End of Arena season clarifications
by Eliah Hecht 
Apr 9th 2007 at 11:48PM
A few people seem to be confused about what exactly the vaguely impending end of the arena season entails. Drysc is here to clear things up:
- Team ratings will not reset or decay after the season ends. Neither will arena points.
- New items may be introduced, but they may not, "depending on progression on the PvE front as well as what PvE content is available." I suppose this is because they don't want there to be a big gap between PvE and PvP gear.
- The sole purpose of the arena season is to give out the titles and armored nether drakes that go with being in the top 0.5% in your battlegroup.
The context of this blue post, by the way, was a thread entitled "Arena Season 2 is gonna suck bad." The argument is that after season one, everyone will have all their PvP gear, and there will be no more incentive to play. This argument seems to have two flaws:
- Not everyone will have all their gear at the end of the season.
- People will still play even if they have nothing to spend their points on -- yet. As Drysc points out, It wouldn't be very smart to quit playing just because there's nothing to buy, you're still making 'arena money".
New items may be added at the start of a new season, depending on progression on the PvE front as well as what PvE content is available. The end/start of a season is only guaranteed to mark the point where the title and armored nether drake rewards are given out. New items being added is dependant upon PvE factors.
To clarify a previous bit of information that we've given out that was incorrect; arena team ratings do not reset at the end of a season. Teams won't have to go through a 'reset period' where they're struggling to regain where they were.
Not all teams are going to have all of the rewards by the second season, in fact the large majority won't. Also, your arena points don't degrade and aren't removed at the end of the season, so you're building points as you go. Even if there are no rewards you want the prospect of new items in the future which you're saving up for, and of course the end of season rewards (title and mount). It wouldn't be very smart to quit playing just because there's nothing to buy, you're still making 'arena money".
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ShaggyG Apr 10th 2007 12:29AM
I think this makes sense, but it still isn't 100% clear. Personally, I haven't participated in the arena at all, but I have plans on doing it in the future.
Problem 1: There will be a point, eventually when all arena rewards have been earned.
Solution 1: Who cares?, the same thing happens with PvP rewards.
Solution 2: Keep adding more and more rewards with higher requirements.
Problem with Solution 2: People just starting out will never be able to catch up. (Example: It takes 1 year to earn the whole first set of rewards, at this point, Blizzard adds more. Somebody just starting at the second season will always be 1 season behind the rewards, and they will never be able to have the newest and best things.)
Aside from that whole mess, I have been wondering what they will be doing for the armored netherdrake mounts the next year. There is a possibility of the team that wins the first season winning the second season too, what would they do with two armored netherdrake mounts?.
It would be cool to have differences for each year, such as a different type of armor to distinguish which season you won. That way, winners from each season would get the same reward so that nobody can complain about 'season 1 got something better than we did, etc.' while at the same time, each season's winners have their unique rewards that they can be proud of.
The same thing can apply to the 'normal' rewards; maybe a similar different style armor with the same stats. If you compare them, its not like they're new and original, they have the same appearance as the T4 armor (at least for locks...).
I apologize for my rambling, but I think that pretty much every arguement that could be had was addressed, and I believe that regardless of what Blizzard chooses to do with the rewards, the Arena will remain popular for many seasons to come.
Grunt Apr 10th 2007 3:07AM
I also plan to participate with my feral druid in arena pvp. Though I still have no clue what it is all about. How does it all work? What TeamUps (2, 3 or 5) are the best thing? Which classes? How do I earn points exactly? What does a specific pvp gear item cost? Is arena pvp gear not the same as you can get from the normal honor system?
I played 2+ years only PVE, never put much interest in PVP. That's why I don't know anything but "red = dead".
Elbows Apr 10th 2007 10:04AM
@2 Wow that's a lot of questions. As for which team-ups work the best, in 2v2 and 3v3 the matches are a lot more succeptible to "gimmick" teams, and certain class matchups definitely work better than others. For instance, war/pally is an extremely popular 2v2 team for obvious reasons. In your case, I could recommend teaming up with a rogue. You both start off in stealth and have enough CC through blind/cyclone to keep one opponent out of commision while you deeps the fuck out of the other guy.
The only downside being that 2v2 will net you only 60% (is it 70 now?) of the points you would receive from a 5v5 team. Still, you would rather be on a 1900 rated 2v2 team than a 1500 rated 5v5 team. There are plenty of arena point calculators out there, here's one http://arena.onefingerzen.com/index.php
You earn arena points every Tuesday if you are a member of any team (2v2, 3v3, 5v5) that has played at least 10 matches, and you must have participated in at least 30% of these matches. So technically you can get arena points while only playing 3 match a week. You can participate in all brackets if you want, and you will receive points from the team which nets you the most points.
The points you receive each week are based on your team's rating. Your rating goes up each time you win and down each time you lose (duh) and the amount of points you gain or lose depends on the rating of the team that you play against. The system tries to match you up against teams with a similar rating. You can see from this that the system does not simply reward time invested playing arena matches and playing too many matches could actually hurt your rating if your team goes into a slump or keeps coming up against a hard counter for your group composition.
The arena gear available ranges in price from 1125 points for the gloves to OVER NINE THOUSAND (jk 3750) for the 2 handers. To give you an idea of how long this takes, my crappy 3v3 team earns me about 400 points a week, and I currently have 2 pieces of gladiator armor. You can find a complete list of the gladiator gear here http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=20278
The gladiator gear differs from the PVP gear in the following way. If you compare the blue lvl 70 pvp gear to the equivalent gear from the same slot, the arena gear is simply better stat wise, although the set bonuses remain the same. What Blizzard has done however, is attempted to fill in the blanks with the PVP gear earned with honor points. For instance, gladiator gear provides you with an item for you head, chest, legs, shoulders, weapon, and gloves. While the same pieces exist through honor points, they are blue. You have the option of puchasing epic pieces for you belt, feet, wrists, and back, along with various rings and trinkets. So while you are gearing up with arena gear, you are filling in the missing pieces using honor points. This means that you can pretty much gear up every slot without ever doing PVE. This is a great system and I really hope that Blizzard periodically updates the PVP honor gear alongside the arena gear.
I hope this answers you questions and I think you find find arena to be great fun and a nice diversion from PVE. I know I love it.