So I just wanted to summarize the whole Blackrock realm. Now, please don't take this as whining.
So basically you start off with full rele gear. If you are ****ty at PvP, the community wouldn't allow you to have a chill time since it is unforgiving. So unless you are some hardcore non-give-a-****-wit, you won't have a good time. And that means the server is generally for people from ex-AT or for those who are sick of retail and want to relive good old wrath-PvP, a.k.a: relatively experienced players.
The gap between Relentless and Wrathful is despicable so unless you merely counter somebody else's comp, you aren't likely to win. Gearing up takes a month so you have to play twice a week(which idm, I personally log with my partner twice a week and I'm super fine with it), but that reduces the frequency at which people are stimulated to play.
It's extremely hard to find a 2v2 partner(in comparison with what it used to be). They, obviously, have to match your comp, gear, and XP standards. Generally, most players fake their rating/XP because it's just so easy to do. I guess that turned out to be worse than ex-AT's buying accounts with high ratings. What do you think?
When you get to play 2v2, it is relatively easy to get to 1800-1900-ish where you can cover the required rating for most of your gear. Furthermore, you start getting decent arena points on flushes at around and above that rating. Past that, the meta is kind of broken since there are only few comps dominating the ladder. Particularly warrior/pala. They, kind of, changed the server's mechanics(reduced arena healing by 10%, increased DR durations, delayed dampening, removed patch 3.3.5b, which would nerf warriors with the intent to balance them). And most of those things altered the class balance and the meta. You can now barely see any rogues, mages, shadow priests or druids at the very top of the 2v2 bracket.
Next is 3v3 bracket which is sort of impossible to find partners unless you have friends already playing on Blackrock. The bracket is not dead yet, and you get matched up against players from the SoloQ bracket(to reduce queue times). I personally think that's great.
In SoloQ you can have some fun despite the RNG of poor synergy between comps or sometimes ?AFKING? partners. Nevertheless, gear is always a huge factor. Hence the tremendous transition between s7 and s8.
You can very rarely spot GMs online, so that makes it easy for hackers and scripters to do their thing. I have personally seen quite a few people using instant-kick/overpower scripts, etc. And even if you notice any, you would wait up to five days for a response and then the scripter might have possibliy lost interest in the server, or you'd be lacking proof anyway.
Transmogrification is very hard since it takes a while until you collect all of your set pieces or find alternative ones that match the colour of your set. I guess that's what makes the system fun.
As I mentioned, there are some custom changes such as 10% flat healing reduction in arenas. That is benefitting some double melee dps comps ,I suppose , and there are a lot of them.(Why not add a 10% damage reduction, too, to double damage comps?). Another change is the dynamic DR, which some claim to be blizzlike(15-20 seconds), I think DRs always last 20 seconds so that proves the server does NOT want to follow the blizz-like system despite the claims of some individuals.
That leaves me confused as to why doesn't the Blackrock team implement 3.3.5b patch again, so we can see more playable comps and specs, and to shake up the meta too, and shape PvP as something better in general.
What do you guys think about those?
Do you like the realm you play on or would you like to see some changes?
Post in the comment section below.