3.2: The Patch that Brought PvP to its Knees

I don’t think there has ever been a patch that has introduced such massive amounts of change for PvP. A new raid? New mounts, leveling crap and new druid art? BAH! This patch is all about PvP!

First off, we PvP afficionados have a new battleground to play around with. While it won’t appeal to those who prefer things like Warsong Gulch, anyone who enjoys Alterac Valley or Wintergrasp will get a hell of a kick out of it.

Actual review of the battleground pending me having actually played it. 3.2 PTR, here I come!

Oh, hey, speaking of Battlegrounds, guess what?

Battleground experience has arrived!

That’s right, battlegrounds award experience now. Anything that rewards honor (except HKs themselves) will award experience, too.

And in case that causes all you twinks out there to go “HHEEURGH”, fret not! All it takes to disable experience gain is to pay a visit to an NPC, pay 10 gold, and bam. You’re character is now incapable of gaining experience.

And I mean all experience. You cash in a quest? No experience. Run a 19 through Wailing Caverns? That guy gains no experience. Of course, this can all be turned back on for another 10 gold.

And the best part? Those characters who have XP gains turned off will only be able to play battlegrounds with other players who have the XP gain turned off. Naturally, the opposite is true, where those who can gain XP are only allowed to PvP against others who do.

This is perfect. Utterly perfect.

Those who want to level with some PvP on the side can without fear of being annihilated by horrifically overgeared twinks. Those who want to do serious PvP without leveling can do so without having to deal with horrifically undergeared or underleveled teammates.

Though I suspect there will be many twinks upset about this change, nearly every one else won’t be. I mean, really, how long have we been asking for a separation of twinks and non?

As for the speed of questing, apparently it won’t be as fast as proper questing, though still a viable means to level up. Of course, if you don’t actually bother to ever capture flags or anything you won’t be getting experience, so expect it to practically be pretty slow.

When standing at a capture point that you control, you will gain a buff called Honorable Defender. This buff grants +50% honor gained from kills. This currently affects Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm and Isle of Conquest.

Oh hey look, another thing the community has been asking for (though indirectly, in this case) and here it is. Though I nearly disagreed with having this active in Eye, I can see the point in trying to get people away from fighting in nowhere land.

Seriosuly, people. There are five points of contention on this map. They aren’t very big. If you’re not fighting at one of these five points, you are doing it wrong.

While playing static defense still may not be quite as lucrative as going on the zerg, it’s at least a lot better than it has been in the past. And really, what better way to convince people to play defense than to give them more honor for doing so?

Speaking of Arathi Basin and Eye, these two battlegrounds were apparently dragging on too long, so they’ve been shortened. The flag(s) in each can be captured in 8 seconds rather than 10, and each match ends when one side hits 1600 points.

I don’t really recall either one being particularly arduous in length… they seemed fine to me. I mean, the whole mechanic of collecting points for holding bases, gave the battleground a ceiling on it’s length. It’s impossible for one of these to drag on.

Really, what we need a timer for is Warsong Gulch. That one is still an ornery son of a

Warsong Gulch: There is a now a 20 minute timer on this battleground.

Oh. I see.

I suppose that works. I’m pretty sure when we say “there needs to be a time limit” we didn’t mean a literal time limit. I’ve always disliked Warsong, due to it’s propensity to take an absolute eternity to finish. This should go a great ways towards mending my Warsong Outriders reputation.

Oh, hey, remember last week when I said nobody cares about 2v2 arenas?

The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5 player team rating. Rating requirements from 2 player teams can still be used to purchase the previous season of gear.

Apparently the developers agree. So if you’ve only got one friend interested in PvP… better find a third pretty damn quickly. 2v2 arenas are, officially, irrelevant. Feel free to continue practicing coordination here and use it as a neat place to pick up all the Furious Gladiator gear you can.

Think of 2v2 as a warm-up bracket. You go there, get used to playing arenas, get your coordination and strategies down, and use it to pick up decent PvP gear. Not the best gear, but still damn fine gear that will prepare you better for 3v3/5v5.

Picture it this way.

3v3/5v5 arenas are like end-game raiding. These are your big 25 man Ulduar hard modes.

2v2 arenas, then are Heroic instances. Easier to put together, require less people, but the gear rewards aren’t quite as good, and the skills you learn here will better serve you in the more serious brackets.

BGs, then, are like reputation grinds and crafted gear.

And if you’re one of those “but I don’t like 1 or 3 other people!”, well… raiders have the same problem.

Two more little tidbits.

First, gear is going to “drop” in battlegrounds, in what I believe is a similar fashion to how it works in Warhammer. Greens and the occasional blue piece of gear will appear that everyone can roll on.

These will, of course, be available from level 10 all the way up to level 80, so not only can you level up via PvP, but you can gear to help that process too.

But what I’m most excited about?

Rated battlegrounds.

A system is in the works, apparently, and we have only to wait until Blizzcon to find out what it is. And then patch 3.3 or something to play it.

Sure, none of this is, technically, set in stone. Say what you like, this patch is going to be HUGE for the face of PvP.

So… anyone else going to level alts exclusively through PvP?

EDIT:

Oh yes, one more thing.

Resilience no longer reduces the damage you take from DoTs, but reduces ALL damage you take from other players instead.

Seriously… holy crap. I mean wow. Resilience was important before, but now? I mean… man. People in PvE gear are going to be utterly destroyed.