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The biggest change some may argue is the new battleground: Isle of Conquest. Where the Alliance and Horde are pitted against each other once again to fight over precious resources that will help them inevitably defeat the Lich King himself. Simply put, this battleground is amazing. Wherever you go, there is something to do. The only dull moment I could find in the first 50 games played was running between nodes trying to get the achievements. When you first hop in it all seems a bit overwhelming with the large map. Where do I go? How do I win this? Best idea is to follow everyone else and ask plenty of questions. Once you get used to the battle 3 or 4 times in you should do fine.

Even with all the great things about this battleground there is always a downside. You cant make everyone happy right? The only flaws I can see with this battleground are that both sides immediately go for the hanger. If you control the hanger 100% of the time and have participation from people jumping in, you will most likely win. Also what goes with this strategy is graveyard camping. If the enemy controls your base without capping the keep flag they can possibly control you in the graveyard that is next to your keep thus making you inconsequential to the battle because every 30 seconds you are dying! Even with these 2 small flaws its rare that either happen. You most likely wont control the hanger 100% of the time because the other side is going for it too and if they don’t control the hanger then they wont be camping your graveyard!

That being said, what I believe is the most important change in 3.2 for PvP would be the resilience change. Blizzard has changed resilience from reducing DoT damage, mana drains, critical strike chance, and critical strike damage; to reducing critical strike chance, mana drains, and ALL damage done by players against you. This one change has made resilience THE most important stat in PvP. If you don’t have resilience you are missing out, bottom line. Once again, this change comes with a downside, what is great for most will make someone too great. There are complaints about healers and their ability to survive but it is not an impossible task to take them down. I know as a priest I still die very quickly, and often to melee classes.

Another major part of this patch for PvP, and I would be silly to not mention it, would be BATTLEGROUND EXPERIENCE! When I first heard this little snippet I was overjoyed. I said to myself “Aellerian, You can finally spend 100% of your time PvPing if you really want to improve your toon.” That is, until I actually put it into effect. If you don’t know, the brackets go from 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, and so on and so forth till you hit 80 when there is a dedicated one end-game level players. The level 10-19 bracket only consists of Warsong Gulch, and it gives hardly any experience for the time spent in the battleground. With games averaging 10-15 minutes and some going to the full 20, I am making only 1 bar per battleground with each level going much slower than questing. On the other hand, once you reach the level that Alterac Valley comes in, you will level quite quickly. The experience that comes from AV is amazing. My rogue is level 77 and going leaps and bounds from Alterac Valley only. My advice, if you want to start PvPing with a new toon, it would be wise to gain experience via questing until level fifty when you can enter Alterac Valley. Between battlegrounds you could do some questing or just kill random mobs to make it go even faster.

Finally I would like to give a little attention to the end of Season 6. There is no official end-date but it has been announced it will be no later than August 25th. At the end of the season your rating, personal rating, and arena points will be reset. Your hidden match making rating will stay the same. There will be a week in between season 6 and 7. So get those games in, get your rating, get your title, and kick ass!

In closing, I will say 3.2 is by far the most important patch to PvP since Burning Crusade. It is a lot to take in and more is still to come. There is another mini-patch coming to fix the little bugs that are out right now with classes and battlegrounds alike. Until then, let us hope that the new movement for PvP improvement will continue and will see great new things in the future!