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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria 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 3 of 7)
alrdye Apr 22nd 2008 2:19PM
What about rule 3? Something about people who have high personal ratings, but get some alts to knock their team score down so they can come in and absolutely rock lower rated teams with their amazing gear. That's the only problem I've run into in areneas.
George Apr 22nd 2008 2:24PM
I wonder if this means a rating requirement for "stat stick" items like the hunter axe.
Pzychotix Apr 22nd 2008 2:27PM
This is very alarming. Putting PR requirements on everything further enforces a gear gap on the players, which is strictly against what Blizzard had in mind for most of BC. Players could eventually get what they needed and eliminate the gear gap, but a 2050 rating required for a weapon? The most crucial upgrade for PVP is now nearly impossible for most to get, and probably only the first few people to get it will remain the only people to get it.
Marcus Apr 22nd 2008 2:28PM
I'm all for personal rankings in the arena for gear and weapons, but I don't think gear that can be purchased with honor should have an additonal tie with the personal ranking system. It excludes those who only PvP in the BG's. And if you are to exclude those who grind honor only, then why make them available through the honor system at all?
I do happen to like playing both arena and BG's so it really doesn't personally effect me (except that my rankings currently sucks), but I find it strange that one must play both BG's and arena at a minimum level for gear. If it's honor you want, make the honor pts needed really high, if it's arena ranking (like S3/S4) then keep the rankings high, but incorporating both.... why not just lower the arena pts needed and call it good?
jtrain Apr 22nd 2008 2:28PM
This is truly a great change. My one issue with the new BG/arena gear was that it required absolutely no skill to acquire. Simply show up, lose all you want, and you'll eventually get your epix. The only limiting factor was time.
Raiding also requires time, but it also requires intense coordination and monetary investment. Raiders felt (rightly so imho) that their accomplishments were diminished because any joe-asshat could go lose 10 matches a week in the arena and have the same model gear the raiders did. Small steps were made when s3 shoulders and weapons had rating requirements, but this new change really evens the playing field.
This makes the top-flight gear in the game, pvp or pve, attainable via an investment in time AND matching skill. No more 'welfare' epix indeed.
And by the looks of the requirements, it won't be THAT hard to get most pieces...a rating of 1700 gets you everything but weapons and shoulders, and thats only 200 points above the starting total of 1500.
Jason Apr 22nd 2008 2:29PM
This is a horrible move. Most teams have ratings too low to now stand a chance at getting gear. And the only reason those with high ratings have high ratings is they have poor teams to beat up on. Those teams, now without a hope of getting gear, are going to stop running arenas. Which will then leave only those with high ratings. With only good teams to find these teams will no longer win as much as the competition is greater and their ratings will suffer. Which in turn their gear will suffer.
This is a huge blow to casual players that will have a ripple effect to the hardcore players.
Matt Apr 22nd 2008 2:59PM
It's like King of the Hill, those guys on top kicking people down are only getting better and pretty soon no one is going to want to play their game.
jtrain Apr 22nd 2008 3:09PM
Why is everyone assuming each and every match will be against full s4 teams with astronomical ratings? How many teams like that will there be? And isn't that what the matching system is for?
Your "casual" pvp'er will theoretically have full s2 w/ honor, any s3 besides weapon and shoulders, and several s4 pieces (gloves, trinket, etc) that don't require a personal rating. Doesn't sound as hopeless as you make it seem.
infection Apr 22nd 2008 5:39PM
I honestly quit playing arena's because all our team was coming up against was people extremely overgeared than us. The matching system has nothing to do with your gear, it's your rating.
At this point, if you haven't been arena'ing the whole time and you are getting an alt up, you are done. You'll have to wait till WotlK to play arena's again if you want anything to be slightly fair at all.
But I can see where the gear being easy has a huge effect on the game. Because you can use the gear outside of the arena. But once you get into something like season 3, if you are starting fresh.. you are done.
Chris Apr 22nd 2008 2:32PM
What irks me is when they make PvP gear better than PvE gear. They should make them about the same, I shouldn't have to be really good at arena to get the top DPS spot, I should get the drops from the bosses we fight and do more raid damage then if I decked myself out with PvP weapons.
If anything it would seem like this system makes it harder for people to climb up, oh well.
maing Apr 22nd 2008 2:36PM
yeah... i'm down for the old system... drop resil already... it's nonsense... or keep the system now, but still drop resil... and then we get the "QQ more noob, l2p" -- but how hard is it for a mace rogue with 350+ resil to kill something??? no skill... none... drop resil... all of it
WP Apr 22nd 2008 2:39PM
damage is alrdy down. they should have thought about all this before they started the arena system.
