Redrabbit

Some posters have touched on this subject recently, however I felt that further discussion would be pertinent as many players here have the possibility of finishing within the top .5% of their battlegroup and securing the coveted armoured netherdrake.

The armoury only shows the top 5000 teams in each battlegroup. This isn't a problem for the 5v5 bracket, but it makes determining the amount of teams for the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets a somewhat inexact science. In order to estimate the total number of teams, I scrolled through the 5v5 ladder of my battlegroup (bloodlust) and began searching through the lowest ranked teams for members whom are also apart of very lowly ranked 2v2 teams. (my bracket of interest) Although teams below rank 5000 are not shown on the armoury, (and the respective arena team pages show last weeks rank as none) on the character sheets of members' of such teams, one can mouseover their 2v2 rating and will be given the current rank of that team.

Here is an example.

Using this method, I found a team ranked 11,400. Assuming that the top .5% of each bracket will be given a netherdrake, the top57 teams of the bloodlust 2v2 brackets will be given a shiny new mount. This currently equates to a 2v2 rating of 2210.

My 2v2 team will finish this week with a rating of 2144. To give you an idea of my arena experience, I have three pieces of gladiator gear and I don't consider myself an expert on arena play as a warrior. However, if my friend and I get lucky during the last week and are able to string 8 wins with a 10-point average together, we would attain an item available to only the 'top .5%' of the pvp population.

My question is, do you consider this a problem?

 

Randor

To be honest, the odds are against you though not impossible. If you have gotten 8 wins with a 10-point average a few times, then the odds are slightly better for you.

And you have to factor in what teams above you do, good and bad as well. I'd hope for the best and work at the rating, seeing if you can squeeze a little more out of it but don't be too dashed if you don't get it this season.

http://homepage.mac.com/randmiranda/...er/randman.jpg
This is a computer-generated message and needs no signature.

 

Redrabbit

I'm not about to peg my hat on it, in fact I'd be far more surprised if it actually did occur rather than it didn't. My point is that my current 2v2 team has been playing for two weeks and even has a *shot* at being part of the top .5% of the season.

 

Leleth

If you are skilled enough to get into 0.5% you deserve the netherdrake. It does not matter at which point you started.
Personaly I would like to see a hardcap. Only the top 10 or top 20 should get a drake.
Not 50 Teams.
Different titles for every bracket would be great too.

 

Aphyrax

I love the self-deprecating elitism that is running wild on this board. "Oooh I am only 2144 I am not worthy of the reward." My team has never broken 1900 but due to us often queuing when there are few people on we got to fight some 2100 teams. We got stomped. Badly. As far as I am concerned, anyone who is 2100+ is deserving of the Netherdrake because everyone we have played from that bracket has owned us as hard as we own 1450ers (which is the actual median, give or take a few).

I see it all the time. People on this board completely misjudge what "average" means. I one of the raiding threads, someone said something along the lines of "the average pre-BC raiding guild killed Patchwerk". No, not even close. Maybe "the average EJ board-reading raiding guild" did. In PvE such misconceptions do not matter. But in PvP they do due to the nature of the system.

So in short, no I do not see a problem with you getting the mount. If you are good enough to climb the ladder so fast without much practice, more power to you. And since you can only get a mount once, the fact that your new team is young does not make a difference. That is the beauty of the system, if you are good you don't have to pay your dues at the low end. You can jump the line straight to the top. That is what makes it appealing.

 

◊ Shadowed

The fact that people can get that high in two weeks is a problem really, theres a difference between someone who manages to get to the top 0.5% in 2-3 months and someone who does it in 2 weeks, regardless if they have the skill or not they still didn't have to deal with maintaining it for most of the season.

During these next two weeks you'll probably be seeing a lot more activity during the brackets, so being able to go up 75-100 points is entirely possible if you can figure out when most of the teams in your bracket are playing.

 

Aphyrax

Why is there a problem? If Federer's tennis ranking was reset he would be in the top 10 again in a few weeks, depending on what tournaments are on. If you are that good to get into the top 0.5% without having a lot of practice with your partner then odds are you belong there. And probably were there already with your last team as arena gear does not grow on trees.

This is different from say WC3 where you could not make it so that someone could be top 10 in a week as there was no limit on the number of accounts you could create. So letting someone be in the top 10 with say 50 games would be problematic as the same few people would hog all the top spots. But in WoW, odds are few people will have more than two geared arena characters, and since you can be on only one team per size there is no crowding out.

The current system was designed specifically to get to your true rating fast. You can go 1500->2000 in one day if you are good. So, again. What exactly is the problem? Does this game need more time sinks? And I don't see maintaining to be a problem, as you are rewarded handsomely for maintaining a high arena rating.

 

◊ Shalas

2144 is a very impressive rating -- mathematically it means you should have a 98.8% chance of beating a 1500 rated team. If you're able to go from 1500 to 2144 in two weeks, it means you're vastly better than the majority of above average players (as you never even played the below average teams past your first few games). Also, I suspect that the average arena-playing player is better at pvp than the average non-arenaing player, which means that the top .5% of arena teams may well be as little as the top .1% of all players.

If you think 2144 isn't great, you're falling victim to the EJ distortion effect that led to people talking about how thier guilds halfway through Naxx weren't very good.

 

◊ Shadowed

This is incorrect, if you can go from 1,500 to 2,000 then chances are you played poor teams and only lost to teams that were 150-250+ points ahead of you, gaining rating is easy you can get lucky and play 20 games against teams that give 8-10 points, or worse case you lose to a team that only took 5-6 points. For smaller brackets, you get into rock paper scissor type of games, where you managed to play a combo that you can dominate and was giving you 15-20 points per a win.

Gear pretty much does actually, you can get a pretty good set of PvP gear without setting foot in arenas as long as you have the gold to level things like blacksmithing you can get a good weapon, and through things like Halaa, Spirit Shards or Honor points you can get good trinkets/rings/armor.

Being able to reach 2,200 is great, but until you can mantain that rating it doesn't mean you're skilled.

 

Bibdy

Its still only 0.5% of the population.

Unless, of course, you have an insane number of rerolled teams.

There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.

 

Aphyrax

As someone who is currently hovering between 1800 and 1900 I can say that from my perspective the few teams we fought at 2100 were all exceptionally skilled (this is 5v5 so it does not address your issue with rock/paper/scissors). The difference in skill and gear becomes apparent when I get killed before a HoJ stun wears off while I can run through a five pack of PuGs in AB by myself without too much trouble. The latter is your average player, and the former is your 0.5%.

It is true that some people who happened to spike in the last week will get in. But any cutoff will have that. You can set the bar higher, but then all you get is that a three week old team that happens to spike will get in instead of a two week old team. Where do you draw the line? Blizzard did at 0.5% and it is a good line in my view. I do not expect any unskilled noobs to run around with the drake and title (ignoring account selling), at least not in my BG.