Pvp Was Slain By 1.9

Disclaimer: I don't hate 1.9 as a whole, just the new combat part.
The thing is, while the changes to PvP and PvE have fixed some problems, it has also amplified others.

Spamming and Teaming
Yes, spamming might've been an issue, but removing that has replaced it with a void of nothingness between player attacks.
This void can unfortunately be filled by other attacks from other people.
This results in multiple people being able to hit the same person at (almost) the same time, allowing them to deal more damage then the single target can deal back.
Plus 2 players means that they have twice the health pool and health regeneration when combined, making the single target if fighting equally equipped opponents, only deal about half of 1 player's health before being defeated.
In 1.8, while 2 players would still be an unfair advantage against 1 player, the 1 player would only take roughly 1 player's worth of spam attacks, while being able to hit both of them, if they were smart and fast enough to do so.

Pros: Less spamming
Cons: More effective teaming


Armour Effectiveness and PvE
It is true that people in full diamond enchanted with maximum enchantments would basically become an unkillable god, but while the nerf to armour will lower them from godlike status, it will also effect everything else from iron to godlike.
This lowers the feeling of safety and security for players since they will be able to take less damage with all armours.
Diamond armour in it's 1.9 state can be killed instantly by a creeper on normal mode, and even full protection 4 it is also possible too, though it's a bit of a long shot. (I tested this)
Monsters were easy for very skilled players, but with the changes with attacks and armour it means that monsters will be stronger since they can attack as fast as normal, while you do less damage. As well as the mobs spawning everywhere, they will now be able to see players through walls like 1.7 spiders could (Not sure if this is a bug though, but they definitely saw me through solid stone) and ambush them in groups which, if you read Spamming and Teaming, it means they will have a massive advantage.
While some veterans who want the challenge will like the increased difficulty of weak armour, slow attacks and spider vision, new people or people who just plain suck at PvE will likely die alot, and will probably quit the game.

Pros: Godlike equipment less godlike, difficulty increase for challenge seekers, endermen look hilarious when running to you
Cons: Difficulty increase for new players/low skill players


Spamming with Lag and High Ping
Having a poor computer or a bad connection to a server is a definite disadvantage, with slower reactions and not knowing what others will do in the time it takes for your actions to occur can make even the most skilled fighter fall.
The big issue here is that, with spamming gone it means people who have these problems will have an even bigger disadvantage.
Imagine this, there are 2 players fighting each other, Player 1 has a good computer and so has no lag.
Player 2 has a worse computer and has bad lag during the fight.
With attacks, only 1 hit every 0.5 seconds can get through to damage an entity due to damage immunity.
Let's say that, with the horrible lag Player 2 is getting, only 20% of his hits actually land on his target.
If they both spam attacks at 5 hits per second, it means that Player 1, who lands all 5 hits, only 2 will cause damage due to damage immunity. And Player 2 will manage to land 1 hit on his target. Only 50% compared to the hits Player 1 got.
Now if we introduce attack cooldowns, and each player swings a sword 5 times, taking 3.5 seconds to complete all swings, we have a problem.
For each hit that Player 1 lands, he will have to wait 0.7 seconds for his sword to recharge. Meanwhile the damage immunity only goes for 0.5 seconds, so by the time Player 1 can swing again, his attack will succeed at doing damage.
If Player 2 still can only land 20% of his attacks, it means that he will still hit only 1 time, but Player 1 will do damage with ALL 5 attacks.
Compared to the 50% damage that Player 1 caused with spamming attacks, he now did only 20% of the damage Player 1 caused.
High Ping won't be exactly the same, but it will still be a bigger disadvantage because now that shields and cooldowns have made combat time-based, being on-time with attacks and defends will be more important then ever. This is something a High Ping player can't do.
It is already an issue that high ping players can easily walk into traps simply because they have slower reaction times, but now with lingering potions it adds another trap they can't easily avoid.

Pros: If you have no lag or low ping, congrats! You have a bigger advantage!
Cons: If you have lag or high ping, sucks to be you!


