For most healers I can assure you that isn't the case. Season 2 gear is really only a clear upgrade for PvE over early-Kara and Heroic drops. For the clothies in general this is especially true as not only is itemization budget used on Stam and Resilience, but also on extra armor.
Now Season 3 gear being better then your average T4 I really don't see a problem with considering BC would have been out nine or ten months at the earliest. Now of course, the average raider is still at the late-T4 stage at best, but that doesn't mean that top-end PvP gear should remain sub-optimal to top-end PvE gear for PvP.
Honestly, I find arena gear to be better suited for Druid tanking than the actual tier drops. Yes, it has slightly less armor, but you get to stack resilience for becoming uncrittable with huge DPS stats, rather than taking gear/jewelry with lots of +defense/stam and very little that boosts your threat generation. For a druid your goal is to be a threat monster for off-tanking and picking up adds, so in general I like stacking arena/PvP gear on top of a couple tier drops (2 piece T4 is too good to pass up, but still that's 3 Gladiator + 4-5 BG items), while ignoring most of the stuff with +defense on it. Though for kitty DPS the actual PvE gear is much better for raiding.
Once again stop with the 1900 is trivial and its easy to get. 1900 is a very small percentage of the population. Maybe for raiders with T5/6 gear it is easy to get, but thats not a lot of people.
On my battle group alone, 1900 is over 1000 teams. 1900 will get you ranked 425th in 2's, 350th in 3's and 125th in 5's. It is trivial and easy to get if you're willing to put in the time and effort, end of story.
Originally Posted by Apate
Zyla, International Man of a Certain Standard.
Originally Posted by Wraithlin
What have you brought to this discussion? The usual vacuous and contentless tripe that you contribute to these forums - no more and no less.
Not sure about your BG, but BG9 has 25,000 2v2 teams. Top 425 shrinks when you consider that.
I would never use the word "trivial" for anything that requires you to be in the top few percent of anything. Anything that requires you to be better than the vast majority of participants is by definition not trivial.
Clearing Deadmines with five 70s is trivial. Being one of the three fastest groups out of 100 groups of five 70s is not.
Originally Posted by Zyla
On my battle group alone, 1900 is over 1000 teams. 1900 will get you ranked 425th in 2's, 350th in 3's and 125th in 5's. It is trivial and easy to get if you're willing to put in the time and effort, end of story.
On my battle group alone, 1900 is over 1000 teams. 1900 will get you ranked 425th in 2's, 350th in 3's and 125th in 5's. It is trivial and easy to get if you're willing to put in the time and effort, end of story.
Perhaps you haven't read this thread, but it was generally agreed upon earlier that this is, at best, a No True Scotsman fallacy, and, at worst, completely wrong and a direct insult to those players who are not rated 1900 or above.
On my battle group alone, 1900 is over 1000 teams. 1900 will get you ranked 425th in 2's, 350th in 3's and 125th in 5's. It is trivial and easy to get if you're willing to put in the time and effort, end of story.
In the 5,000 2v2 teams ranked on the armory for your battlegroup, this only goes down to a 1573 rating. So less than 10% of teams that are by definition of the ELO system reasonably above average are above 1900 rating. No matter how much you may like to think, this is not trivial for everyone. It can't be trivial when the percentage that qualifies is so low. It may be trivial for you, or the friends you have made in WoW, but it can't be for everyone. Congratulations, you are significantly above average.
Similarly, in 3v3 there are 4,560 teams with a rating >1500 for 7.7% of only those teams better than average qualify. In 5v5, there are 1817 teams with a rating >1500 for 6.9% of those above average are eligible. This doesn't even come close to the true % of how hard it is to get >1900 but I'm not sure where to get numbers for all rated teams but excludes those that haven't played any games (which there are a huge number of at 1500 in any bracket)
On my battle group alone, 1900 is over 1000 teams. 1900 will get you ranked 425th in 2's, 350th in 3's and 125th in 5's. It is trivial and easy to get if you're willing to put in the time and effort, end of story.
Edit: beaten by 5 minutes leaving the only relevant part.
Your figure of 1000 teams over 1900 is also misleading because it doesn't include smurfs(if thats common on your BG) nor does it include that plenty of the same players will be repeated between brackets thereby decreasing your total number of top players.
