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Blizzard MVPs create Cross-Realm Rated Battlegrounds site
First, we had a cross-realm raid group site. Now, Blizzard forum MVPs Eldacar and Cyaga have created The LFG List, a cross-realm group finder for players to get involved in Rated Battlegrounds. Part of the group's Battlemasters site, The LFG List is currently active in the United States only; other versions will be rolled out after the U.S. version has been running smoothly for a while. How do you get onto the list? Well, that's simple! If you are ready for a Battleground or two within the next hour, head over to the start page and choose your faction. That will take you to a page with an IRC window and an entry screen below it. Type in your realm and your character's name in the entry screen to retrieve your basic details from the Armory. You can add in notes and doublecheck that your main spec and off spec are correct. Note the IRC Name section -- this is where you fill in the name that you're using in the live IRC chat above. This way, you can give yourself an IRC name of your choosing and seek out Rated Battleground buddies with any character. Other IRC users will see your name in the list and can contact you directly -- and you're off! Your entry stays up for an hour, so if you're looking for groups further in advance, you can head over to the Battlemasters Forums and make a post. As an aside, the Horde chat seems currently rather more popular than the Alliance chat, hence the split channels. As a mainly Alliance player myself, I'm not OK with this! So I'm putting the call out to my fellow humans, dwarves, draenei, worgen, gnomes and night elves: People of the Alliance! Get on over to The LFG List and get involved!
Update: PVP Season 9 ending as soon as June 28
The WoW community site was recently updated to let players know that the ninth PVP season would be ending as soon as June 28 rather than the June 21. What does this mean for us? Unofficial confirmation that patch 4.2 has been moved back at least a week. The new probable release date is June 28. Earlier this week, a new balance patch hit the PTR and some decently sized changes to abilities and their associated numbers were made. No new assets were added, but a lot of numbers were moved around. After Ghostcrawler's excellent balance post and call for feedback, we guessed that this PTR patch could have the potential to push the 4.2 back a week. Well, it looks like it did. Update your calendars, folks. You've got an extra week to push tier 11 content and have a patch-free Midsummer Fire Festival, which launches on June 21. The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
PVP Season 9 ending soon
Season 9 of the arena and rated battleground PVP experience is coming to an end as early as June 21, and end-of-season rewards will be calculated a week after that. While there is a break in the PVP season, all rated battleground and arena matches will become unavailable to players, so get your wins in now. Blizzard stresses that if you believe you are potentially going to get the Season 9 PVP rewards for being in the highest percentile of winners and think you might be eligible for the arena titles or Vicious Gladiator's Twilight Drake, you should refrain from transferring your character to a new server while the reward tabulation is going on. If you're a big PVPer, stay on your server until the winners have been announced. PVP Season 10 will begin approximately one week after Season 9 ends. All honor over the 4,000-point cap will be turned into gold at 35 silver per honor point. Blizzard's full post after the break.
All rated battlegrounds to become 10v10s
Coming in a hotfix soon -- before next Tuesday -- Blizzard will make all rated battlegrounds 10v10s. This is in response to the popularity of 10v10s when compared to 15v15s. Ideally, this will also lead to increased participation in rated BGs, and we can all have an easier time at obtaining those coveted titles. Blizzard's full statement is as follows: Blizzard Entertainment We're in the process of developing a hotfix to push before next Tuesday that will change all 15vs15 rated battleground weeks into 10vs10 weeks. Looking at participation, the 10vs10 rated battleground weeks have been far and away more popular than the 15vs15 weeks. The difference in organizational requirements as well as battleground map popularity have been a couple big factors that have led to the 10vs10 weeks seeing a great deal more action. By making this change and supporting the popular option we hope to encourage even more players and teams to participate, as they won't have to wait out every other week, or struggle to beef up to 15 players to match the requirement. We also have plans to adapt additional battleground maps in the future to work in the 10 player bracket to increase the variety of maps available. source
Rated battlegrounds now award honor at conquest point cap
Rated battlegrounds have been criticized as being unnecessary after a player reaches his conquest point cap for the week, which is fairly easily obtainable. This resulted in many people shying away from rated games after the cap, and queues for rated battlegrounds being lengthy and annoying. Blizzard has just announced that rated battlegrounds will now award honor points when a player has reached the conquest point cap. Bashiok -- Rated BGs Now Award Honor at Conquest Cap We've recently made a change in an effort to promote continued play in Rated Battlegrounds. Now when a player is at their weekly Conquest cap they will receive the full amount of Honor from kills, objective completions, victories and losses while in a Rated Battleground match. Those not at their cap will continue to earn Conquest normally, and will only earn Honor once they reach their weekly cap. Whether you're capped and others on your team aren't, or you're all capped and just want to keep playing, we hope this change will allow more flexibility for those participating in Rated Battlegrounds. source World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Ghostcrawler: Vengeance not a fun toy for PvP
