Apologies if this is an already widely known tactic.
If you play as DPS, then you know how terribly long the queue is for the Random Dungeon team making system. Sometimes it takes literally forever and a day to get a team going.
Want to know a faster way to get into a team and off earning your Emblems of Frost/Triumph without waiting until the cows come home?
Grab a friend who plays a class that 'can' tank. For the people who are completely ignorant about class abilities, that's Warrior, Paladin, Deathknight and Druid. Even if they only heal or DPS, have them queue as role = Tank. Once the team gets put together, which should be absurdly quick, have your buddy enter the instance and then drop team. Immediately elect to search for a replacement. This will put you at the front of the queue instead of at the ass end of it, giving you the first Tank available.
Voila! Instant reduction in frustration!
And knowing is half the battle.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sometimes You Just Know
Sometimes, when you're in a pressure situation, your game elevates with the stress of the situation and when things click, you just know that you did something right.
On my day off, I randomly did some 2's games as Rogue/Shadow Priest, with myself as the Shadow Priest. Games were fast and high pressure, rarely lasting longer than 2 minutes. The beauty of it all, was that, having not played as Shadow in the Arena for any appreciable amount of time, we were able to pull out trinkets and defensive CD's to force kills, usually by the second fear or silence. In no time, we were beating 2k MMR teams (not that it's a huge deal, but.. you know.. just sayin')
It just feels good when you figure out the steps to beating an opposing comp and you know that for the most part, success is just execution.
Oh, by the by: 2nd run ever on my Druid in H. Pit of Saron and 2 Battered Hilts dropped. Guess who won one?
Thats right, the Feral with the il200 gear.
Maybe it will bump my DPS from 'terribad' to 'scrub'.
On my day off, I randomly did some 2's games as Rogue/Shadow Priest, with myself as the Shadow Priest. Games were fast and high pressure, rarely lasting longer than 2 minutes. The beauty of it all, was that, having not played as Shadow in the Arena for any appreciable amount of time, we were able to pull out trinkets and defensive CD's to force kills, usually by the second fear or silence. In no time, we were beating 2k MMR teams (not that it's a huge deal, but.. you know.. just sayin')
It just feels good when you figure out the steps to beating an opposing comp and you know that for the most part, success is just execution.
Oh, by the by: 2nd run ever on my Druid in H. Pit of Saron and 2 Battered Hilts dropped. Guess who won one?
Thats right, the Feral with the il200 gear.
Maybe it will bump my DPS from 'terribad' to 'scrub'.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Pissin' My Life Away...
Just when you think you've broken free of a soul breaking obsession, certain sequences happen in life that make you run eagerly back to indulge... nay, -feed- whatever addiction that held you so captivated for so many weeks, months or years.
Yep. I'm back playing WoW.
I'll get into what I've been doing recently in a bit, but something happened last night was prompted me to write today.
I was doing VoA 10 PUG on my Priest when a raid member, and complete stranger piped up with, (paraphrased) "Rukuz? What are you doing online?"
Befuddled, I responded with my best 'this is how I respond to strangers shorthand': "?"
The stranger went on to explain that he/she had saw that I had quit playing via my blog.
!
Wow. Stunned, I quickly explained (in non-'I don't know you shorthand') that a buddy of mine had suckered me back into playing WoW. but that I hadn't posted anything about it.
In a way, I felt pretty good that someone had actually read this jumble of poorly thought out analogies and excessive carriage returns, so I tried extra hard to DPS Archaevon the Stingy* & friends with my janky outdated gear. (*That b!tch never drops anything useful) I was surprised that I broke 3.5k dps. I'm such a bad dragon slayer.
So, what have I been doing? Well, considering this is a PvP blog, I've actually been.. well.. PvPing.
Actually, that's somewhat of a lie. I actually stealth leveled a Warrior from 70-80 without telling friends and ground some honor under the auspices of possibly gearing him out as a new main character. It's quite amusing how the first thought (among my friends, at least), when we get seriously frustrated with our Arena experience, is to change classes. I thought that swapping to a Warrior would make me happier with Arena and PvP overall.
Did it?
No.
