In all honesty, BT loot should be kept out of the discussion. Just checked wowjutsu.com and about 1.5 PERCENT of 1 514 096 players have kills in BT/MH.

So basically you arent at a disadvantage, when you have PVP gear to use in arena you are at an incredible ADVANTAGE vs more or less everyone. Guess what, PVE gear for 98.5% of the players is WORSE than the honor blues/epics and the arena gear.

Ive cleared SSC, Ive soon killed KT, and guess what, every single piece of loot i have has an arena/honor equivalent that is better for PVP, and this is the current situation for more or less everyone in wow. Pvpers having a gear disadvantage in arena is plain wrong.

Every one of those top guilds, being full of exceptional players who like being at the top of the game, will end up fielding at least 1 arena team and they will have an advantage on those that don't. You can argue how small it is forever but if you're trying to get to the top you're going to end up fighting them and they're going to have an advantage.

Ok, my post wasn't meant to be primarily about a perceived gear disadvantage, I realize how rare BT stuff still is, and that most of it isn't that good for pvp. My point is simply that the effort put forth by the people who have no interest in arena to obtain some of the better weapons in the game is disproportionate.

You can't really expect to walk into ssc/TK with greens and have much success, yet that's what a lot of people seem to want to do. People in pve gear (tailoring stuff for example) are essentially in greens where pvp is concerned, yet are able to obtain tier 5 quality weapons by simply losing 10 games a week.

In my opinion that should go both ways, one should be expected to arena 5 hours, 4-5 days a week to get all the arena loot at the end of a season.

Another thing, how "easy" is it really to "loose 10 games per week" and get weapons? Lets do some quick pseudo-math:

10 losses costing you 15 pts, gives 1500-150= 1350. That will according to arenacalculator.net give you 223 arena points per week. The melee weapons cost about 1150+2600(?)=3750 points. 3750 points / 223 weekly = ~17 weeks. Thats about 4 months.

Talk about 1 feather turning into 300 chickens... Apparently its impossible to get both weapons before the end of the season for the PVP casuals people are so worried about...

Ok so by failing at every single game you think you've earned your gear? I think in the PVE world that's called wiping every single attempt.

To summarize this thread.

1. Some people like rating requirements for weapons.
2. Some people don't.
3. Neither group can influence blizzards decision.

So further bickering about this is pointless and should probably stop. It's coming or its not. This is already treading very close to the taboo subject of: Hardcore vs Casuals

you just summarized every thread on this forum that regards speculative changes, are these all taboo?

The Hardcore vs. Casual debate is taboo, as stated here Public Service Announcement, and this thread feels like we are rehashing that debate for PvP.

Posting without proper use of your shift key is fairly taboo here.

I hope that person really likes the game if he has that much PVP gear and still time/need to raid. The point is you can't really load up on all the gear without a high rating, which takes time and skill, and if you have enough time to both get a high arena rating for all the gear, AND THEN to go on a raid, you uh, well, you probably have enough problems in real life that you can win the epeen race

That is why I don't see it as a problem. Only a few extremely hardcore poopsockers will encounter what you describe, so it doesn't exactly throw off the balance of the game.

This is verging off-topic, but it as bad for casters. I can't count the number of Gruul and Prince kills, I have seen the Nathrzeim mindblade drop once. I rolled a 1. A one.

I have never seen the sword from Gruul drop.

Now, as we progress through SSC, I can get excited about the Fang of the Leviathan never dropping.

I guess this is the part I continue to not understand, and yes, I have read the entire thread.

Why does it matter if more people have access to arena weapons than have access to BT weapons? Is there a fear people will stop raiding? In my condition, I raid because it is fun, and I have a complete set of gear for raiding. I pvp because it is fun, and I have a complete set of gear for pvp.

