http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5973993258&postId=59734678222&sid=1#0

While Season 3 is still going strong, we wanted to announce ahead of time the rating requirements that will be present for arena items once Season 4 begins. We also wanted to give everyone a heads up to some changes that will be in an upcoming patch, altering how points are gained and players are matched in the arena system. The patch with these changes is scheduled to release before the start of Season 4.

First though, the rating requirement changes:

When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:

Shoulders: 1950

Weapon: 1800


The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:

Shoulders: 2200

Weapon: 2050

Head: 1700

Chest: 1600

Legs: 1550

Gloves: none

Off-hand: none


In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:

Boots: 1700

Ring: 1650

Bracers: 1575

Belt: none

Necklace: none

Trinket: none


The Season 2 items, which will move to the honor system when Season 4 begins, will continue to have no rating requirement.

The changes to the rating requirements for these items reflect the nature of the items, their power, and the relative difficulty that should be had when attempting to obtain them. These items are comparable to those found in the newest 25 person raid zone, Sunwell Plateau, and should therefore also feel very challenging to obtain.


To help ensure that the challenge in obtaining these items stays true to those achieving these ratings, we'll also be implementing new rules with an upcoming patch to curb practices that undermine the core concepts of the arena system.

These rules are as follows:

"If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating."

This means that a player cannot join a highly rated team and begin earning points based purely on the pre-established rating of the team before they joined it. They'll need to compete, improve, and gain a personal rating worthy of the points they would receive.


"If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating."

This means that players cannot join a highly rated team and immediately face highly rated opponents, easily and quickly bringing their personal rating up. Instead they'll need to again compete, improve, and earn their rating.


We're excited to see these changes implemented, which will continue to emphasize the strong competitive nature of the arenas, and the challenge in obtaining the highest end rewards available for PvP.


Also talked about on WoWinsider

These 2 new rules will cause our A team and B team to fail. We might have to make seperate teams.

yea these changes pretty much kill Arena's for the non-elite people.

It will be funny how the scores of the people left will change when all the non-hardcore people leave.

They won't have us to kick around any more lol.

I just hope it does not come out for another 4-5 weeks or so, I still need to rack up some more points and buy some season 2 gear before it swithces to regular pvp.

We can continue with Arena and get all season 3 gear and some of the season 4 gear. We would have a higher score if we stopped playing our alts.

So maybe we should form another VS team. One for people that just want to farm epics, one for folks that actually want to try and compete.

I've started getting a few pvp pieces together... so I wouldn't mind putting Raps on a competitive team. Nakveigh would, with out a doubt, be on a welfare farming team. Just want that shield for him.

Already talked about but I like pictures. Found it on wowinsider.

And a nice new article called Blood Sport: No scrubs allowed in Season 4