Arena Tournament Registration, Blue Posts

[Boubouille]

2009 Arena Tournament Registration Now Open!
Registrations are now open in Europe and will probably be available in the US in a few hours. Below are a few posts related to the tournament.

We’re pleased to announce that the 2009 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament Registration is now open !

Remember, this year all participants in the tournament have a chance to earn the exclusive Armored Murloc in-game pet as well as the exclusive “Vanquisher” title, so get your team together and be ready for fierce competition.

For more information on the 2009 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament, take a look at our FAQ and remember to check back on the News Section for updates
FAQ: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/arena/tournament/faq.xml
News Section: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/arena/tournament/news.xml

Sign up now !
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/arena/tournament/index.xml
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/tournament/index.xml

[...] The dates given in the email has unfortunately lead to some confusion since they do seem to be a bit unclear. The dates given in the email is the dates for when you can sign up for the 3v3 tournament type and not when the tournament will begin.

The tournament will begin on the 25th of February and last 6 weeks until April 7th, as mentioned in the rules: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/arena/tournament/rules.html

When will the Tournament Realms open?
The Tournament realms will open at approximately 10am CET on the 25th of February. (Source)

Will the realm be accessible for practice and warm-up before the beginning of the Tournament?
Yes. The first phase of the tournament is called the practise period and should last for 2 weeks. This phase will start up when the realms become accessible for play on the 25th of February. (Source)

The FAQ says "After the six-week online qualifier concludes" - what date does this mean exactly?
The tournament should start on February 25th and last for six weeks. The current plan is that the realms are being brought offline again on April 7th at 9pm CET. (Source)

Q&A
1. Advertised as 6 weeks - 2 weeks practice, 4 weeks live comp.
2. Invoices received say 5 weeks 1 Day
3. Invoices state today being a day of play, as its being charged for.
4. Tourney information says the tournament goes live on the 25th (impying practice should have started last wednesday)
5. Help & support said to log out and in compeltely to see teh arena servers - this doesnt work.

1. Correct.
2. That's the sign-up dates, not the qualifier dates. Unfortunately that's not really clear in the e-mail, hence this misunderstanding.
3. The payment is for access to the qualifier, which starts on February 25th and lasts until April 7th - a 6 week period.
4. The two weeks of practice are the first two weeks of the 6 week qualifier.
5. This should work once the Arena Tournament realms are live, should you have started the client prior to the realms going live and not restarted it since. (Source)

Blue posts

Dual-Specialization
I think the implementation of dual spec you are likely to see when the PTR goes live is going to have some substantial differences from the initial announcement. We tend to iterate a great deal, which is one of the reasons we don't do big announcements more often. (Source)

Nerfing classes
We have made burst nerfs to Retribution paladins, death knights, Arms warriors, Arcane mages, hunters, Feral druids and now rogues. Almost unanimously, the nerfed classes thought that nerfs were needed but that our specific nerfs went too far. Nerfing classes is never fun. Players hate it, and ultimately it means we screwed up or at the very least failed to predict new tactics. But we still need to do it for the good of the game when we think it is warranted. There will be more. (Source)

Priest (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Baseline Meditation?
If you take all of the good talents and just give them away, then one possible outcome is you are just left with a bunch of mediocre talents and your spec is a lot less meaningful than it is today.

We like players to have options. That is important. But we also like to have some very attractive talents. This second point can be in direct opposition to the first point. We also don't want every talent in the tree to feel mandatory, because players don't have enough points to get them all.

All I am saying is there is no hard and fast rule for designing talents. But you should not conclude that because every priest gets Meditation, that that makes it a badly designed talent. (Source)

Rogue (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)
More changes to come in 3.1
On the second question, yes, we have several changes in mind for 3.1 for rogues and only announced a few. (Source)

Assassination specialization
We agree with you about how an Assassination rogue should play – setting up a kill and then delivering it. But bursting someone down who is crowd-controlled while the victim has very limited decisions they can actually make to avoid death is only fun for the rogue. The Mutilate button push is just very strong when poisons are nearly always on the victim.

