The new arena has a lot of interesting features, such as the ability to build your own personalised arena and fighting styles. This blog post discusses a few thoughts on this release.
The “shadowlands release date” is the latest expansion to the popular Warcraft game. The patch 9.2 Maldraxxus Coliseum Arena has a lot of new content and changes that have been made, which are discussed in this blog post.
Maldraxxus Coliseum, a much-anticipated new arena map, will be released with Shadowlands Patch 9.2. Maldraxxus Coliseum, based on the Theater of Pain, has been been introduced to the PTR for testing. Xot, our Shadow Priest PvP writer, was dispatched to test it out and assess the benefits and drawbacks of this new arena layout. Zereth Mortis’ mysterious Enigma Arena will be published at a later date.
The Coliseum of Maldraxxus
For eons, the Necrolords of Maldraxxus honed their craft at The Coliseum of Maldraxxus in the Theater of Pain. Now the Arena is open to any would-be challengers—and there’s no shortage of champions willing to test their mettle. Prove yourself worthy. Only the strong will survive.
The Coliseum of Maldraxxus is situated in the center of Maldraxxus. Observant players will recognize the arena map from the ‘Amateur Night’ world quest where you’re required to slay two arena opponents.
The Design
You’ll get an early sample of how the arena appears when loading in, with a pentagon-shaped center and identifiable square pillars – which is extremely similar to Tol’viron Arena, but that’s where the similarities stop.
The first thing you’ll notice while inside is the notably big beginning area that can be used once the battle starts, which is one of the key contrasts when compared to other arena maps in the pool. This creates a unique dynamic on the battlefield, providing caster DPS a place to stand while facing melee damage dealers, but denying melee DPS and their healer any dependable or proximate line of sight.
The closest parallel for the map’s core would be a significantly condensed version of the Legion arena Ashamane’s Fall.
Unlike Ashamane’s Fall, however, all three pillars are square and identical in size, comparable to those found on Empyrean Domain although significantly bigger.
Observant players will also note that there are two NPCs above the stairwell. The first is Hellinka, which is a tribute to Brian Holinka, who is presently the Lead Combat Designer at Blizzard Entertainment and works on all combat systems, including PvP. Jared V. Hellstrike stands behind him, a nod to Jared “Vhell” Colston, a former World of Warcraft shoutcaster and current Blizzard employee.
Points of Strategic Interest
Arena maps favor melee or caster cleaves significantly more than other cleaves. Hook Point, for example, is relatively tiny and concentrated, allowing caster cleaves nowhere to stand to forcefully draw a healer away from a pillar; but Tol’viron Arena, being the biggest of all maps, allows casters lots of options to forcibly drag melee DPS and healers away from pillars.
The Coliseum of Maldraxxus overall seems to be fairly balanced between both composition archetypes primarily due to its elongated starting areas. The center of the map itself however does seem to favor melee; with the pillar positioning and distance between them there isn’t much open field. That being said, due to the pentagon design and having only three pillars situated in a triangular arrangement, it does leave some open space off to either side which can be great for casters not wanting to just play in the open area starting rooms. This is especially useful when facing opposing melee/caster/healer compositions.
Overall, The Coliseum of Maldraxxus is a very welcome, balanced addition to the arena map pool and marks itself as the 13th map to be added to the rotation upon its arrival in Patch 9.2.
Author Information Xot is an eight-time Rank 1, 3450 Shadow Priest who competes in tournaments. For the whole of Legion, he has been playing at the top level in all facets of Player against Player content, including being the best rated Shadow Priest in the world in 2v2 and Rated Battlegrounds. If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact him through his broadcast or Discord.
Twitch Xot#8585 – Twitter Discord
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