Having arena weapons rival or surpass PvE weapons in PvE despite featuring resilience wasn't good design, either. We've seen how that works out, particularly in season 2. The Deadly and Hateful weapons have defensive stats to a degree that their PvE counterparts can't match, and they still rank fairly high in terms of DPS. Sure, it's not without its problems and I'll admit I'm interested to see how things will play out with the Ulduar roll-out and arena weapons. In the end it's still possible Ulduar's release is timed to coincide with season 6, though.

That would put season 6 to somewhere between march and april, provided they'd keep the length at the absolute minimum, 4 months. Really doubtful. Raid instance releases never coincided with season starts either, I don't see a reason why they'd do it now. That said, it was different with Sunwell thanks to the gate system, which put the state-of-the-art weapons only a month or two or so before season 4 started. Blizzard said themselves they feel like giving PvE players a little headstart.

I wonder if they'll update Archavon's loot table as seasons come and go. If they did, it'd serve as an incentive for experienced players to raid, keeping it as something you'd want to farm every reset. Otherwise people won't go there for anything else except emblems. The RNG aspect of it has its downsides, it's quite of a gamble with the current system, especially when it can drop items that nobody can use.

This is what ratings are for, no?

Say what you want about previous seasons, but Naxx is so ridiculously easy to clear at this point that it shouldn't even be considered that it pay out a weapon as good or better than the highest arena weapon. But then it's on the same level as Archavon giving out items to pugs that would otherwise require arena ratings to aquire so I have no idea what they want to achieve here.

I think, that they are trying to offer some sort of PvP progression, attempting to prevent top PvPers from getting too much of a gear advantage to block anyone from moving up, and put in ways for new players to gear up, without being in the frustrating position I was in TBC, where if I wanted to PvP, I had to spend months getting my butt kicked because I had 0 resilience.

Archavon I see cutting down on the gear advantage top PvPers have. There's only 2 pieces, Helm and Shoulders that cannot drop from him. Same with the badges for PvP gear. Thus, the only pieces that can only be obtained from arenas are the iLevel 213 Shoulders/Helm. If you arena and are good at it, you can get your gear at your pace, when you need it, but if you can't get the ratings, you can try to get lucky on Archavon, or save up your badges. This prevents average PvPers from being left too far behind and quitting in frustration, while allowing top PvPers some advantages in gear, and in gear aquisition.

Furthermore, if they keep updating Archavon and the badge vendors, a newly minted 80 won't have to go through the frustrating process of PvPing with 0 resilience, just to get gear that's already outdated. He can buy the crafted stuff, augment it with honor gear, while trying for Archavon and saving up Badges.

Overall, I think they did a pretty good job trying to prevent the situation I found myself in at 70, that turned me off from arenas and PvP all together in TBC. Starting soooo far behind and having a gigantic mountain to climb, just to not get insta-gibbed, was incredibly unfun. I know I'm not the only late starter in TBC who skipped PvP altogether because of that.

The crafted gear and the different tiers of PvP gear should make it a lot easier for new players to start out, but it baffles me that you would include Archavon. The loot table is so huge that getting your pieces is nothing short of a lottery, you really can't rely on it and if it's meant to fix a gear imbalance it's a stupid way of going about it.

As to PvP weapons being better than PvE weapons, S2 was poorly done obviously but with rating requirements in s3 and especially s4 it wasn't nearly as big a problem. Having a weapon drop out of the joke that is Naxx which far outperforms the weapon you get from being in the top couple percent of the arena scene seems fairly backwards. I really can't imagine anyone with access to the Naxx drops using their 2k+ rating required weapons over them, and that seems incredibly silly.

As more people get PvP gear, both from Archavon, and from PvP, the greater the chance of winning the PvP gear is from Archavon. And, originally, he was on a 3 day timer, not 7, so getting a fair amount of gear from him was clearly blizzard's intention. The 7 day timer obviously reduces his importance in the whole gearing scheme of things, but he still does have a role to play in helping people get into arenas, even if only a small one.