The problem that I had/have with PvP is the massive amount of time I have to spend grinding honor. I've said it time and again, but grinding honor is mad stupid. Watching the Nightfall Horde, geared in what digitally resembles used tissue paper, repeatedly fling themselves single-file like lemmings into the Alliance woodchipper is not fun. Playing a brand new 80 and grinding honor while expecting the Horde to not act like a SPED gym glass that takes to kicking each other in the nuts as a good idea, is a decidedly even worse way to work up a whole new level of frustration towards the BG Honor grind system.
So the Warrior got relegated to status: Not Even An Alt, and I started picking up honor on the Druid again to build up my Feral set. I already had my Furious Staff from last season's left over points, so I went to work grinding up Relentless offset pieces while saving up my pittance of points from my bogus weekly throwaway teams. I'll (maybe) comment about Feral in a future post, but let's just put it this way: Even poorly geared, Feral does a ridiculous amount of damage to equally poorly geared BG denizens.
Somewhere along the line, 3.3 came out and Haste got synergized with Dot classes and my Priest got forcibly yanked out of retirement. I will say that I've never actually been good on my Priest. I got carried to 2k+ in 5's as Discipline, and never really broke into the 2k+ brackets as either Disc or Shadow. However, 3.3 is about as close as we can probably get to 'The Golden Age' of the Shadowpriest, and 5 things in 3.3 really make Shadowpriests shine alot brighter (darker?) that before:
So, I'm back for a bit.. still not playing crazy amounts like I used to, but trying to stay positive about my gaming future.
Will this return herald more posts in the future? Tough to tell, really, but we'll see.
Cheers.
Yep. I'm back playing WoW.
I'll get into what I've been doing recently in a bit, but something happened last night was prompted me to write today.
I was doing VoA 10 PUG on my Priest when a raid member, and complete stranger piped up with, (paraphrased) "Rukuz? What are you doing online?"
Befuddled, I responded with my best 'this is how I respond to strangers shorthand': "?"
The stranger went on to explain that he/she had saw that I had quit playing via my blog.
!
Wow. Stunned, I quickly explained (in non-'I don't know you shorthand') that a buddy of mine had suckered me back into playing WoW. but that I hadn't posted anything about it.
In a way, I felt pretty good that someone had actually read this jumble of poorly thought out analogies and excessive carriage returns, so I tried extra hard to DPS Archaevon the Stingy* & friends with my janky outdated gear. (*That b!tch never drops anything useful) I was surprised that I broke 3.5k dps. I'm such a bad dragon slayer.
So, what have I been doing? Well, considering this is a PvP blog, I've actually been.. well.. PvPing.
Actually, that's somewhat of a lie. I actually stealth leveled a Warrior from 70-80 without telling friends and ground some honor under the auspices of possibly gearing him out as a new main character. It's quite amusing how the first thought (among my friends, at least), when we get seriously frustrated with our Arena experience, is to change classes. I thought that swapping to a Warrior would make me happier with Arena and PvP overall.
Did it?
No.
The problem that I had/have with PvP is the massive amount of time I have to spend grinding honor. I've said it time and again, but grinding honor is mad stupid. Watching the Nightfall Horde, geared in what digitally resembles used tissue paper, repeatedly fling themselves single-file like lemmings into the Alliance woodchipper is not fun. Playing a brand new 80 and grinding honor while expecting the Horde to not act like a SPED gym glass that takes to kicking each other in the nuts as a good idea, is a decidedly even worse way to work up a whole new level of frustration towards the BG Honor grind system.
So the Warrior got relegated to status: Not Even An Alt, and I started picking up honor on the Druid again to build up my Feral set. I already had my Furious Staff from last season's left over points, so I went to work grinding up Relentless offset pieces while saving up my pittance of points from my bogus weekly throwaway teams. I'll (maybe) comment about Feral in a future post, but let's just put it this way: Even poorly geared, Feral does a ridiculous amount of damage to equally poorly geared BG denizens.
Somewhere along the line, 3.3 came out and Haste got synergized with Dot classes and my Priest got forcibly yanked out of retirement. I will say that I've never actually been good on my Priest. I got carried to 2k+ in 5's as Discipline, and never really broke into the 2k+ brackets as either Disc or Shadow. However, 3.3 is about as close as we can probably get to 'The Golden Age' of the Shadowpriest, and 5 things in 3.3 really make Shadowpriests shine alot brighter (darker?) that before:
- Haste affecting Devouring Plague & Vampiric Touch,
- Vampiric Embrace becoming an undispellable buff on the Priest
- Improved Devouring Plague hitting alot harder upon initial application
- Mind Flay range increase without losing the snare
- WotF nerf.
