Resiliance, Gear, and Arena BO3

[Kestrel]

It is apparent to us that Turtle WoW's implementation of Resilience was in a bit of a transitory state in 1.18. As such we have begun to rethink how resilience should function in OctoWoW, and how we feel PvP gearing should be handled long term.

From our perspective there are two options that we have, we can either homogenize resilience back into a flat pvp damage reduction stat, or we can fracture it into more targeted defensive stats.

The benefits of the more homogenized approach are that it simplifies the gearing process for PvP, and makes an easy and clear distinction between PvP and PvE gear.

The more fractured approach of splitting the existing resilience stat into separate crit and DoT reduction (and adding new stats such as CC resistances, PvP only spell resistance, or an attack speed slowing affect when taking melee damage) results in gear decisions being more unique for PvP players who pay attention to compositions, and strategize about what challenges they expect to face. The goal of this would be to not only raise the skill ceiling, but also provide counterplan to "the meta" whatever the meta is at any time.

This ties in with our initial decision to have rated arena's be in the best of 3 format. The ability to re-strategize after seeing how the opposing team plays and even modify gearing choices between matches *should* allow for *some* matchups to feel less decided by class composition.

Of course this is all theory, and we will see how the current implementation plays out in reality over the next few weeks.

While this theory is being tested, we would like to ask the community to respond here. How do you feel about resilience gear in the current state of the game (or the previous turtle 1.18 state), and which would you rather see, a more homogenized, or more fractured approach?

[Aridhil]

These are all genuine questions, I don't claim to know the answers, but I can say what I think:

So what's the purpose for adding resilience on PvP gear?

Can I assume it's for longer time-to-kill, to counter big dps bursts, and enable more skill-based PvP gameplay? Especially in Arena (as opposed to BGs) where there is a lot more focus on individual players and their classes.

Are PvPers asking for longer TTK or are they asking for balance?

Personally, I think PvPers are asking for balance, not every class being a bit more tanky.

I think there are a couple of elephants in the room:

Paladins with "three health bars", one of which is invulnerability.

Shamans with "hybrid specs" that are meta combined to be tank + one shotting burst.

I think resilience is like adding a bit more padding to our armored vests when there are literally a couple of classes rolling around in main battle tanks. In BGs it's OK we can organize and 3v1 or peel and snipe.

I also think that adding another armor set of PvP resilience gear for everyone essentially erodes every class identity to just tank more hits and instead of playing our class strengths (manoeuvrability, CC, burst, heal. stealth) everyone just stacks stamina and bonks each other.

Bronzebeard (Ascension), imo, had a pretty good system where there was specific PvP and PvE gear (weaps and armor). The PvP gear was readily available (buy from AH) but it got a significant % nerf if you brought it to PvE raid.

I just don't understand who actually wants resilience (in either form) on gear... other than to counter pallys and shammys, which have been pretty broken in PvP for a while.

[Kestrel]

These are all genuine questions, I don't claim to know the answers, but I can say what I think:

So what's the purpose for adding resilience on PvP gear?

Can I assume it's for longer time-to-kill, to counter big dps bursts, and enable more skill-based PvP gameplay? Especially in Arena (as opposed to BGs) where there is a lot more focus on individual players and their classes.

Are PvPers asking for longer TTK or are they asking for balance?

Personally, I think PvPers are asking for balance, not every class being a bit more tanky.

I think there are a couple of elephants in the room:

Paladins with "three health bars", one of which is invulnerability.

Shamans with "hybrid specs" that are meta combined to be tank + one shotting burst.

I think resilience is like adding a bit more padding to our armored vests when there are literally a couple of classes rolling around in main battle tanks. In BGs it's OK we can organize and 3v1 or peel and snipe.

I also think that adding another armor set of PvP resilience gear for everyone essentially erodes every class identity to just tank more hits and instead of playing our class strengths (manoeuvrability, CC, burst, heal. stealth) everyone just stacks stamina and bonks each other.

Bronzebeard (Ascension), imo, had a pretty good system where there was specific PvP and PvE gear (weaps and armor). The PvP gear was readily available (buy from AH) but it got a significant % nerf if you brought it to PvE raid.

I just don't understand who actually wants resilience (in either form) on gear... other than to counter pallys and shammys, which have been pretty broken in PvP for a while.

It is hard to say without a poll (which we would be totally down to do if people want that, but could be difficult to word properly) if most PvPers want longer ttk, or if they want resilience/PvP orriented stats at all in the game.

I do agree with some of the balance sentiments though. It is on our radar and we have been working on a balance patch primarily focused on PvP balance for a bit now. I would prefer if this thread instead stayed a conversation more around resilience/PvP stats.

I also agree that a more homogenized system (flat % PvP damage reduction) does erode class identity in a very real way, I think that is one of the main problems I had with the system when I tried it on official servers long ago.

With a more fractured approach, we would be able to restrict these resilience stats to certain classes. As an example we could make it so that cloth gear has primarily an X% increased chance to resist Fear, or roots, or slows, or any subset or superset of CC. Then only add a "reduced damage from DoTs" to paladin specifically, or plate gear as a whole.

Point being only that there are ways that we can improve class identity/strengths with a more fractured/dynamic resilience system.

Back to the original question you asked though,
"So what's the purpose for adding resilience on PvP gear?"

I would love to hear the communities thoughts on this.

Our answer is that there was already resilience gear in the game that we did not add. Because of this we felt new PvP gear should also have resilience stats. During the course of adding these, we did the technical work to split out the existing resilience stat into two separate stats with the long term intent of allowing us to try out this more fractured approach to PvP stats. We have yet to fully develop what this new more fractured set of PvP stats will look like, but wanted to launch them as they are now and make this post to get more feedback.

[Dzielkus]

I find Turtle Resi as dot and dmg from crits reduction good compromise in relation to TBC resi witch also reduced chance to be critically hit (which hardly affect class mechanics).
I'd personally leave the stat as "resilience" as it was (with dot and dmg from crit reduction), current distinction into two separate stat descriptions is not very legible.

If it comes to newly introduced Blood Ring sets it might be just put 1-2% of resi per each part (which already has dot or dmg from crit reduction).

[Aridhil]

PvP meta chasers already running the %dmg %crit gear.

All it means to me playing as mage is I can't crit. So I have no counter to people with high HP.

And so PvP is reduced to who has highest stam... so I've already seen 7K pallys... so i assume bears can stack 8 or 9k...

There is no counter to stam stacking when dmg and crit is nerfed.

Everyone rush center and bonk each other on the head is not great PvP.

[Aridhil]

PvP was pretty good...

I don't think any PvPers wanted resilience... but lmk who and why?

PvP felt pretty balanced but for Pallys and Shammys being god tier, no skill required, players.

Sounds like a lot of complication and work with PvP gear resilience when most classes feel pretty balanced but for two who are essentially playing PvP with cheat modes on.

[Dzielkus]

PvP meta chasers already running the %dmg %crit gear.

All it means to me playing as mage is I can't crit. So I have no counter to people with high HP.

And so PvP is reduced to who has highest stam... so I've already seen 7K pallys... so i assume bears can stack 8 or 9k...

There is no counter to stam stacking when dmg and crit is nerfed.

Everyone rush center and bonk each other on the head is not great PvP.

We have no stat that reduce chance being critally hit (physical damage may be affected by defense, so tanks may become crit immune).
If you can't crit check if you're hit capped, otherwise it's just RNG.
Resi aka "pvp" stat we have on 1.18.1 reduce damage from dots and damage from critical strikes by x%.