Herrera

I know it's too early for anyone to make any plans on saving points for S3, but how long do you think S2 will last? Will there be S4 before the WotLK xpack? Do you think it will introduce new gear that will match the level of Tier6? What about honor gear? If, say S3 starts somewhere october/november, will you save points for upgrades/new weapons? I'm just curious about the community's opinions.

 

Symbul

Unless they add another tier of dungeons I highly doubt they'll add a fourth season of arena gear. What I expect them to do in S3 is add more items on top of a "T6" set. There's no reason not to add Trinkets, a Ring (hi2u Auchindoun endgame pvp rings) and alternative Relics - the current ones aren't hot property.

 

tYsopz

I have heard S3 is to start in the middle of october, in about 2 and a half month from now.

I'll see if I can verify it.

 

DecimusGarona

It was already said by a blue poster on the WoW forums that there won't be a new set of gear for each season, I highly doubt that season 3 will release tier 6 equivalent gear.

 

Tower

Don't forget more pvp orientated gems and enchants. Imagine an immune to disarm enchant that adds 20ap and 10res or something, great for rogues and for warriors eager to drop those 2 points. Make it cost 1200 arena points and you'd see a lot of players with it. Possibilities are endless, just look at everything PvE and imagine it's PvP equivalent coming from arena.

Resilience+AP/dmg gems
Resilience+sta leg enchants

Whatever they offer, let's hope it doesn't allow for 600+ resilience.

They could even add tabards and mounts that were very expensive but amazing looking and people would want to get them.

 

Solipse

I'm betting the trend will be something like:

If a couple guilds on most servers are getting the next tier of pve armor, a pvp armor set will be introduced with graphics mimicing that next tier.

Since there are a handful of guilds on alot of servers now in Black Temple, I'm betting that arena season 3 will introduce another tier of gear.

This keeps pvp itemization going alongside of pve itemization.

 

• frmorrison

I believe Season 3 will have a new set of gear, especially with the upcoming nerfs to Kael and Mother means more people will have Tier 6, plus the devs get to reuse the set artwork.

Perhaps all the PvP items non-set will not be updated, but there needs to be a new PvP cloak, there wasn't a season 2 upgrade.


However, what is unknown is when the new season will start, I am guessing late October.

 

tristantio

After spending my points regularly on my 70s for the first season of gear I know that for this third season I'll be stockpiling 5000 points on all my characters and just spending them after (if) I hit that cap beforehand (my pally/warrior are in a scrub 5v5 point farming team for about 300 to 400 points a week).

 

Suesse

I think the 15 item level difference between top PvE weapons (Illidan's dagger for example) and the top PvP weapons gives a significant advantage to an Arena team with advanced PvE progression. If the intent of this arena gear is to prevent PvE from being a prerequisite of competitive PvP, I think at least new weaponry will be required.

 

Instant

WotLK xpack?

 

archz0r

Wrath of the Lich King, the new expansion.

 

DecimusGarona

I don't know, maybe it is just me but I think it would be a joke to start handing out Tier 6 equivalent arena gear when the vast majority of guilds are still working on T5, or in many cases even T4 content. Also assuming ZA contains tier 5 equivalent loot drops, it would essentially be a kick in the nuts to their own brand new raiding instance to have far better gear easily obtainable from an hour or two of PvP each week.

The only slot that anyone would ever consider using non-gladiator gear for serious arena competition would be their weapon, and the difference between Illidan weapons and the currently available merciless gear is minimal at best, especially when you factor in the loss of a decent chunk of resilience. Many warriors are using T3 BS weapons over the gladiator equivalents anyways, so I don't really see why it would all of a sudden become an issue for someone to have +10 DPS on their mainhand because they are one of the very few who have downed Illidan. If anything, I would say that the T5 resilience rings and T6 epic gems grant just as much of advantage to PvErs in the arena as that minimal damage increase.

The only reason I could foresee any new gear being released in S3 is to give people who have completed their S2 set something to spend points on. As a druid this really isn't a problem for me, if I had extra points I would be more than happy to start collecting the feral and/or moonkin sets. For everyone else, I hope they at least release gladiator equivalents to the boot/belt/bracer/ring/cloak/etc. so that there is an alternative for people who don't particularly enjoy PuGing with a bunch of AFK honor bots in the battlegrounds.

 

tristantio

Heres the thing though, with the way itemization gains are being set up in WoW, it is intentional that PvP/arena gear is preferred over PvE gear for the purpose of PvP combat. You do more PvP, you become stronger in PvP. That is intentional, not a side effect.

However, just looking at it from a warlock perspective, arena gear from season 1 to season 2 had a miniscule gain in damage stats, while it had an increase in armor and resilience/stamina (a little one). Armor, resilience, and to some degree stamina, don't really have any benefit in PvE for a caster, while comparing to PvE gear which increases in crit/hit and spell damage.

