arena-season-3
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Extended maintenance and new Arena Season 3 vendors
In case you haven't heard, Arena Season 3 starts tomorrow. Blizzard is taking down the servers at 2 AM PST and is scheduled to bring them back up again at noon. When the servers come up, Season 3 will begin, Season 1 gear will be available for honor purchase and there will be new Arena Vendors.You will no longer need to travel to Area 52, pile into the little hut and speak to the Pinchwhistles in order to buy your Arena gear. As of the beginning of Season 3, you will be able to purchase your Arena gear outside of the Arenas in Nagrand and Blade's Edge and even in the old world town of Gadgetzan.How many pieces of Season 3 gear have you saved up for? What do you have planned for the downtime? (Other than reading WoW Insider and Massively, of course.)
Season 1 Prices revisited as items go on sale tomorrow
We heard a long time ago that Arena 1 sets would be purchaseable with battleground honor and marks, and it looks like tomorrow's the day-- all those marks and honor you've been saving up will be able to get you some Arena PvP gear.We posted prices a while back as well, but just in case you missed them, here they are again, at Curse's website. The full list of prices is after the jump-- lots of people will probably be headed for the weapons, but make sure to bring lots of honor and marks. While the offhand weapons are the least pricey (at 9k honor), the marks are probably what will break people-- you need 20 Eye of the Storm marks for all the one-hand weapons, and 40 AB marks for the two handers. Librams, relics and totems are the cheapest-- only 8k honor and 10 EotS marks.The full list is printed for your convenience after the break. Got honor? If you want to grab some of that season 1 gear tomorrow, you're gonna need it.
Making money from Season 3
Tomorrow morning Arena Season 3 is scheduled to start up and, among other things, this will bring a lot of new loot into the game. I'm sure many of you are like myself and have been hoarding up honor and arena points in order to buy the new gear as soon as it appears on the vendors. This season, due largely to the new rating requirements placed on some of the new items, I've decided to actually put forth effort to be competitive in the arena. With that in mind, picking up the new PvP gear becomes a priority, and I imagine other people are going to be in a similar position. Gone are the days of dying in the arena week after week in order to finally pick up that amazing weapon. Of course, for many players, there's a much more important aspect to preparing for Season 3: making money on the auction house.
Do BG's need diminishing returns?
As we all know, with the changes to Alterac Valley in patch 2.3 have come changes to the tactical balance of the game. Specifically, if you're not willing to put some real effort into defense, you're not going to win, and you can end up in a turtle game waiting for one side to run out of reinforcements. Which leads me to wonder: if the games are inherently limited by the reinforcement factor... if by killing opposing players you will eventually win the game and as result there's no way the games can last indefinitely... then what do we need diminishing returns on honor for? Battlegrounds are limited in that you have no real choice but to kill the same people over and over again, after all.There's never going to be a setup where one side agrees to be honor famed by the other in AV now, if that ever happened in the first place. One side is going to lose, the game is going to end, and a new game start up: but if you've played in a lot of AV's lately where one side put up a vigorous defense and the two factions clashed for a significant melee, then you may have noticed as I have that your estimated honor for the day will often be wildly overstated. For instance, yesterday I managed to squeeze about 4k honor out. But when I went to bed, it said I had almost 6k honor estimated. I understand what estimated means, that it's not accurate, but the idea that the system estimated an additional 2k honor over what I had actually earned made me wonder if there was a way to improve this. With Arena 3 coming out tomorrow, people have either acquired the honor they want or will be working to do so, so it seems like a good time to consider if we need what seems to be an outdated means of preventing repeated ganking or honor farming.Then again, I suppose you could do it in Warsong still. AB and EoTS also have their limiting factors built in, but Warsong keeps going until someone caps 3 flags. Maybe we could just eliminate the honor decay in the other three BG's? That might make Warsong drop in popularity, though. What do you think? Do we need diminishing returns on honor in battlegrounds?
