As a vanilla player who began their journey in Azeroth back in January 2004, my involvement in PvP has been very little to none due to how unappealing it has been at the entry level. People queuing up for a "get farmed" simulator doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Before people start crying "skill issue," I would like to state the issue is more nuanced than that. Plunderstorm was a nice middle ground the development team found, but sadly it was more side-loaded instead of being part of your characters' progression. The gearing system needs to be looked at again with an emphasis on who you queue up with in battlegrounds and such. People want to play with others who are close enough to equal in skill. The game needs to work on it's matchmaking systems better.

Couldnt believe my eyes when i saw u had 19 subscribers.. the video quality is on par with the all the big wow channels

The existence of rogues singlehandedly makes pvp unappealing.

as a semi-new player that mostly fixates on pve content - i 99% of the time do not know whats going on whenever i do try to pvp and it's overall extremely off-putting, heres why: - lack of visual clarity - not just ground clutter from AoE spells, 6 rows of buffs/debuffs, but also for example casting animations which are sometimes the same for multiple spells. it's alot easier to read an ability by its animation rather than reading cast bars to determine on whether or not its worth using an interrupt - severe button bloat - i get it complexity = higher skill ceiling, but it also massively increases the skill floor, which makes it all the more daunting to inexperienced players. it feels alot like playing league for the first time (getting absolutely pissobliterated in your first 100 games), but worse because the amount of info to take in at once is much larger and it feels borderline impossible to even guess your opponents next move unless you grew up on wow pvp. - other games simply offer a more enjoyable pvp experience (both casual and competitive), people play mmos for different reasons and a lot of players just choose to pvp on different games. - lack of a proper tutorial/practice tool vs. AI no idea what needs to be changed about pvp as i'm clearly too inexperienced, i just wanted to give my 2 cents to the topic.

Wow! I never believed my video would get over 1k views, holy crap its crazy. Thank you so much for everyone who watched!

going around the world collecting mogs, doing mythic dungeons and just over all having a good time alone or with your friends seems more appealing than having to deal with class balance and engage in a stupidly toxic environment, like i get people who like pvp as they like being competitive and all that but it is simply not my cup of tea

I think the GW2 PvP "Gearing" is the best I've encountered. Your armor is purely cosmetic in PvP and you select between accessories (neck, rings, etc) with different stat loadouts to make your "build" in tandem with your spec. This way, everyone is at effectively the same item level, and it's easier to access since you just equip a accessories to get your stat allocations. It also scales everyone to the same level while allowing you to gain xp towards the PvE side, but I know wow has a pretty active community who like lower level BGs, so I'm not sure that would work here...

The only way I would play pvp would be if they removed addons and made the ui standard, something like how plunderstorm was. Addons have no place in a competitive game I don't care how accustomed players have gotten to them. Blizz could certainly make any addon they think is nessesary built into the game.

I don't have the time, will, or desire to do pvp, in wow or anything else

Shields, great video dude

Subscribed! Great video! Hope to see more from ya! Also how do I steal your nameplate addon profile? lol

The problem with CC isn't what's conventionally meant when referring to 'CC'. The 6s CCs aren't the problem any more, it's the micro CC. AoE stuns, into AoE blinds, into AoE knockbacks, into AoE grips, into AoE silences into AoE fears. It's the constant interruption of the flow of game your gameplay that is frustrating. Getting caught in a Polymorph has obvious counterplay; LoS or interrupt the mage, and once it's over it's over. With micro CC it's pressure > 3s of stun thinking "once I'm out I can carry on playing" > get out, only to be stunned again for 1.5s again. This design stems from the way M+ is designed to be played, large pulls with lots to interrupt, so short duration AoE CCs exist to deal with that. That has bled over into PvP

I've played wow since 2004. Always played on a PVP server. Back then I've played arena, bgs and world pvp. Now I'm 20 years older and don't have the nerves for it anymore and am happy they swapped to the war mode model.

PVE: Satisfaction when managing to kill a boss with many difficult mechanics to master, satisfaction in completing a high mithyc key and increasing your raider io score, a gigantic world to explore new maps, mechanics, interesting and fun missions. PVP: Stress about not being able to win a battleground because you only fall into bad groups.

This was a great video honestly. Good work.

The major thing they can do is make the ui actually show you what it happening to your character and what the enemy is doing. Omnibar looks like heiroglyphics to most people. They could easily create a tutorial mode, where you start in a 1v1 with your class vs another bot, they start doing things slowly and explaining what their major cooldowns do and how to look out for it and counter it.

my answers: I dont Like Arena I will never like Arena Defensives are too strong because Damage output is crazy Most of the BGs are not only not good they are very bad Neverminding that people already take WoW too seriously in PvE, I've played PvP Games and Game Modes, I know how Sweaty people get I dont need that in my life especially when getting someone who is probably drooling on their keyboard through this content in your party is always statistically probable.

I think the cross faction idea is good for breaking up large pre-mades. I'd also not start a BG the moment it got filled. I'd have it start only at the start of every minute or two (in worst case at every 5 min mark) so that as many instances as possible kick off at the same time so groups cannot co-ordinate based on the time the queue pops. To prevent synching. Coupled with cross faction I think that would go a long way towards stopping large premades in the randoms pool.

