WoW Wotlk Classic PvP Changes | Top 10 Arena Changes In Wrath of the Lich King Classic

In this guide, we go over every major Arena PvP changes from WoW TBC Classic to Wrath of the Lich King Classic, covering resistances and how mana interacts, as well as the maps and just general overall PVP changes from TBC to Wotlk.

WoW Wotlk Classic Arena Changes - Biggest PvP Changes In WoW Wrath of the Lich King Classic

There is no doubt that in the WOTLK Classic, Arena will usher in a lot of changes to help players have a better PVP experience. Here are the biggest PvP changes coming in World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King Classic.

1. Class Design Changes

The most noticeable thing they change is how much more predictable crowd control becomes. For example, if we look at the warrior talent Iron Will in The Burning Crusade, it increases your chance to resist the stun or charm effect by 15%, in Wotlk, Blizzard changes this, so it now reduces the duration of all stuns and charms by an additional 20%. The outcome is that you are no longer playing around random resists that can either win you or lose you the game, instead, you now know that when you stun a warrior it's going to be shorter because they have this talent, this creates a much more predictable play style since almost every time you stun a warrior you know it's going to land and also have a shorter duration. Whereas in TBC, if you try to stun an orc warrior, there is a 40% chance that stun is going to be resisted. There are many different classes and races that have changes just like this, creating an overall much more predictable game and reducing the number of resists by a large margin, this is a phenomenal change since resists are arguably the single most frustrating part of The Burning Crusade arena. 

2. Dispel Changes

The only exception to this is Sacred Cleansing from holy paladins, while we are on the topic of resists, dispelling your teammate now has a much higher chance to actually dispel them, thanks to a bunch of different changes. You can still get resisted but it is very rare, the only exception to this that we are aware of is the druid's talent Subtlety, this same also applies for dispelling or purging an enemy target, unless they have sacred cleansing or a passive resistance from a racial, it is extremely unlikely that you are going to get resisted on your purges, creating a much more predictable playstyle.

3. Silences Diminishing Returns (DR) Changes

Another great change from WoW Classic TBC to Wotlk is that Counterspell, Spell Lock, Silences, and all ticks can no longer be resisted, meaning that if you Counterspell somebody, it's going to land guaranteed, on top of that all kicks are no longer on the global cooldown allowing you to change mid global, which is absolutely fantastic for any class. Speaking of Silences, they actually all share a Diminishing Return now. In WoW Classic The Burning Crusade, a very popular two-stomp is double rogue, one of the major reasons that double rogue is so strong and actually works is the fact that they change a road to a healer 6 times in a row, which comes out to 18 seconds of being silenced that you can't trick it out of. All silences now share a DR with the same rules as regular CC.

4. Spell Pushback

Spell Pushback also now has a DR which is an extremely necessary change. There is nothing more frustrating than casting ability and having it take three times longer since you are constantly being pushed back on your chest, this gets completely changed in Wrath of The Lich King, so that now if you are pushed back on your task, it will push you back one time a small amount and then a second time an extremely small amount, after taking that second pushback, you are now immune to pushback on that test. Combining this with a ton of different talents for a ton of different classes, spell pushback becomes almost non-existent in Wrath of The Lich King Classic.

5. Crowd Control (CC) Changes

Touching again on RNG, the way that crowd control breaks also gets changed. In the Burning Crusade, if you are in fear or a nova, the way the game decides that you are going to be broken out of that is by a random chance almost like a dice roll, each time you take damage, it gives you a chance to break out of the CC, and the higher amount of damage you take the more likely that that dice roll will be higher and breaking you out of the CC. However, it is never guaranteed since it is all random chance, this is where the term sticky nova comes from where frostbite proc just won't break after taking three ice lances, as well as warlocks fearing someone from half health and then killing them with the fear never breaking. On the inverse, since there is a chance for it to break every time, sometimes the fear will instantly break on an extremely small amount of damage completely negating the ability. This creates a very frustrating playstyle for obvious reasons and gets changed in Wotlk Classic, novas and fears now break on percentage damage instead of random chance per hit. We don't know the exact percentage that breaks you out of the CC but it seems to be around 8% or so and also applies to hex, this means that no matter what happens if the feared or novid target takes 8% damage or more than CC will break instantly every single time.

Another great change they make is that mana burn, now breaks any fear on a single cast, this takes the randomness out of it and allows the players to know what CC is going to end were creating a much more predictable and enjoyable play style.

6. Core Abilites Changes

A lot of classes tour abilities can no longer be dispelled, for example in WoW Classic TBC, you seem to spell off a hunter's Rapid Fire as well as a druid's Barkskin and a priest's Inner Fire, these are all no longer dispellable in Wotlk Classic, as well as many other classes receiving this type of change. This is fantastic for obvious reasons seeing as your classes tour abilities should not be able to be purged since they are so essential to the class. 

Another massive difference from TBC to Wotlk arena is that every class in the game now has a real defensive. Hunter's deterrence now reflects all and tummy damage for 5 seconds, warlocks gain a portal allowing them to teleport to it within 40 yards, shadow priests pick up dispersion and the list goes on and on. 

In addition to that, health and mana pools are higher while burst damage gets scaled down thanks to class design changes and the resilience change, for example, Windfury Totem no longer allows random spikes of damage, paladin's no longer seal twist for random one shots, mage's shatter does significantly less damage percentage-wise than it does in TBC and the list goes on.

There are definitely tomps that can one shot a target like LSP, B sleeve, shatter play, etc. However, the way the damage is distributed is much more predictable allowing you to prepare for it. On top of that, every healer now has a baseline healing ability allowing them to recover from damage much faster, for example, priests get penance, shamans get riptide and buff to their earth shield, and druids did a buff to their swift men plus wild growth, and paladins get a big buff to their holy shocks healing as well as infusion of light, this forces you to actually control the healer seeing as if they are free casting it's unlikely that someone's going to die.

