Thoughts on Shadowlands MDI Events from BDGG - Shadowmeld, Class and Covenant Balance

Live Опубликовано 11.02.2021 в 03:55 blooblahguy

We're on the tail end of the first global cup for MDI and about to see cup 2 begin. We sat down with prominent Mythic and Mythic+ players from BDGG to get their thoughts on how this year's MDI cups have gone so far, what went right, and what changes they hope to see in the future.

Undad (Hunter/Rogue) - https://www.twitch.tv/undadtv

Serahline (Warrior) - https://www.twitch.tv/a2dmax

Hippo (Druid) - https://www.twitch.tv/hipposareneat

Overall Thoughts on the Shadowlands MDI

Undad
So far if I had to describe my thoughts about the Shadowlands MDI in one word I think it'd be underwhelming

Hippo
Overall the viewer experience was great with the new UI, and I think they did a good job with showing cooldowns. With a few minor tweaks I think it will be the best UI to date.

Undad
At its core the MDI has one glaring issue for me. It doesn't replicate anything that exists in the live version of the game whatsoever. I think for an Esport to succeed that's perhaps the most crucial piece. If a tournament doesn't inspire the audience to try to replicate what they just saw with their friends, then what's the point?

Shadowlands MDI ChangesClass Stacking

Undad
The teams at the highest level are going to play what is best no matter what, and it's extremely likely there will be one best comp, regardless of class stacking. We this in the Global Region Time Trials #2. Every single top 8 run was done by Vengeance DH, Disc Priest, Unholy DK, Fire Mage, Windwalker Monk. If anything, the class stacking rule is creating a more stale environment because there's less things the teams are able to try.

Serahline
I understand why it was put in place, and it does force more comp diversity which is generally a good thing. However, I hate that its a preemptive rule that forces said comp diversity when good balance should be what does that.

Hippo
It wont really change anything at all, the teams are still going to play the best classes with little to no variation, aside from a few niche things such as rogues in Necrotic Wake with their Метка мастера-убийцы legendary.

Class Balance

Undad
On the live version of the game, obviously it matters because of the time investment involved in gearing a character of a new class if it happens to be more powerful, and players having "mains" that they would really enjoy succeeding on. However, in a tournament environment with the best players in the world, whatever the "best" classes are doesn't mean all that much. You play what you have to to get the best times, and most of the fun comes from solving that puzzle.

Now from a viewership perspective I think it's pretty obvious that balance is off a little bit, especially regarding Fire Mage.

Serahline
The MDI meta has always favoured burst and uncapped AoE, so it's no surprise that the most dominant spec is Fire Mage which is arguably the best spec in both those categories. Windwalker Monk is another spec that I feel like deserves a mention, as it is the dominant melee in the MDI as well as high keys on live servers. Although capped on its AoE, it has incredibly strong burst AoE as well as maybe the best utility toolkit from a melee. Especially after the severe AoE capping that affected melee to a larger degree, having great utility feels more important than ever, and Windwalker has that in spades.

Hippo
There will always be a meta and I think it's going to lean towards these high AoE burst classes that are uncapped such as Fire Mage, Unholy DK, and Moonkin, followed by Marksmanship Hunters and Windwalker Monk who are capped but still bring tons of AoE and Single Target burst aswell.

Covenants In Dungeons

Serahline
The covenant dungeon buffs for some dungeons are fairly minor such as Plaguefall, but in dungeons like Halls of Atonement it's a massive deal to be able to have those gargoyles that just pump out insane damage. I do think Blizzard needs to rethink their idea about tying dungeon buffs to covenant choice, because I think a lot of the bonuses are very cool to play around but requiring a certain covenant to activate them is just silly. It is funny though watching primarily the healers having to suffer and change covenants to match the dungeon if needed.

Hippo
Covenant choices, just like class/spec picks are always going to be whatever brings the most to the dungeon. They're all going to be similar with little change in my mind, with a few such as Kyrian Hunter or Moonkin maybe being apart of some dungeons compared to their Night Fae counterparts, since different damage profiles for certain dungeons/affixes are more valuable.

AOE Cap

Undad
Target capping plays a huge role in this as it basically cuts half the classes from the pool of available options for the style of runs necessary to compete.

ВоодушевляющийЗлопамятныйБушующийBest / Worst Dungeons

Undad
I'd assume the teams are enjoying Theater of Pain the most simply because it has many options. I mentioned earlier that Shadowlands dungeons don't really fit the MDI setting early. A lot of that is due to the "on-the-rails" design that many of them have, with very few places it seems possible to really deviate in how you get your mob count. I think Theater avoids this simply by having 3 distinct wings that all have pros and cons to what order you do them in.

Now as for the worst dungeon I think that's much more obvious. Mists of Tirna Scithe is just designed in a way that makes it a nightmare for teams. If the maze is standardized, the dungeon is now pretty boring for both the players and viewers. There’s no creativity possible for this large portion of the dungeon. To add to that, during the maze teams are forced to pull one pack, or sometimes even one mob at a time. This goes against what originally made the idea of the MDI fun for both players and viewers. All this combined leads to a dungeon that I find extremely underwhelming in a tournament setting.

