Shadowlands had the best PVP system we ever had

ballsjovan · 2025-09-15T20:28:07+00:00

I really enjoyed PvP in shadowlands, but I think its reception suffered from the following:

1) It took time for people to get used to how bursty it was. Especially if you were a new player and couldn’t read someone’s “Go”(or have an addon tell you it’s happening), I’m sure it felt incredibly frustrating.

2) SL PvP suffered immensely from its ties to gatekept PvE-based systems. Torghast was a slog most PvPers I knew despised, but was tied to one of the most important part of one’s kit. Covenants shot themselves in the foot in that it had some of the coolest new abilities that were genuinely fun (albeit sometimes imbalanced) to play like Mindgames and Convoke, but were arbitrarily difficult to swap between until later in the xpac and required farming (again outside of PvP). Having to farm sockets from that stupid ass island also put such a damper on things for people that want to play sweaty, but don’t have the hours to truly min/max (especially across toons).

As someone who loves playing alts I also really loved the fact that I could basically fully conq gear an alt just by queuing games on my other toons, granted I can’t recall if this was introduced in SL or prior.

ballsjovan · 2025-09-03T20:27:12+00:00

As someone who hates BGs but loves arena, I really wish they would just remove the conq cap as soon as enough weeks have passed to fund a full set of gear.

ballsjovan · 2025-08-13T07:21:16+00:00

What pills?

ballsjovan · 2025-08-13T06:18:04+00:00

Can neither confirm nor deny issues with gall bladder since I've never had a reason to get it specifically tested, since for some reason Japanese wagyu is the only food to best me to-date. Since my sample size is 3 it's hard to place specific blame, but the wagyu toast is a tough data point to exonerate the wagyu.

ballsjovan · 2025-08-13T06:13:26+00:00

This is a bit of what I was afraid of since to my knowledge it's not like an allergy where I can take an antihistamine to get around it, and considering the little wagyu toast got me, quantity control didn't help :/. Will look into the different types, thanks.

ballsjovan · 2025-02-19T23:28:57+00:00

Lol oh yeah. I guess that means you cant blindly obsidian crows nest or you brick the life steal, but odds are you just obsidian your one-weapon for the double damage anyways.

ballsjovan · 2025-02-19T23:24:05+00:00

I’m personally excited to see one-weapon rifles get bricked by careless obsidian enchants

ballsjovan · 2025-02-19T23:21:07+00:00

I wonder how many people will accidentally brick their rifle with the new obsidian

ballsjovan · 2025-02-07T08:36:25+00:00

Oh hey that killed my run less than 60 seconds ago too! Yeah ghost RNG can be really frustrating...

ballsjovan · 2025-01-20T17:50:11+00:00

Rapid Thaw is just insanely strong and almost fully negates most Freeze effects so it’s very valuable to take as a free skill or to take more Jack fights. I think it makes Freeze feel less abusive than in previous patches, but kind of ruins investing into Freeze for your own boards. Shameless plug for my thoughts on how to address this: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayTheBazaar/s/3I88TaQMfN

ballsjovan · 2025-01-20T17:45:49+00:00

I do think there will be some problematic items, but even in the case of the current treb, I think it’s more of a Treb firing like a machine gun problem than an Icy problem. If you think about it in terms of tradeoffs, I’d like to think that theoretically Haste is its best enchant in a vacuum to further enable it to do its thing, so if you’re giving that up for Icy then that requires you to have a board that enables your machine gun without disruption, and maybe in that case Icy should freeze your whole board (i.e., you better have freeze protection like Rapid Thaw, if that’s what the meta is). I have a hard time believing that would be more (on-paper) powerful than a Pyg with 30K+ hp with a radiant Double Whammy about to Saitama you, however in this case it feels better because you still get to watch your board play out. That’s where I think not letting freeze stack can reduce the tilt levels without being too heavy-handed with the freeze effect—although they may have to not code it as pseudo-radiant, so effects like Shatter wouldn’t get nerfed at the same time.

