There are several interesting changes and additions in this recently release patch for the beta, including talent changes for most and some honor piece stats released.

Honor Piece Stats

Here is a list of the class changes as well…. Read More

Tags: PvP · News

Pre-BC, the honor system and titles that were earned represented how “good” or how much time you spent in battlegrounds, with different opinions from many on what the true meaning of the titles meant. High Warlords and Grand Marshals were either respected for what they had accomplished, or laughed at for all the mindless hours they spent honor farming, but it still made a distinction from others and is a great part of the pvp scene.

Of course with arena, new titles were created, and once again it was a distinction on how “good” you were in pvp, with Gladiator being the top. Come Wotlk, a question has been brought up on whether or not older pvp titles will be brought back to once again be gained by those who either never had the chance or the time.

“Well I do not think you should expect to see the old honor system return, so if the old PvP titles are to be reimplemented into the game, they would have to be earned in a completely different way compared to how they were earned back then.

As you may know, the old rank 11+ PvP titles were not exactly easy to achieve, so it would require a lot of careful planning and thought on how to reintroduce the old PvP titles without them losing the significance and value they currently have. I think it would be safe to say that those who have earned the old PvP titles through the old honor system, would be less than happy to see said titles get reintroduced to the game if they do not require the same effort to achieve as they did back then.

More titles will be introduced to the game in the future though, so perhaps we may one day get to see the old PvP titles return in one form or another :-)” -Vaneras

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Tags: PvP · News

Hunter pets have always been an issue in arena, especially when it comes to survivability. A big reason for their lack of survivability is no resilience, but we might see that changed in wotlk.

“The burst issue is one worth more discussion. We have hesitated giving resilience to pets because to some extent we do want them to be killable. When you’re the other team all ganging up to kill a pet while enduring tons of damage from the hunter, it can feel like a long time, and then the hunter just turns around and brings the pet back.One thing we’re not crazy about is the pet-as-guided-missile strategy that some hunters seem to employ (send your pet in, then ignore it the rest of the fight.) You should want to heal your pet and otherwise try to keep it alive and not just use it as a delaying tactic.

Now I’m not saying pets are already too tough, just that we don’t want to get them that way, which is why we haven’t gone the resilience route yet. But I would be interested in hearing more discussion about how much more health a pet would need to feel like they weren’t getting one-shotted. Alternately, maybe talents that affected chance to be crit (or granted something on being crit) would be more appropriate. If in the end you think resilience is the only thing that will keep the pet alive, let us know that too. “-Ghostcrawler
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It will be very interesting to see what blizzard decides to do as far as pet survivability in arena, especially after all of these new pet talents. Hunters should have a bright future in the arena scene just from what we have seen so far with new abilities and talents for wotlk. But if they decide to give resilience to pets, the reaction from both hunters and non-hunters will be something to follow.

Tags: PvP · Hunter · News

So far on all the gear, Spell dmg and Healing is converted into 1 stat called “Spellpower” looks like a good idea on paper, but don’t know how its going to play out in PvP/PvE. In PvP some classes will benefit from it more than others (IE. Dreamstate druids will be kinda OP since they will have a lot more +spell dmg than before and will be able to nuke better. ) Every hybrid class will like this a lot in the sense if they need to farm and they usually are holy, they can go shadow and not lose +dmg or +healing and be able to farm like if they have had +dmg gear on *pre wotlk*.

Here is a quote but can’t find the source atm.

“”Spellpower: All items and effects which grant bonuses to spell damage and spell healing are being consolidated into a single stat, Spellpower. This stat will appear with the same values found on items which grant “increased spell damage and healing” such as on typical Mage and Warlock itemization. For classes which do not heal, they should see no change in the character sheet other than new tooltip wording. Healing characters will see their bonus healing numbers on the character sheet decrease, however, all healing spells have been modified to receive more benefit from spellpower than they received from bonus healing, with a net effect of no change to the amount healed by their spells. Some talents have had to be rebalanced to accommodate this change, but the amount healed will remain roughly the same. In addition, some talents will provide only healing spell power.”"

Tags: PvP · News