Thornass

While the text below was writting prior to 5.3, I will still be answering any questions you may have regarding this subject. Feel free to ask!

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Hello, this topic will be about the Mid-Season Catch Up system. Recently, I have seen a lot of people who had questions about this new feature that will be released in the upcoming patch, 5.3: Escalation. In this thread I will try to answer any questions you may have about this subject.

If you have questions that are not listed below, feel free to ask them and I will try to answer them as well as add them to the post.

----- What is the Mid-Season Catch Up system?
It will be a Conquest cap in addition to the current, weekly, Conquest cap to catch up to a certain amount of Conquest Points one may have missed out on. This should mean that there is less gear disparity and therefore result in a more competitive and less gear based PvP scene.

----- How can I calculate my Catch Up Cap?
You can calculate your cap by using the following formula:

(Current week of the season) * 1000 – (Conquest earned thus far this season)

Here are some examples of how this will work:

- Player A is starting PvP for the first time in week 10 of the season, and hasn’t earned any Conquest Points at all that season. He will have an additional cap of 10,000 points added to his normal weekly rating based cap.

- Player B has already earned 5,000 Conquest Points by week 10, so she would have an additional cap of 5,000 points added to her normal weekly rating based cap.

- Player C has been playing all season long, and has earned more than 10,000 Conquest Points by week 10. He only has the normal weekly cap to work with (but should already be on their way to being well geared).

----- I have earned more points than X (depending on week) * 1000 points, what will happen now?
The system is meant to give new players a chance to catch-up on players who have better gear. If you already have earned a certain amount of Conquest Points (depending on what week it is), you will not have a catch-up cap, because you are already at a point that you are competitively geared.

----- Will I lose my catch-up cap the week after I get it?
No, you will not. Your catch-up cap will stay as long as your Season Total Earned is low enough, it does not go away unless you redeem these points.

----- What if I "redeem" my catch-up cap and then miss out on points again the weeks after?
If a player “redeems” their catch up cap by earning all those points, then they will begin the next week at their normal weekly rating based cap (standard is 1800 in arena, 2200 in rated battlegrounds). Should they miss more weeks, then the catch up cap accrues again.

----- When will the Mid-Season Catch Up system be live?
It will be released with patch 5.3, which is scheduled for Wednesday 22/05.

----- Will the system count the weeks prior to 5.3?
Yes, it will count all the weeks of the current season, even those prior to 5.3.

----- Will a character that becomes level 90 after the release of 5.3 have a catch-up cap?
Yes. The system counts the weeks of the season, not of the character at highest level in said season and therefore they will indeed have a catch-up cap.

----- Will the cap of new level 90s be equal to those that have been max level for a longer period of time?
Yes, as long as the total amount of Conquest Points earned in the season is the same, the catch-up cap will indeed be equal.

----- Am I able to redeem my catch-up cap with any source of Conquest Points (random battleground, arena or rated battleground)?
As far as I know, you are free to choose whatever source you want to redeem your catch-up cap in.

----- Is it worth capping the last week prior to 5.3 on a character that has no points earned this season?
It doesn't make a difference. I will give an example:

Say it's week 11 next week (I'm not entirely sure), a new character's Conquest Catch Up Cap next week would be:
11 * 1000 - 0 = 11000

If he does cap (say he only does arena and therefore gets 1800 points), his Conquest Catch Up Cap would be:

11 * 1000 - 1800 = 11000 - 1800 = 9200
He also has 1800 points from last week.

You can see there is no netto difference in the amount of Conquest Points if you cap this week.

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Blizzard had an article called PvP Gear in 5.3 and Beyond in which they explained the Mid-Season Catch Up system. This is what they wrote about it (note: I edited the text to make it easier to read):

Mid-Season Catch Up
Players who are starting their journey into PvP mid-season start significantly behind the gearing curve. While we want to avoid invalidating the effort of players who have competed for the whole season, we agree with the feedback we’ve received that the starting gap is too large, so a new Conquest Point catch-up cap will be implemented using the following formula:

(Current week of the season) * 1000 – (Conquest earned thus far this season)

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Here are some examples of how this will work:

Player A is starting PvP for the first time in week 10 of the season, and hasn’t earned any Conquest Points at all that season. He will have an additional cap of 10,000 points added to his normal weekly rating based cap.

