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Is it time to kill Arena teams?
I had a very brief twitter conversation with Blizzard Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street a few days ago. It went something like this: @oliviadgrace We would in fact consider it. Also debating if teams are cool or a hindrance. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) February 13, 2013 His response was certainly interesting, and rather unexpected. Let's break it down into the two main parts. Cross-Realm Arenas First and foremost, what was I thinking tweeting that question? A friend of mine had recently returned to WoW after a hiatus, and leveled his feral druid to 90. He had previously been a friend with whom I did casual arenas on characters I wasn't too fussed about, we had a laugh, we won some, we lost some.
Three reasons to be cheerful about PvP
Firstly, an important note: PvP gear is now available on the PTR for pre-mades. Get in there and get PvPing. The future depends on you! I've been rather critical of Blizzard in recent columns discussing the state of PvP. I've spoken before about the problems PvP has faced in recent times, and while the current season's rating is in tatters and crumbling around us as yet another win-trading bug is exposed, yet more suspensions roll out, and yet more players are stripped of rating, we can at least do what the devs appear to be doing and look forward to patch 5.2, and a fresh start. While it's yet another black mark against season 12 that another win trading bug has been doing the rounds, win trading is hardly new, and it's good to see that Blizzard are taking steps to fix it, if rather slowly. Win trading has been around for a very long time indeed, and there are whisperings that this bug has existed for some time, although that remains unconfirmed. Quicker action from Blizzard would be welcomed, but there may be things preventing this, that we're not aware of, behind the scenes. 1. Gearing changes are a good thing These have been quite the hot topic of late, with the recently announced changes to PvP gear which purport to flatten out the gear curve and aid the late starter to the season. While many players on the forums seem to be the polar opposite of cheerful about these changes, asserting amongst other things that they're the worst thing to ever happen to PvP, the stupidest decision ever made, and various other prophecies of doom.
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
EVE Evolved: Fitting Caldari cruisers for PvP in Retribution
EVE Online's recent Retribution expansion brought forth a massive PvP revival aimed at new players and veterans alike. The new bounty hunting and flagging mechanics have added huge incentives to PvP and given industrialists a way to get revenge without getting their hands dirty. New players are also finding PvP a lot easier to get into thanks to changes to faction warfare and a complete revamp of all the tech 1 cruisers. For the past few weeks, I've been exploring each race's tech 1 cruisers and coming up with new setups you can use in PvP. I've looked at the incredible damage output of the Gallente ships, the impressive tank on the Amarr cruisers, and the still-unmatched speed of Minmatar vessels. In this week's final part of the guide series, I look at the impressive and underrated Caldari cruisers. All of the fittings in this guide series are aimed at older players with at least six months' worth of skill training under their belts, but new players can use them too by swapping all of the tech 2 modules for tech 1 versions. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give PvP setups for the Caldari Caracal, Moa, Blackbird, and Osprey.
EVE Evolved: Fitting Minmatar cruisers for PvP in Retribution
Ever since EVE Online's PvP-focused Retribution expansion landed last month, I've spent most of my play time hunting for kills in cheap PvP cruisers and loving every moment of it. The standard tech 1 cruisers used to be underpowered ships that new players used as a stepping stone into more capable battlecruisers or tech 2 cruisers, but Retribution buffed them to ridiculous proportions. Every tech 1 cruiser was given extra module slots and stats, and the low-tier cruisers were buffed up to the same level as the highest-tier hulls. Believe it or not, these cheap ships that new players can comfortably fly with just a week of skill training have become competitive PvP ships. In the first two editions of this ship fitting series, I put together new ship setups for each of the Amarr and Gallente tech 1 cruisers. This week, I've been zipping about the universe at high speed in the Minmatar cruisers and putting together effective ship setups that can take down some huge prey. The Stabber has been transformed into a competent miniature Vagabond that can keep enemies at arm's length and nibble them to death, and the tanky Rupture remains a highly effective close-range brawler. The Bellicose now excels in an anti-tackler role, and the Scythe is a throwaway remote repair platform that uses speed to stay safe on the battlefield. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give PvP setups for the four recently revamped Minmatar tech 1 cruisers.
