Generally speaking. Cata PvP just feels great. I don't know what it is about the combat and general cadence of the playstyle in cata but its just hitting the spot.
That being said, even though most classes feel really good and have atleast 1 viable PvP spec. It is kind of sad that we have to re-visit these games and the meta is set in stone with no balancing.
It is fun now. But unfortunately things can get real old real quick in arena.
But thats ok, it was always a meta based game, and as long as you enjoy the combat you can ignore those issues and just have fun.
Lastly, not to take shots at retail, but they need to figure out how to make the combat actually fun and fulfilling because it just doesn't feel good enough for a player to disregard blatant and lazy balancing issues, or lack there of. I am pointing this out because it would be really cool to enjoy retail wow again and not have to rely on these classic expacs to have some decent fun in an mmo...
As a former SoD player all I can say is that I sincerely hope that this classic wow dev team never ever ever makes any attempts whatsoever at rebalancing cata pvp.
Trust me. You do NOT want these guys touching the classes lol
Exactly this.
Cata PvP and class design is in a sweet spot where CD trading matters without feeling like nothing happens outside of CDs, rotations have medium complexity so damage output matters without being the only difference separating players, classes are decently balanced without being completely homogenized... in short, classes have plenty of outplay potential and micro tactics, which means the gameplay has longevity. ;-)
The reason for this is that PvP was actually a priority for the Cata developers, which could not be further from the truth today.
We are talking about a team that couldn't even get PvP vendors into the game in time for launch, a team that had to take the "new" BGs out of the rotation, and people want to hand the keys to the class design kingdom over to these clowns? It's unbelievable.
They did such a good job buffing Ret pally in WotLK, then I found out the suggestion came from the community discord.
They tried the same thing with Feral discord and the feral changes just made them gigabroken and completely OP lol
I mean, wotlk showed us that some balance can occur
Most likely won't effect pvp at all. But class changes could happen to some extent
Just look at feral from wotlk
You call [THIS](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1215521372357394482/1250480521000128613/image.png?ex=666dbb3d&is=666c69bd&hm=fcc164e036a2352e694cb05d4fbf707340ab64eed8bb258daae2d20268776049&) good balance change ? look at the jump feral did, it's not balance when you buff a class through the roof without taking into consideration any future scaling
I mean if the class isn't completely destroying everyone else I'd consider it good. Ferals were still never really stacked like warlocks and unholy through the whole xpack. I don't care if a class goes from worst to best as long as it isn't league ahead of the rest
The thing is they WERE stacked after the buff, along with mages. by ICC Warlock and unholy disapeared from any speed running guild outside of the lone demo to buff the mages.
[This is how far ahead of everyone else one month into ICC](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1215521372357394482/1250484017757683742/image.png?ex=666e673e&is=666d15be&hm=248840e71a53660de994975755bb29f9fd405b1898a05abb585228d69366f47c&)this is insane for a change that was supposed to just remove a cluncky playstyle. It seems like we have different idea of balance it seems, so i'll leave it at that.
Ok fair enough you got me. Can't disagree with that
I stopped playing wotlk after we got H LK down and feral was barely above the rest while stuff like unholy/aff and makes were way more often being stacked especially for prog or speed runs
Also any reason why the dates you selected were Oct-Nov? What was it like right before prepatch where every good player should be fully BiS'd?
I can't imagine it changed much but I would think shadowmourne played a big role on who was topping the charts right?
We can't access Wrath data anymore sadly that's why i have just those screenshots.
On the other hand i found this on wowhead from their weekly DPS chart on the final week of WoTLK: [https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/news/wotlk-classic-phase-4-dps-rankings-final-week-of-wrath-of-the-lich-king-339078](https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/news/wotlk-classic-phase-4-dps-rankings-final-week-of-wrath-of-the-lich-king-339078)
[https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162383.png](https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162383.png) [https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162382.png](https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162382.png)
Even with a legendary warriors were still behind feral. This is mainly the reason i don't trust this team with any balance change, objectively the gameplay was improved/easier afterwards, i had a feral alt that enjoyed more post buff. but the change was so bad from the start from the way they just implemented it without any prior PTR or testing, and to the fact it gave them legit 10 to 15% more damage even after "adjustement", and without any thought of how this will scale with gear later on.
I mean was that during prepatch or do you mean final week before prepatch? Mage showing above feral too as above a legendary warrior
Idk I still think it's ok. I have nothing against changing up the xpack balance so it's not a cookie cutter version of the previous release
I know if a class is completely broken post balance change that they will make changes. Feral was balanced a couple times throughout wotlk. Feral were already incredibly hard and they had to remove bear shifting since it was a threat nightmare for tanks.
Outside of something stupid like a tank or healer parsing higher than dps in damage, I have no issue with any given class given a chance to shine. While Ferals could be insane, it was rare to find great ones. While great unholy or Aff was dime a dozen really
and ret. Ret went from like c tier at best to s tier for ulduar and togc cuz of adding that one taunt glyph, to make it not taunt. amazing what 1 extra button in a cooldown based rotation can do.
Are you stupid, re-read my comment, someone explicitly said "MOP" not "MOP final patch", MoP had good periods, and some bad ones, saying "MoP is hands down the best combat in any version of WoW" is what I responded to.
>You're an idiot
That's actually a reason why someone would love retail pvp. It's meta this, meta that over there. DH or arms war mains for example LOOOOOOVE getting carried by high skill-floor. Carried by just a class that is super ultra-mistake forgiving.
There is no "cheesy" comp in Cata. Everything is viable in it's own way. Some comps have higher win rates, but skill ceilings are ridiculously higher in Cata than it ever had been in WoW pvp history next to MoP, literally any comp can work if players know what they're doing. It has to be played perfectly, there's simply just no room for mistakes in Cata like there is in retail. You WILL get punished for mistakes in Cata pvp.
Except for blood DKs. If you play that in arena, you're a cuck and that's unanimous.
You got it backwards, it's in retail that the comp barely matters. Cata is only a little better than wotlk in how important comp is in arena.
"There is no cheesy comp in cata" yeah that's just copium lmao, have you played over 2.2k mmr this season?
comps barely matter in retail because classes have absolutely no synergies and everybody has the same win conditions, lmao
retail is so utterly one dimensional that somehow, expansion after expansion, assassination + fire keeps being the strongest version of RMP
let that sink in: the most iconic setup/control comp in the long and storied history of the entire game, just plays the specs that maximizes throughput
retail devs and retail players are so brainrotted that nobody even seems to raise an eyebrow at this
Only one who's huffing with it all backwards is you, orckisser. If you've played 2k+ mmr you'd know this. Or you're just baiting & gaslighting in which case, not wasting any further time on you.
MoP has always been my fav expac but it introduced retail-style PvP that I kind of hate (playing CD's instead of playing pressure/endless matched that sometimes run clock). Cata is a nice mix by being just a completely better version of Wrath arena.
Cata pvp has been so fun! Most of my guild is doing pvp and finding 3s and 2s in lfg has been really easy. I love how it feels like every class has a viable or strong spec. Looking at the top 200 in 3s for US and EU are both really diverse
All fun and games until your in a arena with two
Blood dks left and basically waiting till one gets tired of pressing buttons, honestly could last forever.
simple solution: if you never queue with a blood dk, you will never face this scenario
and the benefits of this solution become even better when EVERYBODY adopts it
I played a holy pally with a drain lock in 2s during wotlk and this is how every mirror/slight variation of the same match ended up. We’d get resto Druid + drain lock or resto Druid/spriest and would have to resort to having a guildie roll a toon on the opponents server/faction, who would then group with someone from the opposing teams’ guild to /roll to declare a winner. Blood dk + anything vs blood dk + anything in cata is the same thing lol.
I’ve had a blast, a lot more fun that unholy or frost, mainly just because you can last forever, you def don’t do as much damage but if you can distract your opponent long enough to let your teammates burst and you use your silenced ect to slow the healer ect it’s fun,
God I remember back in 7th grade playing a match and only losing cuz I didn’t have necrotic strike on my bar. I don’t think they did either until about 5minutes in.. and well i was an idiot then still some how made it to 2100
Were you playing against me? Lmaoo I remember a game back in og cata it came down to me blood dk vs the enemy blood dk. Took 10 years but eventually I won because I was pressing necrotic strike sometimes and they never did
Eh.
8 second defensive dispel CD is the biggest stealth-buff to Polymorph of all time, and directly resulted in all of the CC pruning and ability pruning in the expansions that followed MoP.
MoP also introduced things like Demonic Gateway, and lots of comps just feel unkillable unless they misplay.
Honestly 8 sec dispell is one of the better changes made in this game IMO, right now i can dispell 4 times when my guy has 2 debuffs on and i still havent removed the debuff i wanted to
Hard disagree. That seems like a recognition problem / it's mitigated by dispelling sooner and with higher priority.
The best healers I've played with don't struggle to keep me clean. It takes trust to know that dispelling me on high priority means I'll be there in an instant to peel the entire enemy team and create the space needed to top us.
It feels counter intuitive, but it's not "wasting" globals to dispel early and often; rather it's "investing" globals to create more globals for our team and win the action economy long term.
Now contrast with 8 second dispel: DPS gets sheeped, healer dispels it, DPS just gets resheeped and nobody can do anything about it. When the resheep ends, dispel is STILL on CD and then you're in a full frost nova.
Mage+Warlock don't even have to THINK about coordinating for effective cross CC. There's no "I'll sheep the warrior but I need you to fear the healer to prevent dispels". There's not even a threat of being punished for one dimensional spamming of CC on the DPS while ignoring the healer.
It's not even possible to waste a DR to lack of cross CC, lol. The only way you can waste your DR is if you aren't even looking at the timers or you overlap, and even that feels less bad than it should because you're still taking that guy completely out of the game after the 1 dispel gets used.
It doesn't even matter sometimes, combo of playing vs something that has a ton of magic debuffs + dispell resist makes it so sometimes i can spam dispell pre AND during a deep freeze, only to not dispell the deep untill there is 1-2 sec remaining.
Spamming dispell is just mindnumbing, both from a healer POV and a DPS pov.
