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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Do you like PvP?
by Olivia Grace 
Apr 3rd 2012 at 8:00AM
I wrote a Breakfast Topic recently about what you're just not that excited about in Mists, and as ever, I religiously read all the comments. While a lot of the expected stuff came up, one thing that really sprang out at me was just how many people mentioned that they really don't like PvP -- even hate it, in some cases!
As the PvP columnist here at WoW Insider, I am really quite keen on PvP! And one thing I'm really hoping to do with my columns is to get people into PvP, get people enjoying it and so on. I personally think that once you understand a few basic things about PvP, you're far more likely to enjoy it, but maybe I'm wrong.
I can think of various reasons you might not like it. I wasn't super-keen when I first started WoW. I didn't understand what resilience was. I didn't understand Battleground brackets. I didn't understand the importance of CC. I didn't know about gear. If someone duelled me, I declined. But that changed!
So I'd love to hear, first, whether you're a fan of PvP or not -- and most important, the reasons for your opinion. If you could have some advice that might prompt you to start PvPing, what would it be? As Dr. Cox says in Scrubs, "Help me to help you!"
As the PvP columnist here at WoW Insider, I am really quite keen on PvP! And one thing I'm really hoping to do with my columns is to get people into PvP, get people enjoying it and so on. I personally think that once you understand a few basic things about PvP, you're far more likely to enjoy it, but maybe I'm wrong.
I can think of various reasons you might not like it. I wasn't super-keen when I first started WoW. I didn't understand what resilience was. I didn't understand Battleground brackets. I didn't understand the importance of CC. I didn't know about gear. If someone duelled me, I declined. But that changed!
So I'd love to hear, first, whether you're a fan of PvP or not -- and most important, the reasons for your opinion. If you could have some advice that might prompt you to start PvPing, what would it be? As Dr. Cox says in Scrubs, "Help me to help you!"
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 11)
Merinna Apr 3rd 2012 9:03AM
For all the so-called improvements in match-making, I've never yet participated in any form of WoW PvP that felt balanced. I suspect these systems work better for high-end PvP players than anybody else. The new expansion comes out, and the harder-core go straight to their PvP jobs and reach some level of play in which they are regularly seeded into epic battles against each other. The rest of us are left in some murkier pairings in which the complete blowout is much more common. And you know this has to be true, considering the constant shenanigans of high level players to try and trick out the match-making systems. I would suspect that sort of thing doesn't really affect hardcore PvPers, just the rabble.
Systems in which players either compete or cooperate in almost every game typically cater to very aggressive play style. You win Monopoly by buying every property you can as fast as possible. A round of Halo combat is usually determined by whoever can reach the rocket launcher first. I was playing Mass Effect 3 online this weekend and quickly determined how you'll never get very satisfactory scores if you equip a sniper rifle and use cover. If you don't have an aggressive streak to begin with in your favorite playstyle, PvP itself was pretty well never meant for you.
And, so help me, the way they tacked on arena in TBC was a farce. Its been some time since major revisions like this but countless exciting abilities that worked perfectly well in PvE were removed or neutered in the name of "PvP balance." Thanks for helping the game suck more!
Edymnion Apr 3rd 2012 9:13AM
Oh I hate that. Do. Not. Gimp. PvE. Because. It. Doesn't. Work. In. PvP.
My main is Rogue. My stuns are practically unusable anymore because of how strong they were in pvp. Used to, a skilled rogue could stunlock high level creatures and whittle them down with skill. But then the PvP crybabies went off on it, and now I don't even keep stuns on my action bar anymore. At no time is it ever worth the CP to use one anymore.
5yphon Apr 3rd 2012 9:04AM
Coming from someone who has played since Vanilla. I hate PVP.
I only play for 3 reasons:
1. Story and lore.
PVP has no evolving storyline. Why are the BElves still attacking the Draenei ruins? Didn't they make up after the Sunwell re-ignited? How many times does the Alliance/Horde have to kill the faction leader in order to make it stick? Exactly, no story = meaningless.
2. Comeraderie.
Pretty sure that most people who have played a random BG already know the answer to this. And god help you if you're new to PVP and show up in PVE gear and ask questions. It's a very toxic environment.
3. I LOATHE DPS.
I am a tank. Nothing makes me happier than staring down the gullet of some insanely large semi-godlike creature and taking it in the chin and surviving. In PVP? I get to run the flag... Where's the fun in that?
