Yea, I've always felt that it would be nice if the only way to optimize for any role would be to engage in all roles. It goes without saying that there's a lot of nice PvP gear found via PvE, because there really is more to PvP than stacking stam and resil endlessly. I liked the idea that the best gems in the game could only be acquired through Heroics, although this is no longer the case, and generally the epic gem implementation has been very poor (unique-equipped, marginal upgrades, come from specific instances rather than BoJ). A few of the best PvE items come from PvP, but this is due less to PvP weapons being overpowered than it is due to PvE itemization holes - note that there's no MH caster weapon between ilvl 128 and 151, while the Merciless Spellblade is 136. Likewise, I've noted that the Honor Bracers for a Mage were better than anything acquirable before Tier 5. The Honor gems are also some of the best PvE gems available. etc. etc. And obviously there are a lot of nice crafting items that encourage solo play, both BoE and BoP.

So for the most part a player who engages all parts of the game will have an advantage over one who does not. This isn't really that terrible, is it? One is missing the forest for the trees here in this debate, I think.

Also, it should be noted that the allegations of the ease of acquisition of these items is greatly overblown. Speaking for my guild, we have 5+ people with Nathrezim Mindblades and 0 with Gladiator weapons. Unless one uses the arena solely for PvE advancement, going for the Gladiator weapons before the armor pieces is almost surely a bad idea. And if one is running around in the arena without any PvP gear because he's saving up... it's going to be a bumpy ride to that weapon, probably. I just got my 5th piece of Gladiator Gear and I'm only now going to be saving for a Spellblade... it's a nice upgrade over my Mindblade for PvE and PvP, but it wasn't nearly as large an upgrade as the gladiator shoulders were of Mana-Etched.

I'm a prot warrior, have always been prot, and also happen to suck at pvp. Short of a weekly respec and time investment for gear that I can't really make, I have no chance of ever excelling at arenas. We have some decent pvp'ers in our ranks, but some of the people in our guild participate in what we call "shitty arenas". No one has any decent pvp gear, no one has an appropriate spec, and we all could care less. It's a group of people that we rotate through a 5v5 every week with virtually no chance of winning. The opposing group basically has to suck or be equally malformed for us to win. If we win a couple games out of the 10-15 per week we play, it's a victory in our minds. Our rating is abysmal, but it doesn't matter since a 5v5 will net you 400 points for going 0-for-whatever.

Now, all of our casters on the team have access to the MG dagger or staff (I know one guy has already bought it), and I can almost buy the shield (i've missed a week here and there), which is a decent upgrade to my gruul shield. If trends continue, next season, I'll be able to buy a shield on par or better than the one that drops off of Illidan.

How is that right for a group of people that are just starting to take shots at Hydross and VR?

I don't think anyone has, or will say, "No thanks, I want my raiding to be hard, we won't get the pvp weapons." The Issue, at least as I see it, is that progression varies wildly by server. Bibdy's guild represents the progression on Ursin, and last I'd heard, they were still solidly in SSC and TK, not on either Vashj or Kael (This may have changed, but even if it has they're the only ones). So a guild such as mine, starting SSC and hopefully Void, these are massive, monumental upgrades and its more strange and unexpected then an unwelcome boost to our output.

The problem I have with it as a former raider isnt that I cant get it. I can get in a raid and have enough points to get the items when they drop. The problem I have is that I'm forced to pve to have an optimal gear setup. I pved for 3 years in wow, I want to pvp exclusively now. I'm not a minority in that sentiment. Stop shoving pve down my throat already. The only reason I picked it up in the first place is because wow has had no real competitive pvp to speak of up until this point.

As I was reading this and saw "omg pvp crap stole proper item slotz!" I was thinking if quite crazy idea of boss giving "Raid Points" instead of normal loot would work out. At least DKP would not be needed anymore and nobody could say "ah not this crap again!".

I think that a suggestion like this has a lot of merit. The problem is that when you win an arena battle, someone else loses. In PvE, everyone is allowed to win provided the available time and skill. So to stop giving rewards to losers in PvP wouldn't be an accurate representation of the PvE model. It does seem fair, though, to give half rewards to those who lose and full rewards to those who win. Or at least some sort of balancing model so as like Zorat said, those players with no skill and a minimum time commitment aren't farming tier 5 epics in a few weeks.

My apologies if my replies are reaching spam level by now, but I really don't see how this is worse than having cloth classes start Karazhan in crafted items that were at that point (before the re-itemization of raid zones) far superior to tier 5. Or how it is different from every alt warrior having a deep thunder or lionheart blade.

I don't know anybody who would dislike such an idea... apart of the raid content developers, who like seeing their instances done for months and months. However, the first kill should be rewarding, as well. Wouldn't it be possible to give rewards for first kills?

