A new spell popped up in the latest Beta build called Wintergrasp Rewards, which indicate that there might finally be another way to earn Arena points other than to participate in Arenas. Granting Arena points through Lake Wintergrasp also indicates an interesting direction for World of Warcraft PvP. [UPDATE: Blizzard has stated that Arena points from Wintergrasp is only for the Beta to allow accelerated purchase and testing of PvP gear -- thanks Cuer] Despite the ongoing and earnest efforts of Blizzard to balance classes for PvP, particularly Arenas, the format doesn't lend itself well to a complete balancing of classes. Because of the required team synergies and map limitations, there will always be class specs that will suffer in the Arena PvP format.

Battlegrounds PvP, on the other hand, is more open and spontaneous, even in pre-formed groups. No classes or specs are shunned, and every player enjoys relative viability and success. Giving Arena points through Wintergrasp achieves two things: first, it opens up Arena rewards to people who do not participate in or have limited success in Arenas; second, it greatly incentivizes participation in Lake Wintergrasp. The only question left is the matter of Personal Ratings, which is a requirement for most of the current gear, a trend likely to continue in Wrath of the Lich King.

You've seen it happen. Players fighting on the road or midfield, ignoring the Battleground's objective. Or sometimes the opposite, such as Alterac Valley races where players ignore each other in a mad rush to the opposing army's General. In Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard will introduce Achievements, a system that measures a player's... well, achievements in the game. There's a category that tracks PvP Achievements, as well, including some interesting goals for the Battlegrounds. The question is, will these Achievements actually improve the Battlegrounds PvP experience or ruin it?

On the surface, it looks as though the various Battlegrounds Achievements are designed to improve World of Warcraft PvP. Achievements like Frenzied Defender, which requires players to return the flag five times in a single Warsong Gulch battle, seem like the perfect solution to get players to actually try and win the game. The Achievements also add a little spice to every game, where players can pursue personal goals which contribute to the overall objective.

With all the Hunter changes we've been promised in relation to PvP, one that has recently been announced may be the biggest yet. Disengage will be getting a new trick.

In a future Beta build, Disengage will cause the Hunter to jump back from their target 10-15 yards. As a result of this buff, however, the cooldown will be extended to 30 seconds.

This really is the change Hunters need, more that the recent Aspect of the Beast and Mongoose Bite changes by far. What we really needed is a way to get back to range, and between this and Master's Call, we should now have a relatively dependable non-talented way of doing just that. 10-15 yards may seem a bit low, but it should be more than enough to get off a quick concussive shot, set a trap, or use a talented crowd control ability such as Intimidation, which will become instant cast rather than on next attack.

Another set of baseline ability changes has to do with traps, and should be very helpful in both PvE and PvP. Freezing Trap will no longer break on any damage, but will instead break on a set amount of damage -- meaning a stray cleave or a miscast DoT won't completely ruin you. With this new functionality, Bear Trap will be removed and replaced at level 80 with Camouflage, which is returning after being discarded. Since setting a trap won't break Camouflage, it will become incredibly useful for setting PvP ambushes as well.

There's plenty of other exciting changes on the way for Hunters, including a talent tree revamp that's currently up on Blizzard's official Beta site. Look for analysis of that in the coming days on WoW Insider. It's looking more and more like Wrath's going to be a great time to be a Hunter, and we're looking forward to seeing how the class plays with all their new toys at level 80, in both PvP and PvE.

Every Wednesday, Encrypted Text explores issues affecting Rogues and those who group with them. This week Jason Harper, the new Rogue feature blogger, discusses the Wrath Assassination expansion tree.

The Assassination tree, home to the deep dagger Rogue, is a major part of Rogue specifications for both PvP and PvE play styles. While the Combat tree is focused on increasing white damage overall, and Subtlety about survivability and burst, Assassination is all about the liberal application of consistent damage through a repertoire spells and damage application modifiers (a la poison). Burning Crusade talents and spells like Cold Blood, Lethality and (Improved Poisons assisted) Envenom are amazing non-positional damage sources, with Mutilate being the positional coup de grâce to a fight.

All that said, it should be noted that while Assassination Rogues do benefit from three times the combo-point generation potential, white damage is reduced in comparison to other builds, most mobs in end-game are poison immune (and in situations where you need to change targets, you have to build back up your poison stack on them) and Find Weakness does not apply to white damage.

Knowing all this, what's new that might make wayward-but-dagger-longing Rogues want to go deep into the tree?

Forticia of Dragonblight does not care for battlegrounds, but was tempted by the Spirit of Competition event to give it a go. She discovered her own secret to finding a little enjoyment in PvP: "Don't look at your health bar." She realized that death isn't permanent and that sometime you just need to jump in do what needs to be done. Other posters joined in with more suggestions:

• Palpatina of Uldum, "Play smart (i.e. don't let your team down) but don't worry too much about whether you're winning or losing. Enjoy outsmarting and outlasting your enemies. Have fun."
• Abracapocus of Whisperwind, "I'm frankly amazed at how when I run into a group of Alliance and hit Ice Block, LOTS sit there trying to hit me even though I'm invulnerable"
• Nevermore of Malfurion, "The secret to enjoying BGs is winning. Sorry, but that's all that does it for me."
• Kalerender of Thaurissan, "I like to go in, annoy pvp whingers who sook because I'm wearing T6 and not pvp gear, and then 2-3 shot people as a super-duper glass cannon."