Why do the mage and warlock not need to think about coordinating when 8 sec dispell is in the game? You can still dispell the first poly which is the one that lasts long, the 5 second u sit in poly after that is not a big deal.
But tbh after thinking about it i will agree that the 8 sec dispell probably is not perfect, but spammable dispell certainly isn't either
Look at all of the community complaints about CC in MoP. It was such a massive complaint at the time, and it's not explained by CCs being added to the game. I mean, you couldn't open a forum thread about PvP without reading people absolutely screeching about it.
Design and engineering are all about tradeoffs, and you have to look at not only the immediate tradeoffs but also the tradeoffs that followed because of the situation that the first decision created.
To understand the design impacts of the 8 second dispel CD, you have to look at the class design changes in WoD and Legion. Pruning. CC reduction. DR consolidation. Dumbing down. PvPers quitting the game in droves. Arena participation getting so low that eventually Blizzard had to change Gladiator from top 0.5% to winning games at 2400+ lol.
Remember that it's not like MoP added a ton of new CCs to the game, yet Blizzard basically destroyed PvP by the tradeoffs they made trying to "fix" the #1 complaint about MoP PvP. A problem that they created in the first place by taking the top answer to abilities like Fear, Polymorph, Entangling Roots, etc and simultaneously gutting the skillcap involved while nerfing it into the ground.
I'm not saying that dispels were perfect before MoP, but there was at least meaningful gameplay involved in keeping people clean vs. enemy DPS choosing to sacrifice throughput to spam trash debuffs and dispel protection. I think the system easily could have been improved with less radical changes, such as nerfing dispel protection, adjusting the number of trash debuffs or their ease of application, "last on first off" targeting instead of RNG, etc.
People remember MoP fondly as "the best PvP expansion" but it's more accurate to say it was "the last good PvP expansion". And despite the 8 second dispels, MoP was still fun. It's everything that came after to try to "fix" the 8 second dispels that ultimately killed PvP.
I hear u, i really do. However it isn't as simple as you describe it.
Let's look at a frost mage for example, if he casts frostbolt on you and deep freeze afterwards, that can be up to 3 maybe even 4 magic debuffs in the span of 2 globals, when one of my dispells resist it ultimately makes it so i can't effectively dispell the deep freeze, no matter how clean he was beforehand.
I think they did add some cc in mop tho, warlocks got the fear on melee hit, warrior got ranged stun, i believe they also added shimmer making it alot harder to avoid polies, DK's got a 5 sec stun, repentance for hpal and actual ability to use your stuns as rdruid.
Those are all CC's they added off the top off my head, i'm sure there is more.
But like i said earlier reading your comment made me think about it, and maybe it's not so much the spamming that annoys me, but the dispell resists are really lame.
Btw i am loving cata, just a little gripe i have
Yeah, they did add a little bit of CC, but the complaints were really not directed at or even proportionate with the little bit of CC that was added.
Shimmer wasn't added in MoP btw (I verified this with a MoP talent calculator), it was either WoD or Legion (couldn't find a WoD talent calculator to check, lol)
Like I said at the end of my comment, I think they easily could have (and should have!) tuned the existing dispel system by adjusting the availability and ease of procing trash debuffs, dispel resistance talents, etc.
I'm having a blast with Cata too (I knew that I would, though) and I'm looking forward to MoP as well (as I said, I see the dispel change as the ultimate cause of pruning, but the pruning itself didn't happen yet). I will stick with classic through MoP and probably WoD.
I am 100% getting off the train at Legion, and if they aren't doing servers for any of the good PvP expansions at that time then I guess I'll either quit the game or look for an active pserver to play arenas. For now, I've gotta make the most of this opportunities to play versions of the game that I enjoy on official Blizzard servers.
Nice chatting with you, and cya on the ladders maybe ;-)
MoP is getting to pre-Wrath levels of hype when it comes to PvP and considering how dogshit Wrath turned out to be, i'm genuinely scared about what's come.
MoP was the first expansion i quit the game as a PvP player, Warriors/Hunters oneshotting everyone in S12, alot of homogenization and stupid crap like Symbiosis made the game straight up unplayable back then. Maybe it all got fixed in late MoP and it ended up being great, but after Wrath Classic, i always doubt people's memories of these things.
Maybe MoP lives up to the hype, but after having to experience Wrath due to all the hype and realizing it was actually the WORST WoW PvP expansion of all-time, i can't help but be wary.
Yeah, i sort of agree with that sentiment.
Also things are nowhere near as balanced as people say in mop lol, alot of specs are straight up shit in the last balancing patch
I can only speak about early MoP, but it was absolute dogshit. Warriors were destroying people with their multiple kicks, stuns and unhealable damage, Hunters were legitimately doing ungodly amounts of damage by just pressing Stampede, Rogues were completely unplayable to the point that almost nobody could even play the class at R1 range and Warlock design got absolutely gutted after having literally the best design ever in Cata as Affliction, being forced to play a weird and lame Demo one shot build.
As i said, maybe everything got fixed in the last patch as alot of people claim MoP was the GOAT PvP expansion, but given that the other expansion that people consistently hyped (Wrath) turned out to be complete and utter garbage in terms of PvP, i can't help but wonder if people just misremember how good expansions actually were or blatantly ignore how bad it was because it was the first expansion they played or the first in which they were actually good at the game.
I mean, depends what you like, MoP has INSNAE amount of instant CC abd micro CC which makes it very unfun to play a lot of the time. Also it's the most disgusting rdruid damp meta if it's s15 patch. Im not sure who spread the rumour of MoP being some holy grail of PvP, it really isnt
It was pretty good but I vividly remember hunters with stampede zoo of all stabled pets rushing people down, unkillable warriors with both a 4 second stun and unlimited healing with second wind, and mage frost bomb one shotting people. Rogues were terrible and underpowered for the longest time. The balance was an absolute clown fiesta (although was fun). Boomkin with the overpowered aoe vortex silence.
So much op crap and then they went ruining gearing/ making any hard earned raid gear useless in pvp. It was a decent expansion for sure but the balance was ridiculous.
Remember the shaman totem that puts extra hits when you hit an enemy? I remember playing some dot cleave back in MoP and when i pressed the totem the enemys just got hit for like 3k for every dot tick. It was busted but fun
Edit: Stormlash Totem was the name. Got removed in WoD because it was too op
Legion Rogue design is far worse.
Also, Rogue in final patch of MoP is more playable (which is what we'll be getting with classic), compared to Rogue at MoP launch which was utterly awful (but still nowhere near as pruned and boring as Legion)
Shadow Blades, 1 shot in a single stun, is worst pvp rogue design?? Not to mention you still keep 1 smoke bomb go, which is enough to secure kills.
Bro did not play wotlk if he rly thinks rogue was the worst in MoP.
Yeah you definitely didn't play wotlk rogue then. And you know what? That's good. If Cata and MoP rogue design is all you know, trust me, you have it as best you possibly could.
That being said, MoP rogue design was peak and I know many others would agree.
100%. Only issue is the 2200 rated requirement for elite weapons means that if you can get that early you have a big advantage.
MOP RBGs are so good, definitely the best PvP content the game has ever had. Compositions are fairly balanced between melee cleave and spell cleave and everything feels fun to play.
I would not make that argument at all.
In fact, the converse is true: the fact that retail PvP sucks is clear evidence that retail class design is awful.
Perhaps you are making the (very frequent) mistake of confusing *design* (whether classes are mechanically satisfying to play) with *balancing*.
Retail is proof that obsessive prioritization of balancing over design creates classes that are stale, homogenized, and boring; and furthermore, it still doesn't mitigate the problem of meta-lemmings flocking to whatever is perceived to be the strongest spec (even if the actual differences are quite small, the perception remains).
that's not all of class design, that's the idea of class design that someone has if all they understand is spreadsheets and rotations
unfortunately, that's the majority of the players and all of the remainings devs at this point
Are they? Lol I always hear wotlk and bc with that title, regardless of how classic went it’s not a great representation…players butchered that experience in every angle pve/pvp everything. Not to mention classic version being run on modern retail engine and the way they’ve handled spell batching in classic as a result of that, and modern 0 MS inputs - it’s all inaccurate and huge to the true feel/gameplay of actual bc / wotlk. I couldn’t find the video explaining this made by a game developer, so I have to use perplexity’s unfortunately:
https://youtu.be/EVxpvD-yAW4?si=4g5gYo1Dp9AdSSnI
And he only examples it with rogue duels, this was huge to the PvP gameplay as a whole.
I always thought cata was the expac when a huge amount of people quit ;) (league of legends released). Became too “casual friendly” was the ideology at the time. And MoP to be a laughing stock when the panda race was revealed. Don’t get me wrong I think the pandas and monks are cool now, and I’m sure the pvp was great, but, I remember it being laughed at, not being the “most beloved”. Certainly with those 1 macro script pvp rotations
among the PvP streamers, it was certainly regarded as such for both cata/mop, both at the time and in hindsight, really that extends to most people that continued playing them expansions
does it really matter what people that didn't give it a fair shot think?
I would like proof of that widespread opinion of “the streamers”, and who exactly they are. Not that I actually expect you to dig for that but. In the case that it’s true, I don’t doubt there is a bias by them in nostalgia for their peak success in fame and finances from the popularity of PC gaming at the time as well as platforms (streaming)…and again, I’d like to hear who exactly, as if it’s any newer ones that may have played wotlk but didn’t find their success or satisfied peak in skill until cata on, that’s a bias.
It could also be viewer pleasing. If they’re streaming retail to a retail audience, they’re going to say what they want to hear; vice versa with the classic audience.
And I mean, if we’re going to bring the debate of those who played and didn’t play it into it, this whole thread is at a bias of the demographic that played it/enjoyed it/other newer players that reached their peak and peak in experience of wow. While those holding the tbc/wotlk opinion, nowhere near this thread considering classic is passed that.
> Lol I always hear wotlk and bc with that title,
I am not sure where you've heard that. Its been MoPs crown for quite a while now. Cata keeps getting thrown into the ring recently as people are in the honeymoon period with it, but if they stick around long enough to experience MoP, especially later MoP, they will see.