They aren't the same thing, they are two distinct portion of the game, you have to spec differently (let's take a moment to discuss the sheer joy which is pvp with a 10/48/3 raid fire spec in a PUG BG), etc. The only crossover it seems is with weapons, and I think most of us agree that arena weapons on undergeared and underskilled people is not going to throw BT on farm, and arena weapons on undergeared, underskilled, and poorly specced players is not going to hurtle them from a 1350 rating to 2200, threatening the dominance of hardcore arena players.

So again, I ask- why is this a problem? Given the number of other issues that do need to be addressed regarding the arena (the apparent complete lack of viability for hunters and rogues at the top end of the 5v5 bracket, for one), why is this such an issue, and why does it NEED to be addressed? The ability to get arena weapons after a long hard slog seems to be the exact incentive blizzard placed in the game in the first place to entice people into doing arenas. They intentionally avoided putting in an honor grind like before- why the need to change now?

I am trying to read the responses here in good faith, and all I can really come up with is the perception that it is somehow "unfair" to those clearing BT. I don't get it. I really don't.

Someone at Blizzard decided it was a problem. Clearly there are a multitude of very strong feelings on both sides of this discussion among the (mostly pve hardcore-ish) player base.

We don't know that this change will actually happen, ever. We don't know the final rating that will be required. Perhaps it will only be 1550 or 1600 (small enough that anyone putting in good effort in reasonable gear might get lucky and win enough games).

If Blizzard's solution is to remove these pvp weapons for the general population's pvp system, and provide them in Zul'Aman instead, I will be very disappointed

If you want to get the best gear for raiding, you have to clear BT for it. BT is a hard instance.

I think it should be the same for pvp. If you want the best gear for it, you should have to work for it. It should not be possible to sit at a low rating for months and then get a season 3 weapon because it is not possible to clear karazhan for months and get a BT weapon.

Let me rephrase, since you seem to be addressing this as a matter of principle rather than what interests me.

"How does it hurt the game to have people have access to these weapons, as I do not think that it is going to make any difference in progression through instances nor will it make any real difference in arena?"

From my persepctive, allowing people to attain these items keeps more people in the mix, has more people engaged and interested in pvp, and that is a good thing. Additionally, once people start to realize how important stam and resilience are in arena while getting their head pounded in on the grind to get an arena item, they start to pvp more to supplement their pvp gear. More people in BG= shorter queue times = win.

Clearing BT is going to net you considerably more t6 gear than losing 10 games a week and reforming. Your comparison is flawed.

A better comparison would be a rep reward, say the rings from KZ, which you get no matter how hard you suck (well assuming you can clear some trash) after X amount of time. Blizzard is in the business of giving people items just for putting in a good faith effort; all you can do is disagree about a matter of scale.

Well, you have a point, but on the other hand, perhaps we can broaden each other's perspectives and try to understand why the "other side" is so passionate about the issue. Isn't that what many of the threads on this forum are all about, learning from your fellow players?

Besides, on a message board with an occasional history of visits from a game designer, you never know for sure about 3

The fundamental issue, arguments about guild poaching and server base needed to support elite raiding guild aside (not that these don't apply to higher end arena and rating pools), is that high ratings are mutually exclusive. Raiding is not, at least in theory.

This goes back to the percentile issue that plagued the GM system. When you effectively have X spots, reaching a target becomes impossible except for a very few. No matter how hard people worked on a server that had a Rank 14 and multiple Rank 13's, they could not advance. Archimonde pre-Mug'thol transfers was a load of fun in that regard, trust me.

You can't fit the top 10% of Arena teams into what amounts to spots for a top 5% no matter how hard everyone in the top 10% works. They could all work equally hard, be equally skilled and devote their lives to WoW PvP with ideal class matrixes, and half of them will still be losers for the same reason Princton rejects 4 of 5 valedictorians that apply, Georgetown Law rejects thousands and thousands of applicants who, by their numbers, could easily be members of the entering class, and I haven't gotten any calls about my screenplay - which I would have if it had placed fifty places higher and made a circulation list from the Academy Foundation.

