Battleground Bitchin' and Fixin'

Okay, I'll try not to bitch too much. Well, no, that's no gonna happen, so get your QQ tissues out. There's been some discussion about Battlegrounds on the official Blizzard WoW forums. I'll cheat and just link the post on WoW Insider today. Plenty of interesting thoughts on BGs there as well. The problems boil down to several issue: AFK honor farming, people who just jump in to get marks and don't really try, Pre-mades both winning and losing types, etc. To make matters worse, Blizzard doesn't seem particularly interested in changing the existing Battlegrounds.

But why not? In some cases, some simple changes would make the difference. Regardless of what some people want, this is a game and participation is required. I hate the term "welfare epics" for BG purples because many people fight thier asses off for them. We like Battlegrounds. It's fun. Or rather, it should be. And I think the people that are participating and having fun in the BGs are the people Blizzard should listen to and, yes, cater to. Everyone else should get a "tough s@#$!" As it is, we're the ones that get the "tough s@#$." That ain't right.

How to Make BGs Fun

There's lots of ways. Here's a few that would be fast, and very strong, improvements.

First, ellimininate pre-mades. Yah, I said it. Get rid of 'em. No pre-mades allowed. Que assignment should be completely random. PuG BGs can be fun, but not if every single one of them is complete wipe over and over again. It's pretty simple... It's NOT A GAME if both sides don't have a relatively equal opportunity to win. Read some game theory. If the activity is so over balanced to favor one side, it's NOT a game. Period. So get rid of pre-mades is step one.

Oh, butyou say, Friday you ignorant twit, YOU have just as much of an opportunity to make a pre-made as anyone else. Yup, I do. And if it's already determined that'll I'll be going up against another pre-made, you have a point. But WoW's que system isn't set up that way. It's set up to throw random people together, with a cludge thrown in to allow an exception. That's piss poor design and planning. So you're gonna allow pre-mades. Great. Equalize it. You should be able to choose to EITHER play in the open BGs, OR play in a pre-made BG. Very simple solution. We call the latter Arenas these days, but it could very easily be done for the existing BGs.

I like fighting in a pre-mades as much as anyone. But having been on both ends, I can honestly say that fighting on a pre-made is not even remotely fair for the PuG on the other side. I WANT to fight on a pre-made against other pre-mades. The battle should be about who plans and executes better. Who fights better. If both sides are pre-mades, it becomes an excellent fight. Pre-made vs. PuG is rediculous. And it's not a game. It's no fun nor is it challenging. It's just a job.

The solution is laughably simple. If you click on Join As Group you go into a different que than if you click Join Battle. Solo's all go into one que, Groups go into a different que. Done. Next...

The Great AV Nerf

Blizzard got tired of AV, couldn't make work, so they nerfed the hell out of it. As much as I love fighting AV sometimes, it's still rediculous. Both sides rush and first one to kill the other's boss wins. Woopee. Occasionally one side will turtle (or get forced into a turtle) and a grindfest occurs. Those are slightly more exciting, but not really about tactics and strategy. On the very rare occasion, one side's defense will actually recall, or back cap their own towers, and it turns into a more interesting fight. So why not piss more people off and make it right. Just set the towers to cap-over-time sliders. Control and fight for the towers to win or you aren't getting Drek or Van down and you lose. Mayhem ensues and it's a real battle. Done.

Balancing Act

This last one has probably been tested, but the reason it didn't make it was because que times would be too long. It's basically a balancing system to insure that like geared and/or skilled players are thrown together. Technologically it's not that tough to pull off (see also, Battlenet) so why isn't it done? Que times would get too long. I don't care. I'd rather wait for a good BG than play 5 bad ones in a row because one side is out geared or up against an experienced pre-made. Winning that way isn't any fun, and losing is even worse. (And if you're one of those people that DOES enjoy "winning" that way, you have no business playing ANY game. You're a sociopath and you need counciling.) I bet there's a pretty strong majority out there that feels the same. Put in a proper match-making system. Done.

Carrot On A Stick

Finally, to make all this work, you have to make it worthwhile. Reinstate titles. Not on the old system, but something that rewards players for actually playing. There's myriad of forumlas that would accomplish this and Bliz has already demonstrated that they can do it. So do it for BGs as well.

Also, SEPERATE battleground rewards that are as good as the previous season's arena AND special gear for the truely accomplished BG players. Different levels of gear would be required.
Why was S1 gear dropped, for example? Why not keep it in there. S2 gear should just be more difficult to get (or S1 gear made easier, whichever works best). There should be a relatively easy set of PvP gear to get. (Not the faction rep grind for the current stuff in BC. PVP gear.) And it should definately not LOOK like Arena gear. That's not right for Arena players OR BG players.

BG combatants that really play and apply themselves deserve something different from PvE or Arena gear. They deserve to have (very difficult to earn) titles. If you're going to do BGs properly, then there has to be a substatial reward for excelling in them. Done.

