[WoW] major water drinking nerf coming in 2.4

[Ziran]

Just a heads up. Another pointless aggravating PvE nerf to increase downtime just to fix an exploit by one class in the arena. WTG blizzard.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4493722351&sid=1

This is an intentional change to how drinking works. The amount of mana regenerated now ramps up, so you will see little or no mana regen the first few seconds and then it will increase as the duration continues.

It appears this change did not make it into these patch notes, I'll see about getting it added to future notes.

[Eteocles]

Yeah I posted about this in the other 2.4 thread....they are out of their fucking minds with this change. This's one change that isn't adaptable because of the timed or time-sensitive shit they force down our throats already, escorts, timed events, etc, all because of those stupid fucking glorified duels for free epics...

[Vyndree]

I don't see why they can't just implement this change if and only if you're in the arenas.

That would be fair enough to me.



I don't go oom often in PvE at 70, but doing things like the ony escort in brd? Durnholde, anyone?

With an NPC leeroying about, there's no way you can spend half a minute drinking.

[Nepida]

The reason they are making it apply to more than just arena is because of Lake Wintergrasp in the xpac :/

[Eteocles]

Lake Wintergrasp? What, are they gonna make our drinks freeze solid after 6 seconds of drinking just to piss us off and this is to get us used to it? lol

[Riault]

Also remember that mana regen is getting a nice buff ...perhaps no need to drink at all ;)



Riault

[Eteocles]

I doubt it. That would actually help and blizzard nerfs such fun/helpful things, remember World Enlarger + Noggenfogger shrink? Catform + Noggenfogger Skele to fix range bug? AV snowballs that knocked back? All gone =(

[Hippieman]

Also remember that mana regen is getting a nice buff ...perhaps no need to drink at all ;)



RiaultYe, way to make arenamatches even LONGER by 1) Nerfing manaburn and 2)Making manaregen imbah. GG and soz @ 1 hour 45 min 'renamatches (yes, I've had one of those T.T)

EDIT: Oh, and I'm not saying this because this wouldn't benefit me, it would benefit me GREATLY tbh, as I 3v3 with two healers, but really... REALLY... this'll destroy everything called 2v2 (like the queues weren't long enough already).

[Tehtsuo]

Yeah I posted about this in the other 2.4 thread....they are out of their fucking minds with this change. This's one change that isn't adaptable because of the timed or time-sensitive shit they force down our throats already, escorts, timed events, etc, all because of those stupid fucking glorified duels for free epics...Quote for truth. If I hear one more "This is being changed because of mechanics in arena" I'm going to get violently ill.

[aetherg]

Even outside of escorts, in 5-mans, I like starting a non-trivial pull with full mana, in case anything unexpected happens. I'll often sit down to drink for 10 seconds just to top myself off. Having to wait for 20-30 now ends up adding several minutes to a run. Not /wrists-worthy, but still annoying.

And as far as arenas go, let me get this right: it's still okay to... rez dead teammates ... but getting a few hundred mana back every once in a while (if the other team is not paying attention) is a no-no

[-silencer-]

Yeah I posted about this in the other 2.4 thread....they are out of their fucking minds with this change. This's one change that isn't adaptable because of the timed or time-sensitive shit they force down our throats already, escorts, timed events, etc, all because of those stupid fucking glorified duels for free epics...Quote for truth. If I hear one more "This is being changed because of mechanics in arena" I'm going to get violently ill.
Anyone else remember the days when Blizzard devoted and declared WoW as a primarily PvE game with PvP available content? This was before the PvP gear, and long before arenas. Now it seems that nearly every change made is for the benefit of arena battles and the PvP-only crowd. Nevermind the fact that the world PvP aspect was already PvP favored due to talent spec, now they have their PvP-spec and PvP-epics with mass stamina and resiliance. Don't bother buffing town guards with the release of all this fantastic PvP gear and another 10 levels of experience/gear with TBC - those lowbies are already at too much of an advantage for protection from the gankers as it is.