Here's my 2 cents on the CC Problem: I don't think CC should be removed not the amount off CC abilities should be reduced. Instead the amount of TYPES of CC should be reduced. There are Charm, Daze, Fear, Root, Sleep, Slow, Snare, Incapacitate, Disorient and Stun and even Silence and they all have their own Diminishing Return. That makes in WAY too complicated in my opinion. Also there is no way in the game (without Addons) to even know how much DR there is or what ability shares it with which... Like, how am i supposed to know that Sheep and Sap share a DR but Sap and Blind don't? In my opinion they should just get rid of most types of DR for CCs, like have one for CC that gets interupted when you take damage, one for CC that doesnt and just them just all shared them. There would still be a lot of CC but people wouldn't sit in CC for 2 minutes without being able to play and also don't have to sit through 2 hours of research before you know what CC you should uses when playing with another class. BTW I do love PvP eventhough i'm not that good at it, my highest rating ever was 1,9k.

I've been trying to get into Solo Shuffles as a healer main from PvE. People are absolutely, really disgustingly toxic and go out of their way to bash and insult the healer while they don't even know what "peel" means. I'm new to pvp and bad, but going 1-5, learning nothing, gaining nothing but insults just makes me stop time after another

43 subscribers only? Bro, you got yourself another one. Keep them great videos coming!

Hi, subscriber#86 here, you made quite a good quality video, there. I liked it. I am a pve-er, and from what my single pvp-friend told me, you seemed to have nailed all he has been complaining about (pvp). I hope your channel grows if it is what you want. Cheers.

wow, idk how you have so few subscribers but i feel like i'm getting in on the ground floor of a really good channel.

My issues in most versions is toxic sweats, who harass the group for doing poorly in an unrated BG, and in some versions such as vanilla people get harassed for getting too much honor.

this vid is so fucing good considering u have like 60 subs, crazy high quality

Great video with a lot of good information. I really like how you did your research and put it in one video for us to see. Thank you! I've been playing since BC, and I've never liked PVP because I've always felt like my skill level and knowledge is so far below others playing that I always catch the ded. XD I know that practice is involved, but when all you do is get the ded, it's not fun at all.

There’s also really just nothing you get from pvp except the gladiator mount which is basically impossible for a casual to get

definitely pile on the rewards to healers. Make them amazing. Let the unga bunga dps be mad about it. infact, give them a majestic flying mount that has live post from the forums of dps complaining about it.

Short answer is I'm too old 😅 I used to love playing death match or team death games, way back from Doom, Quake 2 and 3, Half Life and a little known mod for Half Life called Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament, but as time has passed on, my reflexes are not what they used to be, and the appeal of PvP in any game including WoW has kind of fizzled out for me. Nowadays, I play WoW to chill and relax. Good video 👍

I really don't think there's a way to incentivize people to participate in PvP without massively simplifying the classes, which inevitably separates classes into the haves and have-nots, and any sort of cosmetic reward is only going to end up making the people participating in an effort to get it view PvP less as something fun to partake of and more as merely an obstacle between them and what they actually want. On top of that the mode itself -- in truth, ALL PvP -- incentivizes getting under people's skin to make them frustrated so they'll misplay. This is the case whatever the meta may be, and itself pushes people away from engaging with it as a whole. Just look at what happened to realm balance after the Honor system hit Classic without BGs, mountains of players displaced from their realms of their own will because the game became a farming sim and they were the crops.

Great video! I really want to pvp but it’s to complex I enjoy m+ more because I just hop in and learn

Not every play style is for every player. Love what you love, but learn to love it without marginalizing or trashing other play styles. This is the divide that gamers cannot learn to overcome.

I totally agree on the gearing. I don't know anyone that enjoys losing 15-20 area queues in a row just to earn enough Honor to get a couple gear pieces that don't help you for the next 15-20 queues that you're also going to lose. There isn't another game mode in WOW where you start in a hard difficultly mode and just have to lose over and over before you can get the gear needed to not get nearly one-shot. There's nowhere to learn how to PVP in a lower-stake environment with a shorter queue time.

Great ideas!

I played PvP alot back in MoP, as a young teen. I found enjoyment in winning against other players... Just as I found extreme anger, hatred and anguish whenever I lost. As I got older, I realized the highs weren't worth the lows. That's my reason to not touch it anymore. Has nothing to do with the game itself.

For me PvP has always felt like the after thought side of WoW. It's all fine and dandy the way the game is designed as a PvE, but since it has to share all the same design space throwing those aspects into PvP make it a hot mess. Gearing is just something that should never be in PvP, or any other type of system that allows those that play longer to have more advantage. It grossly undermines the skill execution of competing when the other guy simply wins because bigger number. Secondly i think they just need to separate pvp entirely from pve and it have it's own unique abilities keeping the essence of playing said class/ spec. Nothing annoys me more then getting nerfed in pve because in pvp whatever it is is causing massive issues. Pretty sure its annoying in vice versa, and creates a big headache trying to keep the two in check.

I agree with everything you said' great ideas! would def get back into pvp if these changes were implemented

As a PvE person who dabbles in PvP when leveling alts, Plunderstorm was an absolute blast. It felt a little weird at first but the constant progression, Especially with the main Rep boost per match being PvE based, it ended up being a lot of fun. FOMO definitely played a factor in how much I did plunderstorm, mainly grinding until the very end to get the rewards, but by the end I was having a blast. And especially as the hours ticked down, I already had my rewards but people were grinding all the way to the last match and so I stayed and it was honestly the most MMO WoW PvP has felt since WotLK.

