Details about patch 2.3 released

[Arnulf]

Agreed. They've put little thought into this. Rewards should be percentage-based, not ratings-based. e.g. if you're in the top X% of the teams in your battlegroup, you can buy shoulders. But that's harder to code.

[...]

They already had e-peen measurements - the player titles Rival (top 10%), Duelist (top 3%), Gladiator (top 0.5%). Putting this in will just hurt the arena system.

-Bolty

(emphasis by me)

I don't think so. You've proven yourself wrong.

[Quark]

Hey Bolty:

Does this mean you'll stop nagging?

[oldmandennis]

Season 3 is tier 6 equivalent gear and there are plenty of servers where no-one has access to all of tier 6. So I don't see the inability to get all five pieces of Season 3 is as that big a deal. An 1849 rating won't quite get you access to the best gear in the game but it beats Heroic drops by a mile.

There is a two fold problem with this - with those two pieces missing, a 1800 team will quickly pick up all their available gear. Teams that PvP to PvE trying to get weapons will drop out. This is absolutely going to reduce participation in arenas.

[Warlock]

There is a two fold problem with this - with those two pieces missing, a 1800 team will quickly pick up all their available gear. Teams that PvP to PvE trying to get weapons will drop out. This is absolutely going to reduce participation in arenas.

People generally stop doing content once it has nothing more for them (heck, it's why I quit). "Best gear in the game" still shouldn't be available to everyone or it won't feel special to those that obtain it.

[mandydax]

I know what you mean our kill of him horde side with a druid as MT was really just a fluke! ZOMG need fear ward!!!111!!!one!!!!1!!! :)
OK in seriousness we did bring in my shaman alt so we could have a tremor totem and I respeced him resto instead of his normal enhancement so we could have a bit more healing power, but it was just as simple with a druid as it was with warrior on that fight. So I got a nice chuckle from your sarcasm too. Sure fear ward makes some of these fights easier, especially for a druid and pally tanks but we've had pallies and druids tank nightbane just fine. I can't actually think of another boss we've dealt with in raids that fears though. I think the biggest hit would be on learning runs, no fear ward does make having a pally or druid MT a learning run add another layer of complexity to the learning if there is fear involved. But to read forums about it, the sky is falling!
Of course I get great pleasure in bringing up the "fear will not play a major roll in the expansion" whenever I can. :)

I remember that night, and there was talk of how it was "impossible" without a warrior tank, and we took him down and I was all confused about the whole "impossible" thing. :blink:

[oldmandennis]

People generally stop doing content once it has nothing more for them (heck, it's why I quit). "Best gear in the game" still shouldn't be available to everyone or it won't feel special to those that obtain it.

Well, they have sort of painted themselves into a corner on this one. The season has gone on long enough that even the mediocre teams (myself included) are getting most of the S2 rewards they want. The good/great teams have been done for a while. This is not a good situation, and means they should probably rev the gear.

The problem with that is that they aren't ready to rev the PvE gear, and will not be for some time (5-6 months is my guess). S3 gear, in order to be a meaningful upgrade to S2, will have to be close to Illadin levels. In order not to trivialize T6, they have to put a cap on the weapons. But effectivly this makes the coolest part of S3 unavailable for ~95% of people, which basically puts them back in the "I don't need anything from arenas, so why bother" crowd.

I think a two tier solution is viable in the long term, its just that it will cut out a huge swath of people who are tired of S2, but don't have the skill for the S3 weapons.

[Artega]

I think a two tier solution is viable in the long term, its just that it will cut out a huge swath of people who are tired of S2, but don't have the skill for the S3 weapons.

I don't see this as a bad thing. I think that if you want the PvP gear, you should be good in order to earn it. Yeah, having less crappy PvE teams that are just there for easymode epics will make it more difficult to earn them, but again, that's not a bad thing.

Personally, I'd prefer that you be required to maintain the rating in order to continue using the items, but that might be a little unfair given the differences in battlegroup compositions. Still, I think it's ludicrous that people are getting PvP weapons (and sometimes the armor, too) for PvE uses. Obviously it's fine that one is viable in the other (you see Retrinoobs and Warriors running around with Gorehowl all the time), but PvP'ing to PvE has always been a concept I've despised.

[Treesh]

Hey Bolty:

Does this mean you'll stop nagging?

About darned time.

Also, having buffs not take mana before battlegrounds and for a few seconds after ressing may have me take my priest back into BGs. It was just so aggravating, ending up dead, then having to spend half of my damned mana just to get me back up to "normal" on my priest when I could just get up and go on my other characters.

[Trien]

I don't see this as a bad thing. I think that if you want the PvP gear, you should be good in order to earn it. Yeah, having less crappy PvE teams that are just there for easymode epics will make it more difficult to earn them, but again, that's not a bad thing.