Now everyone and their mother runs around in Season 3 PvP gear, while many don't even know what the inside of Kara looks like. The fact that many have afk'd/botted their way to their epic gear pisses me off even more. Try to bot/afk your way through heroics/raids.. much less out-roll/dkp someone for the loot. I have no problem with PvP - the players who love it are going to do it regardless of the "rewards." It should only be about bragging rights - not a requirement for defeating another player in world PvP. The Arena/BG PvP system would have been just as great without PvP gear, especially since everyone would be decked out in various forms of crafted/world drop/raid gear, instead of an Attack of the Season 3 Clones. If I wanted identically-geared PvP fights, I'd go back to Guild Wars.. the uniqueness of player gear and skill is what separated WoW from the rest, and Bliz's decisions over the last couple years have seriously hurt these aspects of the game. When did they make the decision to attempt to become Guild Wars - a game focused on balanced PvP instead of PvE content (which was actually very good as well, but also the original concept of WoW)? When did Blizzard sell out the PvE crowd?

I'm all for our multiboxing PvP crowd to go kick as much ass as possible - I can't stand the PvP-only crowd who have whined enough on the WoW forums to get everything handed to them without having to work on other aspects of the game at all.

[Toned]

QQ much? Personal rating nuff said because of the PvE crowd lol.

[Nepida]

Also remember that mana regen is getting a nice buff ...perhaps no need to drink at all ;)



Riault

Paladins aren't getting the mana regen buff that other classes are.

[-silencer-]

QQ much? Personal rating nuff said because of the PvE crowd lol.
*WHOOOOSH*
Right over your head.

World PvP used to be a challenge, purely from taking my PvE talent spec against a PvP spec player.

Tell me how two similarly skilled players in world PvP, where one is wearing raid epics and spec'd PvE has a chance in hell against a Season 3 PvP-spec player now? Exactly. It's lambs to the slaughter, unless I cloak & stealth away. The game dynamic outside of arenas/BGs has been ruined by the freebie +stam/resiliance epics. I personally don't care for BGs and twinks/pre-mades galore, or fighting arena teams of bought/sold rating/players. I prefer to keep my PvP where it originally was - in the world. I couldn't care less about personal rating or number of honorable kills.. only that the enemy who tried to take me out while I'm farming adamantite and motes is dead.

That said, I hope you take your 5x shaman and dish out some major punishment to the PvP-only crowd. Let them QQ on the forums even more about multiboxers. Give them a headache for a change. Roll over them. That'll make me feel a little better. :)

[Lance]

The way things work right now is that you will get a tick almost every two seconds when you drink water, meaning that you gain a fixed amount of mana approximately every two seconds.

After the change you will gain little to no mana after first tick(~2 seconds), the second tick(~4 seconds) will give you the normal amount of mana+66% extra and the third tick(~6 seconds) will give you the normal amount of mana+33% extra, and then it levels out after that. This means that you will still gain mana before the ~6 second mark (before the third tick), however it will be less than what you are used to now. At the ~6 second mark you will have gained as much as you would have before the change.

^ ^ That isn't my words btw is from a blue.

Personally I think I can manage to wait 6 seconds without much hardship. There may be a few instances where it might be a pain but can't see it being a huge problem for me.

[elo]

I'm in with everyone that's posted so far. WTF? Why do they continuously trash PvE for the sake of PvP? Why Why Why?

Some may say, because PvP is so popular. My argument to that is that once you hit 70 and get /some/ purples you either join a raid guild and beat your face against the wall night after night, running dailies till your eyes explode to get all your consumables and repair bills paid for.... or... PvP. TBC has been out for over a year now and let's look at the stats for end game completion. This list is the percentage of guilds (note the individual people move around a bit) that have defeated each of the bosses (not necessairly full clear) in each of the end game instances. Source - wowjustu ('http://www.wowjutsu.com') Note, this is a sampling of only 2.4million players but given that's ~25% of the player base I'd say it's fairly accurate.

Instance Statistics
Karazhan 98.70%
Attumen the Huntsman 95.30%
Moroes 95.59%
Maiden of Virtue 94.64%
Romulo & Julianne 94.22%
The Big Bad Wolf 94.17%
The Crone 94.31%
The Curator 95.93%
Terestian Illhoof 85.77%
Shade of Aran 91.21%
Netherspite 77.84%
Chess Event 92.43%
Prince Malchezaar 91.68%
Nightbane 81.33%

Zul'Aman 69.50%
Nalorakk 65.10%
Akil'Zon 48.91%
Jan'Alai 27.83%
Halazzi 33.34%
Hex Lord Malacrass 23.30%
Zul'jin 19.71%

Gruul's Lair 74.92%
High King Maulgar 74.81%
Gruul the Dragonkiller 62.29%

Magtheridon's Lair 34.97% !!!! (Tier 4 chest, HELLO?!)

