i365 Vicious vs i371 Vicious - Comparison

#1 - July 6, 2011, 5:55 p.m.
Blizzard Post
For Blizzard Sticky Response from Bashiok, please go here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2794770941

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Since many players have been saying to PvP players: "It is only 6 ilvls, suck it up". I believe many have the misunderstanding that this is just a "Tier Set" of 5 pieces, it is actually an entire gear set of 12 pieces that have been changed (14 if you include Trinkets).

Total honor to replace all 12 pieces: 19,450
Honor to replace two PvP Trinkets: add another 3,300
Honor for PvP Head/Shoulder Enchant: add another 3,000

I will focus on the 12 pieces of primary gear and illustrate the difference. Keep in mind, even the top 0.5% Arena and RBG players at the end of Season 9 were currently in i365 gear as well.

5-Piece Main Warrior PvP Set: Chest, Helm, Legs, Shoulder, Hands.
Increase from i365 to i371 Gear (totals across only 5-pc set and not including off pieces)

+ 250 armor
+ 93 Strength
+ 142 Stamina
+ 62 Resil.
+ 14 Mastery, +14 Crit, +14 Haste, +10 Exp., +10 Hit

Ok if it was just the "Tier" model of 5 pieces that changed... not game breaking but still annoying.

Now lets add up the base stats for the seven other standard PvP off-pieces: Belt, Boots, Bracer, 2 Rings, Neck and Cloak

+ 126 armor
+ 85 Strength
+ 136 Stamina
+ 60 Resil.
And an increase of +8 of another stat for each individual off-piece (Mastery, Hit, Expertise, Crit)

Grand Total of base stats alone for 12 pieces of Warrior gear: 5pc Main set, Belt, Boots, Bracer, 2 Rings, Neck, Cloak:

+ 376 Armor
+ 178 Strength
+ 278 Stamina
+ 122 Resil.

Add it all up and you can better understand why a 0.5% top Arena player might be a little upset about the fact the new Honor gear is this much higher in stats over their hard earned and fully enchanted Season 9 gear they expected to start Season 10 in.

End of Season 9 Blog: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2880562
Quote: "All Season 9 items will cost Honor Points (equivalent to their previous Conquest Point cost) when the season ends, with the exception of any items with rating requirements attached. These items will no longer be available for purchase."

Except this new Tier of Honor gear is called: "Vicious Gladiator - Season 10" and is not Season 9 Gear like they state above, it is a whole new ilvl and tier of gear. There is no mention of the S10 i371 Honor gear that I have found from a Blizzard posting and the gear was not on the PTR either.

Expect to see lots of BG botters, RBG teams and Arena players in regular Battlegrounds for the next few weeks as people now will re-grind honor to start Season 10 in competitively matched gear. They won't be getting their Conquest gear for a while so this is the only option they have to stay at the top of the ladder and at 2000+ rating... the stat change across a 12-piece set of PvP gear does make a difference.
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#22 - July 7, 2011, 12:48 a.m.
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Thanks for making a clear-cut thread summarizing why this is a big issue within the PvP community, Tauranewone. To keep communication on this as clear as possible, I'll try and clarify what has happened with the transition between Seasons 9 and 10, as well as give you our take. For everyone reading along, please do not create new threads on this issue. We'll be primarily watching this one and would prefer to keep our forums as easy to read as possible.

Before getting into it, I want you all to know that we've maintained an open dialog with our developers over the past 24 hours regarding the way in which the PvP season transition went down since patch 4.2 (this includes relaying a lot of the feedback we've seen on the forums to them). We agree that the mistakes made were very unfortunate and unfair to a lot of players. We're currently exploring some options to try and alleviate some of the misfortune many of you experienced while purchasing PvP gear in the last week.

First off, to be clear, we made two mistakes which led to the primary cause of frustration for players:

    1) We noted that Conquest Points were going to be converted into Honor Points above the 4,000 cap with the release of patch 4.2, giving players one week to spend these excess points before the start of Season 10, at which point the 4,000 point cap would go into effect. Instead, the Honor Point cap intended to be enforced yesterday was applied at the same time Conquest Points were converted to Honor Points with patch 4.2. This led many players who saved Conquest Points up for the season transition to receive gold for any Honor Points above 4,000, rather than points above that cap. There wasn't a feasible solution for correcting the fact that the calculations had been run a week early.