Personally, I'd prefer that you be required to maintain the rating in order to continue using the items, but that might be a little unfair given the differences in battlegroup compositions. Still, I think it's ludicrous that people are getting PvP weapons (and sometimes the armor, too) for PvE uses. Obviously it's fine that one is viable in the other (you see Retrinoobs and Warriors running around with Gorehowl all the time), but PvP'ing to PvE has always been a concept I've despised.

Not sure from the wording which stance you're taking on PvP'ing to PvE... disliking that people are able PvP to improve their PvE capability, or that people have to PvP to improve their PvE capability?

The latter is something that has irked me for a long, long time. Given that I enjoyed playing the PvP and PvE games it wasn't a real annoyance for as it would be for some others, but the whole concept still rankled. Pre-BC, what did a bear tank have to do? Get AB and WSG rep to exalted. Oh, and if you wanted to play with cat at all, get AV to exalted as well. Granted, itemization for off-specs was horrendous pre-BC, to begin with.

And what do I find in BC? A good cat weapon comes from the arena, and a number of choice tanking armour pieces are honor point purchase items.

[Monkey]

I don't see this as a bad thing. I think that if you want the PvP gear, you should be good in order to earn it. Yeah, having less crappy PvE teams that are just there for easymode epics will make it more difficult to earn them, but again, that's not a bad thing.

Personally, I'd prefer that you be required to maintain the rating in order to continue using the items, but that might be a little unfair given the differences in battlegroup compositions. Still, I think it's ludicrous that people are getting PvP weapons (and sometimes the armor, too) for PvE uses. Obviously it's fine that one is viable in the other (you see Retrinoobs and Warriors running around with Gorehowl all the time), but PvP'ing to PvE has always been a concept I've despised.

There's always going to be an imbalance between the rate of gear production between PvE and PvP. Having spent too many hours fighting against grossly overpowered raid gear in battlegrounds, I prefer the bias on the PvP side. At least this way, when someone in S2 pwns me, I know I deserved it;).

Regarding the change itself, sure, this will drive a lot of low-skilled teams out of Arena play. But shoulders are one of the cheapest things to buy: A team to running at 1800 will still be able to compete for 9 weeks before they're out of Season 3 armor to purchase. A team running at 1900 will have 12 weeks, or almost an entire season.

Speaking in purely qualitative (and subjective) terms, the greater effect is that having fewer teams will depress ratings across all teams. With fewer teams cooking along between 2000 and 2500, the high end won't move ahead as quickly on the gear curve, especially at the start of Season 3 when rating are reset. This could make it easier to beat some of those high-end teams.

[Concillian]

About darned time.

Also, having buffs not take mana before battlegrounds and for a few seconds after ressing may have me take my priest back into BGs. It was just so aggravating, ending up dead, then having to spend half of my damned mana just to get me back up to "normal" on my priest when I could just get up and go on my other characters.

5 seconds though is not enough time to cast:
Fort
Spirit
Shadow prot
inner fire
Touch of weakness / fear ward / insert racial here

Still just fort is enough though. But this means I'm going to have to find a hotkey for fort / spirit / shadow prot so I can cast them ASAP after ressing.

[Lissa]

5 seconds though is not enough time to cast:
Fort
Spirit
Shadow prot
inner fire
Touch of weakness / fear ward / insert racial here

Still just fort is enough though. But this means I'm going to have to find a hotkey for fort / spirit / shadow prot so I can cast them ASAP after ressing.

/cast sequence power word: fortitude; divine spirit; shadow protection;

done.

[oldmandennis]

Go to the main page for a cartoon about voice chat - it's good for a quick giggle. I can't figure out how to paste a flash image here.

A team to running at 1800 will still be able to compete for 9 weeks before they're out of Season 3 armor to purchase. A team running at 1900 will have 12 weeks, or almost an entire season.

With fewer teams cooking along between 2000 and 2500, the high end won't move ahead as quickly on the gear curve, especially at the start of Season 3 when rating are reset. This could make it easier to beat some of those high-end teams.

Well, this season is going to go about 5 months. The next season will be tied to Sunwell probably, so it might go even longer.

Gear isn't a very big determinant in pvp at that level. Very high performing teams took quite a while to upgrade to veteran's gear, for example. Another example is Inactive, who is on a team that consistently competes for #1 in bloodlust, who still uses Deep Thunder because he can't get primals.

But this means I'm going to have to find a hotkey for fort / spirit / shadow prot so I can cast them ASAP after ressing.

Just mouse over it and alt click. You have time to move the mouse while you wait for res.

[Warlock]

Few more 2.3 changes announced. -threat to Warriors with Improved Beserker Stance, unspecified improvements to Feral weapons and that season three will have a pure Feral set are the ones I noticed.

Not sure why the Feral PVP set gets the pure option (Feral PVP includes a lot of shifting and casting, Feral PVE can do a whole instance without ever hitting shapeshift) but hey, it's a start.

[Artega]

Looks to me as though Inactive got his skillherald after all:)

Amazed that he can do so well with a Holy/Prot pally as his partner.

[oldmandennis]

About time. He's been at or near the top of arenas since they were released, and just got that made in the past week or two.