I love the battlegrounds, but I understand that not everyone does. I get frustrated when players refuse to work as a team. I enjoy the battleground most when grouped with my buddies so that we can work together toward a given objective. I disagree that winning is everything, but it is a lot of fun. I find it a great way to take out frustration.

Have you gotten into the Spirit of Competition?

With all the Wrath news dropping, there's been a ton of hype around the next World of Warcraft expansion. Lots of players are very excited (including yours truly), but Charles S isn't so much. He actually stopped playing the game in March of this past year (before that, he raided as a Warlock), and he is using today's Ask WoW Insider column to ask you, our readers, if anyone else isn't so hot on what they've seen so far:

I've been reading your site and the news about the expansion and my question is, is it too early to be disappointed in what I am seeing for this expansion?

Unfortunately he doesn't expound much more beyond that, and I'd like to know what else he wants to see from the expansion -- we're going to get Death Knights, siege vehicles, and we're going to get to meet the Lich freakin' King, more than once. I don't know what more a Warcraft fan would want. But maybe you do -- think it's too early for Charles to be disappointed, or should he wait and see if Wrath will bring him back to the game?

And if you have a question you want to ask our readers, feel free to send it along to ask@wowinsider.com, and you might see it up here next week for everyone else to answer.

Previously on Ask WoW Insider...

Welcome once again to Scattered Shots, WoW Insider's spot for all things Hunter, except for the stuff Big Red Kitty covers. Daniel Whitcomb will be your host today (a day late, for which he apologizes) as David Bowers tries to shake off some extra aggro.

The state of Hunters in PvP is perhaps one of the most debated subjects in WoW PvP. Some call Hunters overpowered for their dispelling Arcane Shot (which is going away in Wrath, to be sent to the non-damaging Tranquilizing Shot), while others point to their low Arena representation and the ease of using line of sight to negate most of their DPS and Abolish Poison to get rid of their main PvP utility as proof that they need buffs. Regardless, even the devs acknowledge that Hunters probably need some help in PvP, and class designer Koraa recently spoke on the subject on the Beta forums. In his post, he covered the problems he sees Hunters having, and how Blizzard will be helping with those moving forward into Wrath.

Unfortunately, his solutions seem confused in and of themselves. They involve giving Hunters more melee attack power (instead of more way to break from melee so they can use their ranged weapon) and a variety of talents scattered around many trees in such a way that it will be difficult for a solid PvP build to get them all. And, as I mentioned in a post yesterday, they still aren't giving pets resilience.

Other Hunters such as Megatf have done an excellent job responding to some of Koraa's points in the thread itself, but I'd like to address and respond to the post myself in this week's column, and see how they stack up to the problems Hunters face in small scale Arena PvP.

Despite the extensive problems and human violations rights perpetuated by the Chinese government, some in service of the Olympic games themselves, most of the world seems to content to settle in and watch the Beijing Olympics one way or another. Apparently, that attitude has spread to Blizzard itself.

Currently on the European and Chinese servers, there are NPCs at each major Battlemaster area in the capital cities who proclaim that Battlegrounds are hosting some type of "Spirit of Competition."

For simply participating in a battleground, you are sent a Competitor's Tabard, which features 4 multi-colored rings on a white background, a clear reference to the Olympics itself. If you win a battleground during this time period, you may also have a chance at receiving a gold medal which summons a spirit of competition, which looks like a small Chinese dragon according to tipster Ichthallus.

This competition does not appear to be live on the US Servers, nor has anyone from Blizzard spoken up to reveal if it ever will be as of this writing. We'll have to watch and see what happens. As Blizzard does not appear to be an official Olympic partner, there is some concern from some quarters that this could simply be a copyright issue. It's also possible that this was meant to be a Chinese servers only event, and it only accidentally got onto the EU servers.

Thanks to everyone who sent us tips on this!

EDIT: Belfaire has confirmed that this event will be coming to US and Oceanic servers starting at Midnight server time. Thanks to those who let us know in the comments!

A while back, class designer Koraa told Warlocks that their pets would be getting their master's hit percentage. Today, he confirmed the same for Hunter pets. This should definitely be a godsend for raid level DPSers of both classes. Conventional wisdom is that reaching your personal hit cap is pretty much the single best way to increase your personal DPS total, and being able to do the same for pets should only provide a noticable increase to DPS, as well as keep any special buffs or debuffs said pets apply coming in with a minimum of interruption.

Unfortunately, something else Koraa said on the same post is a little less exciting -- resilience is nowhere on the table for being shared. They believe that they currently have the right amount of survivability for pets. In a group situation, you or your group should be healing the pet, and in Arena play, any time spent killing the pet provides a benefit in the form "crowd control" while the DPS is focus firing your pet.

