Aratil has posted
the early US standings, and Vaneras has posted some
early EU Arena tournament standings (the
actual tournament doesn't end for a few weeks yet, so it's far from over) on the forums. Strangely enough, while
RMP still rules the day in the EU (three of the top teams there, including the first place team, are made up of a Rogue, Mage, and Priest), Death Knights have taken over the rest of the tournament. The American side has seven out of 10 teams made up of Death Knights, Paladins, and Warlocks, and another team that subs the Warlock for a Hunter. And on the EU side, five out of the ten are DK, Pally, Hunter as well.
Arena players were worried in
the last pro tournament that Death Knights might take over the Arenas and it looks like that might be what's going on here. Of course, there are still weeks left to go, so anything could happen, but as it stands right now, looks like the final winners will probably have plenty of Runeblade wielders in their ranks.
Tags: aratil, arena, blizzard, death-knights, hunter, paladins, vaneras, warlocks
Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, Arena
Mar 18th 2009 at 1:00PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Mpmagi Mar 18th 2009 1:58PM
9/10 have locks.
I guess we're not so underpowered.
Hendrata Mar 18th 2009 1:23PM
Seriously...
we're just hard to play... for me at least, I'm never good enough for arena, but I can imagine that our spells can actually counteract anything that any other class can throw
that's if your brain is fast enough
but mine's not
Kassu Mar 18th 2009 1:09PM
To "Arena players"
If a lot of teams have a DK it doesn't mean that DK's are taking over the arena. It means that a lot of teams have a freaking DK.
If most teams had only DK's and not a single other class, then you could say we are taking over the arena. Until then, please, shut your sorry QQ-ing traps.
Magecandy Mar 18th 2009 1:16PM
I signed up for these comments JUST to tell you that those tears running down your face while you were posting that, they tasted really good.
Kassu Mar 18th 2009 1:17PM
1) I don't do arena
2) I lol'd
=)
DeathPaladin Mar 18th 2009 1:27PM
Indeed. For those of us with any knowledge of statistics, a very simple but powerful phrase comes to mind.
"Correlation does not imply causation."
Many people start with a pre-conceived notion that Death Knights are completely and utterly out of balance with the other classes, and so would use that statistic to say, "70% of the top 3v3 arena teams in the US have Death Knights!" They conveniently ignore that for every Death Knight, there is a (very likely Holy) Paladin standing behind them. And apparently for most of those Paladins, there's a Warlock or Hunter standing behind them.
If someone wishes to demonstrate that a certain class is overpowered, Arena is not a good place to do it. At most, one could demonstrate that certain combinations of classes can be potentially overpowered, due to synergy between their abilities. But overpowered combos are no reason to call for nerfs, particularly since I don't hear any griping about Rogue/Mage/Priest being one of the top combinations.
For those who believe a class should be nerfed, the burden of proof lies with them to demonstrate that the class is overpowered.
MazokuRanma Mar 18th 2009 1:56PM
My 'burden of proof' would be the fact that with my level 80 mage, shaman, or priest I do average in PvP. I can kill stuff, and I get killed a lot. On my level 80 DK, I can faceroll roflpwn people and practically never die. It's hard to believe I'm just that much better at playing a DK than the other 3 classes, especially since I've been playing the mage and shaman since vanilla and the priest since BC.
pwkalt1 Mar 18th 2009 1:59PM
As someone who has some knoweledge of statistics, I find your assertion that people think of that quote due to their background in statistics to be flawed - just because there is a high correlation between people who had that come to mind and people who have backgrounds in statistics does not mean that the background in statistics caused them to think it.
^.^
DeathPaladin Mar 18th 2009 2:13PM
Perhaps, pwkalt, but I would contend that people with a background in statistics who are unfamiliar with the idea of differentiating correlation and causation are outliers.
I shall need to conduct a study with a larger sample size before I can say whether people who are familiar with the difference between correlation and causation but do not have knowledge of statistics are a statistically significant group.
Gnosh Mar 18th 2009 2:21PM
"Many people start with a pre-conceived notion that Death Knights are completely and utterly out of balance with the other classes"
This list of people includes Blizzard's dev team.