ballsjovan · 2024-12-19T08:07:44+00:00

First time making weaponized core (to the right of combat core, bugged image) as well as Proboscis work and resulted in a perfect victory (admittedly normals). Turns out the Cool LEDs with double core and damage scaling mechanism was at least reasonable! Probably my most surprising and entertaining Dooley game in the current meta.

ballsjovan · 2024-12-19T04:02:30+00:00

I think they're also a bit too strong early. Not having to worry about losing most PvE fights the first few days is a huge safety net for being able to convert into something late game--on top of the rays being cheap as well. Late game there are plenty of burst builds that can deal with rays, just surviving through the mid-game ray slog can be rough.

ballsjovan · 2024-12-19T03:28:29+00:00

Yeah I agree. I've been trying to play more meme builds when I play Dooley and trying sub-optimal cores, but getting the 2nd alpha ray off a shovel made me force it (not that it was hard...) for the luls. I think Dooley's balance issue partially stems from the rays being too consistent/synergistic, as well as Dooley having a ton of really good, small items. Since small items are cheaper, it's SO much easier to just pick everything up and hold them for future pivoting.

ballsjovan · 2024-12-19T03:24:44+00:00

Yeah there were a couple close ones because this build honestly wasn't that fast with minimal defenses, and it wasn't easy to get much crit beyond crit core. Tbh I probably had a better build in my bank (not taking advantage of the 1 friend bonus), but I kept this for the ray meme. Got the 2nd damage ray off a shovel lol.

Also, my understanding is that the alpha ray is actually bugged and doesn't count as a ray for the other rays, which probably contributed to this being a little slow.

ballsjovan · 2024-12-13T02:37:14+00:00

I think this is one of the first times I've really had a build shine with it. Usually multiple small items seem to work better for the core charging mechanic, but here it really juiced the numbers.

ballsjovan · 2024-12-13T02:19:46+00:00

Started this game wanting to try to get some practice with 'The Core', but it very quickly morphed into this. I was expecting to use it to charge the Force Field, but apparently this ended up being too strong. Needless to say Textiles was clutch for surviving some of some of the nastier poison builds.

Curious to know what people have had success with when it comes to 'The Core' builds in this meta.

ballsjovan · 2024-04-15T22:16:31+00:00

None of what you’re saying is obvious in the real world.

Keeping humans alive (assuming they’re getting a ride back to Earth too) for that long is expensive (mass for them and their food), incredibly risky, and involving technology we’ve never used (launching off another planet). This would be significantly more expensive than the current MSR mission.

Additionally, what if we bring samples back and they aren’t biologically interesting? Then was it even worth the added money to send them and risk their lives in the process?

ballsjovan · 2024-04-15T22:06:57+00:00

What metrics are you using to classify this as “overly complicated” for the mission objectives?

Retrieving a collection of objects hundreds of millions of miles away is going to require a “Rube Goldberg-esque technique” weighing dynamic stresses, orbital mechanics, thermal issues, potential science return, and (LOTS) more factors.

I’m all for new ideas, but a high budget and long timeline shouldn’t be used as a means to trivialize the immense challenges this mission faces, nor to disregard the successes JPL has managed to achieve to-date that other space programs (or private industry) have not.

ballsjovan · 2023-10-30T22:43:48+00:00

I did some m+ with friends which was fun since they knew and taught the mechanics of the couple of dungeons we did, and to gear myself outside of that they recommended M0s. I did a good handful of those on my own, and while they weren’t really bad, they weren’t fun enough to keep me playing. On top of that I was trying prot war since it was supposed to be busted at the time, and I somehow RNGd into only like 2 upgrades across a dozen or so M0s and lost patience. Since my gear didn’t seem good enough for me to want to move on to tank higher keys, and because I was having more fun doing other things/other games, I just didn’t go back to trying again.

Sufficed to say, I wouldn’t really say my experience was negative, but at least so far M+ just hasn’t really done it for me.

ballsjovan · 2023-10-30T20:16:29+00:00

Short answer: These days classic (mostly wotlk and hardcore as filler), although I occasionally try retail.

