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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsArena Ratings system and requirements to be changed
by Zach Yonzon 
May 7th 2009 at 11:00AM
I mentioned off-hand in last weekend's WRUP that Blizzard borked the system again, and it turns out they did -- Crygil recently announced on the forums that they are working on an in-game update that should improve the ratings system of the 3v3 and 5v5 brackets to allow players in those brackets to achieve ratings similar to what can be gained in 2v2. They are also pushing the requirement of the iLevel 239 Furious Gladiator weapons from 2200 to 2350 to prevent more mayhem because, well, it's kind of too late to take back all those iLevel 232 weapons running around now, isn't it? The good news is that Blizzard is properly rewarding the other brackets after three seasons of having 2v2 advance faster and farther in ratings. The Arena Ratings system has undergone several iterations since it was introduced so you'd have thought Blizzard fixed it somewhere along the road. Apparently they didn't.
Crygil also points out that for Season 7, Blizzard plans to revert the requirements for the highest rated Arena weapons back to 2200 but ensure that the difficulty required to get those ratings are "closer to what is intended". This means that Season 6 is just about the best season to get into Arenas because ratings come rather easily. You know how Blizzard keeps on nerfing Ulduar so more people can experience it? This is the time to try out Arenas because the new progressive ratings system feels good. Just don't get used to it too much because Blizzard is going to 'tweak' the system again for Season 7.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Sorano May 7th 2009 11:47AM
Same here. So far in Wrath I've only stepped into a bg once or twice to check out Strands of the Ancients. I've never even stepped into a ranked Arena Match. To me, WoW as always been a mostly cooperative game and not a competitive one.
It's probably the best coop game I will ever play. ; )
Of course I'm always sceptical when classes changes are made for the sake of tuning the PvP side of the game, but I've rarely seen or noticed PvP changes that impact my PvE gameplay negatively.
redielin May 7th 2009 12:06PM
1800+ is relatively easy to get in 2s....
I guess I must just suck. 900 resil atm, played through s3, s4, and s5 as disc priest. Never broke 1650 in 2s.
in s3 and s4, we got raped by rogues, warriors, and mage/rogue teams.
in s5 we got raped by rogue/mage, and by DK/Pally later on.
Now that s6 has rolled around and priests are doing well, I'm not even playing this game anymore...
Avrus May 7th 2009 12:19PM
Yeah I have to agree with this, I haven't found Arenas to be 'easy' in 2v2. My partner and I play 15 - 20 arenas a night and have been doing so for almost 2 weeks and still have yet to break a thousand.
Hakker May 7th 2009 12:22PM
Who's fault is that? Disc priests are insanely OP in arenas right now. Find yourself a rogue and faceroll yourself to 2k.
Rob May 7th 2009 1:02PM
Same hear, my buddy and i are pretty good PVEers, but never got about 1500 (hunter/druid). It seems there are several glaring issues for arena.
1) Obviously, it should be a separate client/server platform in total (ie a separate game, executable, and code base). this allows the devs to tweak the classes separately. No more would you have spell X doing A in PVE and B in PVP and trying to come up with mechanics to make it so that the item is useful in both cases.
2) Since they really want to separate arena and PVE so much, splitting the code would satisfy both. If they dont have enough forseeable revenue from arena, I would say that's indicative that WoW people are not really interested in arena.
3) The treadmill is broken. In PVE you go from quest gear, dungeon gear, heroic gear, and raid gear, in that order. In BGs only a handful of items are available, and the transitino should be starter set -> battleground set -> arena set. Running arena should not be a prereq to get BG gear.
4) If you set into the arena and get blown away because of crappy gear and a crappy comp, maybe its your fault but its not something you can change easily. Some classes just suck at arena, and they keep changing this all the freaking time. In s2/s3, druids were king, now they are pretty bad. I mean, what are you going to do, reroll another toon and powerlevel to 80 so you wont suck at arena? Is that realistic for anyone who has any sort of life?
5) The treadmill is broken part 2. In PVE you can get away with being undergeared for the encounter providing you are skilled, have someone who is better geared, or have consumables to offset the gear issue.