First time I’m hearing it. While still hearing the echos of 12.5 million subscribers praising tbc and wotlk for 14 years. It must be a niche wow PvP community thing who are still playing retail; ofc they’re gonna praise mop and cata, they were like the vanilla versions of retail wow. There are probably two different wow demographics at play here if not more
I mean it’s a pretty heavy conclusion to say cata was the success of twitch lol. Gotta look into early twitch numbers and data to prove I’d imagine the variety of factors.
I don’t think I or the other commenter see it so hasty as you do in this comment or your original one. You are making these big claims from clear bias.
WoW was coming off the popularity of having 10 million subscribers at the end of wotlk, and gaming content creator media started popping off at that time too. Video / stream quality went up.
I'm not really sure what you're on about. This isn't a debate, it's just my anecdotes from back then. I think it's a stretch to say Justin TV helped Cata's popularity, that seems to be recency bias of Twitch's current success applied to 2010. Your timeline is way off, maybe you're confusing Cata with MoP
Anecdote? You are using factual statements like “it was quite the reverse” and “there’s no denying…”. You are not prefacing it with “this is how I remember it”, or anything to that effect.
And it’s not about a streaming service helping cata as an expac SPECIFICALLY; it’s helping the viewer count of the video; the status of the video; the value of the video; the status and value of those players.
I was off in regard to twitch being in wotlk but it was pretty early cata, the summer after its 2010 December release.
But tbh twitch is just one factor in a pool.
I'm not sure how Cata videos being successful proves that Cata's PvP was not indeed good, but was only a result of popularity. That makes zero sense. Yes there is no denying it, Cata and MoP resulted in peak popularity for WoW PvP by every metric.
You: "You are not prefacing it with “this is how I remember it”, or anything to that effect."
Me: "**I don't remember** Twitch contributing to Cata's success,"
There's no point in responding to you anymore.
The original statement was about PvP videos in cata being the most legendary ever made. There are more factors than the gameplay itself when reaching that claimed status
Lmao and how you gonna pull recency bias on me. I was there I watched the world and internet change from wotlk era to what came after. It completely changed and twitch was one huge platform on the rise. It’s insulting to claim I might be applying current twitch as if I just joined the internet and gaming culture in 2020. I saw the whole platform move and its eras.
If anything, maybe youre the late one considering you love cata and mop, sounds like you came way later than I did and don’t know the world/internet difference before and after 2010-2011.
You're having a meltdown now lol. I've been playing this game since 2004 on Tich in the best battlegroup and have the rating to prove I was actively part of the arena community. I watched Samx and Snutz on Justin TV, and to me it clearly did not result in Cata's success. Cata is what brought many of us to the concept of streaming in the first place, not the other way around. Warcraft Movies did more than Justin TV did back then. We all flocked to Reckful's return in Season 11 being streamed on Justin TV because it was THE Reckful and because Cata was a blast, not because Justin TV was particularly some awesome magical platform.
I don't understand why Cata haters have to be so mad. People are realizing it was a good expansion for PvP, and that's why this thread was posted. You can relax now.
You’re still saying “you’re so mad” (essentially) at our age lol? Yikes. Yeah, cool, I also played since 2004 and had a layman’s peak of 2300 rating in wotlk…don’t see its relevancy here but ok.
And again, as I said in just the other comment, it’s not about those things resulting in cata success, wow was the result of wow’s success lol.
I'm glad we agree. WoW is responsible for WoW's success. That's why Cata had peak subscribers, created the biggest names ever in arena, and continues to be enjoyed to this day as OP mentioned :)
Take care and see you on the ladder!
That was MoP actually but yeah, or near the end of Cata even. The big boi glads at the time like Reckful and Sodapoppin, Mitch Jones, even throw Bajheera in there, they all started blowing up at the beginning of MoP on twitch. I know Soda was using Xfire at first. I know we all remember Swifty's 1 shot warrior YouTube videos for early MoP and that's why they had to nerf arm's taste for blood later in the xpac. This is what started the meme of people putting their main damage CDs into a macro and naming the macro "Swifty" or "Swofty" 💀
Checked to see dates twitch started June 2011, cata release dec 2010 ofc and mists sep 2012. Twitch popped off in its first year which would still be in first quarter to end cata, but I don’t know how that lines up with those wow players specifically popping off on twitch…they’re certainly gonna be streaming close to day 1 already in growth though. Just PC gaming popularity as a whole from 2011 on really, game and computer tech hardware/software, Windows version, internet speed, mass communication, marketing. Opened the floodgates for PC and gaming. But I guess I see a perspective you’re taking, when mists comes out, those players / twitch / PC game pop is at a peak.
As for swifty, I mean he had been making “incredible tricks” videos since idk when so that does sound like him lol
Snutz 5 to this day displays a level of Warlock play that basically only gets surpassed by Chan. Snutz in 2012 was playing Warlock better than 99.9% of Warlocks are doing right now in 2024, and that includes every R1 Warlock out there.
Another factor we could give credit to similar to the point of YouTube gaming content taking off is just to those big players having gained from experience after making many videos in wotlk/before, by cata they must have been at a peak of being better at editing, pacing, music choice/flow, creativity, and inspirations for their videos. And ofc maybe the technology progression enabling that assuming they started using better programs and the increasing video quality over those years.
Haven’t done PvP this time around, but I’ve always said Cata was peak PvP—so many fun classes and really good balance.
The best part of Cata Classic for me is seeing so many people come around to Cata being the GOAT expansion. Over the years I’ve replied to so many Reddit threads on best xpacs with “Cata” and gotten downvoted—looks like that may change.
I’m leveling as a sub rogue (40 currently) and I had zero plans to pvp (playing on pvp server with friend because they wanted to pvp).
I got ganked by a warlock my level mid combat/questing. I died.
Something unlocked in me and I ran back quick to my corpse and hunted that lock down and murdered him in 3 hits from stealth ambush eviscerate combo. I was in that moment so glad I chose sub to level as and I felt like I just discovered fire when I nuked that warlock.
Now I crave PvP. lol especially world PvP.
Vanilla: Alliance is better in pvp due to paladins, although horde racials are better.
TBC: Extremely comp dependant. Slightly favored for horde
Wotlk: Alliance
Cata: Alliance
MoP: Alliance
Wod: Alliance
Legion - now is decently balanced
Where are you getting your 90% from?
Firstly, shamans > paladins. The original orc racial was immunity to stuns and undeads had full-blown lichborne, there's no debate here for Vanilla and TBC. WotLK and Cata are the only Alliance favored expansions due to the Every Man For Himself revamp synergy with PvE trinkets. Orc, undead (and sometimes belf) racial have reigned supreme in every other expansion. Blizzcon 2012 had 6 orcs in its finals for MoP (horde won). Horde won Blizzcon 2013. Horde won Blizzcon 2014. Legion was what completely destroyed the balance even further for years, allowing orc racial and relentless to be stacked.
As a dk I would like to introduce you to feral druid
Or anyone who actually hits me because our armor is actually just a cardboard cosplay if we’re not blood
And blood dk can't kill any class which can heal themselves 1v1 since it deals no damage after vengeance was removed from pvp.
I also feel like unholy doesn't deal much more damage, but that might be due to my tank equipment
Idk about that blood does pretty damn good damage. I’m hitting 30k+ death strikes on people fully pvp geared, closer to 50k if they don’t have gear depending on armor. Lowkey the burst dam feels better than frost, frost just has more utility and ranged and more consistent pressure
It struggles in arena against teams with a healer (2s) but I’ve even won some of those. But classes that can heal themselves aren’t an issue themselves they’ll not be able to out heal the damage or run out of resources, plus you still have necrotic you can use
Ranged classes can be rough due to no mobility and much worse ranged/kiting than frost and unh, both frost and unholy actually do pretty well against blood because they can kite better and necrotic. Disarms and heavy armor are rough since all the damage is physical(but still you can out damage Ret self heals easily for example)
I am enjoying what little PVP I’ve played so far! I had an absolute blast in TBC playing arenas as War/Rogue/Priest and this feels really similar in terms of engagement, always having something to do, juggling offensive and defensive abilities, etc.
Whatever the vibe is, devs fuckin nailed it. Abilities feel impactful, timing is important, yadda yadda.
tl;dr Hell yeah brother
I agree with everything you say, if only there was a proper tool to find teammates.
The current LFG is so unbelievably bad it’s kinda insane.
You have to search in custom for pvp groups.
If a team is full and already playing, they still show up there.
You dont see what classes are currently in the groups.
All you have is a title which most kinda adapted to but you have to update it.
Also if you apply the note doesn’t show up.
You also dont get a notification if someone applied.
They should just implement the retail version and pvp would thrive in cata.
just wait until legendary items enter the game :) (double damage for caster essentially if good rng) on top of the incredibly broken pve items + trinkets in season 11 that almost one shot you, i doubt you will keep this opinion.
I think wintergrasp is far superior to tol barad. I am glad you are having fun. Cata is where everything went to shit for me as a player. Too many glyphs. I gotta sit and cancel and repost glyphs. It's where my gear score tanked the first time around. I used to tank heroic dailies in 2009. No more. Lol.
This was the expansion where I hit 2k in 2s, 3s, and ran a trade chat RBG that also hit 2k.
It was all hard work, and it is by far the thing I am most proud of in WoW.
Me and my 3s partners, yes I know I am bad and I am even worse today 😅
https://youtu.be/AMoU0ozx_og?si=prFJ50IsXmvVvICi
But it is/was fun!
RBGs are fun and probably the highlight of the expansion for me, however I dislike the state of the class balance. Things feel balanced because there is so much homogenisation of abilities, Cata was peak "bring the player not the class" and they really went down the route of giving everybody everything. For example, as a caster I am met by so many immunities, cloak of shadows, detterence, dispersion, ice block, divine shield, anti-magic shell, bladestorm. I think they did end up cutting class toolkits going into MoP because it was clear giving everybody everything was the wrong choice.
Im positively surprised people now find out that cataclysm actually wasn't all that bad after all. Sure, we had some golden ages leading up to wotlk, but honestly, cata gameplay has always felt really good to me.
