Arena PVP S1 changes announced

When I originally played TBC, I was a PVP focused player. It was the only expansion where my focus wasn’t PVE. I managed to get up to about 2100 rating as a point of reference.

I didn’t bother raiding initially. I was friends with a bunch of raiders, and I got up to that rating with a literal 0 PVP gear Mage (Druid Mage 2s), where we would just 100-0 an enemy to win.

I then used the PVP gear I had obtained, along with my reputation as a good overall player, to get into the best guild on the server. My first raid was a full clear of an already on farm SSC. Second raid was Tempest Keep, and then straight into Black Temple progression. In PVP gear.

This type of path wasn’t that strange back then. PVP gear was VERY GOOD, and picking up a high-rated player almost ensured that player was good enough to raid.

With this change, that is going to be much more rare. There will be far less people focusing on PVP, and there will be far less people PVPing in general than would otherwise.

This is a bad change. I’ve always hated having to obtain rating just to be able to purchase some gear. The benefits of higher rating should be acquiring the gear faster, and prestige in the form of mounts and titles and other such cosmetics.

PVP in itself needs to be balanced, and players need to be on an equal footing in order for this balance to work. Equipment is the number 1 imbalancing force in PVP, as can be seen in the retail version of the game.

Current ActiBlizz philosophy is that if you can’t beat a player ~23-30% stronger than you, then you don’t deserve to win. This makes no logical sense. The logic should be if you could beat a player 0% stronger than you, then you deserve to win.

Maybe now people will understand what we’ve been saying about the slippery slope. Blizzard is on the cusp of turning TBC into a flop.

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I’m speaking from casual pvp side.

Yea I was hoping to get my arena season 1 gear by just not being a try hard. Same with my season 2 gear. I never liked arenas and I just want to casual pvp in normal bgs.

Do I dislike this change? Yes I think it’s the worst one they put out. I’m sad to see this change happen. As it changes how the 1st part of tbc works for both pvp and pve.

However I did see this change coming. Do I want to reverted yes I do. Normally I don’t care for the QQ on the general threads. So for the 1st time In a while I’m here to say

Blizzard you messed up.

Edit: again I saw this coming I’m upset about it. We all knew is was a way to get gear easy. It’s why pvp gear was called “welfare epics” back in the day. I want blizzard to change it back for my own selfish reasons. I get why it was added and I do think it’s fits “some changes” as it puts season 1 and 2 in same setup as 3 and 4. Doesn’t mean it’s a good change.

To me this feels like a punch to the gut, but again one I was prepared for.

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Perspectives like this are lost on the handful of people who seem to be defending the arena system changes. Casual players should be able to put in the time commitment to earn PvP gear as well, with seasons 3 and 4 being the graduation into hardcore rating push territory for those that want to pursue it. Locking season 3 and 4 gear behind rating requirements while leaving seasons 1 and 2 untouched was a happy compromise for both the hardcore and casual camps.

yeah i 100% agree that would be a horrible system, thats why blizzard needs to clarify what they meant.

we were talking about people in r1 range. you can do pretty much whatever you want and get 2200 in retail with how high inflation gets.

I just never felt pvp gear needed to be locked around arenas. I never liked that system. I was excited for season 1 and 2 pvp just because I could take it some what easy and enjoy the game.

I never found arena based pvp in MMOs to be “Fun” never felt it could be balanced. I am more of a 10 vs 10 or 15 vs 15. Even then I don’t like rated BGs in retail.

I just want to casual pvp and have fun. I wish that blizzard felt that arena mounts and titles would be enough for the arena crowd.

I never understood locking gear behind a system. Just give us a quest once a week that requires 10 or 20 wins in normal Bgs to get points. Or at least make it so normal BGs have an item level cap.

But I know that won’t ever happen. Have to accept game how it is and I do. I’ve never been the type to qq about a system. I just deal with it even if I don’t like it.

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There are no rating requirements to purchase Arena gear from a previous season.

This was on blues second post and seems self explanatory.

But in original season 3 you could buy season 1 gear (all of it) with just BG mark’s and honor, no arena points needed at all (same with S2 gear once S4 hit).

Is this still the case or did they remove that too?

Lol it takes at least half a season just to get weapons if you aren’t high rated so who cares.

Also: no one cares what you think players “deserve” There should be a way to spend your points if you accumulate them regardless of rating.

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Why dont people deserve the gear? They still have to buy it with arena points and put time and effort into obtaining arena points, they are not free.

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I highly doubt the OH will have a rating requirement

there are ways to spend it though. theres 11 pieces not locked behind rating. its not like youre not allowed to buy gear unless you hit 2k.

The only pieces purchasable by arena points that aren’t currently stated in their rating restrictions but still needs clarification would be:

Hands
Shields
Off Hands
Librams
Idols
Totems
Wands

The miscellaneous pieces are purchased with honor and marks:

Neck
Cloak
Bracer
Belt
Boots
Rings
Trinkets

This gives classes only 2 maybe 3 pieces purchasable by arena points until they hit the new rating requirements

I dont thnink you need to maintain the rating as that would be 100% new to ALL of arena.

if someone showed up to your place of work and did absolutely nothing, but still got the same rate of pay as you. hmmmmm.

Shamans would do it for an OH weapon as there is nothing until T5 content for them. With SSC/TK being Phase 2 and Kara weapons MH only the Arena OH was their only option. Now with the rating requirement and meta heavy comp it’s going to be a struggle for them. I’m playing elemental but feel bad for my enh brethren.

Latest Blue post on this…

I’ve struck the words “and equip” from this note:

  • All PvP gear will have consistent personal rating requirements to purchase.

You don’t need to retain rating to equip an item, rating is only required to purchase it.

I’ve also added the following PvP notes:

  • At least 50 games played are required to qualify for a seasonal reward.
  • There are no rating requirements to purchase Arena gear from a previous season.
  • Season 1 gladiator weapons that were added in patch 2.1 (Gladiator’s Gavel, Gladiator’s Salvation, and Gladiator’s Reprieve) will be available from the beginning of Season 1.
  • The commentator UI for wargames has been updated with a fresh new look.

So if people really were just upset at the design philosophy of needing to retain rating to use the weapons, I expect there will be no more rage on this topic.

But of course we all know people were actually upset at the best weapons in the game not being handed to them for free, so I look forward to the continued manufactured outrage on this topic.

How about people being upset that they have added additional rating requirements that were not part of TBC?

Expect more rage.

it’s not manufactured outrage to be upset over a massive change that will hugely impact TBC that came out of nowhere, that no one was even thinking about. I mean who was even discussing this as an option?

Imagine if they did the same thing for PVE, would it be manufactured outrage to get upset if they said “raid gear is now locked behind WoW logs, you must be in the top 5% of the player base to feel the prestige of having some gear”

I was all for some changes to TBC which I formally apologies for. Some changes make sense, but changes like this that no one wants blow my mind.

With PVP being dead in TBC now I can’t see myself playing (which i know no one cares about but man it sucks).

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Dark day’s loom ahead, Well at least i don’t gotta find a PVP wife

Except you do have to do work for the gear and this is a video game not a workplace.

Weren’t weapons 1800 in tbc?

Thats a gigantic change.

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