WoW, Casually: Thanksgiving edition
Each week, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.I hope everyone had a drama-free Thanksgiving (void where prohibited). And for those of you in retail, it's been nice knowing you. We'll see you at Christmas.This weekend, the Call to Arms is for Alterac Valley. I expect AV to be packed with people because of the holiday weekend. Those of you who have some extra playtime this weekend should take advantage of the lower queues for AV in order to save up more honor for the Season 1 gear that will be available for honor purchase on Tuesday. Those purplez will be the best gear available for the playtime challenged, so if you are at all PvP inclined, go forth and play in the snows of Alterac Valley this weekend.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling Up 41 - 58
The Care and Feeding of Warriors heads into the home stretch of this series of leveling guides with a look at the levels that used to be just before endgame, and which now are just before stepping through the dark portal. Luckily, Matthew Rossi has so many warriors that it's not terribly hard to find one he hasn't leveled that far yet. The poor tauren warrior in today's header was actually his first tauren warrior, only to fall away neglected when he rerolled on Malfurion. Looks lonely, doesn't he?We've covered getting your new warrior up and running, and we've covered getting her or him through the mid-level game. Now it's time to talk about the time before you can go to Outland, when you're finally wearing plate, running some of the most well designed instances in the game (hopefully, anyway) and finally getting access to the highest tiers of talents.I've been asked in previous posts to tell people what talents to pick for the fastest leveling. I haven't done that because it really depends on if you're playing solo or grouping often. If you're running groups with a pack of like-minded, same level friends, then Protection is the strongest talent tree for leveling. Running instances and doing instance quests will get you to 58 faster than soloing, and Protection is probably the most useful spec for a single warrior in a five man group. If, however, you're going to be spending a lot of time solo, then Arms is probably the easiest spec to level in. Get some decent 'of the bear' or 'of the tiger' greens, keep them updated every couple of levels, get the biggest, meanest two hand weapon you can and go to town. I personally leveled my most recent warrior (draenei) to 55 in Fury just because I'd used arms for my human, my tauren and my orc (my night elf was all over the place) and while it can be more difficult, it's not as bad as you'll often be told it is if you have the right gear. Patch 2.3 has actually gone a long way towards fixing itemization for the leveling fury warrior. Either way, Arms or Fury are better for leveling than Protection if you are spending the majority of your time soloing. If you're running a lot of instances, go Prot. These are the levels where you can actually feel your spec. Mortal Strike, Bloodthirst and Shield Slam are in your grasp, the former kings of their respective talent trees. You'll be able to go 41 points in a tree, should you so desire, by level 50. So it is in this band that you'll be able to say 'I'm a Prot Warrior' and really be accurate.
Blood Sport: Building an Arena team, part 2
Every Thursday, V'Ming - who thinks that gnome warlocks are travesties of nature and need to be KOSed - shares thoughts and ideas on becoming deadlier at the Arenas. He also dabbles in the dark arts in Blood Pact.Welcome to part 2 of 'Building an Arena Team'. With the start of Arena Season 3 on Nov 27, are you looking to form your own Arena team to kick some butt? While part 1 looked at the classes you'll want in your team, let's look at other important aspects of running a winning Arena team.
Blood Sport: Season 3, rise of the Hunter?
Every week, V'Ming - who thinks that gnome warlocks are travesties of nature and need to be KOSed - shares thoughts and ideas on becoming deadlier at the Arenas.I'm postponing part two of Building an Arena team to look at the effects of patch 2.3, with Arena Season 3 just round the corner on Nov 27. With this patch, we are looking at some of the biggest changes to how a few classes work since WoW's launch in 2004, particularly for hunters and druids.
Confirmed: Season 1 gear change delayed with Season 3
Drysc has confirmed that moving the Arena Season 1 gear to the honor vendor is part of the Season 3 event and has therefore been delayed along with Season 3. This means that you will be able to purchase Season 1 gear with honor on November 27th when Season 3 begins or on November 28th for European servers.Drysc says there are technical reasons for the delay of purchasing the gear. The event that begins Arena Season 3 is "already tested and locked down" and while they have discussed releasing Season 1 to honor as per the original schedule, they have decided it is not feasible.It was suggested that Blizzard start the event as originally scheduled on the 20th but not start Season 3 until the 27th. But Drysc responded that while it was possible, it would also make Season 3 gear available while Season 2 was still underway. "It's just not going to happen." Do you think delaying the purchase of Season 1 gear with honor as a reasonable delay? Or do you see it as an opportunity to save up more honor for your purchases?
