heel

The /ignore function has finally been disabled inside Arenas, so there is no longer an efficient way to determine who your opponents are before a match begins. I have mixed feelings about this - on the one hand, I've enjoyed switching on situational gear (additional armor or mana regeneration or resilience, as appropriate), depending on my opposition. It's also nice to be able to discuss strategy before the match begins. On the other hand, epic shadow resistance was a bit unreasonable. The other side of that, of course, is that teams with two Warlocks on them tend to be a bit unreasonable themselves.

Immediate result of this: drain teams (against which Tier 6 is often very good) are now somewhat stronger. The same goes for any unusual setup that can be mitigated by additional pre-match defense- or offense-stacking. Warlock-heavy teams (against which shadow resistance is very good, obviously) are now substantially better. I would be unsurprised to see resurgences of both Warlock/Warlock/Priest/Paladin/Druid and Shadow Priest/Warlock-based teams in the lower brackets.

Overall, I suppose I am not too pleased with the change. The bottom line for me (in 5s) is that pre-match strategy doesn't exist anymore, my situational armor pieces (and this extends far beyond shadow resistance) are now garbage, and my team is going to have to deal with a hell of a lot more Warlocks. Not so good.

 

◊ Merrack

I'm glad this was fixed, purely on a consistency level. It was obviously unintended behavior that they fixed when it cropped up in other ways (combat log, etc.).

I think the pre-match strategy and gear adjusting is interesting, and I think it would be interesting to see Blizzard support it. Maybe make the scoreboard accessible before the match starts?

Questions? Answers.

 

Shadowed

How are you verifying that it was broken heel? Have you been using a mod thats no longer working, or did you specifically try to /ignore <name>-<server> someone that you knew was already in the match.

 

• Mex

It brought back horrible memories of T3 clad teams steamrolling WSGs back pre-BC. PvE gear shouldn't have a place in PvP imo.

If they wanna start making Vengeful Gladiator's Kodohide Gloves of Shadow Resistance then maybe I'd be more open to "pre-match strategy" (which I'd be more likely to just call cheating), but as it is, arena appeals to me because I can spend ~1-2 hours a week playing and continue to progress. Most weeks I've got time to play more, but an erratic schedule makes raiding impossible for me, so this is a fix that I'm quite happy about.

 

◊ Praetorian

It's definitely fixed. Played a series of matches against the same 5v5 team today and noticed my mod (ArenaIgnore) wasn't picking them up, tried it manually, and again, no dice. I haven't used SR in arena in a long time since I don't really 2v2 currently and that was all I ever used it for, but being able to discuss basic plans in 5v5 for 30 sec before the gates opened was really helpful. Obviously we shouldn't need a loophole or a mod to do it, though.

I hope they fix SR (reduce effectiveness of resists by, say, 1/3 in PvP, so that if you want to wear a full set of BT SR it'll only give you ~120 resist at the expense of completely gimping all your other stats) and formally let us see who we're playing before the gates open.

 

• sadris

Lame "fix" to sidestep the real issue. You should be able to see who you're playing before the match starts so you can decide on who to attack first or what gear to wear (more +healing, etc) and to let Proximo/AUF create the unit frames while OOC. If their concern is epic SR, then put a cap on PVP-resistances.

EDIT: Now basically it boils down to whoever has more accounts is given the advantage due to level 1 alts and /who. So they really haven't accomplished anything.

'[The main argument against gay-marriage] always revolves around ... "the gay agenda"... Apparently all these gays only want to get married so they can adopt children, turn the children gay (probably using their mystic gay voodoo, passed gayly down from one gay generation to the next), and perpetuate their gayness.'
-- rantingkitten

 

heel

What about gear with armor enchants for heavy melee teams? What about more resilience for 4dps teams, and less resilience for traditional teams? At the very, very least, just about everyone at a reasonable leve of interest has the dilemma of whether or not to wear their Battlemaster's trinket. There are always choices.

 

• Mex

What about them?

Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here.

 

◊ Praetorian

That gear-swapping is much more complex than just "SR cheese" and is, IMO, a positive element to the arena game.

 

heel

This change is significant even for people who don't have access to difficult-to-get PvE gear. And what Gurg said, too.

 

Nayt

While I think you want to be able to come into arenas with the best preparation you can have, at the same time isn't it nice to have a bit of mystery as to whom you're playing? (I hate playing the same team 3+ times in a row). I thought the idea of having "skill" and "being good" in arenas (and PvP) was the ability to think on the fly and realize what to do in X situation.

"When Nate's in town a feast is down."
Pizza, Gold, Contests and Myself
Twits about School, Dating, Partying and Jackassery
Hunter / Priest / Shaman / Warrior

 

• Mex

You can't just ignore shadow res when talking about gear swapping and abusing /ignore. As good as the other parts may or may not be, teams being able to swap in shadow res just ruins the game.