As somebody who only PvE'd until 2 weeks ago. The main things that ruin PvP for me are: -Getting full conquest gear is not fun. -Healers make the entire experience not fun -Some specs are just brain dead easy but they dominate (MM Hunter/Ret Paladin)

Thing i find slightly infuriating is why the hell is war mode giving more rewards for same stuff when you almost never see another soul in world

I started playing in Cata, got into PvP the first time in MoP and liked it so much, I grinded up to the RBG Mount and 2k rating. Didn't touch pvp since then, but nowadays I don't even wanna start because every class just has some crazy defensives and massive selfheal, its just not fun anymore. Its not even fun to watch 2 dps 1v1 each other for a whole minute because they can heal up every time.

Most WoW players are casuals(WoW is the most casual mmo ever made so it makes sense).... So most people get smashed in pvp, won't take the time to learn it's complexity and required keybinds, also PvP takes 100x more skill than fighting scripted bots so most people will never be good enough to get a decent rank. It's really simple to understand.

Great video. Well put together and some very good points. New sub here and hopefully many, many more to follow. For me, as a Vanilla player, I've never enjoyed PvP realms (when they existed) and always felt the gear gap (due to lack of resilience gear), but there was a time when I had a lot of fun doing casual PvP, right up until and including WotLK. I think back in '08/'09, we still had a massive influx of new players (wrath babies, as we called them back then), so there was a steady influx of new players, willing to try new things and it kept the overall player skill level relatively low compared to today. Less buttons, less spell effects, etc.. It just felt that the barrier of entry was a lot lower to get into and enjoy PvP. Now we don't even have PvP realms, so there are far fewer players that even experience world PvP anymore and are even further removed from that side of the game. Your MMR idea is a good one. Blizz have said that they are trying to make as much as possible be account wide, so why not ratings? (for the most part). When I asked a friend about PvP, he said, why should I play WoW PvP when there are other games that are better at PvP than WoW? I totally endorse your idea of removing WoW PvP gear. I would reward cosmetics and titles instead. I feel that PvP is also a mindset that is stuck in WoWs past. It's a grind. You have to play to win, over and over and over to progress. I could turn up to a raid and clear mythic in a day (with a big carry), and certainly heroic and still get AotC. PvP requires a far bigger time investment and not one I really have time for. What might be good is to hear reasons for why I should want to play WoW PvP. What is it that should excite me?

One of my biggest problems with WoW's PvP, as a collector, is how prevalent FOMO is with the seasonal rewards. I find it extremely de-motivating considering all of these other problems listed in the video as well (that I also agree with, as someone who's been playing since 2006). Every class has an Elite set that goes away, there's the capes, the really cool weapon enchants, and of course the generally unobtainable gladiator mount. That is A LOT of really cool artwork just going away forever, every single season. I wish that those seasonal rewards were handled more like how the Vicious PvP mounts are -- where they become obtainable again after the season, but only if you get the current seasonal rewards first and progress the bar or ladder again. That wouldn't make them any easier to get or less coveted than before - if anything it might motivate people to actually try and get a reward they REALLY wanted in the past, but maybe didn't have the time to get it for X, Y, or Z reasons, even if it's ultimately still just as hard to get those rewards, if not harder. I do, however, think titles and achievements should be excluded from this - because I think having that kind of prestigious reward remain unobtainable is fine and a good way to differentiate people who where there at the time vs. those who weren't. As a side note, I also wish the WoW devs would handle PvE rewards like the M+ mounts in the same way too. But again, not the titles nor the achievements themselves. I have always hated seeing how disappointed new players get whenever I tell them that they can't get a cool reward anymore. The vast majority of games do not do this, and some big budget games like Halo are even moving away from this unobtainable FOMO model. If something cool exists, then I think any player should be able to aspire towards it -- even if it's something really hard to get (like a gladiator mount) and may even take them years to obtain. It creates more goals and more evergreen rewards for the game.

As a ww monk, I'm immediately cc'ed at the start and usually it's maintained against me through the whole match, most of my things involve being as agile as possible. Also I'm always matched against players with 1 million+ health while I have 300k early in the expansion, so I just give up. Even when I approach 1 mil myself I queue up and now my opponents have 1.5 mil and hit me for 300k+ easily. Then it takes forever to gear up since I don't win to even come close to others.

I wonder for the "CC Problem" if a stat similar to Tenacity from League (% reduced duration of CC) would work in WoW... I'm not sure if it would but it's nice to think about

Rewards are the big reason I don't get into pvp more (I do a bit, but get frustrated trying to climb). In PvE you can generally make a lot of progress on your seasonal goals just by grinding up the gear to make things easier. Also weaker players can be carried by stronger players easily in PvE. In PvP all of your opponents are gearing up at the same rate you are (or if you are casual at pvp they are gearing up even faster than you), so rewards don't really ever get easier to obtain. It's demoralizing to play a bunch and go nowhere. In PvE if you play a bunch you pretty much always will be unlocking more and better stuff. Cutting Edge is about the only thing in PvE that you actually have to be great at the game to obtain. In PvP almost all rewards are locked behind getting to a very high skill level in that specific mode. You can't be mediocre/bad at the game and get anywhere in PvP, which makes it hard to get new players interested since a new player to the mode will always be starting off at a low skill level.

This is a great video. I've been playing Wow for 17 years with the same group of IRL friends and I always find it strange that from all the 8 of us, NOBODY ever liked PvP.

