Sck Perspective on Arenas and Upcoming 3v3 Tournament

Today I got the chance to talk to Sck, the notorious Paladin of Team Power Trip/Pandemic, about some of the current problems in Arenas, and hear his thoughts regarding his team and the upcoming 3v3 tournament.

Many people today have beaten the "Arena Problems" horse to death, but after talking to Sck I think a new perspective has been thrown out there, at least through the eyes of a well regarded Paladin in the arena scene.  Sck, famously known for helping his team win countless WoW tournaments, and playing under the Team Pandemic Sponsor, I trust to have a pretty good grasp on the whole "arena balance" discussion.  Here are some of the things we talked about.

Addons

First off, I think it is safe to say that the use of Addons will never go away.  We all remember the days of Cosmos, back 3 years ago when the HK/PvP System was first introduced into WoW, and the days where a mod showing what buffs your opponent had on was considered "OP."  But today, things have escalated to a "no turning back" point, where almost anything goes.  Many people can blame losses on addons, and many can attribute their successes to what addons they use - but why? 

Affix, being one of the most well known Mages not only on BG9, but in the Mage community as well, (sign my staff plz?) has constantly been bugged about his addon use; good or bad.  After he releases a video, it seems every comment regarding his addons is either "Wow where did you get that one!" or "Wow l2p, need addons much?"  I personally, after playing WoW for years without more than 3 addons activated at the same time, have never really seen a reason to clutter my screen with such a mess of bars, timers, and pictures that tell you when/where everything is happening, as if you are deaf and blind, and are zoomed into your character so far you can't see your own d1ck below your cute little Gladiator Cowl.

For tournaments like WSVG, Sck, Nappy (Napster), and a few others put together an addon package known as Rupture, which was used by many right after WSVG before Proximo came out.  It was a pretty basic package, just accentuating what was already in the game into more organized bars and timers.  This was the only package allowed for WSVG, and all other addons were prohibited for WSVG.  What does this mean?  Well, using Affix as an example, when another live tournament rolls around, and the use of his 400 different addons are not allowed, will he be screwed?  As Sck said, he doesn't judge a player by his arena ratings, or what addons he uses, but as a player as a whole.  The problem is, when Affix releases a video, and you can't even see whats going on because there is a giant picture of a sheep waddling across his screen to let him know his sheep just broke, because he has replaced player awareness with an addon to do it for him - I think that says something about what kind of player he really is.

Personally, I don't really see a reason to have so many addons.  I have proximo so I can call out the targets at the beginning of the match (I actually don't target through proximo), and I have the addon showing me my focus targets cast bar - simply because not using that addon puts you at a severe disadvantage at this stage of the game.  Past that, I keep myself distant from everything, and am aware of what is going on around me at all times.  While I do realize certain addons ARE needed for the kind of game WoW has turned into (like the focus bar for cs's in 5s, because 5s are just a cluster-fk in general), I really think having an addon for everything in this game is a bit excessive.

3v3 Tournament

While Sck was unable to announce what compositions Team Pandemic will be playing at the next 3v3 tournament, we were able to talk a bit about how the tournament overall will be run.

With the decision to run the 3v3 tournament in S2 gear, we talked a lot about whether or not old comps will be viable again, with things like armor pen and increased armor on certain sets less of a problem.  The problem is, everyone is going to be running whatever their current comps are, because that is what they are most comfortable with - not something they played 4 months ago.  They also know (through the experience of S3 thus far) what works and what doesn't based on talent changes, gear changes, gemming, etc.  It will basically be like playing in the past, with the knowledge we have of the future.  (Back to the Future style)

As far as competition goes, Sck stated that he didn't think there will ever be another kind of competition before WotLK that resembled the competition felt during S1.  It isn't the gear, or the talents, but the fact that there was such a big learning curve for arenas when S1 came out, and that was what sparked so much competition.  The same will happen with WotLK, the problem is that things will eventually fall back to where they are now - dull, and without much light at the end of the tunnel. This game is constantly changing, and the learning process was what enticed so many players into the arena system in the first place.  Now, it is X team losing to Y team, and nobody is concerned with maintaining top spots, because there is no reason anymore.  (Kind of why when you load my arena page, you see me with 1800 ratings.  Same can probably be applied to 60% of the people on any BG who were gladiators the past 2 seasons.)


Fixing The Problem

With the release of the test realm focused 100% on PvP, it was very apparent that with PvE as such a primary focus in this game, the PvP aspect will never be balanced to its potential.  With talents being too strong in both PvP and PvE, and gear in PvE being almost completely worthless in terms of PvP competition (besides paladins/shaman/druids) this games PvP will always be prioritized 2nd to making sure the PvE part still works.

Anyone who has hopped on the 3v3 public realm for the upcoming tournament will tell you what is going on there is out of control.  People can hardly buy gear, let alone play without lagging due to the amount of players there.  If the Devs took 9 realms like the Test Realm, took out raiding there, sat down, and really focused on the PvP Problems, I guarantee you this game would skyrocket in terms of PvP again - probably to the point where world pvp would happen again, your name would mean something instead of "oh that is just X teams Mage," and WoW could have the potential to be an e-sport.

With things like Sunwell, this game is constantly changing where with new gear, huge changes ensue, without any intent to change anything on the Dev's part.  With t6 globals from Sunwell, that can introduce tons of new comps in arenas simply because of gear scaling.  Armor pen S3 did the same thing.  Sunwell isn't just an addition to the game, it is a major change for every class just because of the new gear being added into the game, with the little to no stat caps WoW has in the first place.

Hopefully Blizzard considers this idea, and we will one day see a battlegroup focused on nothing but PvP.  If you want to raid, level a new character on a PvE server and have fun there, but don't let it affect the most competitive part of this game, which is the PvP.  Anyone who saw how fast BG9 became "the place to be" when S1 came to close, would be blown away at the hype that would follow if a battlegroup was released for nothing but PvP purposes.

We can only hope...