I personally don't see the attraction in being able to see who your opponents are pre-match, and swap gear accordingly. I barely have enough time to farm one set of gear, and that's why arena appeals to me so much.

If Blizzard wants to implement a system where gear can be altered for the duration of the match pre-game, I could live with that. It's the necessity to farm even MORE gear which irks me.

 

◊ Praetorian

No offense but you really can't comment meaningfully on the issue unless you're playing at a level where the gear is making a substantial difference. Unless your profile is false, you aren't. Who uses SR at 1650? Even if you had full SR and ArenaIgnore, the pool of teams there is so large that you rarely see the same people often enough that it'd be any advantage. If you're a "good" player you should be winning 90%+ of your games at that rating such that losing one or two here or there because of PvE gear or SR swaps is meaningless in the long run. If you're splitting your games 50/50 at that rating, then you have dozens of other things that are more deserving of your thoughts and attention when it comes to improving your play.

Now when you're playing a mirror match at Gladiator ratings, yeah, it makes a difference in many matchups, and I can understand the complaints made by some high-end players, though I ultimately disagree with most of the proposed solutions. When you're playing at 2k+ trying to break into Gladiator range and getting knocked down every time you get close by teams that use SR to shut down your warlock, then yeah, that's a valid concern.

Anyway, I keep making this general point in various forums: A large part of MMO PvP is designing and customizing your character and then matching that product against others' best efforts. If you want to make everyone identical and boil it down to "pure skill" then you're also diluting a lot of what the genre has to offer.

 

• Mex

Well firstly I don't really agree with your argument. The fact that I haven't been mugged lately doesn't mean that I'm fine with muggers.

Secondly, I only play 2s at the moment. We just missed 1900 before dropping down to whatever we're at now in a horrible week of play. We've had teams use SR against us a few times (it's not common, but that doesn't change much when it's an auto-loss).

Sorry, but I really think you're dodging the issue here. End-game PvE'ers having access to epic resist gear that most of the population won't ever get means that gear swapping has the potential to massively imbalance the game. The extent to which I've been victim to it isn't really that relevant. Nor are any advantages or incentives that seeing your opposition and having the chance to customise your gear may offer.

Sure, it may be nice to be able to customise yourself a little more based on the pre-emptive knowledge of who your opposition is. The problem is that the system wasn't really setup for that. It hadn't been factored into the game's balance. There are countless things that would make the game more fun and more interesting but each one of them makes balance a lot more complex. Gear-swapping is a perfect example -- sure it may be a great innovation that makes the game a lot more interesting and fun, but at the moment the nature of resist gear (both in terms of how hard certain pieces are to get and its effect on casters) means that the current iteration of the mechanic is broken.

If you really think I'm misguided in this, please explain to me why instead of just pointing to my ratings.

 

Shadowed

If your server has BT clearing guilds, I doubt you'd have much issue finding someone willing to sell you HoD's needed to craft the SR it's not going to be cheap but it's not automatically a case where because you don't raid you'll never use epic SR gear.

Rating is relevant because when you're at the top 10-20 spots in your bracket you're playing against a very narrow list of players and class combinations along with more skilled players in general. Just pulling numbers out of BG10 in 2vs2 theres roughly 150 teams that are 2,000+ and 40 teams who are 2,100+, 100 points alone reduces the pool of teams you're going against drastically.

 

• Argium

I do think they only changed this because of people equipping shadow resist sets against shadow-heavy teams so if they did nerf resists to 1/3 that would probably solve that. That said, like any other sport I think you should be able to know who you're playing in advance so you can discuss strategies before the gates open. Even at a very top tournament level you know who you're playing and you can talk about who you're going to target, who you're CCing, and everything else.

Still, I'd expect to see more changes in 2.4.

 

doogless

Yeah, regardless of how arena should work in terms of knowing the other team's composition before a match starts, /ignoring clearly went against Blizzard's current design. I'm really surprised it took them this long to "fix" (depending on your point of view, obviously) it.

 

Victarion

Personally I am very glad they fixed this only because of SR gear. Although I was a 2k+ player last season I never ran into SR abusing teams that often; however, I am confident that if I had full BT SR gear last season I could have hit gladiator simply by abusing it against the innumerable warlock teams in 2v2. Looking other paladins up on the armory and seeing them with 2k +healing and 295 SR still is just sickening; it completely removes half the skill requirement of the game. Not very good at pillar dancing? No problem you resist 75% of the dots and mana drains anyway.

I agree that it would be nice to be able to discuss strategy and swap a certain amount of gear before matches start but the ability to wear SR gear and just completely negate warlocks and shadowpriests was frankly ridiculous. It doesn't matter how widespread it was, it was a game breaking 'exploit' and should not have been allowed.

