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Patch 5.0.4 currency conversion clarified
While we put together a comprehensive guide on what to expect with patch 5.0.4, there was something missing from the list. Currency conversion had yet to be explained on the current patch notes -- while we knew it was coming on Aug. 28, we didn't know the exact details. Blizzard has finally clarified the conversion rates, going one step farther by outlining what currency conversion will look like all the way up to patch 5.1. Valor points will be disappearing, converted to justice points, and conquest will be converted to honor. There will be no gold conversion for excess points, because the cap for justice and honor points will be removed until Mists of Pandaria launches. Blizzard Entertainment The currency conversion coming with Mists of Pandaria is going to happen in three stages, and this is how we plan for it to progress: With Patch 5.0.4 on August 28 Valor points will be converted to Justice points, and Conquest points will be converted to Honor points. Neither of the resultant currencies (Justice and Honor) will have an enforced hard-cap at this time. The current Arena season will end. Players will no longer be able to earn Valor or Conquest points (bosses will drop Justice, Arenas will be closed). Items formerly purchasable for Valor/Conquest will be available for Justice/Honor. With Mists of Pandaria on September 25 Valor can be earned again. Characters can earn up to 1000 Valor per week, and carry a maximum of 3000 Valor. Daily quests, random Scenarios, random Heroic dungeons, and all levels of raiding will reward Valor. Valor will be used to purchase ilvl 489 gear in Mists of Pandaria. The Klaxxi, Golden Lotus, Shado-Pan, and August Celestials factions will sell this gear. Revered reputation with each faction will be required. Conquest will become earnable. There is a cap of 4000 Conquest points. Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds reward Conquest. It will be used to purchase ilvl 483 gear from Pandaren battlemasters on the Great Wall. With Mists of Pandaria, Patch 5.1 We currently plan to upgrade the Valor system as Ghostcrawler described in Mists of Pandaria Looting Explained in the 5.1 patch, allowing you to upgrade your gear using Valor points. We'll have additional information once Mists of Pandaria launches and we get closer to the 5.1 patch release. Do you have questions or comments about currencies in World of Warcraft? Please let us know in this discussion thread. source Hopefully this clears up everyone's questions about this process. If not, you can always check out the discussion thread on the official forums and ask away! It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Blood Sport: How should you prepare for season 11 PvP?
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 as a restoration shaman turning people into frogs. So you've had a week away from the arena. What have you been up to in that week? Playing in the autumn leaves? Finally cleaning your keyboard? Or maybe you've been frantically gathering a transmogrification set (once you'd got over the fact that you couldn't transmogrify your paladin into a power ranger)? I know I have, and I'm now in love with Kezzik in Area 52! Perhaps you've been running the new dungeons or flirting with the new raid? ...Or ganking your GM in the Darkmoon Faire's Deathmatch Arena, like @trimbleirl. If you are one of the people who has done enough hard work in season 10 to get a title, you should give yourself a pat on the back. Well done! You're well on your way to the upper echelons of PvP, and I hope you climb even higher this season! And if you're one of the people who has been working through Battlegrounds every day to get your conquest points, congratulations! You're going to be among the first to get your grubby mitts on the new gear. But moving on from what you could have been doing to what you could be doing now, what are the top tips to prepare yourself for season 11?
Arena season 8 to end as early as Oct. 12
Community Manager Zarhym has posted to announce that arena Season 8 will be ending as early as Oct. 12, two weeks from now. In addition, he has confirmed that Season 9 will not be starting until approximately one week after the release of the Cataclysm expansion. With this announcement, not only should arena teams get ready to get in those last few wins in hope of gaining end-of-season rewards, but we can all start looking forward to patch 4.0.1. It's not a guarantee, of course, but the end of an arena season is generally accompanied by a new patch -- and with patch 4.0.1 already on many of our computers via the background downloader, this may be as good a time as any. Of course, the post also leaves Blizzard leeway to push the end date back a few weeks if it needs to, as well, but either way, it may be a good idea to start getting prepared. Want to ascend the arena ladders faster than a fireman playing Donkey Kong? Read Blood Sport for pointers on arena play. Don't miss our interviews with successful arena PvPers, and see The Art of War(craft) for the inside line on battlegrounds and world PvP.
Patch 3.3.2 patch notes on official Korean WoW site
Blizzard, perhaps jumping the gun a little, has posted the patch notes for the upcoming Patch 3.3.2 mini-patch on the official Korean site. We've translated them for your convenience. Lots of changes to heroic dungeons, some class buffs (warlock, shaman, druid), and some class nerfs (prot warrior). All this and more, after the cut. Disclaimer: Translation is hard! Some of these notes, especially more complex ones, may be slightly off. We'll post the official English notes when they're posted as well. Update! Warbringer change clarified (again). Ghostcrawler chimed in about it. Dungeons and Raids Icecrown Citadel The Frostwing Halls, the last stronghold of the Lich King and the Scourge, has been added, but the Ashen Verdict must break down the door first. (Does this mean we have to wait some additional time to fight Arthas?) Halls of Stone Brann Bronzebeard has been working out, so he'll run faster during the escort event. Forge of Souls Devourer of Souls will cast Mirrored Soul less often. Trash mob Spell Reflect abilities have been changed. It now has a casting time, and will proc only twice at a rate of 75% instead of 100%.