 

subscience

Has this been confirmed?

 

Peekaboo

Yeh they are painting themselves into a bit of a corner. I think they will have a "filler season" and then release a Tier 6 set in in Season 4, closer to the next xpack.

As people have pointed out, there are a lot of interesting items they can release "as filler' that would keep people going. Outgearing ZA would be a huge mistake.

 

DecimusGarona

I suppose the only way to find out is to wait and see, anything until then is just rampant speculation.

 

Harmann

I thought ZA was going to be more on the level of Mag/Gruul in terms of loot. Has Blizzard confirmed anything to say that ZA would be on par with T5?

 

Deris

not to mention epic pvp flavored meta gems (chance on cast to remove a dot or add +150 resil for 10s..)

There is ALOT of room for them to go in regards to pvp itemization.

p.s In regards to pve gear - I can't wait to see how pvp is with everyone using BT haste items mixed with Arena Gear. Not to mention the sheer awesomeness that is the Illidan healing mace - +200 healing when target is under 50%.. hell yeah.

 

Myul

Why using a filler season right now? As allready pointed above, the advantage of BT/MH gear is huge for the rest of this season. With another filler season, the advantage between pure pvp geared teams and teams with gear from all sources will growth even more. We are talking about a timespan of about half a year (assuming a length of four month per season), that's far to much time.

A hybrid char in a decent team at 2000 rating points team would have to spend all his points on dps/heal gear he wouldn't spend regulary. But let's assume a more average 1500 points team, in those 28 weeks remaining until season IV they could earn over 10.000 arena points, more than enough for the full arena set and a weapon, with starting pvp today.

To be honest, that long timespan without new gear would kill pvp for all very interested people. You really need new items on a BT/MH ilevel soon to keep pvp alive (ilvl 151 would be awesome, but ~ ilvl 146 would be fine, to).
And with season IV, the addon release should be near or allready there (assuming 1 addon every year).

 

tristantio

Just to compare again and point out that a release of equivalent tier 6 arena gear wouldn't be preferable to the PvE tier 6 currently, let's compare warlock tier 5 against arena season 2:

Corruptor Raiment has in comparison to Merciless Gladiator's Felshroud:
-19 stamina
+78 intellect
+50 damage done by spells
-22 spell critical strike rating
+65 spell hit rating
-135 resilience
1 more socket

Also the set bonuses for corruptors raiment are vastly superior to the set bonuses for merciless gladiator's felshroud.

So the PvP armor is better for PvP and the PvE armor is better for PvE. Why is that not satisfactory?

 

subscience

Not necessarily. I know I certainly would use the +85 LB/CL damage totem from Gorefiend in PvP and I most certainly use my Maelstrom's Fury in PvP.

Heck, I was excited about the new Arena shield and then I saw the Archimonde shield and I'll probably use the Archimonde shield for PvP as well.

Edit- Trinkets especially. Most people roll with a PvP trinket and a class-specific trinket (Scrolls of Blinding Light, Icon of the Silver Crescent, Skull of Guldan).

 

Peekaboo

Hmm Blizzard has said there will be a new 25 man before the xpack so maybe there won't be a filler season.

The problem I see is that on my server is that last I checked no toons have any Tier 6 on Horde side. The guilds with access to full Tier 5 are maybe 2? So arena gear will start to be better than the average raider's gear diminishing the incentive to raid and making arena play "mandatory".

 

• caladein

For most healers I can assure you that isn't the case. Season 2 gear is really only a clear upgrade for PvE over early-Kara and Heroic drops. For the clothies in general this is especially true as not only is itemization budget used on Stam and Resilience, but also on extra armor.

Now Season 3 gear being better then your average T4 I really don't see a problem with considering BC would have been out nine or ten months at the earliest. Now of course, the average raider is still at the late-T4 stage at best, but that doesn't mean that top-end PvP gear should remain sub-optimal to top-end PvE gear for PvP.

 

Nadagast

You can definitely use PvE items in more slots than just the weapon... Rings, (1) trinket, and depending on class, some armor, can definitely be PvE gear also.

Between these slots, weapons, and gems, its a pretty substantial advantage, one that I hope will go away with Arena Season 3.

 

Ragnor

Paladins are just sick with full T6 level gear in arena:

For example go compare:
Awake
Sck

T6 level PvE: 2200 +heal, 25% crit, 150 mana/5
S2 + PvP gear: 1600 +heal, 20% crit, 70 mana/5

or around 600 +heal, 5% crit, 80 mana/5 difference.

The resilience is pretty much largely irrelevant, who's crazy enough to focus a paladin in 5v5 when they offer no offensive threat just heals for days and when it would leave a lock/shaman/priest free to do whatever they want.

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