    2) We didn't notify players that we made a slight change to the way PvP gear is introduced each season. The change simply wasn't communicated among all of the other patch 4.2 changes, which was a big oversight on our part.

These two errors compounded each other. Players were left with no more than 4,000 Honor Points after patch 4.2, which led many players to farm more HP to buy Season 9 gear. Then, when Season 10 hit yesterday, Season 9 (ilvl 365) items were replaced with an HP tier of Season 10 (ilvl 371) items. Since players didn't know this would happen, many of you farmed HP and spent it on the Season 9 items prior to yesterday's maintenance.

Obviously most of you already know what happened and are very frustrated by it, but I just want to clarify the nature of the unrest, as well as the intended way this season transition was to happen. This is the way it should have worked, and how it should work going forward:

    1) During any season, a low tier of current-season items will be available for purchase with Honor Points.
    2) During any season, a high tier of current-season items will be available for purchase with Conquest Points.
    3) At the end of any season, any remaining Conquest Points will be converted into Honor Points above the 4,000 cap.
    4) In between seasons, the previous high tier of items become available for purchase with Honor Points, allowing anyone who could not previously afford them with CP one last chance to buy them using the excess Honor Points.
    5) The new season begins. Honor Points are capped at 4,000 again. The previous season's sets are removed and replaced with current-season HP and CP items.

We've seen a lot of players ask what the purpose is of having Season 9 items available for purchase with Honor Points for a week, before replacing them with better items. The purpose was for people to spend their excess Honor Points on any leftover items, as once the next season starts players can't keep more than 4,000 HP to spend. Now, the reason why this intent wasn't evident to most players is because we capped HP a week too early, which made spending any Honor Points last week less than ideal. The reality is players would have been better off saving 4,000 HP for the start of Season 10 when ilvl 371 gear was released. But they had no way of knowing that.

That is about all of the information I have to share on this subject at the moment, but I want to remind you that the issues with this season transition are well on our radar. We know we messed up in multiple ways. This not only made our intentions very unclear, but led players to make choices to spend their Honor Points they otherwise probably would not have made.

If everything went according to plan, you probably would've spent any HP over the 4,000 cap last week on any remaining Season 9 items you maybe didn't have. You then would have saved 4,000 HP to get started on the low tier Season 10 items. This is the way we're looking at it and will let you know if and when we have more information to share.
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#831 - July 8, 2011, 5:09 p.m.
Blizzard Post


so i would like to know what Z meant by

We're currently exploring some options to try and alleviate some of the misfortune many of you experienced while purchasing PvP gear in the last week.


seems one part of Blizz doesnt talk to another. <em/> <em/>


This simply means we are looking into ways in which we could alleviate the current issue that makes sense and is still fair to as many people as this has affected. Currently, support is unable to provide any recompense. Should this change or further action be possible on our end, we will let you all know. We don't want to promise something we can't deliver on and exacerbate the current situation.

We haven't done any of this intentionally nor is our intent to cause any further issues.
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#843 - July 8, 2011, 5:21 p.m.
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sooooooooo what does that mean? Blizz hope you know that if you refuse to do nothing, you will lose subscribers. It might not mean much to you, but thik on this, all those unhappy people are going to pass on their experience to their friends, coworkers and family and you will not only lose current subscribers but future subscribers.


It just means that if we decide we can do something to help, we will. We just aren't in a position currently to tell you anything more at this point in time. This isn't from any lack of desire. Again, it's about finding a way to do something that makes sense in a way that's fair to as many people as possible. If we find that solution, we will let you all know.
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#1374 - July 9, 2011, 4:31 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Closing this thread out as there has been an update on this concern.

Please continue the discussion in a civil manner on the thread below. The Code of Conduct and Forum Guidelines are still in effect.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2794770941