PvP on the PTR, and predictions for 2013
We've had a lot of exciting news about PvP changes in 2012, with some promises not delivered upon, and some sweeping alterations in our chosen section of play. But let's get the tin foil hats on and see what we think is coming in 2013. As I write this, the PTR is active, and I urge all arena and battleground fans to get in there and PvP as much as you can. Ghostcrawler has commented several times on twitter about how there's often not a great deal of PvP testing in PTRs and betas, which in turn leads to issues like warrior burst and the hunter Stampede bug going unnoticed. So, let's not let that happen again. If you're a PvP enthusiast, download the PTR, get on there, and PvP. Class changes The big winners and losers from the Patch 5.2 PTR changes appear to be to be monks and rogues on the winning side, and warriors, mages and feral druids on the losing side. This is not entirely unexpected, nor is it unfair, as monks were very under-represented at high level, as were rogues, with warriors and mages being on quite the opposite end of the scale. Feral druids I've included simply because of the Cyclone nerf, which is a heavy one to one of their major, and most aggravating crowd control abilities.
EVE Evolved: Fitting Amarr cruisers for PvP in Retribution
EVE Online's recent Retribution expansion overhauled many of the game's old PvP mechanics and rebalanced all of the tech 1 frigates and cruisers. These are the first ships new players get into when they start playing, and many found they just couldn't compete with more expensive ships in combat. In Retribution, the basic tech 1 cruisers have been buffed beyond all recognition and now stand a serious chance against battlecruisers and tech 2 ships. New players and veterans alike have found the updated tech 1 cruisers to be a lot more fun to fly and more effective in solo PvP and small fleet warfare. Two weeks ago, I started a new series of ship fitting guides with effective PvP setups for each of the four Gallente tech 1 cruisers. In between hilarious sessions of baiting gankers with my ECM Vexor, I've recently been been getting to grips with the updated Amarr cruisers. The Omen is now a fast tackler that can project damage over 25km, the Maller is a fantastic support DPS platform for fleet warfare, and the Arbitrator has become a great anti-frigate platform. Even the humble Augoror should now be a welcome sight in PvP fleets, repairing almost as much as a Guardian at only a fraction of the cost. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give new PvP ship setups for EVE's recently buffed Amarr tech 1 cruisers.
EVE Evolved: Baiting players is hilarious fun!
I originally planned to put together updated ship setups for EVE Online's newly revamped Caldari, Minmatar, and Amarr Tech 1 cruisers this week, but I've honestly been having far too much fun baiting people in highsec with last week's Vexor setup. I'm having such hilarious fun doing it that I just had to dedicate this week's column to the dirty art of the bait-and-gank! There's absolutely nothing more amusing in EVE than baiting a ship twice the size of yours into attacking you for an "easy kill" and then turning it into a very expensive smoking wreck. The basic idea of baiting is simple: Get yourself flagged as a suspect by committing a minor crime like theft, fly around waiting for someone to attack you, and then tear him to bits. Before Retribution, you were flagged as a valid target only to the individual people you stole from, but once they attacked, you were safe to engage. Now you're flagged to the whole of EVE, making it easier to get a bite but also a whole lot riskier to engage in a crowded area. It's hard to pick and choose your fights when the whole universe is gunning for you, but when you get a good bite, there are some insanely fun fights to be had. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give some top tips on how to safely bait players in high-security space, where to find the best targets, and what ships are most effective.
How do you pick a class for PvP?
It's a question which has been asked many a time on the forums, and many times to me, and likely at least a few times to almost anyone who plays WoW! If you haven't been asked it by others, it's possible you've asked yourself. It has a lot to do with personal preference, and while I can't pretend to know what you should play, I can help you have a fair stab at working it out for yourself. Flavor of the month If you want to work out a good class for you to PvP on, there are some questions you need to ask yourself about play-style, preferences, expectations, and what you want from your PvP. One of the first things to assess is what you want from PvP. Particularly right now, although Blizzard's team are forever working to change this, there continue to be what are known as "Flavor of the Month" or FOTM classes, often just referred to as FOTM in the forums. These are basically whatever class is overpowered right now, so right at the start of Mists, before the Stampede bug was fixed, that was beast mastery hunters.