Lizenz Apr 3rd 2012 9:06AM
The fun is feeling SUPER BOSS when you run headlong into a pack of 5 enemies and snare-walk all the way through the middle of Warsong Gulch and DON'T DIE. It's great imagining how pissed the other team has to be not being able to get you down haha.
gwiz2008 Apr 3rd 2012 9:13AM
I never was a big PVP person, but now I have grown to like it! Actually, love it!!! I was always just a raider, thinking that we are the only thing thyat matters in WOW. I am an average PVPer @ best, but w/ every BG and TB I do. I get better and better. I even actually xferred my main to a highly populated PVP realm. I find PVP requires a little bit more customization. Key binding your CC's and defensive abilities/trinkets is key. No pun intended!! This is one problem that every newbie faces. Let alone skill/gear level, Avid PVPers have key bindings and macros that benefit them greatly.
The other thing I like about PVP is that I don't have to be on such a schedule that I used to be on w/ raiding. I can log on do a few BG's, grab a partner or 2 and do some 2V2 or 3V3 for an hour or so and still get Conquest and Honor points to get the gear I need to be competitive. Now obviously, if your looking to do rated BG's and/or be a top Arena team. Than obviously the time commitment is required. Raid finder groups lack the excitement, if your looking to be a casual raider.
I hope that Mists brings some world PVP as I now find that I have missed that boat. There is not many large scale PVP battles going on any more. This would be a lot of fun.
To sum it all up, I love PVP for the reasons most don't. It's competitive and there is a strong learning curve!! But, now as a more casual player not looking to invest 3 nights a week for 3 hours from X to X, PVP has become the right fit for me!
Lizenz Apr 3rd 2012 9:04AM
I am a PvP convert. I HATED PvP and found it dumb and ridiculous for a long time. Then I started having a very volatile work schedule (never knew what days I'd be working one week to the next) and became unable to raid reliably. With my new scheduling problem I did the only thing I could: I turned to PvP.
My main problem with PvP originally was that it is so gear dependent and even though I am a Warrior I was dying in 3-4 hits: ridiculous. So for a bit I just assumed PvP was some huge gank-fest where first hit wins. Then I got some gear (and realized how quick and easy it really was to acquire gear, contrary to my belief originally!) and started living even on 3v1 for long enough for backup to arrive (a good 30+ seconds) and I was able to start learning counters, when to use Throwdown, appropriate times to blow CDs, etc.
Then I not only started to like PvP, but I quickly came to LOVE it. While PvE provides great rewards in learning fights and developing your rotation (I personally as a DPS LOVE that feeling I get when I know I pulled off a PERFECT rotation the whole fight) and, of course, killing the big bad guys and saving the world, PvP offers an ENTIRELY different thrill. PvP in WoW is visceral and quick. You press one wrong button and you could be toast. Instead of mastering rotations you now have to master CCs and target priorities and EVERY PvP battle is different, even when fighting the same person multiple times, its reactive rather than premeditated.
EXAMPLE OF MY KEYBOARD IN PvE: click. click. click. click.
EXAMPLE IN PvP: clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick!
For me personally it's kind of split as PvE is relaxing and PvP is exciting :).
nthn.ln.dvs Apr 3rd 2012 10:14AM
|dying in 3-4 hits
Check
|huge gank-fest where first hit wins
Check
|one wrong button and you could be toast
Check
|clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick!
Check
No thank you.
viciouspen Apr 3rd 2012 9:06AM
I'm both really.
I LOVE pvp, when I'm in the mood for it. I mean I'm all over every TB and WG and I'm queing all the time. But, then I just get worn out.
There are too many Fun killing factors in pvp.
Group comp:
1. your group has way worse gear than theirs.
2. Their group has 4 healers, yours has....well you think that druid might be one...
3. Their side is in fact one of the many pvp raid BG groups that come in to farm honor and HKs, so you literally can't win.
These are things that just suck the very soul out of it. You don't enjoy yourself, there is no challenge, you just feel gimped and...well it feels like a waste of your time. No ability to have fun.
You don't have to WIN to have fun in pvp, some of the best times i've had were with really good battles, evenly matched, close, I may have lost but it was a blast to have a battle like that.
BUT, you do need to have the possibility of winning.
With these 3 things anybody who pvps at all is all too familiar with, well....it's next to impossible to have fun with those situations, cause it feels next to impossible, and people get angry and frustrated because they feel cheated of their chance to compete.
