Firstly, an important note: PvP gear is now available on the PTR for pre-mades. Get in there and get PvPing. The future depends on you!

I've been rather critical of Blizzard in recent columns discussing the state of PvP. I've spoken before about the problems PvP has faced in recent times, and while the current season's rating is in tatters and crumbling around us as yet another win-trading bug is exposed, yet more suspensions roll out, and yet more players are stripped of rating, we can at least do what the devs appear to be doing and look forward to patch 5.2, and a fresh start.

While it's yet another black mark against season 12 that another win trading bug has been doing the rounds, win trading is hardly new, and it's good to see that Blizzard are taking steps to fix it, if rather slowly. Win trading has been around for a very long time indeed, and there are whisperings that this bug has existed for some time, although that remains unconfirmed. Quicker action from Blizzard would be welcomed, but there may be things preventing this, that we're not aware of, behind the scenes.

1. Gearing changes are a good thing

These have been quite the hot topic of late, with the recently announced changes to PvP gear which purport to flatten out the gear curve and aid the late starter to the season. While many players on the forums seem to be the polar opposite of cheerful about these changes, asserting amongst other things that they're the worst thing to ever happen to PvP, the stupidest decision ever made, and various other prophecies of doom.

But they're not, and let me fill you in on why, just in case you were wondering. The removal of the 2200 requirement for elite gear is a step in the right direction. Why? Because that rating level was rather arbitrary int he first place, and served no real purpose except to create a hurdle. There was a point at 2200, where, after the season had progressed a little, players were able to purchase weapons that were considerably superior to those of players below 2200, and yes, it created a gear gap. There was no reason for that number to be 2200. Being above 2200 is not necessarily the mark of a good player, it could be someone who's taken advantage of a flavor of the month class, like beast master hunters at the start of the expansion, or arms warriors. And why not 2400, or 2600, or 2000, or 1800, and so on. The gating of gear behind a particular rating was a bad idea, in my opinion.

I don't fully understand why those who are angry about it have such a problem with this change. If you're a good PvPer, you're going to be able to regain or maintain your rating, even if the people who sit at around 1500 rating have access to elite gear through sheer perseverance. If anything, these gear changes make gear less of a factor, and skill more of a factor. And that is a good thing. There's already talk of introducing some cosmetic enhancements for players with high rating, but in my own opinion, rating itself and the titles (and sometimes mounts) that come with it are reward enough.

The addition of catch-up mechanics is another positive, as it's not always possible for players to start PvPing right at the very moment the season opens, and in season 12 the gear scaling has made it almost possible to catch up to the players who did. It shouldn't be the case that someone who wants to start PvP on an alt, or wants to start PvP in the first place, should be flattened every time they enter an arena. It's a bad thing, and the catch-up mechanics will go a long way towards fixing it. I still think the catch-up cap needs to be introduced way before 5.3 launches, as if that's not the case players will be better off waiting until 5.3 than starting in 5.2, and that's a bad thing. Of course, that's slightly dependent on when 5.3 appears.


2. A wild DotA appears!

Not just one, but two new battleground maps have been datamined recently. First we saw the amusingly named Defense of the Alehouse, then a few days later, Adriacraft unearthed a map currently named Gold Rush. There is absolutely no guarantee these maps will make it into patch 5.2, in fact, I'd go as far as saying that that seems extremely unlikely, given that there has been literally no announcement about them. But we can hold out hope that they won't be on that list of stuff that never makes it into the game, despite being dug up in the PTR.

But, Defense of the Alehouse, the name at least, has a distinctly pandaren feel to it. So, unlike previously where we could expect perhaps one or two new maps for an expansion, maybe more will be coming with a later patch. What's more, although they haven't really materialized yet, there has been talk of PvP dailies with patch 5.2. This is fantastic, and if it's a sign of things to follow, PvPers can look forward to more attention and more new content in future.

3. We can rebuild it

OK, I'll admit it, the class balance changes got me down. I was really excited about the previously discussed return to casting and interrupting rather than blanket silences and heavy burst. But, I should probably have realized that it was too big a change to come in mid-way through an expansion. When the class changes first started appearing on the PTR, I was so happy to see this change. The skill element of interrupting and juking was far better to me than blanket silences. And, I'll freely admit, the change halving Asphyxiate's cooldown seems like an odd choice. And reverting Cyclone's DR while it remains undispellable is also a strange redaction to me, but I'm sure druids would disagree.

Philosophically, though, they're moving in the right direction. Even though the blanket silence change didn't make it in to this patch, and may not make it in to this expansion, the philosophy behind it is sound. Interrupting a cast should be a skill, an important decision, and of course, the caster then has an opportunity to respond with juking, or fake-casting. AsGhostcrawler said: "...the continual arms race between instant spells, silences and silence immunity isn't good for the long term health of PvP." I wholeheartedly agree with this position, instant casts and blanket silences lead, mostly, to frustration.
Another Ghostcrawler post that fills me with hope rather than dread is this.

Ghostcrawler

PvP works better, in our opinions, when you have to be smart and react to what other players are doing. That means trying to guess what they're going to do next or deciding the right time for a crutch dispel or CC. If you find yourself asking for something to be undispellable, or to punish someone for dispelling it, or you're asking for something to work while crowd controlled, or something that makes you immune to something, or something that overall leaves your opponent no options, we're very unlikely to make those changes. Yes, all of those mechanics still exist, though we are trying to design as many as possible out of the game. We're much more likely to consider tools that have a counter, not tools that cannot be countered..

source

Abilities without counters are no fun. If you can do something that is entirely unstoppable, that's tiresome, that's boring, that's overpowered. Yes, there should be some abilities that can work through stuns, yes, there should be some abilities that punish the dispeller for dispelling them. But they should be few and far between! Much as it pains me to say it, the nerf to shaman totems which meant that they could not be used while silenced was a good decision, as it moved us more in this direction. What's more, the amount of attention being devoted to PvP balancing means they're listening. It's about time.