So, I'm back for a bit.. still not playing crazy amounts like I used to, but trying to stay positive about my gaming future.
Will this return herald more posts in the future? Tough to tell, really, but we'll see.
Cheers.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Goodbye!
Sorry folks.
We're done.
Likely, you've noticed that our blogging has been non-existant for several months now and that's largely due to my waning interest in WoW. I've been playing here and there, but 8 months ago, I embarked on a journey to fix up my life and since then, I've lost about 40#, gotten better sleep, and have achieved a much better outlook on life.
It's a win.
Don't feel sorry for my languishing Arena ratings. I don't.
All that means that I don't have much time to really get fully invested in WoW...which I've realized is the missing ingredient to become and stay competitive in this e-Sport. More on this later.
So what have I been doing?
Well, I have replaced alot of my interest in WoW with fitness and diet health. I've been getting my workouts from the great folks at Crossfit and have cut alot of junk from my diet. I've pretty much cut out all wheat, corn, potato, rice, sugar and pasta products and gone from a near size 38 waist to a 30-31. I even signed up to run a Marathon in January, 2010 with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Before this life turning point, I had never run more than 5 miles, and that was in highschool.
Here's the shameless self promotion link for those that might care to read about the training progression and possibly donate to help the LLS out:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/pfchangs10/chucifer
So why did I quit?
Well, the big issue was time and energy as aforementioned. With so many new things to think about, I naturally had less time on my hands. Coming home to cook/eat healthy takes time. Exercise takes time. But most importantly, an active lifestyle begets an active lifestyle. You want to go do stuff. You want to try new things. You want to spread the word about how awesome your new experiences are.
The smaller issue behind quitting was the immense amount of time staying competitive in WoW required. This season started off with a whimper and the honor grind pretty much killed any desire of mine to keep playing. Endless BG's sucked. Poor comps sucked. Poor class design (reliance on Mortal Strike debuffs) sucked. It all combined to literally suck the life out of my WoW experience.
I won't hide it: I like to play with smart players. Sitting in a BG where 90% of the players are both undergeared and underintelligent is frustrating at best. If you've ever been on Ventrilo with me, you'd likely be familiar with the torrent of cursing that usually comes with my Honor grinds and that usually preceeds my sudden logging out of WoW in utter frustration and disgust.
For me, the Battleground or Arena experience should be the reward for your effort. Not the gear. And this is where I believe that Blizzard has ultimately finally & successfully created something that is unsustainable. The reason why an e-Sport is sustainable (Starcraft, CS, etc) is because the reward is the feeling of accomplishment, not something that is only relevant for the current Arena season. I can take my feeling of hitting 2200 in 3's with me forever, but will I remember my Furious Shoulders? Well, that's pretty unlikely.
So, will I be back?
Well, to be honest, I already tried coming back. With some generous help, I was able to level my Warrior from 70-80 and do a little bit of Honor/Arena grinding. It was fun in a way, but ultimately more of the same old, same old. The feelings of frustrating kept coming back and because of them, I haven't been back in the game for a while.
Will I come back with Cataclysm? Maybe. I'm not entirely sure. If Blizzard gets rid of the stupid Honor grind then there's a good chance of that happening. If I break my leg before my Marathon, then it's likely as well. (stay away, all you would be Tonya Hardings) I am looking forward to Starcraft 2 and a little Diablo 3, however, so you might see me pop up there.
So what of the blog?
In some ways, I wanted to be the next Resto4Life or the next BRK, and get widespread acceptance as a go-to person for my class, but my general distaste for raiding and talking about what I view to be mundane (anything not associated to PvP) didn't exactly make me a popular destination with the general masses. I think
As such, It's unlikely that there was -THAT- much traffic here, but from a casual writer, it was a good exercise in expression. I was able to give a bit of info, get a sense of level of effort that some of the more prolific bloggers output, and vent a few frustrations all in one outlet. Hopefully, I was able to do it in a easy to read and readily consumable form. So, thank you, reader(s), for giving me the space to be creative.
I'll probably leave this as the last post until I come back or move on to another MMO or competitive video game.
Any regrets?