Alterac Valley is the new Alterac Valley
Today was the first day in my 'Matt runs AV in the morning while his wife's asleep so he can make breakfast for her' scheme since Patch 2.3 changed AV. We all know that I'm a big fan of Alterac Valley, and since my stated goal in running PvP battlegrounds until Arena Season 3 eventually comes out is to collect enough honor to go into full-time arena play alongside my wife wearing as much Season 1 gear as I can get my grubby hands on, the amount of honor I can accumulate in a two hour patch of play is important to me. So far, it's been very nice.The removal of the lieutenants and commanders and the emphasis on taking and holding bunkers to remove the marshalls means that there's a lot more actual PvP going on, at least in my battlegroup. (Go, Shadowburn!) I ran several matches this morning, and AV doesn't seem to have bogged down as everyone indicated it would: the honor from capping a bunker or tower is adjusted upwards to 62 so there's a real reason to make sure it gets done, while the other team definitely doesn't want you to do it. I fought more in the Icewing Bunker than I have in quite some time. At one point, I managed to hold a druid/warlock/rogue team just long enough to ensure that the bunker burned. Sure, they killed me, but they killed me too late, and that's a victory in my eyes. I stopped running AV long enough to run the daily PvP quest (today it was EotS) and after a frustrating low-honor match, we got that done on my second run, meaning that I actually made a tidy little sum of gold and honor that helped push me over 2000 for the day.AV seems revitalized to me, and much less a PvE experience. I learned a lot, including that a warrior with even an enhancement shaman tossing him the occasional heal can rip faces off. Icewing Bunker is mine!How is AV working out on your battlegroup? Are people still trying the zerging tactics without holding bunkers? Are folks hip to capturing mines for reinforcements? Are your matches more PvP oriented than before or less?
Arena Season 3 delayed
Drysc has just announced that Season 3 has been delayed until November 27th. Originally set for the 20th, Blizzard feels that the proximity to the US holiday of Thanksgiving would have been a problem for supporting the event. Therefore, they have delayed the start of the season until they will have more resources available.Salthem also announced that the European launch of Arena Season 3 is delayed until November 28th for the same reasons.It's unfortunate that Blizzard didn't think of the holiday ahead of time, but I think that this is the right decision.What do you think? Did they do the right thing by delaying Season 3?
Blood Sport: Building an Arena team, part 1
Every week, V'Ming - who thinks that gnome warlocks are travesties of nature and need to be KOSed - shares thoughts and ideas on becoming deadlier at the Arenas.Ah, the Arenas! Where heart-pumping battles are fast and hard-hitting. Losers take a dirt nap and victors are that much closer to honor, glory and ... 'welfare epics'. (That's the subject of another debate; I personally love how my shoulders looks, welfare or not.)In this article, we'll look at some critical things to consider when building and running a team to participate, compete and have fun. For where to go and how to form Arena teams, check out the official Building Your Team guide. We have looked at 1v1 combat and recognized that some classes do perform better in certain formats than others. This is a result of the classes' innate asymmetry - to cater for a better MMORPG, some say PvE, experience - rather than faulty PvP design.Without resorting to histrionics in the WoW forums, thinking PvPers exploit current game design to compete effectively within the rules and environment - playing the metagame, so to speak.
WoW patch 2.3 next week, season 3 a week after
Word from our good friends and brothers over at WoW Insider is that patch 2.3 will officially drop a week from yesterday, bringing to Azeroth such wondrous changes as guild banks, experience increases across the board for content in the level 1-60 range, and a plethora of other changes too numerous to list here. So do as the hardcore do, and start farming your rep now and you'll already be well on your to achieving the most necessary of new items before the holidays come around and "real life" conspires to get in the way of your most erstwhile achievements.Also worth noting is the fact that Season 2 in the arena will officially be coming to a close on the 20th when the server goes down for its first post-patch maintenance. As you'd expect, Season 3 will commence as soon as the realms go live again. The new season in the arena will feature all-new phat loots for you PvP types to fawn over, so definitely check it out.