As a casual player, albeit having reached 2k+ at one point, I disagree with adding an artificial rating requirement. This will at best promote the use of unsavory tactics or loopholes to game the system or at worst drive people away from arenas. It seems to me that the real problem stems from the current environment of 10 losses and out, reform and repeat. People take pride in their accomplishments and to see someone who prescribes to this method with the exact same gear lessens their character to some extent.
What I feel is a rather simple method to prevent this culture of losing and still provide access to new items is to require someone to have won x number of games on any one arena team to purchase the item, not to continue using it. Blizzard already tracks this number in your pvp tab so it wouldn't require any huge amount of effort. Set the number of games won for some reasonable value and the problem should correct itself.
3v3 Example:
Joe Casual plays with 2 friends and manages to maintain 1500 exactly for the duration of the season. It would take him 13 weeks to earn enough points for this item and during that time he should win 65 games and lose 65 playing the minimum number.
Hardcore Harry on the other hand holds 2000 for the season which would take him 5 weeks to earn the points. Based on my battlegroup, teams at 2000 generally have ~70% win ratios so this would imply, just playing the minimum Harry would have run a record of 35-15.
Since hardcore players tend to play more than the minimum until the standings crystallize later in the season Blizzard could favor the casuals slightly and set the number of wins required to be 50 in order to purchase a season 3 weapon. Obviously this number can be adjusted to account for statistics I don't have in front of me.
Pros:
Discourages team hopping and point selling.
Prevents 10 and out then reform strategies.
Provides a more stable ladder at lower levels since people will be forced to play at their natural ability level.
Makes point saving a little less dramatic at the start of the season since it will be forced to be used on gear and not the weapons.
Cons:
Really hurts players who are unable to field a stable team or one that falls apart after several weeks.
Makes it harder to recruit players for higher level teams if they do not already have the weapon.
It may not be perfect but I think it's much better than a rating requirement but I'm sure other people see problems with this solution that I haven't thought of.
In the 5,000 2v2 teams ranked on the armory for your battlegroup, this only goes down to a 1573 rating. So less than 10% of teams that are by definition of the ELO system reasonably above average are above 1900 rating. No matter how much you may like to think, this is not trivial for everyone. It can't be trivial when the percentage that qualifies is so low. It may be trivial for you, or the friends you have made in WoW, but it can't be for everyone. Congratulations, you are significantly above average.
Similarly, in 3v3 there are 4,560 teams with a rating >1500 for 7.7% of only those teams better than average qualify. In 5v5, there are 1817 teams with a rating >1500 for 6.9% of those above average are eligible. This doesn't even come close to the true % of how hard it is to get >1900 but I'm not sure where to get numbers for all rated teams but excludes those that haven't played any games (which there are a huge number of at 1500 in any bracket)
Your own numbers work against you because you do not and cannot account for the thousands of teams that are created and abandoned but still have one person on them, or are purely farming teams that lose their way to weapons (which I have absolutely no problem with, for the record) or are just completely hopeless mouth breathers that might have registered an arena team by accident while drunk one night or thought their super cool Moonkin/Survival Hunter Team would just fly through the ranks.
I'd say its more of a slap in the face then a direct insult, to be honest. I'll retract calling it trivial if it makes people feel better about themselves. If you cant manage to win very much you need to re-evaluate what you are doing and perhaps gear more and take it more seriously. I'm sorry that it upsets people to have to put effort into things, but it tends to be the way of the world.
Besides we all know people will complain if they do indeed implement this requirement until it is like 1600 or something. Again tho, I don't really care if casuals get weapons. It doesn't really bother me in the least.
Originally Posted by Apate
Zyla, International Man of a Certain Standard.
Originally Posted by Wraithlin
What have you brought to this discussion? The usual vacuous and contentless tripe that you contribute to these forums - no more and no less.
Arena is the one place that skill is supposed to actually matter to some extent, hence you must be 'good' to get the very very best stuff. I fail to see how restricting the very top level of gear is going to destroy the arena.
