Especially since the 4-piece bonuses vary so wildly in use and effectiveness. Let's hope they don't change _all_ of them into some generic, not really useful, bonus, like they did with the old dungeon 1/2 sets pre-TBC (where rogues had, ironically yet again, one of the most useful set bonuses).

Sooooo, do you think all this extra lovely threat you would be making from the devastate change be enough to lose 5% threat now and then from a certain ability and still reliably hold agro?

Intentional on the PoM (not sure about LB, I'm not familiar with that spells mechanics). The spell gives the person healed the aggro intentionally, which incidentally causes the spell to consider the player being healed the caster. Logically following that, it takes their rate of spell crit into account. Which, not surprisingly, is why you see a lot of priest thinking that PoM can't crit or operates on thier own (usually low) crit rates- It's going to be pretty darn rare to see it crit on a warrior/rogue given their notable lack of int and spell crit... and they just happen to be the subset of the raid that's usually clumped up and taking damage well enough to receive PoMs. If the majority of casts were on people loaded up on spell crit, it'd probably be much more common knowledge. =D

I have a few friends (one rogue in particular) who always have used Arena as a means purely to get weapons for PVE progression. Like you, he hates the rating change. And I love it. Because I always felt he was able to abuse the Arena system for massive weapons upgrade. I.e. new season pops up, and two new daggers.

But now this rating requirement puts the weapons scarcity in line with Raiding. High end PVPers have access to the same weapons (and on same time frame) as high end raiders.

Will this mean that some former casual PVPers will stop playing. Yes probably. But when the next season rolls around, do you have your 5k arena pts ready to pick up the season 3 weapons? This will be a transition season for everyone to get used to the change, and casual pvpers will just have to wait for the next season to get their weapon. I.e. the equivalent of the casual raiders getting upgrades when content goes on easy mode farm status.

As has already been demonstrated through use of the armoury, this "Thou must have a set rating for weapons and shoulders" decision from Blizzard will mean that a lot of the best PVP'rs in some battlegroups will not be entitled to these simply because of the battlegroup they're in.

All I see from from these changes is that Blizzard have indeed managed to equalise raiding and pvp progression, though only in the sense that they've set the bar far to high in both. I actualy enjoyed getting my ex main rogue a nice sword. The upcoming change just depresses me.

I understand that depression, but nothing in the system is preventing you from getting/using the S2 swords currently, or when Season 3 finishes, picking up the S3 weapons. It is only a matter of timing. S2 weapons are still very good, and combined with skill will still let you beat any body with S3 weapons.

I will give you that ratings thresholds may be high, especially regarding the 2k rating for shoulders in certain battlegroups, but the 1850 doesn't seem that bad, especially in 2v2 and 3v3 brackets.

I would interpret the Blue's statement that Devastate will be as no less threat per application than sunder armor, apply sunder armor stacks, and do extra damage.

They may make it more threat than it was before, but I do not think it will be the result of simple addition.

I made a simple graph to show the effects of chain casting PS on a tank generating 1000 TPS. Using PS situationally will be perfectly acceptable, but it's feasible to use it as a method of damage reduction simply for the purpose of damage reduction. Link here: http://elitistjerks.com/488972-post42.html

Using Pain Suppression (PS) multiple times over a fight is more powerful than a static 5% threat reduction. This is because casting PS later on in the fight reduces all your previously generated threat. If you cast multiple times, you are multiplying a % threat reduction over and over.

As perhaps the most ardent opponent here of the changes in the "Arena Weapons" thread, I simply don't agree people are going to drop out of the system with the requirements.

First of all, while I doubt I'll play on any 1850 teams, I doubt a 6-10 week gap from when I would've gotten S2 weapons (imagining the system was in place for S2) vs. getting them at the start of S3 is a catastrophe. It's sort of a much bigger question for WotLK, but even then I'll no better and have S1 wepons the day S2 starts instead of well into S2.

The reason why this change remains a bad one is because it ensures that the better terms are also better geared for the entirety of the season. And while everyone who is sure that makes no difference is entitled to their opinion, they're still not getting it. To win in arena you need to get the other guy to 0hp. Every tiny bit of AP, Stam, DPS, etc. helps you do that. The better teams start winning early in the season, get the better gear faster and the lesser team have less and less chance to catch them.

Now fortunately, gear takes 2-3 weeks worth of points so there are pockets of teams that are equivalently geared despite having slightly different ratings. And I know for a fact that skill, the players particular attitudes that day, and 1000 other things account for movings in the ratings.

But then there are those darned weapons. And especially for the hunters and melee classes where the weapons' stats contribute more to total damage than for casters (spell damage is spell damage as has been discussed over and over; it can come from any slot). The enchancement shaman with them is going to output more dps facing his target than the enchancement shaman without them.