Serpentshrine Cavern 47.78%
Hydross the Unstable 32.79%
The Lurker Below 40.15%
Leotheras the Blind 25.60%
Fathom-Lord Karathress 25.81%
Morogrim Tidewalker 27.98%
Lady Vashj 14.59%

The Eye 45.06%
Al'ar 22.73%
Void Reaver 42.72%
High Astromancer Solarian 25.55%
Kael'Thas Sunstrider 11.29%

Hyjal Summit 9.77%
Rage Winterchill 9.51%
Anetheron 8.93%
Kaz'rogal 8.40%
Azgalor 7.67%
Archimonde 6.15%

The Black Temple 8.42%
High Warlord Naj'entus 8.09%
Supremus 7.91%
Gurtogg Bloodboil 5.40%
Teron Gorefiend 6.66%
Shade of Akama 7.61%
Reliquary of Souls 4.71%
Mother Shahraz 4.41%
Illidari Council 4.13%
Illidan Stormrage 3.47%

I just don't see why they don't take all the energy and effort they're putting into trying to develop 'perfect PvP' and fix THIS problem!?

[bryanc]

Even outside of escorts, in 5-mans, I like starting a non-trivial pull with full mana, in case anything unexpected happens. I'll often sit down to drink for 10 seconds just to top myself off. Having to wait for 20-30 now ends up adding several minutes to a run. Not /wrists-worthy, but still annoying.


FYI, they've mentioned in a few posts that the intended change should be no difference in mana gained if you drink for at least ~6 seconds (3 ticks). It seems like the behaviour on the PTR is buggy though which is causing much outrage.

For example, this is a quote from this thread ('http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=2844774758&pageNo=3&sid=1#45')



It should be noted that we specifically made sure that there would be little to no change in the amount of mana regenerated by players, who drink between pulls or during gauntlet runs. There should be almost no difference in the amount of mana yielded if you sit to drink for at least 6 seconds, which most players do.

[BobGnarly]

I hate to sound this way, but they really are getting a reputation for these knee-jerk fixes because of arena issues. Mage's ice block, rogue's preparation, and now beat up every caster because of arena drinking imbalances primarily affecting one class?

Why can't they just have different pvp rules for stuff like this, just like they do for long cooldowns? It seems like the perfect solution to me.

[-silencer-]

I just don't see why they don't take all the energy and effort they're putting into trying to develop 'perfect PvP' and fix THIS problem!?
They've at least made an attempt by dropping some attunements required for some raids. This will enable these guilds who end up one or two previously-attuned players short to at least continue with the raid for the night, instead of wasting that time to get another player/alt attuned. However, I think a larger factor is a lot of players who prefer PvP see no real benefit to raiding anymore. Before the PvP gear was available, the top PvP players wanted every advantage, so they raided their gear to be the best. The availability of relatively easy and powerful PvP gear means they don't have to raid anymore to compete in arenas/BGs. I'm not for forcing them to raid if they don't want to, but if it's going to be available, keep that PvP gear strictly in the arenas/BGs. Meanwhile, add the PvP stats of +resiliance/penetration/etc to higher-end raid gear to at least give these PvP players something to strive for that's better than their Season-whatever PvP gear. That will at least make PvE spec'd players competitive again in world PvP.

[Osium]

Yeah I posted about this in the other 2.4 thread....they are out of their fucking minds with this change. This's one change that isn't adaptable because of the timed or time-sensitive shit they force down our throats already, escorts, timed events, etc, all because of those stupid fucking glorified duels for free epics...Quote for truth. If I hear one more "This is being changed because of mechanics in arena" I'm going to get violently ill.
Anyone else remember the days when Blizzard devoted and declared WoW as a primarily PvE game with PvP available content? This was before the PvP gear, and long before arenas. Now it seems that nearly every change made is for the benefit of arena battles and the PvP-only crowd. Nevermind the fact that the world PvP aspect was already PvP favored due to talent spec, now they have their PvP-spec and PvP-epics with mass stamina and resiliance. Don't bother buffing town guards with the release of all this fantastic PvP gear and another 10 levels of experience/gear with TBC - those lowbies are already at too much of an advantage for protection from the gankers as it is.

