I read a post by Indelible from The Daily Quest earlier today, entitled "Handholding into PvE" (http://blogs.curse.com/90/details/421/) and it got me thinking enough to write my own counter-post.

I'm just going to dive right into my dissection of Indelible's post, so here goes.

"In 2.3, Blizzard have made changes to both PvP and PvE to entice both parties into doing what Blizzard, in effect, wants them to do."

First off, exagerating to try and draw sympathy for the "plight" of the PvP player is an old and well-known trick, and rarely ever works on anyone besides like-minded PvP-oriented players. But then again, they were on the PvP side to begin with, so is lying really necessary? Conversely, no PvE-oriented player will be convinced by the pseudo-facts used consistently throughout the article.

"The first changes of placing 2000 rating on the shoulder items and 1850 rating on some of the weapons gave the impression that Blizzard did not want PvEers in tiered items getting the PvP specific gear."

2000 rating is not hard to get for anybody that knows their class, has some decent teammates, and bothers to gear themselves up respectably, 3 things that any PvE'er can do.

"The second and far more controversial change was the announcement that PvP rings and cloaks in Seaon 3 would only be available through the Badge system and that Karazhan and Zul'Aman would drop Badges off bosses."

Far more controversial according to whom? 2.3 and Season 3 are not directly related. One is a patch for WoW, and one is a new set of gear for arena players to spend points on. Items useful in PvP being added to the badge system are not part of the Season 3 PvP set, and shouldn't be judged pased on that assumption. The Karazhan and Zul'Aman Badge of Justice change makes it easier for ALL players to get items from badges, so don't paint that as some hidden agenda by Blizzard to force PvP players into raiding. There are several Karazhan pugs a night that kill Prince Malchezzar on my server, and none of them really care if someones in Season 2 Gear, or heroic dungeon epics mixed in with blues. If you want items, you work for them, whether it means hours of BG's a night, or tagging along on a pug for some free badges.

Implying that putting badges in Zul'Aman and Karazhan makes it seem like Blizzard wants PvP players to move to 10-man raids is irresponsible. They are still available in heroic dungeons, as they always were. 5-man content is the most in-depth PvE content a PvP player will ever need to dive into to get items from the vendor badge, and truthfully, running a few heroics is no harder than leveling from 1-70, and all you PvP junkies managed to grit your teeth through that horrific ordeal.

There are PvP-oriented players that wouldn't touch foot in an instance, even if their lives depended on it, who oftentimes have many misconceptions about PvE.

With lowered rep requirements, PvP players are no longer in the unfortunate position of having to run instances over and over again for their heroic keys. They can simply join the queue for a heroic, and run BG's till they find a group for where they want to go.

There is literally no spec that I can think of that is worthless enough that I'd kick out a player of that spec from my heroic group, if they had good PvP gear. Boomkin? Sure. Healer in Season 3 Gear? No problem. MS Warrior? Sure, jump on in. PvP players who make PvE players out to be elitist assholes are shortchanging themselves by stereotyping such a large group of people.

The meat of Indelible's argument seems to be based around the PvP healing cloaks available through the badge vendor.

"Healer clocks will only be available through the badge system as their are no current PvP cloaks availabe through either the honor system of the arena system. As such, healers are compelled to enter heroics and 10-mans to attain those items."

The beauty of being a healer in PvP gear is that you're still a bad-assed heroic and raid healer.

The following may be one of my favorite sentences from the entire article:

"there are still problems that face PvPers when entering PvE that determine this change to be a little bit awkward for Blizzard as they have to deal with what can only be called an onslaught of valid points that question the logic behind this decision."

Yes, let's delve deeper into the "onslaught" of "valid points" that question the logic behind the decision to assume that a healer can heal in PvE as well as they can in PvP. Surely, this will be a harrowing voyage.

"Firstly, PvP specs for almost every class are specialised more so than PvE specs. Most classes have a defined PvE and PvP spec and 9 time out of 10 the PvE spec is also a fairly reliable PvP spec if you are not intending to hardcore PvP. PvP specs on the other hand present massive issues as Warriors, for example, are MS Arms in PvP (if they are wise) and will be required to respec prot if they wish to go to 5-mans or 10-mans. This presents a problem with respecing costs."

