WoW Insider Show Episode 42: Arena, addiction and Turpster's ding
by Mike Schramm 
Jun 17th 2008 at 7:30PM
Yes, we went live on the WoW Radio airwaves last weekend, and the recorded results are live on their site right now for your listening enjoyment. It was a full show -- Zach Yonzon came on to talk about Arena PvP, as did Amanda Dean (to defend her points from last week), and Matthew Rossi. Turpster was on as well, and if you weren't around on EU Sporeggar last weekend, you missed quite an event -- there were a ton of Gnomes and Dwarves who turned out to take down Turpster right as he dinged 70 on his Shadow Priest. Also on the show, we chatted about:- The new Arena season -- why Zach things "L2P" isn't the biggest problem Hunters have in the Arena, what we're looking forward to with the new season, and why the timing on this season is actually just right
- PvE to PvP transfers and why Blizzard finally did them
- WoW addiction and exactly what we think of it
- A few things we've heard officially about the expansion -- the idea of Unified Spellpower, and what's up with Shamans.
- And finally, we answered email as usual from readers, including why I was completely wrong about the Gnome/Dwarf starting area, and what kind of good WoW and game-related music is out there to listen to.
Thanks for listening as always, and enjoy the show this week.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Realm Status, Odds and ends, PvP, Features, WoW Insider Show
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dightkuz Jun 17th 2008 8:56PM
Crap that I missed both the show and the event just because of euro08 :(
Dontlooknow Jun 17th 2008 10:02PM
I'd like to check out the book that was mentioned if anyone has a link to amazon it would be much appreciated.
Den Jun 17th 2008 11:27PM
@ Zach,
On hunters...hmm so much to go into that it would take weeks to cover it all ;). So I'll just pick 1 topic I think is the biggest reason Hunters are under represented in all arenas and Druids are over represented in 2v2, balanced in 3v3 and under represented in 5v5 (which they are when you look at stats from www.realmhistory.net and normalize them, in a similar fashion to what was posted on the official forums you will find Druid have dropped a lot since 2.4 - Down by a third in 2v2 and almost half what they used to be in 3v3 (yes I play druid so I might be slightly defensive on the topic :P )
So after a massive tangent back to the point:
Interacting with other classes, potential synergy. This is something that druids have in spades while Hunters only 1-2 options. Personally I think this is most apparent in 2v2, hence druids 360% representation pre 2.4.
In 2v2 a Druid has a large list of teams that are all capable of being successful. Yes you might need to define successful but that isn't really relevant here and allow me to totally ignore the L2P factor. A Druid has 4 potential teams available to them in 2v2. This means a druid can play with half the classes in WoW (given that 2 druids has nothing to do with class interaction).
Warrior
Rogue
Warlock
Hunter
Personally I feel all of these teams are able to reach 2k+ easily. I have experience with 3 of them above 2k (all but hunter,yeah I know) These classes all have such a strong synergy with a Druid that the skill required doesn't have to be exceptional to be successful.
When you look at a Hunters potential class synergy you pretty much come up with 1 class. The Druid. Yes Hunters can be team with a Priest for a strong drain team, but they don't have the same level of control provided by a Druid (roots + cyclone enable a hunter to kite easily. Hunters can also team with a Rogue/Lock but there is almost no synergy between the two classes meaning skill becomes a the deciding factor. Also consider that the more Druids/Preists are likely to pick one given the historical success or lack there of, hunters in arena.
All in all Hunters have a very small list of team mates to choose from. And considering that their best partner (a Druid) has 3 other classes to team with all of which enjoy massive success across all arena brackets, basically this exaggerates the problem.
Oh and on the MLG weekend Hunter/Druid/Priest 2nd place in a very closely contested finals series, that imo could have gone either way.
Sorry I rambled so much (and still didn't touch on 90% of things)
Den Jun 17th 2008 11:31PM
wtb edit function(ot I should stop being lazy and proof read things)
Edit:
Also consider that the more Druids/Preists are likely to pick another partner (not a hunter) given the historical success or lack there of, hunters in arena.
dotorion Jun 18th 2008 11:58AM
@dontlooknow:
http://www.amazon.com/Things-That-Never-Were-Entertaining/dp/1932265058/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213804063&sr=1-2
If that doesn't work, look up "Things That Never Were: Fantasies, Lunacies & Entertaining Lies" under "Books".
Unless there's lots of Matthew Rossis out there writing books, that should be it :P
@Matthew: I loved the part about infernals :P
"Oh god .. infernals ! He drops infernals ! Why ? Just go fight the infernals ! Oh god why .."
Also, respect to Zach for being awake at such an inhumane hour (3:30 AM) to talk a bit about posts on this site :P
Sadly I couldn't catch Turpster's ding due to no WoW access. It's good to know he's on Sporeggar though, it's actually one of the servers I considered rerolling on at the launch of TBC but in the end I picked its non-PvP counterpart, The Sha'tar ^^