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Warlords of Draenor: Highmaul Coliseum offers free-for-all PvP
Warlords of Draenor certainly seems to be mixing it up on the PvP front, offering a lot of new options for players that enjoy PvP. Oddly enough, one of the coolest opportunities for PvP I've seen so far comes not in a battleground or even on the fairly addictive isle of Ashran, but from your garrison. While leveling through Gorgrond, players can choose to make one of two outposts, that will unlock the plans for one of two medium buildings -- the Lumber Mill, or the Gladiator's Sanctum. If you choose the Gladiator's Sanctum, you get a few nice perks for Gorgrond -- and you also get to build the Sanctum itself. Level 3 of the Gladiator's Sanctum unlocks the Highmaul Coliseum, shown in the video above. A solo scenario, the Coliseum places you in a pit with other players. Once the event starts, it's a free-for-all brawl, and the last person standing wins the spoils. What kind of spoils? PvP gear, of course! To unlock the level 3 blueprint for the Gladiator's Sanctum, players must first complete The Bone Collector, an achievement that requires players to collect 4,000 Broken Bones from PvP combat in Draenor -- any kill that awards honor also awards 3-6 bones. Once you've built the level 3 Sanctum, you gain access to Highmaul Coliseum, as well as a buff that reduces all damage in outdoor Draenor zones by 50% if you fall below 35% health. Take a look at the video for more of the Coliseum in action -- I particularly like how dead players are teleported up into the stands to watch the rest of the brawl play out, spectator style.
Wowhead interviews Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas
Warlords of Draenor is bringing some big changes to the table -- and Wowhead recently interviewed Lead Game Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas about many of the changes we'll be seeing in regards to raiding, valor, and more. Item upgrades will be going away entirely, and with them, the valor point system seems to be attracting a shift in purpose, although that shift hasn't quite been decided just yet. However, the incentive mentioned during last year's BlizzCon that rewarded players with extra valor for grouping is undergoing a revamp, as valor currently isn't as useful as it has been in the past. Also interesting to note are the design changes for gear rewards. For the past several expansions, gear obtained from varying levels of difficulty in raids has always been the same model, simply different colors. In Warlords, this will be changed to be similar to what we saw in Burning Crusade -- PvP and PvE gear will share similar models, and the color shift will denote whether the armor was obtained in PvE, or PvP. Raid gear will go back to having different artwork, depending on the difficulty of the content completed -- so players that have defeated the most difficult content will have the snazzy gear to show for it. While Garrisons are going to be a huge piece of playable content, Hazzikostas pointed out that the feature is in no way mandatory -- the feature is not meant to feel like dailies in any way, and there won't be any sense of obligation to work on them on a daily basis. For those that have waded their way through the daily system introduced in Mists, that should be a relief to hear. Check out the full interview above for more from Hazzikostas -- and keep an eye on Wowhead for a full transcript of the interview soon.
How PvP gear works in Warlords
Say you want to PvP in Warlords of Draenor -- how are you going to go about gearing? How is gear going to work? Well, Blizzard's Lore went and put a whole lot of information about that very thing into this huge post, and it's very much worth reading. Because it explains: PvP gear with now scale up in power when you enter a PvP zone (battleground, arena, Ashram) or when you are attacked by another player. This is intended to remove the sometimes confusing extra stats we've seen proliferate since Cataclysm. All gear, even PvE gear, will scale up in designated PvP areas in a similar fashion. It won't eclipse PvP gear or its scaling, but the intent is that PvE players who are poorly geared won't immediately explode in PvP content. The exception is mythic quality PvE gear. It's ilevel is high enough that it will be slightly downscaled in PvP zones in order to keep Conquest gear the best option for PvP. PvP will now reward strongboxes for completing objectives and winning matches, and these strongboxes can contain rewards up to and including actual PvP gear. There will now be three tiers of PvP gear - starting gear, earned via strongboxes, with a fast accumulation rate, veterans gear, from both strongboxes and honor, and finally gladiator's gear from conquest points. For the full details, Lore's post is chock full of information. It also teases an upcoming post about how Ashram is going to be implemented, which I'm interested in reading.
