Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsDrysc reveals new arena season 4 rating requirements and rules
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Apr 22nd 2008 at 1:40PM
Drysc has just posted what may soon be known as the death knell of "welfare epics," announcing new arena season 4 rating requirements for the brutal gladiator gear that extend not only to the shoulders and weapon, but to many other pieces of gear as well, even to honor-purchased gear. We've seen some of the gear leaked recently, and some of the ratings requirements leaked a bit earlier than that, but now we have the official whole picture. Check out the word of Drysc after the jump.
When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:
Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800
The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:
Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none
In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:
Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none
The Season 2 items, which will move to the honor system when Season 4 begins, will continue to have no rating requirement.
Drysc also announced some new arena rules for the upcoming season:
1. If a character's personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
2. If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team's rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.
Together, these rules (which Tom Chilton alluded to but did not reveal in a recent interview) should mean that a person cannot simply ride a high rating team to victory, but will instead need to fight their way up the ladder to gain points regardless of what team they join.
It looks like the era of "welfare epics" may well be over now. With these new requirements, teams will have to genuinely work hard to get the gear they desire, and it should hopefully lead to a bit less resentment between the PvE and PvP factions. These new rating requirements, combined with the new rules meant to prevent people from buying points, should also hopefully lead to fairer arena games between equally geared teams, at least within another season or two.
With the revelation of these rules, the speculation of the start of the new arena season can probably begin in earnest as well. Saving your points (or even your honor) for Season 4 may not be as effective anymore though, if you can't also muster up the ratings to purchase the gear.
Filed under: Items, Blizzard, News items, PvP, Battlegrounds, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 7)
Jason Apr 22nd 2008 2:31PM
Can only buy veteran rings, other stuff is gone...go look.
jtrain Apr 22nd 2008 4:00PM
Season 3 honor rewards will be staying around for purchase with honor, no personal rating requirement. Confirmed by Drysc.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=0532A2E3B1245ED8CC1DF763EF7D60FC.app09_06?topicId=5974053367&sid=1
Taeous Apr 22nd 2008 2:04PM
This is great news. Makes me feel like my progress as a raider isn't wasted, as well as giving hardcore PVPers a sense of accomplishment.
Hopefully this will also reduce the resentment between PVE vs PVP fanboys, and really help people from getting banned for flaming other people about what they may have said......:D
Pzychotix Apr 22nd 2008 4:37PM
Maybe you should worry less about the items gotten from PVP, and more about items gotten from badge vendors for little effort. PVP epics in PVE suck horribly on the most part, except for the weapons.
Taeous Apr 22nd 2008 4:54PM
Pzychotix,
Yeah, I know.
What I was trying to say is, as a raider it pisses me off a bit that my T6 is, comparatively, a multitude of times harder to obtain than the S3 arena pieces.
So,
T6 = best of the best raiding (with some exceptions)
S3 = best of the best PVP
The time and effort I put into getting T6 is MUCH greater than the time and effort it takes for people to get S3. Now I KNOW that hardcore PVPers are pissed at this as well...that it takes so little effort for less skilled PVPers to get the same gear they have. It's a status symbol of sorts (T6 = you're good at raiding, S4 = you're good at PVP (when this comes out)). So, I would imagine that both raiders and hardcore PVPers will love this change.
Badge gear is another topic entirely, and a whole different pet-peeve.
bumble Apr 23rd 2008 6:08AM
Your complaint is not even relevant given that the Gladiator sets are merely a way to prevent a situation as it was at 60 when no new pvp sets were rolled out while any PvE geared group (AQ40) would steamroll those who geared up through PvP. Ideally, in an esport setting, gear would be identical and any arena player would receive a fully updated set at the begin of each season for, as in any sport, skill and abilities to be the deciding factor in every match.
hurfdurf Apr 22nd 2008 2:05PM
Lovely, now they've really created a gear gap in PvP.
Justin Apr 22nd 2008 2:26PM
Yeah, its not like there is a gear gap in PvE. I regularly run into BT and down Illidan with my dungeon blues.
jtrain Apr 22nd 2008 2:46PM
What Justin said.
Rick Apr 22nd 2008 3:26PM
You are both missing the point. PVE raiding is designed to have gear checks. You move linearly from an easier dungeon to a more difficult one requiring gear you have previously obtained. PVP is designed to be a skill check so gear gaps mean PVP is now a gear check too. And with the announced changes it will be a 2 season gap (for weapons) which is very significant.
Not only that, but since the classes/specs are not balanced, PVPers have to overcome people with better skill, comps, and now gear to even have a chance a progressing. Not good.
Diabla Apr 22nd 2008 3:35PM
lol, Justin :)
jtrain Apr 22nd 2008 3:35PM
I know what you're talking about Rick, and my advice to you is to play Guild Wars, seriously. This isn't meant to be a wise-ass post, but GW is catered to those that just want to pvp with no gear discrepancy at all. What you're alluding to is "warstrike" or "countercraft" or some type of pvp that requires no gear-check, no progression, and no reward other than the kill itself. WoW is not that game.
scott Apr 22nd 2008 2:06PM
Hmm, considering that 1500 is the "average" rating, how long before people begin to realize that they won't be able to get the gear they want?
This could wind up reducing the number of folks willing to play arenas by eliminating the 'level playing field'.
Ralod Apr 22nd 2008 10:56PM
This is exactly what it is.
It is the death knell of the arena's. As it stands there are very few poeple I know that really like arenas. With all of these restrictions it is going to mean even longer Queue times in the arena's and even less people playing them.
The Arena was a poorly designed system in the first place, but people played because it was a fast easy way to get some decent gear. Now it is a poorly designed system, with a punishing gear ranking system that the majority of people are not going to even try for.
I personally gave up on arenas after S2. I used my saved points, bought the S3 BP and moved on to raiding. And I think you will see a lot more people doing just that.
Geoff Apr 22nd 2008 2:07PM
I think the changes to the arena points gain are quite fair and will probably work to curb some of the point selling - that being said, I think the ratings requirements, *especially* on the honor gear are a mistake. Considering the "average" team should be right around 1500 rating, it means most people still won't be able to gear up to be truly competitive and there will still be a large discrepancy between the haves and the have nots.
This is, of course, considering they don't alter their rating calculation formula to trend upwards as opposed to it's current "zero sum" implementation.
icer Apr 22nd 2008 2:07PM
but what i want to know is when S4 starts and S1 gets removed will we be automatically upgraded to S2???
or i wasted honor and BG tokens to get some S1 items
Necrolich Apr 22nd 2008 2:14PM
When a new pve instance comes out are you upgraded to that gear............?
Obviously you will have to go get the S2 items, just like you did the S1.
Blackthorn Apr 23rd 2008 12:31PM
icer it sounds like you're expecting the S1 gear to be removed from the game completely, all thats happening is it's being removed from vendors so you won't be able to buy it. That doesn't mean it's going to disappear from your character if you already have it.
Dan Apr 23rd 2008 12:34PM
s1 gets removed from the vendors - not from your toon. The set bonuses work no matter what season, so you'll just start buying s2 instead of s1 for the pieces you still need.
Gur Apr 22nd 2008 2:13PM
way to screw old PVPers that way.
First the sets are removed and we got old arenas gear,now what was left is removed.
How about if the old honor ladder system came back and arena gear had a commander requirement too?
Glad i stopd playing on blizzards servers.