The second of the new arenas will be located in the Horde city of Orgrimmar. The arena has been there since the beginning, however we have not had access to it until now. It is located within the city in the Valley of Heroes area.

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Map of the Orgrimmar Arena

The arena will be large and in addition the the big fighting area, will have a surrounding spectator area. After all nobody gets excited over a fight like the Orcs. There are even plans to have the audience interact with and cheer on fighters, getting louder as players health falls dangerously low.

As with the other new arena for Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard wanted to change a few things up. In this arena they do so by having extremely close starting areas and moving terrain.

In this arena each team will start in a readiness pit below the arena floor. When the fight starts the platform you are on will rise up to be level with the arena floor. The cage walls will rise with you so that you can not jump out early, but as soon as you reach floor level you will only have a few seconds to check out your opponents through the bars before they drop. Each team will rise at the same time and when the cage descends you will find yourself as close as 10 yards from the enemy! If you stick to the back edge of your starting area you can extend this, but either way, you will be close.

The second new element in this arena is a fighting platform at each end of the arena. When a platform rises up anyone on it will be out of melee range from players on the ground, but still in affected by ranged abilities. Also while a platform is up a wall of spikes will rise separating that area from the rest of the arena. The pillar on each side of the arena alternates being up or down. Players will need to make a choice to either move through the spikes and take damage or remain separated.

Other than the spiked walls and pillars there will be no line of sight issues in the arena. Even the spiked walls will be able to be shot through, they just inflict damage if you try moving through them. To get around the arena quickly players will be able to mount up.

Overall the arena sounds very interesting as it has some very different elements that will require adjustment by players. The pillars especially will require attention, as it was stated that there will be gears or wheels that start moving to show players that a pillar is about to start moving. This makes focus splitting critical if you are to take advantage of the fighting platforms.

Want to hear it straight from Blizzard developers at Blizzard Worldwide Invitational '08? View the complete PvP: WotLK Arenas & Battleground presentation video.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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