Patch 5.4.7 roundup
Patch 5.4.7 is upon us, barring catastrophe we are expecting its arrival tomorrow, February 18. But what's actually coming with the patch? Is it really just a PvP season? Well, not quite. The key changes in patch 5.4.7 are as follows: PvP season 14 ends, PvP season 15 begins Honor gear item level is increased to 522, Conquest gear item level is increased to 550. The new gear drops from the Celestials, too. The Krasarang rares now only drop honor once per day. Timeless Isle weapons are all automatically upgraded to ilvl 489 including ones you already own There are terrain changes and NPC changes in Alterac Valley Dampening will start at 5 minutes in 2v2 arenas only There are a few class changes, notably to warrior interrupts and druids' Heart of the Wild. We're also tentatively expecting to see the pre-orders for Warlords of Draenor sometime after the patch's release, and the much-discussed buy-a-90 feature, although this has not been officially confirmed by Blizzard. Boosted level 90s will get 483 gear, and if you're boosting a level 60+ character they'll also get maxed professions. What does this all mean if you're not really into your PvP? Why should you care about the patch? Well, if you're a PvE-er leveling a brand new level 90 character, or maybe boosting one, the best way to gear it straight to 522 is now to grind out honor gear. But don't worry, the best way to do that is still via PvE. Same applies if you've still got slots below that ilvl.
Preparing for PvP season 15
Back on February 4th, we had the warning that PvP season 14, the current season, could end as soon as two weeks from that date. Well, it's now ten days from February 4th, and we've had no announcement that the season end is delayed. So, assuming the season will end on February 18th, how should prudent PvPers prepare for the season end, and season 15? First up, save your honor, spend your conquest if you can get upgrades. The caps are working just the same, so all conquest will be turned into honor, and all honor will be retained up to a cap of 4,000. So if you have 2,000 honor and 2,000 conquest, you'll have 4,000 honor. If you have 5,000 honor, you'll end up with 4,000 honor and a bit of silver. If you have 5,000 conquest, you'll end up with 4,000 honor and a bit of silver. The good news is that this season's 522 conquest gear will be available for honor. The bad news is that the 496 honor gear won't be available to crafters, as Holinka confirmed. Makes sense, as the Timeless Isle gear would be even more irrelevant than it will become! In more bad news, the Krasarang rares are being nerfed to drop honor only once per day, so that farming method is gone come the patch. If you need to cap out before the patch, they're the most efficient way.
Why do we still have separate PvP and PvE gear?
While seeking out questions to a Queue I wrote, I was asked by a Twitter follower why we had separate PvE and PvP gear in the first place. A question I love, and that I wouldn't be able to respond to briefly enough for The Queue. I'm not going to go into a complete, exhaustive history of PvP gear. For starters, I didn't play in Classic, so I can't really comment on the gear then, but I gather that there was a lot more overlap between the two. Then, with Burning Crusade, back in 2006, the combat rating system and Resilience were both introduced, along with arenas. PvP gear was born. It's been through many different iterations since then -- too easy to get, too hard to get, too bad for PvE, too good for PvE, different effects, stat budgets, you name it. But history, while it merits repetition, shouldn't have too much bearing on this question in today's game.
PvP Gear: The Season 14 fiasco explained
Another PvP season, another set of gear-related issues. It was no surprise that the conquest vendors were despawned shortly after season 14 began, the same happened for season 13 after all, but it turns out that their return may have been more than a little premature. As Blizzard Community Manager Lore explains, the initial removal of the vendors was really just the start of an ongoing comedy of errors that is, as yet, not completely resolved. Lore's full post is after the break, but let's sum up the key issues here. At the start of Season 14, a small number of players had a conquest cap of 28,000 instead of 2,200. This was due to some issues with the catch-up cap rolling over from season 13. Conquest vendors were removed while the error was fixed. Conquest vendors were reintroduced, but it turns out the error was never fixed, because it transpires that realms should have been restarted. Conquest caps remained far too high. Players were able to purchase gear they shouldn't have been able to get, and some even got the Grievous Conquest achievement, allowing them to purchase conquest gear with honor. Blizzard's team is working hard to fix the issues, starting with the correction of caps from 28,000 down to 2,200. They've also pulled the vendors selling conquest gear for honor, and made the Grievous Conquest weapons unavailable. Unfortunately, as it's a far harder issue to fix, removing the extra gear from people who shouldn't have it is going to take a lot longer.