What now?
Rob Mar 18th 2009 3:26PM
I do have a pretty good background in stats, and there is something to be said for the huge population of arena teams, and the top 10 are dominated by paladins and DKs. Of course the truth is we don't know how many of these teams have DKs, we just know the top ones.
However, if we infer from realm stats, 10-20% of characters are DKs (I guess that, its probably pretty close), yet 80% of the top teams have DKs. That says that DK arena representation are a strong deviation from average, which in turn suggests that DKs may be better at arena than other classes.
Personally, i don't do arena, so i think that's fine. I also know that best comps change alot and currently the DK/paly/lock comp is apparently quite popular.
Further, my understanding of the rationale behind class balance is that each class has a strong suit, that's just a given.
For example, hunters are great soloists, decent dps in raid settings (but no buffs), decent in BGs, pretty bad in arena (at least 2v2), whereas druids are okay soloists, great for raids/groups (buffs, versitility), okay in BGs, and resto was good for arena, not so much now.
As long as DKs are the best class at everything i'm fine with them being awesome in arena.
Vati Mar 18th 2009 5:43PM
7k obliterates are not op
Ilnara Mar 18th 2009 5:46PM
I'd actually say the trend is pretty accurate when you consider that all but 3 of the top 10 are DK / Pally / Warlock teams and the only classes represented outside of those 3 are Hunter (2) Shaman (2) and mage (1).
Yeah, real balanced..
laff.
Kassu Mar 18th 2009 7:35PM
I liek it how you downvoted me as if I were yelling "first" without grasping my point...
If you read carefully, you might see that I didn't say the word "Overpowered". What I meant was that it's stupid and wrong as shit to say that DK's are taking over the arena because 80% of teams have one. If 80% of arena were just and only DKs, then we could say that claim is true. But it isnt.
Tartarus Mar 18th 2009 8:12PM
Here's one piece of evidence DKs are op :
http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/World-of-Ming/Exit-PHD-Enter-Shadow-Cleave
Scroll down and look at damage done record. If we are to believe the author, that amount of damage is consistent through many fights against DKs as well.
Para Mar 19th 2009 2:20PM
Whoa so many pallies and dks in denial right now it would seem. Yes both of your classes are seriously overpowered and you will soon (hopefully) be brought back into line through nerfs to survivability, yes i am mainly talking about you mr dk that have a solution to any dps class in the game atm.
How can you seriously try and argue that dks arent overpowered? The reason they have such a high representation is because there is absolutely no way to counter them without taking down their team first...which i might also point out is a hell of a lot faster than trying to kill a dk (especially blood)
People dont hate dks because they are a new class that nobody has figured out a way to counter yet, we hate them because their playstyle is just "pull player to self - whack- chain- whack - silence healer - win". Its just a pure and simple "im going to focus 1 person untill they die" with no other strategy involved and the worst part is that it works, facerolling dks that shouldnt get higher than 1500 with any other class get a free pass to 2000+ when paired with a good healer.
Yes holy pallies seem pretty strong right now but thats only because matches are so focused on bursting the opponent into the ground as fast as possible and they have ways of countering that.
Finally yes all dps classes have too much burst in arenas atm which means other than pallies healers cant keep up with the damage being dished out.
Oriflame Mar 18th 2009 1:15PM
Yeah, I like how the intrepretation of 7/10 teams having the same comp is that only one class in that comp is OP. I think DKs are a game changer and people have to learn how to beat them and that's it.
Also - like the guy at top said - where is the QQ that 'locks need a PVP nerf? I find 'locks way harder to kill than DKs (as a WG playing Holy Pally) I get nuked before I can run back from the first fear. DKs? Not as hard.
whowhatme Mar 18th 2009 1:18PM
why don't u just pop bubble like u always do?
DeathPaladin Mar 18th 2009 1:31PM
"why don't u just pop bubble like u always do?"
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess the answer is, "Because it's on cooldown."
Posi Mar 18th 2009 2:34PM
Wow.... Locks have been QQ'ing for months that ever since TLK came out they are underpowered and have no survivability. They even had me believing them. Now that I see the top teams makeup, Locks need to just STFU.