I find killing bosses in dungeons and raids, getting mogs and RP more appealing than going against other players. I can do just fine without Mythic Raiding and PVP

I've been addicted to arena since it was introduced in BC. I think the best thing you could do is just let them buy gear from beginning. Full stop, or normalize gear. Similar to Legion. Once you enter pvp combat gear will scale to a specific level that is set. Buying the gear out right lets you start out fully geared with the only barrier to entry is gold. Even bringing back random gear drops from arena/bg wins similar to dungeon loot.

As someone who plays a LOT of PvP (mostly the rated Arena versions, all of them) and has gotten the last few Gladiator and Legend titles, I can agree to most of your viewpoints. I have been saying similar things on the forums, however the PvE aspect of the game is cannibalizing the potential of PvP. I have went through helping a lot of players earn ratings for the first time for free by simply capping my characters in LFG and have given people advice. The core issues are: 1. Lack of implemented UI things. The game itself needs to implement the basic addons that 99% of competitive PvP players use. These should all be settings in your game. 2. Spell pruning, as well as making it simpler to win again. Currently, most classes have at least 10 different ways to make your life miserable in terms of denying you from playing (micro CC, instant healing, multiple defensives). People enjoyed older versions of the game because there was a clear path to checkmating your opponent. The enemy made 3-4 mistakes, wasted 2-3 spells, well now you get to win. That's how it should be. 3. Reaching a rank or rating should provide you with drop protection. Most games have this. In Hearthstone, you reach Diamond 5 for example, even if you lose the next 20 games, you're still Diamond 5, because you earned it and maybe now you're experimenting with things. 4.WoW is a time spent based game. This means each player wants a clear road to rewards and achievements. PvP needs to have more rewards to incentivize people to play, with a better progression structure. It also needs to have tutorials on basic things INGAME, such as teaching each player before they're even max level what a Diminishing Return is. That's basically it. The reality is, if you have somebody who can get you into it and is good, teaches you the steps, then all you need to do is keep playing. PvP is mostly very fun once you know what you should be doing, but most people don't. I have many friends who I have taught what to do, they improved and now they're enjoying the game because they're winning, and all they did after learning these things was 1 single thing: Playing the game. A lot.

Back in Wrath, I rolled a frost mage and mut rogue and had to learn every single class and their specs in order to do decent pvp. Then classes changed in Cata. I had to learn everything all over again. Nope, not happening.

I play this game on and off since mop. I never got in to pvp. The Intro experience is just turbo bad. I recently played a bit of ff14 and while im bad at pvp in that game as well there are several things which make it more enjoyable. In FF14 you have: - Simpliefied Skills in pvp - Everyone has the same stats - you get a text tutorial (in game) about how to play a "battleground" before you queue for it - my favorite battleground has mechs which you can pilot around. They are powerful enough to give the ability to impact the game, while you only push 3-4 buttons. - there are side objectives like gathering resources which you can do if you are not skilled enough to join the big battle in the center of the map. (And you still end up in pvp situations if people want to stop you) - There are nice rewards for doing your daily pvp match, which means that you always find players. And because there are more noobs queuing, you don't get farmed that hard. I was playing temple of Kot Mogu (sry don't know how its spelled) recently. I waited for over half an our. I had no idea what to do. (I know you have to hold the orbs and thats it) I tried protecting our orb carrier but i did almost zero damage to anyone. People ignored me until they didn't and then i exploded without being able to do anything (and if i could have done anything it wasn't obvious. Then i respawned and was able to get an orb, which i immediatly lost because i exploded again. Then i respawned and i stuck to being anoying. I used cc to "shut down" people which were getting attacked by other players. It worked ok. Then we died and we couldn't even respawn because they sat at our graveyard. I then had to wait until the game was over. Im sad to say that i didn't queue again. Oh and the worst part is that low level pvp is completely dead. And when it was still active, you got one shot by people who build over powered twinks. It is beyond me why we don't have a better low level pvp experience. This is the time when everyone has few buttons and when we can focus on the basics and the battle ground. Its also wild to me that you force a new player to play pve for however long it takes them to level to level cap (20-60) and then hope that they will try pvp where they will get obliterated. Wow pvp feels like playing beat em ups or shooters against people who won't go easy on you while not understanding how to play. Something else: I find it fascinating, that healing is so unpopular in pvp. Because in League of Legends support is one of the most popular roles. Its relatively easy because you are not the fist person to get targeted and you don't have to carry the game. And you have powerful abilities like CC which give you agency in most fights. I also wonder how pvper would feel if specs like shadow priest, shaman, paladin and druid would get more healing added, so that 2 of those could be substituted for a healer.

please explain to me why do i have to put 8 hots as a resto druid having the exact same function? why not have 1 hot, 1 instant heal, 1 casted heal and 1 CC, and 1 ultimate, all with a cooldown. Make arena tighter spaces with more pillars and mazes, and put abilites as skill shots.

I can't believe this wasn't addressed as a major issue. WAY too many open world pvp'ers are giant, festering, A-holes. When I started playing WoW I just assumed that Horde v Alliance was going to be a thing. After a day or so of being camped, spit on, shit on, laughed at (by people usually many levels above me) I decided I was done with pvp. The only time I have gone back was to get a reward I particularly liked. Obviously not all pvp players suck as human beings, but there are more than enough to make it unappealing to me.

I’m of the minority here, in that I’m a new Wow player getting into end game and pvp. I totally get all of the points here, albeit am excited to get into pvp and learn all that I can. Thanks

You made a better summary video of the issues than acual pros like Xaryu.

