World of Warcraft Tournaments need HELP FROM BLIZZARD.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you enjoy playing or watching WoW arena matches, particularly LAN tournaments with prize money. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t more of you, but Blizzard could very easily change this in two painless strokes of their magic administrative wands.

Blizzard - SUPPORT THESE TOURNAMENTS! There are only TWO easy steps that require little to no work on your part!

Step 1. Allow authorized tournaments like Electronic Sports League and Major League Gaming host their own server at the event. Not only would this allow administration of the server (like stopping players from queueing from home at the same time tournament players are), it would give the players 0 ping like EVERY OTHER COMPETITIVE LAN GAME! Honestly, it’s the most frustrating thing I’ve ever experienced. I’m having a very difficult time not holding down my shift key right now. Why force players to play with 300+ ping? This has happened at Orlando, Montreal, and Blizzard regionals. Every other tournament has had around 150 ping, which isn’t exactly rosy either. All this does is frustrate players, adds to the randomness of the game (difficult to predict and LoS crowd control effects, for example,) and make the game appear messy, confusing, poorly administrated, and unattractive to play.

Maybe they don’t want to give out their server client software, or maybe they just don’t care. Either way, the obstacles are minimal and the gains are very notable.

Step 2. Take into account tournament play when you administer a patch. This is the dumbest part of what’s wrong with Blizzard. The most obvious representation of this is the dominance of Warrior-Warlock-Druid pre 3.0. Warlocks were particularly good in Season 2 when armor pen wasn’t existent and cleave was less successful. Also, no one had spell pen on their gear. Blizzard made tournaments permanently Season 2. Add in the fact that Void Star Talisman was available to every warlock.

Grats on no spell penetration, bro.

Warrior Warlock Druid began doing quite well, though not entirely dominating. By the second qualifier, however, Blizzard misstepped. They balanced PvP around Season 4 by buffing Warlocks and Mages with undispellable Fel Armor / Frost Armor. Throw in Rogue nerfs - no more PvE cheat death, lower hemo. Now Warlocks have the Season 4 patch with SEASON 2 GEAR. Grats on God mode, bro. PMR cant touch you. In fact, no one can.

You know what you could have done Mr. Blizzard? Change the gear to Season 4. But nope, they have better things to think about.

I guess all I want is for Blizzard to actually care about tournament play and not just half-ass it every time. SO GET TO IT! Give us 0 ping please