This time, it’s a little hard to summarize with just few screen shots. We had this new layout in the works for over a month and it was finally completed last night! Design credit all goes to Snitchers from EU-Neptulon (Ripsaw on EU-Defias Brotherhood). Many thanks to his hard work and contribution!

We also added yet another feature to the Matrix Strategies section. You may now claim your name as well as edit your previous entries, if you enter a password at the time of entry. However, all entries entered before today will still not be editable. There will also be a contest for the Matrix Strategies section coming soon, so stay tuned.

As always, we appreciate very much if everyone can report any bugs or mistakes they spot on the site. So please do not hesitate if you see something out of place and toss us a post over at Suggestions and Feedback!

Tags: Site

In a curious move on the PTR, Blizzard is now allowing PvP gear to be purchased with PvE tokens:

• T4 tokens may be used to buy Season 1 Gladiator set
• T5/Tier 6 tokens may be used to buy Season 2 Gladiator set
• Badges of Justice may be used to buy S2 honor gear
• T6 Sunwell tokens may be used to buy season 3 belt/bracers/boots

I suppose the reuse/recycling of PvE tokens is not a bad thing. With the world going green and all, the digital world should follow suit in spirit. Although, no guild in their right mind would allow these tokens to be turned in for the outlet PvP pieces until the entire guild has been geared out… much less the Sunwell>S3 pieces.

Season 4 Gear Found on PTR
Some Season 4 pieces have been found on the PTR by MMO-Champion. From the stats of the pieces found, it’s no surprise that S4 is just another incremental upgrade. Here is a quick comparison of the S4 and S3 warrior sets:
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Tags: PvP · News

Ziss: Will you be joining the 3v3 tournament? Vote here!

2008 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament!!!
Another tournament has crept into the picture and most importantly, this one is from Blizzard itself. This 3v3 tournament open to anyone with a World of Warcraft account (plus $20 registration fee). Much like the 5v5 tournament from last year, the qualifying rounds will be online but this time on an event realm with premade characters. The top four teams in the two qualifiers will then go on to compete in a live regional event. Then the regional champions will face off in a global championship.

Total prize money is a cool $200,000, so Blizzard has both feet in this tournament. Definitely a step in the right direction. Full details here.

Resilience And Mana Drain
On a side note, new build is up on the PTR and one major change for PvP is that resilience now affects mana drain spells. The change is not yet in the patch notes, but shows up on the resilience tooltip. The amount of mana drain reduction is roughly 1% per 20 resilience. That amounts to a huge 20-25% reduction in mana drain effects for a well geared (400-500 resilience) arena player.

Tags: PvP · News

Bunch of blue popped up this week — pertaining to PTR and upcoming changes — with some PvP implications. Here’s a quick roundup:

As discussed in our forums, the drinking mechanic has been changed on the PTR. Hortus states that this is intended and not a bug:

“This is an intentional change to how drinking works. The amount of mana regenerated now ramps up, so you will see little or no mana regen the first few seconds and then it will increase as the duration continues.” -Hortus

Bornakk announced that there will be a fix for arena queues that should help with queue times across the board. Needless to say this change will be greatly welcomed.

“You should see it updated in the patch notes soon, but there is an improvement set for patch 2.4 which will result in lower queue times across the board for arena matches.” -Bornakk

And with the back and forth saga of class changes in 2.4, Nethaera now says that there will be more class changes introduced for Patch 2.4:

“We do have class changes planned for patch 2.4.0. Essentially, with the changes to classes in 2.3.2, we wanted to give the changes some time to see how they played out and we didn’t want to put more changes into 2.4.0 immediately with all the other additions and changes we’ve made. We will be adding more though as we go along.” -Nethaera

New PvP Honor Rewards
Along with the new PvP badge pieces, three new honor pieces will also be introduced in 2.4… Read More

Tags: PvP · News

If you are one of those (like me) who skip over the launcher news, you might have missed this interesting announcement:

The 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational is a two-day event bringing together the company and gamers in a convention atmosphere, featuring Q&A panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers and hands-on opportunities with the company’s latest games. The Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational also showcases the skills of top eSports gamers from around the world as they compete in invitational StarCraft, Warcraft III and World of Warcraft Arena tournaments.

The event will take place on Saturday the 28th and Sunday the 29th of June, in Hall 5 of the Porte de Versailles Exposition Center in Paris, France.
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Tags: PvP · News