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World of Warcraft PVP Arena

The Arenas of World of Warcraft give the most battle-hardened and cold-blooded fighters a place to compete against each other in gladiatorial battles for honor, glory, and power. Gather your allies, build your teams, and prepare to face off against merciless foes and formidable enemies in a race to claim the honor of being the highest ranked Arena Team on your realm.

The main goal of the Arena PvP System is to offer players a highly competitive environment that does not rely so much on a huge investment of time but rather on a team's playing skills. Because the Arena System is meant to be the ultimate PvP challenge, the level requirement to join an Arena Team is level 70. You have the option of engaging other players in practice matches even if you are not level 70 yet, but these skirmishes do not gain you a Team Rating or Arena Points (more on those later).

Fields of Honor – The Arenas

Like battlegrounds, Arenas are instanced playfields where teams of players fight against each other. There are two Arenas currently in the game. The Ring of Trials can be found in Nagrand, while the Circle of Blood is in the Blade's Edge Mountains. Each Arena has a different layout and some unique twists that add an element of surprise to the fight.

The Ring of Trials

* Location: Nagrand, south-east of Garadar
* Theme: Ancient orcish proving ground
* Special: One minute into the match, a cyclone appears and adds some spin to the fight.
* Shadow Sight: After five minutes, two Shadow Sight powerups (♦) appear that let you see stealthed and invisible characters, but it also does a little damage to you. Use it wisely.

The Circle of Blood

* Location: Blade's Edge Mountains, north of Thunderlord Village
* Theme: Ogrish arena
* Shadow Sight: After five minutes, two Shadow Sight powerups appear (♦) that let you see stealthed and invisible characters, but it also does a little damage to you. Use it wisely.

Building Your Team

Arena Teams are very similar to guilds in that they are persistent groups of players with their own name and their own symbol, but there are also some differences between teams and guilds. There are three different types of teams, one for each type of match you can fight in the Arena: two players versus two players (2v2), 3v3, and 5v5. Unlike guilds, you can be in several different teams at the same time, but you can be in only one team of a certain type; for example, you can't be in two different 3v3 teams, but you can be in a 2v2 and in a 5v5 team. Also, you need to be at least level 70 before you can join or create an Arena Team.

Creating a team for the Arena System works just like creating a guild. First you need to purchase a team charter from an Arena Promoter, name your team, and then collect enough signatures to start a team (one additional signature for a 2v2 team, two for a 3v3, and four for a 5v5). Once you have all the signatures you need, you can turn in your completed team charter. You will now need to pick a flag for your team, which also works pretty much like creating a tabard for your guild – the main difference is that you don't have to pay for your flag design.

A team can include up to twice the number of characters required to start the team, which means you can have benchwarmers that fill in if your main gladiators are not available.

Fighting in the Arena

Once you have your team set up, it's time to prove your might in the Arena. You will need to enter the queue for the Arena like you enter the queue for a battleground: talk to an Arena Battlemaster and select the type of match you want to queue for. You can select a ranked game or a skirmish, a practice fight that won't impact your Team Rating. Once your team is in the queue, the matchmaking system will start looking for other teams with a suitable ranking for you to play against. When it finds a match for you, both teams are teleported into the arena...

Fights in the Arena are subject to a set of special rules. You'll find the most important ones listed below. We recommend you familiarize yourself with these rules before you enter your first match.

Warmup

At the beginning of each match, both teams are placed in separate holding areas, similar to battlegrounds like Arathi Basin or Warsong Gulch.

* Any existing buffs and conjured items will be purged or deleted upon entering. This is to ensure outside buffs are not used, and no conjured items from players not actually in your group are being used.
* Your health and mana are set to full.
* While your buffs are removed, your debuffs are not. This is to prevent players from using arena matches to clear their debuffs.
* Mana/Rage/Energy costs are reduced to zero in the holding area so that teams can buff up and prepare for the match.
* Soul Shard costs are reduced to zero so that warlocks can summon Healthstones for their party without needing to bring an excessive number of stones for their group. This also means that warlocks can summon pets during this period without using a soul shard.
* Pets are dismissed upon entering an arena. Players must re-summon, otherwise they'd be able to summon their long-cooldown pets before entering.