Player B has already earned 5,000 Conquest Points by week 10, so she would have an additional cap of 5,000 points added to her normal weekly rating based cap.

Player C has been playing all season long, and has earned more than 10,000 Conquest Points by week 10. He only has the normal weekly cap to work with (but should already be on their way to being well geared).----------------------------------------------------

If a player “redeems” their catch up cap by earning all those points, then they’ll begin the next week at their normal weekly rating based cap. Should they miss more weeks, then the catch up cap accrues again.

Answers on the questions the community has asked can now be found here:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/8043620

Below is a complete list of crowd control and their diminishing returns in World of Warcraft. I'm still unsure of some, I marked those with a question mark (?). Please, report if you have more information on these.

I'm also looking for:
Hunter - Sting (Wasp) ----- It's not sharing diminishing returns with [CS] (perhaps a bug?)
Hunter - Lullaby (Crane) ----- This ability is just confusing in general: it causes the target to fall asleep, but the effect is a stun? http://www.wowhead.com/spell=126246/lullaby#comments
Monk - Breath of Fire, glyphed (Brewmaster) ----- Is this Disorient or Confuse DR?

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Crowd Control: Crowd Control (abbreviated CC) refers to spells and abilities which limit an opponent's ability to fight. Types of CC include Charm, Daze, Fear, Root, Sleep, Slow, Snare, Incapacitate, Disorient and Stun.

Diminishing Return: Diminishing returns (abbreviated DR) means that certain spells and abilities are less effective against player characters if they are used frequently within a short period of time.

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[CO] = Confuse (made this one up myself, couldn’t find it anywhere)
Druid - Disorienting Roar
Hunter - Scatter Shot
Mage - Dragon’s Breath
Priest - Holy Word: Chastise (?)

[CR] = Controlled Root
Death Knight - Chains of Ice
Druid - Entangling Roots, Entangling Roots (Force of Nature Treants), Nature's Grasp, Mass Entanglement, Symbiosis: Frost Nova (Feral)
Hunter - Narrow Escape, Pin (Crab), Web (Spider), Lock Jaw (Dog), Venom Web Spray (Silithid)
Mage - Frost Nova, Freeze (Frost Water Elemental)
Monk - Disable, Symbiosis: Entangling Roots (Mistweaver)
Priest - Void Tendril's Grasp, Mind Blast (Glyphed) (?)
Rogue - Partial Paralysis (?)
Shaman - Earthgrab, Freeze
Warrior - Staggering Shout

[CS] = Controlled Stun
Death Knight - Asphyxiate, Gnaw (Unholy Ghoul), Monstrous Blow (Dark Transformation Unholy Ghoul), Remorseless Winter
Druid - Maim, Pounce, Mighty Bash, Bear Hug, Bash (Force of Nature Treants), Symbiosis: Hammer of Justice (Balance)
Hunter - Binding Shot, Intimidation, Bad Manner (Monkey), Sonic Blast (Bat), Web Wrap (Shale Spider)
Mage - Deep Freeze, Combustion
Monk - Charging Ox Wave, Leg Sweep, Clash, Fists of Fury
Paladin - Hammer of Justice, Holy Wrath, Fist of Justice, Blinding Light (Glyphed)
Rogue - Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot
Shaman - Static Charge (Capacitor Totem), Pulverize (Earth Elemental)
Warlock - Shadowfury, Axe Toss (Felguard, Wrathguard), Summon Infernal
Warrior - Shockwave, Warbringer, Storm Bolt