As for the gearing system (or lack of it) I agree that if Blizzard were to make it not matter in PvP it would overall improve it for a lot of players. Guild Wars series is famous for its instanced PvP focus which is still the best in the ganre. Part of the reason why it is this good is because you can instantly make a good PvP character on a fresh account. It's more complex than that because you still need to make some choices about your gear (stats priority) but you don't have to farm it. I always wanted this to be in WoW, but the issue is that if we remove gear from PvP then what will be the point of doing it? Part of the reason I run PvP games is to gear up my characters faster.

The hard barrier to entry is what gets me. I would love to do some PVP, but I can't dedicate all my time to PVP, so I might as well not try.

There is too much CC, maybe it could share diminishing returns so 3 stacks for all CC? I also find the balance so odd that usually the easiest classes to play are the most OP one. I personally did play a Ret Pala in solo shuffle for this reason - I was lazy ;)

i played so much pvp when gear was equalized. jumping in with a numerical disadvantage and having to just be worse for two to three weeks to catch up to near equal footing. that said i never liked arena. i enjoy battlegrounds and warmode

I do agree the complexity of stuff has gotten to an insane degree even as someone who consistently hits 2400 and has since as early as cata, the problem isn't general button bloat its defensive and utility bloat. When you look at classes at a base line a majority of them are fairly simple if you look at the spells that actually need to be pressed to do damage/heal, the problem comes in when you add in everyone needing 3-4 defensives 2-3 cc abilities 2-3 buttons for team utility. What actually caused this button bloat some might ask but it has been talked about for a while now and the biggest culprit of both button, cc, and defensive bloat has been M+. Even if people don't want to admit it blizzard heavily balanced classes around M+ much more so then pvp and raid. M+ heavily requires you to have a revolving door of defensives, they keep adding more and more mobs that need cc/interrupted, and blizzards idea to get every class viable was to give them all extremely niche but broken utility. I also feel like the competitive nature of playing games also contributes heavily to peoples lack of giving pvp a try which sounds backwards but let me explain. Even if a player has zero chance at ever becoming rank 1 if the game doesn't give them the illusion that its possible they wont even try. League of legends I think provides the best carrot on a stick for players, at face value the game is extremely simple you have 6 buttons and movement but when you get to the complexity of high end mechanics the skill ceiling goes to the moon. Wow and most mmorpgs are the opposite alot of the learning is front loaded and then still has those extremely high skill ceilings that for alot of us long time pvp players enjoy and play the game for. The people who do try and learn pvp in wow are the met with a dilemma invest 200 hours just to even start playing and then still be bad or go play something much more simple to get into that still has the skill ceiling to allow for skill progression. When I tell people I want the game simplified, I don't mean wanting to have 5-8 buttons. What I mean is I want classes to have their identities back. Balancing the game around M+ and thus needing to blur the lines between them so much that specs don't have an identity anymore. It was far easier to learn to pvp if you just needed to know a specs niche and not their entire Wikipedia utility page. Hunters used to be the squishy but extremely high burst/sustained damage based on the spec that relied on utility usage to supplement their lacking defensives, now that is no longer the case unless your at the top end of play. Melee used to be built around if they connect they do huge amounts of damage but they had to use their limited mobility smartly or they were prone to getting kited no longer the case. The list goes on, having to make every spec viable or at least having attempts to make them viable in pve has resulted in the excessive button bloat. Cc is not a problem, Its the type of cc that holds the power that is. Long duration interactive ccs were never a problem, people getting hit with a poly had ways to play around it. Have your dps stand on you and its bound to break, kick the cyclone, kick the fear etc. The problem is blizzard shifted the cc more towards micro ccs with short durations and short cooldowns to once again make more classes viable in M+. Why would you press poly in a dungeon if another class can cc an entire pack for 10 seconds straight while still doing damage, the answer is you wouldn't so blizzard moved large portions of cc into instants with no counterplay. What you talked about when it comes to cc is ignoring the problem and acting like cc is fine in its current state which is just not true. Longer form cc had ways to counter it because it was strong, but now so many classes have 10 different ways to cc you there is no point in using them so instead your left feeling like you cant play the game. Mr dh over there stunned you twice into a imprison then horrified you with a sigil and then your slept by the fist weaver then knocked with ring of peace then your snared behind a pillar all while your twiddling your thumbs. Ignoring the amount of ccs is why people kept saying that the cc reduction changes were going to do nothing but make the game more damage focused because it doesn't matter how long each cc is if you can throw 30 of them at a target your bound to get them stuck there for 20 seconds regardless.

I occadionally play some casual matches, but i've never set foot in rated pvp. Aside from the obvious skill issue that can only be partially filled by practice, i heard that many (not all) players are extremely aggressive towards even the smallest mistake, especially solo shuffle

Tbh great video. It covers my gripes with Wow's pvpv a lot. PvP requires you to gear second time. Instead of being a side source of gear it's it's own thing. I know classes, but pvp throw a wrench into it by adding pvp tallents which makes classes weird. I honestly with they would make something like FF14 did. Each class gets like 10 buttons and that's it.

Haven't played since cata but the biggest strike against PVP was the total lack of class balance. Certain classes will ALWAYS kill certain other classes unless the first player is wildly incompetent or afk. You literally have no chance against certain classes. That sucks and is frustrating. And it used to be only certain classes ever seemed to get pvp nerfs, other classes were r4pe trains in pvp every season.