Other Non-Basic Equipment
Now that we have more fancy gadgets to play with, PvP will be much more strategic.
But this also comes at a cost of flexibility too.
With the attack cooldowns, if you were to switch out from a melee weapon to another item, and then switch back you will notice that you have to re-raise your weapon.
This means that to do something other then use a weapon, you will have to sacrifice time in order to do it if you're using melee.
Even if you start out using a bow or something support related, if an attacker were to approach you, just because you were being supportive, you get penalized by trying to fight them by switching to melee. But if you did that in 1.8, there would be no penalty.

Pros: More variety of Strategy
Cons: Penalization for being flexible

While the pros seem to outweigh the cons, let's look at the cons for a moment:

• More effective teaming: This means that people with friends have a better chance of winning, but not everyone has friends.
• Difficulty increase for new players/low skill players: Increasing difficulty for people who suck anyway is an insult to injury.
• If you have lag or high ping, you suck: Bigger disadvantage to already disadvantaged people is also an insult to injury.
• Penalization for being flexible: People won't want to use the cool new features if they get penalized for using them.

Now let's look at the pros:
• Less Spamming: How hard is it to hit someone 2 times a second anyway?
• Godlike equipment less godlike: This one is sort of deserved, but if they got this legit, then it probably took alot of dedication and work to get this far.
• Difficulty increase for challenge seekers: If you really want a tougher fight, go around fighting with no armour on.
• Endermen look hilarious when running to you: Haha, when I saw this I thought it was so funny that I made an enderman obstacle course.
• If you have no lag or low ping, congrats!: Not everyone can afford to purchase a 9001GB computer that's right next to the server.
• More variety of Strategy: This one is very good, the game does need more variety with weapons.

Unaffected Things
Dodging, Environment checking, people using endgame to camp the spawn, skill requirement, coordinated teams and spamming combos are still more-or-less the same.

TL;DR: Players with low lag, low ping and lots of friends will be boosted up to become gods.
People with lots of lag, high ping and no friends will be wiped off the face of the planet faster then ever.

 

Wait, are creepers once agian a threat to players?

Wow, the last time they were dangerous was back in beta 1.7!

 

Creepers right now are already a threat anyway, it's just they are a hybrid of threats.

They are silent, meaning they can easily ambush unsuspecting players.
They have a larger range then melee mobs and a big attack radius, meaning they can hit multiple targets.
They destroy the world around them, meaning they can damage buildings and allow other mobs to get through.
They destroy the items around them, meaning if say, a friend dies and then a creeper blows up on you, the friend's stuff is gone.
They have a single but powerful attack, which allows them to kill unarmored players instantly on easy. Even with iron armour on easy they can do up to half your health.
They don't burn or become neutral in sunlight, so they will wait all night and day to get you.
They can get angry at other mobs that hit them, which can cause unintentional damage to the world.
Their explosions cause alot of knockback, which can cause additional fall damage (armour bypassing), and a possible instant kill if you fly off a cliff.
They can be charged by lightning, a rare chance but still valid. While it makes them less sneaky it doubles their attack power, increases knockback and expands their blast radius, which destroys more of the world and items. You would need to be quite good at kiting a charged creeper to not get it to blow up.

Sure it takes 1.5 seconds for them to actually attack you, but if you don't notice them before they start hissing you won't be able to get very far away before they blow up.

 

i was talking damage wise, a player won't have armor for like their first day, and once they get full iron, which doesn't take long at all, creepers are inable to kill them if they don't blow the player of a cliff (very unlikely) or in a lava pit (more likely, but only when mining)

Back in alpha creepers could easily 1 hit you, even with armor.
So, im glad they're getting a buff in 1.9

 

I just performed a comparison with 1.7 beta to 1.8.8 official and these were the findings:

Each version, I played 1 day of minecraft on normal mode, with no house or hiding at night.


1.7 Beta:
There were less biomes compared to 1.8.8 and they were smaller too, so finding trees and animals were not a problem. Animals kept respawning all over the place, getting porkchops for healing was easy.
Skeletons were a pain, that's for sure. They would fire really slow arrows that seemed to be just fast enough to hit you. Zombies and spiders sucked and creepers would strafe around you as they tried to blow up. A bit harder to hit, but they would make themselves do less damage by moving away from you. Swinging to hit stuff was automatic, yeah you heard me. AUTOMATIC. All I had to do was hold attack and point at stuff. Monsters took 3 hits to kill with a stone sword.
If I got injured in battle, all I had to do was chomp a porkchop and I would be fine instantly.
By beating up cows that spawned everywhere, I made some leather boots. They acted like diamond armour when it came to protection at full durability. So if I beat up enough cows I could wear diamond armour for a few hits. (In the pic my boots already took damage, so they were less effective)
By using the debug information screen (F3) I could see where all the enemies were.