I'm inclined to disagree.

In the short term, the exact opposite is going to happen; The average PvP player who - surprise surprise - actually wants to PvP is going to get, erm howtophrasethisforpolitecompany, royally steamrolled by people geared via PvE and Archavon. We're going to enter this season with a significant gear disparity that does not favour people actually interested in PvP.

In the mid-term, Archavon and top-tier badge gear means that the average PvPer in the middle ratings is going to end up facing people geared for top end PvP. The whole point of the Gaussian filter they threw in near the end of S4 (or did it never go in, slated for S5?) was to reduce people's ability to move away from their own bracket because this was seen as problem. Archavon might not be moving people, but it'll be moving gear to brackets where it doesn't belong. I honestly don't see how the "average PvPer" is going to remain competitive gear-wise without throwing in a fairly significant PvE effort. It's a snowball effect; The more gear that comes from ratingless-PvE, the more gear has to come from rating-less PvE because the ratings become harder to aquire (still talking about the average PvPer).


The above would then be acceptable writeoffs for the longterm benefits of easing "catchup". Except catchup is more readily sorted by crafted gear, because crafted gear is even less dependable on people, playtime and schedules than Archavon or most of the badge gear is, and it is also a more reliable source for the specific piece you need.
Except that the people who'd normally never break the 1700 barrier is still going to have to play gear catchup via PvE against people geared for the 2000+ rating area (which again, is something they were throwing in a Gaussian filter to avoid). Sure, said catchup is "faster", but then again, it's also over a longer "distance", and the time/speed relation there makes the so-called gains sort of... funky. Previously, except for season breaks, rerolls and change of brackets, the top gear wasn't all that prevalent at the entry points anyway (tried and tested with a 70 alt late early S4). It's certainly going to be now. The gear differential between the top PvP players and the entry-level is not relevant as long they're never pitted against eachother. This system essentially gaurantees that entry level PvPers will be pitted against top geared opponents, as the time scales forward.

On top of this, for this to work, Archavons loots would then have to be upgraded every season, or we'll lose the longterm effect. And right about now, you've completely lost the logic of having three sets and crafted sets in the first place; We've designed a situation in which we're forcing the expectation that the top PvP gear is used at all times, except for the first few weeks incase a mix of PvE and top PvP gear is acceptable. That's not even touching the logic of not pre-season releasing the blue PvP set in relation to the above.


(tl;dr)
If there is an overall plan - and not just an accident caused by a bundle of good ideas being implemented separately - by the way things look right now, the biggest loser of said plan looks to be the average PvPer.
Competitve gearing - as well catchup - is best done via PvE. Should she chose to enter PvP anyway, she will run into gear disadvantage at the entry level caused by PvE-gearing on people who are never expected to actually rise in rating unlike any previous PvP related gear advantage - with the exception of teamselling and boosting, both of which Blizzard has gone out of their way to minimize. This won't close a gear gap for the average PvPer, it'll open one.

Where as the biggest winner would be the average PvEer, who'll essentially never have to actually PvP for PvP gear.

edit :Actually, in light of the below explicitly stated prices, much of my previous pessimism was unfounded (serves me right for not taking the time to actually download the PTR and walking around to the specified locations, though in my defense I had a catasrophic RAM failure consume most my sunday). If you can get the Hateful gear from PvP, without a rating requirement, you don't really have a leg up if you gear from PvE anyway. With that gone, the gear differential caused by the Vault outside of the Deadly bracket is a lot smaller. They are walking all over the logic of having three sets though, unless they intend the blue set never to be bought by honour, and always attained by badges.

Although it's late and the first part of your post sort of made my head explode, thinking about the whole situation, I think I got the gist of it and I think I agree with you. I'm thinking that Archavon and badges are a great catchup method, mostly because they are easy for me to obtain, from the perspective of an average/above average raiding guild. (Ended TBC with about half of BT/Hyjal cleared. Don't know if that's average or above.)