Nah. Things are better now from a macro perspective.
Actually, scratch that. I do have a regret.
I regret that by leaving, there will be one less PvP healer willing to subject themselves to the mindless paintrains and that my friends who are still playing this game will be forced to find other healers to help them out.
Because, in the end, it's about the people, not the game.
Cheers!
We're done.
Likely, you've noticed that our blogging has been non-existant for several months now and that's largely due to my waning interest in WoW. I've been playing here and there, but 8 months ago, I embarked on a journey to fix up my life and since then, I've lost about 40#, gotten better sleep, and have achieved a much better outlook on life.
It's a win.
Don't feel sorry for my languishing Arena ratings. I don't.
All that means that I don't have much time to really get fully invested in WoW...which I've realized is the missing ingredient to become and stay competitive in this e-Sport. More on this later.
So what have I been doing?
Well, I have replaced alot of my interest in WoW with fitness and diet health. I've been getting my workouts from the great folks at Crossfit and have cut alot of junk from my diet. I've pretty much cut out all wheat, corn, potato, rice, sugar and pasta products and gone from a near size 38 waist to a 30-31. I even signed up to run a Marathon in January, 2010 with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Before this life turning point, I had never run more than 5 miles, and that was in highschool.
Here's the shameless self promotion link for those that might care to read about the training progression and possibly donate to help the LLS out:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/pfchangs10/chucifer
So why did I quit?
Well, the big issue was time and energy as aforementioned. With so many new things to think about, I naturally had less time on my hands. Coming home to cook/eat healthy takes time. Exercise takes time. But most importantly, an active lifestyle begets an active lifestyle. You want to go do stuff. You want to try new things. You want to spread the word about how awesome your new experiences are.
The smaller issue behind quitting was the immense amount of time staying competitive in WoW required. This season started off with a whimper and the honor grind pretty much killed any desire of mine to keep playing. Endless BG's sucked. Poor comps sucked. Poor class design (reliance on Mortal Strike debuffs) sucked. It all combined to literally suck the life out of my WoW experience.
I won't hide it: I like to play with smart players. Sitting in a BG where 90% of the players are both undergeared and underintelligent is frustrating at best. If you've ever been on Ventrilo with me, you'd likely be familiar with the torrent of cursing that usually comes with my Honor grinds and that usually preceeds my sudden logging out of WoW in utter frustration and disgust.
For me, the Battleground or Arena experience should be the reward for your effort. Not the gear. And this is where I believe that Blizzard has ultimately finally & successfully created something that is unsustainable. The reason why an e-Sport is sustainable (Starcraft, CS, etc) is because the reward is the feeling of accomplishment, not something that is only relevant for the current Arena season. I can take my feeling of hitting 2200 in 3's with me forever, but will I remember my Furious Shoulders? Well, that's pretty unlikely.
So, will I be back?
Well, to be honest, I already tried coming back. With some generous help, I was able to level my Warrior from 70-80 and do a little bit of Honor/Arena grinding. It was fun in a way, but ultimately more of the same old, same old. The feelings of frustrating kept coming back and because of them, I haven't been back in the game for a while.
Will I come back with Cataclysm? Maybe. I'm not entirely sure. If Blizzard gets rid of the stupid Honor grind then there's a good chance of that happening. If I break my leg before my Marathon, then it's likely as well. (stay away, all you would be Tonya Hardings) I am looking forward to Starcraft 2 and a little Diablo 3, however, so you might see me pop up there.
So what of the blog?
In some ways, I wanted to be the next Resto4Life or the next BRK, and get widespread acceptance as a go-to person for my class, but my general distaste for raiding and talking about what I view to be mundane (anything not associated to PvP) didn't exactly make me a popular destination with the general masses. I think
As such, It's unlikely that there was -THAT- much traffic here, but from a casual writer, it was a good exercise in expression. I was able to give a bit of info, get a sense of level of effort that some of the more prolific bloggers output, and vent a few frustrations all in one outlet. Hopefully, I was able to do it in a easy to read and readily consumable form. So, thank you, reader(s), for giving me the space to be creative.
I'll probably leave this as the last post until I come back or move on to another MMO or competitive video game.
Any regrets?
Nah. Things are better now from a macro perspective.
Actually, scratch that. I do have a regret.
