WotLK to wipe honor and marks

[Fordel]

It would be more like 300. Even the most abysmal of ratings nets you 200-300 points in 5v5 and 3v3.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=249 If you want to fiddle.

[Ratman_tf]

I was talking about arena points being easy even when you're counting on losing every match.  At that point friends or people you can run on a consistent basis with are irrelevant.  Just get a team made, and then do it every week on your own if you have to.  Still get the losing points even if you ran 10 fights solo.

Gahfuck! Why not just quit and go play something fun? More power to people who enjoy the arenas, but no thanks. I'll pass.

[Paelos]

I was talking about arena points being easy even when you're counting on losing every match.  At that point friends or people you can run on a consistent basis with are irrelevant.  Just get a team made, and then do it every week on your own if you have to.  Still get the losing points even if you ran 10 fights solo.

Gahfuck! Why not just quit and go play something fun? More power to people who enjoy the arenas, but no thanks. I'll pass.

The funny part is that a lot of that gear is ridiculously viable in pve. The shields alone, which almost never drop in our raids and are highly sought after, S3 was better armor and stam than T6 stuff. S2 was better than T5 stuff. I joined an arena team of 2v2 for a month just to get that shield, which i still use.

[Merusk]

I was talking about arena points being easy even when you're counting on losing every match.  At that point friends or people you can run on a consistent basis with are irrelevant.  Just get a team made, and then do it every week on your own if you have to.  Still get the losing points even if you ran 10 fights solo.

Gahfuck! Why not just quit and go play something fun? More power to people who enjoy the arenas, but no thanks. I'll pass.

The funny part is that a lot of that gear is ridiculously viable in pve. The shields alone, which almost never drop in our raids and are highly sought after, S3 was better armor and stam than T6 stuff. S2 was better than T5 stuff. I joined an arena team of 2v2 for a month just to get that shield, which i still use.

This is why they're putting ratings on ALL the sets now.  The shit worked well in PvE for a lot of classes and "offspecs" (I abused the system a lot as staggered upgrades on my hunter, as did the Mage, Shaman, other hunter, warlock and Priest on my team.)  We lost almost all our matches, but in a 5-man with a 1300 rating we'd net 300 points a week.   That's plenty to pick-up one or two things in a few weeks, (hello uber hunter axe for only 1k points) and then save up points for the next season's upgrades.

 I stopped arenas 3 weeks after S3 was released, but I had 3 pieces of the armor without a problem, not all of it upgrades, but it helped me to survive in BGs against folks in full sets.  Fuck, I started using the system on alts so I could gear them up for an hour or two a week instead of sitting on my ass for 12-23 hours completing 2-3 kara runs for badges.  (And then needing at least 5 weeks of Badge runs to even buy one decent upgrade.)  Got my priest out of her shitty quest greens and gave me some nice upgrades to head into WoTLK with, should I decide to play her again.

So OF COURSE the system was going to be shot to hell in the x-pack.   It was too easy to get good gear. A fuckload easier and less time-consuming than even kara badge farming with T5-equipped groups.

[Paelos]

I don't disagree with rating pvp gear.

I disagree with rating it on arenas. That's not pvp. That's like the microwave of pvp.

[Fordel]

For a lot of specs, the PvP gear was the only actual gear catered to them outside of the Tier sets.

[Paelos]

For a lot of specs, the PvP gear was the only actual gear catered to them outside of the Tier sets.

Blizzard sucks at itemization. We know this. Still, there are a lot of specs that have no business raiding in the current setup. We can blame them for that too.

[Azazel]

For players like myself, without the time or inclination to raid or even run 2hour heroics, running shittyhorribad arenas is/was the only real upgrade path once you hit max level and there's no more quest rewards. I'm expecting WotLK to be a lot of fun up until shortly aftter I hit 80, then the gear cap.

At that point, when there's no real further upgrade path without becoming much more catassy in one form or another, I'll qui and it'll be finally time to crack open my WAR box. Hopefully by then, most of the obvious clownshoes I read about in the WAR forums will be repaired or patched out, and it'll be a worthwhile way to spend a few months...

 

[AcidCat]

For players like myself, without the time or inclination to raid or even run 2hour heroics, running shittyhorribad arenas is/was the only real upgrade path once you hit max level and there's no more quest rewards. I'm expecting WotLK to be a lot of fun up until shortly aftter I hit 80, then the gear cap.

At that point, when there's no real further upgrade path without becoming much more catassy in one form or another, I'll qui and it'll be finally time to crack open my WAR box. Hopefully by then, most of the obvious clownshoes I read about in the WAR forums will be repaired or patched out, and it'll be a worthwhile way to spend a few months...

 

Well I was kinda in the same boat but found Battlegrounds much more my style for gear upgrading, I certainly didn't mind getting older Arena stuff that had rolled over to pure honor purchases, these were good enough upgrades and still took some time to get. However if all PvP gear is going to require arena rating at 80, there goes my preferred method of endgame progression. I don't like arenas just on a design standpoint - I'd much rather play some kind of war simulation than a sport simulation - but mainly it fails the same way raiding does - I'm not going to schedule my life around the game, period, ever. And even getting on some loser arena team would require me getting on at certain times to meet up and play. Not gonna do it.

[Azazel]

Yeah, but the BG stuff was pretty shitty, so we just went for the S1 gear via arena, and got the first boots/bracers/belt items from BGs. From on-and-off playing, my characters are outfitted in a mix of various S1-4 gladiators stuff mostly (all?) gotten from arenas over the last couple years, and off-piece items from the BGs.

And a couple of well-statted greens and blues I didn't want to downgrade to shitty purples for.

I agree though, if arena ratings are going to be required for BG gear, I'll start playing WAR when I get to that point, if they haven't changed the reqs by then. I'm not playing any of these MMOs as a life choice, I'm playing them for entertainment. While they're still fun I'll happily play, but when they start severely sucking, I stop. I've done it before and I'll do so again.

It's just not usually so obviously well-sighted in advance, is all.

[Xanthippe]

I don't think I'll be spending much time in the bgs at 80.  I have 4 70s to get to 80 and two other alts that are over 50 that I can spend getting to 80.

I'm finding that I enjoy leveling up more than actually being at max level when I'm outgeared.

I hate arenas.  I won't do it.

I also have an unopened WAR box that might get opened if I can't just bg my way to gear at endgame.

[Azazel]

See, I actually enjoy (some) BGs. I like doing AV, AB can be fun. And WSG is just horribad. But I don't enjoy the prospect of being a BG speedbump by not doing arenas like I'm "supposed to".

[Xanthippe]

See, I actually enjoy (some) BGs. I like doing AV, AB can be fun. And WSG is just horribad. But I don't enjoy the prospect of being a BG speedbump by not doing arenas like I'm "supposed to".

I like battlegrounds too.  I just hate arenas.

I would like battlegrounds more if gear wasn't so important, I think.  Naked battlegrounds seem like a good idea to me.  Or naked arenas.  How can you compare how well Player A does vs Player B when Player A has gear that effectively gives him a level or two over Player B?

[Merusk]

One of the blizzcon notes on MMO-champion mentioned the possiblity of "ranked" BGs,  Presumably based on gear. Apparently this is to avoid some of the BS of getting your ass  handed to you in .09 seconds by a guy in Season 12 epics while you're floundering in quest greens.  THey also mentioned guild ranking ladders.

But of course, none of that's grind ;)

[Azazel]

That's even more fucked. I like going in and just playing with whoever my friends are without it becoming an arena-style ranked-and-rated clusterfuck. They may as well go back to the original BS BG ranking style...