Filed under: PvP

Not too long ago it was announced that there would be an Ask the Devs dedicated to the patch 5.3 PTR changes. Now, it's here. If you're dying to know exactly how all these changes are going to play out, this is the Q&A for you. Some highlights:

A forum thread was created earlier today by a concerned agility trinket user, talking about the changes to their preferred piece, the Shado-Pan Assault trinket with the agility proc. This has been the subject of a lot of complaints from PvPers, as the proc is so incredibly strong that it's easily the best-in-slot for agility classes in PvP. There are also similar changes being made to the strength version.

Basically, in a similar vein to the usual PvP proc nerfs, they have altered the effect of the trinkets to be half as potent, and last twice as long. But, fear not players who are using this for PvE, as Nakatoir clarifies, the change is only applicable in PvP environments. The tooltip hasn't yet been updated, as this requires a client side patch, but checking your character sheet while in a battleground or arena will reveal the change.

These changes will also be impacted in patch 5.3, when item level downscaling comes to PvP situations, as Nakatoir calculates, saying that "the value of the stat proc in 5.3 will be approximately 3454, with Superluminal lasting 40 seconds and Surge of Strength lasting 30 seconds". Players have still been asserting that this trinket is one of the best available, so it will be interesting to see if any further alterations are made. Nakatoir adds that the devs don't intend to prohibit PvE gear in PvP, so maybe there will be no further changes.

The most recent batch of patch 5.3 PTR notes caused quite the stir thanks to one particular bullet point referring to PvP. WoW Insider thought this merited some clarification and background, and, it seems, so did both Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka, and Lead Systems designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, as both made an effort to clarify the change on Twitter. The change reads as follows:

Blizzard

Picking up the Alliance or Horde flag while in a Rated Battleground now increases damage taken by 50% for characters in a tanking specialization, and increases damage taken by 20% for characters in a non-tanking specialization.

source

To be completely clear, in an effort to avoid confusion, this change is currently only active on the patch 5.3 PTR, not on live servers. What's more, it only relates to Rated Battlegrounds. This is not applicable to random battlegrounds.

With that housekeeping out of the way, there's something else that everyone should know when assessing the weight and purpose of this change, which Brian Holinka clarified via Twitter shortly after the patch notes were released.

The battleground is set in a relatively large map, reflective of its 15v15 size, with three mines in a north-south line across the middle. From the top to the bottom of the map, they are the Pandaren Mine, the Center Mine, and the Goblin Mine. The Alliance base is at the eastern end of the map, with the Horde starting at the western end. There is only one graveyard on either side.

As can be seen from the screenshot in the header image, there's a pretty open central run from the Alliance to the Horde bases, both of which look down on the Center Mine, which is indicated by the vertical beam of light in the middle of the image, and in the middle of the map!

One interesting change to be added to the patch 5.3 PTR is shown in the above screenshot: role check. It will be familiar to any player who has previously used the Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder tools, with the three available roles that we're all used to.

So what is it doing in the battleground finder? This is all part of Blizzard's renewed efforts to bring much-needed changes to PvP. The plan behind this alteration is to balance the number of healers on each side of a battleground, to within a tolerance of one, as Blizzard PvP Designer Brian Holinka clarifies on Twitter. What does this mean? The plan is that, while there's no set number of healers for a battleground, there should never be more than a difference of one healer between two teams in a random battleground. Gone are the days of four healers on one team and none on the other, now, if one team has two healers, the other will either have one, or three. If one team has five healers, the other will have either six or four.

While my PTR shaman can't choose it, the tank selector is still active, for now at least. Certainly, there are several battlegrounds in the random queue where a tank isn't really a useful addition to a team, and so far we haven't seen any specific mention of an attempt to balance tank numbers, but it's possible that, in a flag-capture battleground like Warsong Gulch, there is an attempt to get each team a tank.

If you're even remotely interested in WoW PvP, and aren't yet following Brian Holinka on Twitter, you really should be. We've been talking about him quite a bit lately here at WoW Insider, as he's the main agent behind the huge PvP changes coming in in patch 5.3. He's also incredibly responsive, open and helpful on Twitter, and seems to set aside a huge amount of his free time to respond to players' concerns, and hold open and constructive discussions, while not being afraid to fire out some sarcasm crits on the trolls that often haunt those in his position.