In arena, you set into the arena with your bad gear and your bad comp, and are probably inexperienced to boot. You lose, alot. You have a 1000 rating. You can get no gear, no loot, no nothing. You can switch teams but that doesn't help much. Not many who are totally geared are going to want to partner with someone who isn't geared. The teams that started early and are at the top are going to remain on the top, and there isn't much you can do, except reroll, get a good comp, and practice hard, and in 2-3 months get good enough gear to start winning more than you are losing.
Gear is such a huge issue that classes who have no business beating others in duals can get totally destroy people who are undergeared. For example, i have no PVP gear. I only have a small chance of criting anyone in PVP gear thanks to resiliance. My dps versus a geared person is much lower than it would be against a target dummy. The geared person has no such problem, and even has better dps than they would normally. The inbalance is two-way.
Anyway TL;DR arena is pretty broken, but i have no qualms against arena people, its just not how i want to spend my time due to it being an extremely unfair system.
Theoz May 7th 2009 2:53PM
We're good PVEers you say. Anyone in this game can step into Naxx in blues with a pug and succeed. You can't say the same about arena pvp. It takes a modicum of experience/skill/intelligence to play. Spend a little time learning your class and the arena game generally. If you're playing hunter/druid you'll see at least 1500 soon even though it's not a top comp as it was in s3 and s4.
The gear argument from people that don't like arenas or don't invest the time to learn is getting old quickly. Never has gear been easier to get. Examples: WG mark gear on par with deadly gear stats; Deadly gear easily obtainable from the honor system; inflated arena ratings and reduced requirements where most of the Furious gear is available even if you're not a top tier player. People really need to stop blaming arena losses on 500 stam, 100 int, 0.5% crit, 40 res and whatever else the small upgrade from deadly to furious set pieces provide. Most everyone is still using weapons from easily puggable instances even at high ratings.
Blacksabre May 7th 2009 1:04PM
:yawn:
Another season, more resilience, more gear, more tweaks, more everything...arena rewards sound like a sale at WalMart...next they'll have "Buy one, get one free!"
It used to be that PvE epics wore the tag "welfare"...but the situation has truly reversed itself. Now arena gear is truly a social service function. Eventually I suspect you'll get a piece of gear simply for competing in arenas...the only way to keep interest in arenas up.
Thank god for arenas...otherwise, we'd have nothing to laugh at, in Wow.
Vandar May 7th 2009 1:10PM
I'm not an Arena fan either. Since arena makes up such a small percentage of the player base, arena pvp should be its own separate game so any class changes or nerfs don't spill over into PvE content and ruin the game for everyone else.
flythebike May 7th 2009 2:21PM
I really enjoy arena. I've taken the time to understand it, and now that I have some kind of decent ability, I'm lucky enough to have been playing almost all of season five, and parts of seasons 3 and 4 with the same Disc Priest. Combining a reasonable level of skill, good gear, decent communication, and a strong comp (disc/ret), and we mostly find arena to be lots of fun.
I contend that most of the whining about arena is by players who simply don't invest the time necessary to understand the game and or gear up for it. Having pugged Naxx a lot in early WotLK I saw how quickly many people give up in PvE, and PvP is no different. Arena could probably be improved, but much of the problem is simply intrinsic to players that expect easy success, and quit very quickly when they don't achieve it.
I come from a sporting background where it took me many years to reach a high level of competition, I know great athletes are rarely simply born, practice and training is necessary for success.
Mayhew May 7th 2009 2:32PM
^^ This.
THANK YOU for being a voice of reason amidst a sea of QQ. :)
Personally, I think that this is possibly the best arena season so far, with a huge amount of gear available through a variety of different means, lots of room for gear progression without hitting a rating requirements wall (unlike Season 5), and a rating system that actually *works*. I'm not very good at arenas yet, and I'm not playing any sort of powerhouse comp, but I'm having more fun in arenas now than ever before.
Props to Blizzard for finally getting it right, IMO.
Heremod May 7th 2009 2:23PM
My problem remains the complete unavailability of arena weapons to most players.
1500 rating is somewhere around top 50% of players. 1850, is what, 20-30% of players?