1.8.8:
I started with a massive ocean and a desert next to me, with pigs in the savanna I was in. If there were only chickens or sheep where I was there would be alot less food.
Skeletons were still the most difficult, but not as nearly as tough as 1.7 beta because I could sprint to them. Zombies were tougher because some were babies or had weapons so I was lucky not to get hit by them. Zombies also saw me from a long range too. Spiders sucked even more since they couldn't see through the tall grass.
Creepers stood still when they tried to explode, which would lead to more damage then if they strafed around. Monsters took 4 hits to kill normally, or 3 if I did critical hits. There were also more monsters around. In 1.7 Beta they spawned in groups of 1 or 2 but here they were all over the place. At most in 1.7 Beta I fought 3 mobs, in 1.8.8 I was in a battle with 5 at once.
If i got injured in battle, I would have to wait for my health to slowly go back up, which if other monsters saw me because there were so many, I would have to battle them while being injured.
There were no cows anywhere, so I would've needed to go mining in order to get any armour.
There were so many monsters my sword broke and I had to make another one.




So at the end of it, it seems as though I took more damage in 1.7 beta then I did in 1.8.8. Making you think that 1.7 is harder.
But:
1.7 Beta has less monsters, but tough skeletons
1.8.8 has more monsters, and some zombies were tougher
1.7 Beta has closer biomes meaning easy access to most things.
1.8.8 has further apart biomes, meaning more travel time.
1.7 Beta has respawning animals everywhere that's grassy.
1.8.8 has non-respawning animals only in some biomes, and to respawn them you need to set up a farm.
1.7 Beta food would heal you instantly, but are unstackable.
1.8.8 food slowly heals you, and only when you're full.
1.7 Beta armour durability sucks, but you can get the best protection (although not for very long) from cows.
1.8.8 armour is more durable but in order to get something worthwhile you need to go mining.
1.7 Beta attacks are automatic and do more damage.
1.8.8 attacks can critical hit to do even more damage, but you need to jump for that, leaving you vulnerable to knockback.
1.7 Beta movement was slow, but free.
1.8.8 movement you could go faster, but at the cost of healing, and can eventually lose that boost when without food.


Think anything of these findings, but I personally think that they are quite even, With 1.8 being harder if bad turns to worse at the start, but it would become easier as time passes.

 

Well, UHC is now completely messed up and risky.

Golden Apple changes:

- Golden Apple nerfed 2 hearts > 1 heart of regen. Yes, one stinking heart.
* Recipe has not changed

God Apple changes:

- God Apples only have Regen 2 for 30 seconds, so ~6 hearts of regen (which was kinda needed)
+ God Apples give 8 hearts of Absorption for 5 minutes.

While the God Apple still has its uses, the Golden Apple is now next to useless. Granted it still keeps the 2 hearts of Absorption, but for UHC, the healing effect is trash and useless. You're better off rushing to the Nether, since unless the recipe changes, you can make 24 Health Potions (I) and heal 54 hearts from all the 8 gold. Or you can heal a whopping 1 heart.

I dunno man, Jeb's making some rash and shit decisions now.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news, but god apples only provide the regen for 20 seconds now, not 30. (8 hearts regen instead)
Also the absorption IV they give only lasts the original 2 minutes.
This is according to the 15w37a snapshot information on the wiki.
(Also, from 24 health potions you get 48 hearts, or 96 if you use glowstone dust, healing 2 hearts each or 4, respectively)

God Apples used to be able to heal 0.5 hearts every 0.15625 seconds, or 4 hearts every 1.25 seconds, or 16 hearts every 5 seconds. 30 seconds would heal up to 96 hearts. Plus 2 hearts from the absorption effect. (Max: 98)
Now they heal 0.5 hearts every 1.25 seconds, or 2 hearts every 5 seconds. 20 seconds would heal up to 8 hearts. Plus 8 hearts from the absorption effect. (Max: 16)
Compared to 98 hearts, 16 is under a 1/6th of it's original power. (Thought you liked to know :D)

 

golden apples always were a pretty useless item.
But now they are even more pathetic, the only one that has somewhat decent buffs is the notch apple, but i would rather make potions instead of wasting 8 gold blocks.