I'm actually thinking that the person who really gets screwed in all this the "casual pvper" or "battleground player". The type of person who only really logs on to play battlegrounds. Has never arena'd, hadly does any PvE, probably has never seen the inside of Kara/Naxx. While I don't personally know anyone remotely like this, a casual glance at Shatt near the end of TBC would reveal a lot of players in 5/5 S2, full non-rating req honor gear, and maybe supplemented by a nagrand quest reward or something. Actually, judging by the sheer number of these people I saw on, this type of player must actually be pretty numerous. In WotLK, their only avenue of progression is the crafted gear, honor non-set pieces and Wintergrasp epics. Even the blue PvP set requires arena points.

Currently on the PTR the blue ilvl 200 set can be bought for pure honor from the officer's lounge in Org/Stormwind or for honor and arena points from the Arena Vendors in Dalaran.

Can this set still be bought with 10man(heroism) badges?

The pure honor costs for that gear is absurdly overpriced, it costs as much to get the 1 piece of the blue set Chest/Legs/Helm(60k Honor) as it does for the Deadly Gladiator pieces(Tier 3 PvP gear) which is 62k.

If you want the blue PvP set, it's 60k for the Chest/Leggings/Helm, and 50k for the Shoulders/Gloves, a whopping 280k honor for the full set.

If you don't want to do that, you're forced to do arenas, which chops the costs down 1/5, BUT you have to spend arena points, and of course the 3rd avenue, you can buy the blue set for heroic badges, 45 badges for Chest/Leggings/Helm, and 30 for the Gloves/Shoulders.

MMO-champ hasn't posted the prices, so I imagine this is as good a place as any, and this is till on the PTR so it's subject to change(And I hope that it does).

From the PvP Venders in major cities(Stormwind/Orgrimmar):

Savage Gladiator Sets(5-piece Rare ilvl 200, Tier 1 PvP Gear)
Chest/Legs/Helm: 60,000 Honor
Shoulders/Gloves: 50,000 Honor
No Rating Requirements

Hateful Gladiator Items(Misc Epic ilvl 200 Tier 2 PvP Gear)
Boots/Belt/PvP Trinket: 49,600 Honor
Neck/Cloak/Ring: 38,000 Honor
Bracers: 31,600 Honor
No Rating Requirements

Deadly Gladiator Items(Misc Epic ilvl 213 Tier 3 PvP Gear)
Boots/Belt/Offensive PvP Trinkets(+Whatever/Use: Health Boast): 60,200 Honor
Neck/Cloak/Ring: 47,400 Honor
Bracers: 39,400 Honor

Rating Requirements on Misc Deadly Gear:
Trinkets 1800
Cloak: 1750
Boots: 1720
Ring: 1690
Bracers: 1660
Belt: 1630
Neck: 1600

From Emblems of Heroism/Valor in Dalaran:

Savage Gladiator Sets(5-piece Rare ilvl 200, Tier 1 PvP Gear)
Chest/Legs/Helm: 45 Badges of Heroism
Shoulders/Gloves: 30 Badges of Heroism
No Rating Requirements

Hateful Gladiator Items(5-piece Epic ilvl 200 Tier 2 PvP Gear)
Chest/Legs/Helm: 45 Badges of Valor
Shoulders/Gloves: 30 Badges of Valor
No Rating Requirements

From Arena Vendors in the Dalaran Sewers:

Savage Gladiator Sets(5-piece Rare ilvl 200, Tier 1 PvP Gear)
Chest/Legs/Helm: 12,000 Honor, 350 Arena Points
Shoulders: 9,600 Honor, 275 Arena Points
Gloves: 7,200 Honor, 200 Arena Points
No Rating Requirements