Gold Capped: Sha Crystals are about to get a lot cheaper
WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aims to show you how to make gold on the Auction House. Check out Basil's gold making podcast, Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! I hope you don't have too many Sha Crystals saved up for this upcoming patch. The 5.4 PTR has new epic craftable PvP gear on it which will likely disenchant into them, and some of these pieces will take very few materials. Six Bolts of Windwool Cloth, for example, will make you a nice disenchantable purple cape. The Sha Crystal from this can be turned into two Ethereal Shards, each of which can make three Mysterious Essences. Right now, the vast majority of enchanting materials are made through disenchanting gear crafted by tailoring or jewelcrafting. Jewelcrafters turn green quality gems into rings and amulets which DE into a lot of dust and a few essences. Tailors make blue PvP gear that disenchants into shards. Sha Crystals are only made on the daily cooldown that enchanters get, or through disenchanting epic gear obtained in other ways than crafting. Patch 5.4 will change everything. These methods will still work, but it'll get you more materials per bolt of cloth if you use the new recipes. Each purple Crystal will be able to be broken down into two blue Shards, which can be broken down into 6 green Essences. This new way will make more enchanting materials per cloth than the existing ways.
Patch 5.2 hotfixes for April 29th and 30th, nerf to Lei Shen
There were a few hotfixes posted earlier this week, on both Monday and Tuesday. On the 29th, both Glorious Conquest Quartermasters took leave from the game for a while. Daxxarri explains in a forum thread that, because Glorious Conquest gear is changing from ilevel 512 to 496, they wanted to remove the vendors before players purchased gear that would end up being a lower ilevel than they bought it for. The change is too big to be implemented via hotfix, so the vendors will be returning with the next major content patch. The hotfix for yesterday was a nerf to the Lei Shen encounter in the Throne of Thunder for Raid Finder groups. Lei Shen's overall hit points have been reduced by 10%, and the Static Shock effect from the North Conduit now deals only 300,000 damage at zero energy, down from 650,000. That's a big change, and hopefully will make that encounter a little simpler for struggling Raid Finder groups.
Preparing for PvP in Patch 5.2
Community Manager Daxxarri posted today with a lot of useful information to help players get to grips with the new PvP gearing methods in patch 5.2. There's some old information repeated, but if you weren't paying attention the first time around, here's his recap of the changes to the PvP gearing system: Daxxarri Rating requirements will be removed from PvP gear. Malevolent Gladiator's gear will be available for purchase with Honor Points. A new tier of Conquest Point gear will be added that becomes available once 27000 Conquest Points have been earned for the season. Team Rating will gradually increase during the season for teams and players who continue to compete in PvP. This system is explained in the Mists of Pandaria PvP Dev Watercooler. source But that's not the most complicated bit that players have to prepare for. That arises when deciding what to do with conquest points now, and after patch 5.2. Unlike valor points, which are not being reset, conquest points will be converted to honor after the patch, with any that put the player's total honor points over 4,000 converted into gold. The upgrade vendor is also disappearing. This creates an interesting conundrum when it comes to gear choices.
What is the meaning of gear?
The forums are a constant source of interest. I was browsing their pages this morning, and came across this gem, not the writing of the blue, but a quotation from elsewhere. Draztal Quote: Looking at people with epic gear should be a motivator to get yourself into raiding, and if you don't have the time for it, then to bad for you. Get over it. You can't control people's motivations. For many players out there, gear is not the objective, just the mean to an end (defeating more difficult foes). source This got me thinking about what gear means, simply because my attitude to it was so different to that of the person Draztal is quoting. I love things that generate different opinions within WoW, and it seemed fairly likely that this was one of those things. The person who originally wrote this is quite feasibly someone who sets great store in the importance of raiding, probably at a high level, such as heroic raiding, and sees gear as a trophy which he or she has won from their exploits. It's a token of remembrance, almost, something to show the world that you have achieved great things. There are plenty of elements of WoW that cater to this view, such as achievements that award titles for long-gone feats of strength, or mounts, anything that says "I was there. I did this."