That last one may have cost me several hundred thousand dollars, by the way. Nicholl does that to people every year, just a statistical fact.

It's not the fact that you will drive off so many weapon-grinding nubs that Arena will collapse - although you could certainly see that if you required a rating for ALL gear; reason for this has been explained exhaustively - it's that high percentile cuts are inherently difficult and, for people who are competitive for the spot, very brutal indeed.

And that is once again assuming equal class ratios and everyone having identical, optimal team makeup, which we know from statistics on Season 1 is not true at all.

This may have been adressed upstream, and if so, my profound apologies, but would a flat rating now also set the bar higher for certain classes? Gimmick teams like warlock/sp, pally/warrior, druid/warlock can, to a degree, attain a 1900 rating in 2v2 with more ease than can other classes.

How will something like that factor in?

Statistically 5% isn't easy, and eventually the pool of competent PvPers for partners becomes exhausted (they are either in arena teams with high end raider guildmates or they are already in a highly rated team).

Look at financial earnings, less than 5% of the workplace population in the United States makes over $200,000 a year.

Now, you could take someone who does make over $200,000 a year and in all likelihood they will say that their ten closest friends also make over 200k a year, so therefore making that much is easy for anyone willing to put in the effort (This is analogous to the posters stating that all their friends who try can easily make 1900+ rating). This is due to proximity and people socializing with those that are on a similar social level as they are (or on a similar skill level in WoW, as most raider types befriend raiders, and hardcore PvP types befriend hardcore PvPers).

Those making over 200k a year could say "Well, you just have to try harder and you can do it", however the reality is that this isn't true, as money is limited much like the WoW rating system, in that there are only a finite number of points to go around, and if more people were over 200k, the top 5% of financial earners would be pushed higher, thus pushing out some people who were previously at the cut off point for top 5% of financial earners.

I used the money example because I very much doubt many people here make over 200k a year on their own income (not household income), yet what some of you 1900+ rated PvPers are telling those of sub 1900 rating to do is simply work harder and they too can have that rating, yet due to a lack of competent partners / limited points pool, this is not possible.

Also while the "scrubs" making 100k a year may not be able to buy a Lamborghini in one year of earnings, they can save their money over time to get one. The same should hold true to the WoW arena system.

If they do not implement this, or something else like this, it makes maintaining a high arena rating pointless. I do not know about other battlegroups, but once you get above a certain rating on mine your queue times suck. Last season I was on a 2500 2v2 team. When we played the queue times would normally be at least 10 minutes, except once in awhile another high rated team would queue and then stop after one game against my team regardless if they won or lost. It was not worth the risk for them of losing 10 points when it takes hours to get them back because of horrible queue times. This made doing 2v2 not only pointless, but not even fun. Sitting in a 10 minute queue for a 30 second game that gets you absolutely nothing is just aggravating after awhile.

There should be some kind of reward for having a high rated team, and if Blizzard has decided that the reward will be the ability to use the new weapons thats fine with me. I probably won't even use any of the weapons, but it would at least give me a reason to keep playing so that my teammates could use them.

And yes I know high rated teams got netherdrakes - I mean a reward to actively play the team. From what I understand you actually have to be active on a 1900+ team to be able to use the weapons (I could be wrong but I would hope Blizzard forces people to do that if they implement this or there will be a lot of team selling going on).


As for raiders having the weapons, I really don't care. There are people in my guild with them, and it only helps the raid progress a little faster. My only point is that raiders should only have them if they earn it, in the same way a pvper should not have the best raid gear unless they can clear the hardest raid instances.

Arena gear should be somewhat easy to get, because it's required to be competitive in arenas. You're going to have a much tougher time, and it will take longer if you did no season 1 to get a high rating, taking just gear into consideration.

As tristantio mentioned above, you can only get so may people in the top 5%.