Hippo
The best dungeons to run in a setting like this are dungeons that you can deviate off the normal path and create crazy big pulls such as De Other Side or Halls of Atonement or even something like The Necrotic Wake with the snapping/weapon usage (rip). Worst dungeons by far would be something like Spires of Ascension where you truly are locked into a path being left or right, cannot deviate the pulls very much at all, adding no variety to a live key vs an MDI key.

Long Term Changes:Слиться с тенью's Dominance in MDI

Undad
It's very obviously a problem, and has been for the entirety of BFA now bleeding into Shadowlands. It's tough though, because I think from a player perspective it's quite fun. It's one thing left in the game that gives you little pockets of creativity in how you path the dungeons. Being able to Слиться с тенью off CC'd mobs you don't need for your count is a level of manipulation that adds a lot of creativity to pathing. The ability to completely skip seasonal affixes however, is a huge issue. It's a tough call though. It's difficult to justify a change I'm sure, given how many players of the live game will be affected for something such a small player pool is abusing for the tournament.

Serahline
Although I find some of the more unique strats involving Слиться с тенью to be interesting to see done for the first time it is incredibly silly how dominant the racial has been through BFA and now Shadowlands. It is even worse now due to the fact that it completely changes how you have to deal with the seasonal affix. I think nerfing Слиться с тенью would lead to a potential at least for more comp diversity, and it just sucks knowing that classes without access to Night Elf won't be considered as seriously as they could be.

Hippo
Слиться с тенью absolutely needs to be gutted from existence, it is absurdly overpowered. Skipping a Prideful will almost 100% of the time be the biggest timesave in a dungeon, it was the same way in BFA with Void emissaries during the Манящий affixes, but you still had to deal with the other emissaries and the same way during the Пожинающий affix, yet still you added a bit of flavor to the dungeon with big reaping pulls into the boss with classes like Unholy DK that benefit greatly on single target from multiple targets.

Time Commitments

Undad
Some of the most fun I've had in WoW were the 3 seasons I competed. The problem is it's just not sustainable. The time investment required just to be a top 8 team is so inhibiting for new teams to pop up. When you consider that unless you manage to place within the top 3 teams in the global region, you end up making less than half of minimum wage, it's very difficult to convince anyone to join you in competing. On top of that, the tournament now requires a larger time investment with 3 days scheduled for each cup rather than 2.

Hippo
I also think number of practice days for time trials being submitted should be reduced, Its a massive burden on players to feel "forced" to slam these keys practicing for 16+ hours a day to be competitive.

Looking Forward

Undad
I think it's very easy to identify the problems but not necessarily the solutions. How do you cut down playtime required while still allowing for the teams to perfect these dungeons? If the viewership doesn't warrant it you can't just increase the prize pool. Maybe the viewership does warrant it? These are things I don't think any of us outside the WoW Esports team can really say.

One core change I personally would like to see is a swap to what affixes are played. I strongly believe a good Esport is something that makes the viewer want to play the game immediately after watching. The MDI does a very poor job of this I believe, because watching the boys in Echo demolish a dungeon on Разъяренный, Взрывоопасный, Тиранический doesn't inspire me to go try to replicate their run with my friends when it's Кровавый, Мучительный, Укрепленный week. It simply doesn't transfer. I think the affixes played in any given cup should just match what's being played on live servers that week. This change does 2 things. It adds relatability to the audience, and cuts player time investment a bit because the affixes are the same in every dungeon. I think people highly underestimate the additional brain power required when swapping affix combos between every dungeon you run, and this would be a nice move in the right direction.

Hippo
Mists of Tirna Scithe not being in the dungeon pool would be a great thing in my opinion. Even with the changes to Mists, which is a good start, my opinion hasn't really changed. Even with RNG removed, you're still limited on pathing and pulls. 30-40% of the dungeon cannot be chain pulled. The whole maze is a pack by pack limitation.

I also think that the target cap should be lifted from most if not all classes so you aren't forced to watch Fire Mage, Unholy DK, Moonkin just pulling the whole dungeon while classes like Rogue or Warrior just sit there doing damage to 6 targets.

Final Thoughts

Undad
All in all, I think my feelings towards the MDI are pretty sad. I really loved my time playing in those tournaments in BFA, but it's just become way too hard to justify continuing to do it. As a player that often landed in the middle-lower end of the top 8, making something around $2/hr to be in a high intensity competitive environment for 6 weeks straight just doesn't make sense anymore. Judging by the participation in this season so far, it seems many other players have begun to feel the shame.

Hippo
The dungeons are the best they've been since Legion, and I think MDI has a real chance to become a bigger Esport if they just put more resources into it such as upping the prize pool. More community involvement, such as Twitter polls for affixes and more things along this line.

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