 

Minecraft Pvp wasn't that great, but 1.9 is changing meh to meh

 

At least, with 1.9, I don't have to worry about hurting my wrist from rapid clicking.

Also, if you just whine and complain, you're not going to change anything. If you really want change to happen, suggest changes in a polite way (preferably on minecraftsuggestions subreddit on reddit... the devs look there). If you're going to be cussing and making a fit, they're going to ignore you.

 

Oh, and don't forget, armor is getting nerfed a lot too! Yaaaaay! (not)

 

A lot of people think I'm just a hater on 1.9 but I'm not. In actually really like all of the end features, the paths, and the fact that particles are no longer entities. Which means that particles won't lag you at all now! But I just think that the new PVP changes will ruin PVP. And I was right. Resently I was trying pvping with my friend in 1.8 and in the snapshot 15w37a. (Oh and we are pretty much the same level at "how good are you at PVP " scale).
And all I can say is that the fight was few minutes long, and in 1.8 it took less then a minute.

Also, like you all said UHC is probably dead. Golden apples are now so underpowered, that now you can just call them pathetic apples. I mean, 1 heart for 8 gold ingots and an apple!? What a fair trade! If mojang wanna keep it, they better change the recopie to the 1.4 one. (It was 8 gold nuggets and an apple).

 

lol was playing eggwars on that cubecraft server

was the only left on my team

snuck up on some guy and killed him by spam clicking

killed another on his team by spam clicking

It wasn't much fun

1.9 PVP > 1.8 PVP simply because it is more enjoyable and intense. Like seriously 1.8 PVP is pretty shocking

 

This thread is tl, so I dr, but here's my input:
1. Remember how spam clicking wasn't constant damage? With the cooldown on swords, you have to wait around 0.5 seconds more of able-to-hit person time, the combos may not feel the same, but you're damaging near the times of the old spam click.
2. Why only focus on combat? They've added new command blocks which will revolutionise the map making community, the end is now infinite, new shulker mobs and loads of bug fixes. Plus, if you think that you'll get killed while recharging, you can always use a shield.
3. The update hasn't come out yet, but with the things they've changed I'm unsure if they'll be "adding" weapons. Axes now do more damage, and can disable sheilds. Swords have a swipe ability (Teamer Troubles are now gone), Hoes are the new Daggers, so DO waste your diamonds on one...
4. Mobs will attack differently. Through the snapshots, general AI has been improving, making mobs tougher.
5. Diamond Armour is no longer that great, nor are fishing rods. Diamond Armour only protects 2/3rds (66.6%) of damage instead of 80%, meaning skill is more a factor when facing an armoured foe (If you had diamond armour, you used to be practically invincible against lesser enemies, both PvP and PvE). Fishing Rods no longer "Damage" either, they now act like they should.
6. The game may look like it's "Too Hard" with the new mob changes and such, but admit it, the most dangerous mob was the Creeper, as he couldn't be spammed.
7. Maybe this update will finally clear out the 10 year old spam clickers and we can have some FUN again.

Also, it seems Mojang has listened to some of your complaints:

Spoiler: Have fun with this, you got your way.

This is part of a bug fix changelog:
From the 1.9 development versions

• MC-83002 – Villagers don't pick up Beet Roots or Beet Root Seeds
• MC-83266 – Beetroot Farming non-sustainable
• MC-86845 – Minecart Command Blocks kick players from servers
• MC-87802 – Excessive banners (as blocks) do not render
• MC-87946 – Monsters see you through walls

There you go.

 

teaming fine... the kids who rage about it though...

 

Swords take 0.6 seconds (as of 15w37a) to fully charge. Damage immunity only lasts 0.5 seconds.
Just like you said, "but you're damaging near the times of the old spam click." So you're basically spam clicking with swords anyway now.