It's official: 2.3 set for the 13th
Well, here it is, official word that patch 2.3 is scheduled to go live in North America on November 13th, one week from today. Season 3 is set to start on November 20th, so here's your two-week notice. That means 2.3 will be live for a week before S3 is. The PTR was just updated tonight with a new build containing unknown changes; I guess it must not have required very much testing. Just posted in the official forums by Drysc:While testing continues and a delay could possibly change these dates, we are currently planning to start Season 3 on November 20 once the realms come back up from their weekly maintenance. This means that Season 2 will come to a close when the realms come down for maintenance on November 20. During that maintenance the final standings are taken and the end of season rewards are distributed.The start date for Season 3 is purposefully planned to be one week later than the release of patch 2.3, which is currently scheduled for November 13. We will be closely monitoring the testing of the 2.3 patch, and if it looks like it won't make the November 13 date, we will announce a delay.This confirms earlier news pulled from the WoW Taiwan site. Guess it's time to lay off the alts (at least until Tuesday) and get farming Sporeggar rep.
Blue Notes: Arena news
A few posts hit the forums today discussing the upcoming changeover between season two and season three. Although it has not been announced exactly when season three will start, it will, apparently, be sometime around the release of patch 2.3 (which makes sense, given the PvP item changes we've been seeing on the PTR):Season 3 should start around the same time as patch 2.3 is released, but please keep in mind that season 3 may not start on the same date the patch is launched. We have said that were planning to give a two weeks notice on the start of season 3, which still holds true. If there are any changes on this plan, we will let you know. (Vaneras)The interesting thing here is that they say season three will be roughly simultaneous with patch 2.3, and they will give two weeks notice before the start of season three. Does this mean we'll have two weeks notice before 2.3 is released? One can only hope, although it is historically improbable for Blizzard to give a patch ETA that's more than a few days away.
MP5 replaced by Spirit on Druid Arena S3 gear [Updated]
Resto4life is reporting on a fairly significant change to the Arena season 3 gear on the PTR with Patch 2.3. Evidently the previous mana regen stat MP5 is being tossed over for Spirit, and this has some players howling. Now, I know there is some debate as to the utility of Spirit for priests in a PvE setting, but as they mention in the article, there appears to be little use for it at all in Arena PvP, at least where Druids are concerned. The Restoration druids in particular are unhappy about this change, especially when taken in context with the recent change to the game that will allow everyone to see what magical buffs you have placed upon you. What this means is that just about every time a druid casts Innervate -- the spell that would benefit most from the change to Spirit -- there is a high probability it will be immediate dispelled. Now we have heard tell that Spirit as a stat will be changed somewhere down the line, that it will begin affecting spell damage as well as mana regen, so perhaps this is the first step toward that change. It's tough to know for certain.What we do know, however, is that the change makes the PvP gear more attractive for use in PvE, where Spirit does help with the longer battles. But I have to wonder, exactly why would the developers, who have professed that they want to create two separate gear sets for PvP and PvE, make the Season 3 Arena sets more PvE viable? It may be that they want more people to participate in Arena battles, or it could be for some unknown reason I'm not seeing. Help me out here. Do you think the change from MP5 to Spirit is a buff or a nerf?Update: Another patch just pushed through on the PTR, and this change to the Druid healing S3 set has been reverted. The gear will retain its MP5 stat bonus.
PTR Notes: New Arena weapons, Fanatacism tweak, Hunter dead zone
A new build of patch 2.3 has landed on the public test realms with a few notable changes, as follows: Three new Arena weapons: A caster staff, a gun, and a bow. The Retribution Paladin talent Fanaticism has been changed to decrease threat only when Righteous Fury is not active. The range for a Hunter's ranged attacks has been changed from 1 - 41 yards, eliminating their dead zone. The Mage's Ritual of Refreshment now requires 2 arcane powder instead of a rune of portals. The 4-piece bonus on the Mage PvP set has been changed to 2 seconds off the cooldown of Blink. Sorry, Hunters, but those cool-looking Zul'Aman bears are no longer tamable. Mats for the Adamantite Arrow Maker reduced. Was: Adamantite Frame, Simple Wood x10, Fel Iron Bolts x2. Now: Adamantite Bar, Simple Woodx4, Fell Iron Bolts x2. However, the schematic no longer specifies that the item has multiple charges. Whether this means the new version of the Adamantite Arrow Maker is single-charge or if that particular information was cut off the tooltip for some reason, I can't say. Any engineers out there want to hop on the PTRs, make one, and let us know if the item itself has been changed? Darnassus has its own guild bank now. Ogri'la potions buffed. New Sporebat pet for exalted Sporregar faction. New level 70 elite guards outside Zul'Aman. However, these guards certainly aren't graphically themed for Zul'Aman (and why would Tauren and Orcs be guarding a Troll temple?), and I wonder if they've been added to the PTRs to curtail the PvP-fest happening outside. [Thanks, Paldyn!]
