#1 - March 4, 2011, 10:23 p.m.
Updated for patch 5.0.1
Introduction
The aim of this guide is to explain the current Arena Rating system and to answer any questions someone might have. Opposed to my other guides, I will try to keep this one very short so it will be easier to read and understand.
I noticed that many players don’t fully understand the current Arena Rating system, and I have answered many questions about it, until I finally decided to write this guide to put everything together in one thread.
To clarify the words I will be using: “Rating” is the number you can find in your PvP tab and the one that gives you achievements. MMR or Match Making Rating is the “hidden” rating which you can only see at the end of an arena fight.. Further explanation about that can be found below, but this is just to avoid confusion with the terms.
Match Making Rating (MMR)
The first question you might ask is: What is Match Making Rating? MMR is a “secondary” rating that changes every time you play an arena battle. Basically it comes down to this: Your MMR increases when you win, and it decreases when you lose. Quite obvious.
This MMR, using about the same scale as the actual rating, will then match you up against another team with about the same MMR. So if you have 1600 MMR, you will almost always fight against other teams with around 1600 MMR.
Let’s say you create a new team and it is your very first arena battle. You will start at 1500 MMR, and 0 rating. This means that you might actually end up fighting against a team with a rating of 1500 points higher than yours, but with the same MMR. Let’s say you win this match. In that case your rating will go up with an amount fixed towards the opponent’s MMR, and not based on their actual rating.
So in short: Your rating does not make any difference in which enemy team you will be fighting, and neither does it make a difference in the amount of rating you or your opponent lose/win. It is all based on MMR.
This is something that confuses many players. They see their rating of 1400 barely increasing when they win, while enemy teams keep gaining close to 100 points. The reason for this is that the enemy’s rating is actually very low, and that only their MMR is at 1400, and not the rating.