I regret that by leaving, there will be one less PvP healer willing to subject themselves to the mindless paintrains and that my friends who are still playing this game will be forced to find other healers to help them out.
Because, in the end, it's about the people, not the game.
Cheers!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
3.2 Is Here! Thoughts about Resilience Changes...
And without a doubt, this new patch has generated the least amount of hububb amongst my group of friends than any other patch.
Rest assured, I haven't quit the game, nor have quit this blog, but the game hasn't changed very much to warrant any real substantial thought provoking posts. For me, while content is good, meaningful content is far more desireable. I'm acutely aware of the level of distaste among the general blogosphere readers towards "we cleared this boss this week! Yay us!" type posts, and since I don't enjoy reading that type, I refuse to post such drivel.
Substance is key!
It's like the difference between a hookup with a non English speaking trick and a one that not only speaks English, but can hold their own when discussing ways for Blizzard to overcome the disparity between Arena and Battleground gameplay and their corresponding reward lists. After the deed is done. Of course.
Whatever. Make up your own bad analogies.
I will, however, briefly mention a few things of note: First, I'm finally full Furious on both of my characters, am starting to piece together a Shadow Priest set and have obtained [Just the Two of Us: 2200] as Prot Pally/Resto Druid. Secondly, from recent Blue posts, it's likely that Season 6 will end on August 25th (2 week notice) and Season 7 will begin a week after; August 31st... just in time for all the nerds who don't go anywhere for Labor Day to apply SPF 5000 sunblock in anticipation of monitor burns.
Anyways, let's talk about the Resilience change and how it affects gear and why I have mixed feelings about the change.
Keep in mind that with 3.2, there were two Resilience changes:
1) Resilience affects all damage, not just crit damage
2) You need more Resilience to make up the same amount of mitigation. (15% more)
For the average player, the first change seems huge as playing in full Hateful gear (or even full Deadly if they run enough heroics for Badges of Conquest) isn't often enough to prevent getting gibbed. But, in reality, is this change really that game changing for the average player? Maybe...
Maybe not.
From a personal observation perspective, the majority of the players that I see in BG's are either wearing a smattering of Hateful pieces, a bunch of Naxx 25 stuff and maybe some crafted blues. Titansteel Destroyers are a very common commodity. Going forward, I'd imagine that while the ilvl 200 BoE's will be omnipresent, the ilvl 219 ToC epics will be abound. Regardless, survivability will still be terrible, especially against top geared players in either full ToC25 gear or Relentless (Season 7). Will this new change help players save themselves because they're taking less damage and have a couple extra globals to use their abilities? No. Not in the least for average players.
As a point of note, I often recommend to PvE DPS (ie: Guildies) that are trying to get into PvP to wear their full Uld25 gear and go for the quick gib. Non-Pally PvE Healers get a different recommendation from me and usually that is to spend badges for PvP gear and stack Stamina so that 15k noob Ret Pally doesnt two shot them in a HoJ. For many of these average BG participants, gimping either their damage output or healing ability/longevity for a tiny bit of resilience isn't worth it. They're going to die anyways, so they might as well DPS/Heal as much as possible before they go down.
Let's look at the second change from an average player's perspective: This change, which requires a player to add 15% more Resilience to achieve the same amount of crit reduction, is definitely not going to help the average player, who is often wearing much PvP gear in the first place.
The rationale behind this change is a good one, and that is to encourage players to wear more PvP specific gear to increase personal survivability as opposed to stacking PvE gear. However, when players are sporting marginal amounts of Resilience in the first place, this change won't encourage casual players to start working towards PvP gear. The survival difference between 0 Resilience and 300 Resilience (arbitrary amount) is very small. On top of that, to achieve the same amount of crit mitigation as 3.1's 300 Resilience (which is still a pittance when you consider that many DPS are rolling with 500+ and healers with 900+), players will need an extra 45 Resilience, which is another piece of PvP gear.
So, if these changes are limited in their effect to promote PvP gameplay to the average player, then who do they primarily affect the most? The answer there is: mid to top level PvPers. Top level PvPers are affected by these changes the most as top players will do anything to obtain the best gear to help them succeed. In previous seasons, many top players were mixing and matching PvE gear because they had enough Resilience (at no risk of exploding), creating a gear gap that was often unsurpassable to players who only had access to PvP gear. These changes promote a balanced playing field.