And since pushing yourself over the 1850 threshold in a given week while also qualifying that week while also having points to buy the weapons that week while also keeping your team above 1850 that week will require beating 1850+ teams, I think you will find a semi-permantent stratification once the season "forms" between being above it and being below it. Perhaps you already have that now and Blizzard knows that. But making it "official policy" is the kind of thing that will discourage at least some people to give up and stop playing. And it's just bad to come out and say "you guys are better and we intend to keep it that way." They already were accumulating all the new gear faster and had a gear advantage until the season was 65-80% complete vs. teams say in the 1650-1850 band. Now that advantage is promised through season's end. This really achieves nothing useful.

Second of all, if they really are just about making the stuff scarce and "unifying" PVE and PVP progression, well they are. In fact, if they had say so instead of letting Drysc's condescending post about "how crappy teams are crappy and weapons won't change that" substitute for the reasoning many of you seem to now accept as why this is fair (and I don't really disagree), I'd be a lot less annoyed. But it seems that somehow this was done to ensure the top faces even less competition from below.

Now in the meantime, Blizzard has improved PVE weapon drop rates (3 items instead of 2 off non-tokenized bosses means more weapons will drop in aggregate) and also set in place a system that Rintrah outlines above: A few specific items will come to you somewhat later. 'Dear Blizzard, keep this system in place going forward or return to the old system... Don't go making this worse. Thanks, Mideci.

I have no intention of quitting arena play. It's fun as heck and it gives me a path to at least some gear that's useful in PVE. With this unusual transition season I'll be likely getting armor that might give me a chance to do a bit better in arena to boot. I look forward to best understanding how to game the system for the next expansion.

As for the "my battlegroup is tougher than yours" stuff, I don't buy it. Yeah, 2000 may be a problem for you and so I confess you won't get shoulders that some onter BG would have let you achieve. But I believe that 1850 is a lot closer among battlegroups in where the %age to the left of it under the bell curve falls than 2000 is. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that 1850 is within a couple points of xx% in all the battlegroups and that's why it was chosen.

I think the idea of stratification at the 1850 rating is quite overreacting. If you look at warriors and assume 2000 AP buffed, the improvement from S1 and S2 2H weapons is 3.2% weapon damage and an increased top-end of 36. It's nice, but a very small factor in the large scheme of things.

Its not about making it easier for the top tier teams to win.

Its a ploy to return some of the "cool" factor to our gear. PreBC, you could identify raiders by their gear. You saw T2 and knew instantly "that guy has done some raiding". Those further along in progression (pve or pvp) sported shiny purples. I envied these players.

In BC, every schmuck goes out and buys the shoulders first. In BC, the clamored-for "epics" are easily attainable. The emotional value of the items is gone. Its just another purple, that everyone else has. The only discernible difference is a slight hue change on the 3d models.

In summary, I support this decision. There needs to be some distinction between the haves and the have-nots. Not everyone can obtain T5/T6 shoulders, why should they walk around looking like they can? Why should they dilute the value of items others worked hard to obtain?

I agree that the distinctiveness of the sets was a big draw to them at level 60, and they should bring that back. But they should do so by making the PvP and PvE sets look different, or at least have distinct colors from each other. Or making the shoulders overly expensive so only people with excess points will buy them. Anyone with a team that's 2000+ would have no problem paying 3000 arena points for shoulders. But this new rating system where the ease of getting gear is affected by your class choice and what battlegroup you've stumbled into looks overly complicated and arbitrary to me.

And everyone remembers back to when 2.0 was launched, and you saw new 60s in complete greens and the signature flaming Warlord/General's Shoulders.

I think Blizzard is trying to move forward. Are you?

This just simply isn't true. The shoulders are the second cheapest item, because the stats aren't great compared to the other items. I think I'll be above the weapon rating requirement, but possibly not above the 2000 mark to get the shoulders. Even if I was on a 2k+ team, I wouldn't buy the shoulders for a hugely inflated price just for cosmetic reasons since they're weaker than other pieces stats-wise and there are other cheaper alternatives. The reasoning behind the shoulders rating requirement, as Blizzard stated, is to visually differentiate players who are further progressed. If you made the shoulders cost an exorbitant amount, you'd see less people who are above the rating requirement wearing them, not more and I don't think that's what Blizzard has in mind.

If you are on a 2k+ team you have far, far more points than you can possibly spend. EJ warriors enjoy standing around Org/Shatt with a Gladiator's War Staff equipped. I personally have a full resto S2 set and a full elemental S2 set and S2 relic, S2 shield, and I could buy an S2 weapon if I weren't keeping my points near-cap. And the next season hasn't even been announced yet! Cost stops mattering at that point. If my shoulders cost 5000 points I'd still have them, though obviously they'd have been the last piece I purchased.