A lot of people seem somewhat terrified of the new Vengeance mechanic and how it might play in PvP. People are always leery of tanking specs in PvP, due to the general tendency of people playing in arenas and BGs to want to, you know, kill the other guys. Tanks are generally designed to be harder to kill, which tends to make people nervous, especially when tanking specs saw increased damage output in Wrath of the Lich King and went from "Hey, guys, look, it's a free kill!" to "Wait, you mean trying to burn down the dude specced and geared to not die is a bad idea?" The forums seem to be rampant with terror that Vengeance will rule them all. I personally don't see the concern. Vengeance doesn't stack up terribly fast and it falls off fairly quickly; you'd need to focus fire a tank for significant levels of damage while he was being focus healed (and you'd need to completely ignore his or her healers) in order for Vengeance to really be a concern. But don't take my word for it -- just ask Ghostcrawler. Not only do the developers not think Vengeance will be an issue in PvP, if it turns out to be, they'll just turn it off. Ghostcrawler - Re: So Vengeance... am I doing this wrong? Q u o t e: In group PvP, there is an answer to vengeance. Don't attack the tank. Vengeance is a really good idea imo. If you are sitting on a tank and stacking that buff up, why shouldn't they do comparable damage? And from my experience, even with a max stacked vengeance, the coils between blood and unholy are relatively the same. Also, there is more to DPS between the two specs than Deathcoil. Even if someone is sitting on my blood DK I can assuredly say Unholy and Frost do more overall DPS, in pvp. If a couple of people are beating on a tank, Vengeance isn't likely to stack very high. You need to take damage that is a big chunk of your whole health pool, which typically only bosses are available to provide. Now if you have several folks beating on a tank flag carrier, then Vengeance may stack up, but once you have several people, you almost certainly have a way to dispel the Vengeance or just CC the tank. If Vengeance ever gets to be a problem in PvP, we'll just remove it, plain and simple. The mechanic is only there to help with raid gear scaling, not to give tanks a fun toy for PvP. source
The Art of War(craft): Building your battleground kill crew
Zach of The Art of War(craft) enjoys PvP in all its forms, which includes competitive sports, martial arts and the considerably less badass and infinitely geekier miniature wargaming. Like Warmachines. Or maybe it's because he kind of just likes anything with the word '"war" tacked onto it. Last week we took a look at the delicious possibilities that Cataclysm will bring to battlegrounds PvP. It's going to be pretty brutal out there, and you're going to need friends. While there is a whole bunch of cool stuff all over, the best thing about Cataclysm for battleground enthusiasts will be the rated battlegrounds. Unfortunately, one of the things this will contribute to is the decline of solo play. In order to get the most out of your battleground experience, you'll need to be part of a group so that you'll reap the benefits of rated matches. The new Vicious Gladiator gear for arena Season 9 (or rated battlegrounds Season 1) is listed on MMO-Champion, and I'm sure avid battlers are drooling in anticipation of how these sets look. Then again, it could just be me. At any rate, there's a whole load of gear waiting to be claimed through honor and conquest! Most importantly, one thing that separates itemization this upcoming PvP season -- and this is a game-changer -- is the availability of personal-ratings-free weapons and armor through the new system. That marks the first time that max-level PvP weapons will become obtainable by players of all skill levels and the first time that top-tier PvP armor will only have a cosmetic distinction separating them from their ratings-free counterparts. You read that right: PvP gear with ratings requirements will have the exact same stats as PvP gear with no ratings requirements.
The Queue: Elephants
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Re: the title -- unlike them, I do forget. To write The Queue. Wil asked... "Is Blizzard considering making emblems bind-to-account? For someone who's got multiple alts (and intends to level more), this would be a godsend. What would be the pros and cons of such a change?" Blizzard has said that they intend for emblems to be an endgame, character-specific reward. Heirlooms, purchasable with said emblems, are a secondary reward to help your alts get to the point of being able to get their own badges. Will this change for Cataclysm, though? Do we ever really know the answer to that?
IgroMir 2009: Cataclysm panel recaps
I touched on Blizzard's presence at IgroMir 2009, sort of the Russian E3, a bit previously, specifically about J. Allen Brack's panel regarding guild progression and leveling in Cataclysm. Of course, I had to Google-translate the panel from Russian (nyet, I do not know Russian, comrades), and not everything Blizzard-related from the whole convention was in the recaps I read. Thankfully, Blizzard themselves have released their own recaps of the Cataclysm panel. In his talk, Brack discussed rated battlegrounds, Tol Barad (briefly), and guild progression. It turns out that I was pretty thorough in the guild leveling post, but here's the stuff I didn't cover: Rated Battlegrounds will be an alternative way to gain Arena points for those who prefer large-scale PVP. Your personal rating gain for a win will vary depending on the specific Battleground. There'll be featured Battlegrounds each week with bonus rating gain for wins. You will not lose points or rating for a Battleground loss. Arena points can be used to purchase pets, mounts, vanity items, and perhaps best of all, the old honor system PVP titles like Grand Marshal. Tol Barad will provide bonus daily quests and instances for the faction that wins the battle for the zone, somewhat like, as Brack put it, a cross between the Isle of Quel'Danas and Lake Wintergrasp. You can check out our previous IgroMir post here, or read Blizzard's official recap on their IgroMir site. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.
