Yesterday, Blizzard announced some more specifics of how PvP will work in Legion. The most shocking, for me at least, was the explanation of how gear will work.
In Legion, your gear will not matter when you're PvPing. Your ilvl will have a slight effect on how powerful you are when pvp'ing, determining how many of each stat you have, but at a rate of .1% per ilvl. That is, if you're 10 ilvls higher than someone else, you'll have 1% more stats than they will. The stats that are actually on the gear, however, will not matter in the slightest.
And that's the problem I have with this. Everyone who PvPs must now conform to a true cookie cutter build. No switching to a haste build for more pet damage, or a versa build for more survivability; for any spec you play, every other player of the same spec will have the exact same stats, with absolutely no customization.
They are making this change in the name of balance, which I have to admit, is a pretty good excuse. There is some sort of integrity in admitting they don't know how to balance PvP. I don't know that just giving up and making all specs conform to one build is the best solution, but, if you're interested in balanced PvP, it does look like Legion has some potential.
They still have a long way to go to reach the goal of balanced PvP, though. While having everyone in the exact same gear does lend itself to balancing DPS and HPS, it does little for the other things that actually make a class/spec good for PvP: self heals, CC, other utility, burst, etc.
My biggest concern, however, isn't really that everyone will have to play the same cookie-cutter build, and it will get boring. What I'm really worried about is that they'll take this control away from the player, but then won't balance things.
Anyhow, perhaps this is the right direction to take PvP. I'm under the impression that Blizzard gets a lot of complaints about PvP, and I may be part of a very small niche group that has enjoyed it for the past couple expansions. I hope I'm wrong, and that this new direction indicates that they're really committed to balance. That may be worth the loss of control in gearing choices. As with all things legion, we'll see.
Here's the battle.net blog, for anyone who hasn't seen it.
but a win for skill... if you're more skilled at tapping the right buttons and positioning then you have a chance. Particularly beneficial for old players who due to rl issues can't keep up with the gear grind. It will be interesting to watch the effect of the honor talents. I for one am looking forward to it...
ReplyDeleteyeah, you're right. It might be better for the game overall. But as someone who likes spreadsheets as much as they like the actual game, it's not the most exciting change. I'm trying my hardest to be open minded, though.
Deletethey are trying to heroes of the storm us. so skill is greater than gear. will it work? i hope so.
ReplyDeletei think the prestige system will get more people doing pvp for longer cause you know how many people play wow to collect things. mounts especially are a great insentive.
its still early but as with any alpha/beta, ill be optomistic.
i am aiming to play bm for raiding and surv for pvp. will be interesting to see how that works :-)
spanky