Now everyone and their mother runs around in Season 3 PvP gear, while many don't even know what the inside of Kara looks like. The fact that many have afk'd/botted their way to their epic gear pisses me off even more. Try to bot/afk your way through heroics/raids.. much less out-roll/dkp someone for the loot. I have no problem with PvP - the players who love it are going to do it regardless of the "rewards." It should only be about bragging rights - not a requirement for defeating another player in world PvP. The Arena/BG PvP system would have been just as great without PvP gear, especially since everyone would be decked out in various forms of crafted/world drop/raid gear, instead of an Attack of the Season 3 Clones. If I wanted identically-geared PvP fights, I'd go back to Guild Wars.. the uniqueness of player gear and skill is what separated WoW from the rest, and Bliz's decisions over the last couple years have seriously hurt these aspects of the game. When did they make the decision to attempt to become Guild Wars - a game focused on balanced PvP instead of PvE content (which was actually very good as well, but also the original concept of WoW)? When did Blizzard sell out the PvE crowd?

I'm all for our multiboxing PvP crowd to go kick as much ass as possible - I can't stand the PvP-only crowd who have whined enough on the WoW forums to get everything handed to them without having to work on other aspects of the game at all.High end PvE gear is still better than the top of the line PvP gear.

Blizzard is also recognizing a market shift. In general the % of people playing online video games in a competitive manner is many many times larger than the people playing cooperatively. The fact they are putting more time into developing their competitive content reflects that they feel they can attract a larger customer base by catering to the competitive streak in people.

[yarr]

did anyone consider the possibility that it isn't solely because of arena? and that maybe there are other reasons for them to implement it? This may be the way they have wanted drinking to work for a while hehe. If it was just because of arena they would just nerf stars tears and make it so mages can't summon water in arenas! Seriously why does everyone immdediately jump to the assumption that this is an arena fix. No blue has stated that.

Also keep in mind that the change is really buggy, i would wait for the non-buggy version to be implemented in PTR before drawing conclusions about how big of a nerf this is.

[Texic]

It's specifically for the arena to reduce the amount of time games take. It's another way Blizzard is changing the game to try and balance PvP when it has and never will be a PvP game.

[Stealthy]

Yeah I posted about this in the other 2.4 thread....they are out of their fucking minds with this change. This's one change that isn't adaptable because of the timed or time-sensitive shit they force down our throats already, escorts, timed events, etc, all because of those stupid fucking glorified duels for free epics...Quote for truth. If I hear one more "This is being changed because of mechanics in arena" I'm going to get violently ill.
Anyone else remember the days when Blizzard devoted and declared WoW as a primarily PvE game with PvP available content? This was before the PvP gear, and long before arenas. Now it seems that nearly every change made is for the benefit of arena battles and the PvP-only crowd. Nevermind the fact that the world PvP aspect was already PvP favored due to talent spec, now they have their PvP-spec and PvP-epics with mass stamina and resiliance. Don't bother buffing town guards with the release of all this fantastic PvP gear and another 10 levels of experience/gear with TBC - those lowbies are already at too much of an advantage for protection from the gankers as it is.

Now everyone and their mother runs around in Season 3 PvP gear, while many don't even know what the inside of Kara looks like. The fact that many have afk'd/botted their way to their epic gear pisses me off even more. Try to bot/afk your way through heroics/raids.. much less out-roll/dkp someone for the loot. I have no problem with PvP - the players who love it are going to do it regardless of the "rewards." It should only be about bragging rights - not a requirement for defeating another player in world PvP. The Arena/BG PvP system would have been just as great without PvP gear, especially since everyone would be decked out in various forms of crafted/world drop/raid gear, instead of an Attack of the Season 3 Clones. If I wanted identically-geared PvP fights, I'd go back to Guild Wars.. the uniqueness of player gear and skill is what separated WoW from the rest, and Bliz's decisions over the last couple years have seriously hurt these aspects of the game. When did they make the decision to attempt to become Guild Wars - a game focused on balanced PvP instead of PvE content (which was actually very good as well, but also the original concept of WoW)? When did Blizzard sell out the PvE crowd?

