Finally...

Okay, season nine; we need to talk a bit about this stuff. First things first - the basics we need to get out of the way. In Cataclysm, the arena points system has had an overhaul (and a much-needed one, in my opinion). Instead of playing your ten matches and getting points based on your final team rating (and personal rating), you have a points "cap". The way this works is by being assigned at the beginning of the week. So, let's say you end the week at 2000 team and personal rating. As soon as the server resets go through and the next week starts, your point-cap will be determined via that 2k team rating. Next, you have to actually play and win arena matches to get to the cap; each win is worth a certain number of conquest points and (I think) they are given out after each win up to the cap. The idea is that you can actually get your week's-worth of points TODAY if you were so inclined (and you win that much).

Okay, another aspect to discuss here is that there are two different sets entirely to purchase, and presumably this will remain the case throughout the entire expansion. The first set is purchasable via honor points (which you should have 4k of today if you had grinded properly before Cata was released), and it is an entire set of gear including Boots/Belt/Bracer/Back/Rings/etc. This is not really a change, but if you take this entire model and notice that there is also an arena/ratedBG set of gear with Boots/Belt/Bracer/etc then you start to see the difference. That is, you can acquire an entire set of gear based solely upon your success in BGs and you can acquire an entire set of gear based solely on doing arenas or rated bgs. This is something that is entirely appealing to me because I absolutely hate doing BGs in order to gear up for the arena. I may have to do so this week only, but at the very least, I will be able to do arenas with Guntir to kill time and earn points.

The last thing I want to point out is that Ferals and Frost Mages have largely gone under the radar in terms of receiving the nerfbat. That leads me to believe that we (Guntir and I) need to get into the threes bracket hard and early to climb before the inevitable nerfbat swinging sets in. Likely, there will be a week or two (or in case this is the DK system of season five; a season or so) where we are overpowered, and so we need to just grind like madness to be at or near the top. Sadly, I have not even hit 85 yet... my social life is getting in the way of my grinding life over and over again. I am half-way to 85 right now, but stuck at work, so likely I will hit 85 tonight and start looking for a decent Frost Mage to accompany Guntir and I on a 3v3s team to roll to the top.

I think that early-on in the expansion, double-melee+healer comps are going to be the best simply because of the lack of resilience on gear; however, as people get more and more gear, I expect that trend to die down a bit in favor of hybrid-comps (ranged+melee+healer). I am only thinking of starting the season as Feral+Frost+Disc because of the relative strength of both of the DPS classes involved and the arguably insane control this comp brings to the table. Rest assured, I will be spamming Trade tonight with:

"LF 2200+ experienced Frost Mage for Feral+Frost+Disc, PST"