Comparisons with the old ranking system are spurious at best. There is no hard upper limit to the # of players that can get to whatever ranking blizzard will set in place. The old system had 1-2 players week that could get the GM weapon. Even in this proposed system, even if you are terrible, you can still walk away with:
* All season 3 armor
* Season 2 weapon
This will hardly make you a second class citizen.
Reality Check time
The difference in DPS between a season 1 and season 2 1H weapon is 6.4 DPS and a few stat points. We can probably assume season 2-3 will be about the same magnitude.
Are you seriously complaining that losing a potential 6.4 DPS upgrade will cause the entire arena system as we know it to collapse?
This is exactly what I've been trying to say over this entire thread, and people keep derailing it to PvE. Fine, if you want to PvP in arenas solely for the weapon, then do so, but if you aren't going to put effort in it (and only play 10 games a week with a PvE spec) then you should only get the season 1 weapon. If you played enough that you could reach some arbitrary number that, in my mind, would be about 1750 then you gain access to that 6.4 DPS increase of the weapon. It gives players an easily achieved goal, causes the people who play only 10 games a week to play more, further fostering arena play and competition. It also allows people in lower brackets to have fun, skill based play that doesn't involve the warrior getting bigger crits with a season two weapon.
All in all, I don't see how a change to 1750 rating to purchase the current season's weapon would have any serious adverse effect on arenas at all.
"YOUR" system? Listen to yourself. It's not your system, it's part of the entire game. The **goal** of it is to have as many people play as possible.
Despite professing not to care if Joe Casual gets a weapon, that is exactly what this is about. You want to have a shiny purple, and like a small child you want somebody else not to have it because you don't feel like they have worked hard enough for it. The netherdrake is not enough for you.
For those who don't believe restricting weapons will cut down on the casual arena population, anecdotally I can say I will remove my druid from the system if there is a limit on S3 weapons. I will keep my warrior in.
It's interesting you say this because my post clearly says that I'm pretty much happy with it as it is now, because it pretty much makes no difference to me, Joe Casual and Joe Raider are still going to be pretty much useless, but they're going to be enjoying the game more (I think?) So why would anyone want to take that away from them?
Your own numbers work against you because you do not and cannot account for the thousands of teams that are created and abandoned but still have one person on them, or are purely farming teams that lose their way to weapons (which I have absolutely no problem with, for the record) or are just completely hopeless mouth breathers that might have registered an arena team by accident while drunk one night or thought their super cool Moonkin/Survival Hunter Team would just fly through the ranks.
I'd say its more of a slap in the face then a direct insult, to be honest. I'll retract calling it trivial if it makes people feel better about themselves. If you cant manage to win very much you need to re-evaluate what you are doing and perhaps gear more and take it more seriously. I'm sorry that it upsets people to have to put effort into things, but it tends to be the way of the world.
Besides we all know people will complain if they do indeed implement this requirement until it is like 1600 or something. Again tho, I don't really care if casuals get weapons. It doesn't really bother me in the least.
I agree that it's hard to get a good sense of the number of people who are actually putting any kind of good faith effort in, but it's overstating it to claim that a number that includes only teams over 15xx includes the 'lose 10 games with whatever 5 people are online and eventually get a weapon for pve' teams.
Your own numbers work against you because you do not and cannot account for the thousands of teams that are created and abandoned but still have one person on them, or are purely farming teams that lose their way to weapons (which I have absolutely no problem with, for the record) or are just completely hopeless mouth breathers that might have registered an arena team by accident while drunk one night or thought their super cool Moonkin/Survival Hunter Team would just fly through the ranks.
It's not a perfect measure as we don't have the information easily available to determine non-active teams. This includes the teams that are higher than 1900 that are bought, pure smurfs, or mostly disbanded so the other members may be >1900 in a different team. There's no doubt there are a great many more teams sub 1900 that are inactive than over 1900. However, each team removed from the >1900 group has a much larger impact, than aeach team >1500. Looking at the 3v3 numbers (350 >1900, 4560>1500) eliminating 10% of each is 35 >1900 teams and 456 >1500 teams. The proportion of >1900 to >1500 hasn't changed though. Instead, say 10% of the >1900 teams are no longer active and 30% of the >1500 are no longer active.* This still yields 315 >1900 and 3,192 >1500 teams which still leaves >1900 being only 9.9% of above average teams. Not 9.9% of all teams, 9.9% of those teams better than average. Also note, eliminating 30% of the >1500 group is 1,368 teams that were elminated.