So what about the average player or the starting PvPer? Unfortunately, they're completely up shit creek because they need everything and are at a severe disadvantage from the get go in their efforts to obtain such gear. Off the top of my head, I'd estimate that they need approximately 5 billion honor to get PvP offset pieces and some mainset pieces, rating to be eligible for current/previous season offset/mainset pieces, and/or hundreds of Emblems of Conquest to buy Deadly gear, which will be 2 seasons old once Season 7 comes out. Throughout this time, they're getting crapped on in the BG's and crapped on in Arenas. By the time they get all their stuff in order, Season 8 will be upon them.
Isn't there a better solution to getting people gear so they don't just implode when someone merely contemplates attacking them? To the many players last night who melted to zero, just from my 3 dots (I was playing Shadow), I'm sorry that Blizzard hasn't implemented a system for you to even have a chance to succeed.
I believe, that to get more people into PvP, Blizzard must make PvP gear easy to get... especially if there is PvP specific gear. I propose that Blizzard incorporates PvP rewards with the achievement system. Win 10 3v3 Arena matches? Here's a pair of Deadly Gloves. Win 30 Arena matches? Here's your Deadly Legs. Turn in 10 'For Great Honor' mark turn in's? Here's your Deadly Bracers. Turn in 30? Deadly Belt. 60? Deadly Feet. Ad nauseum.
The rewards are 2 seasons old with Season 7 coming and if Blizz is afraid of Deadly gear becoming ubiquitous outside of PvP, they can make the gear usable only in BG's, Arenas or BG zones such as Wintergrasp. Speaking of which, WG marks are such a poorly implemented function. If you're a new 80 trying to get a full PvP set, not only do you have to grind BG's and Arenas, but you have to be online at specific times to get enough marks to buy pieces of PvP gear that don't even contribute to your main set bonuses. Who has that kind of time?
Intrepid readers might wonder why I'm so concerned about the average player or the starting PvPer? The reason is as such: For anything to be successful, it needs participants. The more players that use the BG's or the Arenas, the better the competition and gameplay. It also stands to reason the Blizzard will spend more development dollars on something that is more widely utilized than someone only a small percentage of players even acknowledge. Right now, the barrier of entry is just way too high to become competitive.
Also, I now have a 62 Shaman and I'm already dreading the gear grind.
Rest assured, I haven't quit the game, nor have quit this blog, but the game hasn't changed very much to warrant any real substantial thought provoking posts. For me, while content is good, meaningful content is far more desireable. I'm acutely aware of the level of distaste among the general blogosphere readers towards "we cleared this boss this week! Yay us!" type posts, and since I don't enjoy reading that type, I refuse to post such drivel.
Substance is key!
It's like the difference between a hookup with a non English speaking trick and a one that not only speaks English, but can hold their own when discussing ways for Blizzard to overcome the disparity between Arena and Battleground gameplay and their corresponding reward lists. After the deed is done. Of course.
Whatever. Make up your own bad analogies.
I will, however, briefly mention a few things of note: First, I'm finally full Furious on both of my characters, am starting to piece together a Shadow Priest set and have obtained [Just the Two of Us: 2200] as Prot Pally/Resto Druid. Secondly, from recent Blue posts, it's likely that Season 6 will end on August 25th (2 week notice) and Season 7 will begin a week after; August 31st... just in time for all the nerds who don't go anywhere for Labor Day to apply SPF 5000 sunblock in anticipation of monitor burns.
Anyways, let's talk about the Resilience change and how it affects gear and why I have mixed feelings about the change.
Keep in mind that with 3.2, there were two Resilience changes:
1) Resilience affects all damage, not just crit damage
2) You need more Resilience to make up the same amount of mitigation. (15% more)
For the average player, the first change seems huge as playing in full Hateful gear (or even full Deadly if they run enough heroics for Badges of Conquest) isn't often enough to prevent getting gibbed. But, in reality, is this change really that game changing for the average player? Maybe...
Maybe not.
From a personal observation perspective, the majority of the players that I see in BG's are either wearing a smattering of Hateful pieces, a bunch of Naxx 25 stuff and maybe some crafted blues. Titansteel Destroyers are a very common commodity. Going forward, I'd imagine that while the ilvl 200 BoE's will be omnipresent, the ilvl 219 ToC epics will be abound. Regardless, survivability will still be terrible, especially against top geared players in either full ToC25 gear or Relentless (Season 7). Will this new change help players save themselves because they're taking less damage and have a couple extra globals to use their abilities? No. Not in the least for average players.
