WoW: Is Ashran The Worst Thing to Happen to PVP?

oc8yhNcI started out wanting to write a nice little opinion piece on the new PVP zone. Right after launch (well, after the launch DDOS/lag fest/6 hour queues fiasco) and leveling to 100, the zone clearly had some issues – but what new feature doesn’t? So, I waited. Like the first 2 hours of the queue I am currently in to get into the zone I waited patiently for issues to be hammered out, balanced to be restored, etc. But a month after the release of Warlords the zone is more and more abhorrent. It’s past the point where I can feel the issues are bugs and more so that they’re working as intended. It’s not balanced, it’s “required” (I’ll get to that) and it’s just not fun. So, instead of writing a nice opinion piece about a feature I was once so excited about – there’s a rant incoming.

The Good:

For the sake of some balance on my end, I’m going to attempt to write what is good about the zone first.

  • Class balance doesn’t matter. It just an AoE zerg fest back and forth so it doesn’t matter if you’re flavor of the mouth of bottom of the barrel.
  • It’s really fun for range. Wait, is this good only?
  • It’s great for people who have no friends that PVP (the queues are so long if you didn’t start together you’ll never group up anyway).
  • It’s great for people who have no alts. If you’re only ever going to be on one character and never have to log, the queue that persists through most other events won’t bother you as much being 2-3 hours long.

Everything Else

  • Queues can be hours long. Hours. I mean, hours. How? Why? As of this writing I’m 2.5 hours in a queue to get in. I do not care what Blizzard has to do to fix this, but there’s no excuse for that.
  • It’s “required”. To reach your full conquest cap each week you have to win Ashran. This is not possible to do in some instances. On my server Ashran has been won by horde one time in as many as 12 days. Though, it’s not like alliance wins a lot. There’s usually only one win at all in 6-8 hours. So if you weren’t there for that magical moment (or maybe were stuck in a 3 hour queue) you’re shit-outta-luck. Don’t have 11 hours per day to dedicate to Ashran? Don’t expect to conquest cap.
  • Aside from the conquest, there’s a slew of garrison achievements and titles that can only be accomplished in Ashran. Why? Why do the nemesis quests to get the PVP racial kill titles only work in Ashran?
  • Bones are an in-game currency only. They do nothing but turn into the garrison for work orders or for the Coliseum event. Why are they taking up 11 slots in my bank?
  • An imbalance results in permanent imbalances. Side A farms side B at their base, therefore side B is stuck in their base and cannot easily reach the side objectives (PVE to collect resources for summons), therefore side A maintains dominance. Even if side B kills the big summons from side A, side A has been farming resources for so many days in a row they can immediately summon it again.
  • Speaking of those big summons, the alliances Fangraal is infinitely and drastically superior to Kronus in every conceivable aspect. In a game of mass aoe spam, being stuck in one spot is the most deadly thing. Kronus knocks alliance players away to safety and dies a small amount of damage. Fangraal has an aoe root that keeps horde locked in the rest of the aoe while ticking for continued damage, then if a player dies while near the giant tree additional adds spawn to kill more players. On top of the apparent “working as intended” mechanics, Kronus is an idiot. Kronus will charge forward leaving the players behind, sit behind enemy lines and die out of range of healers. Fangraal will constantly leash to behind his own faction in order to receive heals and break damage.  Fangraal runs in, does an aoe root, kills a few players, and backs away for healing, then returns. Occasionally, this leash also causes Fangraal to reset health. Killing a 90 million health enemy 5 times in a row is kind of a bother. Sorry, I’ll say it more accurately, it’s completely bloody stupid.

Everything about this zone is trash. It’s required for achievements, titles, and conquest cap yet takes hours to even get into then impossible to win if you’re unlucky or on the wrong faction. It’s full of bugs that never seem to get fixed (yet new ones are constantly added). For 3 days our Kronus wouldn’t leave the base! There’s no organization required. No skill needed at any point – sit at range and pew pew or run in only when you have an immunity to get out. The concepts that made it seem cool have been so poorly executed and unavailable that it should probably just be scrapped. Admit failure, Blizzard, and delete this trash zone – or at least take everything mandatory out of it. Let the titles and conquest cap be acquired elsewhere so I never have to go back there.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.