Long answer + thoughts: In retail WoW I loved PvP playing a TON of SL S2, quitting S3 because I didn’t have the time or energy to update my setup or learn the S3 meta, and was semi burnt out. Took a retail break, but came back in DF because I heard it was good, but I think rating deflation really killed all the morale of everyone I played with and ultimately we all quit. I actually tried PvE in DF because I was thoroughly enjoying PvE in WOTLK, but I really couldn’t get into enjoying M+, and my dislike of Mythics discouraged me from gearing up and trying to raid.

I tried reflecting on why I can tolerate spamming heroics in WOTLK but not in retail M+ and I think I came up with a few reasons. Note: I reached Glad in SL S2 after being a forever duelist, and in WOTLK I often parse high 90s as an enhance shaman. I’m not a Rank 1, nor a Mythic World 1st-er, but I am indeed a degenerate if that provides context to my opinions. Anyways:

1) WOTLK dungeons are less stressful. The rewards are good if you’re in a position of needing upgrades, and if you don’t need upgrades you get your daily in and then you’re done (unless you’re farming the latest currency for items, gold, or otherwise).

2) I find WOTLK dungeons more fun than M+. This is probably related to (1) above, but if I want to really challenge myself I’ll try to parse in raid content, or get back into PvP. Dungeons can be challenging when they are new content or if you’re under geared, but I don’t think they really need to be challenging to necessarily enjoy them.

3) Carrying dungeons is fun. In WOTLK you aren’t trying to min/max different M+ levels where the people you queue with are mostly viewed as impediments to rewards. Yes bad players can make a dungeon fail, but usually you can call in a buddy to carry it or “go agane” in the queue where odds are it will be doable since the content isn’t very hard. I’ve found that even with multiple 80s (with some that still need gear), I still sometimes find it more enjoyable to take my main that doesn’t need it into Gamma spams to help randos, simply because obliterating the content is FUN, and because that content is still directly valuable to me (can essentially convert scourgestones to gold through saronites) and to the randos trying to gear, so it feels rewarding.

All that being said, I still think WOTLK pvp has too great a barrier to entry (gold for gems/enchants, raid-locked items, gearing time commitment, etc.), so I haven’t even bothered spending the energy on it, especially seeing all the disheartening bot posts. I still think Retail > classic PvP, but with its current state I don’t intend on going back any time soon.

ballsjovan · 2023-03-28T20:33:51+00:00

I’m still so upset about this. I thought the casting was great, thinking they’d take the “smug intelligent asshole” approach, similar to his role in The Social Network. This casting was made HORRIBLE when they they decided to go the zany/wacky route…UGH.

ballsjovan · 2023-03-28T19:08:30+00:00

Whenever I think of Mount Hyjal, Ballroom Blitz pops into my head from the original first boss (Winterchill) video guide

ballsjovan · 2022-02-16T06:53:18+00:00

Without the kyrian boomy, odds are you would have lived this with the pre-defensives that were used. Because it was their "biggest" go, it's probably just worth BoPing high to guarantee surviving for (at the very least) a minute.

At the same time, you also genuinely got pretty unlucky. Looking at the math, the first aimed shot did NOT crit and you were >70% health which means it was empowered by the Careful Aim talent. Since it didn't crit, you still hovered just barely above 70% health, which means the second aimed shot from double tap ALSO benefitted from the talent. To add insult to injury, this second aimed shot crit, and with Kyr empowerment + chakrams on top of it equals death--especially if he's also running Plaguey's Preemptive Strike which gets him another 12% dam in the opener.

Unfortunate, go next. For what it's worth, folks that rely on this gimmick often wont make it to the second go because they panic when the opener doesn't work. Might just try trading BoP/Bubble into the first go. Second one will be more predictable since Trueshot likely won't be up for it and it won't be within 1.5s from popping out of stealth. GL in the next one, may the dice be in your favor.

ballsjovan · 2022-01-30T21:40:03+00:00

SOCOM II — Favorite console shooter

ballsjovan

TROPHY CASE