Sounds like good changes to me.

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Sounds like bad changes to me. It's blizzard making things harder for the average player, especially on weapons. I can understand why blizz is doing this but still.

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about time. It pisses me off to no end seeing pvp scrubs with 1300-1400 ratings getting weapons about the same or superior to T5 raiding content. Screw the welfare epic system.


Would have more sense to flip the higher requirement on weps than the shoulder piece.

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Still waiting for the Paladin Edition.

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To be successful in Arena you need to gear, so now it will be harder to get the gear to be successful in those Arena. So fewer people will get the benefit fo bothering to do Arena. Now we're back to the whole
"Grand Marshal" thing. Arena teams are going to disappear in droves.

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This sucks with the weapons, because arena was a way for people that didn't have access to the high end raiding gear the opportunity to gear out, albeit really really slowly.

Now what will happen is that all those folks who just want the weapons will realize that the weapons are not available, so they won't bother with arena. Will be nice to see how happy people like Johnny will be when they have to wait a half hour for a match.

I don't know what the big deal is with allowing the low ranked teams access to these weapons.

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Don't forget the the Personal Arena Rating only applies to buying the Season 3 Arena weapons, not Season 2 or Season 1.

People will still have a chance to get great gear, but the very BEST will have the top notch gear.

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Posted this in the article above, then scrolled down and realized the 2.3 pvp article is a more appropriate spot, reposting:

Healing debuffs will now affect Drain spells and abilities. More specifically, Warrior's Mortal Strike will debuff Warlock's Drain Life and Siphon Life:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778037077&sid=1&pageNo=4#66

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I don't see why making PvP loot more exclusive is a step in the right direction. Me personally I won't have any trouble getting it since I can get a 2000+ rating in a couple nights of arena with my 2v2 partner pretty easily. But for other people it's gonna put them at a disadvantge. If I have a season 3 weapon and you have a season 2 weapon I'm simply going to win from sheer hitting power. I liked that they were allowing casual players to get the best PvP gear. THAT was a step in the right direction. PvP should be about skill not gear. I like fighting opponents who have equal gear or even better gear. You get more of a sense of pwnage when you win. And PvPers aren't as selfish as raiders from my experience. We could care less if your shoulders look like mine. We aren't really trying to stand out visually as much as raiders are I guess.

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I hope they update the cloak, trinkets, rings and gems as well. The cloak hasn't been upgraded since season 1. The stats on it aren't that great anymore. I wouldn't mind them upping the price for an upgraded version.

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Well, the shoulder obsession isn't only among players...

Quote (from Drysc):
"The shoulders for any set are commonly the most visually representative, they're the most visible at any distance, and as they allow a lot of space compared to say a leg or bracer item, we commonly take them and really create something visually impressive. We want that visually impressive item to represent what a player has achieved, and so the achievement of being a contender in the arena at a higher level will be visually distinguished. "

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... or you could just raid and do Heroic's to get nice gear, for those that have been overly reliant on the Arena for now.

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i love it! I was playing pvp b4 a year or so, ranking like a lil bitch, got to rank 11 after quiting games and dropping my rank a lot of times, standing and all those things that made pvp hard. Now i came back and i see every damn noob having an arena weap, great changes, arena gear is not for everyone, u guys can get the lvl 70 pvp gear if u want a gear, is hell easy to get it.

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@9
You contradict yourself. "PvP should be about skill not gear". You need skill to get the high rating. As it is now all you need to do is suffer through several weeks of getting your arse handed to ya and you will have the weapon.

I have been ganked by several people on my server that if they didnt have the gear they do my lvl 19 druid would wtfpwn them.

The pvp system right now is gear driven not so much skill. Anybody can buy into a rated team and sap off there hard work.

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....and the druid t6 shoulders look ugly.

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@12

some people don't have the time to raid on a regular basis, i'm not one of them

my main issue is that the ONLY epic offhand weapons before Black Temple are the arena weapons, now blizzard does this and no one but fury warriors and rogues are gonna care, so blizzard is gonna care

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This whole system isn't a change for the better. I can understand on an intellectual level why the dev team do these kind of things, but it's still just so... Mean spirited.

90% of people who could be classified as "every damn noob having an arena weap" or those casual people who grabbed level 60 epic PVP gear when the initial pre-BC honour changes went in, generally think "hey, this is nice. Blizzard are actually thinking of *me* for once. I can get something *cool* without having to put in 12 hours a day".

It'll be interesting to see how this change ripples through the arena community. If my prediction comes to light then a very large percentage of the teams who do their 10 matches a week in the hope of having a gear set in 6 months will pretty much give up, arenas will decline significantly in popularity and all those people who are saying right now "Yeah, about time! Why SHOULD these nubs have welfare epix?!1!" will be in for a nasty surprise when they find those casual teams propping them up in the ratings aren't there, thusly lowering their comparative rating to below what is needed to purchase gear.

We won't shed a tear for that lot.

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I'm a lvl 70 rogue on a PVE server. I like raiding mostly, so that's what I spend most of my time doing. I enjoy the arenas and do them just for fun and points. I have no problem with the best weapons going to the best players.

My problem is that as a combat sword rogue, there is no OH sword from the blue Latro's from Black Morass until Mt. Hyjal. Nothing. Nothing in Kara, nothing in SSC, nothing in TK. Arenas filled the gap. I don't mind them reserving the best weapons for the best players, but I sure hope they adjust their itemization so those of with mediocre ratings can still get appropriate gear.

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@17 You're right on.

These retards crowing about "nubs with welfare epics" have no clue that it's those "nubs" that are propping up their ratings.

I GUARANTEE that when this goes into place, and the low-rating "casuals" who leave in droves, you are going to see tons of threads:

WTF BLIZZ? I WAS 1900+ PRE 2.3, AND NOW I CAN'T BREAK 1700! ARENA = BROKEN!

Mark my words. These idiots are in for a rude awakening.

The bottom line is that these people who get these "welfare" epics aren't going to be able to play any better with the gear, as there is a much different skillset required to arena over PvEing.

I smoked a Rogue last night with 4/5 Merc Glad's and both swords, me having 4/5 T4 and 3/3 Primalstrike.

Gear < Skill < Gear + Skill.

Get over the whining, you teenage children who think you're "entitled" to something because you can spend 4x the hours a day over the casuals.

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This is completely retarded and it makes me mad!

It's one thing to say, "well, you're not very good, so it's going to take you longer to get nice gear." But it's another thing to say "you're not very good, SO YOU WILL NEVER HAVE GOOD GEAR."

The good players will just get better and better and casual players won't even be able to compete anymore.

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