If you follow blue posts, you’ve probably noticed that the CM’s have been slowly releasing information about Arena Season 3. In keeping with Blizzard’s tradition of incremental updates, there are no major changes — good or bad, Arena S3 will be more of the same.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been announced so far for S3.

First off, the ETA for S3 still has not been announced. They will give us a 2-week heads up before it begins. Arena points and honor will not be reset when S3 starts. The current maximum points (5k arena points and 75k honor) are expected to remain. Stock up on arena points, honor, tokens and badges of justice (see PvP trinket below) so you can good jump on gear as soon as S3 hits.

Rating Requirements
We’ve all heard about the ratings requirements mentioned as far back as Blizzcon for purchasing S3 items. Two requirements have been announced — all weapons will require a 1850 rating to purchase and shoulders will require a 2000 rating. These restrictions are only for the purchase of the items, they are not required for continued use.

To prevent players from joining teams with the required ratings to purchase the items, Blizzard will introduce personal ratings. A player will have a rating calculated for each team and only for the games the character has participated in and it will be calculated separately from the team rating. The personal rating will be used for eligibility in purchasing weapons and shoulders, and also end-of-season rewards. The team rating, as is currently, will be used for determining weekly arena points and standings.

When S3 starts, only S3 items will have the rating requirements. S2 costs will drop and have no rating requirements. And S1 items will move to the honor vendor.

With the added set of arena gear, Blizzard has decided to merge the bonuses of all the arena sets. You can now mix-and-match any seasons’ pieces to get the 2-piece and 4-piece bonuses. It also means you won’t be able to double up and get the 2x +35 resilience bonuses, but Blizzard promises to buff some of the weaker 4-piece bonuses to compensate.

New Arena Items
There are new pvp trinkets for 2.3. All versions of the trinket have a click effect to gain 1750 max health (kind of like the old lifegiving gem effect), along with a passive effect (your choice of 47 spell damage, 40 spell crit rating, 80 attack power, 40 melee crit rating, or 88 healing)… and they will require badges of justice in order to purchase them. It’s time to head back into heroics and have your badges ready for 2.3.

There are new arena relics for all specs. Stats are yet unannounced. Hopefully they will be more exciting than the current resilience buff ones.

Some new PvP items announced: Melee and Caster DPS cloaks, Healer PvP Cloak, and Hunter Weapon. Armor penetration!

Drysc confirmed that there will be new honor based bracers, belts and boots. Along with those new pieces, S1 gear (including weapons) will also appear on the honor vendor at the start of S3.

Tags: News

19 Responses to “Keeping up with Arena Season 3”

1. Shaan Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:02 am

   Nice article, I didn’t know about the PvP trinket. More honor farming ahead, boo! ;p

2. hamsterdam Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:02 am

   nice compilation, thanks

3. Scrood Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:14 am

   Shaan, not really. If you paid attention you would see it recuires Badge Of Justice. Anyways GG PvPsource,sweet post. Looking forward to see more from you guys (PS: The video guides are awesome)

4. Phate Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 8:38 pm

   Ah crap i gotta PvE to PvP now? thats retarded, i did way too much heroics on my shaman and now i dont wana have to go through the repetitive rep grind for my lock too just for a PvP trinket

5. Doppo Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:38 pm

   The new PvP trinket is going to be very hard not to pass up. Doh, more honor farming for me.

6. Doppo Says:
   October 2nd, 2007 at 10:39 pm

   Oops, nm what I said, didn’t realize it required Badges of Justices and not Honor. Arg, that’s even worse!

7. Valhalla Says:
   October 3rd, 2007 at 12:15 pm

   Unless I’m misunderstanding it, the PvP trinket doesn’t seem very good. Max health will not be very useful, at least to me, except for the start of matches.

8. Ziss Says:
   October 3rd, 2007 at 1:45 pm

   Max health will also heal for that amount.

9. shyst Says:
   October 3rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm

   when i read “All versions of the trinket have a click effect to gain 1750 max health” i think…if i click it it will increase my max hp but it won’t heal me for 1750. For example, if i was 5000/8000..using the trinket would make me 5000/9750.

   Ziss: Yeah, that’s how they worded life giving gem too, but apparently they meant it also heals. I think it’s a step in preventing 4 DPS teams being so random in 5v5.

10. Shaan Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm

    Scrood,

    “Drysc confirmed that there will be new honor based bracers, belts and boots.”

    And the new cloak on top of that.

11. Magog Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    Kalgan’s phrasing of “kind of like the old lifegiving gem effect” leads me to believe that it does indeed have a clickable “heal” component like the pre-nerf Lifegiving Gem.

    The biggie here is that if this proves to be true, the heal will also unaffected by mortal strike or wound poison.

12. Ziss Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 2:42 pm

    If it’s unaffected by MS and Wound then it’s indeed amazing

13. Skel Says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 5:08 am

    Its lame that you have to farm heroics. I pvp so i dont have to pve.

14. Metalearth Says:
    October 6th, 2007 at 2:52 am

    Should be interesting to see season 3. Better start saving arena and honor points then. As far as the instancing for badges of justice, Mechenar is the easiest place to farm, and I don’t mind raiding since I enjoy both aspects of the game.

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