Team Flags

Each player automatically carries a flag that indicates what team they are on. Your team's insignia will be on this flag, so make sure to pick a cool and impressive banner that will strike fear in the hearts of your enemies.

Let the games begin!

Each arena match is one battle. After one match is over, you will fight different players in your next match. Keep in mind that each time you fight, you will have no information about who your opponents are or what their class composition is until the match begins.

Death in the Arena

When a character dies in an Arena instance, they'll be able to run around and "spectate" as a ghost. However, they will not be able to resurrect. The release spirit window says "You have died. Release spirit to enter Spectator Mode." Once the player has released, a message appears in the chat window stating, "You are in Spectator Mode. To abandon this battle, right-click the Arena icon on the minimap and select 'Leave Battle'."

Victory Conditions

Every Arena match is a game of Last Man Standing, meaning that the match ends once all characters on one team have died, with the other team being the winner.

Post-Match Summary

After the fight is over, a scoreboard appears with the following info:

* Player names
* Team names
* Killing Blows per player
* Damage Done per player
* Healing Done per player
* Rating adjustment per team

Other Information

* No consumables other than bandages and conjured items can be used while in the arena.
* Abilities/spells/items with cooldowns longer than 15 minutes cannot be used while in the arena. This also applies to resurrection.
* There is no time limit for arena matches.
* There is a power-up that allows you to see stealthed or invisible players, but you lose 15% of your health for picking it up. This allows you to combat players who attempt to hide to delay the match.
* When players enter the Arena, all cooldowns on spells or items that have 15 minutes or less are reset. This allows them to have all their abilities available when the fight begins.

Team Ratings, Arena Points, and Sweet, Sweet Prizes

From Team Ratings to Arena Points

The Arena System is meant to primarily reward competitiveness and player skill, and this is reflected in the way Team Ratings, Arena Points, and Arena Rewards tie into each other.

Each team has a Team Rating. This rating reflects how well your team is doing in the Arena System; the higher your rating, the better. When you queue up for a fight, the matchmaking system uses your rating to find a suitable match. Every time your team wins a match, your rating goes up, and every time you lose a match, your rating goes down. The amount by which your rating changes depends on your team's rating compared to the other team's rating – if you win against a higher ranked team, your rating will improve more than if you steamrolled a weaker team. Similarly, losing against a weaker team will hurt your rating more than losing against superior enemies. The exact formulae are a bit more complicated than that, but the basic idea is similar to the Elo ranking system used for professional chess.

Team Rating Arena Point Formulae

X = Team Rating, Y = Arena Points

If X>1500: Y = 2894/(1+259*e^(-0.0025*X))
Else: Y = 0.206*X+99

At the end of each week, your Team Rating is used to calculate how many Arena Points your team will receive for this week. Your team needs to have fought a minimum of ten matches per week to be rewarded with Arena Points, and a player must have been in at least 30% of all your matches to be eligible for that week's points. The transformation from your Team Rating to Arena Points starts off as a linear function, but once you go beyond a certain rating threshold, the function becomes logistic. This means that you will see a significant payoff increase once your Team Rating goes beyond a certain point, but the high-end spectrum of the ratings will eventually notice a decrease in how much bang they get for their buck.

Getting Rewards

Arena Points are used as a currency in the Arena System. Instead of a gold price, Arena rewards cost a certain number of Arena Points. An important improvement over the previous reward system is that your Arena Points do not decay. You can stockpile a maximum of 5,000 Arena Points. To claim your rewards, go visit the Arena vendor in Area 52 in the Netherstorm region of Outland. You will be able to browse his goods and buy rewards if you have earned enough points.

Arena Seasons and the Ladder

One very cool aspect of the Arena System is the introduction of seasons. Each season lasts several months, and at the end of a season, the top ranked teams are rewarded with some truly unique prizes like legendary mounts or other cool items. Members of the top teams will also receive special titles to honor their achievement (highest to lowest):

1. Gladiator
2. Duelist
3. Rival
4. Challenger

Seasons are also an excellent opportunity to introduce new rewards to the Arena System. As the instance and raid content of the game progresses and powerful new items enter the game, the start of a new season gives the game designers a chance to add new rewards to the Arena PvP system as well to make sure that both types of content remain equally rewarding.

FAQ

Will there be a Super Brawl?
There may be special events that tie into season finales of the Arena System, but there are no specific plans as of yet.