We're focusing on combat because that's the problem with 1.9. Most other things are great that they added, but a complete change to how you can actually fight was not needed, especially when they haven't changed how monsters fight. (Apart from skeletons now dodging and moving away while shooting at you in 15w38a) Shields only work well if you're defending from 1 direction. If you're surrounded by monsters or players, or if the enemy has an axe, a shield isn't going to do much.

In my opinion, they should've added more different weapons rather then making the current ones so weak you need to use precious "tactics" to fight zombies. (Such as a spear, longer range but less damage and knockback. Or a mace, which has more knockback, but less damage to armour. Or a flail, which can't be spammed, takes time to charge and slows you down, but it hits everything in front of you every second. Or a Rapier, which does much less damage, but can slightly pierce armour.) Axes are so slow that there is a 0.5-0.75 second gap between hits, which lets a friend get in an attack too. Also, axes do more damage then swords, so they will armour pierce much more, which makes them do even more damage to people who have spent time and effort to get diamond armour.
My previous calculations were deleted with the forum wipe, but it was outdated anyway. Here's a new one.

Spoiler: 1 Diamond vs 2 Stones

A battle occurs between 1 person in full diamond armour and a diamond sword, let's call him D. And 2 people with nothing but stone axes, let's call them S1 and S2.
Diamond Swords as of 15w38a deal 3.5 hearts every 0.6 seconds, or 5.25 (rounded to 5) with critical hits.
Stone Axes as of 15w38a deal 4.5 hearts every 1.25 seconds, or 6.75 (rounded to 6.5) with critical hits.
Diamond Armour as of 15w38a resist 66% damage, but for each heart done in a single attack, it gets lowered by 3.3%.
Stone Axes doing 6.5 (apparently the 0.5 matters, but I will skip it for now ) will reduce the defense from 66% to 46.2%. The damage done will go from 6.5 hearts to 3.497 hearts.
Each player has 10 hearts and are guaranteed to hit, and will also do critical hits. Also for D's benefit, he will try to kill the first attacker, to help himself.

The Battle:
At 0.0 seconds, D and S1 hit each other. D goes from 10 hearts to 6.503 hearts. S1 goes from 10 hearts to 5 hearts. D needs to wait until 0.6 to attack again. S1 needs to wait until 1.25 to attack again.
At 0.5 seconds, when the damage immunity wears off, S2 hits D. D goes from 6.503 hearts to 3.006 hearts. S2 needs to wait until 1.75 to attack again.
At 0.6 seconds, D hits S1. S1 goes from 5 hearts to 0. S1 is now dead. D needs to wait until 1.2 to attack again.
At 1.2 seconds, D hits S2. S2 goes from 10 hearts to 5. D needs to wait until 1.8 to attack again.
At 1.75 seconds, S2 hits D. D goes from 3.006 hearts to 0.
D is now dead and S2 gets all his loot.

Swords having a sweep attack might discourage teaming, but axes greatly encourage them back, doing far more damage with 2 people using slow, powerful hits then a single sword person. Plus, the sweep attack only does knockback, and even then only to the things in front of you. Sucks if you're surrounded! Hoes still do pitiful amounts of damage, the only thing useful about the fast attack is if you hit multiple targets, since entities still have 0.5 seconds of immunity but hoes attack up to 0.25 seconds.

You mean like in the latest snapshot as of now (15w38a), skeletons will now back off when you get too close and can move, aim AND fire all at once?
I played around with the skeletons for a bit, they back off faster then you can walk when blocking with a shield, and they move faster then you when you're both drawing a bow!
Meanwhile zombies with a sword can attack you as often as they like, creepers damage is so high they can pierce through diamond armour and cave spider and silverfish sizes are so small that you pretty much NEED to spam a weapon to hit them.

Sure the armour being downgraded seems good, but the reason it was so good is to prevent you from just dying from any random monster you find.
Take Wynncraft for example, do you think people would like it if even after getting to level 75, they still need to properly have combat with a level 1 sewer rat?
There is a reason that it was good, because it meant you didn't have to fear death every time a spider or a stone sword player crept up on you.

The mobs were still dangerous to newbie, laggy or high ping players. The fact they they are even harder now means that those people who could barely fight in the first place will be annihilated.
Maybe what they should've done is added more difficulty settings, or a new custom option for difficulty with settings on what you want to be hard and what you want to be easy.