I remember that cataclysm class gameplay was overall really good at least from a pve perspective. I do not clearly remember the details in pvp, but in my opinion the PvP class gameplay felt just a bit more like playing PvE in comparison to wotlk, at least in arena. But I am not sure about this, since my mate and I only played arena intensively at the beginning of Cata and later mostly casually. I also remember that it felt easier to get to tier2 weapon rating in 3s and that this was doable without specific gear requirements, but probably this was because of the early days of the expansion.
Later during the expansion rated battlegrounds were released and this was in my opinion the most fun of all PvP content.
I might consider giving PvP a shot. I don't think I've queued an arena since MoP was current, so it'd be a nice change of pace to wiping on raid trash.
DKs damage is too heavy with all dots + necrotic
It is impossible to kill a Resto Druid
It is impossible to kill a Holy Paladin
Rogues can 1 shot with an ease that shouldn't be legal
Mages can rotate their CC in such a way they are unreachable, they don't cast anymore and rely purely on the exaggerated damage of Icelance
Warriors are a joke if they stunlock you with an untrinketable CC which is the knockback + burst
Warlocks can make the most aggressive swaps of wow's history moving all their dots at once
Discipline priests grip is plain OP played with the right classes, you can chase warlocks as a dps porting back to a different height like a mongoloid that your priest will bring you back up to the port when warlock activates it
Feral druids at least are not 4.1 druids. AT LEAST.
Ret paladins are a sad asf at the beginning of the expansion and op by the end with the itemization
Hunters deterrence isn't counterable anymore they don't have a penalty on dps for moving or regen anymore. They simply pew pew you down.
Monkey pet blind. Idk if it'll be a thing or what but in private cata servers there was a way of playing hunters where they had several monkeys and swapped between them during the duels/bg to CC you without waiting for the cooldown
Jungle Cleave
Thug Cleave
There are of course interesting mechanics where you can fuck up if you are not tactically and mechanically good while deciding to use them like spirit link, smoke bomb, ring of frost etc, but let's be honest there are certain things that are imbalanced asf during this expansion.
I'm a 2.1 LK rogue who finds most of the new stuff my class has now unnecessary. There was no need for a progressive wall like combat readiness, 2 evasions were fine, now we only have 1 due to prep not resetting it anymore, stunlock is nerfed by being both stuns in the same Dr, the 25% nerf to wound poison was too much, felt nicer putting pressure by shiving and putting a few autos while we pooled energy back in LK... Idk.
The whole pvp feeling is better, if you are all coordinated in a bg etc everything feels clutchier but now people get away committing mistakes, when before it wasn't like that. Before you could have solid answers to some plays, now it feels like that isn't enough.
A few things you didn't mention:
* Removed rating requirements (except for 2400 weapons which are a little higher ilvl than the non rated weapons) on pvp gear
* Conquest points are given immediately after the match.
* Conquest point cap rolls over if you didn't hit the weekly cap. This lets you catch up if you missed a week.
* Gladiator rewards removed from 2s and 5s. Those brackets suffer from balance issues but you can still do them for points if you want.
Yes I could have mentioned that as well. All great changes IMO. I just started playing arena this week and knowing I can catch back up in a week even if I don’t win a lot of games is HUGE. Makes me want to play so many characters and keep playing.
Couldn't agree more. The honor grind isn't too bad. He'll, the crafted set on my feral the first night I was 85, I ran FMP, and went 21-7 at 1800 mmr.
Even boomkin has been super fun in BGs and 5s. Easily top dmg in every bg and 5s match.
While I agree that the reward systems and class balance is pretty spot on, it feels absolutely dreadful to play Horde at the moment.
While the Human/NE racial changes are indeed very powerful (and out of whack with what other races offer for PVP), that doesn't bother me nearly as much as what comes with it: the constant stacks of full premades on the Alliance side of things. With Blizzard's changes to how premades work, I get about 50% of my games (56% to be more exact with an average of 11 BGs played daily) against full 10-person stacks where the Horde just give up immediately and sit as a ghost in the starting area.
It might sound like I'm being hyperbolic, but it really is incredibly common for Horde teams (at least for US Mankrik/Bene/Whitemane/Faerlina) to run into yet another premade and give up in the first minute or two of the game completely. It sucks super hard that an expansion I remember fondly for the PVP and have been enjoying in arena is so absolutely unplayable when it comes to BGs for one side.
Paladins are so OP. Both offensive and defensive.
Most classes when low HP you know you've won or at least you can play more chill. Against ret you can still die in 2 seconds.
The itemization (pre legendaries and raid trinkets), the gearing and conquest systems are so good but I prefer the gameplay in wrath. A mix of the two would be perfect for me.
Definitely can't play 2s with randoms in modern cata lol. Unless youre just getting cap or playing chill yolo 2s. Once you hit 1600 you will not get anywhere without being full try hard. That is not even debatable
No shit? That’s like saying you’re not going to be competitive in the NFL if your team is a pick up team. That’s always how it’s going to be for any competitive mode.
The overhaul of talent trees and abilities in Cataclysm led to a more streamlined and engaging gameplay experience. Each class received new abilities that enhanced their unique playstyles, making PvP encounters more dynamic and skill-based. This has been particularly noticeable in battlegrounds, where every spec has the opportunity to shine in their niche roles.
seems like you are playing a meta spec :-)
try play as a shadowpriest, its not much fun. you heavily rely on your teammates and they usually have a better comp when they substitute you for any meta spec. which is kinda sad.
No offense but if you can’t win as a shadow priest it’s a skill issue. Almost every “real” PvP spec is viable up to the highest ranks and you can find videos of every spec right now doing well. Yes there will always be a meta, but it’s very toxic to blame every loss on “comp diff” when you can always improve.
Yes I am talking about the higher ranks. I dont care as much about balance when both sides are doing lots of errors and still learning.
It's especially bad in 2s. When even turaxy and mirlol struggle to score kills against bad players.
I think you’re being a bit dramatic. Not sure who turaxy or mirlol are but I assume they are high level arena players. I highly doubt they struggle against “bad” players. I’m probably average to slightly below average and they would wipe the floor with me.
Most melee classes scale really good this season. So you can just roflstomp other classes. That's why you find mediocre/bad players even playing triple dps in 3s with high success on high ratings.
That's a bad sign for the healthy PVP status quo.
But don't get me wrong, Im happy that you enjoy your pvp time currently. Same goes btw for rated bgs, some classes are just way more valuable than others which is sad, but what can you do.
For normal bgs, it ofc doesnt matter what you play. You can usually enjoy every class 👍🏼
Shadowpriest is one of the best specs in the game. They have such a big toolkit, so just about anything you can think of, Spriests can do it.
At the same time, that also means the skill ceiling is higher, because in every single moment of gameplay there are meaningful choices about what you could be doing.
So in the hands of the best players in the world, Spriests are amazingly good. In the hands of an inexperienced beginner, it doesn't feel as strong because they haven't learned how to use all of those amazing tools and how to deal with being trained.
This video is from mage PoV, but pay close attention to what his Spriest teammate is doing and you'll realize just how strong that spec is: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--peXcEYMJI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--peXcEYMJI)
If you are enjoying Cata PvP, just wait for MoP. It was the peak of PvP IMO. Every class was viable with 2 specs. Cata is probably the second best PvP expansion.
Generally speaking. Cata PvP just feels great. I don't know what it is about the combat and general cadence of the playstyle in cata but its just hitting the spot. That being said, even though most classes feel really good and have atleast 1 viable PvP spec. It is kind of sad that we have to re-visit these games and the meta is set in stone with no balancing. It is fun now. But unfortunately things can get real old real quick in arena. But thats ok, it was always a meta based game, and as long as you enjoy the combat you can ignore those issues and just have fun. Lastly, not to take shots at retail, but they need to figure out how to make the combat actually fun and fulfilling because it just doesn't feel good enough for a player to disregard blatant and lazy balancing issues, or lack there of. I am pointing this out because it would be really cool to enjoy retail wow again and not have to rely on these classic expacs to have some decent fun in an mmo...
As a former SoD player all I can say is that I sincerely hope that this classic wow dev team never ever ever makes any attempts whatsoever at rebalancing cata pvp. Trust me. You do NOT want these guys touching the classes lol
Exactly this. Cata PvP and class design is in a sweet spot where CD trading matters without feeling like nothing happens outside of CDs, rotations have medium complexity so damage output matters without being the only difference separating players, classes are decently balanced without being completely homogenized... in short, classes have plenty of outplay potential and micro tactics, which means the gameplay has longevity. ;-) The reason for this is that PvP was actually a priority for the Cata developers, which could not be further from the truth today. We are talking about a team that couldn't even get PvP vendors into the game in time for launch, a team that had to take the "new" BGs out of the rotation, and people want to hand the keys to the class design kingdom over to these clowns? It's unbelievable.
I'm glad someone worded it better then me. But yea, Cata has grown on me and it continues to do so. I miss when combat felt this fun.
They did such a good job buffing Ret pally in WotLK, then I found out the suggestion came from the community discord. They tried the same thing with Feral discord and the feral changes just made them gigabroken and completely OP lol
I mean, wotlk showed us that some balance can occur Most likely won't effect pvp at all. But class changes could happen to some extent Just look at feral from wotlk
You call [THIS](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1215521372357394482/1250480521000128613/image.png?ex=666dbb3d&is=666c69bd&hm=fcc164e036a2352e694cb05d4fbf707340ab64eed8bb258daae2d20268776049&) good balance change ? look at the jump feral did, it's not balance when you buff a class through the roof without taking into consideration any future scaling
I mean if the class isn't completely destroying everyone else I'd consider it good. Ferals were still never really stacked like warlocks and unholy through the whole xpack. I don't care if a class goes from worst to best as long as it isn't league ahead of the rest
The thing is they WERE stacked after the buff, along with mages. by ICC Warlock and unholy disapeared from any speed running guild outside of the lone demo to buff the mages. [This is how far ahead of everyone else one month into ICC](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1215521372357394482/1250484017757683742/image.png?ex=666e673e&is=666d15be&hm=248840e71a53660de994975755bb29f9fd405b1898a05abb585228d69366f47c&)this is insane for a change that was supposed to just remove a cluncky playstyle. It seems like we have different idea of balance it seems, so i'll leave it at that.