Tauren - War Stomp

[DA] = Disarm
Hunter - Snatch (Bird of Prey), Clench (Scorpid)
Monk - Grapple Weapon
Priest - Psychic Horror
Rogue - Dismantle
Warlock – Disarm (Voidwalker, Voidlord)
Warrior - Disarm

[DO] = Disorient
Druid - Hibernate
Hunter - Freezing Trap, Wyvern Sting
Mage - Polymorph, Ring of Frost
Monk - Paralysis
Paladin - Repentance
Priest - Shackle Undead
Rogue - Gouge, Sap
Shaman - Hex

Pandaren - Quaking Palm

[F] = Fear
Hunter - Scare Beast
Druid - Symbiosis: Intimidating Shout (Restoration)
Paladin - Blinding Light, Turn Evil
Priest - Psychic Scream, Psychic Terror (Psyfiend)
Rogue - Blind
Warlock - Fear, Howl of Terror, Sleep (?), Seduction (Succubus), Mesmerize (Shivarra)
Warrior - Intimidating Shout

[H] = Horror
Priest - Psychic Horror
Warlock - Mortal Coil, Blood Horror (?)

[RS] = Random Stun
Rogue - Paralysis (Paralytic Poison)
Shaman - Earthquake
Warrior - Dragon Roar

[S] = Silence
Death Knight - Strangulate
Hunter - Silencing Shot
Mage - Improved Counterspell, Frostjaw
Monk - Spear Hand Strike
Paladin - Avenger's Shield
Priest - Silence
Rogue - Garrote
Warlock - Spell Lock (Felhunter), Optical Blast (Observer)

Blood Elf - Arcane Torrent

[N] = None: Abilities that do not share diminishing returns with any other ability but do have self-diminishing returns
Druid - Cyclone
Hunter - Entrapment
Mage - Ice Ward
Priest - Dominate Mind, Symbiosis: Cyclone (Discipline, Holy)
Shaman - Bind Elemental
Warlock - Banish
Warrior - Charge

[O] = Other
Druid - Wild Charge Immobilize (Bear form) - does not have diminishing returns
Druid - Solar Beam - does not have diminishing returns
Monk - Ring of Peace - does not have diminishing returns
Priest - Sin and Punishment (Shadow PvP gear, 4 piece set bonus) - does not have diminishing returns
Shaman - Symbiosis: Solar Beam (Elemental, Enhancement) - does not have diminishing returns (?)
Warlock - Unstable Affliction Dispel - does not have diminishing returns

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If you spot any mistakes, please report, I made this one a bit in a hurry and might be wrong. If I forgot any crowd control effects (especially Hunter pet ones, there are so many!) please report.

This thread is not supposed to be used for discussions about CC. If you wish to do discuss this, you can post here:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7339594356?page=1

In this thread I will list down all the 5.3 (PTR) notes that concern PvP. I will update it every time there is new information. I will also post my opinion on these changes.
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UPDATE:

Changes to the current Blade's Edge and Dalaran arena are live on the PTR. The pillars in Blade's Edge have been exchanged for stairs and there are now stairs behind the boxes on the Dalaran map.

This looks really good! Knockback classes won't have a unfair advantage anymore over others, especially melee, which had no chance to kill certain classes if they stood on the pillar/behind the boxes.

A new arena with the Shado'pan theme has been added. It looks a bit like Tol'vir, except that it has two small platforms (with fences).

Looks good. Nothing really special, but that's just how an arena map should be in my opinion.

Hildegard has made a video about the two changed maps and the new one, you can check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0sGH_p6QjM

EDIT: Suggestion to the 'PvE vs PvP'-problem would be to make a PvP set bonus for ALL pieces (not just the main ones), this would give +x amount of Resi or smt, which favors the PvP gear over PvE gear with extra slots. Fixed?

- All characters now have a base Resilience of 65%.
- Resilience has been removed from most PvP gear.
- Season 13 Tyrannical gear had their item levels increased to ilevel 496, up from ilevel 493.
- Season 13 Tyrannical Elite gear had their item levels decreased to ilevel 496, down from ilevel 512.
- Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arenas now have an ilevel cap. All gear will be scaled down to ilevel 496.