I'm all for our multiboxing PvP crowd to go kick as much ass as possible - I can't stand the PvP-only crowd who have whined enough on the WoW forums to get everything handed to them without having to work on other aspects of the game at all.
Ok firstly, I don't see "everyone and thier mother" running around in season 3 PvP gear. AFK & Botting to epics? Yes it happens, and people get the banhammer when caught. It's certainly not being done "en masse" like your post makes it out to be. The honor grind to S1 gear still takes quite a bit of time, the gear isn't just handed out. If it wasn't for the PvP gear, it would be people in T4,T5 & T6 gear running around stomping everyone - meaning anyone not in an end-game raiding guild would be serverely disadvantaged (which would be us btw).

Seriously, you sound like you should be on a PvE server.


Cheers,

Shane

[Ellay]

There has been a pretty large push from a minority of players to turn WoW into an E-Sport, similar to Starcraft and CS. WoW is most likely trying to tap into as many markets as possible while appealing to everyone but not specializing in any.
With that note, I'd like to test out the change myself before I make any comment to see how it effects me in game. (I usually don't chug water that much, so should be ok)

[opt]

With the constant changed to Arenas compared to the whole game it often feels that blizzard cares more about PVP than PVE. However the PVE side is a very stable and works well where trying to find a balance for Arena isnt possible and they are always going to have trouble balancing, because PVP isnt scripted!
Blizzard need to consider the effects of this over the whole game rather than just Arena. Why on earth cant they implement this water only to arena(it was said before) At the moment in arena you can only drink pvp water ( and mage water? ) why not change it to PVP vendored water and change the way it works to this new system and this is the only water viable in arena. Leave the old mage conjured, vendored purchased water which is intended for PVE to work as it has for the past 3 years, without a single problem in the world.

[Eteocles]

If it was just because of arena they would just nerf stars tears and make it so mages can't summon water in arenas!

Well duh, that would make sense, and that's not what Blizzard does :p "Blizzard, Cat form's melee range is in the middle of the body rather than the front! We found a temporary fix by using Noggenfogger Skeleton while in catform, but could you look into this?" Blizz: SURE D00D -wait a few weeks- Blizz: HAY DR00DS, WE NERFED NOGGENFOGGER TO DISPEL IF YOU SHIFT INTO CATFORM HAVE A NICE DAY LOLZ "......."

If someone managed to get away long enough to drink in arenas in the first place they deserved it; some spriest high up at blizz probably got pissed all his mana burning was for naught when he got incapacitated and the other guy drank and killed him with his newly replenished mana. It is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY to nerf the pve aspect. As for those above saying "I don't drink much so eh", yer not the only ones that play, keep the rest of us in consideration as a good faith gesture; only giving a shit when the change affects you specifically won't earn you any sympathy points later ;p This change is VERY bad for escort quests, other gauntlets, and Hyjal due to the way trash "pulls" work there; you do not HAVE time to drink longer than 4-6 seconds, and if you wipe from being oom in Hyjal you have to reclear ALL the trash EVERY FUCKING TIME.

[-silencer-]

Ok firstly, I don't see "everyone and thier mother" running around in season 3 PvP gear. AFK & Botting to epics? Yes it happens, and people get the banhammer when caught. It's certainly not being done "en masse" like your post makes it out to be. The honor grind to S1 gear still takes quite a bit of time, the gear isn't just handed out. If it wasn't for the PvP gear, it would be people in T4,T5 & T6 gear running around stomping everyone - meaning anyone not in an end-game raiding guild would be serverely disadvantaged (which would be us btw).

Seriously, you sound like you should be on a PvE server.


Cheers,

Shane
Here's a specific scenario I'm referring to..

Pre-PvP gear availability:
A guildie says they're being harassed by a PvP or two while questing, so I show up and have a decent chance of helping him out. Sometimes that PvP enemy would have an Ony/Naxx epic or two, with generally a mix of pretty good gear. Even though I wasn't in a raiding guild, and only had 5-man instance & crafted/world drop gear, I could usually help out well enough to stop or delay the harassment for reinforcements to arrive, and that was part of the fun and challenge of WORLD PvP - something PvE servers don't have much of. Only the very rare, fully epic'd, player would pretty much be undefeatable. They put in the massive work to earn that gear in a guild pushing end-game content, so even though I knew I couldn't take part in it, I respected it.

