Agree 100%

This is by far the dumbest entry I've read on wow-insider in a LONG time. I highly doubt this Zach Yonzon has any significant experience playing in arenas. Seriously to suggest that point selling could make arenas easier, or even that they dont have an impact is just ignorant.

Teams don't tank as part of a point selling scheme, they start new teams at 1500 ... Know whats is like to be a 1500 player fighting against a team of 2200's who have just started their 4th team this month to bring it up to 2200 and sell??

SUCKS.

Oh and way to go calling even more attention to this fun-sucking practice. Smooth.

Seriously I'm sure wow-insider can get a real pvp expert ... get rid of this idiot.

If you actually competed in high level arena, the point sellers are the least of your worries. A bunch of those teams win trade, anyway, so you wouldn't be facing them. If you DO face them -- say a 5v5 with one scrub point buyer -- and you can't beat them, then that's your team's problem, isn't it?

If you keep facing 5/5 Vengeful teams at 1500, STOP queueing. Learn to dodge teams. After a win streak, those teams should be out of your ratings range, anyway, or high enough not to tank you if you lose.

And here we go again with gear being an issue. The only pieces of S3 that 1500 teams don't have by now are the weapon and shoulders. A discrepancy of 2 items shouldn't be an issue. If you're doing Arenas with

... sub-300 gear, then by all means STAY at 1500. Get the gear.

Teams aren't kept at 1500 because of the point sellers. There just isn't enough of them to create a real barrier. If a team is stuck at 1500, then there are other problems. It's not the point sellers.

If Blizzard doesn't consider point selling to be against their TOU, then I leave to their discretion. If and when they do crack down on point selling -- and Tom Chilton has expressed that they're looking at it -- then I leave it to them. Right now it's a prevalent practice, sure, but if a team can't break 1500, don't blame point selling.

agreed. my 5v5 team ended s2 at 1820, and has been struggling between 1600 and 1700 this season. We are constantly competing against teams that are in s3 shoulders using s3 weapons. It's true that we could just take breaks whenever we saw a team that was clearly just passing through our bracket, but at our scheduled time (sunday afternoon, bloodlust), there are enough of these teams that I think we'd still be running into a ton of them- and honestly, running from a fight is boring and feels lame.

Zach, you missed the point completely ...

1.) I do compete above the 1500 level, but my post was regarding teams near the 1500 level. Contrary to your elitist attitude, all teams - reagradless of level - are entitled to a fair match. Being 1500 isn't their "problem" its a valid (and average) bracket of competetion.

2.) For those players who don't have all day to play, it can be difficult to arrange 5 people to play 10 games a week. So when they go to lenghts to ensure everyone is online for an hour or so at the same time, it is VERY frustrating to get stuck in any match where you clearly don't have a prayer. This is what point selling does near the 1500 bracket ... it creates frustrating losses for honest teams. Nobody said it's holding teams in the 1500 bracket ... the teams own skill level is holding them there. That doesn't mean they aren't entitled to fair matches.

3.) Nobody said anything about gear either ... its not just a gear issue. Arena ratings are an indication of ability (part skill, part gear). I don't play chess against an opponent with an ELO of 2000 because that wouldn't be fun for me. In the exact same way, arena players expect to be matched against someone of similar ability, so that both teams have a fighting chance, and both teams have fun. Believe it or not, some of us are actually in this game purely to HAVE FUN. Arena is not just another gear grind.

"A discrepancy of 2 items shouldn't be an issue."

For some classes, the S3 weapon is actually a pretty big difference. I'm not saying missing that weapon is keeping a 1500 team from being 2200, obviously it's not. But that weapon will definitely win some games for you that you would've otherwise lost.

i'm a mediocre pvper... 146 resil, etc. i'm around 1400 right now. i do it for the easy epics; stam gear for mage-tanking in gruul's and such. when i want to have fun with pvp, i play counter-strike.

but when i roll into 10 arenas with 3 matches against full S1 and 7 against mixed S2, S3, or even full S3, it's very frustrating.

i feel like if i'm not one of the cheaters, i'm not really playing the arena meta-game. yeah, we win sometimes, but it sucks to be farmed.

anyway, to those who say point-selling and win-trading doesn't significantly affect arenas... bullshit.

I do see your point, Kryptich, and I apologize if I come off as elitist, but you DID call me an idiot who knew nothing about PvP so ... anyway.

The problem with in-game Arenas is that there will ALWAYS be a gear discrepancy. Even players who don't sell points restart teams at 1500 for various reasons. This simply cannot be blamed on point sellers. Starting fresh from a 1500 slate after getting 1850 and 2k really happens sometimes because some teams simply break apart.

If you compete above 1500, say 1700-1800, you WILL encounter teams in 5/5 Vengeful because 1700-1800 is close enough to 1900-2k for matching purposes. Some 2k teams tank hard, as losses to lower ranked teams net up to 26 point losses, putting them in lower brackets for matching. Trust me. Losing 20 pts on one game and winning 2 pts for the next ten games is the stupidest thing.

In-game Arenas will ALWAYS have gear as a differentiator. Blizzard created the Tournament servers precisely to create as level a playing field as possible. That simply won't happen in the game realms. As much as you would like a "fair chance", as you put it, the best you can do is to obtain the best possible gear and increase your Resilience to 350-400 before actually attempting to compete for higher points. Again, this seriously isn't solely an issue with point sellers. Geared players can and will continue to exist on entry level 1500 Arena play. This is Season 3. Even mediocre players banked points at the end of Season 2 to purchase 2-3 pieces of S3 gear.

If you're only starting Arenas now and don't have the gear, the unfortunate truth is that you're late to the party. It's like trying to raid Sunwell with Karazhan gear. You have to go through the progression. It WILL hurt. But that's the harsh reality of a progressively scaling tournament.

@13 / Nick S.
Win trading is definitely against the TOU and affects higher level Arena play. It simply doesn't happen in the 1400s. Point sellers do not SIGNIFICANTLY affect Arenas. They do exist, but they do not create barriers for play.

On the other hand, you're complaining about full S1. That has absolutely NOTHING to do with point selling. **YOU** can get S1. If you're can't even invest the time to obtain full S1 and Vindicator gear, then you seriously have no business complaining about your team sucking in Arenas.

The reason you are facing "point farmer" teams with vengeful glad shoulders (personal rating of 2k+) in 1600 bracket is that each time they create a new team, their personal rating gets reset to 1500.

I think this is extremely bad design.

Personal rating is personal and should not be reset down to 1500 when changing teams.