If you play World of Warcraft (WoW), you may be aware that since the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, PVP has never been the same. A large number of factors have played into my feeling this way, but there is one key issue: resilience.

A bit of history

PVP used to be one of the most fun aspects of WoW. Playing on a PVP server was simply the only option when I began playing with friends. The idea that you could be out in the world and run the risk of throwing down with “Alliance scum” at any point was awesome. I partook in this part of the game almost all of the time. From leveling, to farming, to just traveling. If there was Alliance that I thought I could throw down with, I was going for it.

World PVP was something I was a bit late on because they had recently added in the first battlegrounds(Warsong Gultch and Alterac Valley). So, I was not involved in world PVP at the heart of it and in fact missed the ball on the best time for it. However, I still greatly enjoyed the times that good world conflicts seemed to break out.

Whether me and a few bros were laying waste to the alliance town in Hillsbrad or taking control of the boat that runs between Theramore Isle and Menathil Harbor, it was always a good time.

The first collapse

The first major blow to PVP came with the addition of battlegrounds and the honor system. PVP became less of a part of the game that took place randomly and more of a competition. All of a sudden world PVP only existed when there was people leveling or when small skirmishes broke out. No longer were raids gathering together with the sole purpose of taking over a town or take over a zone.

Once you hit 70 and, essentially left the world(as in, you were either in town or in a dungeon), you missed out on PVP unless you were in a battleground. At first, battlegrounds were neat because you got a little game of capture the flag or whatever going. However, because you needed to do it to gain rank, it became overly repetitious and boring.

The final blow

Blizzard had a chance to make PVP somewhat more entertaining, though. They came close as well. They removed the stiff ladder system in favor of a points based system that were collected when you kill people. They gave everyone reasonable access to higher end PVP gear or mounts or whatever you wanted from it.

Then they made the worst move of all time: they created the stat, resilience. Resilience does a few things for you:

• Reduces periodic damage and chance to be critically hit by X%
• Reduces the effect of mana-drains and the damage of critical strikes by X%

which might seem great for PVP, but this in fact hurt the game rather than helping it. This stat means that everyone is stacked up on damage reduction and the damage improvement gear does not scale nearly as fast. Essentially, everyone involved with PVP is stacking as much resilience as possible.

This means a few things:

1. Everyone needs to have at least two sets of gear. Druids may have to carry upwards of FOUR sets of gear… possibly more.
2. Respecs solely for PVP are required so that you can maximize your survivability.
3. Stat stacking was changed from stacking damage or attack power to stacking resilience.

All of these things has made PVP feel even more like a separated part of the game as opposed to an integrated part like it once was. Once upon a time, top-end PVE gear meant that you were a PVP champ. You were feared because your guild did high-end content and you were stacked in gear. Now, these two things are completely unrelated. People in minimal PVP resilience gear can beat guys in T6 PVE gear.

All commercialed out

Blizzard is trying to steer PVP down the path of the e-sport. It is a pretty poor plan because WoW is not designed to be an e-sport and it can never be that way. Once you get to the Season 6 or 7 level of gear, many will be so far behind that trying to catch up will be a long and painful process. If you were not involved from day one, you missed out.

The dynamics of the specs and classes means that there is simply too much play to allow for balanced matches. This, combined with the inability to play specific teams, means that PVP is doomed to become progressively segregated from PVE aspects of the game. And, as someone who once loved PVP, this is deeply saddening.

Jon’s Comments:

I cite this as a major reason for why I no longer have a subscription. The major drive for me to pve was to get better pvp gear. It was a great synergy that kept both aspects of the game relatively fresh, even in the days of grinding MC over and over and over.

Separating these aspects has resulted in requiring a grind merely to let you grind a little more. Better pve gear to do more pve, to get better gear to do more pve. Same deal with pvp, by the time you get the gear to be competitive you are bored to tears as you have been doing the same thing for the past 2 months straight.

When I heard about arenas I was pumped. This had great potential but the addition of resilience was enough to make it just another grindfest for gear.

Will I re-up for the next XP? I don’t know, I want to now but I just can’t bring myself to. It’s just not the game I used to play. I miss tearing up boats and bg’s with my raid buddies. I miss being able to tank 31/5/15 and still tear it up later. But most of all I miss pvp for the sake of pvp. With nothing to gain and no carrot in front of my nose. Just pvp for the fun of all parties involved. Hell, I’ll even drop a /salute after I kill you if you put up a good fight. And no, I’m not going to camp you either, so feel free to res up quick, it’s just a game after all.