Fighting for Both Sides

This is not about playing Alliance and playing Horde even if I do play both.  This is about common issues that people talk about in game, or should I say argue about.

It is not that I am personally indecisive, it is that I find it easy to understand each side of the issue.  This is something I think most people can't do.  They make a decision and then say that what they think is right, no matter what.  It is never that easy.  If you where to say there are 10 classes, that is a fact, no one can argue that.  If you say your class is the best, that is an opinion.  Opinions are just that, opinions, and yours is yours and is right as you see it but that does not mean it is actually right.

While I do admit I have my own opinion on things and which side of the fence I am sitting I can at least open my mind enough to see the other sides point, agree or not.

So, for the sake of it I've decided to argue both sides, with myself.

359 Head and Shoulders

With this current hot issue we see people arguing that they should be purchasable with justice points now that the items are downgrades from the top level raid.  The against side is saying they needed to get the tokens and so should everyone else.

Pro Me:

They are dated items that, if anything, and would only be a small upgrade from the 353 troll pieces that are easier to get.  Allowing people to get them would mean more geared people for more successful pugging.  It would also mean that gearing up an alt, or for a new person with their first 85, would be much easier and put them in a position to get into the current tier of raiding a tiny bit faster. 

There is the added bonus of not having to wait on luck.  The luck that the 353 troll pieces will drop.  The luck that you will be able to get into a pug that can clear the content.  The luck that you tier piece will drop.  The luck that you will win the roll.

For some servers pugging T11 is still near impossible which means on those servers you would never get into the raids meaning you will never get them drops.  Luck aside, can't win something when you can not even find a pug that is capable of doing the content.

Against Me:

You can easily get to a 360+ item level without the head and shoulders.  This is more then ample to get into a firelands raid and if you know what you are doing and you are doing it right, with the exception of getting the 4 piece bonus, there is not such a huge difference between the 353 and 359 pieces that would make it a game breaker.

You can still get a head and shoulders from bosses in T11 even if they are not the set gear.  While you might not be able to get into pugs on many servers that can beat the last boss you can easily get into pugs that can get up to them meaning you can still get a head and shoulders from other bosses even if they are not the tier ones.

If the head and the shoulders actually mean that much to you then most likely the achievement for finishing those raids does too.  In time more people will finish them and learn the fights.  In time as more people know the fights getting into a successful raid will be easier and the tokens will come easier.  It might be harder right now because a lot of pug people still do not know the fights but that will pass.

Hunter PvP:

A hot topic, at least among the hunter forums, is how bad hunters have it in PvP at the moment.  While visiting the hunter section of the forums the other day 17 of the top 20 posts involved hunter PvP.  Two of those 17 where even from other classes expressing how bad they feel for hunters in arena right now.

One person put it perfectly when he explained a little story.  A post in trade goes something like, woohoo, finally 2200 in arena.  Trade erupts in noob, 2200 is easy, learn to pvp, and the like from pvpers around the world until the person says, as a hunter.  Trade falls silent for a second and then congrats start coming in from all over the place and people starting to say that they did not think it was possible for a hunter to get 2200 in arena.

This explains perfectly why hunters of all shapes and sizes are crying out for buffs.  When a hunter looks at another hunter and starts thinking, easy kill, you know things are bad for a class.

Pro Me:

Hunters in arenas are hurting big time with 1) no targeted CC, lets face it, no one is going to stand still and let you trap them and a human at the controls won't just walk into a trap the way a mob will. 2) no non targeted AoE 3) and no burst any more since we changed to focus.

Add that to the fact that their abilities seem to be lackluster when it comes to doing damage in arena now as well when compared to other classes leaves hunters at a huge loss.  Some sort of buff is a requirement if they ever want a fair (read as 10% as they are one of 10 classes) representation in the top of the arena ladder.

The lack of arena useable abilities and power and healing and burst make hunters a general liability for any team unless the team is specifically designed around the hunter.

Against Me:

Hunters are fine.  Hunters have so many slows, so many ways to get away, so many tools that they are actually the hardest class in the game to play in PvP.  While they might be lacking in certain areas at the moment don't all classes have some sort of problem they need to deal with?

The issue is really the user here.  Hunters rule battlegrounds because of their utility and they can rule arenas as well.  It comes down to a skill issue.  As I have seen many people joke, just role a feral druid and they give you a 2500 arena rating to save time because you can get that without even trying.  The thing is, it is not a joke.  The reason it seems like it is that easy is because it is.

Hunters, in theory are just as easy.  They too can roll to 2500 in a heartbeat but unlike the feral where anyone can do it for the hunter you need to be good.  Really good.  The skill cap for a hunter in PvP is through the roof.  A good PvP hunter has more buttons then any other two classes combined.  Possible more then any other three classes combined if you do not include a lock.

Hunters have so many tools that it makes them nearly impossible for the average or even decent PvPer to play them to their maximum ability without a hell of a lot of keybinds and practice.

