Arena is Serious Business

[Bolty]

When I see those kinds of screenshots it makes me really wonder why Blizzard didn't impose a time limit on matches. After all they put in the crystals to prevent too much stealth-dorking around. Not sure how a time limit would work - maybe after an hour it becomes a draw and split the points?

A time limit would promote being a jerk.

Take for example a 3v3 match, Priest/Mage/Rogue vs. Warrior/Healer/Healer. The Warrior team stomps the Mage and then cleans up the Priest. The Rogue vanishes.

For the next 30, 60, 90, whatever-time-limit-you-want minutes, the Rogue plays keepaway, hiding from the other team. Sure, they can grab the inviso-seeing crystals and find him, but if he gets caught during the stealth-sight time, he pops Evasion, waits for an opportune moment, and vanishes again, finding corners and niches to hide.

Okay, a really good team will still beat him and/or stop him from vanishing, but I can totally see this happening in lower brackets. The Rogue would know that if he just survives to the time limit, he splits points and avoids a loss for his team.

No thanks. That's seriously not fun. Arenas need to be fun.

Also, time limits would promote serious game-breaking collusion. Want to be on a Gladiator team? No problem! Find another team to get together and engage in point-sharing win-trading by playing game after game to the time limit. No, a time limit game would *have* to give zero points to both sides, even if you found a way to address the hide-and-seek problem.

Also, time limits are tough to balance. At high levels, long matches of 15-20 minutes or more are very common. Warrior/Druid vs Warrior/Druid or Warlock/Druid can easily take half an hour - it's all about playing until someone makes a mistake. Who has the longer concentration span? I remember 3v3 matches near the end of Season 2 that went on and on and on because I was on a Warrior/2 Healer cheese team.

I think Blizzard finally added spelldamage to healer gear for multiple reasons, but one of them may have been to promote more offense in arenas and help to break the healer vs healer stalemates. It's still not enough, though; there are some combos that are unwinnable (Priest vs Druid, for instance). Mana regen is such that most classes can regen the mana needed to stay alive against another healer. Even classes that need to stand still to heal can be tough for the mana burning class (Priest) to kill, although in general the Priest should beat the Shaman and Paladin eventually.

-Bolty