That's not a simple solution at all. It'd be incredibly complex both from a game design perspective and for players trying to understand dozens of lengthly, multi-clause talent descriptions. A simple solution would be to remove arenas.

For an example, see what they did with CC.

@Zamn

You mean, what they're doing right now? Besides CC, they're also implementing my idea in tiny ways. For instance, when mages in arena deep freeze they stun you. In 3.3, against bosses (stun immune) it does damage.

Those are the changes I refer to. That way, PVPers and PVEers won't fight with each other about "balance." Both ends of the spectrum will be balanced separately.

If I am reading this right, you say there should be a different talent tree for PVP and PVE? Would this be similar to a duel spec? Or would it be if your on a PVP realm you would have a certain spec tree and on a PVE realm a completely different spec tree?

While complex the biggest hurdle I would see is when someone transfers to a different type of realm.

Also this would affect the battle grounds as well, where there is a mix of PVP and PVE realms in it.

Of course this is all if I am reading you right.

No, how it would work is simple. Every talent and ability has a PVP function (how it works against other players in world PVP/in BGs/in Arena) and a PVE function ( how it works everywhere else). Players would choose their preferred tooltip (PVE or PVP) from an interface option, and if they want to see the other one, there'd be a "Hold Shift to see the PVP functionality." flag kinda like Dr. Damage has for healing/damage spells like Holy Nova or Penance.

Yes, it may take a decent amount of time to lock the balance for both down, but gee, we have an expansion coming soon that is going to change the entire face of the game - what better time to ACTUALLY balance the game for EVERYONE?

They've already said that they aren't going to do this. They want spells to behave the same in PvE and PvP, with the only notable exception being Replenishment.

In theory, it would make balancing easier. In practice, how will the players know what their abilities do in PvP while outside of an arena?

It's not so simple.

Avan...yes, they have said that before. They have also gone back on what they've said (see faction transfers and PVP realm transfers). Also see CC (50 second sheep in PVE, 10 seconds in PVP). A neat little trick was what they did with deep freeze. If you didn't read my previous message, basically it does damage vs permanently stun immunes (ie, raid bosses) and otherwise stuns the frozen target (PVP application primarily).

Talk about -not- separating PVP and PVE.

"In practice, how will the players know what their abilities do in PvP while outside of an arena?"

By holding shift? Reading comprehension = pro tier.

And just because Ghostcrawler is too stupid to realize that it's the only way to achieve real balance for both PVE and PVP doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. Hopefully the fact that Pardo is so regretful of Arena is a sign that something like this will happen.

I've always thought the most elegant solution would be to have an extra tab at the side of the Talent Tree pane that switches between PVP and PVE specs. When you switch to that tab you still have access to all your three tress but with the tooltips changed to reflect their PvP values rather than their PvE values. These PvP spec values and talents can be changed by the devs to balance PvP without altering the PvE values. They could even grey out certain talents in either the PvP or PvE trees if they don't want them to be available to the other spec.

This way everyone effictively gets to have an extra "PVP" spec that you automatically get switched into for Arena matches and possibly BGs. I'd personally have it so that when you started your first competitive PVP event (i.e. the first time you queue for Arena or a BG) the game brings up the talent pane with a "You are about to enter a competitive PVP match. Please set up your talents for PvP").

This also has the added bonus of removing a discrepency from the game - where pure classes currently can afford to have a seperate PvP spec with dual-spec and hybrid classes probably need both their specs if they PvE so that they can switch to Heals/Tank/DPS as their raid requires. While you may not mind switching and paying up the gold if you are serious about arena , it would be nice to have a PvP spec for things like WG or BGs where you may not have the time or want to spend the gold switching specs back and forward.

I played Dungeon Fighter (a game where all the abilities are basically talent-tree based) for a while, and that's what they've basically done.

Seperate "rules" for PvE and the PvP Arena. When in the arena, your stats are roughly balanced with your opponent (IE, a level 10 player will have similar health and take similar damage to a level 60 player). Several gameplay mechanics, such as long combos and air-juggling, are reduced, with players becoming "heavy" and falling to the ground after a certain number of hits. All abilities have seperate functions and stats/formulas for the arena, which can be seen at any time by pressing a hotkey (you can toggle between short & long tooltips and arena & pvp tooltips). It seems to work well, without being confusing.

And it allows the developers to balance the classes for PVP content and PVE content seperately, so changes to PVP won't adversely effect PVE, and vice versa.