I also find it hard to get into Arena at all as the few people who do it a lot in my guild are always grouped up and capped, and Arena itself ends up being too much of you getting pitted against gladiator level teams and getting pwned.
Right now, I find it sorta impossible to que up anymore as one top of those reasons up there, my main is a ret paladin, and knowing how gimped I am compared to what I'll be like in Mists is just painful, I have to put on two pieces of my tier raid gear just to get my judgement ability in pvp, it kinda hurts.
viciouspen Apr 3rd 2012 9:08AM
To add, I think the time is way overdue that blizz implements more matchmaking tech in their pvp ques, cause these fun killing factors, they have plagued wow pvp for AGES, and a slightly longer que time would be way worth it if it improved the quality of the games you were getting.
i don't know about you, but I was love to get a few less BGs , but have them not be those completely hopeless ones.
Edymnion Apr 3rd 2012 9:06AM
I despise PvP.
I "grew up" on a PvP server, which meant you'd do about a quest and a half while leveling before a max level member of the opposite faction would gank you in 1 hit, and about ever dozen quests they'd decide to corpse camp you.
After I transferred my main characters to a PvE realm, I tried battlegrounds and arenas, where one thing quickly became clear. It has nothing to do with your skill and everything to do with your gear. If you are aren't decked out in the best PvP gear, then you're dead weight, literally. No amount of skill overcomes the gear gap, and the game doesn't let you pair up against others with similar gear. If you're trying to play while leveling, you run into rogues with warglaives or thunderfuries.
And of course there is the whole general attitude of PvP'ers. Nothing says fun and enjoyable like zoning into a random battleground and spend those first 5 warmup minutes getting yelled at for not being decked head to toe in the current season's top gear, and then spending maybe 60 seconds being alive before being downed by a rogue in full pvp gear that you can't even dent due to all of his resilience.
And then there are the jackholes that decide they are going to spam you with duel requests until you fight them. In the past when I got one of those, after declining a half dozen times, I'd accept and then take off all my gear and sit down. Completely rob them of any semblance of fun from beating up an unarmed opponent that refuses to fight back. Not that it ever stopped anyone, because those kinds of people are asses to begin with, but I wasn't about to let them enjoy themselves. Now a days though I have a plugin called DuelResponse. It has settings to let you automatically filter out duel requests based on all sorts of things, like opponent level and I'm not sure what else, I only use it for one thing. "Decline all incoming duel requests." I turn that on for every toon I make, and I never see a duel request ever again. It can be rather amusing to see some idiot drop a flag next to me a dozen times in a row only for it to instantly go right back up before I point out "You know, I've got an automated duel decliner addon. I don't even have to click a button in order to turn you down." Then they stop and go away, without ever having said a word.
So no, I can't stand PvP. The only times I do it anymore are for when there's a transmog piece I really want. And even then I do it only long enough to get what I want and then I get out. If there were a server where PvP was completely disabled (no BGs, no Arenas, no world PvP, no duels, absolute no way for one player to ever attack another under any circumstance) I would transfer to it in a heartbeat.
How can Blizzard help me want to PvP?
1) Tighten up the brackets. A 10 level gap is murder if you're just queuing while you level for something to do. Anyone not at the max level for that bracket is just going to become the whipping boy.
2) Sub-brackets based on resilience. If I have no pvp gear and want to try a random BG, then group me up with other people that have little to no resilience as well. If I have head to toe top of the line gear, then put me in BGs only with other top of the line people. Right now its like queuing for a regular random and being thrown into Heroic Dragon Soul with nothing in between.
3) Automatically disable the ability to request duels (on PvE servers) or to attack (on PvP servers) anyone that is gray to you. A level 85 sitting in a lvl 20 zone trying to get someone to flag is just an asshole. It literally makes PvP servers unplayable for me. If the game forced some restrictions to only being able to attack people that had a snowball's chance of being able to fight back... well I still wouldn't consider it, but at least it might stop more people from being utterly soured on the very idea of PvP like I was.
And before anyone says it, no, I do not suck at PvP. Like I said, I leveled my first two toons to max on PvP servers. I got damned good at it, I had to just to play the game. I just don't like it, and will never dream of doing it "for fun".
eel5pe Apr 3rd 2012 10:08AM
FYI, level brackets are by 5 now...
Edymnion Apr 3rd 2012 2:06PM
Ah, well you can see how long its been since I've even bothered to set foot into pvp on anything but one of my max lvls.
