My Turn...

Okay, so everyone but me has had their weekly rant, blog-wise, anyhow, and I've yet to voice mine. Seeing as I'm famous for them, it's about time I catch up to the game. And my topic?

Arena.

Bloody, goddamn, pointless arena. I love it. I have no idea why, but I've been an arena junkie since the damn thing came out. I leveled a Paladin holy from 1-70 for the sheer purpose of healing my RL friends in their 3v3. I reveled in it, cheering as we dominated other teams, and giving rise to some of the guild stories that would be repeated for years (I'll share one that comes to mind towards the end of this post). I also cursed in frustration as Blizzard unbalanced this class or that class and we had to scramble to keep up. In Season 1 a Warrior friend (Nosaaj, a DK, now), a Warlock friend (Sileo, now a Rogue), and I rode to 2000, and got our titles briefly (before Blizzard took them away again, bastards). In Season 2 we held our own, and by Season 3 I was a warrior, and arena-ed with Bell, since Nos and Sileo had petered out of the PvP scene. For a pve sword arms warrior and a pve resto druid, we did alright.

I cannot tell you how I waited with bated breath for the new Arena Season to come out. That was the drive for me leveling to 80. I couldn't WAIT to try out my new pally (which I had rolled after reviewing the new paladin talents BEFORE everyone started playing them on the PTR, thank you very much) in the kill-or-be-killed atmosphere of the Arena.

Well, screw you too, Blizzard.



On the day of Arena release, I teamed up with another friend of mine, a Boomkin by the name of Greaseninja, and we hit 2s like a ton of bricks. Playing a comp that was by everyone's definition "gimp", we hit 1650 easily, but at 1700, we ran into a DK/ret pally team. And after that, another. And another. And another. Then the disc priest/rogue team. And the DK/DK team.

I have never used the "popular" comp. I never will, unless I have a friend that happens to be my complementary class and is interested. My 1800+ 3s team is a Boomkin, disc Priest, and Retadin....which wasn't common until a week ago. My 2s team is off-and-on a Feral Druid and a Boomkin, and we still maintain a 1750+ rating most of the time.

Needless to say, I became frustrated rapidly, not understanding how Blizzard could honestly think the classes were at all balanced....until I read that they didn't. Even in their early reviews of their own PTR they had commented on how broken the DK class in general was, how an innate 40% reduction of all damage and immunity to stuns followed by A COMPLETE IMMUNITY TO MAGICAL EFFECTS THAT GAVE THEM RUNIC POWER WHEN IT ABSORBED DAMAGE followed by ANOTHER 40% reduction in damage for 5 hits followed by a silence, an interrupt, a stun, a fire-and-forget AoE fear, and a catch-all crap-on-magic AoE shield was "possibly" a little overboard.

"Possibly" my ass.

But don't get me wrong, I don't have it out for DKs in particular. I hate paladins too. The self-serving bastards who bubble at the earliest opportunity and proceed to deal 100% damage with no detrimental effect other than a slower swing time, which doesn't even matter because your 3 main attacks are all instant anyway. How is that balanced there, geniuses? I once killed two of these FoTM scrubs at 1750 in 2s after they destroyed my partner....they both bubbled, I didn't.

Mages? Yes, because arcane blast takes a lot of skill. Playing a mage used to involve using your brain a little, and I had immense respect for the kiters. Nowadays? LOL SPAM WIN. I once killed two of these idiots too.

Hunters....don't even get me started.

But you know, all these little broken kinks aside, you know what burns my buns the most? Blizzard KNEW about them. They went through extensive testing, and discovered the problems early on...and released Arena anyway, announcing a patch that would FIX THE PROBLEMS WITH ARENA the same day.

Thanks for disrespecting the PvPers, Blizz. We appreciate it.

By the way, while you're fixing all the problems you SHOULD have fixed a month and a half ago, could you toss the Warriors a bone? I absolutely annihilate 9/10 of them without so much as tossing a FoL on myself. Give me a break.

- A Pissed Off Sannhet

P.S. Please, those of you with skill, who have taken the time to learn your class instead of rolling FotM clones, don't take offense, as this is not directed at you, and I'm sure you deal with the same things on a weekly basis.

P.P.S. The story I was going to mention was a 3s match against some random comp with the name "PWN UR FACE". They killed our warlock right off the bat, leaving the plate wall of my holy pally and our arms warrior. Scrambling for momentum, we downed their rogue and chased their hunter around. I became so frustrated at his kiting that as I HoJed him, I screamed into vent "YOUR FACE ON MY DICK!" and our arms warrior said stoicly "That's our guild leader /shrug" and executed the hunter on the spot. Good times, good times.