Welcome to the Wizard101 Message Boards

After all the updates to PvP in the past year, despite PvP being more 'balanced', I've always felt that max level has been boring ever since the update where critical and block rating were recalculated (the update that made healing unviable). While that might seem like a really odd update to pinpoint where PvP got boring, I feel like I can somewhat explain why that update lead to a chain of other updates that took the game in a less entertaining direction. Some people may like this meta and a lot do, but I find that the current meta is the most boring that max PvP has been for a long time, and I don't think that this meta rewards skill. Before I explain why the meta is boring, I'll point out what makes a meta fun:

1. Damage: how much is dealt and how easily; making your health bar move; the advancement of a game state
2. Player Agency: how a player's actions affect game progression, and how many options they have
3. Interaction: how easily or how many ways you can interact with what your opponent is doing or trying to do

Why max is boring. In a nutshell, max is boring because you attack too slowly, there are very few paths of play, and there's almost no way to interact with your opponent aside from buffing/decreasing damage (blades, shields, traps, weaknesses). There's an over-reliance on shads because other attacks do no damage (and because Solar Surge is limited to 6/7 copies and when given the choice it's unreasonable to enchant a non-shad), any meaningful non-shad attack requires 8+ pips with the exception of Mana Burn, there's no play aside from attacking to really advance a game state, every move that isn't related to dealing/buffing/weakening damage is meaningless, and it doesn't take much skill if any to win a damage race.

The damage issue. While I'm a fan of Solar Surge and the damage intersection, they've both combined to force each match to depend heavily on who can get an open Shadow attack. Solar Surge has a strict limit on copies (no sideboard) and favors more powerful spells, and these more powerful spells are always your Shadow spells. After Solar Surge and now definitely after the damage decrease, the only reason that you ever want to use a non-shadow attack is for utility because otherwise you're dealing next to no damage. This means that any meaningful damage you're dealing is either Efreet/King Artorius or your Shadows and splits max PvP into two modes of play: a) spamming DoT's or utility to make way for your Shadow spell when you don't have a Shadow Pip, or b) being on the aggressive with your Shadow spell. Once you're out of Shadow Pips, you're no longer the aggressor and are back to waiting for your next Shadow Pip so you can attack. That cycle continues for each player until one player wins. If that sounds extremely boring and repetitive, that's because it is. We need to simultaneously make our cheap non-shadow damage only attacks more relevant but still keep Shadow damage output in check so that matches don't end up in a Shadow Pip waiting game or a Shadow Attack OHKO.

Why Solar Surge doesn't fit max level anymore. While I feel Solar Surge is appropriate for mid level PvP, I feel like Solar Surge is no longer needed to keep damage in check at max level. The reason why it's good for mid level and not so much for max (anymore) is because the damage intersection only realistically affects max PvP. For example, a 4-pip Brimstone Revenant is taking 1/3rd to 1/5th of your health at every pre-Dragoon gear level compared to 1/10th at max. Before the damage intersection, critical rework and Solar Surge, Brimstone Revenant was taking out 1/3rd to 1/5th of your health at max just like the lower levels.

A 4-pip attack doing 1/10th of your health is far too little and causes a huge over-reliance on shads, and that becomes evident when looking at Headless Horseman: a spell that's very over the line for a Death spell but still sees very little use at max PvP because it doesn't provide further utility for your Shadow attack. Our non-shad attacks should be doing more damage instead of only being used as utility spells with the sole purpose of opening for or powering up your shads. But PvP King, wouldn't making our non-Shadow attacks deal a lot of damage just make the meta super fast and broken again? There's an answer to that. Despite a 4 pip attack formerly taking out the same health percent at max as it did at low levels, low level isn't and wasn't at a broken fast pace while max PvP was. Let's take a look at why.