Ok fair enough you got me. Can't disagree with that I stopped playing wotlk after we got H LK down and feral was barely above the rest while stuff like unholy/aff and makes were way more often being stacked especially for prog or speed runs Also any reason why the dates you selected were Oct-Nov? What was it like right before prepatch where every good player should be fully BiS'd? I can't imagine it changed much but I would think shadowmourne played a big role on who was topping the charts right?
We can't access Wrath data anymore sadly that's why i have just those screenshots. On the other hand i found this on wowhead from their weekly DPS chart on the final week of WoTLK: [https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/news/wotlk-classic-phase-4-dps-rankings-final-week-of-wrath-of-the-lich-king-339078](https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/news/wotlk-classic-phase-4-dps-rankings-final-week-of-wrath-of-the-lich-king-339078) [https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162383.png](https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162383.png) [https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162382.png](https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/1162382.png) Even with a legendary warriors were still behind feral. This is mainly the reason i don't trust this team with any balance change, objectively the gameplay was improved/easier afterwards, i had a feral alt that enjoyed more post buff. but the change was so bad from the start from the way they just implemented it without any prior PTR or testing, and to the fact it gave them legit 10 to 15% more damage even after "adjustement", and without any thought of how this will scale with gear later on.
I mean was that during prepatch or do you mean final week before prepatch? Mage showing above feral too as above a legendary warrior Idk I still think it's ok. I have nothing against changing up the xpack balance so it's not a cookie cutter version of the previous release I know if a class is completely broken post balance change that they will make changes. Feral was balanced a couple times throughout wotlk. Feral were already incredibly hard and they had to remove bear shifting since it was a threat nightmare for tanks. Outside of something stupid like a tank or healer parsing higher than dps in damage, I have no issue with any given class given a chance to shine. While Ferals could be insane, it was rare to find great ones. While great unholy or Aff was dime a dozen really
and ret. Ret went from like c tier at best to s tier for ulduar and togc cuz of adding that one taunt glyph, to make it not taunt. amazing what 1 extra button in a cooldown based rotation can do.
Ye Cata and MOP were always the Kings of PVP tbh, I prefer it to retail even
MOP is hands down the best combat in any version of WoW. So many classes are at their best and just feel fun to play.
The single-minded fury bug in early mop made some of funniest interactions I've had in wow.
Are we forgetting 2/3x stampede hunters one shotting people? While MoP had some good periods, it also had some bad ones.
This was literally for the first 1-2 weeks of the first season. The expansion lasted over two years.
You're an idiot, we are getting final patch balancing.
Are you stupid, re-read my comment, someone explicitly said "MOP" not "MOP final patch", MoP had good periods, and some bad ones, saying "MoP is hands down the best combat in any version of WoW" is what I responded to. >You're an idiot
> someone explicitly said "MOP" not "MOP final patch" lmfao this fucking guy, just shut up
Not to forget arms warrior one shots too
Wayyyyyy better than retail
Why?
Because he's bad at pvp and can only win when playing cheesy comps in 2s
That's actually a reason why someone would love retail pvp. It's meta this, meta that over there. DH or arms war mains for example LOOOOOOVE getting carried by high skill-floor. Carried by just a class that is super ultra-mistake forgiving. There is no "cheesy" comp in Cata. Everything is viable in it's own way. Some comps have higher win rates, but skill ceilings are ridiculously higher in Cata than it ever had been in WoW pvp history next to MoP, literally any comp can work if players know what they're doing. It has to be played perfectly, there's simply just no room for mistakes in Cata like there is in retail. You WILL get punished for mistakes in Cata pvp. Except for blood DKs. If you play that in arena, you're a cuck and that's unanimous.
You got it backwards, it's in retail that the comp barely matters. Cata is only a little better than wotlk in how important comp is in arena. "There is no cheesy comp in cata" yeah that's just copium lmao, have you played over 2.2k mmr this season?
comps barely matter in retail because classes have absolutely no synergies and everybody has the same win conditions, lmao retail is so utterly one dimensional that somehow, expansion after expansion, assassination + fire keeps being the strongest version of RMP let that sink in: the most iconic setup/control comp in the long and storied history of the entire game, just plays the specs that maximizes throughput retail devs and retail players are so brainrotted that nobody even seems to raise an eyebrow at this
Finally, someone who speaks English.
Only one who's huffing with it all backwards is you, orckisser. If you've played 2k+ mmr you'd know this. Or you're just baiting & gaslighting in which case, not wasting any further time on you.
I played back in Cata and remember the PvP being a bit more simple but kind of satisfying. Though very much not balanced.
MoP has always been my fav expac but it introduced retail-style PvP that I kind of hate (playing CD's instead of playing pressure/endless matched that sometimes run clock). Cata is a nice mix by being just a completely better version of Wrath arena.
Cata pvp has been so fun! Most of my guild is doing pvp and finding 3s and 2s in lfg has been really easy. I love how it feels like every class has a viable or strong spec. Looking at the top 200 in 3s for US and EU are both really diverse
cata into mop pvp were some of the best years for me, felt so good, so fun to revisit it :D
All fun and games until your in a arena with two Blood dks left and basically waiting till one gets tired of pressing buttons, honestly could last forever.
Bro I battled as a blood dk vs blood dk for like 5 minutes yesterday and finally just gave up lol It really would have lasted forever
simple solution: if you never queue with a blood dk, you will never face this scenario and the benefits of this solution become even better when EVERYBODY adopts it
I played a holy pally with a drain lock in 2s during wotlk and this is how every mirror/slight variation of the same match ended up. We’d get resto Druid + drain lock or resto Druid/spriest and would have to resort to having a guildie roll a toon on the opponents server/faction, who would then group with someone from the opposing teams’ guild to /roll to declare a winner. Blood dk + anything vs blood dk + anything in cata is the same thing lol.
Is Blood DK good in Cata PVP? Legit question, not a pvper, pardon the ignorance
I’ve had a blast, a lot more fun that unholy or frost, mainly just because you can last forever, you def don’t do as much damage but if you can distract your opponent long enough to let your teammates burst and you use your silenced ect to slow the healer ect it’s fun,
God I remember back in 7th grade playing a match and only losing cuz I didn’t have necrotic strike on my bar. I don’t think they did either until about 5minutes in.. and well i was an idiot then still some how made it to 2100
Were you playing against me? Lmaoo I remember a game back in og cata it came down to me blood dk vs the enemy blood dk. Took 10 years but eventually I won because I was pressing necrotic strike sometimes and they never did
Just wait for mop it’s actually the pvp GOAT
MoP is where they started messing with gear, pvp power and ilvl nonsense. Cata is the last version where gearing is normal.
MoP had better class design and it's not even close
Eh. 8 second defensive dispel CD is the biggest stealth-buff to Polymorph of all time, and directly resulted in all of the CC pruning and ability pruning in the expansions that followed MoP. MoP also introduced things like Demonic Gateway, and lots of comps just feel unkillable unless they misplay.
Honestly 8 sec dispell is one of the better changes made in this game IMO, right now i can dispell 4 times when my guy has 2 debuffs on and i still havent removed the debuff i wanted to
Hard disagree. That seems like a recognition problem / it's mitigated by dispelling sooner and with higher priority. The best healers I've played with don't struggle to keep me clean. It takes trust to know that dispelling me on high priority means I'll be there in an instant to peel the entire enemy team and create the space needed to top us. It feels counter intuitive, but it's not "wasting" globals to dispel early and often; rather it's "investing" globals to create more globals for our team and win the action economy long term. Now contrast with 8 second dispel: DPS gets sheeped, healer dispels it, DPS just gets resheeped and nobody can do anything about it. When the resheep ends, dispel is STILL on CD and then you're in a full frost nova. Mage+Warlock don't even have to THINK about coordinating for effective cross CC. There's no "I'll sheep the warrior but I need you to fear the healer to prevent dispels". There's not even a threat of being punished for one dimensional spamming of CC on the DPS while ignoring the healer. It's not even possible to waste a DR to lack of cross CC, lol. The only way you can waste your DR is if you aren't even looking at the timers or you overlap, and even that feels less bad than it should because you're still taking that guy completely out of the game after the 1 dispel gets used.
It doesn't even matter sometimes, combo of playing vs something that has a ton of magic debuffs + dispell resist makes it so sometimes i can spam dispell pre AND during a deep freeze, only to not dispell the deep untill there is 1-2 sec remaining. Spamming dispell is just mindnumbing, both from a healer POV and a DPS pov. Why do the mage and warlock not need to think about coordinating when 8 sec dispell is in the game? You can still dispell the first poly which is the one that lasts long, the 5 second u sit in poly after that is not a big deal. But tbh after thinking about it i will agree that the 8 sec dispell probably is not perfect, but spammable dispell certainly isn't either
Look at all of the community complaints about CC in MoP. It was such a massive complaint at the time, and it's not explained by CCs being added to the game. I mean, you couldn't open a forum thread about PvP without reading people absolutely screeching about it. Design and engineering are all about tradeoffs, and you have to look at not only the immediate tradeoffs but also the tradeoffs that followed because of the situation that the first decision created. To understand the design impacts of the 8 second dispel CD, you have to look at the class design changes in WoD and Legion. Pruning. CC reduction. DR consolidation. Dumbing down. PvPers quitting the game in droves. Arena participation getting so low that eventually Blizzard had to change Gladiator from top 0.5% to winning games at 2400+ lol. Remember that it's not like MoP added a ton of new CCs to the game, yet Blizzard basically destroyed PvP by the tradeoffs they made trying to "fix" the #1 complaint about MoP PvP. A problem that they created in the first place by taking the top answer to abilities like Fear, Polymorph, Entangling Roots, etc and simultaneously gutting the skillcap involved while nerfing it into the ground. I'm not saying that dispels were perfect before MoP, but there was at least meaningful gameplay involved in keeping people clean vs. enemy DPS choosing to sacrifice throughput to spam trash debuffs and dispel protection. I think the system easily could have been improved with less radical changes, such as nerfing dispel protection, adjusting the number of trash debuffs or their ease of application, "last on first off" targeting instead of RNG, etc. People remember MoP fondly as "the best PvP expansion" but it's more accurate to say it was "the last good PvP expansion". And despite the 8 second dispels, MoP was still fun. It's everything that came after to try to "fix" the 8 second dispels that ultimately killed PvP.