This sounds really, really good. I will break it down for you.

1) Increase of base Resilience means that we take less damage in general, which is good.
2) Season 13 Tyrannical gear was only slightly better than Season 12 Malevolent 2/2, it's good that the item level (and therefore stats) gets increased.
3) Season 13 Tyrannical Elite gear was so much better than normal Season 13 Tyrannical gear, it was basically just like the upgrade system we had in season 12. This was only making the gap we have in gear between characters even bigger.
4) Scaling down item level, also scales down the stats. In 5.3 we will have PvE gear with an item level that is A LOT higher than the current PvP gear. There was a chance that it would become better than the PvP gear. By scaling down gear to item level 496 in PvP zones, this should hardly be a problem (if it would be a problem at all).
5) Resilience has been removed from most PvP, hmmm. I can't really comment on this yet, we will need more information on which pieces this concerns, if the Resilience gets buffed on other pieces, etc.

One minor concern would be World PvP. If the item level of PvP gear is only 496, PvE gear might be very dominant here. To be fair with you though, I'm not that bothered with World PvP in the first place, so don't mind this at all.

New Arena: Shado-Pan

Gladiator hopefuls have a new location to test their mettle amidst the Kun-Lai mountain tops, in the training grounds of the powerful Shado-Pan. Players must make use of the looming tiger statues and fenced platforms to gain an advantage that will bring victory and glory!

Sounds good, however, I am a little worried about "looming tiger statues and fenced platforms to gain an advantage that will bring victory and glory!". In the past, we had Ring of Valor (http://www.wowhead.com/zone=4406#screenshots:id=112059) which had pillars that moved up and down (and also fiery fences popping up sometimes), which was an awful experience to play around. Sometimes it bugged out and you fell through it, Warlocks could set their portal up their and become invincible for a couple seconds, etc. We still have the multiple floor-arena's, Blade's Edge and Dalaran. Some classes have major advantages here because of this: knockbacks, portals, etc. I think all arena's should be liked Tol'vir and Nagrand, as that's a fair playground for most classes (sure, Warlocks can still portal behind a pillar, but that's much less worse than jumping down on Blade's Edge and then port-up again).
Hopefully Blizzard keeps this in mind.

New Battleground: Gold Rush

In the new Battleground situated in the Valley of the Four Winds, the Alliance and Horde continue their war for Pandaria’s precious resources. While the two factions battle for control over mines, they must also protect their own resources from being stolen and turned against them!

Cool, a new battleground. It sounds a bit like Silvershard Mines, except for "they must also protect their own resources from being stolen and turned against them". I'm curious how this will work and if it will be added to the Rated Battlegrounds, I'm looking forward to thinking of new strategies!

Blog with additional information and explanation for the reasoning behind PvP changes will be available very soon.

Cool! Can't wait till we get more information.

tl;dr: looking good, Holinka, well done!

UPDATE 19/03: I asked Holinka on Twitter about the Conquest catch-up cap, but the subject got changed into gear disparity. Check it out here https://twitter.com/holinka/status/313776390975651842


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Hi there,

I returned today from a very unfortunate ban for having a few words in a thread title written in capitals, even though it was not a 'caps means I'm talking loud'-title. Anyway, with my grande rentrée I want to address the issue we have in gear disparity at the moment. I will explain.

THE SITUATION
In the current state of PvP, gear plays a huge factor in victory or death. If you want to compete at higher rating, maxed out gear is required.

In season 12 we had the possibility to upgrade our gear up to two times, from item level 483, to 487 and finally to 491. This limited one to only being able to gear up one specc: if you did gear up another specc, you would fall behind in gear - and therefore limiting your possibilities in Rated PvP.

Blizzard noticed this and removed the upgrading feature with the launch of 5.2. However, in my opinion, they made the mistake of keeping the upgraded Malevolent s12 gear.