Patch 5.2: PvP undergoing some huge gearing changes
It's been talked about for some time now, with both Daxxarri and Ghostcrawler teasing the community with ideas on the new setup for PvP gearing. They've been saying things would change, and they certainly have! The question is, have things improved, or not? The PvP gearing blog was posted late last night, and was an accurate summary of the issues faced by PvPers in WoW at the moment, followed by an explanation of the planned changes and how they will work. The full blog is after the break, but what exactly is going on? The Rating catch-up system which didn't make it into patch 5.1 will be introduced to patch 5.2. This means that teams playing more games will gain higher rating, allowing them to overtake inactive teams sitting on high ranks and not playing. There will be four tiers of gear (please note that ilvls are datamined and may change) Dreadful -- item level 458 crafted gear; Malevolent -- ilvl 483, purchased with honor. This is the current conquest gear; Tyrannical -- ilvl 493, purchased with conquest, and with honor in patch 5.3, once the player has earned 27,000 conquest in the season. Weapons are exempt from the points requirement come patch 5.3; Elite Tyrannical -- ilvl 515, purchased with conquest only after earning 27,000 conquest points in the season. There will no longer be any rating requirement to purchase any gear Players with higher ratings will still have a higher conquest cap A dramatically increased catch-up cap will be implemented with patch 5.3
Trinket nerfs insufficient to repair PvP burst issues
We reported last week on the trinket nerfs implemented by Blizzard's team, in order to help fix the current issues in PvP burst. Blizzard Community Manager Daxxarri explained that Blizzard's team's data led them to believe that the on-use trinkets were a major contributor to the very high levels of burst currently being experienced by players. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street recently tweeted the following: .@rick97950219 We are concerned that trinket nerfs were not sufficient in curbing mage and warrior burst. Discussing options. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) December 7, 2012 Given Ghostcrawler's tweet, it seems that warriors and mages are still putting out too much damage, in Blizzard's eyes at least. While it may be the case that specific actions are required to address these classes, any attempts to improve the situation in PvP are appreciated. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR Update 1.6 PvP progression
Lead Designer Damion Schubert made an interesting statement during the last Star Wars: The Old Republic livestream. He proclaimed that although the designers don't want to completely eliminate vertical progression, the stats between the upper tiers of PvP armor will begin to flatten out. As many of you are aware, I am not a fan of vertical progression in MMOs overall, especially in PvP. I have issued many gripes and even stood on a soapbox proclaiming how it's bad. It's not that I don't want players to have a sense of gain as they play the game, but a purely vertical progression system (in which stats only ever get bigger) invites the dreaded power creep. And as I said on my soapbox, power creep is not good for players or designers. So when Schubert talked about flattening out stats, I was excited. Finally, SWTOR is stepping away from a vertical progression system! Update 1.6 brings multiple changes to PvP specifically. The new warzone, Ancient Hypergates, is probably the biggest. But for today, the most important change is the elimination of the Battlemaster tier of PvP gear and the introduction of Elite War Hero gear. What does this do to the overall feel of PvP, and are these changes enough to soften the heart of the MMO gamer?
More Conquest Point Changes: PvP to PvE?
Following the recent alteration to a so-called bug which had existed since the launch of Patch 4.2, conquest points are to undergo further alteration. In preparation for Patch 5.1's system, which will allow PvP and PvE players to upgrade their gear with all four types of point, Blizzard Community Manager Daxxarri has posted about an upcoming increase to the conquest point cap: Daxxarri To help everyone keep up with the upcoming system in 5.1 that will allow you to upgrade your Conquest gear with Conquest Points, a hotfix is being implemented very soon that will raise the Conquest Point caps: At 1500 rating, the Arena Conquest Cap will now be 1800 (up from 1350), while the Rated Battleground Conquest cap will be 2200 (up from 1650). As always, when your rating increases, so will your cap. Plan accordingly! source While this is a welcome change, the question remains: does this repair the earlier issue of players having to enter rated battlegrounds to complete the weekly cap? We aren't sure. And furthermore, it seems possible that Blizzard's team could be opening themselves up to a second issue. Since the stats on PvP gear were altered to all but match those on PvE gear, PvP gear is viable in PvE. But conquest gear has no reputation requirements, and conquest points can be earned far faster than valor, with one arena win awarding 180 points. With these increased caps, will PvP become the way to gear for PvE? Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Blood Pact: Look Dreadful with PvP gear for warlocks
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill personally loves this tier of PvP gear since the horns look like her favorite Disney villain, who was also purple and had a tinge of green in her fire. Even the name -- Malevolent -- is so close! I have only 7268 Honorable Kills on my warlock. I scored a few during a cross-realm Sha of Anger raid hosted by a PvP realm, but I've only played casually in random battlegrounds in past tiers. My experience includes memories of an SL/SL demonoloy lock in Isle of Conquest during Wrath of the Lich King and dealing with the, shall we say, "vicious" turnover of the Season 9/10 gear transition. Everything's a bit fuzzy for PvP in between those memories. Recently, I'm sure my DoT dominance of battlegrounds was due more to my company of guildmates, my Dragonwrath, and my heroic Cunning of the Cruel than any skill I had, but I'm not entirely new to flinging my enemies around in fear. But this is the warlock column, not the Warlocks-Who-Only-Raid column. While I reach out to warlocks around the world for warlock-centric PvP advice, how about we peruse the gearing options for dipping our toes into level 90 PvP?
