Patch 2.4.2 came out today, which is mostly a bug fix. It does, however, have 1 big impact on Arena play. The proposed point changes for Arena Season 4 were implemented today. Specifically:

1. 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.
2. 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.

As I mentioned in my previous Arena Season 4 post, this should help reduce point selling quite a bit, and make it easier to play against like talented teams.

Adding to my other post about Arena Season 4, there is some new information out about Arena Season 4.

Blizzard is taking steps to reduce point selling and general gaming of the system.

Read the blue thread.

**5.4.08 Update** I updated this post with new information about Season 4 Gear Costs. The update is after the original.

**5.7.08 Update** More updates about Arena Season 4 point selling changes

 I thought Arena Season 4 would be here by now. I am stocked up and ready, and fully expected it to hit a few weeks after patch 2.4.

In retrospect, dropping Arena Season 4 so soon after a big patch with new content would not make a lot of sense for Blizzard.

So if we don't know the date of Arena Season 4, what do we know about it?

1. Season 2 items will be available for honor
2. Season 3 items will be 15% arena point cost.
3. Most Season 4 gear will require a personal rating.
4. Some pvp gear will be available with pve rewards.
5. The new stuff will be called "Brutal Gladiator"

That said, what can we do while waiting for Arena Season 4?

1. Hit the honor cap. The honor cap is 75,000 points. Make sure you are just around that number when Tuesday hits in case Season 4 rolls.
2. Cap on Arena points. The Arena points cap is 5,000 Arena points.
3. Stock up on enchanting reagents. When you get your new gear, you will want enchants on it. Prices are low, stock up now.
4. Run instances and get your Badges of Justice. If you are close to the honor cap you don't need as much time in BG, so get Badges.
5. You can turn in Badges for PVP gear to Kayri.

I'm capped on honor and arena points. I'm waiting for Arena Season 4 to kick off so I can grab some new gear.

Arena Season 4 Gear Costs

Item	Cost	Personal Rating
Brutal Gladiator's Head	1875 Arena points	1700 PR
Brutal Gladiator's Shoulders	1500 Arena point	2200 PR
Brutal Gladiator's Chest	1875 Arena point	1600 PR
Brutal Gladiator's Hands	1125 Arena point	None
Brutal Gladiator's Legs	1875 Arena point	1550 PR
Brutal Gladiator's Wrist	11794 Honor, 20 WSG Marks	1575 PR
Brutal Gladiator's Waist	17850 Honor, 40 AB Marks	None
Brutal Gladiator's Feet	17850 Honor, 40 EOS Marks	1700 PR
Brutal Gladiator's Neck	15300 Honor, 10 AB Marks	1700 PR
Brutal Gladiator's Finger	15300 Honor, 10 AV Marks	1650 PR

Arena Season 4 point selling changes

In addition to making some of the Arena Season 4 gear harder to get, Blizzard is making it harder to sell/buy arena points. (Point selling is where you pay gold to play 3 games on a highly rated team.) The changes are:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. If a team does not enter an arena match that is starting they will lose points equal to the amount that would have been deducted if they had played and lost.

This should be successfull. It means that if someone with a personal rating of 1450 joins a 2000 team and plays 3 games, at the end of the week they will get points based on their 1450 personal rating, not the team rating of 2000. Also, if 3 players with 1500 join a 2000 team and que, they will face other 1500 teams, not 2000 teams.

This will make point selling harder, but not impossible. If anything it will bump up the price. 2 geard players could still make a new team and sell the third spot. They would be able to get this to around 1700, even with the dead weight of the point buyer.

It doesn't make sense, how are they supposed to be sneaky with maces.

They just don't make sense, nuff said.

This weekends battle ground is Eye of the Storm (EOS).

Of all the BG, this one is my least favorite. It could probably be done will with a premade, but no premade ever want to go here.

The idea of EOS is CnC, command and control, but everyone plays it like "big fight in the middle".

I will skip this BG this weekend and Honor Farm Alterac Valley

As you can probably tell, I have a hard-on for Alteric Valley these days. As I mentioned in my other post Alterac Valley Honor Farming, the changes in patch 2.3 make this an honor pinata, and competitive as well.