THE CONCERN
Season 13 Tyrannical gear has an item level of 493. This is TWO item levels higher than the 2/2 S12 Malevolent. The difference in stats are minimal. Weapons are even worse, as S12 2/2 T2 weapons have better stats than S13 T1. This results in new 90s being behind in gear against season 12-90s.
We saw how 'new'-characters could not compete last season, and will see this again till close to full Tyrannical is acquired by these characters.

MY SOLUTIONS

EDIT:
3. An idea I had a long time, but actually forgot, then just found it in one of my posts months back, lol.
Make it so that players who have a full PvE set equipped get a x% stats bonus in y stat, always or just when they enter a dungeon or raid. This way, PvP gear will not disturb dungeons, raids or LFR. The item level of PvP now does not matter at all if you compare it with PvE.

Pro's:
- PvErs need a full PvE set, which means they will farm older instances as well;
- gear difference between PvP gear of the same season does not have to be as big as now, while gear of past season can be way lower level

Con's:
- it will require some major changes in PvE
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1. A very easy one: remove the upgrades and tune the item level down to the original state of S12 Malevolent gear (for both gear and weapons - T1 and T2).

What are your thoughts about this? Please, share them. Keep it constructive.
Vote up if you think this issue should get more attention, vote down if you think this is not relevant at all.

Pro's:
- gear difference is not that big as it is now
- people have something new to aim for
- fresh start

Con's:
- people that worked 'hard' (aka, get cap every week) will lose their 2/2 on their past season's gear -----> I think that a new season should be a fresh start, therefore, gear from a past season should not be that big of an advantage throughout the new season.
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2. Whether the S12 Malevolent get's reduced to the original 0/2 state, or kept the same, you can always buff S13 Malevolent (honor) gear to be better than S12 Malevolent 2/2. Buff the item level and make it so that PvP gear does not count up to the item level required to enter LFR.

Pro's:
- seperate gear for PvP and PvE
- people have to do older LFRs and raids to obtain gear for the new instance

Con's:
- ?

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Off-topic:
Still a little bit disappointed that the idea I had of a conquest catch-up cap did not make it to 5.2 yet and is postphoned to 5.3.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6149164882

UPDATED: I've worked out the vague idea I had of restrictions to RBG groups!

This is the first week of my weekly topics. Please check out the idea here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6444684670 (STILL OPEN FOR POSTING, WOULD APPRECIATE IT)

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Boosts/win-trading in RBGs

What is the current situation?
At the moment, a lot of players are being boosted or win-trading to earn higher rating in RBGs.

Boosting
A group of very high rated, good geared and skilled players takes on one or more lower rated and worse geared players. The characters are not played by the owner, but by one of the friends of the high rated players. The boosted character(s) have lower rating, which means the MMR evens out at a point between the high rated players and the low rated boosted players. The legit teams that are fighting hard at this rating to achieve the goals they have are being DESTROYED by these teams, they stand no chance at all. It’s as if an amateur football team faces FC Barcelona: the team is completely out of the league they’re supposed to be in.

Win-trading
This is the advertise you see in Trade chat all the time. People claiming they can get you to whatever rating you want, while you play the character. They will usually ask you to add them to your Skype, where they will discuss the details with you. When you accept the offer and pay them, you will be invited to a group with nine other players, all played by one person. He will try to queue against a group of ten players that are also controlled by him (or maybe one of his colleagues, I’m not sure how this is done). You queue up and try to face the second group of win-traders you are linked with. If you face them, they have alt f4-d on the loading screen (except for one guy who's scouting whether it's the right team or not, losing no mmr) and you get a 10v0 match - free win. If you don't face them, your group will alt-f4 as well.

Why does this matter?