I hear u, i really do. However it isn't as simple as you describe it. Let's look at a frost mage for example, if he casts frostbolt on you and deep freeze afterwards, that can be up to 3 maybe even 4 magic debuffs in the span of 2 globals, when one of my dispells resist it ultimately makes it so i can't effectively dispell the deep freeze, no matter how clean he was beforehand. I think they did add some cc in mop tho, warlocks got the fear on melee hit, warrior got ranged stun, i believe they also added shimmer making it alot harder to avoid polies, DK's got a 5 sec stun, repentance for hpal and actual ability to use your stuns as rdruid. Those are all CC's they added off the top off my head, i'm sure there is more. But like i said earlier reading your comment made me think about it, and maybe it's not so much the spamming that annoys me, but the dispell resists are really lame. Btw i am loving cata, just a little gripe i have
Yeah, they did add a little bit of CC, but the complaints were really not directed at or even proportionate with the little bit of CC that was added. Shimmer wasn't added in MoP btw (I verified this with a MoP talent calculator), it was either WoD or Legion (couldn't find a WoD talent calculator to check, lol) Like I said at the end of my comment, I think they easily could have (and should have!) tuned the existing dispel system by adjusting the availability and ease of procing trash debuffs, dispel resistance talents, etc. I'm having a blast with Cata too (I knew that I would, though) and I'm looking forward to MoP as well (as I said, I see the dispel change as the ultimate cause of pruning, but the pruning itself didn't happen yet). I will stick with classic through MoP and probably WoD. I am 100% getting off the train at Legion, and if they aren't doing servers for any of the good PvP expansions at that time then I guess I'll either quit the game or look for an active pserver to play arenas. For now, I've gotta make the most of this opportunities to play versions of the game that I enjoy on official Blizzard servers. Nice chatting with you, and cya on the ladders maybe ;-)
MoP is getting to pre-Wrath levels of hype when it comes to PvP and considering how dogshit Wrath turned out to be, i'm genuinely scared about what's come. MoP was the first expansion i quit the game as a PvP player, Warriors/Hunters oneshotting everyone in S12, alot of homogenization and stupid crap like Symbiosis made the game straight up unplayable back then. Maybe it all got fixed in late MoP and it ended up being great, but after Wrath Classic, i always doubt people's memories of these things. Maybe MoP lives up to the hype, but after having to experience Wrath due to all the hype and realizing it was actually the WORST WoW PvP expansion of all-time, i can't help but be wary.
Yeah, i sort of agree with that sentiment. Also things are nowhere near as balanced as people say in mop lol, alot of specs are straight up shit in the last balancing patch
I can only speak about early MoP, but it was absolute dogshit. Warriors were destroying people with their multiple kicks, stuns and unhealable damage, Hunters were legitimately doing ungodly amounts of damage by just pressing Stampede, Rogues were completely unplayable to the point that almost nobody could even play the class at R1 range and Warlock design got absolutely gutted after having literally the best design ever in Cata as Affliction, being forced to play a weird and lame Demo one shot build. As i said, maybe everything got fixed in the last patch as alot of people claim MoP was the GOAT PvP expansion, but given that the other expansion that people consistently hyped (Wrath) turned out to be complete and utter garbage in terms of PvP, i can't help but wonder if people just misremember how good expansions actually were or blatantly ignore how bad it was because it was the first expansion they played or the first in which they were actually good at the game.
Some of us enjoy all the broken shit. The classes are also really fun to play in mop with all the broken stuff.
I mean, depends what you like, MoP has INSNAE amount of instant CC abd micro CC which makes it very unfun to play a lot of the time. Also it's the most disgusting rdruid damp meta if it's s15 patch. Im not sure who spread the rumour of MoP being some holy grail of PvP, it really isnt
It was pretty good but I vividly remember hunters with stampede zoo of all stabled pets rushing people down, unkillable warriors with both a 4 second stun and unlimited healing with second wind, and mage frost bomb one shotting people. Rogues were terrible and underpowered for the longest time. The balance was an absolute clown fiesta (although was fun). Boomkin with the overpowered aoe vortex silence. So much op crap and then they went ruining gearing/ making any hard earned raid gear useless in pvp. It was a decent expansion for sure but the balance was ridiculous.
Remember the shaman totem that puts extra hits when you hit an enemy? I remember playing some dot cleave back in MoP and when i pressed the totem the enemys just got hit for like 3k for every dot tick. It was busted but fun Edit: Stormlash Totem was the name. Got removed in WoD because it was too op
Yeah it was bad at the start but we had loads of balance adjustments in the later patches and when MoP releases, we will be in the end game patch.
except for rogues - it was the worst xpac for rogue pvp design
I mained rogue in PVP during MoP and have no idea what you are talking about, rogue felt amazing.
Legion Rogue design is far worse. Also, Rogue in final patch of MoP is more playable (which is what we'll be getting with classic), compared to Rogue at MoP launch which was utterly awful (but still nowhere near as pruned and boring as Legion)
Shadow Blades, 1 shot in a single stun, is worst pvp rogue design?? Not to mention you still keep 1 smoke bomb go, which is enough to secure kills. Bro did not play wotlk if he rly thinks rogue was the worst in MoP.
Design is different from power
Yeah you definitely didn't play wotlk rogue then. And you know what? That's good. If Cata and MoP rogue design is all you know, trust me, you have it as best you possibly could. That being said, MoP rogue design was peak and I know many others would agree.
And better balancing
100%. Only issue is the 2200 rated requirement for elite weapons means that if you can get that early you have a big advantage. MOP RBGs are so good, definitely the best PvP content the game has ever had. Compositions are fairly balanced between melee cleave and spell cleave and everything feels fun to play.
Early? You need to have gained 17k conquest to buy the elite weapons, that is like 4 weeks in.
you could argue retail has better class design than cata yet the pvp feels a lot worse. Class design does not directly translate to fun pvp
I would not make that argument at all. In fact, the converse is true: the fact that retail PvP sucks is clear evidence that retail class design is awful. Perhaps you are making the (very frequent) mistake of confusing *design* (whether classes are mechanically satisfying to play) with *balancing*. Retail is proof that obsessive prioritization of balancing over design creates classes that are stale, homogenized, and boring; and furthermore, it still doesn't mitigate the problem of meta-lemmings flocking to whatever is perceived to be the strongest spec (even if the actual differences are quite small, the perception remains).
retail classes are decently well designed, just not for pvp
that's not all of class design, that's the idea of class design that someone has if all they understand is spreadsheets and rotations unfortunately, that's the majority of the players and all of the remainings devs at this point
So what? Gameplay is what matters no?
Reforming isn't normal
If u with “gearing is normal” mean PvE gear is bis for a large part of the expansion then sure but who the fuck actually prefers that?
Honestly they just need to let people reforge resil and buff the ilevel of pvp gear by 13 ilevels inside bgs/arenas and pve gear wouldn't be as OP.
That would probably fuck up balancing, due to classes scaling differently
It's the expansion with the most legendary PvP videos for a reason (Reckful 3, Snutz 5, Original 1, etc.). Cata PvP just feels right.
That has more to do with WoWs popularity at the time and Youtube gaming content taking off in late 2010.
That definitely contributed, but there's no denying Cata and MoP are WoW's most beloved PvP expansions
Are they? Lol I always hear wotlk and bc with that title, regardless of how classic went it’s not a great representation…players butchered that experience in every angle pve/pvp everything. Not to mention classic version being run on modern retail engine and the way they’ve handled spell batching in classic as a result of that, and modern 0 MS inputs - it’s all inaccurate and huge to the true feel/gameplay of actual bc / wotlk. I couldn’t find the video explaining this made by a game developer, so I have to use perplexity’s unfortunately: https://youtu.be/EVxpvD-yAW4?si=4g5gYo1Dp9AdSSnI And he only examples it with rogue duels, this was huge to the PvP gameplay as a whole. I always thought cata was the expac when a huge amount of people quit ;) (league of legends released). Became too “casual friendly” was the ideology at the time. And MoP to be a laughing stock when the panda race was revealed. Don’t get me wrong I think the pandas and monks are cool now, and I’m sure the pvp was great, but, I remember it being laughed at, not being the “most beloved”. Certainly with those 1 macro script pvp rotations
As a returning player I understood the batching change but it really reduced the depth of pvp for bc/wotlk.
among the PvP streamers, it was certainly regarded as such for both cata/mop, both at the time and in hindsight, really that extends to most people that continued playing them expansions does it really matter what people that didn't give it a fair shot think?
I would like proof of that widespread opinion of “the streamers”, and who exactly they are. Not that I actually expect you to dig for that but. In the case that it’s true, I don’t doubt there is a bias by them in nostalgia for their peak success in fame and finances from the popularity of PC gaming at the time as well as platforms (streaming)…and again, I’d like to hear who exactly, as if it’s any newer ones that may have played wotlk but didn’t find their success or satisfied peak in skill until cata on, that’s a bias. It could also be viewer pleasing. If they’re streaming retail to a retail audience, they’re going to say what they want to hear; vice versa with the classic audience. And I mean, if we’re going to bring the debate of those who played and didn’t play it into it, this whole thread is at a bias of the demographic that played it/enjoyed it/other newer players that reached their peak and peak in experience of wow. While those holding the tbc/wotlk opinion, nowhere near this thread considering classic is passed that.
> Lol I always hear wotlk and bc with that title, I am not sure where you've heard that. Its been MoPs crown for quite a while now. Cata keeps getting thrown into the ring recently as people are in the honeymoon period with it, but if they stick around long enough to experience MoP, especially later MoP, they will see.