Battleground gear disparity
Blizzard's Daxxarri responded to a thread recently in the official US forums saying the following: Quote: Simply tier the BGs by ilvl. It's not simple, unfortunately. It would a) require a retooling of how Battlegrounds assemble teams and b) even under ideal conditions, it would likely slow down queue times dramatically. As Ovenmitz demonstrates, there are a lot of players who are very opposed to that. source This isn't a bad idea, in itself. One thing I've long wondered about is whether it would be possible, as the thread's OP suggests, to make battlegrounds face players off according to their gear. This would, as the OP notes, perhaps avoid the situation where players are faced against hugely disproportionately geared teams, so full epics against crafted and PvE gear. While he didn't speak directly about this, taking two of Ghostcrawler's recent PvP Dev Watercooler points together could shed some light on Blizzard's plans for gear and scaling.
Is instant-cast crowd control too ubiquitous?
First, no, Polymorph isn't an instant-cast spell. Second, onwards! Blizzard Community Manager Nakatoir has posted this morning about Blizzard's current thinking on instant cast CC. Nakatoir First things first, I want to make sure you're aware that the information below reflects both short and long-term design considerations on our end. This isn't all on the table for patch 5.2 for a number of reasons. To make this clear right off the bat: This shift of instant casts back to cast times is not just targeted at crowd control. We also wish to start moving some heals back to having a cast time rather than being instant. That said, we're not necessarily planning on overhauling many of the spells and abilities that have been instant for a long time now, such as Hand of Justice. We're looking at some of the big outliers that we see brought up a lot, which are instant-cast, area-of-effect abilities like Blinding Light, or Presence of Mind in combination with Ring of Frost. We think that there are too many of these AoE CC spells at this time, especially instant AoE CC, which can create some frustrating gameplay experiences. Some other particular crowd-control effects that are on our radar are abilities like Blood Fear, which we're considering redesigning altogether, and Predatory Swiftness in combination with Cyclone, which feels virtually impossible to counter. Posted by Inférnal While we are talking about cc what about having some more spells share DR with each other. A pala can repentance/blinding light/ hammer. No Dr at all. Why is it that fear and blind share a DR and polly/fear and cycone dont? and many more examples like this. We're looking at diminishing returns for CC right now as a possible way to help with CC in PvP combat, but it's the type of gameplay overhaul that can be risky to implement in the middle of an expansion cycle if the change is too drastic. We are, however, taking a look right now at the DRs within particular classes, as well as special snowflakes like Cyclone. Either way, the design discussion will undoubtedly continue! ^^ source
Patch 5.1: PvP trinkets hotfixed
Blizzard Community Manager Daxxarri posted yesterday about a hotfix Blizzard's team are implementing to PvP trinkets, to help address the current issues with burst damage. As we've reported, patch 5.1 is fraught with PvP problems, and this is hopefully the first in line of fixes Blizzard will make. While it's great that changes are being made, the question remains: will this be enough? Naturally, Blizzard's team have access to numbers that the rest of us don't ever see, but it seems like a tall order to repair the current issues by simply changing a few trinkets. Daxxarri does go on to say that there is a risk that this changes means players simply won't die, but this seems a little unlikely. A greater risk seems to be another point Daxxarri addresses, being the potential this offers for the use of PvE trinkets in PvP. Particularly for burst-reliant comps such as anything with 3 DPS players, resilience is not a huge consideration, as a lot of the time their plan is to end the match quickly with very high up-front damage, scoring repeated kills. It seems possible that PvE trinkets with very high on-use bonuses could reappear, but Daxxarri promises that Blizzard will continue to monitor the situation. Hit the break for Daxxarri's full post.
