Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

PvP: Arenas

• If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
• If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

While Season 3 is still going strong, we wanted to announce ahead of time the rating requirements that will be present for arena items once Season 4 begins. We also wanted to give everyone a heads up to some changes that will be in an upcoming patch, altering how points are gained and players are matched in the arena system. The patch with these changes is scheduled to release before the start of Season 4.

First though, the rating requirement changes:

When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:
Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800

The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:
Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:
Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none

The Season 2 items, which will move to the honor system when Season 4 begins, will continue to have no rating requirement.

The changes to the rating requirements for these items reflect the nature of the items, their power, and the relative difficulty that should be had when attempting to obtain them. These items are comparable to those found in the newest 25 person raid zone, Sunwell Plateau, and should therefore also feel very challenging to obtain.

To help ensure that the challenge in obtaining these items stays true to those achieving these ratings, we’ll also be implementing new rules with an upcoming patch to curb practices that undermine the core concepts of the arena system. These rules are as follows:

If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.

This means that a player cannot join a highly rated team and begin earning points based purely on the pre-established rating of the team before they joined it. They’ll need to compete, improve, and gain a personal rating worthy of the points they would receive.

If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.

This means that players cannot join a highly rated team and immediately face highly rated opponents, easily and quickly bringing their personal rating up. Instead they’ll need to again compete, improve, and earn their rating.

We’re excited to see these changes implemented, which will continue to emphasize the strong competitive nature of the arenas, and the challenge in obtaining the highest end rewards available for PvP.

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

No. If you registered for the First Qualification Round you will play until the end of that round. You will only need to register again to continue playing after the First Qualifier is completed and the Second Qualifier is beginning.

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

Yes – characters, ladders, and all the regular stats you see on the Armory should be available for the Tournament Realms now. If something is missing, let us know and we’ll try to resolve it.

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

Since the release of the 2.4 patch we’ve been working to tighten up the changes made to help address longer wait times when attempting to get into an arena match. While we’re fairly certain it’s been successful, we’d like your feedback relating to the wait times, how they were before the patch and how they’ve been lately.

As our changes have been continual since patch 2.4, please only leave feedback if you’ve played in the last week.

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

I wouldn’t say that this makes it unbalanced. You are free to create a character of any kind so if you feel a different group synergy will work better it will only take you a few minutes to setup. Players are always looking to maximize their usefulness in some way so there will always end up as some class/spec that is the most popular. Expecting a straight even balance across the board is a little unrealistic but we will continually look to balancing things to provide players with the most options possible.

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

Correct. We universally use blue to define the Alliance and red for the Horde on banners and such across the game. Using green and gold allows us to assign them to either faction while still having colors that are distinct enough that you won’t get them mixed up.

Quote from: Blizzard

We have received several reports from players who are informing us that they have not received their arena points during the last calculation and that arena games for the previous week were not reset. The affected realmpool is Reckoning. We are aware of this issue, which at present is under investigation. We are currently unable to provide an ETA for when this issue is expected to be resolved, however we will keep you updated as more information becomes available.