My mage can get by in all of them and so can my warlock but both of them rely on their cc abilities to stand a chance against melees. Of the three my warlock has the most survivability strictly due to hp but even with high hp focused melee will drop me like it's hot. If you mess with Frost Nova/Fear durations (beyond what damage trinkets and other gear has already done) you will completely gimp the cloth classes ability to compete in BG.

I fully agree that casters need more survivability and all, and on another note, I would be fine with all damage reduced 50% or whatever in pvp...

But here's my bone to pick with fear/stun/cc compared to melee damage: With damage, if a player is "skilled" (i use the term lightly) enough in pvp, they can probably get away or save themselves or fucking press a button. All those stuns and fears: oh look i'm stuck forever with nothing to do, can't do jack, oh look i'm running up this hill, laa dee daa, oh i'm dead.
Abilities that completely ignore the players ability need to be looked at.

Oh look, howl of terror. /afk to make a sandwich.

[Digits]

Stuns, fears and all other measures of crowd control are a necessity in pvp, otherwise every class is at maximum damage or healing at all times. The problem is, yet a-fucking-gain, that it's way too much. Diminishing returns + 5(?) types of crowd control each capable of being placed on you 3 times at full and partial duration means, well, fuck we all know what it means.

I never thought I'd prefer crowd control in DaoC, where you could be mezzed for over a minute even with great resists, to the short duration control of WoW, yet here I am.

The idea that fear is given a 'damage cap' where it breaks automatically is a fucking good one, by the way.

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Scaffa

2, Purge - I'm not just picking on shaman here, but I do honestly have serious issues with spam cast purge. On my mage if I have combustion / AP or Ice Barrier up, zap! Gone, frost shield and int as well. Shaman can take more mana off a mage in a second than anyone else. Give it a cooldown so it has to be timed to be effective instead of just something to do while shocks refresh.

Make purge automatically drain the shaman for the amount of mana required to cast the buff (hi2u 1700mana fort) or put the spell on a cooldown equal to the activated ability and I would come close to considering this fair. Honestly, on my priest, I don't even bother buffing if I know I'm going to be involved in a big battle within a few minutes. Fort has never ever lasted even 3 minutes for me against shamans with a pulse. Fuck them.

I love battles of attrition (I use X amount of resources to deny you > X resources, wherein I eventually win) .. partly why I love viper sting so god damned much on my hunter now .. But there needs to be limits. Viper costs me ~200 mana and drains ~1100. 5.5:1 but it can be cured by 2 of the most important classes to viper anyway. It's in the range of fair. 1 Purge dropping Fort and AI .. no one can with a straight face think this is good.

3, Stuns - Yes, my main is a rogue and I too hate stunlocks. ... Stunlocking has to go, now.

QFT.

4, Damage - i'd fully welcome a -25% damage done across the board in PvP. I'm sick of blinking and seeing my HP geared rogue go from 4.7k hp to 1200 from a few lucky crits.

QFT again. I really feel bad on my hunter when for a 3 second cast time, I can deal well over 4000 damage in about 1.5 seconds to someone who doesn't even see me. PvP is way too burst damage focused.

7, Arrow hit rates - On my rogue when another rogue pops evasion, I usually have to kite around and try to get out of combat - or vanish. On my hunter when a rogue pops evasion, I just keep firing away as usual. Doesn't seem to matter.

You know you can't dodge arrows .. right? Reason #3942 rogues are free HK to hunters.

There needs to be a cooldown period for shapeshifting. I know there's a global one second for instants, but I feel like druids should have at least three for shifts.

Just fyi it's 1.5s cooldown for every class but rogue, for whom it's 1.0s. But yes, chain shifting has got to go. Come to think of it, can anyone possibly rationalize why shifting breaks snares anyway? If you're trapped in ice or if roots are grabbing at your ankles .. what does growing big teeth and a coat of fur do to stop it?

They should add to the list of things that automatically drop your flag: Sprint, Aspect of Cheetah, any shifted form, speed potions, free action potion, etc.

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Digits

Stuns, fears and all other measures of crowd control are a necessity in pvp, otherwise every class is at maximum damage or healing at all times.

Wrong. The solution is abilities which hinder your opponent without crippling them. For instance: snares. I snare you, back up and hit you with no risk, which would then break the snare and make subsequent ones much harder to land. When you can lock someone out of THE ENTIRE FUCKING BATTLE it is a horrible pvp scheme. There are a billion ways to balance hindering effects while still making pvp a fun system which rewards skill and attentiveness rather than the ability to abuse class core abilities.

[chu]

Originally Posted by Makata

Make purge automatically drain the shaman for the amount of mana required to cast the buff (hi2u 1700mana fort) .

Just go die in a carfire and do humanity a favor you piece of shit.