PvP Season 12 has begun
It's time to spend your honor points on some Dreadful gear and get back into the rated PvP game, as Season 12 began today. All ratings have been reset and the level 90 rated battlegrounds and arenas are open for play. Two new stats have been introduced to PvP gear this expansion: PvP Power and PvP Resilience. For more information about these stats and the difference between PvP and PvE gear, see this helpful Blood Sport guide. Wowhead has a preview of the new gear, where to get it, and the prices of all the pieces that are currently in game. Their model viewer will show you how the new outfits will look on your character, as well. So assemble your teams and get to it! For the Horde! [Insert Alliance battlecry here.] The full announcement from Blizzard is after the break.
Blood Pact: Preparing for level 90 raiding with heroic dungeon gear
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill puts so many bullets into one article, she dreamed her warlock could dual-wield pistols like Lord Godfrey. I make my own list of loot every tier, just so I know what piece to roll on in my guild's raids per raid boss. I make a similar list of possible 5-man heroic loot so I know what to run or what I can look for when a certain dungeon comes up in my random queue. You can stick to a Wowhead search list if that's your thing. But it's my thing to explain what a database can't -- like whether PvP crafted gear is really viable in PvE now or what two-handed weapons you might find for your felguard in Mists.
PvP gear and the barrier to entry
Honesty time: I hate PvP gear. I have good gear for PvP now, and I still hate it. I hate having to collect another set of gear, having to gem and enchant it differently, having to decide between resilience, crit and mastery, and in general having to do even more work to keep yet another set of gear (my third) current in order to participate effectively. On my alts, I especially hate having to go into BGs effectively naked (in PvE gear) and blow up over and over again. I've been considering the changes to PvP coming in Mists of Pandaria intended to address some of this and the conservative design philosophy reflected in this post by Ghostcrawler, and it has me contemplating how much more radical the redesign to PvP could and potentially should be. We know that in Mists of Pandaria, valor points will no longer serve to purchase new gear. Instead, they will be used to upgrade existing gear. You'll get a dungeon drop, then spend valor on it to improve it for purpose of raiding content, making the piece itself better instead of replacing it with a valor purchase. This has me thinking, and thinking hard, about how honor and conquest points should work in Mists of Pandaria and whether or not we should even have separate PvP gear anymore. There are a variety of ways we could alter the existing system.
A response to the "Do you like PvP?" Breakfast Topic
WoW Insider covers the world of player vs. player action in Blood Sport for fans of Battleground, world PvP and Arena play. Steering you to victory is Olivia Grace, who spends most of her time in Azeroth making with the stabby and turning people into frogs. A little while ago, I wrote a Breakfast Topic asking if you like PvP. I was really pleased to see lots of people commenting, and we got some really interesting responses telling us why some folks don't like PvP. A lot of it was predictable, things I had anticipated as someone who's gone from really disliking PvP to absolutely loving it, making it the main thing I do in WoW, and eventually writing about it for WoW Insider. I know you may not believe me, but my early PvP experiences were basically just going into Battlegrounds and having no comprehension of what was going on, and declining duels. Now, I'm not trying to persuade you to become a PvP nut like me. I just want those who don't like PvP to take a moment to read this and maybe see if I can persuade you to try a little PvP, armed with some more knowledge. That is, after all, my main aim. A good number of complaints relate to PvP gear, how you have to grind for it, and how you need it in order to be successful. There are a few simple steps to deal with this, though! Buy the crafted set from the Auction House, or have it crafted, or craft it yourself. There is a set for everyone, and a jewelcrafter can make you jewelery to go with it. The mats aren't hard to find or expensive to buy, and anyone who's leveling the profession that makes the gear will be making it. Ask in trade; you may get it for the mats. This will net you a cool 3,250 resilience. If you're a dedicated raider or PvE player, you're going to have spare valor or justice points lying around by now. Justice points convert to honor at a rate of 375:250 and valor to conquest at 250:250.