Hateful Gladiator Items(5-piece Epic ilvl 200 Tier 2 PvP Gear)
Chest/Legs/Helm: 12,000 Honor, 700 Arena Points
Shoulders: 9,600 Honor, 550 Arena Points
Gloves: 7,200 Honor, 400 Arena Points

Rating Requirements on Hateful Gear:
Gloves: 1615
Legs: 1645
Chest: 1675
Helm: 1735
Shoulders: 1775

Deadly Gladiator Items(Epic ilvl 213 Tier 3 PvP Gear)
Chest/Legs/Helm: 2,250 Arena Points
Shoulders: 1,800 Arena Points
Gloves: 1,350 Arena Points
Off-Hand/One Hand Fast Weapons/Caster: 1,350 Arena Points
Main-Hand/One-Handed Slow/Caster: 3,150 Arena Points
2-Handers/Ranged: 4,500
Shields: 2,250
Totem/Idol/Relic/Sigil: 1,200

Rating Requirements on Deadly Gear:
Gloves: 1850
Legs: 1910
Chest: 1970
Helm: 2090
Shoulders: 2150
Everything Else: 2030

My roommate played like this. He isn't 80 yet because he hasn't really been playing WotLK much since it was released. He did do Kara a few times when he could get in a PUG, and he actually enjoys raiding to an extent, but doesn't want to dedicate/have the time to bother joining a raiding guild. He and his friend from work arena'd at around the 1400 level just to get points for gear at first, and later to actually have fun/compete (yes there are people honestly trying/competing within that bracket).

Let me say this bluntly: watching him and his friend play over his shoulder, my normal 2v2 partner and I could have played his character and his friend's character (rogue/enh sham) for them and get them to 1700 minimum in one night. Easily. Despite the huge gear gap he faced. My point being: skill is a much larger determining factor in the average PvP battle than gear.

The impact of the gear gap is a real one, but it seems a lot of people in this thread are greatly exaggerating it, especially at any level under 1600 rating. They put the "hidden rating" filter in not because of people with S4 weapons in the 1500 bracket, but because of people with the skill to obtain S4 weapons who were in the 1500 bracket. It wasn't the weapons/gear themselves that were the main factor, it was the players behind them that were in a skill bracket way below where they belonged. Many of them didn't even want to be in that bracket, and just needed to get someone's PR up quickly so they could face "real opponents", although I don't doubt there was also some smurfing (or whatever term you want to use for purposefully playing in that bracket to trounce opponents who had no chance).

In addition, the actual stat difference between the gear sets is still as small as ever, and the Archavon drops only cover 3/17 gear slots. And the chance of actually getting the drops is so small that getting the 3 pieces for your spec is pretty much impossible within any reasonable time frame. It really is "bonus" gear, and even getting your 3 pieces, I don't think is a big enough difference to impact the outcome of the average game, be it Arena, WG, or BGs (assuming you've earned/grinded/crafted your maximum in the other 14 slots). And let's be honest: Who other than the top arena players or most hardcore BG grinders gets their max available PvP gear in each slot before like 3 months into a season? The only time I had characters in this situation was the end of S2 and the end of S3, and even then in both cases there were a couple items I could have upgraded but was too lazy to (rings or a second, more pvp-oriented trinket or something). Because, again, the difference provided by the gear wouldn't have been worth the effort of the honor grind involved.

Anyway, Archavon isn't just a nice way to try and catch up in gear later in a season/content cycle, or a way to "mess up" the starting/expected gear level. It encourages PvE players to play WG (and potentially other PvP) and it can bring PvP players into the fold of raiding. He really serves a lot of different purposes even beyond the gear he drops, many of which I feel have a larger, more positive impact on the game overall than any perceived gear gaps he creates.