I like the smell of this derail along the lines of Fugazor's point system, I have always wanted a raid system wherein the raid gained treasure off of each raid boss. Then you could take this treasure to your local crazy dwarf/orc/elf/what have you, crafter and have him make you gear out of your "loot". A very Tolkien way of doing things... so much personality. That way raiding gear could be set up as the pvp gear, your crafter would have a list of things he could make out of your loot and maybe personalize it with flavor text for you. /dream

The only thing that irritates me is that players can use 5000 honor from S1 to purchase S2 weapons. I dunno which genius came up with this, but imho that's just total bullshit. Can I trade some of my SSC/TK drops for BT/T6 level items?
I don't think I can.

So why can people turn in arena points earned two months ago for items they should only be able to obtain in 2-3 weeks (and that means they have an insane 5vs5 rating pretty much)?

The way this turns out is the same as giving a guy who gets attuned to BT three BT drops of his choice. And I really fail to see the logic behind all of this.

In general I really like the current system. The way nax geared players were overpowered in pvp was just stupid. PvP gear should give you a big edge in PvP while PvP gear shouldn't be good enough to rival PvE gear of the same level in a raiding setting.
All of this was true up to this week. Some items obtained in PvP are good in PvE and the other way around. That's fine imo. Trying to balance something like that perfectly is too much work and not really worth it.
The only problem that fucks all of this up is people gathering 5000 arena points with shitty ratings over the last couple of weeks and suddenly obtaining T6 gear/weapons right on the release date. If they reset arena points, all would've been good. The top teams would've gotten their first T6 level items within a few weeks, by the time the more casual guys get enough arena points, the serious PvE guilds will have farmed most of the BT encounters for a few weeks and the gear level is ok.

What happens now is that the PvP items will be overpowered for a couple of weeks until the PvE encounters have been farmed long enough. Then people will switch to pve gear for pve again.

The only result of this 'keep 5k arena points' idea is that PvE players will be pissed off for a few weeks. After that things will calm down. Chances are Blizzard won't introduce arena S3 before there's a new raiding instance and T7 (or compareable) avaible for PvE players and arena players will sit on the current gladiator set for a long, long time without being able to obtain upgrades.

They just gave PvP guys a nice, early present, that's all. Believe me, in 6-7 weeks the first guys will be sitting on maxxed out arena points again without being able to purchase anything for their main spec and will whine that they need S3. S3 won't come for a while though.

To be fair, there is a 1H sword from Gruul and Leotheras, and a dagger from Doomwalker which are perfectly viable alternatives to the Prince dagger. The swords don't directly help priests/druids/shamans, but mages and warlocks taking the swords means less competition for the dagger. I guess it wouldn't hurt to add one more dagger drop, perhaps off A'lar or Solarian. The big gap is 1H maces for DPS casters, but really how many elemental shamans and moonkins are in your raid?

I agree with your other point, though. I was ticked off at first that the spellblade was "too good", but really all it does is make it easier to get your own weapon. Either by PvPing yourself, or making less people in your raid want the drop in the first place. My only minor gripe is that it seems like they should be closer in iLevel to the Prince/Gruul/etc drops. I get that they are supposed to be "tier 5" weapons, but in reality there aren't any tier 5 weapon drops. Take either the +hit or ~15 damage off the spellblade and call it even.

Well, blizz "fixed" that with the reitemization in 2.1, and they're on par or a bit better than t4, which in my opinion, seems appropriate. At least getting those crafted epics took a modicum of effort. You had to farm for the mats, have some decent coin to buy them, or at least be a 375 tailor for the BoP stuff.

For an amazing pve weapon upgrade from the areans, you have to commit < 45 minutes with 4 friends once a week for a month or 2, queueing in arenas and getting your ass handed to you...and it's guaranteed. No skill or gear requirements. Hell, we actually ran a few arena matches with 4 people one week just to get our games in (queue with 5, one doesn't accept). Something seems off about that to me.

There is not going to be a split of gear usable for pvp and usable for pve to such a drastic effect. It just won't work. People want to upgrade their gear for all uses, whether it be PVP or PVE. Blizzard seems to be pretty clearly here putting gear in that helps both types of progression as rewards in both systems. I do agree that the pvp rings dropping in raids now should be in a new drop slot, not taking the place of an old one. Maybe like Rag with his optional 5th drop that you sometimes got.

As for weapons being good, these weapons are only as good as Eye/SSC drops. They are not as good as MH/BT stuff. Which there are already a fair amount of guilds in there, and as SSC/Eye gets opened up because of the new attunement changes even more guilds will be in there. If the S2 gear wasn't good, top level PVP at the end of next season will be completely dominated by PVE'ers. In fact even with that gear it will probably happen anyway. It's what happened at the end of last season, when PVE'ers with BT/MH gear dominated at the end. Like Elendril said in the other thread, this is necessary to keep people with the Illidan/Archimonde versions of Might of Menethil and Kingsfall from completely dominating.