Post-PvP gear availability:
A guildie says they're being harassed by a PvP or two while questing, so I show up only to find they have the entire Season 1/2/3 set with 350+ resiliance and 10k+ stamina. There's a big fat *zero* chance of killing someone with that much health and that I can't crit as a lvl 70 PvE-talent spec rogue in heroics/Kara gear.

There's a reason they're dubbed welfare epics. A week and a half to two weeks of playing 2v2, 4v4, and 5v5, and you're guaranteed one kickass piece of equipment. I considered it lucky to end up with 1 good raid epic every 2-3 weeks, and the lack of resiliance/penetration makes them near useless in world PvP anyway.

As for the afk/botting to freebie epics.. it happens more than you think. I've had players tell me they've done it, and I've reported them, only to see that weeks later they're still playing in that gear. Does it happen today? I don't know - I don't bother much with BGs anymore.. but many of those players who did cheat to get their gear never got this banhammer. The massive quantity of complaints in the forums about the BG botting problems should tell you enough - sure Blizzard made attempts to lessen the chances of it happening again - but too many got away with it already. Now you've got the problem of players 'selling' their arena rating or being a season 3 mercenary for new teams to help boost them to easy arena points.. the influx of welfare epics continues.


I understand the desire to please multiple styles of play, including Bliz's obvious desire to crack into the competitive gaming market. I just wish they wouldn't screw over so much of the main content of the game for PvP issues as they relate to the Arens & BGs. I don't have a problem that the PvP gear exists - just that it is allowed in world play. There wouldn't have been anything wrong with keeping the PvP-gear strictly to only the arenas/battlegrounds - that's where the PvP players want to prove their worth, so keep it there. Allowing it throughout the world is like forcing the PvP'ers who don't like raiding to raid on a daily basis. That's what the raiders who enjoy world PvP now have to go through.

[Mac]

As for the afk/botting to freebie epics.. it happens more than you think. I've had players tell me they've done it, and I've reported them, only to see that weeks later they're still playing in that gear. Does it happen today? I don't know - I don't bother much with BGs anymore.. but many of those players who did cheat to get their gear never got this banhammer. The massive quantity of complaints in the forums about the BG botting problems should tell you enough - sure Blizzard made attempts to lessen the chances of it happening again - but too many got away with it already. Now you've got the problem of players 'selling' their arena rating or being a season 3 mercenary for new teams to help boost them to easy arena points.. the influx of welfare epics continues.


Off Topic:

I recently did the honor grind to get my s.priest his FULL S1 set including boots belt bracer trinkets everything, all his quest greens and blues were replaced with epixxx!! He was just logging in doing x-mutes and pulling weeds, and he'd get pwnd every time he had to fight for a node out in the world, so I put him on the Charles Atlas PVP program and now he can almost defend himself, but S3 toons just pwn him.

It was HOURS of miserable battlegrounds losses to get that full set... I cant tell you how frustrating it was to try and play with all the botters and afk leeches in the BG, not to mention the people who were trying to group up to loose on purpose X( just to get their marks because they think they have no chance against the horde in the BGs... which is mostly true unless your in a premade. In my battlegroup, Ali pugs loose what seems to be about 95% or so of EotS, WSG, AB and about 60% of the AVs. Its very frustrating to see people doing the same thing with bots and going afk and getting the same gear in the end and bragging about it and nothing is done.

I don't know what to think about smurf teams, I respect their ability to get high ratings and their entrepreneurship in selling them out to noobs who have more gold then ability, but I can't help but feel like the whole pvp thing is broken. I can't help but feel somewhat empty now, I don't have a great sense of accomplishment, maybe its the class, maybe my pvp skills sux, but I agree with Silencer, pvp just doesn't feel the same anymore post-tbc. But hey, thats progress.. right ?(

On Topic: Its painful for me to think they are making this change to drinking, especially as a class that spends most of my time trying to keep my rage bar RED. The longer I have to wait around for people to drink, the slower the instances go. Thats aggravating. In regular instances I will tell people to just sit and drink and catch up when they can... heroics is a different story though you need everyone mana'd up on each pull. I was thinking I guess its a good thing that I'm rolling a prot pali with my 4 shamen, that way they can all sit around and drink together after each pull, kind of like a little tea party celebrating each successful pull... :wacko:

[Tehtsuo]

I can second that botting for s1 epics is more widespread than it sounds. I joined one of the major pvp guilds on my solo priest on The Underbog, and it astonished me to hear people talkinga bout botting/afking. They weren't even tactful about it, they would blatently talk about botting in guild chat. It makes me wonder if I'll see guilds disappear someday if Blizzard decides to run a parser on guild chat logs serverside for bot-related conversations. I also have had several folks in s3 epics come up to me while I'm multiboxing my team and say "Hey that's really cool, let me know when you hit 70 and I can get you a good honor botting program" I tell them no thanks, I like to play the game.