Blizzard takes a stand against pre-made battleground groups
Blizzard Community Manager Daxxarri has been very active in the past 24 hours in a topic on the patch 5.1 changes to battleground queues. He's been responding to criticism of these changes, and, at the same time, being characteristically forthright on the issue of pre-mades. Quote: if you break it down, what does a full oQueue premade bring to the table that is unfair? I'll try to break it down as clearly as I can: Any addon that enables a full, organized Battleground group to queue against a randomly assembled group is creating a scenario where that coordinated group has a huge advantage. That is not in the spirit of the experience we want to provide in the normal Battleground queue. Playing with friends is fun and important, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the spirit of the game nor the fun of others. The normal Battleground queue is for players to jump in and play against other players in a similar situation. We realize that it's not a perfect system, and we're still looking at ways to improve normal Battleground queues further. Regardless, it's not meant for organized groups to "pug stomp" and get quick Honor. We have built in outlets for players that want to organize--if a competitive, social experience was really the goal, then there are clear ways to achieve that. The ultimate effect that this kind of queuing has had is to drive players away from PvP. Perhaps it's been a long time since you've been in a random group, but a lot of players will see that they're up against a premade and simply quit. At best, they suffer through it. To an extent premade groups count on this. Heck, one of the popular addons announces opposing players that appear to have rage quit. Addons aren't really a viable solution for botting issues, but we do take those issues seriously and we'll continue our work on improvements to the Battleground system, including better ways to deal with botting and other exploitative gameplay. source
Has Patch 5.1 broken PvP?
If you read the forums, you may well think it is. There are several very vocal threads about the state of PvP right now, about the heavy burst coming from melee classes with the weapons upgrade, and the absence of a resilience upgrade to repair it. Those threads are always very vocal, always very convinced that PvP is worse now than it's ever been. While I try my best to be positive about the game, I'm not entirely sure that the forums are wrong, this time around at least. PvP Power and PvP Resilience Patch 5.1 brought about some changes to these two stats, introduced by Blizzard to help make PvP balance easier. They essentially provide a dial, which allows the increase and reduction of damage, healing and defense in PvP, without those changes impacting PvE. They're a great idea, but before Patch 5.1, as I spoke about months back, they weren't quite working as intended. One of the stated aims of PvP Power particularly was to remove the viability of PvE items in PvP. Blizzard's team have been very keen that PvE gear does not become viable in PvP, and up until recently, PvP weapons were, for melee classes in particular who are far more directly affected by weapon stats than casters, not the best choice for maximum damage output.
Countering heavy burst in PvP
The early part of the first Mists of Pandaria season features a lot of what Blizzard was trying to avoid -- heavy burst damage. This is particularly a problem when combined with a high level of crowd control, and as I've regularly said, heavy burst is one of the more frustrating things to counter. There is still heavy burst in the game, post the fixing of the hunter Stampede buff, so the question remains, what can you do about it? I won't be giving you a class-by-class guide on what exactly to do about burst damage. Unless you happen to play one of the classes I specialize in, chances are you know your class far better than I do, and even if you do play one of my classes there's still a possibility you know it better! This definitely isn't class-by-class advice, but a general guide about mentality, tactics and the like. And please, do add to it in the comments with class-specific advice if you have it! Everything helps. Prevention is better than cure This is me stealing something doctors and aunts and grandparents used to say when I was a kid, usually referring to illness rather than WoW PvP. But it applies for this, too. If you can stop someone unleashing their heavy burst on you or your team-mates, that's a far better solution than having to pick them up from extremely low health afterwards. I haven't seen something in an arena in a long old time that can genuinely take a player from 100% to dead in one global, but there are some really hard-hitting abilities out there.
Blizzard will take decisive action against arena exploiters
Blizzard Community Manager Daxxarri has posted today regarding a recently discovered Arena exploit. While precise details are not known, it appears this relates the a method whereby players could escape from playing against comps they were struggling with, countercomps, or teams they had faced previously, without losing MMR by exiting the game. This, while not win-trading itself, led to win-trading, and, as Daxxarri says, both win-trading and the use of exploits are completely against the rules. Daxxarri Providing an environment where players can compete in the spirit of fair play is extremely important to us, particularly in rated Player versus Player combat. As part of that commitment we regularly monitor gameplay, and have discovered an issue where some Arena teams have exploited the queuing system to obtain high team ratings, "dodge" unfavorable team compositions, and engage in win trading. These, and all, exploitative activities are absolutely prohibited. We will investigate the situation carefully, and players that have been found to have participated in exploitation will be subject to the appropriate actions against their World of Warcraft accounts. In the meantime, we are currently working to resolve any remaining issues with the queue system to prevent this behavior in the future. source Players will have to wait and see just what Blizzard's investigation reveals, and what their actions will be as far as punishing the perpetrators. Many are already calling for ladder resets and MMR resets, but of course, these can punish the innocent as well as the guilty. The nature of this bug is such that it's possible some players benefiting from it may have been unaware they were doing so. 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.
