The irony is that so many changes have been made over the years to the druid class in WoW - There used to be a time when no single player could kill a resto druid as heals outpaced damage and mana regen was too much.

You might be right, I haven't played since the level cap was on 70 and arena pvp was on it's peak with feral/resto druid and pvp warrior teams were unbeatable when the players behind the team were skilled. But I would be suprised if the changes are so big that healing is only useful out of combat, kind of like running away and drinking some water for mana in long battles in the old days.

But WoW atleast in the old days was very much skill based, and the noobs complained because they got raped so they kept "balancing". Might have gone too far with the balancing now I don't know.

But I'm basing it as I used to know wow, like you say, where mage was overpower against some classes but got killed almost instantly by others. That is skill based pvp, and knowing how to use your class was the only way to survive. Polymorph, pyroblast instant fireball fireblast kills was overpower, but good players survived it.

@hustlerinc
Fact: I have played wow and warriors do more damage than druid heals, for every 1.5 sec gcd hot you do, i use 1.5sec gcd instant melee strike that does more damage (than the hot would have healed in total duration). I haven't played the recent cataclysm but this was true in all versions before that. Plus you spend mana for no reason.

2) Using leader of the pack, Frenzied regeneration and healing only when the warrior is afk (cycloned, enrooted) will make the druid almost equal in power with a warrior. Which boosts my whole argument that feral druids are inferior since the warrior can kill the druid with only 1 macro, while a druid has to run away, heal, to even have a chance to beat the warrior. Without heals, kite, druid dies and warrior laughs having 50-60% hp.

3) running away from a warrior to drink is only possible if he is afk.

4) wow burning crusade / wrath 2vs2 arena sucked because arena matches lasted 30 min - 1 hour and whoever got bored first lost.

Just stepping back from specific games for a moment, I think for pvp games with magic it makes sense to work roughly as follows:
1. More powerful spells take longer to cast or consume more resources. 1-shot is possible for almost anybody if you are prepared and they are not.
2. There are various protections, with their own flaws. Maybe not visible to enemies unless you are attacked or they have special perception abilities. That way you can look unprotected but spank them when they attack.
3. Spells can be combined, but there may be side-effects, e.g. interference patterns, weakening, strange side-effects, takes more to do multiple than the two separately.
4. More work can be used to make an effect more powerful, e.g. a level one can spend 2 hours pouring energy into an artifact to make a 1-shot wonder.
5 A clever player can cast a spell that deflects or changes the effect of an attack, rather like counters etc used in fighting arcade games.

I like to see a "win" that's less than killing a dude. A one-hit "victory" that just teleports the target far away on the map, or stuns him, or otherwise neutralizes him without straight-up killing the guy, can have all the tactical value of a kill in a respawn-based arena. If you allow different levels of "beaten" to exist, then you can have different levels of "overpowered" that fit in the game. A one-shot that doesn't cost XP or start a respawn timer can be rationalized, and a one-shot that restarts all power cooldowns can be rationalized. Then you can make the "You died, you lose your stuff, you go to jail, you wait out a timer, you respawn as a pauper" kind of death require a little more focused effort, with a few more opportunities for reversal or escape. A guy who's been beaten back once can decide to re-engage in a weakened state and try to use skill and timing and tactical use of consumables to regain the upper hand before his opponent's cheesy sap attack recharges. If he's been beaten back twice, he can go for a Hail Mary and charge in with everything on the line, knowing that a third rebuke will cost him dearly. At any point, the disadvantaged player can choose to take a new stance, rebuild his strength, wait out his cooldowns and get back to 100% combat effectiveness, surrendering a little ground in order to regain his footing. That's a good way to keep the action frenetic without making it baffling or chance-based.

I forgot to mention :
Tne best advantage of glasscannon games is Escape power and Fear.

1) Escape power: escaping here matters, because it is your only survival. When an enemy blitzcrank chases you, he can use his ranged spell to pull you to him instantly, killing you in 0sec, you have to evade that. If you run straight to your tower you will die, because he will predict your movement pattern and hit you with his skillshot. You have to change your movement path (e.g running to the right) as he fires his skillshot to evade it, but doing so will mean he will have time to get closer to you since he runs in a straight pattern but you just "dodge to the right", if he reaches close to you, you will die from his punch.
Wow doesnt make escapes meaningfull, you can press 1 button (vanish) and escape combat wherever you want, this isn't pvp !!!