7. Resilience Improvements

The final and most notable reason that damage becomes much more predictable in Wotlk Classic is the change to Resilience. In TBC Classic, Resilience doesn't actually reduce any baseline damage, it only reduces periodic damage and the chance to be critically hit as well as reducing the effect of managed reigns and the damage from critical strikes. This means that whether you have 500 resilience or 0 resilience, if you get hit by a non-crit ability, it will do the exact same damage. They tried to fix this in TBC by adding a bunch more armor to the deer trying to balance out the damage from melee cleaves, however, it doesn't really work. In Wrath of the Lich King, Resilience gives you all of the previous benefits while also providing flat damage reduction against all types of damage from players and their pets, this is a huge buff making it the most important stat for almost any class going into PVP. Combining all of those things together, you are now required to go through a team's defensive tool downs before landing a kill, giving both teams a chance to go offensive and defensive, whereas in TBC Classic most 3v3 games will be over in 60 seconds based on who gets the opener due to the lack of survivability.

8. Mana Regeneration

Drinking and mana regeneration has now been changed, you now regenerate mana constantly instead of in ticks. On top of that, they changed how mana is restored when drinking. Once you start drinking, there is about a two-second delay and then your mana will rapidly restore. In The Burning Crusade Classic, your mana would always be regenerated on a tick, so if you were able to time your drink with your tick, you could actually get your drink off faster or slower depending on where that ticked was. They also made it so roast constantly regenerates energy now instead of in ticks.

9. Arena Map Changes

Regular Arena Map Changes

The last major change from TBC to Wotlk Classic arena is the map changes. Starting off with runes of Lordaeron, the spawn rooms no longer have candles on the side that you could hide behind, and there is also no mini pillar where the doors are. These are both great changes seeing as you could line of sight a caster for eternity on that small pillar in the front. They also have changed the crypt, so you can no longer get stuck on it while trying to run over, it is completely smooth when running up the only time you get snagged is when you go from the very corners. Also, you can no longer jump onto the crypt from the sides of it. 

Moving on to Blade's Edge arena, you can no longer run around these small pillars under the bridge, these were extremely used in The Burning Crusade seeing as you could line of sight a caster for eternity on these. They make the pillars square now and also smooth out the map so you no longer get stuck on the bowl underneath the bridge. These are all phenomenal changes for obvious reasons. You can however still get stuck on the ribcage.

Nagrand arena only has one change which is 2D pillars just like on Blade's Edge, the pillars are now square. The main reason that square pillars are better than circular pillars is that you can't efficiently line off the sight of somebody on a circular pillar due to the fact that it has no real corners. Since the pillars are square now, you can actually position yourself, so that if you need to lose an incoming CC, you can actually do it quickly and effectively.

New Arena Maps Added

There are also two new Arena maps that come with Wrath of Lich King. The first one is the Dalaran Sewers, this map is an elevated square with two boxes and two ramps on each of the corners. This map gives a slight advantage to any team with a knockback seeing as if you are at the boxes and get knocked down at the lower level, you must run all the way around to one of the ramps in order to get back up, however, be careful knocking a death knight down who has death grip because they will likely just drip you down with them. You also start out in a sewer pipe above the arena, if you do not leave the sewer pipe it will launch you out of it.

The second arena that gets added in WoW Wrath of the Lich King Classic is a very controversial one, we are of course talking about the Ring of Valor. This map has seen many changes through a bunch of different patches in Wotlk for a multitude of reasons, and it is still to be determined by Blizzard as to which version we will be actually getting on launch of WoW Classic Wotlk. This arena is extremely close quarters seeing as both teams start on an elevator that slowly climbs up to the top, and once the elevator reaches the top, you are literally within 10 yards of the enemy. There are also pillars that will raise and lower intermittently throughout the arena, this creates a very strange playstyle seeing as if a team of ranged DPS manages to get onto one of these pillars, the melee team is then forced to run away seeing as the ranged DPS can just throw damage into them. Also, warlocks can place their portals on this pillar to easily port to it as it gets raised. On the other hand, since you are literally starting next to the other team, it does give melee cleaves a huge advantage in the opener since you are already on top of the enemy. There were also walls of fire that would cut you off from anyone on the other side which were eventually removed. There were also a ton of different types of bugs and glitches for this map, for example, there was one exploit where you could teleport to the top of the elevator and immediately open on the other team the second the game started, as well as many different bugs with the pillars and pet AI, etc. Overall Ring of Valor had a very buggy launch and was eventually removed. 

Top 10 - Rewards

Regarding the rewards, the system has changed a lot. Battleground marks have been removed and honor earned in BG has been significantly increased, whereas on TBC it took dozens of hours of farming just to buy one single piece, on Wrath of the Lich King in a week you can get full Offparts without try-Harding that much. Between the fact that the duration of the Arathi Basin and the Eye of the Storm has been reduced by almost a quarter, and that there is a timer at Warsong Gulch. Wintergrasp and its weekly quests give a lot of honor and just the fact that you get a  lot more honor overall. In addition to being able to queue anywhere which is awesome, you can farm, duel or do whatever you want in the meantime. The Daily Battleground is no longer a quest but just the first Random BG won of the day which also gives 25 arena points. 

That covers just about every major change from WoW Classic TBC to Wotlk Classic Arena as far as mechanics and gameplay goes. if you need any Cheap WoW Classic Gold for your character, check out the best deals on AOEAH.COM, more guides about Wotlk Classic will be updated here, stay tuned!