As a point of note, I often recommend to PvE DPS (ie: Guildies) that are trying to get into PvP to wear their full Uld25 gear and go for the quick gib. Non-Pally PvE Healers get a different recommendation from me and usually that is to spend badges for PvP gear and stack Stamina so that 15k noob Ret Pally doesnt two shot them in a HoJ. For many of these average BG participants, gimping either their damage output or healing ability/longevity for a tiny bit of resilience isn't worth it. They're going to die anyways, so they might as well DPS/Heal as much as possible before they go down.
Let's look at the second change from an average player's perspective: This change, which requires a player to add 15% more Resilience to achieve the same amount of crit reduction, is definitely not going to help the average player, who is often wearing much PvP gear in the first place.
The rationale behind this change is a good one, and that is to encourage players to wear more PvP specific gear to increase personal survivability as opposed to stacking PvE gear. However, when players are sporting marginal amounts of Resilience in the first place, this change won't encourage casual players to start working towards PvP gear. The survival difference between 0 Resilience and 300 Resilience (arbitrary amount) is very small. On top of that, to achieve the same amount of crit mitigation as 3.1's 300 Resilience (which is still a pittance when you consider that many DPS are rolling with 500+ and healers with 900+), players will need an extra 45 Resilience, which is another piece of PvP gear.
So, if these changes are limited in their effect to promote PvP gameplay to the average player, then who do they primarily affect the most? The answer there is: mid to top level PvPers. Top level PvPers are affected by these changes the most as top players will do anything to obtain the best gear to help them succeed. In previous seasons, many top players were mixing and matching PvE gear because they had enough Resilience (at no risk of exploding), creating a gear gap that was often unsurpassable to players who only had access to PvP gear. These changes promote a balanced playing field.
So what about the average player or the starting PvPer? Unfortunately, they're completely up shit creek because they need everything and are at a severe disadvantage from the get go in their efforts to obtain such gear. Off the top of my head, I'd estimate that they need approximately 5 billion honor to get PvP offset pieces and some mainset pieces, rating to be eligible for current/previous season offset/mainset pieces, and/or hundreds of Emblems of Conquest to buy Deadly gear, which will be 2 seasons old once Season 7 comes out. Throughout this time, they're getting crapped on in the BG's and crapped on in Arenas. By the time they get all their stuff in order, Season 8 will be upon them.
Isn't there a better solution to getting people gear so they don't just implode when someone merely contemplates attacking them? To the many players last night who melted to zero, just from my 3 dots (I was playing Shadow), I'm sorry that Blizzard hasn't implemented a system for you to even have a chance to succeed.
I believe, that to get more people into PvP, Blizzard must make PvP gear easy to get... especially if there is PvP specific gear. I propose that Blizzard incorporates PvP rewards with the achievement system. Win 10 3v3 Arena matches? Here's a pair of Deadly Gloves. Win 30 Arena matches? Here's your Deadly Legs. Turn in 10 'For Great Honor' mark turn in's? Here's your Deadly Bracers. Turn in 30? Deadly Belt. 60? Deadly Feet. Ad nauseum.
The rewards are 2 seasons old with Season 7 coming and if Blizz is afraid of Deadly gear becoming ubiquitous outside of PvP, they can make the gear usable only in BG's, Arenas or BG zones such as Wintergrasp. Speaking of which, WG marks are such a poorly implemented function. If you're a new 80 trying to get a full PvP set, not only do you have to grind BG's and Arenas, but you have to be online at specific times to get enough marks to buy pieces of PvP gear that don't even contribute to your main set bonuses. Who has that kind of time?
Intrepid readers might wonder why I'm so concerned about the average player or the starting PvPer? The reason is as such: For anything to be successful, it needs participants. The more players that use the BG's or the Arenas, the better the competition and gameplay. It also stands to reason the Blizzard will spend more development dollars on something that is more widely utilized than someone only a small percentage of players even acknowledge. Right now, the barrier of entry is just way too high to become competitive.
Also, I now have a 62 Shaman and I'm already dreading the gear grind.
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