How can any spec (Which stands for specialization, btw) be more specialized than another? You either spec PvE for pure tanking/dps/healing, or you spec PvP which is just a DPS/Healing spec without skipping survivability talents like a PvE DPS/Healing spec.

The only "point" tproposed here is that warriors cannot PvE with a PvP MS-Arms build. DPS warriors have a useful place in PvE content. Stating that warriors must spec Protection for 5 and 10 mans is an uneducated opinion, and shouldn't be passed off as fact.

However, I feel it prudent to mention that my main, a 70 warrior, and a tank in my guild, incurs roughly 200g worth of repair bills a week, and I manage to farm that protection spec. Farming respec costs is as easy as

"Secondly, PvEers, as I have already said, are not forced into PvP for any PvE orientated items. Yes, the arena weapons are good enough if you aren't a SSC/TK guild but at the end of the day, they are balanced for PvP and you are not working under the illusion that they are PvE items. If you are, you have issues."

Many PvE'ers get arena weapons for specific use in PvE. There are many situations in which the Arena weapons are the best available. It's not until the upper-tiered 25-man instances that the weapons from PvE surpass arena weapons in DPS. A high-dps weapon is a PvE weapon as much as it is a PvP weapon. Sure, it might have some stam and resilience on it, but if it hits like a truck, it hits like a truck, and thats what DPS classes look for in a weapon.

"PvPers feel they are being handheld into PvE for PvP items. There actions are being dictated to them for items that are otherwise balanced for the aspect of the game they wish to play but are only available through the aspect of the game they wish to avoid. PvEers can, if they so chose, stay away from PvP and still get items that are good enough to progress convincingly through PvE content."

This is pure, unfiltered QQ. The end of this statement is correct. A PvE player could avoid PvP and still get what they need from PvE content, to continue to progress in PvE content . However, the respective statement about PvP is also true, which is neglected in the original article. A PvP player can PvP without a few random pieces of gear from PvE, and still progress in PvP. Pretending that it is unbalanced won't fool anyone.

"PvPers are now being told that if they want the best gear for PvP situations they will have to jump into PvE or they will not get those items."

PvPers have always been told this. Don't pretend like it's a 2.3-specific issue. Never has there been a point in this game where PvP-available items surpassed the highest level of PvE-available items. The addition of resilience to PvP gear, and the lack of it on PvE gear changed this a little bit in TBC, but the amount of stats allocated to T6 gear and it's PvE non-set equivalents still makes a lot of the PvE gear outweight the PvP counterparts.

Indelible takes what I imagine he thinks is a good jab at the Blizzard PvE establishment with this gem:

"I myself will have access to all of the Heroics thanks to this change but that still doesn't change the fact that we are being handheld into aspects of the game we have tried before and not enjoyed simply because Blizzard wants to milk as much longevity out of World of Warcraft as they can."

First off, he admits that he doesn't have access to heroics, because his rep is too low to buy the keys. Next, he states that he is being "handheld into aspects of the game [he has] tried before and not enjoyed". Well, how sure can you be that you do not enjoy running a heroic that you're not attuned for?

And as for Blizzard wanting to milk as much longevity out of WoW as they can... there are so many easy ways for them to milk the game for money that they have not yet even considered.

The main points of this post by Indelible are so far from objective, that it is almost painful to read.

There is nothing new about there being PvP upgrades in PvE instances. Trying to bring it up as a 2.3-specific issue just makes the entire article seem like sensationalist garbage.

He summarizes his post with the following quote:

"At the end of the day, players who don't want to PvE feel harrased by this patch."

It seems to me that he's putting words into a lot of the PvP communities mouth. I know many players who prefer PvP to PvE, and none of them feel "harassed" by the patch.

The fact of the matter is that Blizzard is, and always has been, trying to unify the fractured PvE/PvP playerbase. They want to improve both sided of the game so that nobody prefers one over the other.

PvE'ers might enjoy PvP a little bit more, thanks to the inclusion of PvP items to the badge vendors. All those long hours in Kara and ZA will now be useful beyond the PvE upgrades found in the PvE dungeons.