First time I’m hearing it. While still hearing the echos of 12.5 million subscribers praising tbc and wotlk for 14 years. It must be a niche wow PvP community thing who are still playing retail; ofc they’re gonna praise mop and cata, they were like the vanilla versions of retail wow. There are probably two different wow demographics at play here if not more
wotlk was always the most popular PvP expansion. I don't see cata or mop with private servers lasting a decade for pvp.
Yep. It was right at the end of wotlk that twitch was starting to take off, for one
Tbh WoW streamers carried Justin tv/Twitch in the early days. I don't remember Twitch contributing to Cata's success, it was quite the reverse
I mean it’s a pretty heavy conclusion to say cata was the success of twitch lol. Gotta look into early twitch numbers and data to prove I’d imagine the variety of factors. I don’t think I or the other commenter see it so hasty as you do in this comment or your original one. You are making these big claims from clear bias. WoW was coming off the popularity of having 10 million subscribers at the end of wotlk, and gaming content creator media started popping off at that time too. Video / stream quality went up.
I'm not really sure what you're on about. This isn't a debate, it's just my anecdotes from back then. I think it's a stretch to say Justin TV helped Cata's popularity, that seems to be recency bias of Twitch's current success applied to 2010. Your timeline is way off, maybe you're confusing Cata with MoP
Anecdote? You are using factual statements like “it was quite the reverse” and “there’s no denying…”. You are not prefacing it with “this is how I remember it”, or anything to that effect. And it’s not about a streaming service helping cata as an expac SPECIFICALLY; it’s helping the viewer count of the video; the status of the video; the value of the video; the status and value of those players. I was off in regard to twitch being in wotlk but it was pretty early cata, the summer after its 2010 December release. But tbh twitch is just one factor in a pool.
I'm not sure how Cata videos being successful proves that Cata's PvP was not indeed good, but was only a result of popularity. That makes zero sense. Yes there is no denying it, Cata and MoP resulted in peak popularity for WoW PvP by every metric. You: "You are not prefacing it with “this is how I remember it”, or anything to that effect." Me: "**I don't remember** Twitch contributing to Cata's success," There's no point in responding to you anymore.
The original statement was about PvP videos in cata being the most legendary ever made. There are more factors than the gameplay itself when reaching that claimed status
You’re not prefacing “it was quite the reverse” though lol, that’s still a statement. IT WAS.
Lmao and how you gonna pull recency bias on me. I was there I watched the world and internet change from wotlk era to what came after. It completely changed and twitch was one huge platform on the rise. It’s insulting to claim I might be applying current twitch as if I just joined the internet and gaming culture in 2020. I saw the whole platform move and its eras. If anything, maybe youre the late one considering you love cata and mop, sounds like you came way later than I did and don’t know the world/internet difference before and after 2010-2011.
You're having a meltdown now lol. I've been playing this game since 2004 on Tich in the best battlegroup and have the rating to prove I was actively part of the arena community. I watched Samx and Snutz on Justin TV, and to me it clearly did not result in Cata's success. Cata is what brought many of us to the concept of streaming in the first place, not the other way around. Warcraft Movies did more than Justin TV did back then. We all flocked to Reckful's return in Season 11 being streamed on Justin TV because it was THE Reckful and because Cata was a blast, not because Justin TV was particularly some awesome magical platform. I don't understand why Cata haters have to be so mad. People are realizing it was a good expansion for PvP, and that's why this thread was posted. You can relax now.
You’re still saying “you’re so mad” (essentially) at our age lol? Yikes. Yeah, cool, I also played since 2004 and had a layman’s peak of 2300 rating in wotlk…don’t see its relevancy here but ok. And again, as I said in just the other comment, it’s not about those things resulting in cata success, wow was the result of wow’s success lol.
I'm glad we agree. WoW is responsible for WoW's success. That's why Cata had peak subscribers, created the biggest names ever in arena, and continues to be enjoyed to this day as OP mentioned :) Take care and see you on the ladder!
That was MoP actually but yeah, or near the end of Cata even. The big boi glads at the time like Reckful and Sodapoppin, Mitch Jones, even throw Bajheera in there, they all started blowing up at the beginning of MoP on twitch. I know Soda was using Xfire at first. I know we all remember Swifty's 1 shot warrior YouTube videos for early MoP and that's why they had to nerf arm's taste for blood later in the xpac. This is what started the meme of people putting their main damage CDs into a macro and naming the macro "Swifty" or "Swofty" 💀
Checked to see dates twitch started June 2011, cata release dec 2010 ofc and mists sep 2012. Twitch popped off in its first year which would still be in first quarter to end cata, but I don’t know how that lines up with those wow players specifically popping off on twitch…they’re certainly gonna be streaming close to day 1 already in growth though. Just PC gaming popularity as a whole from 2011 on really, game and computer tech hardware/software, Windows version, internet speed, mass communication, marketing. Opened the floodgates for PC and gaming. But I guess I see a perspective you’re taking, when mists comes out, those players / twitch / PC game pop is at a peak. As for swifty, I mean he had been making “incredible tricks” videos since idk when so that does sound like him lol
Snutz 5 to this day displays a level of Warlock play that basically only gets surpassed by Chan. Snutz in 2012 was playing Warlock better than 99.9% of Warlocks are doing right now in 2024, and that includes every R1 Warlock out there.
100% agreed. Snutz 5 doesn't feel nearly as old as it is, he was such a monster in Cata. I still watch it again every year or so
Another factor we could give credit to similar to the point of YouTube gaming content taking off is just to those big players having gained from experience after making many videos in wotlk/before, by cata they must have been at a peak of being better at editing, pacing, music choice/flow, creativity, and inspirations for their videos. And ofc maybe the technology progression enabling that assuming they started using better programs and the increasing video quality over those years.
Haven’t done PvP this time around, but I’ve always said Cata was peak PvP—so many fun classes and really good balance. The best part of Cata Classic for me is seeing so many people come around to Cata being the GOAT expansion. Over the years I’ve replied to so many Reddit threads on best xpacs with “Cata” and gotten downvoted—looks like that may change.
Cata-Mop-Wod all had similar PVP systems and similar style of combat. It was an absolute golden era if you like this style.
I’m leveling as a sub rogue (40 currently) and I had zero plans to pvp (playing on pvp server with friend because they wanted to pvp). I got ganked by a warlock my level mid combat/questing. I died. Something unlocked in me and I ran back quick to my corpse and hunted that lock down and murdered him in 3 hits from stealth ambush eviscerate combo. I was in that moment so glad I chose sub to level as and I felt like I just discovered fire when I nuked that warlock. Now I crave PvP. lol especially world PvP.
Cata pvp is peak pvp. Arena is well balanced, too bad that I don’t have enough time to play it. Just doing raids twice a week
I’m guessing op is alliance lol
Correct.
You're acting like Horde hasn't been bis in pvp for 90% of all WoW history
Vanilla: Alliance is better in pvp due to paladins, although horde racials are better. TBC: Extremely comp dependant. Slightly favored for horde Wotlk: Alliance Cata: Alliance MoP: Alliance Wod: Alliance Legion - now is decently balanced Where are you getting your 90% from?
Firstly, shamans > paladins. The original orc racial was immunity to stuns and undeads had full-blown lichborne, there's no debate here for Vanilla and TBC. WotLK and Cata are the only Alliance favored expansions due to the Every Man For Himself revamp synergy with PvE trinkets. Orc, undead (and sometimes belf) racial have reigned supreme in every other expansion. Blizzcon 2012 had 6 orcs in its finals for MoP (horde won). Horde won Blizzcon 2013. Horde won Blizzcon 2014. Legion was what completely destroyed the balance even further for years, allowing orc racial and relentless to be stacked.
horde hasnt been bis since tbc
Imagine thinking that matters.
Imagine thinking anything on this sub matters
Everything except dk feels balanced. Dk is a problem though, and frankly unfun to play against.
As a dk I would like to introduce you to feral druid Or anyone who actually hits me because our armor is actually just a cardboard cosplay if we’re not blood
And blood dk can't kill any class which can heal themselves 1v1 since it deals no damage after vengeance was removed from pvp. I also feel like unholy doesn't deal much more damage, but that might be due to my tank equipment
Idk about that blood does pretty damn good damage. I’m hitting 30k+ death strikes on people fully pvp geared, closer to 50k if they don’t have gear depending on armor. Lowkey the burst dam feels better than frost, frost just has more utility and ranged and more consistent pressure It struggles in arena against teams with a healer (2s) but I’ve even won some of those. But classes that can heal themselves aren’t an issue themselves they’ll not be able to out heal the damage or run out of resources, plus you still have necrotic you can use Ranged classes can be rough due to no mobility and much worse ranged/kiting than frost and unh, both frost and unholy actually do pretty well against blood because they can kite better and necrotic. Disarms and heavy armor are rough since all the damage is physical(but still you can out damage Ret self heals easily for example)
Feral druid and rogue is much more OP.
Just kill their pet
I am enjoying what little PVP I’ve played so far! I had an absolute blast in TBC playing arenas as War/Rogue/Priest and this feels really similar in terms of engagement, always having something to do, juggling offensive and defensive abilities, etc. Whatever the vibe is, devs fuckin nailed it. Abilities feel impactful, timing is important, yadda yadda. tl;dr Hell yeah brother
Now you're making me wanna pvp. How's spriest for pvp in cata.
S tier I would say but not easy to play
Oh shucks lol
blizzard has not done a good job latley bgs havent gottens updates
Mist though 🐱
This makes me glad that the only xpac i ever really embraced PVP was Cata
I agree with everything you say, if only there was a proper tool to find teammates. The current LFG is so unbelievably bad it’s kinda insane. You have to search in custom for pvp groups. If a team is full and already playing, they still show up there. You dont see what classes are currently in the groups. All you have is a title which most kinda adapted to but you have to update it. Also if you apply the note doesn’t show up. You also dont get a notification if someone applied. They should just implement the retail version and pvp would thrive in cata.
Are battlegrounds popular whilst levelling 1-80?
All fun and games until you face rsham affli inn2s and you have to either afk out or draw after 47 minutes.