People asking for PvP nerfs are really just asking for hunters to be made easy in arena.  They are good, they are just not easy.

It is an old saying but it has never been more true then now when it comes to PvP.  Hunters... easiest class to play, hardest class to master.  Hunters are fine, the players just need to get better.  If you PvP as a hunter and do well, it proves you are a good player.  A 2200 hunter is 100 times better than any 2800 feral, in terms of player skill. 

If you are a PvPer and want to prove you are good, then prove it, play the hardest class in the game to the top level.  Now you can brag about how good of a PvPer you are.

As a side note.  The reason we will never see hunter PvP buffs to help in arena is because hunters are already beasts in battlegrounds and quite decent in PvE.  Being blizzard is horrible at separating them all if they buffed hunters to be as easy to play as all the other classes in arena then they would be way over powered in PvE and even more over powered in battlegrounds.

Easier Raiding:

Another topic we see all the time on the forums is people complaining about the raid content.  Most saying it is too hard, some saying it is just fine and a few saying it needs to be harder. 

Before I give my Pro Me and Against Me version I would like to point something out.  There is a reason why most of the complaints we see are people saying it is too hard and we see so few saying it is fine or it needs to be harder is because of human nature. 

People complain when they are not happy, when they are happy they have nothing to say really.  That is why it seems like everyone is complaining.  Because they are not happy.  It does not mean they are the majority, it just means they are the ones with something to actually say.  Everyone else is okay with the content, at least, so there is nothing for them to say.

Pro Me:

Raids need more of a nerf.  Even the old ones can not be downed on the average small servers out there.  My server can still not pug 25 man heroic LK in a pug if you can believe that, been 11/12 forever and will most likely never see 12/12 until the next expansion.  Blizzard had already made it abundantly clear they have no intention of condensing servers so the only answer is creating a pug atmosphere again to make the content easy enough that even low population servers can clear T11 content.

The pug atmosphere worked from a business standpoint in wrath, that is a fact, should it be bought back however comes down to opinion.  If you are in a good guild or on a large server you might say that things are fine.  Everyone else in the WoW world knows otherwise.  Spend a few hours on a small server with low population and you will see that there will maybe be three T11 raids assembling in trade and for all those hours you will see those people still looking for people.  This means it takes at least 3 or 4 hours to assemble a group to pug and then you are taking your chances if you will actually get past the first boss.

Lets not even start on firelands pugging.  It is almost impossible to find rep pugs that do not break up after one clear on small servers.  Boss runs are completely and totally out of the question.

For the sake of the game people need to have pugs again, they need easier content, they need to feel as if they are accomplishing something even if it is easy.  Pugs are good for the game and no pugs are bad.  Right now there are no pugs for anything.  Nerfs are needed, big time.

Against Me:

It is still way to early in the expansion to be nerfing the hell out of everything.  Worst case scenario would mean we have at least one more raid before the big deathwing raid.  Even if that were the case, by the time we make it to deathwing the two added tiers or raid gear will nerf the ever loving crap out of the T11 so that even horrible players can do it.

Blizzard will then slowly nerf the last raid, deathwing presumably, like they did ICC.  They will want everyone to see the content at some point.  They will also probably really nerf all previous raids to the point they are completely and totally puggable even by the least experienced player because they will want everyone to go back and see them as well.  Just like they did in wrath.

The end of the expansion will see lots of pugs going on.  People will be getting the achievements they missed out on earlier and there will be something for everyone to do.

I can't speak of other servers but I can speak of mine.  Maybe people do not remember but when Ulduar came out they where still not pugging naxx.  Just like when FL came out they are still not pugging BWD.  I don't think I saw regular naxx pugs until ToC was out, and out for a long time.  Ulduar pugs where still few and far between even after ICC was out for 6 months.  ToC was the only raid there were ever pugs for.

People seem to look back at ICC and think that all of wrath was like that.  It wasn't.  Sure I could hit 80, spam some dungeons, and get into an ICC pug all in one day and probably even clear 6/12 with a bad pug.  That is what everyone remembers, that is what everyone wants back.  That is not all wrath was.  Memory can be selective.

Give it time, the nerfs will come, your achievements will find their way under your belt, and you will not be left out of the big final raid, blizzard wants everyone to see it, they already said that many times.  For now it is just a waiting game.  Wait, the easy raids and pugs will come, when all the content is said and done for this expansion.

Nerfs are not needed now.  They will come.  Perhaps some raids will start popping up when the new raid comes out, whatever it might be, just like pugging really didn't start until ToC in wrath, it won't start until the next raid in this one, hopefully not another ToC.

Side note, please do not say your server was pugging naxx the week wrath came out.  Your server is not my server and my server was not.  That is a fact, not an opinion, you can not argue fact.

I'll argue with myself again another day.  That is enough for now.

Well, as far as the arguments went I am not sure if I won or I won but either way I had fun arguing with myself.  I might do it again some day if the doctors don't lock me up for having a split personality.