There are several reasons why this is a concern:

1) It’s simply against the rules. In Blizzard’s terms it says that actions in-game are not allowed to be paid with non-in-game currencies (real money). Most of the boosters and win-traders ask real money for their services.
2) The RBG-rankings have inflated in huge amounts. Anyone rated above 2200 is either boosted, has win-traded or faced a lot of those teams (realise that win-traders are free wins for legit teams as well).
3) The rewards for having high rating in RBGs have lost its value. Whereas Grand Marshal/High Warlord was a huge accomplishment at first, most people that have earned it through RBGs have earned it with unfair playing.
4) Players that achieve 2200 rating in RBGs can buy the Elite gear, including the weapon. Those players can also use these items to their advantage in arena, especially some (physical damage dealing) classes that scale extremely well. Say a KFC team (Warrior, Hunter and a Healer), that were first stuck at 1500 rating, gets their T2 from a boost and then goes back to the arena. They will EASILY go to like 2000 rating. Did their skill increase? No. Did they face worse enemies this time? Not significantly. It’s basically just the Elite weapon that is giving their rating a huge boost.
5) Other players, without T2, at 1500 rating will start complaining: “T2 geared players at my rating, how can I possible improve?”. They will think, ‘what is it that they have, what I do not?’, the conclusion is –again- the weapon. To stay competive, those players decide to buy a boost as well.
Now there’s another team, a TSG... You can see where I’m going, right?

How do we fix this?

Fixing this problem is not easy at all. There’s thousands of people who have done this and are still doing this. The transactions are made outside of World of Warcraft, where Blizzard can’t trace it. However, Blizzard can look further into everyone who is above 2199 rating in RBGs. Did they earn it in one day by being boosted? Did they win-trade? I’m sure they can see that with all the logs they have. This will require MAJOR effort from Blizzard’s side though.

I came up with several temporary solutions:

1) Make separate gear-sets for arena and RBG.
You will have two separate Conquest caps, with separate Conquest Points for each of the two disciplines. With the Arena Points you can buy gear you can use in Arena, but not in Rated BGs – and vice versa. The gear will also have a tag which shows where the gear is obtained from (some simple mark like ‘ilvl 483, Arena’). Doing random BGs can count to both of the caps, but only to a certain extent (say, 1250 Conquest Points). Why the limit on the points you can get from random BGs? Because otherwise people can just bot their Conquest Points cap, and bots will flood the random BGs even more. With this limit, players are still forced to do arena and/or RBGs.
A side effect this will have: players aren’t forced to do RBGs to stay competive in Arena.

2) Fix the mmr bug
Right now, win-traders do not lose mmr while leaving a RBG on the loading screen. Fix this and win-traders will have a really hard time delivering the services they are now.

3) Limit on RBG cap
A very easy solution would be to limit the cap players can get from RBGs, so that the difference between the cap from arena and RBG is not as big as it is now.

Pro’s:
- people have more equal gear in arena/RBGs
- not forced to play RBGs to stay competive

Con’s:
- not being forced to play RBGs will cause it to be less popular, and less players will play it (I’m thinking of something that stimulates people to play RBGs – stay tuned to this thread)

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4. Queue restrictions
Stopping the boosters is a lot harder than stopping the win-traders. In the boosting teams there are usually several players with a really high rating, and one or more players with very low rating. An idea would be to make it unable to queue for teams that have the following conditions:
- 4 or more players above 2199 rating
- 3 or more players that are 400 or more points below the average of the 4 highest rated players

Pro's:
- boosting will be a lot harder
- more activity in (lower bracket) RBGs
- less high rated teams playing at relatively lower MMR

Con's:
- if a high rated legit group has 3 or more players with low rating, they can't play: the 3 lowest players will first have to get some rating themselves before they can participate in the group.

This might be a little too complicated, still working on it. What do you guys think about this idea?

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I will be updating this thread when I think of more, please tell me:

Do you agree with me?
What do you think about it?
Do you have any suggestions yourself? Feel free to post whatever you think. Use this thread for brainstorming.

Share your thoughts!

PLEASE KEEP THIS THREAD CLEAN: NO TROLLING, OFF-TOPIC OR FLAMING INDIVIDUALS