S3 Gear requirements in season 4

[Occulte]

Sorry Billy (and others with the same mentality) but your comment is very shortsighted and misguided.

Blizzard has all but destroyed the ranking system thanks to personal rating requirements. How? Simple, they have given a huge incentive for highly skilled arena players to slum around the lower ranks while running people to 1850 so they can get their weapons, for the low low price of 3500 gold. Don't forget the 8 separate teams those same gladiators run up to 2k every week so they can sell spots off to desperate players in need of points.

What this has done is knocked the majority of your players down 100 to 200 points easily. So your teams that could hit 2k are now lucky to get 1800 much less 1850. Your 1850 teams will never hit the 1800 mark. When you queue up on a 1650 team and end up fighting 1 guy that should be at that level and then the number 1 2v2 team in your battlegroup, well then you have a serious problem.

So no, pulling the "blah blah those that deserve it get it" card is complete and utter horsesh*t. First of all, 2200 and 2300 players should not be down in the 1900 and below ratings every day of the week, nor should many of their customers be anything over 1600. Have you ever walked around your server and seen guys holding season 3 weapons that have 1400 2s, 3s, and 5s teams? Do those guys deserve their weapons? Because they shelled out 3500 gold to get them? Please.

The last thing Blizzard is doing is catering to the casual player. They are further rewarding people that put in a ton more time whether it be farming arena teams or farming gold to pay for the items in arena. Blizzard is attempting to fix the team selling stuff with their newest lack-of-thought completely retarded "fix" in the next patch. However, even that will have no effect on 4 2400 rated players running some guy shelling out cash to 1850 with their 5s team.

I can certainly empathize with the people complaining about the lack of reduction in requirements for arena season 3 gear when season 4 hits. Especially considering they will get to fight guys with season 4 shoulders and weapons all the time now at the 1500 - 1600 range. ;-)

This is further good news for gladiators though:

Season 3 weapons and shoulders for 2.5k and 3.5k respectively.
Season 4 weapons for 4k.
Season 4 shoulders for 5k.

/golfclap

[MdJ]

Occulte, it sounds to me like you faced some full s3 team at lower ratings, got killed, and are now QQ'ing about it.
Yes, there are some people selling points and personal rating, no, it's not a floodgate of 2400 rated players killing poor noobs. Billy's points mostly stand. If you are skilled enough for 2k, you will reach 2k, if you are not, you will not reach 2k and instead go whine about it on forums. Even if your comment weren't grossly exaggerated, I still wouldn't see the problem with it. Shoulders are a status symbol, you're not supposed to get them unless you are skilled.
Moreover, all these people in full s3 that are supposedly walking around at 1500 rating: it won't take them more than a couple of hours to get 1800+, so I doubt you'll be facing them for very long.

The last point that annoys me is that the lack of a weapon and shoulders is a disadvantage for lower rated players, and that's why they can't get to the higher ratings. This is, of course, purely ridiculous. The difference between S2 and S3/S4 weapon and shoulders won't suddenly make you a terrible player or a very good one. Stop blaming other people for your lack of skills or dedication: if you want 2k, practice your ass off, find some good teammates, and repeat until succes.

[SageOTG]

Really, the rating requirements shouldn't change so drastically. Whether or not 50 points difference is acceptable, I can't really say. With the way arena has been for the past half of the season, I'm leaning towards agreement with the new ratings. Maybe decrease it by another 50, but I'd say no more than that.

If you play a warlock in high-end arena brackets (as I do), or probably even low-end, you know that melee stomps a hole in warlocks. Giving all rogues access to S3 weapons right off the bat of S4 is a definite no-no. The top end and armor penetration is very substantial in comparison to S1 and even S2 I would say (I have a rogue too now, imagine that). Does it make you a better player by wielding better weapons? Of course not. But when you are good enough to lock down a warlock (which honestly isn't very hard) the extra damage adds up significantly - especially if your teammate has half of a braincell. Imo, Blizz can remove the weapon requirements when they fix/remove Cheat Death. That's not even touching on Warriors, but honestly I think they are a far more balanced class regardless of their power. The rest of the melee classes, I imagine, see less benefit than a rogue...particularly because of how easy it is to deal damage with a rogue. Don't get me wrong, they are a very complicated class to play well...but let's be realistic: power should have limits when your source of damage output comes in the form of infinite energy and auto-attack. Yes, rogues are just one of the classes, but those thoughts alone are enough to make me agree with the costs.

As for casters...who really cares. 20 more spell damage for us, woohoo. Weapons only excite casters for the recognition they bring Give us more! :P

It might look like I'm doing some QQing...but in reality, S3 weapons are too overpowered to be handed out to every player with arena points. It's like putting a bazooka in the hands of a child. Too much power for such naive hands.

[Scorchedmind]

Btw Occulte can i ask u on which realm u r playing ? IMHO 3500g is a huge price for A3 weapons Im saying it cuz me and my friend sell A3 shoulders for 2000g

[Occulte]

Occulte, it sounds to me like you faced some full s3 team at lower ratings, got killed, and are now QQ'ing about it.

I love how you make a comment in your post about how outlandish my points are, and then make a generalized and typical statement to start your rant.

I got my S3 weapons 3 weeks after S3 started. I got my shoulders about 3 weeks after that when my mage and I found a decent priest to play with. So no, believe it or not there is nothing in my post with regards of what I can or cannot do. It's for the other people that have made countless comments to me about this. To be so naive as to say there is no difference between S1 and S2 when compared to S3 is pretty sad. 2k RATED PLAYERS (myself included) HAVE NO BUSINESS PLAYING DAY IN AND DAY OUT IN THE 1500 - 1800 RANGE! I'm sorry to come off like such a martyr here, but it is ruining the arena for many players.

To think that Blizzard put in this PR rule to benefit "skilled" PvP players is absolutely laughable. They did it to stem the massive flow of whining and PvE tears of our fabulous raiding brethren. And before we get into yet another PvP vs PvE war, I didn't totally disagree with the PvE whiners. However, this idea failed miserably. There are people that would never hit 1850 without the help of a gladiator (and lots of gold) that have weapons, and there are people that are good enough to hit 1850 that will never see it without the help of others. THAT is not a fix, that is yet another broken thing Blizzard has handed us. I don't mean to speak for the entire server-base of the game, but this is certainly what we are seeing in our battlegroup.

To Scorched: I was generalizing the cost, not going off of something I know to be fact.