 

Knasen

Nice to see how quick blizzard are on their hotfixes, just took them what? 10 months, to fix this issue. Played warlock+SP last season in 2s and we made it up to about 2250 in less than a week, r4 on the battlegroup, the following week we only meet teams with "full SR" and just said f*ck it. Playing against a team that can negate all your cc and about 85% of your damage was a amazing feature for the opponents, but that it took so long time to fix this issue is just showing how much blizzard seems to care about the arena.

The spellpenetration on gear really helps nowadays, but at the same times it just feels stupid that we have to trade stats for the pentration gear to be able to not see resist messages every 3rd time or so when the opponent has a priest.
Anyhow, someone over at arenajunkies who claimed to have some insight into stuff said that 2.4 will bring free spellpenetration on the gear, like 10 per piece. Together with the idea from someone here than 1 point of resistance is worth less in PVP would probably make SR totally useless which would be a good thing.

 

xarg

A necessary fix, solely due to shadow resist gear.

They really need to put either a cap on shadow resist or something similar, then allow you to see who you're playing against. Formulating strategies for competition is at least a moderate degree, involved with skill.

 

Kaber

That would further hurt Hunter pets which are already very easy to burst with 6-7k health. To avoid insta-gibs from Warlock/SP or Elemental Shaman most Hunters have to max out the resistances for Shadow and Nature on their pets. With how easy it is to work your way through the rankings with a SP/Lock or Rogue/SP combination, I do not think resistance sets are necessarily bad. Having the only really good Shadow Resist gear being in T6 content on the other hand is a bad thing. If they added some pieces of arena gear with resistances (something similar to T6 shadow gear, but with the option to choose any resistance) it would help act as a counter balance. They could also put in armor with extremely high Armor value as the counter to melee heavy teams, so that it is not just casters that have to deal with sets tailored specifically to them. It also gives players a place to funnel extra arena or BG points (I would prefer arena since everyone seems to hate BGs as it is), and really forces people to make tough decisions regarding gear.

I do not have a problem with being able to walk into an arena with a suit that counters a specific group composition, because it leaves that team wide open to lose other combos. If I went into an arena sporting 350 SR sacrificing armor and resilience then went up against a Rogue/Mage team I would get absolutely destroyed, but if I lucked out and went against SP/Lock I'd have a great shot at winning unless they had high armor suits that reduced my partner's damage by a large amount. It opens up arena play to be a bit of a gamble and offers strategy especially at higher rankings where only 2-3 compositions rule.

Without the ability to /ignore players it really makes creating resistance sets a gamble, but that does not mean it is not worth leaving the option open to use resistance sets.

Instead of just flat reducing resists by 1/3, I could see a cap of 150 being put in place, but I would still prefer to see a bigger selection of gear to make strategy play more of a role. Warlock/SP teams are already pretty ridiculous against just about any combination that does not use a resistance set.

 

Aphyrax

If the gear is available in a timely fashion. Currently, it is not. Just grinding out the honor gear is a full time job if you have multiple characters.

I agree that more diversity is good and what sets apart this game from say shooters, but I really don't want to go back to the days where PvP success was determined by who could sink more time into the game.

 

• Maels

This argument is horrible, it doesn't justify using SR. Isn't finding a good class combination a significant part of arenas?
SR wouldn't put warlocks/spriests on level fighting grounds with the other team; it was an automatic win.
I quit playing SR/spriest on my EU lock because, as mentioned, once we broke past 2k we were stuck there, due to SR donning teams.
The change is a massive bug fix from my point of view, a minor inconvenience from a warlock-less team's point of view.

I think arenas were designed with minimal item changes in mind. I believe the point is that we're all wearing roughly the same, standard gladiator, type of gear (at varying ratings). It comes down to the actions you take in a fight, rather than the precautions you take before the fight.
If you had a standard setup, you'd probably be partial to finding out who you're playing beforehand, whereas if you play 4 damage dealers or something, you probably prefer it to be a surprise. Being able to pre-discuss strategies based on opponents adds flair to arenas, but having to make decisions on the fly has it's own merits too.

 

Mearis

Warlock shadowpriests teams actually would function as a much needed control on the flavour of the month druid/warrior and druid/warlock and would widen the matrix a lot more. Warlock/shadowpriest struggle versus healer/rogue, but healer/rogue are horrible versus healer/warrior.

Something to reign in the more popular combos might do a lot to balance out the metagame.

 

malacaprico

I am glad its gone. I wish Blizz would do more to get rid of and make public examples of those who exploit. I don't think this is quite as bad as AFKing but I think its clearly unintended and makes people's successes suspect.