I have said before that we don't think Arena is fun when healers are immortal until mana-drained. However, we also don't think Arena is fun when someone always dies in the opening few seconds. The matches need to last long enough for something to actually happen -- for you to decide who you are going to attack or how to respond to their actions. If someone literally has almost no response for your attacks then that is not skill that is allowing you to win matches (and I am not just talking to rogues here). (Source)

[lu]

arena? who cares? except dks, bm hunters & the skilled ret pala

[Langebrød]

bm hunters? lol.. you mean surv?

[Nidhöggr]

Yeah, the first version of dual specc just sounded too good.
Think the ptr version will be once again just fail :-X

[LavaDuck]

DK/ret
DK/ret
DK/ret
DK/ret
DK/ret
DK/ret
DK/ret
DK/ret

add a rogue for 3v3 then add another dps + a priest healer for 5v5

[heerobya]

They probably realized they made dual spec sound too good, so they'll put it on PTR in "suck" form and build it back up through feedback until it's somewhere between the uber-awesomeness they announced and the "practical" version that comes out of the PTR.

[yhtomitn64]

They probably realized they made dual spec sound too good, so they'll put it on PTR in "suck" form and build it back up through feedback until it's somewhere between the uber-awesomeness they announced and the "practical" version that comes out of the PTR.

Someone is so happy with life!

[MuTe]

[blizzquote author=Vaneras]
I have said before that we don't think Arena is fun when healers are immortal until mana-drained. However, we also don't think Arena is fun when someone always dies in the opening few seconds. The matches need to last long enough for something to actually happen -- for you to decide who you are going to attack or how to respond to their actions. If someone literally has almost no response for your attacks then that is not skill that is allowing you to win matches (and I am not just talking to rogues here).[/blizzquote]

Couldnt agree more with this statement!

[Sephirah]

That's why the PTR's are there; To test changes, new content and additions, and improve upon those ideas as well as fix bugs.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Thank you, I didn't read anything so funny in months...

[SFJake]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Thank you, I didn't read anything so funny in months...

...what the hell?

[Boubouille]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Thank you, I didn't read anything so funny in months...

And I didn't ban anyone in days, I guess we're all happy today.

[Naargaar]

200 games for a Muloc then, time to suck it up, and take a beating.

[Ordin]

[blizzquote author=Vaneras]
If someone literally has almost no response for your attacks then that is not skill that is allowing you to win matches (and I am not just talking to rogues here).[/blizzquote]

Thank you Blizz. Now I hope they actually follow through on this idea and nerf rogues. They have been overpowered in arenas for far too long.

[Xaria]

So no murloc pet for the dutch people? ._.
Why can't people from the netherlands enter the arena tournement anyway? :\

[lu]

bm hunters? lol.. you mean surv?

oh
yeah

[XenofeX]

It's not a secret that the beloved DK will be overepresentated, no doubt

[Marvdatboi]

What do you have to do to win the Murloc pet? Is it just signing up or is it participating in X amount of matches? I don't care either way they had me at the pet lol and hey who doesn't want to win 200k in prizes.

[amk]

"Nerfing classes
We have made burst nerfs to Retribution paladins, death knights, Arms warriors, Arcane mages, hunters, Feral druids and now rogues. Almost unanimously, the nerfed classes thought that nerfs were needed but that our specific nerfs went too far. Nerfing classes is never fun. Players hate it, and ultimately it means we screwed up or at the very least failed to predict new tactics. But we still need to do it for the good of the game when we think it is warranted. There will be more."

So out of the 10 Classes currently live, GC is saying they 'screwed up' on 7 of them?

I don't think anyone expected DK's to be balanced because

a) they are new
and
b) they are the 'poster child class' for WoTLK

But to make that many mistakes across so many classes....even after months of Beta and 1 month in TBC @ LV 70.

Anyone else feel as frustrated as I?

I wasn't around for TBC Launch, so maybe this is just plain normal...

[delage35]

Yeah, the first version of dual specc just sounded too good.
Think the ptr version will be once again just fail :-X

a) Presumptuous since they did not say what the differences would be
b) Any iteration of dual-spec > no dual spec

[Elementium]

I'm thinking someday they could have a special PvE event.. you still pay to get in.. the best raiding guilds gather around to compete. It is one pain in the ass boss, no one knows the tactics and whoever kills him get's some sort of epic plus a mount/pet.

Anyway Dual spec is still worrying me, I like ret and i'd like to off-spec holy but it seems far to easy for this to turn into the pure classes only getting spots cause they need me to heal.