What percentage of people who raid Naxx get naxx weapons? I'ts above 30% . . .
So easy as it is, the point is, Naxx 25 remains mandatory for arenas. I keep wondering if I should try to convince my raid leader my pvp character is my new pve main . . . easier way to get arena gear too. My pve main had full hateful long before my pvp main. . .
Not of course furious weapons, those should be reserved for high ratings . . . but I think they should reneg on the whole no hateful/no deadly weapons for the majority of all arena players policy.
Kryxx May 7th 2009 5:12PM
I agree. The previous season's weapons should be available in the current season. I can buy every single piece of deadly gear, at moderately low ratings... but why not the weapons? Some classes are HIGHLY dependent on their weapons (ie. rogues). Heroic or epic crafted weapons just don't cut the mustard.
I currently use two Sinister Revenges, but I can still feel the pain of those people who don't want to have to raid for decent pvp weapons. Especially since I stopped raiding in 3.1 :)
Seraph May 7th 2009 2:58PM
that is arguably the most horrifying WoW picture I've seen in awhile.
xicarus May 7th 2009 3:54PM
not interested thanks. arena is such a drag on this game, specifically PVE. Arenas should be removed, or the very least, have their own realms in which classes could be specifically tuned for PVP without it being a massive pain on PVE.
Philotaur May 7th 2009 4:49PM
So...what would be so terribly wrong with removing arenas from standard WoW and just having Tournament servers?
This way, the few hundred people who care about arena can bash their heads against each other without having to utterly crush undergeared underskilled competiton....
Oh wait...maybe that's why indeed.
Kryxx May 7th 2009 5:15PM
"Few hundred people"? LoL!
I love when people make ridiculous claims about things they know nothing about. ;)
Andre May 7th 2009 7:23PM
Arena gear should be WAY better than pve gear, why not reward the more skilled players?
Rex May 8th 2009 3:57AM
Why cant you just relax and play the "game"... I got nice picture in my head... Cleared naxx... killed KT, so undead wont bother no one again until I have to deal with Arthas...
I enter BG every day (lots of them) to make sure I provide resources Alliance.
I also enter arena every day, go to WG... I do this to to clear world of green skin scum (sry hordies;) Gear I collect along the way is something to help me in my mission, doesnt matter how I got it, as long as it serves to master (me).
I play retri paladin love roleplay and beeing stated as "defender of alliance". I played same retri paladin in TBC (my only char) and never complained how broken they are or how locks, mages, druids... are crazy OP and unkillable...
Most of ppl I meet today act (or they are) little kidds... I really enjoy WoW as it is. Got nice story nice PvE content (never been big fan of it) and nice PvP. Balancing classes is everyday job for blizz and you should give them credit for making this game as it is instead of spitting on every move they make.
Sry for bad English and please try to enjoy the game instead of crying all day.
Lemons May 9th 2009 3:20AM
Personally this is my favorite season in a long time. I just got the "Just the Two of Us: 1750" achieve the other day. That made me very happy.
The ratings come easy... and I feel as though I actually have a shot in this season. In S5 it was "run out there and for gods sake hope there's not a DK on the other team!" now DKs got nerfed and while they're still major contenders they're not autowin. I have high hopes for the rest of the season.
Esk May 11th 2009 7:52AM
I hope the system stay as it is, and it's awesome.
For the 'noobs', at 1850 you obtain some very nice weapons.
For the 'pros', at 2200 you have MORE and even more nice weapons.
S6 introduces 2 tiers of weapons, obtainable depending on arena skill. The average player enjoying arenas might be able to get the 1850 weapons (still, consider 1600 rating is considered 30% of the top arena players), so 1850 rating is not for everyone.
The most skilled arena players have their own fun with the 2200 really hard to obtain weapons, with the rest of the people don't have access to.
That way, everyone is satisfied.
And tbh, it's a shame deadly gladiator weapons were removed. Since they were crap now (Naxx25 quality), and we're now going in Ulduar, I see no reason why players can't get them anymore.
Keep in mind that, for PvE, the deadly gladiator weapons were not as good as the Naxx25 ones, since they lacked a stat which was replaced with resilience.