This, and the accompanying post, are a perfect summary of my experience in BC arena. The thing is, no one really wants to admit that they lack skill, so they make excuses. People at 1400 complain "x class is overpowered" or "that was an s4 weapon". I spent most of 4 seasons floating somewhere between 1400 and 1700. I admit I am not good at wow pvp (I laughed when in 3 of those seasons I got challenger, apparently telling me I was in the top 35%). I easily get tunnel vision, I have bad positioning, I mistime most of my key skills (also, I don't grind honour, but that is annother matter). Even knowing all this, it was, and is, so easy for me to say after a loss "there was nothing we could do", "rogue/mage is overpowered" etc. Of course, sometimes you did meet those skilled teams - and then really there was nothing you could do - they never made mistakes, we did, and that was that. But even then, "they were better than us" is the hardest thing to admit when faced with a loss.

Slightly more on topic, I like the idea of Archarvon, but what I would really like is a means to get a full compliment of gear (belt/boots/bracers/jewlery/weapons included) with only arena points (or, somewhat selfishly, with just a combination of arena points and something-obtained-from-pve). What I would kind of like to see is a BoP raid drop token other than the normal badges (a green badge-of-hand-this-in-for-pvp-gear). This would mean that if say, your team had a newly rerolled member, you could grab 9 friends and run your fresh 80 through naxx, loot them all of these green bop tokens, and they would have most of a full arena set right there (make the tokens drop at say, an average of an item/person/week). People who have their full pvp sets would generally pass, meaning that people late to the pvp game/etc. would be able to get gear to be competitive faster, even for your average bg-only pvp'er if they could manage a naxx or 2.

Anyone else notice that there are no savage/hateful-level weapons, offhands, relics, etc? What gives?

I have to second this. As long as I'm in Wintergrasp from the getgo I can effectively guarantee myself 3k honor win or lose. I actually spent all my honor before they announced they weren't going to wipe it. Despite this, and my near total apathy toward PvP, I had 33k honor in a matter of days through Wintergrasp alone without specifically interrupting my questing/instancing/etc. to participate. I'd be honor capped by now if I had actually put any effort into making it an integral part of my schedule.

The beauty here is that Blizzard has finally nailed down a proper World PvP incentive. The buff is extremely desirable for both leveling and instancing, the battle is incredibly epic, and the rewards are huge. Once everyone figures out that this is where the most honor is found we may actually have a problem of SS vs TM like proportions.

My server seems to have already had this problem, Wintergrasp lag on Sunday afternoon was ridiculous, 5 seconds delays near the inner keep to do anything. Once the battle ended, so did the lag, and this happened more than once, so it does seem like something they will have to specifically address.

Those numbers from the PTR may not be accurate. Here's the announced info, vague as it is, for the items in the upcoming season:

I'll reiterate the common dislike for Arena rating requirements on PvP gear. Arena is particularly not fun for me. This is true to the point where I refused to arena for raiding gear despite the short time commitment and superior quality to what I had at the time.

I don't mind if the best PvP gear requires ratings, only if Arena is too tightly woven into other areas of PvP. I don't want to have to do Arenas to enjoy Wintergrasp or to benefit from the time spent there.

My issue with rating requirements on PvP gear, has always been the fact people who have already proven they are better PvP'ers (via their ratings), now have a even larger advantage with superior gear. It seems totally backwards, like giving the championship team the best draft pick for the next season. Something of a dead horse by now I suppose.


The no-rating gear requiring arena points is just Blizzard forcing Arena participation of people who wouldn't touch it otherwise, to prop up the whole system.

Stop with the age old pve to pvp, or the fairness of the system arguments. We don't give a fuck, and our forums aren't here for you to debate this piece of shit deadhorse discussion. Go someplace else to cry about what you do or don't like about the way it's set up.

You can get a full 5/5 blue set of armor and do 0 arena games, it just costs 280k honor.


Honor is much faster than in BC, but then costs went up so may even out.

The announcement posted yesterday - World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> Season 5 Arena/Honor Items - says "Tier 1 - Superior (blue) quality items: No rating requirements; Costs Honor and Arena points; Equivalent to heroic dungeon items" (which I presume to mean "ilvl 200 blues")