Fire & Water: Changes to Arena

Another exciting aspect of BlizzCon's PvP panel focused on two new upcoming arenas, and some fun dynamic changes featured in these new arena grounds, which are sure to change play style and strategy significantly.

Orgrimmar
My first thought on seeing this arena was: gladiatorial combat. This arena has the look and feel of a colosseum, complete with some ingenious devices the Romans would have adored. Players are even raised up to the arena floor in caged elevators. And the teams start combat very close together.

Now for the dynamic elements. The arena is divided in three sections, and at timed intervals during the fight, the lines between these sections will catch fire. The fire, as you would expect, gives players a DoT debuff should they pass through it.

In addition this arena has two pillars which move up and down, also at timed intervals. These provide periodic line of sight barriers, but can also take players up out of melee range should they stand on top of the pillars when they rise.

Dalaran Sewers
This arena is much smaller than most, and features an interesting change: players cannot stay inside the arena's starting gates, which really consist of sewer pipes set part-way up the wall of the arena. Any player who remains in these pipes after the match has started will be "washed out" of the pipe and onto the arena floor.

The arena itself is small and consists of a circular room with a raised platform in the center. The platform can only be mounted at two staircases placed at opposite ends. Two permanent barricades of boxes and barrels also face each other across the platform, providing cover.

The dynamic feature of this arena is the column of water which drops, at timed intervals, into the center of the platform. When running, this water serves two purposes - it is impassable, and in fact will give players a slight knockback if they venture too close to it - and it blocks line of sight. One more thing - mounts are not permitted in the sewers of Dalaran.

All in all, two very exciting new places in which to fight, and ones which will certainly require some new strategies from arena teams.