Do players keep their Arena Points after a season ends?
Yes.

WOW Gold farming 101

By Bill Hutchens:

Step 1: Play a “massively multiplayer” online game on your computer. The most popular these days is World of WarCraft, a role-playing game, or “MMORPG.” In WoW, hundreds of players can log in to the same server, or “realm,” for simultaneous adventuring. There are hundreds of WoW realms all over the world, and more than 5 million people pay monthly subscriptions to play the game.

Step 2: Slay some enemies (also called “mobs”). When you do, you can loot their corpses for items you can later sell to a computer-controlled merchant. In WoW, if you slay a bear, for instance, click on its corpse and you might see a column of icons representing teeth, fur, meat, claws, etc. Click the icons to add them to your inventory. Some enemies yield, or “drop,” weapons and armor as well as copper, silver or gold coins.

Step 3: In WoW, players can carry as many as five backpacks, each with more than a dozen “slots,” or spots for loot icons. When your packs are full, head to a town or city and find a computer-controlled merchant.

Step 4: Click on the merchant and then click on your backpacks to open them. Click on the icons in your backpack to sell them to the vendor, who will give you coins.

Step 5: Slay, loot and sell about a million times.

Step 6: While you’re out slaying enemies, keep an eye out for rare items. These can be weapons, armor, trinkets or even crafting patterns that other players might want. You can tell how valuable an item is by looking at the color of its name. Green items are “uncommon,” blue items are “rare,” and purple items are “epic.” In most parts of the virtual world, epic items don’t drop very often.

Step 7: If you get some of these green, blue or purple drops, put them up for sale for gold on the in-game auction house. Sometimes epic items are sold for real money in online marketplaces such as eBay or dr-hu.com.

Step 8: When you have collected about 1,000 pieces of gold (that can take many days of nonstop killing, looting and selling), put it up for sale on eBay, dr-hu.com or some other online marketplace.

Step 9: Here’s how the sale goes on eBay, for example: Someone who plays in the same realm as you wants to buy your 1,000 pieces of gold. He has a winning bid of $75, and the cash moves from their credit card to your account. You arrange to meet him in the game and give him your gold. WoW also has an in-game mail system for sending notes, gold and items to other players.

Step 10: Repeat this process 100,000 times. Or, as some have done, open a factory in China, and pay 100 people a few U.S. dollars per month to do it for you. GLOSSARY

Blizzard: The game development studio that makes World of WarCraft (WoW)

Bot: Short for “farmbot,” a playable game character programmed to automatically slay enemies and loot their corpses. Creating bots usually involves hacking, a practice most game companies do not endorse.

Drop: Noun: A single piece of loot. Verb: To appear, as sellable items do, in a loot window when a player clicks on the corpse of a slain enemy.

Goldfarmer: Or “farmer,” one who plays a MMORPG solely for the purpose of harvesting and selling loot, accumulating gold and then selling that virtual gold for real money in online marketplaces such as dr-hu.com.

Loot: Noun: The items that drop from slain enemies. These can be common items such as pelts or cloth to more valuable items such as armor or weapons. Verb: To take dropped items.

Loot window: The window that pops up when a player clicks on a slain enemy. The loot window displays the items (as icons) that can be looted from an enemy’s corpse. Looted items are added to a player’s personal inventory.

MMOG: Massively multiplayer online game, a game played simultaneously by hundreds or thousands of players

MMORPG: Massively multiplayer online role-playing game, a MMOG that focuses more on fantasy role-playing and adventuring than, say, World War II shooting action or the re-creation of battles from ancient history.

Mobs: Computer controlled enemies. In WoW, mobs are a mix of common animals, fantasy creatures and monsters and human or humanoid foes.

Ninja: A player who, when grouped with other players, steals loot from the corpses of cooperatively slain enemies instead of waiting to divide it fairly.

Ninja Farmer: A player who, when grouped with other players, steals loot with the intent to sell it.

Thottbot: A Web site that categorizes and cross-references the loot dropped by WoW enemies. Thottbot also gives rough estimates (percentages) as to the chance that particular items might drop from particular mobs.

Vivendi Universal: The publisher of WoW

WoW: World of WarCraft, the current top MMORPG with more than 5 million players worldwide

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