Luci Apr 3rd 2012 9:07AM
I love pvp and I am awesome at it ;)
There is nothing like beating another player. I like the smallest BGs best, as I like being able to see the difference I make directly. I also really enjoy utilizing all the tools in my kit - it is what I am working to improve currently and I can truly see a difference.
Noyou Apr 3rd 2012 10:53AM
I love PvP and I suck at it :p Well not totally. I just don't have anywhere near the gear vs people I try to kill. I always have world defense on (/join worlddefense -if you want to check that out) and am one of the few people that will go to the major cities if Horde is attacking. BG's are okay, but they are more a means for me to gear up my toons so I can defend the towns. Over the years I have learned a few tactics from my enemies to make me a craftier player. One thing I do suggest is, if you are thinking about trying PvP out, at the least go to a site such as wowpopular.com and check out what glyphs and a pvp build. It helps a lot. When I first did it on my mage, I went from kind of sucky to halfway decent.
PvP for achievement (such as school of hard knocks) should not be considered PvP. That is a whole different deal. It brings out the worst play and the worst behavior on both sides.
xenothaulus Apr 3rd 2012 9:13AM
I detest PvP, and everything about it, and everything it stands for.
recneps1337 Apr 3rd 2012 9:15AM
the reason i don't really like pvp is that i feel like I'm gimping myself on the ability to kill fast when stacking resil but i know i need it for that rogue that shadow-stepped over my flare and opened with a 5 cp kidney shot and over half my health by the time i can get a freezing trap off
Caylynn Apr 3rd 2012 9:14AM
I like PvP to me on MY terms - that is, I don't like to have it forced on me. Back in the Ultima Online days, the thing that got me to quit was all the PKing (player killing) - I absolutely despised it. I was delighted to hear that WoW gave me the option of playing on a PvP server or not - if there had been rampant PKing like in UO, I would have never played WoW.
In terms of PvP on my terms, I like BGs. Battlegrounds are definitely my "thing." I hate arena and I'm not fond of world PvP. So BGs are what I enjoy. I like having an objective to go after (even when half or most of the team totally ignores the objective.) I like "saving the day" as a healer - either by keeping my flag bearer alive, or keeping my team up around an objective so that we can hold onto it. Now, being a healer means I'm usually targeted and focused down, so I love a good BG team where the DPS/tanks peel the enemy off of me - it's a beautiful thing when that happens, and the players who do so will have my heals as long as I'm alive.
So yeah, for me, battlegrounds are where it's at. The rest of the PvP options could disappear and I wouldn't miss them at all.
jmccance Apr 3rd 2012 9:16AM
I love PvP in *theory*. It's the execution where it falls down for me. I think I've said this elsewhere, but trying to learn to PvP is like a hazing ritual. You necessarily start out in subpar gear, die constantly, and get verbally abused by your "teammates". Repeat tens if not hundreds of times until you get reasonably geared. For something I do in my free time, for fun, that isn't a very attractive prospect.
Fixing the community may be impossible, but removing the gear curve would go a long way towards making it tolerable. Some blues have commented "But if you didn't get gear rewards, why would you play?!" What are we, little league soccer players? Everyone needs a medal or else they'll get sad? I would PvP just because it's fun and to test my skills against other players. Transmog gear, mounts, and pets would be great, but I don't need a reward to do something that's inherently fun.
When a battleground goes well -- not necessarily in the sense of my team winning, but in the sense of everyone working together, trying their best, and remember that it's just a game -- it's a hell of a lot of fun. But given the ridiculous gear curve and caustic community, I just can't be bothered.
ravyncat Apr 3rd 2012 9:17AM
I do not enjoy PvP. I would say mainly because I completely suck at it, but it also due to personal issues.
I do not understand it at all and end up feeling lost. No matter how my friends try to explain what to do I just don't get it. All I see is this awful confusing mess and other people are trying to hurt me and I hate that. >_<
I end up feeling very anxious and stressed out and I almost always end up crying.
It just isn't fun for me. :(
I have anxiety issues anyway and problems with panic attacks which are just worsened with stress...so yeah. PvP is not good for me right now.
If it makes you feel any better though, Olivia, I do read and enjoy your columns. I can appreciate other people's love of PvP even if I do not share it.
Luci Apr 3rd 2012 9:25AM
I actually have the most fun leveling new little BOA toons through PvP. The PvP is simple and pure and you don't have to worry about complex objectives.
Start you a little BOA toon and just play the hell out of WSG until you feel confident enough to try AB and then move up from there. You would probably enjoy it!