Arena Season 6 to end soon
Bornakk has just announced that the end of Season 6 will come as early as Tuesday August 25th. You'll want to be sure that if you're eligible for arena rewards that you don't transfer your character or generally screw with your arena team. Just relax and let the rewards happen.After Season 6 ends, there will be one week of downtime where no rated matches can happen.Season 7 will begin after this week of downtime, at which time all team and personal ratings will be wiped, along with your arena points. According to the announcement matchmaking ratings will remain (as well as honor points). None of this should come as too much of a surprise, as we've known about it all for a while.This roughly places the start date for Season 7 at Tuesday September 1st. However these things can change, so just pay attention to the news and watch out for the exact date.
Shorter Arena seasons in the future?
Bornakk announced over at the forums that Arena Season 5 is nearing its end. He notes that the current season is slated to end "with or shortly after" Patch 3.1 is released. Season 5 kicked off in December 16 last year and has run around 12 weeks to date. In comparison, the shortest Arena Season was the pre-Wrath Season 4, which lasted for 17 weeks while the extremely lengthy Season 3 dragged on for 29. Season 1 lasted for 20 weeks and Season 2 lasted for 23, so all seasons thus far except for the Wrath-preempted Season 4 have run for a good length of time.The reason for the extended Season 3 was because Blizzard had wanted PvP progression to match PvE progression, so were waiting for more guilds to gear up with Sunwell-level items. Considering how difficult Sunwell Plateau was, this took some time, delaying Season 4 considerably. PvE content in Wrath, on the other hand, was so accessible that by the time Season 5 started a month after release of the expansion, players were decked out in the best PvE gear -- which changed the balance of Arena play for the first few weeks.Blizzard is looking to address that by starting Season 6 simultaneously with the "first tier of raid content" or essentially make PvP gear more accessible to prepare for the next season of Arena play, according to Ghostcrawler. Although Blizzard hasn't given a starting date for either Season 6 or Patch 3.1, the new Arena seasons are looking to match the shortened Season 4 in length and might indicate a trend in PvP season progression. That is an exciting change of pace and a comforting message to PvP enthusiasts that Blizzard is committed to keeping PvE and PvP progression at a similar pace. And if the development of Ulduar is any indication, that seems to be a fast one.
Arena Season 5 to close soon
We've been hearing an awful lot about Ulduar and patch 3.1 lately. As such, this announcement is really not a surprise. Vaneras and Bornakk posted on the forums today to warn us all that Season 5 is drawing near an end. The current season should close at the same time 3.1 drops, or very shortly afterward. (I'd guess "very shortly afterward" means "the following Tuesday.") Your Arena points will reset with the season transition, though your Honor points will remain banked. The announcement doesn't set a specific date. He just says "soon." Since we traditionally get at least two weeks' warning before an official season ends, that does mean that the patch probably won't drop for at least three. And since Noblegarden has been expanded on the PTR, then I expect the patch to hit and season to wrap up in the beginning of April.We haven't heard details about season-end rewards yet. That's important because we don't demonstrably know whether those rewards are going to be based on personal rating, team rating, or even the Match-Making Rating. The details of season-end rewards tend to fluctuate a little, but the best Arena teams can probably expect a title. The very, very best can expect the Arena mount. However, we don't know if it'll be a Nether Drake or maybe even a Proto-Drake. We'll let you know as we find out more.
Arena season 4 over, season 5 to begin December 17th
Gnorog on the EU forums posted notice a while ago that Season 4 is over. That means that all arena teams and ratings have been cleared, and arena charter NPCs have been disabled.Your arena points will stay with you until you reach level 71 however.But the end of Season 4 isn't the news.Season 5 will begin on December 17th for those players that have reached level 80. That's just a few days away. For those that haven't, the skirmish brackets of 71-75 and 76-80 are available. The time is now to start organizing your arena teams and get them in gear for the upcoming events.With all the changes in Wrath the next arena season promises to be interesting. Here's to bigger and better weapons! /cheers
Season 3 aspirations
The third arena season started yesterday amidst a flurry of activity on my server. Trades people were making gold by the handful. Non-raiders and alts everywhere suddenly received a huge boost from the first-season gladiator's gear which was moved to honor vendors. Last season's winners showed off their bugged titles and mounts while players across the servers began competing to win those rewards for themselves next time around.I haven't been much of a PvPer on my main character, an Alliance rogue. In fact, I've been rather horrible at it. (I suppose I do better from range, since I always had much better luck as a hunter or warlock.) Nonetheless, I've been learning a lot in the past few weeks and have decided to aim for at least an 1850 rating this time around. For many hardcore PvPers, that goal is probably laughably easy to attain. For someone like me, who has basically died ten times each week to grab a few welfare epics, it seems rather lofty.