He's previously tweeted about the return of the skirmish system, and has been very responsive indeed about the 5.3 changes, and lately he's also been discussing some more confirmed and potential changes in patch 5.3 and beyond.

Now, please do take these changes with a pinch of salt, these aren't even PTR patch notes, but potential changes, some of which are being tested and appearing on patch notes, and some of which are just in the pipeline for the future.


Potential Battleground Changes

One thing that caught our eye here at WoW Insider was a very recent tweet regarding some changes in the the larger battlegrounds such as Isle of Conquest and Alterac Valley.

Since Blizzard "fixed" the expansion-long "bug" that allowed players to max out their conquest points through arenas or random battlegrounds, rated battlegrounds, which for the purpose of this column will be referred to as RBGs, have become necessary content for players to max out their cap every week. And maxing out your conquest cap every week is, until patch 5.3 at least, something you would do well to be getting on with.

The trouble is that finding a rated battleground team is not exactly straightforward, especially if you're a player who's a little new to the PvP side of the game, so WoW Insider thought we'd run down some of our top tips for finding an RBG team. Of course, there's no cast-iron guarantees here -- we can't be absolutely certain that, even if you follow this to the letter, you categorically will find an RBG team to play with every week. That's up to you. But we can arm you with knowledge for your team-finding attempts!


Get Geared

This is pretty important, as it's essentially the first hurdle you're going to have for getting into rated battlegrounds. In order to gain entry to a team, whether you're a good PvPer or not, you need to convince people to bring you. Apart from having very high ratings and the like, which isn't usually viable for the newer PvPers this guide is mostly aimed at, one thing people are definitely going to be looking for is gear.

Editor's Note: This arena first appeared under the name Shado-Pan Arena on the PTR. The article's title has been edited for clarity.

It's always exciting to get a new arena to play with, and come patch 5.3, PvP fans will have had two in just one expansion. We really aren't sure what to do with ourselves! The second new arrival is Tiger's Peal, as pictured above in the header image. You can hopefully make out two tiger statues, facing each other, and behind the right-hand statue you can see a dark door, through which the teams enter the arena.

The run from the door to the tiger statue is very short, and therefore allows you to quickly enter cover, as, of course, they provide good line of sight blocking points. You can also see from the picture that, at the other two corners of the map, are two raised platforms, which have fenced edges. These act a bit strangely, and I am wondering if they are bugged or subject to further adjustment.

When looking at them, one might expect that the fence or steps side of the platform would block line of sight from players below, but actually they don't. It is perfectly possible to cast up or down. The fence can easily be jumped, too, so these, at the moment at least, are simply larger, flat blocks which break line of sight on the lower level, but not from top to bottom at any point we were able to discover.

Everyone knows where to get their PvP gear -- it's on the Serpent's Spine -- and with Blizzard's changes to the gear vendor panes, it's fairly straightforward to whittle it down to just exactly what you're after. However, one thing that's not so simple is the rest of the work you need to do. As we all know, gear needs gems, and it needs enchants, and we've struggled to find a place that pulls together all the PvP options for that, so we through we'd make one. Let's get started.


Pure PvP Stats

These, naturally, are items that provide increases in neat PvP stats, with no secondary stats. If you look back at my column which covered the changes to resilience, you can see how important these stats are. Depending on your style, class, and the season, these may be the best choice. There are no Jewelcrafting-only pure PvP stat gems.

Gems:

The patch 5.3 PTR notes brought some big, scary changes to PvP, which WoW Insider explained for its readership yesterday, and now Blizzard's official blog has, as promised, arrived. It deals with a lot of the same concerns as we addressed yesterday, but also adds in several pieces of new information for players to digest. Let's start with that. Here are the changes in full:

I can understand why you did panic. The patch 5.3 PTR notes had a little section of PvP gear notes -- five bullet points that pulled the rug out from under our feet. These changes are characteristic of the bold, sweeping alterations that Blizzard's new PvP Designer Brian Holinka has been spearheading since he joined the company in August of last year. And these are big changes. If you missed the notes, let me repeat them for you here.