Tier 2 Requirements Increased
On the Blizzard forums, Crygil has posted about plans to change the rating spread for the 3v3 and 5v5 brackets so it looks similar to that for 2v2. As a result, they’re going to increase the rating requirement for the tier 2 furious weapons from 2200 to 2350.
He also mentioned they’re going to try and bring it back to 2200 next season, presumably adjusting the ratings curve downwards at the same time. A lot of people have been complaining about the ratings inflation that the new system has brought in, so it sounds like a reasonable plan to me.
He didn’t mention when the patch would hit, but if they want to get this active before the first people are able to purchase their main-hands (I guess some people have off-hands already?) it will have to be before the reset this Tuesday.
The tier 1 weapons are still fairly easy (relatively speaking!) to obtain – they’re unchanged from the current 1850 requirement, and only half a tier behind, so it’s not the end of the world for the 99% of participants who will now be missing out on the best stuff.
I’ve never been on a 2350 rated team personally, but we’re hovering around 2300 at the moment so it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
(Side note: this is going to make the Arena Master achievement significantly more achievable!)
Given that the 2v2 bracket has (many?) more participating players than 3s or 5s, a careful parsing of the post suggests that the (absolute) number of players in the top tiers will be equalised – not the (relative) proportion, which is what one would expect if they were using the same parameters for each bracket.