2) Fear: Irelia and lee sin chase jax, jax uses "Ghost" a movement speed summoner spell to run away faster and escape their gank.
They deal damage, jax uses his ult to survive their ranged damage [irelia ult]. Jax successfully manages to reach his tower, irelia afraid of the tower will stop for 0.1sec(reluctant to towerdive), jax smells this and jumps on irelia activating his dodge and becoming immune to dmg, irelia loses 60% hp in 1.5 sec. Irelia and lee sin are both scared and run away. Jax kills irelia after another 1.5 sec. Lee sin totally useless afk nab instead of fighting back runs away. Jax jumps on lee sin killing him after 3 sec. Wow cannot achieve this feeling.

@jefferytitan

There are various protections, with their own flaws. Maybe not visible to enemies unless you are attacked or they have special perception abilities. That way you can look unprotected but spank them when they attack.[/quote]
I like that since they will able to control enemy emotions. Nice suggestion.
Should everyone be able to do that ? for example buying "Potion of deception" making your hp bar decrease to 10-20% hp after 10 seconds [but it lies].

More work can be used to make an effect more powerful, e.g. a level one can spend 2 hours pouring energy into an artifact to make a 1-shot wonder.[/quote]
You mean charged spells ? if for example a mage gets 5-6 seconds of cast time uninterrupted he deserves to 1shot opponents because they were afk.

A clever player can cast a spell that deflects or changes the effect of an attack, rather like counters etc used in fighting arcade games.[/quote]
Seems a great suggestion. From our discussion it seems fair everyone to be able to dodge. But what about counter? should everyone be able to do that? or should it be class specific ? e.g mages counter only spells and warriors counter only melee.

@Iron Chef Carnage

I like to see a "win" that's less than killing a dude. A one-hit "victory" that just teleports the target far away on the map, or stuns him, or otherwise neutralizes him without straight-up killing the guy, can have all the tactical value of a kill in a respawn-based arena[/quote]
I like your suggestion.
1) How about healers being able to heal enemies, but after they heal much they pacify them turning them permanently into a harmless critter. The problem with this approach is that sometime, the player will get control of their character back.
b1) force player critters to return to their respawn point to be cured.
b2) ask help from their teamates to kill them [suicide] for faster respawn.
b3) ask a priest to dispel them 10 times to cure.
b4) return to normal after 2 min. You just need to hide in a bush or behind a tree.

You seem to have a thing for hating WoW and thinly dressing that hate up in stupid useless posts masquerading as discussion. Why is this?

You seem to have a thing for hating WoW and thinly dressing that hate up in stupid useless posts masquerading as discussion. Why is this?

He hates WoW because he never got any good at it. Never managing to get the enemies health down enough to kill them by using the right combos he wants instant kill spells.

I like that since they will able to control enemy emotions. Nice suggestion.
Should everyone be able to do that ? for example buying "Potion of deception" making your hp bar decrease to 10-20% hp after 10 seconds [but it lies].

Sure, although I imagine it would become more used at higher levels because they'd have the gold/mana/whatever to waste on that instead of plain offensive/defensive spells.

You mean charged spells ? if for example a mage gets 5-6 seconds of cast time uninterrupted he deserves to 1shot opponents because they were afk.

Well that too, but I guess I was envisioning the ability to create artefacts which contain a spell. For example a long-lasting shield spell, or a one-shot-kill offensive spell. This would be potentially prone to "farmers", but would also allow warriors to be more successful against mages by purchasing such items. There would be a strategic element due to weight limits, e.g. you could have a crazy arsenal of stuff at your tower, but if you leave your tower you're suddenly more vulnerable.

Seems a great suggestion. From our discussion it seems fair everyone to be able to dodge. But what about counter? should everyone be able to do that? or should it be class specific ? e.g mages counter only spells and warriors counter only melee.

Yeah, probably class specific, it makes sense. Outside of the counter system a warrior could theoretically "counter" a mage by firing an arrow to interrupt their casting. As far as balance goes, you could make it that some spells are "homing" to other magic, so it's harder to hit non-magical classes with them unless they have artefacts on them. Plus you could argue based on old myth that iron weapons/armour have some magic repelling effect.

Please people, try not to be too personal here. 1 shot kill doesn't work in many contexts, but let's not totally rule it out as a possibility.