During a previous expansion... Legion? They experimented with reducing the emphasis of gear in PvP. They made it just take your item level into account, at a much smaller rate than the actual ilvl. Item level mattered only a tenth as much as I recall? It didn't work. PvE players weren't super interested still, and many PvP players were turned away because they liked the fact that they could get geared up and stomp 'noobs' with their superior gear in random BGs. I was friends with some people like that, who quit over the change. Plus many people missed the feeling of 'becoming stronger.' Getting rid of gear in PvP would be healthy but I'm not sure it would actually help the population in the way you'd think.

All your solutions seem GENIUS. Gear shouldn't even matter in PvP also the fact that currently it is tied to MMR rating is counter productive. It just punishes players that are already undeargeared and cannot get higher MMR because of it, breaking any skill input about PvP. Maybe exclusive talent trees for PvE and PvP with their own spells so that PvE balance dosn't affect PvP balance would be good to try.

RBGs were the only form of pvp I used to like, but finding people is not fun at all, let’s see how blitz goes.

I used to pvp, my channel early vids have quite a few arena/bgs videos, i used to have all classes maxxed, with honor/conquest gear for multiple spects. then Legion hit and you couldnt do that anymore and the pvp pacing changed. Life happened, 40hrs/week job Not as much time to play the game. Other games came out that im interested in. I used to only play WoW. Now I raid and do very little, if at all, pvp. I think if pvp gear did not exist and if you would have stat presets, ex: more haste, mastery or crit presets that you would choose from it would make it more accessible. But idk even if i would participate anyways.

We had an ability pruning before and it killed the game. I'm completely against ability pruning. The large CC's are fine the problem is the massive amount of micro CC's and every class needing to be able to do everything. PvP was better when DK's were slow with little movement abilities but hit like trucks, the same as warriors, but mages and ranged didnt hit as hard but had a ton of kiting options. In TWW beta Dk's have 2 grips, abom limb, 2 charges on their root removing mount up. Thats 5 movement abilities on a class with tons of pets, tons of def abilities, that hit like a truck. The balance in PvP is what drives others away because it's based on PvE. PvP and PvE balance needs to be completely separate, do that and the number of people playing PvP will rise again

Best pvp wow has had was Plunderstorm and the dalaran sewers (IMO I know there was issues with both). I personally love battles that are free for all and not tied to others being the reason you win or lose, when it's pvp I don't want to have to treat it like I'm raiding and work with the team who realistically isn't going to work together even if you try in random battlegrounds. the rewards shouldnt be tied to always winning or something that is time gated for sweaty people who just farm the casuals and get all the rewards. I like the idea of there being rewards for higher tier pvp but when you lose and you get such lackluster rewards it feels like a slap in the face to anyone who is casual and simply want to have fun and earn some cool rewards that aren't just recolor after recolor. It's especially frustrating when you're someone that truly wants to try and earn something cool for once and be met with disappointment of constantly being matched with people who are outside your skill cap and losing and the season rolls over and you get nothing for it and the reward is very likely gone. Why not have some high tier rewards be unlocked when you reach a certain threshold and be available even after the seasons over once you meet that rating requirement, you choose what you want to get with a currency that has a max limit so you can't get all the rewards in one season before your rating resets and you need to get up again to get the new rewards they add each season. So people who are working for those rewards don't feel bad for missing out because there is a next time. It's not a fomo thing, its working till you can finally make it which is alot more satisfying. Great video! I really do think these issues need addressing. 😊

Pala is a good example for what is wrong with pvp nowadays i think. Bubble or better called "2nd life" was okay at the time when paladins were not as strong as they are today. Nowadays the ret pala has high dmg, high tankiness and good CC. The fact that bubble still functions as a free "all dmg negation while you can heal yourself up to full health" abillitie doesnt fit the overall power of the ret. The overall theme in regards to some classes are brawler,some are more like glasscanons etc is vanished over the years

pvp died for me when they added arena, it destroyed what pvp had in favor of trying to get into the esport arena for funding.

Interesting video. As PvE only player, who just dislikes the concept of PvP inherently (sore loser and even worse winner) I like seeing the perspectives of people who engage with game differently. One thing I gotta say thouhh is, Ilif they are gonna reward PvP more, it should be as an alternative path to the same rewards as PvE rather than unique season specific stuff. The amount of times I find something really cool in the game only to realize I will never be able to get (either timed exclusive, PvP only, or worst case both) is maddening. The only permanent stuff in this game is cosmetic, so Blizzard should stop making it inaccessible. It is really frustrating that only game with great large scale PvE constantly shows me "you can't have this cool looking transmog/mount"

Those are pretty much all the issues I have as well + queue times. I'm one to do the elite set when it's cool then never play again. The main one by a mile for me though is how many buttons there are. I already fill all my bars without even getting into the target 123 thing which I have for 1-2 abilities and it's game changing, can't imagine how much better it would be if I did it for all spells that required it but then it's 60+ key binds. MOBA's have 4 buttons and they own as a pvp arena type game. There's something great in simplicity, not that wow should have 4 abilities ofc, but the current amount is way too much. Even in PvE some classes are just too much... And until this changes, I'm not going to partake in the game mode unless an elite set makes me want to suffer enough. Which is rare.

