#1 - April 27, 2015, 5:39 a.m.
The current state of the game also makes it very difficult for new players to reach higher ratings due to the current skill cap. Let's say for example you start a new account. The skill cap has been lowered so much by passive/reactive abilities such as flameglow that any single person cannot advance a teams rating at an acceptable rate. You could have a gladiator on a 3s team with (2) other 1500 players and you wouldn't be able to get past 1650 this expansion. I know because I'm a Cataclysm gladiator and I've attempted it with friends. The only way to achieve high ratings as a good player is to play with other good players. However, you will never be able to improve your rating achievements unless your entire team gets better together. This drastically lowers the motivation to play with people you enjoy playing with in game because they aren't skilled. Your ability to play matters so much less now than ever before. If the skill cap was raised again by removing reactive/passive abilities it would actually open doors to play with people of a much larger rating gap because it would still be rewarding to play with people who aren't "gladiator material."
Blizzard, if you want to know more I suggest you speak with Cdew, Jahmilli, Xaryu or other highly skilled streamers. People who actually have real experience with this game and understand why it is heading in a direction toward destruction. These players along with many other rank 1 players have expressed similar concerns. Do something about it before you lose more subscriptions.
Edit:
TL;DR:
Lowering the skill cap actually deters good players from playing with lower rated players.
Raising the skill cap motivates higher rated players to play with a larger player base (low or high rated players).
