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PvP season 14 underway
Battle-hardened arena masters might already be aware, but if you blinked you could have missed it: PvP season 14 has begun. The big news for this time around is that as of season 14, you no longer need to join an arena team in order to compete, and thus all team ratings have been removed. Your personal ratings have been reset, and you can now queue for arenas in groups of 2, 3, or 5. Your opponents will be selected based on the average rating of your team members. The change will make it easier to rotate team members in and out, or bring alts to arena matches if you so desire. It may also be a nice incentive for the PvP-averse (such as myself!) to hop on in with some friends and give it a go. Happy season 14, everybody!
Cataclysm Beta: Arena Season 9 available for testing
Bashiok has just posted that the Cataclysm beta is now host to Arena Season 9. The developers are looking to test arena games and the bugs therein, as well as the much-lauded rated battlegrounds. Fire up those betas for some awesome PvP action. Bashiok -- Arena Season 9 Available for Testing Arena Season 9 is now running and available for testing in the Cataclysm beta. To help facilitate testing we'd like to ask that those interested in providing bug reports and feedback focus on playing arena games, but also participating in the rated battlegrounds. Please let us know if you find any issues or have any feedback. Thanks. source
World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 PvP Guide
WoW.com has covered patch 3.2 extensively. Everything from the surprising changes to flying mounts, to the latest and greatest loot, and all the changes in between. In our patch 3.2 class, raiding, and PvP guides we take a look at exactly what changes and how the changes will affect your playing.Patch 3.2 is finally here, and is anyone else kind of surprised by how fast things are coming these days? To be fair, as most of my co-workers here at WoW.com have assessed, this newest patch is one of the more lackluster patches in a while considering it merely appends to much of existing content (the Argent Tournament). There's a smattering of stuff for raiders, soloists, hardcores and casuals, but what's in store for PvP enthusiasts?There are a lot of major changes in this patch that will impact PvP greatly, one being the blanket change to Resilience which now affects all damage taken, rather than just critical hits. Another is the effective neutering of the 2v2 Arena bracket with the change blocking access to the best weapons and end-of-season rewards. A third big change coming is the introduction of a brand new Battleground, the Isle of Conquest, which is the technically the first 40-man raid instance since the original Naxxramas. There's also the whopping introduction of experience gain in Battlegrounds, too. Caught your breath yet? There are a lot of other things in between, and we'll take a closer look at everything after the jump.
Should Arena rankings be determined by class?
An interesting thread popped up on the forums regarding Arena representation, noting class disparity and how it might be possible to rate performance based on a player's class. Balancing all the classes is an ongoing struggle and has been one of Blizzard's greatest headaches in PvP design. In Season 5, Holy Paladins and Death Knights dominated the Arenas, with Warriors getting the very short end of the stick and having the lowest number of Season 5 Gladiators. The original poster points out Blizzard's continual, active revision of the Arena ratings system and suggests that the system itself might be flawed. Because the rating system is "blind" to class or even classes in team compositions, for that matter, players using an "OP" class have an advantage.The poster goes on to suggest that rankings be based on the class, rather than overall Arena population. This means that the percentile used to determine end-of-season rewards will be applied on a per class basis, thereby granting all classes conceptually equal representation. Ghostcrawler gives the suggestion some merit, even going so far as to say Blizzard isn't "above iteration on the design" of the Arena system as evidenced by their proactive adjustments to it.
Arena Ratings system and requirements to be changed
This week saw the influx of the first batch of iLevel 232 Furious Gladiator weapons into the community. They're awesome weapons and just about the most accessible iLevel 232 items in the game. Available for a mere 50,000 Honor and 1,400 Arena points, the first tier of Furious Gladiator weapons require an 1850 team and personal rating. This is a rather easy rating to obtain in the 2v2 format but slightly more difficult in 3v3 and 5v5 because of several factors including the population competing in the respective brackets.I mentioned off-hand in last weekend's WRUP that Blizzard borked the system again, and it turns out they did -- Crygil recently announced on the forums that they are working on an in-game update that should improve the ratings system of the 3v3 and 5v5 brackets to allow players in those brackets to achieve ratings similar to what can be gained in 2v2. They are also pushing the requirement of the iLevel 239 Furious Gladiator weapons from 2200 to 2350 to prevent more mayhem because, well, it's kind of too late to take back all those iLevel 232 weapons running around now, isn't it? The good news is that Blizzard is properly rewarding the other brackets after three seasons of having 2v2 advance faster and farther in ratings. The Arena Ratings system has undergone several iterations since it was introduced so you'd have thought Blizzard fixed it somewhere along the road. Apparently they didn't.Crygil also points out that for Season 7, Blizzard plans to revert the requirements for the highest rated Arena weapons back to 2200 but ensure that the difficulty required to get those ratings are "closer to what is intended". This means that Season 6 is just about the best season to get into Arenas because ratings come rather easily. You know how Blizzard keeps on nerfing Ulduar so more people can experience it? This is the time to try out Arenas because the new progressive ratings system feels good. Just don't get used to it too much because Blizzard is going to 'tweak' the system again for Season 7.
Arenas to be reset
Along with the many bugs of Patch 3.0.8 was the undocumented new Arena matching and rating system which, similar to the Wintergrasp brouhaha, created disastrous results. Many teams skyrocketed to 2200 ratings, with wins garnering up to 30 points and losses resulting in... nothing. As you can imagine, this newfangled system which Blizzard didn't bother to tell anyone about until after the fact sort of trivialized Arena Achievements such as The Arena Master. Bornakk reveals in that post that the new system may exhibit "some odd behavior" but expects that things should "straighten out fairly quickly."I'm sure that Blizzard didn't intend odd behavior to mean teams skyrocketing to 2k ratings with ease, with none of the risk involved in competitive ladder play. Straightening out also ended up as being the complete disabling of the whole system while Blizzard investigates "current rating calculation discrepancies." However, Zarhym posted earlier today on the forums that Blizzard will be bringing Arenas back up and all ratings rolled back to pre-weekly maintenance status. All items (and Achievements) gained "illegitimately" will be removed, Arena points refunded, and all gems and enchanting materials returned. As far as that 50 Gold tip you gave to enchant your gear is concerned, however, you're out of luck.
Drysc reveals new arena season 4 rating requirements and rules
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/New_Arena_ratings_and_rules_for_WoW_s_season_4'; Drysc has just posted what may soon be known as the death knell of "welfare epics," announcing new arena season 4 rating requirements for the brutal gladiator gear that extend not only to the shoulders and weapon, but to many other pieces of gear as well, even to honor-purchased gear. We've seen some of the gear leaked recently, and some of the ratings requirements leaked a bit earlier than that, but now we have the official whole picture. Check out the word of Drysc after the jump.