Sure removing the annoying hackusators and ragers will feel good at first, but then there will be less people playing minecraft as a whole, which means less people on servers, which means less donations on servers, which means less money for servers, which means servers either have to lower quality or shut down completely.
This also means that on the few servers that will still be running, it'll be full of people who know exactly what they're doing, and if you aren't up to their level then you will be crushed.

Basically this:

Now instead of your wrist hurting it'll be your head hurting as you try to think of ways to get out of a larger amount of more dangerous situations and trying to keep rhythm with your weapon and planning when to use something other then a sword and constantly being alert to other situations that could happen and planning for the other situations when they arrive and keeping track of each enemy for longer periods of time because you can't kill them as fast, all at the same time!

 

I agree with your point of new weapons being added, I was expecting another weapon than our precious sword, and it is the "Combat" update. The only new thing is that Axes are truer to their name in real life and have the shield breaker ability. The other tools I feel are just to digourage use. Also, Swords have the Highest DPS, and being able to essentially spam click with them still, I don't get what's wrong with them.

Something I was wrong on was the Armour changes. If you're in diamond armour and you face someone with a wooden sword, you'll take very little damage. Armour had another change to somewhat buff it after its defence decrease. Armour now protects more against a weak attack, and less against a strong one. It's a bit like how protection works; extra defence comes in points, and you can only get so many points against one type of damage. It's a little hard to explain, so to put the new armour into simpler terms: Lets say that diamond armour will have strong protection up to 5, anyone who scores less than 5 will deal less damage, but people who score more than 5 will deal a little more.

I personally like the changes to skeletons, because they've somewhat implemented what I've wanted to see from them. In a basic scenario, I would block, take the arrow, leap in and crit then block the next arrow and repeat. Their dodging tactics are predictable, and you can easily corner them and kill them. This will also help players in PvP, a becuase they'll need to employ a new tactic of doging instead of slapping on some diamond armour and tanking hits while slashing away. Jumping in and backing out, much like our undead archers, is one of the slippery tactics we can utilise to minimise damage intake.

I feel like the mobs do need a real buff to challenge us because on a new survival world, I managed to survive around 7 nights with no armour and an iron sword, my health only dropping to 3 hearts in critical moments where I forgot to eat, and even now I haven't died once on that world. I'm also glad creepers are now a threat, seeing as they used to be trampolines when you had diamond or iron. I'd like to see them moving toward you when they're exploding too, because you can sprint, hit and stop to make them explode for no damage.

WynnCraft and Minecraft are very different things. WynnCraft is an MMORPG, where you gain strength as you level, so mobs your level are a threat, while mobs 10 below are laughable. Minecraft is a sandbox, and the developers are only now switching it from "Peaceful sandbox, but there are some monsters for challenge" to "Build in the day, and fear the night.". Basically, in MMORPGs, the level capped' become gods, unkillable to weaker enemies. Minecraft, you're in the same boat as everyone else, but some are a little more prepared than you.

 

The thing that is wrong with them is everyone is complaining that "Spam clicking takes no skill" and all that, but swords now swinging so fast basically makes them like 1.8 sword spamming anyway, but less effective against groups such as teamers, allowing teamers to rise higher thanks to the axe.
It's essentially what people disliked about 1.8 combat but with the added bonus of making another problem worse.

If you go HERE in the 1.9 section of the wiki you can see that there is no mention of armour reducing damage if it is under a threshold. Also there is no mention of that in the Planned Additions/Changes section either.
And just to be sure, I went on the snapshot and tested it myself.
I let a silverfish beat me up without armour, and it did a constant 0.5 hearts.
Then I let it beat me up while wearing full diamond armour, It did 0.5 hearts every 3 hits. In other words 33% damage, which is the normal amount it will do to diamond armour.
Then I let a zombie pigman beat me up without armour, it did 4 hearts each hit. Ouch.
And finally, I wore diamond armour while letting a zombie pigman hit me, and it did NOT do 1-1.5 hearts (1.33 hearts) to me, instead it's attacks bypassed some armour and did 1.5-2 hearts.
So currently, there is no threshold that lowers damage done, nor is there a mention of it's addition. (Unless there is somewhere else which has it?)