I can only hope they stick with this philosophy, and are not swayed by player complaints.

PvP Season 12 has begun, as we informed you last week. First and foremost, where are the vendors with the PvP gear? They're a little hidden away in Mists, that's for sure, with the Alliance vendor on the Serpent's Spine, the huge wall, level with the border between Vale of Eternal Blossoms and Valley of the Four Winds. There is a flight point there, but you won't have it unless you happened to pick it up while looking for Bowmistress Li. The Horde vendor is also on the wall, but between Townlong Steppes and Kun Lai Summit, a short way west of the corner. Again, there's a flight point there, but you likely won't have it. For both vendors, you can reach them by getting up onto the wall at pretty much any point you can, and running along it. Of course, you'll likely be 90 before you're interested in hunting them down, so you can just fly on over!

And do check out our guides to the Silvershard Mines and Temple of Kotmogu.

Weapon Problems

The PvP vendors sell both item level 458 honor gear, and item level 483 conquest gear, but there is currently a complete absence of honor weapons. Rather flying in the face of the so-called "you can play the game how you want to" Mists philosophy, PvPers are yet again required to get their early PvP weapons via PvE. While hardly new at the beginning of an expansion, it's rather frustrating.

So, if you want better than a questing weapon for PvP, the easiest way to get one is to run some PvE, or amass enough gold to buy a weapon on the Auction House. The fastest way to get a fairly decent PvE weapon is to run the Arena of Annihilation scenario, which, via a quest reward, gives several item level 450 weapons. If those don't suit, then you'd better start running some heroics and hope for the best. Heroics award weapons of item level 463 or above, and of course, you can get weapons via reputation, with the Klaxxi holding most of the cards. The crafted weapons are also item level 463, so if you're wealthy enough to get one, and there's one suitable for your spec, that would be a good option. Inscription also awards a few weapons, which apparently bind to battle.net account.

Naturally, you can buy weapons for conquest points, but the points earned requirement remains. So, before you can get a weapon specifically designed for PvP, you need to amass 7250 conquest points, some of which can of course be put towards a weapon. This is a little suboptimal for getting started in PvP, to say the least! If it's any comfort, most others will be in the same boat, for the first 3-4 weeks it will take to get conquest weapons at least.

It also doesn't seem that you can convert your Valor points into Conquest points any longer, so that won't be a viable method to obtain weapons either. Of course, this could be rectified, or I could be wrong, but I can't find a vendor or any evidence that one exists yet. There could be a vendor coming, but with the woefully slow rate of valor accrual, this probably wouldn't be a viable method anyway.

Lastly, consider your old weapons, especially if you had conquest or glorious conquest weapons. Given how PvP Power scales against PvP Resilience, it could well be workable, at least temporarily, to use last season's weapons.

PvP Armor

Happily the situation is far better for PvP armor. As ever, the crafted gear is a great start, with complete sets of item level 450 gear available from crafters. The recipes start to be available at around crafting profession level 550-575, and it's a great idea to level up your professions to craft these pieces if you're able to, while material costs remain far lower than the cost of purchasing these items.

But your first step should be to get the honor gear, and fill in any gaps with crafted gear, to save your hard-earned gold. While, as mentioned, it's not possible to exchange your Valor for Conquest at this point, it is still very possible to exchange your Justice for Honor. There may well be a vendor that offers this service hanging out somewhere in Pandaria, but your faithful friends in Stormwind and Orgrimmar are still there from Cataclysm's days. There is still an honor point cap of 4,000, so spend carefully.

Your first purchase for honor should be gloves, as they provide a boost to a key skill. Next, you should look to get your 2-set, which boost your PvP Power by 500, and gives a boost to another key skill. If you have points enough, you should then shoot for your 4-set, which will give a boost to another key skill as well as 1,000 PvP Resilience. From my looking around at the boost, the 4-set bonus is really, really nice!

If you've got enough honor to get the 4-set off the bat, that would be a good way to go. Then, have a look around on your auction house at what is and isn't available, and hit up your crafting friends for pieces you're not seeing. If you can make gear yourself, even better!

Also, don't completely rule out your old conquest gear from Cataclysm, particularly in the early days of the expansion. If you look back to last week's column, you can see how important PvP Resilience is as a stat. While the set bonuses are nowhere near as good, and they should not be your first choice if either crafted or current season gear is available to you, they're a decent stopgap.

From Honor to Conquest

Once you're 90, you can start earning conquest points. It should be noted that doing random or call to arms battlegrounds doesn't award conquest until level 90, but from that point forwards your first random or call to arms win of the day will award 100 conquest points, and latter wins 50. There remains a 1350 point cap from arenas and random battlegrounds, with that increasing to 1650 as players move into rated battlegrounds, or increase their rating. Once your rating is over 1550, your cap available from arenas and random battlegrounds will steadily increase, meaning that you don't have to do rated battlegrounds to get the maximum conquest points per week.

By far the fastest way to earn Conquest is to get into arenas. It seems that the numbers haven't changed, so you will need 8 wins to get to your weekly cap. This is far, far faster than earning points via random battlegrounds, but still a bit slower than earning points via rated battlegrounds. As previously noted, it is not possible at this point to convert valor into conquest.

Conquest points will get you access to the Malevolent gear, which has an item level of 483. It has precisely the same 2-set and 4-set bonuses as the Dreadful gear acquired from Honor, but higher stats. And, of course, weapons!

Lastly, if you're rolling in gold, don't forget to check out the Black Market Auction House. You never know what might pop up!