A person of crappy skill won't be able to get a 3k arena point weapon (like the spellblade) in anything less than 10 weeks. He won't have anything else either, since all his points are tied up in that. It allows raiders who have sets of very good gear to fill in weapon slots that their raid's RNG has denied them. It allows people who don't raid to get gear comparable with the second level raid instances. It gives multiple paths of advancement. It gives people who have lives and jobs and who can't raid a way to advance their characters. I really don't see the issue. And if it makes guilds lose people who just raid for epics, than I don't have any sympathy. They were just there for items. I'd much rather look at it that this gear will allow me to progress faster and get better gear and thus get to the next instance quicker, or kill Kael'thas or Vashj a week or three faster.

The spellblade is ridiculous. Hands-down better than any drop in any tier 5 instance - and SSC and TK are far from "old content" for the vast majority of guilds. Every weapon that drops in both of those zones is going to be sharded. It's your first Kael'thas kill, and he dropped The Nexus key? Look again: he actually dropped The Void Crystal. That ticks me off more than anything else. Someone who pvps for a few weeks can get a better pve weapon than someone whose guild has mastered one of the most difficult pve encounters in the game. Itemization decisions like this cheapen raiders' accomplishments and generally just don't make any sense.

I honestly don't see how 2.0 crafting and current PvP rewards are any different. Farming Primals and Nethers and other mats does not take skill, just like queuing up for an arena doesn't take skill. It just takes time. It seems like Blizzard may have fixed crafting only to replace it with new PvP rewards.

I agree there should be a limit on banking points. But I'd like to point out that this gear is comparable to T5. Not T6. BT/MH stuff is of much higher level items.

Yea, it'd be like that, only with the added condition that you have to have been farming T5 instances without getting any loot for a few months. Not many people would fulfill that condition, probably.

Not to mention that the T5 -> T6 upgrades are much more significant than S1 -> S2 upgrades..

There is.

Priests can use maces too

As for the whole pvp vs pve issue, I'm a bit confused. I'm not sure if Blizzard wants the arenas to be a competitive game in their own right or not. Currently it's not, you get items from pve that are better than the arena counterparts and you get items from arenas that can fill gaps in your pve gear.
If arenas were to be a real competive game by themselves then the best option would be to give out a full set as soon as you make an arena team, covering every item slot you have, but only make said gear usable inside arenas. That way the arena gear can be far and away better than anything you get from pve without causing any balance issues either way.

My PvP shield doesn't have an equal until Kaz'Rogal or Illidan for PVE TANKING.
BT/MH stuff may be better, but most people will use Arena Gear well into those zones, choosing arena drops over even kael or vashj loot. I wouldn't have a problem if there were 2300 rating minimums for arena weapons or other similar mechanisms in place, but the lower tier PvP teams should not be even close to on par with the upper tiers of raiders.

There is the 5000 cap, but the entire problem is people stockpiled points from s1 to buy s2 gear, similar to if you could trade some of your t4 to t5 on a release of a new dungeon...

Really Edge? Was it the same when high level guilds sold Naxx/Aq40 epics to scrubs for gold, or BWL stuff at an earlier point? Did those people really deserve to have high level PVE gear?

And the lower rated PVP teams? That's controlled by the fact that well they'll get 300-400 points tops per week. Funny enough the people who have build up this huge amount of points? Well other than some hardcore PVP'ers who were just good enough to buy everything early, most of those people are raiders who preferred their raid gear over PVP gear and thus saved it for S2. So yeah I already said there should be lower limits on banked points. I'm sorry once more if some scrub with a 1500 rating takes 10 weeks to get a weapon equivalent to second tier raiding hurts your ego. But it is necessary to have something worthwhile for people who don't raid to work towards. Or as Mist said on FoH, raiders shouldn't get all the monopoly on fun.

Edit: The reason I disagree on ratings requirements is that there are some classes/specs that just don't perform as well. Rogues in 5v5s, enhancement shamans everywhere, etc. Especially in the smaller brackets, competition is dominated by specific class setups. Thus having a system like a 2300 requirement favors some classes over others.

You can get almost an equally large number of points in 3v3 and 5v5, and all classes can perform well in one of the two brackets. Stop using the ego card, it has nothing to do with ego, it's the disparity between a lower tier PvE group and a lower tier PvE group, or even lower tier PvP versus upper end PvE. It's huge, and dilution of PvP gear into PvE settings just makes it worst. Blizzard will slowly kill raiding by culling out all desire to do SSC/TK, and eventually BT/Hyjal I assume.

If you just raid to get items then I really have no sympathy. And I disagree with the ego. It has a lot to do with it, at least to many players out there. In the end it comes down to whether someone thinks that raiding should be the only way to get high level gear. I disagree with that and thankfully Blizzard is throwing out some second level gear for the people out there.