Player agency and the affect on pace. To put it clearly, the biggest difference between max level and low level PvP is that max PvP revolves around damage output while low level revolves around a board state. In an empty board state (no shields, blades, traps, infects, etc.), casting a wide open S'more Machine at 6 pips (taking out 1/3rd of HP) is considered a good play at max and will likely put you far enough ahead to win the game. At level 49 under the same scenario at 6 pips, using a wide open Helephant (also takes out 1/3rd of HP) is a horrible move and costs you a loss of all your tempo. At max, the only available plan for the defending player is to try to deal that damage back to the opponent or else they fall behind. At low level, your options are to punish your opponent for dropping all their pips by summoning a powerful minion, to heal it off for less than it was casted (gaining an important pip advantage), continue to build pips, or to deal that damage back. The worst of those plays? Dealing the damage back. Casting a minion will put you way ahead in terms of tempo and utility, and building pips or casting a heal puts you ahead in pip count so that when you and your opponent want to exchange attacks, you have the damage advantage. When players constantly face scenarios with multiple decisions that bear different results and have to choose the optimal play, you have a fun, skill-demanding game.

While dealing big damage is easier at low level than at max (it takes 12-18 pips to take your opponent from full HP to dead at low level opposed to ~24-40 at max depending on shad use), stringing those 12-18 pips together is difficult unless you're ahead in board state. As a result, it's almost impossible to win a match if your opponent is playing better than you. Hence why the pace is slower despite having more damage be dealt.
Healing: Why it's vital for allowing interaction with your opponent. To start, I don't believe it's possible to make a good, diverse one-turn-one-move game where healing isn't a viable option, or more accurately, where healing isn't a necessary tool that most players carry to win. That's quite a strong claim. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at the Helephant scenario above but remove the option to heal. What happens is that the play to summon a minion only becomes a viable option if your minion helps you out-damage your opponent's attack before your opponent can take you or your minion out (which is unrealistic and would be broken if possible). If your opponent takes your minion out before out-damaging the attack, you completely wasted your pips summoning a minion and ended up falling further behind on HP. The play to build pips also becomes poor if your school doesn't own a strong DoT to get around shields, since you lose your pip advantage to break a shield in the future. The only play? If you're not Fire or Balance, attack back. What this means is that for as long as PvP lacks heals, making any play that doesn't translate to beating your opponent on the damage race is always going to be a bad play. Well, there goes player agency and skill-based decisions.

The other reason why healing is so vital is because in Turn Base PvP, defensive hanging effects usually only last up to one turn before they're removed. This makes building a defensive board presence (and therefore getting ahead of your opponent) difficult, which means that until you have enough pips to send a Shadow attack of your own, your only option is to shield so your opponent can't Shadow attack you, since every open Shadow attack puts you behind. If healing was available, there would be a split between what's a 'good attack' and a 'bad attack'. You don't need to shield spam in a situation where your opponent attacking can be healed off for cheap. Those turns that you otherwise would have spent shielding are then better spent casting other spells that build up an offensive board presence such as blades, minions or Infections. Bringing heals back into PvP actually gives players more offensive freedom to do things.

In conclusion, what this post is saying is that PvP needs to be more fun and finally stop being a damage race. We need the pace to stop feeling like a constant sine wave every time you gain/lose a Shadow Pip. Heal boost on offensive high level gear needs to be buffed to make healing relevant again. Healing is what allows a higher acceptance of damage in a meta without being deemed 'too fast'. The reason why the damage intersection has to be so low right now is because a meta without health recovery feels too fast when you deal good damage. With healing, maybe we could see a damage intersection higher than 125% be acceptable without the pace being broken so that our health bar can actually move when you get attacked by a non-shad. We also need better non-damage related utility so that attacking isn't always the best play. While the recent changes and updates have been good, I still feel like PvP is missing a lot in terms of being a more fun, interactive game mode where the best player gets rewarded with the win. Hopefully we get to see all of that come back.

PvP King, you've outlined many issues with max and pretty well explained why so many players find max pvp boring and preferred to play low level pvp. Many of the issues you raise, lack of options, shadow pips, healing issues, (and critical issues), are exactly why so many of us choose to play low level. For me, a big issue as well is the lack of dual school options which add a lot of interest to the game. As well as not wanting to have to grind for new gear every time the level ceiling is raised. I wish KI the best in improving max pvp but I honestly don't see how it will be made into a game that lower level enthusiasts would like. But most lower level pvp players feel that the changes over the past year and a half have limited options so much in lower level pvp that the fun and interesting game we loved is dead. We feel completly ignored. Ratbeard, please listen to us too.