There might have been a ton of PvP updates and changes you might have missed the passed weekend but don’t fret as we are here to get you caught up! Including some exciting news about PvP talents and rewards for arena in TBC. There’s also been a recent build on the PTR with a few more changes that will be impacting on the current PvP season once the patch 9.0.5 drops.
MORE 9.0.5 CHANGES: Buffs and Nerfs
To kick things off on the 24th of February, PTR received a new build for the upcoming patch which includes changes that are going to make a lot of people happy.
First, there is a nerf to the Ringing Clarity Conduit which allows their rets to one shot their enemies in a fraction of a second. In the next patch, you don’t have to worry about blinking when facing up against a ret because they won’t be able to proc several judgements at the same time when they use Divine Toll making one shot capabilities a little bit easier to deal with. Instead with this change, the initial judgements with Divine Toll applies to everyone around the ret will no longer be nerfed. But instead, all of the judgements Ringing Clarity procs on the main target will be nerfed by 25% and will have a delay in between their hits.
This in by no means will make the spec bad. Ret is still going to be the best melee in the game capable of taking people out with huge hits with Final Reckoning and Templers Verdict’s critical. However, this change definitely takes care of what was considered the most frustrating part of playing against Rets as there were on counter plays when three judgements were hitting you at the same time for over half your health.
In exchaged, Rets received a buff to their underperforming legendaries in PvE: Final Verdict. While its skimming quite low in raid content, its already a decent pick in PvP as the range on Templar’s Verdict is perfect for duel when it comes to mages that can kite you. It also allows Templar’s to be used while disarmed and with this upcoming damage buff, its like that Rets will want to switch over and use Final Verdict as their primary legendary.
Next up is a nerf to the Holy Paladin’s: Ultimate Sacrifice. A PvP talent taking another hit. While the mitigation on damage taken through them was previously removed, the duration of Ultimate Sacrifice is now being reduced to 6 seconds down from a massive 12. Changes are quite significant as Holy Paladins use Ultimate Sacrifice, they would have more time to stabilize their teammate’s health without them worrying about theirs being too low when it fades.
With Ultimate Sacrifice being reduced to 6 seconds, it would become a much weaker safety net as if you’re able to get your Paladin into some form of CC during the Ultimate Sacrifice. By the time they come of it, it would have faded and will have a much harder time keeping up with the pressure. Given how strong the Holy Paladins have remained, despite receiving a handful of nerfs, the nerfs are giving them a step closer being more similar to the other healers without being gutted too hard.
The last on the PTR would have to be a buff that’s worth taking a look at is to Demon Armor. On the live servers, its currently set to 90%. The last PTR build made this up to 120% and now, the most recent one is being increased yet again at 160%. This is a huge change that may bring Warlocks back into the meta at the highest level. As the combination of their Permaslow legendary and their ability to tank melee would become a little easier could make them a formidable force in the upcoming meta. This change is certainly worth it to keep your eyes on and to start maybe thinking of giving your Warlock a chance.
The last on the PTR would have to be a buff that’s worth taking a look at is to Demon Armor. On the live servers, its currently set to 90%. The last PTR build made this up to 120% and now, the most recent one is being increased yet again at 160%. This is a huge change that may bring Warlocks back into the meta at the highest level. As the combination of their Permaslow legendary and their ability to tank melee would become a little easier could make them a formidable force in the upcoming meta. This change is certainly worth it to keep your eyes on and to start maybe thinking of giving your Warlock a chance.
As if Paladin’s aren’t already getting the short end of the nerf stick, we’ve got another one coming but this time it’s for the Protection Paladins. Without a doubt, this has to be one of our favorite nerfs so far, as Steed of Glory will no longer make Prot Paladins immune to all forms of CC. With this now gone, we’re unlikely to see Prot Paladins continue to do well in high level in arena.
PVP TALENT REFRESH
We’ve been stuck with the same talents for almost five years so it’s definitely the time to get some of these looked at. While we’re certainly not gonna receive the sought after PvP slot, there’s absolutely a lot of contenders for every class to have some useless PvP talents removed in exchange for the tool that the class desperately needs.
Here are PvP talents for every class that are almost never used in highly rated PvP. These are just some of the handpicked ones with pretty much every spec having a bunch of weak or useless PvP talents that they never pick.
CROSS FACTION QUEUING
A modern take on WoW that we need to see. We should never say never in reference to seeing horde and alliance being able to play together in end game content such as raiding and PvP. We already got an example for this in Mercenary mode where hordes can queue up with alliances in unrated BGs, so it’s definitely something that could happen given the direction the game. While the inception of WoW was mostly centered around horde VS alliance combat, the game has been around for 17 years and it is still worth considering. The game should have this mode as the game ages and tends to have less players, this’ll bring more opportunity for players to have more players to play with.
PVP SCALING
The developers are considering bringing back Warlords of Draenor’s style of scaling for PvP gear. Discussing how PvP gear should be implemented in Shadowlands and beyond as it would solve a ton of issues with gearing. Higher level PvE gear was more accessible which would absolutely be a more permanent solution to the PvP gear in the game. For those who are unaware, PvP gear has two different eye levels:
To when a higher level being scaled to be engaged in PvP combat making it much easier to gear exclusively through PvP and although this won’t have much of an impact on those who were actively gearing from the start of the season, it’s especially going towards players gearing up characters later in the season. As it will allow developers to scale up honor gear to higher item levels than conquest gear essentially lowering the gap to honor and conquest gear in PvP while preventing honor gear from being too overpowered at the start of the season in the PvE.
TBC ARENA: Seasons & Upgrades
Discussing on how the PvP rewards will be distributed on the upcoming TBC release. We already know what the phases would look like with the different tiers being grouped together into five phases: Karazhan / Gruul’s Lair / Magtheridon’s Lair, Serpentshrine Carvern & Tempest Keep, Hyjal & Black Temple, Zul’Aman, and Sunwell Plateau.What has not been determined yet is if season one will start in phase on or will it be delayed till phase two.
As for PvP rewards, rank one titles were actually handed out to the teams on each battle group. This was implemented on this way because the technology at the time prevented server blades hosted in different locations from allowing players to queue into each other. This server changes served rank one titles being distributed to the top .01 percent of players in each region which is why it works today.
While this carries on, there won’t be battle groups which means we will most likely have they same system placed on retail servers with rank one titles given out to the highest rank teams over all.
Speaking of teams, TBC will be maintaining the team system that was removed back in season 14. We will be left with an approach that stays true to the past that players to create and arena team while the rank one title will them be distributed based on percentage rather than to the number one team. The numbers allowed in a team will use the original approach which only allowed two players in a 2s team, three players on a 3s team, and 5 players on a 5s team and will opt eventually to the one it was changed to which allowed doubled the teams amount to be on a team. Where there are 4 players on a 2s team and so on.
VIDEO CHAPTERS:
0:00 – Intro
0:36 – More 9.0.5 Changes
5:25 – PvP Talent Refresh
6:34 – Cross Faction Queuing
7:38 – PvP Scaling
8:57 – TBC Arena Seasons & Upgrades