Future PvP balancing suggestions from a Scourge Warlock's POV

purphoria

*Note that what I am going to say below are mostly suggestions and I would love to have your feedback, thoughts, comments and possible changes you can think of to help alleviate the problem.

I have been noticing a few frustrating things in pvp as of late whether it is an overwhelming amount of TR’s dominating the leaderboard or devoted cleric and guardian fighter combos standing on points being pretty much immune to damage. If certain classes always seem to be stronger in PvP compared to others then how do the devs balance it without gutting the class in PvE.

Some people I know feel that the TR or HR are not as impactful as other classes in PvE even though they dominate PvP so I was wondering if there should be some other implementations to help deal with certain classes in PvP yet buff them so they are funner to play in PvE. I want something that feels impactful and meaningful in PvP that would help others deal with more problematic classes and could be adjusted accordingly to give the game a more in depth gameplay and I begin thinking about the PvP artifacts. The current PvP artifacts don’t as feel as impactful to me as they just create an AoE that enhances some of your stats passively and does not force others to make crucial decisions on both sides.

What if we could get some PvP artifacts that primarily target some classes in PvP without crippling said classes in PvE. For example in PvP it is exceptionally hard to deal with a devoted cleric and guardian fighter together or even force them off the point so what if we could have an artifact that greatly reduces incoming healing in an AoE or causes an opponent to take more damage if they are being dealt damage from multiple players. Another thing I have noticed is that people in PvP tend to complain about some random TR stealthing in front of them just walking up and killing them in one hit so why not an artifact that grants a vision range of 20’-30’ to allies for a certain duration that removes stealth might help others react to the TR. These artifacts which specifically hurt certain classes have meaningful powers and reasonable cooldowns that the developers could use them to help balance PvP combat and create a competitive and fair atmosphere with counterplay on both sides. Such artifacts could always be swapped depending on what is needed and to give more counterplay against certain compositions. These “Bane” like artifacts should also be clearly visible to all players so players know how to react when they see one and encourages team work in combat to help neutralize the threat. For example, if your team sees someone with the TR “Bane” artifact you can still stun, control, distract, or pressure the target enabling the TR to move in without being seen and finish someone off.

overdriver13

I like the idea of pvp artifacts to balance pvp classes without impacting them in pve, but artifacts that help an under powered class and is available only to it, rather than an artifact that is for use against any specific class. An sw artifact that greatly buffs lifesteal and tenacity , but acts like an armor enchant that procs when hit and can only proc once every so many seconds: like when hit by any attack that would kill the sw, the attack instead only damages the sw for half of its total CURRENT hitpoints.

So if you have 7k hp left and are hit with a 40k lashing blade, the lb would only do 3.5k damage. SWs lacking any kind of dodge really need this because the same lashing blade attack would simply be dodged by a dodging class.

purphoria

SWs are indeed an underpowered class in PvP however limiting artifacts to be used solely for that class does not allow for reactionary and diverse play when itemizing in pvp since every SW who seeks to play pvp would be forced to depend solely on that item. Not only that but passive buffs or armor enchantment like effects does not allow more skilled players to use it to its full potential. If anything give all the classes the option of getting an artifact or an item (since we only use pvp healing potions in 1 of the 3 slots anyway) that grants a large amount of critical resistance with a very short casting time over a short duration (let say 3 seconds) so they have to use it skillfully against a TR's lashing blade, a CW's Ice Knife, a SW's killing flames or any other nuke that could easily kill you requiring multiman pvp teams to work together when killing a target. Such an item would also force the aggressor to make decisions to try and play around the effect rather than straight up killing you in a few seconds.

Dodging is by far one of the strongest mechanics in the game and probably why SWs and GWFs are much weaker than other classes. I personally feel that such a powerful mechanic that allows a low health HR to avoid multiple nukes should at least be given a cool down so players have to use it wisely at the most opportune time rather than just using it whenever something bad pops up.