Blizzard Lead Systems Designer “Ghostcrawler” recently gave insight into Blizzard’s outlook on balance in Arena play versus PvE content.
Class synergy matters a lot more in PvP than in PvE. As a very simple example, chaining crowd control with different diminishing returns is almost non-existent in PvE. Therefore, classes with different forms of crowd control play very well together in PvP. To break that (to make class synergy not matter), we’d have to make all CC’s DR with each other. I think it would get worse than that though. I think you’d have to give just about every ability to every class for fear that you might be missing one if you just paired with 2 other random players. It takes a whole raid to get almost one of everything in PvE and that’s with a lot of homogenization on our part. We like that class comp matters in Arenas. It really doesn’t much in BGs.
I also understand that there is a component of players who liked the aspect of BC Arenas where you could pretty much go in with anything and eventually get good gear. Maybe there is a way to still have a place for that, but we backed off of it because too many players were opting for Arena over PvE content simply because the loot per unit effort was so generous. Adding a skill component to earn the best PvP loot pushed some players back into PvE to earn the best gear.
Anyone that played in the Burning Crusade era probably remembers when Arena gear was a viable replacement for some of the starting Tier 6 equipment–a time that was fun, but ultimately unbalanced in the scope of the game’s design.
Is the current Arena model truly more fair to the players? Or is team composition simply a nice way to imply that “cookie cutter” is alive and well in Wrath of the Lich King? Let us know what you think by registering or posting below.
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