In my opinion you are asking the wrong question(how to convert PVE player to PVP), why non wow players dont start play wow for PVP. I play PVE and i play as tank, can i play PVP as tank? .. NO. Do I want to be forced to play PVP to be able to progress PVE? ..NO ( reminder in BFA i had to farm the PVP essence to play M+, in shadowlands best in slot items like on use trinket was from PVP)

Why can’t blizz make a 2’s solo shuffle and not enforce needing a healer? Or even in normal 3’s shuffle, why does there HAVE to be healers?

I had some friends that are really good at pvp (in wow) but I lack the confidence to go all in on that, but would be fun ofc to master a class in pvp. My brain gets just tired of thinking about everything i need to master. So I just go for mounts and transmogs, and lore🎉

For me it's very simple, I prefer to cooperate with people in game, not compete. Yet I don't really mind open world PvP from Vanilla, this is why I prefer to play Turtle WoW atm.

You hit briefly on an easy simplification: remove all consumables from pvp. Instead they added pvp specific ones so there are MORE consumables to track in pvp.

PVP in a non action mmo like wow and ff14 just doesn’t click and if it doesn’t it’ll probably never will for most people, these games weren’t meant to be pvp to begin with so only some people can adapt to it

It's too hectic for me, all the jumping around and spinning midair, I don't know how to deal with that and feel like I'm always in the wrong position to get an ability of or even hit with auto attack. No fun for me

As a PvP main, I personally just don’t understand how learn pattern > beat pattern can be fun for an extended period of time. No skill expression, no outplay potential, just increasingly difficult safety dances for 20 years. To each their own though, of course

I agree that the gear system needs to change. I think it's okay to have gear as a reward with some PVE item level so you can do other activities in the game. However, it's nonsense in a pvp game mode and directly affects newcomers the most. Imagine playing any other genre, for example an FPS and the people with more skill also have weapons that baseline do more damage, etc. You'd quit in a second I think there should be an in game guide for key abilities, by class. Much like they do for raid bosses. Perhaps even ways to counter based on your current spec. I think this would be valuable to everyone. Cc has to stay but they should experiment with removing the 3rd level of DR and standardise what a Fear, Stun, Disorient etc is so it's easier to learn. MMR is also nonsense in that it literally make no sense from one season to the next. It's completely controlled by levers that blizz pull not based on entirely on skill level. Best example is that every season the peak rating in 2v2 is different to 3v3 and solo by hundreds sometimes close to a thousand rating it make no sense. The problem as well being that this awful system is tied to the current rewards. On rewards, I agree more participation rewards would be great and the entire focus from the team should be to get more people playing, it's better for everyone but most of all blizzard.

I'm a PvE player, but I once farmed the black war raptor back in Vanilla/Burning Crusade. And I only did it in Alterac because it was the most fun. Any other battleground was "whoever has the best equipment, wins". People in Raid Gear wiping the floor with you and your BRD gear. Also, I'm just not a competitive person. I don't like fighting against other people and prefer a co-op experience.

I was from a pvp server and got killed by horde a lot I bad at pvp but I do like BGs only

I like both but i dont have the time to go to the deep end, and the pvp maps are clearly fixed for Horde. It only has to be fixed for like one pixel, and they get the first flag point and win. Or it is easier to attack bunkers than towers in Alterac Valley right. Need new maps and they must be accurate, and the way to do it is to make it 2 rounds and swap he location, kinda like in Wintergrasp. In pve i dont like RNG loot at all, hoping this will chance now and we can get vendors.

I think its just a knowledge thing. There are too many things you have to learn that are different from PvE (all classes possible kits, along with actual pvp specific mechanics like healing reduction and which spells are different from pve to pvp) where in retail you really only gotta know the boss abilities, your abilities, and what you need to do to overcome them. There's also the conditional nature of classes on Retail (so many buffs to buff damage instead of just the spell itself doing damage) which is a subset of knowledge but without knowing all classes you literally won't know if a player is dangerous or not. Then, the cc thing is a big deal. Not just the long single one but the chains of them suck. I will never play a healer again in pvp as long as its like this. Look at LoL v WoW. LoL pvp works really well without long cc chains and is more exciting to watch. "Its fundamental to wow pvp" is a terrible argument because it really is one of the main reasons pvp feels bad, so it does have to go and evolve or pvp will never flourish again. Idk if its still this way, but the focus of arena is a huge problem. Again with the LoL example, the game would be fucking terrible as a one off death match. The focus of MMO pvp needs to be objective based. The appeal of MMOs are the other people, and objective based battles are more fun, easier to watch, and fit with pve (group play to defeat a boss). This way, the "balance" of combat does not have to be as tight because the goal of killing might not be useful in the moment. In general, I think pvp itself isnt the problem, but it magnifies everything wrong with retail wow. The visual and button clutter, dated and ancient mechanics, and reliance on third party tools to do well. Classes NEED less core buttons. Classes NEED their buttons to do the damage, not waiting on a buff or string of buffs to get there. Long term CC being so common is a death sentence. Its terrible to play against and watch. The pvp/pve split of mechanics need to also go: all of them. Buttons and mechanics need to do the same thing everywhere. Lastly, pvp needs to be objective based over killing based. Not only is it refreshing, but its easier to watch and importantly lets different parts of kits actually matter. Also, (personal opinion) addons just have to go. They're unhealthy for the game. They stifle design. They let the devs make excuses, which translates into excuses elsewhere.