There's plenty of others, but I think these set things on the right track. Yeah, I've read the counter arguments a bazillion time. None are convincing, not even Blizzard's. And the majority of complaints and QQ come from the minority, though volcal, honor/mark farming dummies. BGs should not be a grind to get cheap honor and Blizzard CAN fix it so. Period. Done.

-Fri

Arms Warrior Alpha Love

Oh and those other warriors get some love too. :) The information here is based on what's been released from WWI and the scant alpha information available. No, I'm not on the alpha or the beta and don't know anyone at Blizzard. So this all very much probably going to change. Actually, I can almost guarantee it will. Still, it's fun.

One of the QQs on the official Warrior forums was that "this is all alpha, it'll change, so quite griping about it" kinda of crap. Even some Blizzard Blues came out in support of this, with the (granted somewhat rational) explanation that they don't want to make game design decisions based on such an early build of the game. But... there's a reason WHY we have alpha tests, beta tests, and forums to discuss changes BEFORE they happen. So I say, yeah, get in there and discuss these and the other changes to the Warrior class. Only by talking about it now are we gonna have a voice in what we actually get.

WoWHead put up a Level 80 talent calculator with the information they gathered playing the Alpha from WWI and that's what I used to mess around. Try it. You can even spec out a Death Knight. :) Honestly, not knowing how these new abilities will play out, I had more fun using the level 80 calculator to beef up existing Arms specs. Yah, Improved Mortal Strike AND Flurry in the same build. Yummy!

But to Arms... Someone else will give a much better run down of all the changes than I can, so I'm just gonna hit the big ones.

Arms Goodness

Sudden Death - Every time you crit you get a (up to) 30% chance to activate Execute regardless of the target's health state. Now think about that. If you're generating massive amounts of rage and this thing procs... the damage swing would be massive! I don't see this one getting through to release, but keep your fingers crossed. Bye bye over powered clothies. Sundering down a Priest or Lock just got a lot easier. (I mean, c'mon... they should have a chance to escape, granted, but having to follow them around for 2 or 3 minutes to wail off thier mana??? If you've got 'em dead to rights, they should be... well, dead.)

Bull Rush - Increases the stun effect of Charge and Intercept up to 1 second. Like it. Would love more. It's deep tree, so you'll probably have to take it to get to the other good stuff. We've see worse have-to-takes.

Unrelenting Assault - Reduces the cooldown of Overpower and Revenge by as much as 3 seconds. Wowee! :) Having Overpower up that much quicker will be more a convenience, but a nice one. If it works well, might even see the Prot/Arms warrior coming more into play.

Strength of Arms - Trainable up to Rank 5, it increases your Strength and Health by 1-5%. Deep tree so you have to take it before Bladestorm. Again, not bad at all for a have-to-take. Stuff like this will largely depend on the caps needed to take down raid level bosses and max utility in arenas and stuff like that. But for the average Arms warrior, this looks pretty good.

Bladestorm - Better than expected. :) It sets off a Whirlwind every second for 4.5 seconds (so 4 Whirlwinds, I would assume). You can move, but you can't do anything else for the 4.5 seconds. Who cares right? You're firing off four freakin' back-to-back Whirlwinds!!! You're also immune to all fear and movement-reduction effects and the attack can't be stopped unless you die. I like it. A lot! Is it something that's going to be required? Not as is. I don't think PvP warriors are going to take it. PvP is too situational and moves a lot faster for this to be overly effective (your opponent will probably see it coming and just move out of the way. heh.) For PvE it might be more useful. Having the tank hold the bad guy's arms while you stand behind the boss and set this off could be pretty effective. Really, just sounds kinda fun to me. :D

Fury of Love!

Furious Resolve and Improved Berserker Stance - No threat dump alas, but these are a little better. Each reduces threat and increases Stamina and Attack Power (respectively). Very nice.

Titan's Grip - Deep tree talent that allows you to dual wield two-handers. :) The trade off is a 28% reduction in speed. I seriously doubt that will have much impact. Definitely an ability that will require a lot of testing. Theory? Could be the extra little bit Fury warriors need.

Heroic Leap - Jump in the air, slam the ground and cause 50% weapons damage and stun the crap of anyone in front of you, up to 5 yards. Ouchie! Good one. I'll spec fury for awhile just to do this. Should be in Arms though, just because I said so.

Protection Love

Sword & Board - Awesome. Basically it gives a percent chance, depending on level, to automatically refresh your Shield Slam AND give you a free one immediately. As in zero rage cost. Bad ass. More threat, more damage for the Prot Warrior.

Shockwave - Could potentially be awesome. Does damage based on AP, and stuns everything in front of the tank for 4 seconds. Nice and nice. And generates a huge amount of threat. Not exactly the AoE threat grabber tanks were hoping for, but could be good. A little extra minor benny is that it will be a nice AoE stun for P-Tanks in PvP.

Obviously, I didn't hit everything new here, or removed, or moved. Still very alpha and plenty of time to see what makes the cut, what doesn't, and how it'll all fit together. But we might as well start yappin' about it. :)

Now... I can has beta?

-Fri