A simple addition would be a terrible thing for the warrior class. Essentially that would be saying that Prot warriors get *another* threat-generating skill that is head and shoulders above what non-Prot warriors have for threat generation, and by making Prot warriors that much more superior than other warriors at tanking, combined with Blizzard's general intention of tuning content around the best potential performer for a role, you're looking at making the non-Prot tanking situation even that much more dire. It's already to the point where practically any well-played DPS class can pull aggro off of an Arms warrior, even with lead-in time and even in very poor gear. And it certainly wasn't like warriors didn't see this coming a mile away, when it first became clear that the threat on Sunder Armor was being upgraded by a measly 15% from level 60 to level 70.

This situation is unhealthy for the game as a whole. You've got Protection warriors essentially isolated within their guilds, because they're so highly sought-after that they can choose to not visit any instance that doesn't have their A-list of buddies going along with them (and some would argue that they deserve this, because being a Prot warrior sucks in practically every other aspect of the game, which isn't good either). You've got Arms warriors equally isolated in their Arena teams, and not interested at all in PvE unless they're brought along as a mediocre DPS class. Fury warriors are few and far between, performing poorly in PvP and generally unwanted in PvE (no crowd control for small groups, an uncomfortable threat limit in raids, and mediocre tanking). I had to shelve my warrior when I realized that I just couldn't put forth the time commitment to be an effective main tank (i.e. bringing my gear to the raid every night), as I definitely had no interest in the pain involved in the other specs.

Feral druids seem to make out okay, with the exception of some relative weakness in PvP, but druids still remain a fairly underplayed class, and there's competition for a fairly powerful healing form. Paladin tanks are still in a rough spot, with poor single-target threat generation in many scenarios coupled with questionable durability at the high end, and those factors are clearly significant in stunting many players' interests in them, along with sharing the distinction of probably being the second least popular PvP spec (right ahead of Prot warriors).

Some of the population of this forum might be shielded from it somewhat, but it's a genuine pain in the ass to find a tank for non-heroic instances, considerably worse for heroics, and practically impossible to find a tank for a heroic that isn't incompetent and/or undergeared. The whole "LF1M competent tank" conundrum is killing the end-game experience for a lot of players, and I think Blizzard needs to do something about it. It sure as hell won't be fixed by making another frustrating Prot-warrior-like spec for Death Knights.

That's how all of the current items are, and it isn't really necessary to have the amount of armor removed scale by level since its effectiveness already goes down as you gain levels, so I see no reason why it would be different for the new pvp items.

Makes sense to me, but I was wondering if there was something else involved because of this particular thread on the WoW Forums:

WoW Forums -> Armor penetration...Is it an issue?

Kalgan says "There's more +armor on the pvp gear than there is +armor penetration on the melee pvp gear." So I'm not understanding the direction behind this stat at all. It gives us something else to spend stat budget on but the effectiveness is limited because all of the other PVP gear gives extra armor bonuses to compensate, in fact, bonuses that cancel this stat out because they have MORE armor than the armor penetration? What's the point?

As Kalgan said later in that thread, "Because there is raid gear with armor pen. We have to account for the possibility that players will use it in pvp."

By giving some armor pen on the PVP gear, they can reasonably assume that a highly ranked Arena player will have somewhere in the vicinity of X armor pen whether or not he raids, and itemize accordingly.

Raiding parity as Kalgan notes, plus it's the counter for bonus armour on the cloth sets.

At worst, you negate most of their bonus, and that's matched since bonus armour came out of the stat budget on their set just like armour pen costs you budget. No advantage, just parity.

At best, you fight someone (open pvp, bg's, mismatched arena) without bonus armor and you are hitting them harder due to armour penetration. Advantage to you; note only raiders are ever in this position at the moment.

While they do bear some similarities, there's a fairy large disparity in usefulness between SpellPen and armor penetration.

Spell penetration had a marginal usefuless way back in the day when people were wearing t1/t2 for pvp and actually had 'significant' resist values (still no more than perhaps ~60for any particular one). Reducing a targets resist to 0 from 30 really does nothing special, especially when in arenas the most any target will have is roughly 30 from motw. Arena gear doesn't have resists on it, so resist penetration is fairly useless.

Armor penetration on the other hand shows a marked increase in damage output in arenas, and as stated, you'll never be able to accrue enough on gear to completely negate a targets armor value.

The big difference is that partial spell resists are very chance based, requires a fairly large amount of resistance to see an actual effect, while armor reduction has a flat determiniable and consistent effect vs any target. With them getting rid of gear swapping I doubt many people will be running in resist gear in arenas (I know swapping to heavy SR gear when fightint a Spriest/warlock team was big), and again, aside from racial innate resists and MOTW, you're never going to see much resist stacking.