Unfortunately, as the player of a level 70 Hunter and Warlock who have both seen extensive 2v2 Arena play, I'm not sure it's that simple.

Debigmacca of Aman'Thul believes that Wrath would be a good time to do away with spell pushback. His argument is based on the number of stuns, fears, and assorted other of immobilization effects that abound in the current state of the game. There was some agreement with the original poster that spell pushback is unnecessary as casters often quickly fall prey to melee DPS. There's only so much a trinket can do.

So much for Alterac Valley. With the Battleground Holiday this weekend, it was expected that a lot of players would be queuing up to farm their Honor points. I had looked forward to a lot of combat and hopefully rack up those Honorable Kills in the hopes of inching closer to the magic 100,000 number for a future Achievement. I know I said Alterac Valley was the place to farm HKs. Well, I was wrong.

Alterac Valley is the Battleground to join if you want to avoid PvP. I've been part of countless Alterac Valley races before, but these past few days have been ridiculous. Not only do players ride past each other -- that's expected in races -- but in the times I have engaged, players even run away. If they had Achievements already in the game, I would have unlocked The Sickly Gazelle over and over.

Decent healing is often a key factor in determining victory and defeat in a battle ground. Resto and Holy specced characters have quite the job set out for them. Druids, Paladins, Priests, and Shamans regularly face a healing quandary. Is it better to spend time and man healing another player or continuing to do as much damage as possible. Zanhart of Medivh believes that any character than can heal in the battlegrounds, should heal. He finds it particularly insulting when a player heals him or herself while comrades die around them.

Some agreed with him that anyone who can heal should, but most people dissented. There were several themes to the responses:

• Paying a subscription fee allows any player the right to play however they like.
• DPSers in substandard gear are a waste of heals and mana.
• Non-healing specs often have such poor healing abilities that the battleground is better off with them continuing to dps.
• Some people just don't find healing to be fun.

Zarhym has broken out some interesting news for big team battleground players -- while Blizzard is generally happy with the way AV is working now, they are looking forward to focusing on tuning Lake Wintergrasp, the new PvP zone in Wrath of the Lich King.

Zar says that tuning of the zone will be forthcoming (so beta players should expect to see it soon), and that they're working right now on a way to balance differences in team populations -- since the zone isn't instanced, team numbers may be very different, and they're planning to possibly relax requirements to get certain vehicles and goals for the team with fewer players on it. They're also tuning the expected time limit it would take to conquer the whole zone -- right now, they expect the whole event to take about 45 minutes, and then have a certain length of time in between (when people would have "incentives for visiting the zone" -- like the special vendors in Halaa) before it starts again.

Like many players, we can't wait to see what they do with Wintergrasp -- Blizzard is promoting it as the culmination of everything they've learned about World PvP and battlegrounds, so it should definitely be one of the most fun parts of the expansion for battleground fans.

If you've been paying close attention to the Wrath of the Lich King Beta -- and let's be honest, how could you not? We've been covering it like crazy over here are WoW Insider -- then you might have noticed that Blizzard will be implementing a nifty little feature called Achievements. Of course, the first thing that jumped out at me (and probably you, too, since you're reading this column) were the PvP Achievements.

I didn't plan to pursue Achievements actively. Not before I heard about the PvP Achievements, anyway. Now, it's one of the things I can't stop thinking about... more accurately, I can't stop thinking of how to complete them. There are quite a bunch of PvP Achievements to pursue, and most of them will only be tracked once the expansion goes live. But there are also some achievements that you can start working on right now because they'll be tracked retroactively (as far as I can tell). Let's take a look at those Achievements so you can get them out of the way before Wrath.

One word of caution: all these Achievements are in beta and can change at any time before (and possibly after) the Wrath launch. So proceed at your own risk.

Every Wednesday, Encrypted Text explores issues affecting Rogues and those who group with them. This week Jason Harper, the new Rogue feature blogger, discusses battleground PvP, useful macros and techniques that strive to keep you alive longer.

My last Encrypted Text post generated a lot of terrific feedback, and when you smoosh it all up and blend it I think you'll find that saying Rogues are a controversial class is a bit of an understatement. No more especially so than on the PvP side of things. In a future column I'll dig deeper into specific PvE instances, both raid and heroic, as well as give you some commentary on the new skills that come with the Wrath expansion. In the column this week we're talking about PvP and how to get the most out of it with your Rogue. I hope to make this a semi-regular topic, updating as we go, focusing on one or two PvP related items each time.

If you could distill the feelings of the majority of non-Rogues out there, at least the most vocal ones, you'd come up with a collective "over-powered" when it comes to PvP. Designed to counter most (but not all) casting classes, especially those *not* geared or spec'd to prevent spell push-back, our goal is to get our target into melee range and keep them there. Keeping this in mind, my first bit of PvP advice for you is avoid fair fights at all costs.