Pzychotix Apr 22nd 2008 2:41PM
The other changes are pretty drastic too. I teamhop around because I enjoy the ability to play 10+ games with some random shmuck in trade, and WIN all of them. But now, since I'll essentially lose points if I teamhop, Blizzard has killed a large part of PVP for me. All for what? To eliminate point selling? If they do that, at least give us the ability to save Personal Rating. It's ridiculous that a rating that is unique to me should be tied to the team I'm with, and not myself.
And this solution doesn't even eliminate point selling altogether! There are still ways around it, through the use of wintrading, which allows the buyers/sellers to bring up everyone's PR to the team's rating and have everyone gain points. This service will be a bigger hassle than before, yes, but it's still possible.
Carbon Apr 22nd 2008 2:51PM
Honestly, this is quite ill-thought out.
I support having a personal requirement on every piece- its to prevent scrubs like me from getting 4/5 s4 just by playing 10 games and hovering around 1510 because I play with friends irregardless of spec and not the FOTM combinations.
Putting a personal requirement on honor gear is just backwards. Making people do arenas for honor gear is like having heroic badge rewards require you to be attuned to Black Temple. The people who play with friends, maybe do one heroic a week, would never ever be able to spend badges. Its kinda similar to making honor grind gear for arena points.
A better solution is to have honor gear on the arena vendor, make it require a semi-decent personal rating, and make it really friggan cheap to buy. No 40 EoTS marks. No killing people in AV for 5 days straight.
If I want my casual PvP epics, I would be willing 'grind' out 500 honor and 3 marks a day and get it in a month.
But to be fair, they should move the new badge vendor in Sunwell to spawn after Kalecgos. Sounds stupid, eh?
Anyways, I support the "average rating" idea and the "anti-point buying" scheme. Requiring arena for BG-PvP? No way at all!
-carbon
Hobbes Apr 22nd 2008 3:10PM
Wow, this is quite a blow to the 50+% of players (scrubs like me) who have never hit higher than 1550 on an arena team. What's the motivation to keep playing arenas once we get the belt and gloves?
But overall I agree it's a good move. S4 gear will be so OP compared to Kara/T4 gear, that it wouldn't make sense to give it away to players who don't have some degree of skill (like being in the top 25% or so, etc...).
nigelesellman Apr 22nd 2008 3:12PM
OK, having read and thought about this change it will seriously make me reconsider doing any PvP again.
Right now I am not good at PvP but its great fun to do my arean matches every week and slowly get pionts with the long term goal that I might get a piece or two of semi-decent gear at the end of it.
If I ever reach a 1600 rating I would be surprised, personally i dont expect to ever get past 1550 (or even to it) but the Arena matches were the highlight of my week. They are probably the most enjoyable part of the game for me.
Now as a Casula PvP player there is 0 incentive for me to Arena.
Arena seemed to have been a raving sucess, so now I am a little surprised as to why they decided to kill that goose.
I have never said this before but this will honestly make me reconsider subscribing to WoW !!!
jtrain Apr 22nd 2008 3:19PM
...so you've come to expect high level epics even though by your own admission you're not good at what you do...And now that Blizz might actually make you earn them by not sucking, you're considering quitting the game?
Sentiments like this illustrate what is wrong with a system that has no requirements.
Pavid Apr 22nd 2008 3:17PM
Horrible change. They're catering to the butthurt raiders and elitsts. Not everyone plays with decked out resto druid who isn't a moron. This is creating a lot of animosity towards me and people who raid. I think I'm done with the game after this.
crispy Apr 22nd 2008 3:26PM
Not all of us hardcore raiders buy into the "welfare epics" meme. My caring about someone else gear begins and ends with my raiding team and its effect on our progression. Anyone who QQs about people getting gear they "didn't earn" has some RL problems they need to deal with.
Massadonious Apr 22nd 2008 3:21PM
Personally, as someone who was waiting to get all of his "welfare epics" before starting arenas, I don't have a problem with arena pieces requiring maintaining certain arena ratings. I mean, it only makes sense, right? To get the good stuff you actually have to be, well...good.
But, I have to agree with others here that putting arena rating requirements on something bought off the honor vendors is absolutely ludicrous. I'm just getting my last two pieces now (ironically the belt and the bracers) and you're telling me that I have to keep doing arenas for something I spent 2+ weeks grinding honor and marks for? If that's the case, then they should make people who buy gear with Badges of Justice pay an extra badge or two a week just to be able to be able to wear it, I mean, it makes about as much sense, which is, none at all.