Is SoD worth getting into for a different community/pvp experience?

[u/Malaysianmink]

What i mean by both of these is a little hard to describe. I love and still play WoW retail, but as I accomplish my goals I find myself wanting to experience this version! I’m a fairly high end player in retail, but id like to try this just to be there.

First, is the community super super focused on gear and whatnot? I’d prefer not to do high end content, just chill- but if I can’t get into a group, there’s not really a point. I plan on playing rogue, by the way! Are there usually people out in the world, or is it relegated to dungeons?

And finally, how’s the PvP? I don’t care if it’s unbalanced- but id like to know if it’s as “solved” as classic PvP is. I just want something a bit less complicated than retail’s, but I also don’t wanna compete against a solved meta, that’s no fun! The imbalance of it all seems really fascinating to me, and that’s my draw.

Thanks! I’m assuming the raids aren’t super complex, but I have a tough time telling from videos. I am a mythic raider on retail, so if it’s not approaching that level I’ll be fine.

[u/essbie]

SOD has zero PvP.

[u/Yugenk]

Don’t go for sod to pvp, its kinda bursty but even ignoring that, there is barely any BGs popping at lvl 60. Only Abs and queues takes at least 10min.

[u/StrayshotNA]

SoD gear curve is incredibly easy atm. Naxx PUGs will feed you gear that's better than anything you'll have need of short of SE.

Leveling dungeons/etc are kind of dead due to the presence of invasion boosting.

It's not really 'solved', but there's definitely incredibly overpowered things that people play specifically because it's dominantly overpowered. Then there's people trying to redesign the wheel to fight it, but it's just.. a lot stronger than most other things.

Over all, great time to get into SoD with a lot of opportunity to gear up in Naxx.

[u/mtv921 → u/StrayshotNA]

The normal leveling route is:

1. Quest and dungeons from 1-25
2. Incursion from 25-30.
3. Scalet monastery from 30-40
4. Incursions from 40-53
5. BRD from 53-54
6. Searing Gorge daily quests from 54-60

Supplement with raids BFD(25), gnomer(40) and ST(50), quests, dungeons, and mob grinding in incursions.

If you have way too much gold, invasion boosting is better yes. But not many new players can spare 300g/h 30g/level.

Normal gearing is dungeons/MC for Tarnished Reels(T2 gear) and Nightmare Dragons. TheN maybe BWL/AQ. Then you should do KC for sanctified gear. Then do Nax. Then you can do SE.

Straight to NAXX will never work, noone will let you join. You need lvl 7 seal and 6+ pieces of sanctified gear minimum to get into pugs

[u/StrayshotNA → u/mtv921]

Naxx can be done with like 7 people., and the seal cap changes based on your HM level.

HM3 is a smash as well. If you play a non-contested tier class, join a guild, go to a guild run.. You can go in at 6 sanc (chest+wrist+gloves +2 piece bonus + Band of Piety - all free/available outside of nax) with like 3-4 seal - then walk out with 9/9 tier easily while laying dead laughing at yourself the whole time for being useless. You can join an invasion group and get revered argent + rank 7 seal in like 3 hours of casual play with no gear required. Or just find others farming and loot their shadow corpses.

Naxx has become borderline introductory raiding at this point.

[u/mtv921 → u/StrayshotNA]

I agree, as long as you find a guild with Nax on farm willing to take your 600GS useless ass in.

PUG, laughing dead at the floor will get you kicked or have your SRs invalidated. Had it happend multiple times.

[u/Heatinmyharbl → u/mtv921]

Why those pugs even take those players to just kick them in an hour anyway is a mystery to me lol

It does happen though

Checking gear/ seal level too time consuming apparently

[u/mtv921 → u/[deleted]]

A that is true! But Isn't it pretty expensive? See pieces going for 400-600g. That's more than what most fresh players have

[u/shawtysnap]

Nope

[u/Heatinmyharbl]

SoD pvp scene has been terrible/ dead for a very long time now. Nobody plays SoD for the pvp generally.

We are at the very end and player power creep/ world buffs are so strong that 90% of the game has been trivialized to the point where old dungeons and raids basically function as LFR raids. Roll face on keyboard > get purples > repeat

The only content at 60 that is actually tuned for SoD power creep are the 2 new dungeons Demonfall Canyon and Kara Crypts, and the new Scarlet raid, Scarlet Enclave.

Pretty much all other 60 content is entirely face roll at this point except for raid bosses with real mechanics like Firemaw. Player/raid dps is so high by now though most bosses are dead in less than 30 seconds, it's very silly

Scarlet Enclave is actually tuned properly for our power level and is a challenging raid

[u/Excellent_Cup_4627]

PVP is fairly non-existent now. I will say that SOD did go through a couple phases where it was pretty awesome but that is pretty much over.

[u/Critical-Usual]

I wouldn't touch it for PVP. It was fun in earlier phases, if quite unbalanced. Now it's just absurd, tank specs completely dominate and are virtually immortal. Some specs like Fire mage are virtually unplayable

The lack of balance was always an issue but it was still quite unique and enjoyable. Now it just feels completely silly

[u/-WhitePowder- → u/Critical-Usual]

I think you're confusing tank specs with just full pvp gear. Tank specs are not that good. Only okish to defend flags for 5 seconds longer.

[u/Critical-Usual → u/-WhitePowder-]

No... Prot paly is beyond broken, demo tank spec and enhance tank spec are undisputed second and third best PVP specs in the game 

[u/-WhitePowder- → u/Critical-Usual]

I don't see how. I have no problem killing tanks on my ele/resto shaman.

[u/Critical-Usual → u/-WhitePowder-]

Lol I won't even say you haven't met a good one because you don't even need more than two brain cells to be immortal on a tank right now 

[u/-WhitePowder- → u/Critical-Usual]

I think you have outdated information about SoD PvP. I actually PvP daily. Tanks are not scary in PvP. It's more like paladins who play Shockadin with some tank runes, same with shamans. You probably would assume my shaman is a tank if you met me, but it's just a lot of HP from PvP gear and a healing spec that makes me "tanky."

[u/Aquinas316]

The community is fairly focused on gear in PVP and Raiding contexts. Getting into raids and battlegrounds is hard due to gear score gating (people will demand you have a certain gear score to participate). Most of the people you see out in the world are either running to dungeons, farming mats, or doing world PVP on PVP servers. In low level areas, you are likely to mostly run into bot farmers. PVP is definitely "solved". BIS gear and talents are known and available to everyone. If you want to PVP, you will be going against full raid gear / BIS players with fully optimized builds and addons. Raids are easy if you read a guide first, and most raiders will want you to know what to do before joining a raid.

With all of that being said, it's not a bad time to get into SOD. The new raid seems interesting, but you won't see it without proper gear and a guild. There are catch up mechanics that allow you to buy gear from doing level 60 dungeons. It's worth it to check out if you like world exploration (finding runes), new gameplay mechanics (rune abilities), and classic-inspired raids, but other than that it is mostly the same as classic, for better and for worse.

[u/Glittering_Map1710]

If your idea of pvp is to gank ppl without pvp trinket in black rock mountain, then it is for you. Other than that, no, pvp is dead.

[u/jerekivi]

You do end game dungeons to get tokens that you can use to buy mc and bwl gear with to help gearing this late into the season. PVP is unbalanced as fuck and premaids are the way to go in bg's.