Originally Posted by Methuselah
Three major issues have always been detrimental to the popularity and status of arenas in my opinion:
1) The latest season gear has been too widely available and has had no real gear progression ladder except the weapons and shoulders lately. Anyone can grind a base gear set (season one now) which is the way it has to be to provide an entry ticket. Stacking up 5k points and 75k honor one season and instantly get a multitude of items in the next one is not. Therefore the new rating requirements are definately in the right direction. They help to separate PvE and PvP achievements more clearly and it gives a better progression line for dedicated arena players.
=> Being solved
2) Boosting and point selling has always been an issue. Seen anyone with S3 shoulders wondering if they actually made it there on their own? Probably. And how fun is it to work up your rating one day only to be raped multiple times by a semi-professional full S3 team that has decided to rate up another new team? Not very fun without a matching algorithm taking gear level into account. Hopefully the new requirements for earning rating will help the issue.
=> Being solved maybe
3) Class imbalances and the importance of certain setups over skill are an issue and probably the single most important entry barrier for players that want to enter arena play. This is most prevalent in 2v2 where for instance resto druids, rogues and warriors have had an easier time gaining rating and therefore gear than several other classes. This situation has led many to skip 2v2 in favour of 3v3 and 5v5 where the fights are more dynamic and therefore less reliant on pure setup. Blizzard even admits they do not have the ambition nor see the possibility to fully balance 2v2 and suggests the other brackets as possibilities. However, this does not resolve the issue at all since 2v2 players will bring their high-end gear into the other brackets as well, which means class imbalances in one bracket will actually spill over into another. If 2v2 arenas can not be better balanced they should be shut down in favour of another bracket.
=> Unresolved
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For this specific reason PR requirements should be adjusted based on bracket. For example shoulders could be 2PR 2.2K, 3PR2k, 5PR1,850 (just example numbers). This would achieve two things, 1) compensate for class balance, paladins and mages are very weak in 2's, but very strong in 5's, reverse for druids and warlocks, and 2) compensate for the difficulty of forming/maintaining a 5's team vs a 2's team. Most people I know 2's for rating and 5's for points, that should not exist.