My win ratio in AV is way over .500, I would guess more towards .600 or even .700. I will point out 5 Alterac Valley situations you can exploit to bring your own win ratio up. (DISCLAIMER: I play ally, so these tips will mostly apply to ally.)

1. If you are passing Snowfall Graveyard (see image too the left) and it is not capped, go cap it. This might be the most important thing you can do in the game. The sooner this is capped, the sooner dead people stop rezing all the way across the map.

2. Defend you offensive caps until they flip. If you see a graveyard capped but not flipped, or a tower capped but not burned, defend it until it does. These static objectives are very important. They give you honor and shorten the field.

3. If, however, Iceblood Graveyard (IB GY), Iceblood tower (IB Tower), and Tower Point (TP) are capped and defended, fallback to try and reclaim the alliance towers. Sometimes you will find Stoneharth Bunker (SB) undefended, or with just one on D that you can solo and get the tower back. That is more honor when you win, and makes it harder for the horde to take down Vann. (The flip is easy to see for the horde)

4. If you are trying to take the Relief Hut (RH), kill the archers in East and West Frostwolf towers. I can't believe how many times wave after wave of ally smash into RH without taking out the archers. They hit for 700 each, and there are 5 on each tower. Removing these archers are key to getting RH.

5. Recognize the horde's Sorched Earth strat. This is where they basically play D and send sniper squads to cap all they ally towers and win by depleting the ally resources. The horde can win with a lot of honor, but it takes a lot of time and ally gets very little honor. If you see this strat, fall back and defend the towers at all costs. This will result in a long turtle game, but the only counter to this strat is to teach the horde it does not work.

You will not win AV all the time, but with heads up play and a good strat, you can win a majority of the time, and get great honor doing it. That said, I understand some battle groups just suck at AV. If that is your BG, drop a line in the comments and let me know what happens. Maybe we can work something out.

If you are serious about honor farming, Alterac Valley is the place to be, especially since the 2.3 patch changes.

You can see the kind of honor you can get in the image to the left. I am talking about 1300-1500 honor per hour if you keep at it.

It doesn't always flow like that, but I easily average that if I play for any amount of time. With the patch changes, there are 3 keys to Alteric Valley:

• 1. Towers. These are the number one key to Alterac Vally. Burn down the towers. Burning each tower gives you 62 honor, and Galv gives another 62. Burning the first 3 towers, and Galv gives a min of 186 honor, even if you lose every thing else. Burning the towers also removes a WM from Drek, making him easier to kill.
• 2. Speed. Everything is on a timer, and the tower and GY timers are shortened to 3 and 4 min respectively. The faster you cap a tower, the faster it burns and you can move on. YOU DON'T HAVE TO KILL THE ARCHERS TO CAP THE TOWER. Cap it, then kill the archers.
• 3. Graveyards. Don't skip the graveyards, and try and defend them. If you have no GY and meet some defense, everyone will get sent back to the beginning. This results in a turtle, which is less honor per hour. Defend open graveyards until they flip.

Also make sure to check for the daily pvp quest. If it is AV, that can net you an additional 400 honor. If you play for 2 hours, thats like 200 honor per hour (I don't know math really ^^) If the pvp quest is not AV, I don't try for it. I will que AV and whatever else BG it is, and if I can get a free win, I do it, but don't invest the time. If you haven't played AV since the patch, try it. It is a lot more balanced, faster, and more honor then ever. It is your number one honor grind bet.

This weekend is Arathi Basin battleground weekend for January 4th 2008 until Januray 7th 2008. So dust off your riding crop and get in AB.

In case you forgot what the BG weekend means, it is bonus honor weekend. For Arath Basin that means you get 20 honor for every 200 resources gathered rather than the normal 20 honor per 330 resources. Everything else stays the same except your reputation per resource goes up as well.

But if you are reading this site, you are probably maxed out with Arathi Basin rep already.

In light of the AB weekend, I will try and get an updated strat up for Arathi Basin. If not, que up and enjoy the bonus honor!