[frott]

I'd just like it if it didn't cost me 50g a shot to go from my desired PVP build to my desired PVE build.

I know someone thinks they're clever by having "pve only" talents that are required for priests to DPS, and pretty useful for healers... but since they are utterly fucking useless in PVP that is pretty shitty. Conversely, I sure as shit am not rocking the 2 points in psychic scream and 1 point in silence in PVE.

[teneran]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

I've been making way too many huge constructive posts lately, so I'm just gonna buckle here and say that I would give not only my first born, but the testicle that will give him life in exchange for different rulesets for abilities in pve vs. pvp. This unified shit has got to go.

Amen.

It baffles me they don't do this, would make so many balance issues .... well, possible to actually balance because you're not breaking PvE to balance PvP and vice-versa.

The sooner they switch to this the better because the issues are and just going to get worse and not better over time.

[WarderX]

Yeah, seriously, if you don't see the problem with certain abilities allowing you to kill Jimmy-McEbay just as easily as Jhonny-McHighWarlord...

well, then, we just don't see eye to eye on pvp.

[Makata]

Originally Posted by chu

Just go die in a carfire and do humanity a favor you piece of shit.

I'm guessing you play a shaman then. Perfectly fair for your team to have fort, ai, and wtfever but screw alliance! It's completely and totally fair that you can purge away 3200+ mana in buffs for what, like 200? Or remove the myriad of activated abilities some classes rely on for pvp? Or hell, you could even effectively deal 1k damage by dispelling the shield. Clearly, a fair and balanced and not annoying ability. My mistake.

[Cad]

Originally Posted by Makata

I'm guessing you play a shaman then. Perfectly fair for your team to have fort, ai, and wtfever but screw alliance! It's completely and totally fair that you can purge away 3200+ mana in buffs for what, like 200? Or remove the myriad of activated abilities some classes rely on for pvp? Or hell, you could even effectively deal 1k damage by dispelling the shield. Clearly, a fair and balanced and not annoying ability. My mistake.

Problem with shamans is that outside of lucky wf procs with big weapons, they don't really do anything amazing. Mainly they control you. Snare you, interrupt you, take away your clicky abilities, absorb your spell.. etc.. while doing middle of the road dps and healing. If you take away their weapon buffs, they're useless solo. If you take away their shocks, they're useless in pvp. If you take away purge, they'd never beat a priest or paladin or druid ever again. Shamans are currently a bit too powerful perhaps, but you have to be careful what you do because they will become shieldless paladins if you go nuts taking things away.

[Zehn - Vhex]

We'll trade you purge for unkillable healers.

Thanks.

[Silv]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

We'll trade you purge for unkillable healers.

Thanks.

QFT.

And the 1K of HP you claim is I imagine from dispelling PW:S? I don't know about you, but as a priest if I see that glowy yellow thing it's as good as gone.

[Makata]

Originally Posted by Cad

Problem with shamans ... they don't really do anything

If I design a hypothetical class (no, this is not meant to be shamans. Actually is hypothetical) that has no abilities at all, save one .. a 100 yard unresistable instant cast death touch. 5 minute cooldown. The class would completely blow and no one would want to play it. But the ability would still be stupid and overpowered. Shamans are not wtfpwn as a class but they do have a couple wtfpwn abilities. Purge is one of them. The fact that outside of these abilities they are weak is not an adequate justification for their existance. The solution is a better, more balanced, more defined class that isn't just 3-5 spells spammed whenever possible. And btw this also applies to kidney + cheap shot + gouge, as well as aimed + multi, as well as pom + pyro + coc + fireblast .. etc.

The only "fair" part about this is that most classes possess abilities that ARE wtfpwn and so when (almost) everyone has the power of jesus, pvp balance overall vaccuuously exists. When I was on rogue I'd have the power of the ambush + backstab jib, then die shortly later to a hunter i couldn't do ANYTHING to. On the priest I'd generally wtfpwn any ranged based player if they didn't see me first but die shortly later to a rogue I couldn't do ANYTHING to. Now on my hunter I'm wtfpwn'ing anything that isn't plate and mail like it's my job but can still get my ass handed to me against high frontloading classes if they spot me first.

Rock paper scissors pvp sucks.

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

We'll trade you purge for unkillable healers.

Thanks.

OMG you ain't a kidding either. Up to this point I was always alliance side and never even noticed. And not like any paladin heals in AV anyway. But now horde side .. I want to kill a puppy every time my aimed / multi killing blow pops up as "Immune" followed by a full heal and "omgz consecrate i r dps class keke"

[elrich]

With gear inflation as well, a good paladin is really starting to have an unstoppable role in pvp (they were always amazing though), but with the armor/hp/mana/manaregen they have when decked in purples, their entire team becomes an unstoppable force.

Shamans really have just become an annoyance, thats about it.