You personally like the changes because you know how to deal with skeletons and can kill them in a decent manner.
Other people such as newbies, who don't know how to deal with them, let alone the current skeletons, will have a much harder time with them.
While the scenario is all good, not everyone can actually pull that off with accuracy.
High ping players will be delayed with blocking, and will take the arrow if they miss the timing. Also skeletons moving would mean that high ping players might even miss attacking the skeleton entirely, due to it moving away.
The dodging mechanics are predictable, but are still annoying if you need to kill the skeleton while having other things to worry about such as other mobs or hazards to navigate which get in the way, slowing your progress.
With 1.8, dodging already existed with both skeletons and players, but you had the option to take the damage if you didn't care. It's just that now you don't have as broad an option when it comes to how you want to do it.
Jumping in and backing out, unless you jump behind a wall is not a good option. Skeletons will continue to fire at you while pursuing you. And even if you go behind a wall you only get 1 chance to hit it before it backs off again.

Maybe instead of making everything tougher and then saying "Deal with it" Mojang should add more difficulties, or custom difficulties that you can set what you want to be hard and what you want easy. They could also include special moves with higher/custom difficulties that mobs do, like what you said with the creepers walking to you instead of standing still. Zombies could infect you with potion effects. Skeletons and Blazes could fire multiple shots at once. Spiders could throw webs. Endermen could make illusions. Zombie Pigmen could throw gold at you. Slimes and Magma Cubes could do splash damage where they land. Shulkers could charge up an explosion attack that knocks away nearby enemies. Witches could fly on brooms. Ghasts could fire a stream of tear shots at you occasionally as well as shoot fireballs. All of these could be enabled or disabled with custom settings and such.

They may look different, but the core mechanic is definitely the same.
Wynncraft: You go and get better and better gear to overcome obstacles.
Minecraft: You go and get better and better gear to overcome obstacles.
The way they do it is the difference, but what you try to achieve is basically the same.
Also how you said:

Sound familiar?

So according to this, Minecraft 1.8 and Wynncraft is pretty much the same, but according you what you said:

That sounds alot like the Wynncraft Nether, where the only thing that matters is a small part of your efforts overall, the spells. (And having good ping, low lag and friends to team with)
The difference is that the Wynncraft Nether isn't permanent, none of your failures matter in it. But 1.9 will be the game you'll be playing so you'll be stuck in a permanent Wynncraft Nether, with permanent failures.
This means that putting in efforts with mining for resources and getting gear just won't be as rewarding because it won't matter very much.

 

Heres an extract on armour from one of the snapshots, I got it wrong with the numbered points, but it still counts toward the same idea:

• Armor defense calculations changed:
  • Max (20) armor points damage reduction reduced from 80% to 66%.
  • Armor points count for less as the attack strength increases: each 2 ()done by the attack reduces the effective defense points by 1 ().

Also as you said, Axes leave quite a gap, and seeing as swords have the highest DPS, in a 1v2 situation, the sword would most likely win due to the gaps in axe attack, and the speed at which the sword recharges. Also, the "No Skill Spam Click" has been countered by 1.9, you can still deal damage at the same times, but you'll need to have good timing to do so, and not rely on purely your CPS (Clicks per second).

High-Ping only affects those playing on a multiplayer server, and is what causes lag. I've played singleplayer without internet at all, and it still functioned fine. Of course, Matrix Arrows (Firing arrows in lag, which causes them all to fire at once) and Supersonic Mobs (When lag ends, mobs move very fast to where they are) will affect laggy survival servers, but on the singleplayer side, it won't affect anything.

I like your ideas for new mob attacks, as well as the pre-mentioned weapons. I suggest you go to one of the reddit sections or minecraft forum threads to tell the game devs (who really have say in what happens) what you think. They want the community to help with the update, and (this applies to others) saying you don't like it here won't do anything. If you have a complaint about a feature, tell the devs, and as you've done, suggest a good replacement, which they actually want people to do (suggest better features, not hate on everything). If you don't do anything but complain on an unvisited forum, you'll just have to deal with it. Go out and say "I don't like ____, why not add _____ instead?" or deal with it; there's your options.

 

Basically having to think more. I view this as a very good thing... I'd prefer thinking than hurting my wrist.

And no, thinking hard does not induce headaches... at least for me.