Hands off those shoulders, Arena loser
Wreck from Addicted to WoW sent us his interesting opinion on the Season 3 gear required ratings. Why, he asks, didn't Blizzard put rating requirements on all the gear? When season 3 starts, the season 3 shoulders and weapons will require a high Arena rating to own (2000 and 1850), and Wreck wants to know why only the shoulders and weapons got put behind a rating wall. Why not make all the gear that much harder to get?As far as I know, the cited reason behind the ratings was to keep raiders from losing in the Arenas and still getting gear. The weapons in season 3 are terrific, even compared to the mid-endgame raiding gear, and so raiders were playing just their 10 games every week, saving up Arena points, and grabbing the hot weapons. Blizzard didn't want that happening, so they put the requirement on the weapons-- you have to be good to wield those now.But the shoulders I don't quite understand. I've been told that the shoulders are the most obvious piece of "leet" armor, and that Blizzard, as Wreck says, really wants seeing those shoulders on someone to be a sign that they're really good in the Arenas. But shoulders? As a few players have said, give them a title or something if you want them to be recognized. There's good reason for putting the weapons behind a rating, but if you're going to put shoulders back there too, you might as well require the rating for all the pieces, or leave the armor out of it completely.
The latest changes on the PTR
World of Raids once again has the latest breaking news on the latest Patch 2.3 Public Test Ream changes! Today's class changes seem to be mostly happy buffs, especially for hunters and rogues and paladins, as well as a slight nerf to warriors beyond the jump. Also read on below for Guild Bank prices, New Arena Season 3 weapon models, a Field Repair Bot change, as well as a few new engineering toys.Hunters: It looks like hunters get their version of Mortal Strike after all: Aimed Shot now reduces all healing done on the target by 50% for 10 seconds, in addition to the regularly increased damage. The dead zone has not been eradicated, but it has been reduced to just about 1 yard. Why not just get rid of the dead zone and be done with it? Is Blizzard paranoid about the possibility of using melee and ranged abilities at the same time through latency bugs or something? Rogues: The rogue talent "Aggression" is being improved so that its damage bonus applies to Backstab as well as Sinister Strike and Eviscerate (at +2/4/6% with each rank). Shadowstep now has a 30 second cooldown in addition to being usable out of stealth. Its range has been changed from 0-20 yards to 8-25 yards, and its +20% damage bonus now applies to whatever special attack you make next (i.e. Sinister Strike, Hemorrhage -- even Eviscerate or Rupture). Could this make it beneficial to non-dagger rogues as well? Hemorrhage has received a huge buff: It now increases physical damage dealt to its target by up to 36 (increased from 10!), but its number of charges has been reduced from 30 to 10. This should make hemo rogues more desirable in groups, and also increase the benefit from having more than one in a raid -- but is it really enough? Paladins: The "Fanaticism" talent in the retribution tree now reduces the paladin's threat by 30% at the highest rank in addition to 15% increased critical strike chance with all judgements. The protection talent "Precision" now gives a +3% chance to hit with spells in addition to melee attacks.
Arena Season 3 armor sets are on the PTR
World of Raids is at it again. Arena Season 3 started last night on the PTR and a new Arena vendor popped up in Area 52. WoR already has screenshots of the new PvP armor sets for every class and every talent spec with images from the Dressing Room as well.Every piece has +Resilience and has set bonuses for the same stat. Sprinkled through the armor (and the weapons/ranged slot items) are small enhancements to existing abilities for each class as well.Head over to WoR and check it out, then let us know if you think Blizzard has made a class PvP set that works for you or is it totally off base. You can also check out all the latest Arena Season 3 news right here!