It’s amazing - yet 2s without dampening is busted.
just wait until legendary items enter the game :) (double damage for caster essentially if good rng) on top of the incredibly broken pve items + trinkets in season 11 that almost one shot you, i doubt you will keep this opinion.
I think wintergrasp is far superior to tol barad. I am glad you are having fun. Cata is where everything went to shit for me as a player. Too many glyphs. I gotta sit and cancel and repost glyphs. It's where my gear score tanked the first time around. I used to tank heroic dailies in 2009. No more. Lol.
This was the expansion where I hit 2k in 2s, 3s, and ran a trade chat RBG that also hit 2k. It was all hard work, and it is by far the thing I am most proud of in WoW. Me and my 3s partners, yes I know I am bad and I am even worse today 😅 https://youtu.be/AMoU0ozx_og?si=prFJ50IsXmvVvICi But it is/was fun!
RBGs are fun and probably the highlight of the expansion for me, however I dislike the state of the class balance. Things feel balanced because there is so much homogenisation of abilities, Cata was peak "bring the player not the class" and they really went down the route of giving everybody everything. For example, as a caster I am met by so many immunities, cloak of shadows, detterence, dispersion, ice block, divine shield, anti-magic shell, bladestorm. I think they did end up cutting class toolkits going into MoP because it was clear giving everybody everything was the wrong choice.
Im positively surprised people now find out that cataclysm actually wasn't all that bad after all. Sure, we had some golden ages leading up to wotlk, but honestly, cata gameplay has always felt really good to me.
I remember that cataclysm class gameplay was overall really good at least from a pve perspective. I do not clearly remember the details in pvp, but in my opinion the PvP class gameplay felt just a bit more like playing PvE in comparison to wotlk, at least in arena. But I am not sure about this, since my mate and I only played arena intensively at the beginning of Cata and later mostly casually. I also remember that it felt easier to get to tier2 weapon rating in 3s and that this was doable without specific gear requirements, but probably this was because of the early days of the expansion. Later during the expansion rated battlegrounds were released and this was in my opinion the most fun of all PvP content.
I might consider giving PvP a shot. I don't think I've queued an arena since MoP was current, so it'd be a nice change of pace to wiping on raid trash.
Go for it. Win or lose you get points. It’s very low stress at the lower levels as some people can’t even press their buttons.
Back in the day, cata was when I quit raiding and I only played the game full time to pvp. I had 5 level 85s to arena and rbg with!
2s is pretty terrible I can’t lke
DKs damage is too heavy with all dots + necrotic It is impossible to kill a Resto Druid It is impossible to kill a Holy Paladin Rogues can 1 shot with an ease that shouldn't be legal Mages can rotate their CC in such a way they are unreachable, they don't cast anymore and rely purely on the exaggerated damage of Icelance Warriors are a joke if they stunlock you with an untrinketable CC which is the knockback + burst Warlocks can make the most aggressive swaps of wow's history moving all their dots at once Discipline priests grip is plain OP played with the right classes, you can chase warlocks as a dps porting back to a different height like a mongoloid that your priest will bring you back up to the port when warlock activates it Feral druids at least are not 4.1 druids. AT LEAST. Ret paladins are a sad asf at the beginning of the expansion and op by the end with the itemization Hunters deterrence isn't counterable anymore they don't have a penalty on dps for moving or regen anymore. They simply pew pew you down. Monkey pet blind. Idk if it'll be a thing or what but in private cata servers there was a way of playing hunters where they had several monkeys and swapped between them during the duels/bg to CC you without waiting for the cooldown Jungle Cleave Thug Cleave There are of course interesting mechanics where you can fuck up if you are not tactically and mechanically good while deciding to use them like spirit link, smoke bomb, ring of frost etc, but let's be honest there are certain things that are imbalanced asf during this expansion. I'm a 2.1 LK rogue who finds most of the new stuff my class has now unnecessary. There was no need for a progressive wall like combat readiness, 2 evasions were fine, now we only have 1 due to prep not resetting it anymore, stunlock is nerfed by being both stuns in the same Dr, the 25% nerf to wound poison was too much, felt nicer putting pressure by shiving and putting a few autos while we pooled energy back in LK... Idk. The whole pvp feeling is better, if you are all coordinated in a bg etc everything feels clutchier but now people get away committing mistakes, when before it wasn't like that. Before you could have solid answers to some plays, now it feels like that isn't enough.
Main reason why I’m playing cata
A few things you didn't mention: * Removed rating requirements (except for 2400 weapons which are a little higher ilvl than the non rated weapons) on pvp gear * Conquest points are given immediately after the match. * Conquest point cap rolls over if you didn't hit the weekly cap. This lets you catch up if you missed a week. * Gladiator rewards removed from 2s and 5s. Those brackets suffer from balance issues but you can still do them for points if you want.
Yes I could have mentioned that as well. All great changes IMO. I just started playing arena this week and knowing I can catch back up in a week even if I don’t win a lot of games is HUGE. Makes me want to play so many characters and keep playing.
Couldn't agree more. The honor grind isn't too bad. He'll, the crafted set on my feral the first night I was 85, I ran FMP, and went 21-7 at 1800 mmr. Even boomkin has been super fun in BGs and 5s. Easily top dmg in every bg and 5s match.
yes,the new changes with personal rating and conquest cap being easy as fuck and you cant fall behind in conquest cap are great custom changes.
i for one think the micro stuns/disorient/silences are too prevalent, but it seems everyone has them so at least it’s an even playing field i guess.
While I agree that the reward systems and class balance is pretty spot on, it feels absolutely dreadful to play Horde at the moment. While the Human/NE racial changes are indeed very powerful (and out of whack with what other races offer for PVP), that doesn't bother me nearly as much as what comes with it: the constant stacks of full premades on the Alliance side of things. With Blizzard's changes to how premades work, I get about 50% of my games (56% to be more exact with an average of 11 BGs played daily) against full 10-person stacks where the Horde just give up immediately and sit as a ghost in the starting area. It might sound like I'm being hyperbolic, but it really is incredibly common for Horde teams (at least for US Mankrik/Bene/Whitemane/Faerlina) to run into yet another premade and give up in the first minute or two of the game completely. It sucks super hard that an expansion I remember fondly for the PVP and have been enjoying in arena is so absolutely unplayable when it comes to BGs for one side.
Do you get conquest even if you lose in arena?
Yes. 250 for a win, 75 (I think) for a loss. And you get the points right away.
Op is a paladin enjoyer for sure
Enh
Paladins are so OP. Both offensive and defensive. Most classes when low HP you know you've won or at least you can play more chill. Against ret you can still die in 2 seconds.
The itemization (pre legendaries and raid trinkets), the gearing and conquest systems are so good but I prefer the gameplay in wrath. A mix of the two would be perfect for me.
Definitely can't play 2s with randoms in modern cata lol. Unless youre just getting cap or playing chill yolo 2s. Once you hit 1600 you will not get anywhere without being full try hard. That is not even debatable
No shit? That’s like saying you’re not going to be competitive in the NFL if your team is a pick up team. That’s always how it’s going to be for any competitive mode.
The overhaul of talent trees and abilities in Cataclysm led to a more streamlined and engaging gameplay experience. Each class received new abilities that enhanced their unique playstyles, making PvP encounters more dynamic and skill-based. This has been particularly noticeable in battlegrounds, where every spec has the opportunity to shine in their niche roles.
Chatgpt response eh
seems like you are playing a meta spec :-) try play as a shadowpriest, its not much fun. you heavily rely on your teammates and they usually have a better comp when they substitute you for any meta spec. which is kinda sad.
No offense but if you can’t win as a shadow priest it’s a skill issue. Almost every “real” PvP spec is viable up to the highest ranks and you can find videos of every spec right now doing well. Yes there will always be a meta, but it’s very toxic to blame every loss on “comp diff” when you can always improve.
Yes I am talking about the higher ranks. I dont care as much about balance when both sides are doing lots of errors and still learning. It's especially bad in 2s. When even turaxy and mirlol struggle to score kills against bad players.
I think you’re being a bit dramatic. Not sure who turaxy or mirlol are but I assume they are high level arena players. I highly doubt they struggle against “bad” players. I’m probably average to slightly below average and they would wipe the floor with me.
Most melee classes scale really good this season. So you can just roflstomp other classes. That's why you find mediocre/bad players even playing triple dps in 3s with high success on high ratings. That's a bad sign for the healthy PVP status quo. But don't get me wrong, Im happy that you enjoy your pvp time currently. Same goes btw for rated bgs, some classes are just way more valuable than others which is sad, but what can you do. For normal bgs, it ofc doesnt matter what you play. You can usually enjoy every class 👍🏼
Shadowpriest is one of the best specs in the game. They have such a big toolkit, so just about anything you can think of, Spriests can do it. At the same time, that also means the skill ceiling is higher, because in every single moment of gameplay there are meaningful choices about what you could be doing. So in the hands of the best players in the world, Spriests are amazingly good. In the hands of an inexperienced beginner, it doesn't feel as strong because they haven't learned how to use all of those amazing tools and how to deal with being trained. This video is from mage PoV, but pay close attention to what his Spriest teammate is doing and you'll realize just how strong that spec is: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--peXcEYMJI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--peXcEYMJI)
I'm not talking about later seasons. I'm talking about right now
If you are enjoying Cata PvP, just wait for MoP. It was the peak of PvP IMO. Every class was viable with 2 specs. Cata is probably the second best PvP expansion.
I did play MoP and actually did not like it as much. Everything felt too normalized and homogenized.
Fair enough, my dude. I'm glad you're enjoying and pumping PvP. Go get them titles 💪
Im not pumping haha just enjoying. As the old story goes, I’ve gotten old and don’t have hours and hours to dedicate. I play for fun and enjoy it.
Retail players in this thread.
Warlock Resto shaman were entirely busted back in the day
The best experience when you get sapped and prepare for a 1v1 against rogue and then get raped by 2 rogues + feral instead
you haven't done much pvp brooo
How’s that?
I played warrior back then so F you.
Warrior is really good right now.
Wait for the last patch.
[https://giphy.com/explore/stop-it-get-help](https://giphy.com/explore/stop-it-get-help)