[-silencer-]

I can second that botting for s1 epics is more widespread than it sounds. I joined one of the major pvp guilds on my solo priest on The Underbog, and it astonished me to hear people talkinga bout botting/afking. They weren't even tactful about it, they would blatently talk about botting in guild chat. It makes me wonder if I'll see guilds disappear someday if Blizzard decides to run a parser on guild chat logs serverside for bot-related conversations. I also have had several folks in s3 epics come up to me while I'm multiboxing my team and say "Hey that's really cool, let me know when you hit 70 and I can get you a good honor botting program" I tell them no thanks, I like to play the game.
Season 1 for BGs, yes it's very common. The people I was referring to though - they're the ones botting the arenas for freebie Season 3 gear. Even though they lose 95% of the time, it's still at least 750 FREE arena points per week for all 3 teams. I specifically know a mage and warlock on Kalecgos server with a full set of season 3 gear, done exclusively through botting their 3 arena teams. And they talk of it as if they've met quite a few others who've done it as well..

[Mith]

Blizzard is also recognizing a market shift. In general the % of people playing online video games in a competitive manner is many many times larger than the people playing cooperatively. The fact they are putting more time into developing their competitive content reflects that they feel they can attract a larger customer base by catering to the competitive streak in people.Damn the market for shifting thus. I personally have been a carebear since day 1, although my first 2 years of WoW were spent miserably being ganked by OP rogues on a PvP server (was playing priest/mage go figure). Personally, if blizzard is to keep my 60 bones/month they will need to balance the game for carebears like me. PvE servers are great for this, but not if the mechanics of the game are tweaked to favor a PvP environment.

[Vyndree]

There's a difference between botting/afk'ing BG's/arenas and doing things like buying high ranked arena teams to get more points per week.

Blue has said that arena team selling is ok (after all, you worked hard to get it to 2k+ rating, you should be able to profit off it). If you're playing at 3-4am so that you can group up against the other scrubs in blues/greens to avoid all the s3 people and get your points each week, that's fine too. Or maybe your s3 buddies will queue with you to make the odds better that you'll get your personal rating up too. That's ok by blizz -- they can't prevent you from playing games with whoever you want at whatever time you want.

BOTTING is particularly unacceptable. Most of us know that BG's are a complete timesink when you're going for your s1 pieces. In your blues/greens you're not likely to WIN many bg's. But botters get off with very little time invested for the same reward -- and worse, they don't contribute to the success of the team. It's like having an empty spot in your BG. They should definitely be reported if you see it.

[-silencer-]

And you didn't screenshot - report them....... why?
I always report when I come across this activity in-game. This mage & warlock were discussing this in another game, with no proof available to Blizzard that these people were who I said they were - especially considering the different usernames. Blizzard doesn't like to ban without absolute proof of illegal activity. First, the risk of banning a legit player, and second, banning someone costs them money in future subscriptions.

[-silencer-]

There's a difference between botting/afk'ing BG's/arenas and doing things like buying high ranked arena teams to get more points per week.

I wasn't implying they were the same, or that the rating selling was even illegal. I was just using that as another route people are using to get these welfare epics. People do pay for instance runs, but although I know it happens from time to time, I haven't come across that many people willing to pay an entire guild for raid runs/loot with such obvious frequency.

[Eteocles]

Every boe raid recipe I've seen so far has been boe but the mats aren't all boe...at least I think, Nether Vortexes are bop aren't they? And I know most of those take vortexes

[Electrissy]

Just a heads up. Another pointless aggravating PvE nerf to increase downtime just to fix an exploit by one class in the arena. WTG blizzard.
Damn, and I just got my feign death and drink macro working ;)