Four months after my last post on the Arena Power Ratings, I am back with a minor update.  For various reasons, these numbers have become less and less meaningful as the BC expansion wears out, so I waited until Season 4's dying breath to make this last post.  Given that so many players are inactive now, the beta is out, and the 3.0 patch is coming to completely destroy the classes as we know them, the end is here for BC arena.  Consider this a "last look" at how things were before the new De…  More

I haven't updated my Power Ratings in several weeks now, due to a few factors.  First, I think my initial plan for weekly updates was a little much, when the measurable changes are so small from week to week.  Second, the Armory has been performing terribly over the past month or so and I want to make sure I feel confident with the numbers from the data-mining sites before I post an update. With that in mind, I will target a monthly update from this point forward, though I will continue to record data at least once a week.…  More

I've had a lot of questions and criticism about my Arena Power Ratings, and while I've talked about shedding more light on the way I generate them, I haven't really delivered on that promise.  Until now!  I hope this information gives some of you guys a better idea of what I'm doing with these numbers when I make the pretty graphs and give you a speech about which class is doing poorly.

The Main Data Source

Just for the sake of disclosure, I don't mine any Armory Data myself.  The O…  More

We've now had almost three full weeks for the 2.4 changes to work their way into the system, and the results are clear: melee is still king in WoW and they will remain comfortably on top through the end of the BC expansion.

Today's Arena Power Ratings

Rank Class Power 1 Warrior 111.39 2 Rogue 108.56 3 Priest 106.16 4 Druid 101.57 5 Warlock 96.22 6 Mage 95.75 7 Paladin 93.81 8 Shaman 91.20 9 Hunter 83.69

People's Choice Arena Ratings

Rank Class Percent 1 Warrior 151.91% 2 Rogue 148.10% 3 Druid 1…  More

The long-awaited 2.4 patch finally arrived on live servers this past Tuesday, bringing some subtle PvP balance changes that should have a visible impact on our power ratings.  Arena-specific tweaks were mostly targeted at Druid, Mage, and Shaman, but we'll still need more time for the community to show if the scales tip toward any other classes.

Today's Arena Power Ratings

Rank Class Power 1 Warrior 112.02 2 Priest 106.24 3 Rogue 105.39 4 Druid 103.33 5 Warlock 100.29 6 Mage 93.24 7 Paladin …  More

We are showing fairly predictable results again this week on the Power Ratings scale, as no significant changes have been implemented or announced.  Experimentation by top players on the TTR continues to slow the visibility of live server trends.

Today's Arena Power Ratings

Rank Class Power 1 Warrior 112.02 2 Priest 106.16 3 Rogue 105.11 4 Druid 103.57 5 Warlock 100.57 6 Mage 92.67 7 Paladin 92.58 8 Shaman 87.79 9 Hunter 87.32

A Second Metric: People's Choice

In response to requests for a simp…  More

As expected, not much has changed this week in the Arena Power Ratings.  The 2.4 data preload reminds us that the patch is creeping closer, but the live date is far enough down the road that we haven't seen any impact from anticipation.

Today's Arena Power Ratings

Rank Class Power 1 Warrior 111.62 2 Priest 107.01 3 Rogue 105.11 4 Druid 103.61 5 Warlock 101.08 6 Mage 92.67 7 Paladin 91.03 8 Hunter 88.44 9 Shaman 86.70
A value of 100 is considered balanced.


Holding Steady

While we expect to see …  More

Today on the PTR we saw a range reduction from 30 to 20 yards for Druid's Cyclone spell. This is one of a few Druid-specific tweaks planned for the upcoming 2.4 patch, and it seems like a solid attempt to address the over-representation of Druid in the 2v2 bracket. Most players agree that Druid is too strong in today's 2v2, and I think this Cyclone nerf is a step in the right direction.

What are the important changes?
In the PTR so far, we have a few key changes to Resto Druid:

* 15% speed bonus …  More

It seems RealmHistory had some code problems over this past week, so we didn't get as many data points as usual. Regardless, the numbers were back up on Friday so we're all happy.

Today's Arena Power Rankings

 

Rank Class Power 1 Warrior 111.17 2 Rogue 104.93 3 Priest 104.86 4 Druid 102.87 5 Warlock 100.38 6 Paladin 95.18 7 Mage 95.08 8 Shaman 88.04 9 Hunter 87.50

 

A value of 100 is considered balanced.

Death of the Middle Class?

 

We started out a few weeks ago with a solid group of t…  More

The mass publication of World of Warcraft character data (via the Armory) has led to a revolution in data analysis among players. The area of greatest interest has been the general representation of each class in the competitive arena brackets, which is seen as a "measuring stick" for PvP power; these numbers have been the source of countless discussions since data mining websites started displaying them.

Addressing the need for a unified rating system
A few of today's major sources for arena sta…  More