I chose only teams >1500 to both eliminate teams that have not played at all and also teams that truly are "losing their way to epics." or the "completely hopeless mouth breathers"
*The 35 teams eliminated are counted in this 30% but it's such a small difference, it doesn't really change any later conclusions.
It comes down to a value judgment. Those defending or advocating a rating requirement on S3 weapons believe:
that your team ratings are a reasonably accurate measurement of your play skill
that 1900 rating is a reasonable arbitrary cutoff point to measure skill
that tier-6-level gear (i.e. S3 gear) shouldn't be available to all players
It is by definition an elitist viewpoint (I use the term in a neutral sense) that I happen to agree with. Zyla is definitely saying, and many people agree, that good gear should require some skill to attain, and that he believes that 1900 should be trivial for any player with the skills to deserve that level of gear. If you're under 1900 rating, can't get above it, but believe that you are in fact a skilled player in spite of that, then certainly this will come as an insult to you.
Let me now insult you further. If you fall into that category, you need to get out of this thread and work on improving your game.
That said, this discussion is going nowhere. Either you agree with the above three points, or you don't, but there is nothing to be factually or objectively debated here, I don't think. We are debating whether ratings are a good measure of skill, whether 1900 is a good arbitrary cutoff, and whether people think that the (by that standard) unskilled players deserve the best loot in the game. These are all matters of opinion, and that's why this thread is a steaming pile of poop.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
* that your team ratings are a reasonably accurate measurement of your play skill
* that 1900 rating is a reasonable arbitrary cutoff point to measure skill
* that tier-6-level gear (i.e. S3 gear) shouldn't be available to all players
Excellent points, which I do agree with. I would add one more.
* Rewards given too easily lose their value, and the ones you most value are those you had to work hard for.
I know it's too early for anyone to make any plans on saving points for S3, but how long do you think S2 will last? Will there be S4 before the WotLK xpack? Do you think it will introduce new gear that will match the level of Tier6? What about honor gear? If, say S3 starts somewhere october/november, will you save points for upgrades/new weapons? I'm just curious about the community's opinions.
S3 will launch once with 2.3 patch ( maybe they will make a little delay like they did with S2 but heh). I sense that before WoTLk launch ( like 2 months or so) they will launch a "free epics" patch like they did with Tbc .What that means? S1 items honor cost reduce , S2 buyable with honor , S3 will cost less arena points and the rating required for weapons removed.
Just my 2 cents.
Excellent points, which I do agree with. I would add one more.
* Rewards given too easily lose their value, and the ones you most value are those you had to work hard for.
Maybe you have not been/do not know any people who have a rating around 1500. I know several such people on my server, and a couple more at my workplace; they highly value their arena rewards as it stands now, because they did have to work hard for them: it took them like 10 weeks to get a weapon. If there was a rating requirement they wouldn't value it more; they flat out wouldn't get it and would be discouraged from playing arenas.
Just as one shouldn't talk about raids one has never been to, maybe one shouldn't talk about ratings requirements unless one is, or is friends with, someone that the requirement would affect.
Just as one shouldn't talk about raids one has never been to, maybe one shouldn't talk about ratings requirements unless one is, or is friends with, someone that the requirement would affect.
Since what was already a degenerate whiny thread is now at the point of Ad Hominem arguments, I'm going to bite my tongue and be done with it. As I said before, the change is either coming or not, and we aren't going to change it.
I'm fairly certain that S3 will bring about all new arena gear because blizz has already said the the S1 gear is going to be available through honor... it would be odd if they moved S1 gear to honor points and only had S2 available. Plus they've stated that the new weapons will have a rating requirement on top of the arena pts it will cost.
Just as one shouldn't talk about raids one has never been to, maybe one shouldn't talk about ratings requirements unless one is, or is friends with, someone that the requirement would affect.
Well Avair knows me, and I have a crappy rating, so I'll go ahead and give him permission to speak about ratings as my proxy. Wonderful bit of logic you've got there.