Arenajunkies interviews top Arena priests
With the Battle.net World Championships coming up in just a few days' time, ArenaJunkies has been very busy interviewing some of the top arena players who'll be battling it out in Shanghai. We've got interviews from two of what I can fairly confidently say are among the world's top priests, Zunniyaki and Talbadar. Zunniyaki is a member of Yaspresents, with Another on a death knight and Cara on a paladin. Yaspresents stormed to a decisive victory in the Battle.net European Invitationals in Cologne, comfortably dismissing most of their competition in an undefeated run of best of 3 matches. Talbadar is one third of Team Evil Geniuses, along with renowned shaman and warlock Cdew and Azael. Again, like Yaspresents, Evil Geniuses took a victory in the North American Invitationals, comfortably securing their place in Shanghai. Both these priests are at the top of their game, and bound to make a splash during the tournaments coming up between November 16 and 18. Hit the break for the second video interview with Talbadar!
Is crowd control out of control?
There has been an interesting discussion taking place over on the EU forums with Blizzard Community Manager Nakatoir about the state of crowd control in PvP. There seems, predictably, to be a focus on arenas in the discussion, which is logical, since they seems to be where crowd control is generally used most effectively. Nakatoir's contributions are largely in response to complaints from players about chain CC. Chain CC is where an opposing team manage to keep a player controlled for a long period of time by "chaining" together their crowd control abilities. This can be a hugely frustrating experience, as a good CC chain can keep a player out of action for a long period of time. Often, as is the CC-ing team's plan, long enough to land a kill on the CC'd player's team-mate. Nakatoir provides some great advice for countering CC, rightly saying that chaining together one 33-second chain of CC, as one poster describes, requires a great deal of focus and communication. A CCing team is playing offensively, if they're using the CC to land a kill rather than to turtle, and sometimes attack is the best form of defense.
Dissecting the Dev Watercooler on PvP
A few days ago, Blizzard Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street released a very lengthy Dev Watercooler on Mists of Pandaria PvP. Now that the dust has had a chance to settle, we're going to take a look at the blog and its implications for PvP right now. Next time we might look at some of their zany ideas for future PvP! MMR MMR, or Match-Making Rating is how teams are matched in rated PvP. MMR is separate from rating, but both are altered when you win or lose against other rated teams. Explaining the difference between the two is a little tricky, but essentially, MMR is how your matches are found. MMR is linked to players and teams, so a player forming a new team will carry some of their MMR with them from previous PvP escapades, in order for them not to face far lower-rated players. Rating is also linked to both players and teams, but doesn't dictate who you face. Rating is won and lost via winning and losing against teams with better and worse MMRs. Say you're at 1500 MMR and 1500 rating, and you face a team at 1600 MMR and 1600 rating, and you lose. You will only lose a small amount of rating, let's say 5, and they will only gain a small amount, again let's say 5. Both your MMRs will adjust similarly. Now say you beat them. They will lose a big chunk of rating, but likely not such a big chunk of MMR. You, equally, will gain a big chunk of rating, and depending on how many matches you've played, likely gain a reasonable amount of MMR. The MMR is saying "hey these guys beat a 1600 team. They're better than a 1500 MMR".
The state of PvP: Current issues, balance and communication
First and foremost, before we get into the heavy stuff, I wanted to give a brief run-down of the Tol'viron Arena. As you can see from the header image, it's very similar to Nagrand Arena, the 4-pillar arena much beloved of caster teams and tree-huggers everywhere. Again, if you take a look at the header image you can see that there are 2 pillars on one side, and one on the other. The result of this from the games I've had so far is simply that most caster teams prefer the two-pillar side, while melee teams will try to draw casters out. It's much the same play experience as Nagrand Arena, only with slightly fewer options for pillar-humping. The three pillars seem to be equidistant apart, with the two pillars naturally closer to the doors, and quite a run to the single pillar at the start. The runs between the pillars are somewhat longer than in Nagrand, so be aware of your line of sight and distance to healers if you're both on different pillars. This arena seems to only rarely permit a healer to hug one pillar while healing a DPS who is hugging another, range-wise. Be aware! Also, I ran to the wrong side at the start several times. Get your bearings!