Cant speak for others, but if you were to ask ME, i would say it is because i have been playing wow since Cataclysm, started as a trial account, have always been sitting on that shitty fence in Goldshire, and the same dudes of always kept asking me in duel, over and over and over and over, and pretty much they had builds that didnt even gave me a chance. Besides, once i started paying the game monthly, i did tried to adapt to all the game had to offer, but PVP has been a issue. It required a whole different mindset and you dont have the warranty of actually winning based on your efforts. Even if you give your best you risk losing because someone on the other side can be better at it, and this creates frustration in the player. More than that, many pvp players show disrespect to other players, cursing and tbag others, also /spit. It feels more like a sanatorium than a bg our arena. I remember trying to grab rank in pvp in BFA and Dragonflight Seaeon 1, ONLY BECAUSE the game DEMANDED ME to do so in order to get the mogs i wanted, and i never, ever, IN MY WHOLE LIFE IN THE GAME, have felt more miserable, more pathetic, wasting my time to force myself to compete on something i always disliked, and after months playing hour after hour after hour, guess what? I didnt made it to the 1800 score. I failed to get the mog pieces i wanted. There was no reward, no compensation. It was just horrible, and considering my mindset and personal traits, the whole PVP thing now causes severe PTSD to me. I despise PVP more than several things in my life, both in game and irl. Edit: maybe i can simplify my words for whoever doesnt wanna read it all. I find PVP frustrating, unrewarding, unbalanced, unfair and i have been constantly shuffled to do it despite growing great disgust with it

The thing everyone seems to ignore is the fact they made servers dedicated to PvP and servers dedicated to PvE and several other options in between. Why would anyone be whining about PvP when they had to choose a PvP server to create a character on when a PvE server was available? If you don't like PvP, fine, go to a PvE server. Should have no bearing on the existence of dedicated PvP servers. On dedicated PvP servers yes, you are getting ganked, you are getting camped, you are getting griefed until you get stronger, maybe make some friends and get some sweet revenge. That is the get off of PvP that you simply don't get to experience in PvE.

they should simplify specs but , in return just ot add more specs , like instead of having just 3 specs , 6 specs can be good

Visual clarity is also important

WoW is the only game I know of that has tanks in it that doesn't try to balance them at all in pvp. It either leaves them extremely overpowered like it did in legion, or entirely unusable like now. I love playing tanks. I would love to try them in pvp, like ff14 and heroes of the storm and league and Dota 2, but tanks are just not allowed in pvp as any other than, at most, flag carriers. So I don't bother. Edit: Blizzard also has tanks in overwatch, though their balancing for tanks there isn't much better.

also please put solo shuffle 2v2, where you can queue either 2 dps or 1 dps 1 healer, separate game modes. Or same game mode but starting at 80% dampening

because I compete with people every day, I don't feel like doing it when I'm supposed to be relaxing

WoW is a number simulator, we are all grinding towards a bigger number whether that’s damage,health,money etc. Money simulators have always been terrible PVP games. They will always have the group of people who want to grind it out to be “elite” but if your gear just means I don’t stand a chance before the fight even begins that’s just boring and not fun. Class balance/meta changes will always happen. But in order for WoW PVP to be good IMO they need to normalize everyone’s power level while in PVP content. But that would likely alienate the current PVP enjoyers to the point they’d leave.

what is that 2h sword mog? :D

I do both M+ and PvP at a decently high level, but nothing crazy. I’d consider myself the very slightly above average player in both communities. I want to like PvP more, but I don’t. With that disclaimer, I feel that PvE is a much easier game to get into and enjoy. PvP is hard to get going, and the community is largely discouraging and toxic. You can win every M+ you enter, and can play lower content if you just want to hulk smash stuff today, or if you want to help your buddy gear up. You can not do any of that in PvP. If PvP was a better place for the casual gamers, everyone would be happier and the game would be better off.

I think I'm just too scared to pvp nowadays usually. I feel like I'm having high levels of anxiety pvping nowadays because of what my opponent will think about me playing bad, or my partner will think about me playing bad when i pug an lfg for a push. I've had that anxiety since SL(Not in BFA when i first started) which is why i stopped pvping for a while, I came back to DFS3, and in S4, while enjoyable, it's fun to start trying out something new, like Survival hunter, and overall it took only a 2 weeks of playing survival to get duelist(Haven't gotten duelist since bfa and this is my first time getting duelist as a dps as i always mained a heal), yet, i was trying to know my rotation and know when to use cds, set ups, etc, and took some advices from high ranks including Bicemex to get there just so that no one flames me or enemy doesn't see me play bad. I feel like I've had arena anxiety since then because arena has gotten a bit hard since SL, that I feel like i should be playing like a top tier pvper to get there. I know I can keep going and try to get elite, but I'm feeling like i'm scared as shit nowadays because when i q for a pug and just chill and have fun, LFG ruins it for me sometimes. That's why I'm demotivated. I feel like i need to play well all the time otherwise someone will put a thumbs down flag on my corpse when I'm not playing my A game.

The classic RPG's are about a diverse party with a large amount of different, (ideally complementary) skills that co-operate to overcome a challenge. Levels and gear are there to allow the players to tune the difficulty of the challenge to them and their party. It is an inherently PvE game. PvP has just about everything that is diametrically opposed to this: it's most fair if everyone is the same and you have a small number of skills. Not to mention the difficulty selection is totally out of the player's hands. This made it that PvP is a concept that is simply shoehorned in to attract the fans of other online games, such as shooters and fighting games instead of being an actual part of the game. PvP can just be it's own game imho, I wouldn't mind.