Maybe you have not been/do not know any people who have a rating around 1500. I know several such people on my server, and a couple more at my workplace; they highly value their arena rewards as it stands now, because they did have to work hard for them: it took them like 10 weeks to get a weapon. If there was a rating requirement they wouldn't value it more; they flat out wouldn't get it and would be discouraged from playing arenas.
Just as one shouldn't talk about raids one has never been to, maybe one shouldn't talk about ratings requirements unless one is, or is friends with, someone that the requirement would affect.
Are you seriously trying to say that your friends have worked hard to maintain a 1500 rating, and we should be persuaded by this? How exactly does one work hard to be this mediocre?
Anyways, this thread is fast becoming useless. Kaz said it best above me.
Originally Posted by Apate
Zyla, International Man of a Certain Standard.
Originally Posted by Wraithlin
What have you brought to this discussion? The usual vacuous and contentless tripe that you contribute to these forums - no more and no less.
Maybe you guys should realize that some people came into arena late and don't have access to raiding gear to supplement the arena/bg stuff. We started just at the start of season 2 and are finally getting into having 2 piece S2. For those who have played since the start of season 1 or near to it they had a substantial amount of gear. At 1500 rating in 5v5 last night I saw opponents with full S1/S2. At 1600-1700 in 2v2 and 3v3 you find a lot of people with pretty full S2. There is a substantial gear difference to make up, and in the face of people with that much better gear it is hard to move up. Are these 1650 players with full merciless gear and 1-2 other glad pieces that horrible? Perhaps they are bad players with good gear, but for the people who have little pvp gear they are a hurdle that is pretty hard to get over. Well unless you're a lock or spriest/druid in 2v2.
Maybe you guys should realize that some people came into arena late and don't have access to raiding gear to supplement the arena/bg stuff. We started just at the start of season 2 and are finally getting into having 2 piece S2. For those who have played since the start of season 1 or near to it they had a substantial amount of gear. At 1500 rating in 5v5 last night I saw opponents with full S1/S2. At 1600-1700 in 2v2 and 3v3 you find a lot of people with pretty full S2. There is a substantial gear difference to make up, and in the face of people with that much better gear it is hard to move up. Are these 1650 players with full merciless gear and 1-2 other glad pieces that horrible? Perhaps they are bad players with good gear, but for the people who have little pvp gear they are a hurdle that is pretty hard to get over. Well unless you're a lock or spriest/druid in 2v2.
Your post has possibly inspired me to create a mega post of "So you want to Arena"
Originally Posted by Apate
Zyla, International Man of a Certain Standard.
Originally Posted by Wraithlin
What have you brought to this discussion? The usual vacuous and contentless tripe that you contribute to these forums - no more and no less.
Maybe you guys should realize that some people came into arena late and don't have access to raiding gear to supplement the arena/bg stuff. We started just at the start of season 2 and are finally getting into having 2 piece S2. For those who have played since the start of season 1 or near to it they had a substantial amount of gear. At 1500 rating in 5v5 last night I saw opponents with full S1/S2. At 1600-1700 in 2v2 and 3v3 you find a lot of people with pretty full S2. There is a substantial gear difference to make up, and in the face of people with that much better gear it is hard to move up. Are these 1650 players with full merciless gear and 1-2 other glad pieces that horrible? Perhaps they are bad players with good gear, but for the people who have little pvp gear they are a hurdle that is pretty hard to get over. Well unless you're a lock or spriest/druid in 2v2.
My team started in middle to late season one playing paladin/rogue/druid/warlock/warrior with our warlock having practically zero resilience and tanking every game. Yet with a bad makeup and bad gear we managed to get to high 1800s our second week and we and ended the season at 2000 after playing a month and a half.
The point is that while people at lower ratings may have a lot of PvP gear, at that low rating skill overcomes gear by such a large margin it's not even funny. Spec appropriately and work on coordination because 1900 is by far a fair rating to achieve and maintain to use weapons that are on par with raid drops that a very low percentage of players have access to.
You don't see raiders walking straight into BT and Hyjal and picking up drops, they gear up through the easier raids and progress from there. Arena items should progress in much the same manor if you ask me.
08/15/07, 8:23 PM
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