Except that this actually hurts the people who are good at PvP. First off, they are forced to buy all of their armor first. Second, when a new season with new armor comes out, as they upgrade, their old weapon actually gets worse until they can get the new one, which requires that they purchase all of the new armor first.

Does adding a rating really solve the problem of raiders having to PvP?

Maybe I'm wrong but most high end raiding is going to be somewhat competitive. Raiders who can do 1900+ will still do it to get the best gear they can. Those who don't have the PvP skills to get the 1900+ are going to be at a disadvantage.

Most people are strongly motivated by gear and if they weren't I don't think we'd be having this discussion. If there is an option for someone to make themselves better, they will take it. In the past (and now too), people have spent lots of time in PvP for items or farming for consumables. As long as an option exists, people will use it if they can. If that option requires more skill, than those with that skill will be rewarded.

In the end, it might just close down an option that all raiders had and limit it to a select few. If you look at the higher-rated teams, they obviously are wearing raiding gear, so you obviously will have competition between good PvPers in the raiding world.

I think it is a complex issue and the problem is trying to make everyone happy. Raiders do get an advantage as many have said because weapon drops were purely luck. I know pre-TBC our guild had bad luck on the melee DPS weapons. I'm sure most people would be very happy to have other options.

This is exactly the attitude toward this change I don't get. Is it because the weapon slot isn't quite as important for a caster as a physical DPS class that you don't see the ramifications for PvE are extremely ugly?

I see the Arena system as a great unintended solution for a PvE loot problem. Weapons are the least represented slot in raiding loot tables. They are spread thin across many bosses, and even when they are present, the drop % is horrible, not to mention it may be a weapon type that doesn't fit your spec, or is too fast, etc. Arena weapons stabilize the upgrade path; the fact that you will get them, eventually, is as sure as a Tier token drop. Sure, Blizz could introduce weapon tokens, make them sure drops off bosses that don't drop armor tokens, however, this is distasteful to me as weapons were always much more unique than armor sets (looks and names). Generic weapon tokens would be the equivalent of having armor tokens for non-set clown suits.

Personally, a ranking requirement wouldn't cause me much trouble, but I wouldn't wish a pre-TBC weapons situation on anyone. My own upgrade path back then was Vis'kag -> losing a roll on the only CTS to drop ever -> not having a Qiraji Ripper drop ever -> not having a Servo Arm drop, ever -> new Honor System implemented, GM Longsword.

The thing is, apparently Blizzard *wants* it to be that way. There was nothing preventing them from changing the drop rate of end boss weapons from the 5% or so to 30% in the two years everyone was bitching about weapon drops. Absolutely nothing.

I do not think the arena system was ever intended to take the randomness/rarity out of weapon drops. It seems to have been simply an unintended side effect. And yes I agree with you, it is ironic that the same raiders who were complaining for years about the hardships involving weapon drops now got the only reliable path to top end weapons for all classes nerfed.

Well then frankly, I don't know what to say, as the old weapons situation was just stupid. The rarity of weapons affects half the classes more than the other half, and to want to keep it that way, intentionally, is just...

I disagree with this completely. Every single one of those fights where I know if I do something moderately stupid im going to get really close to dead I strap on the pvp gear and gain that extra 2k HP.

There are fights that its really handy to have 8k/9k/10k HP and we're not talking about anything really extraordinary. Doomwalker -8k or use pots each quake. Morogrim 9k watery tombs YAY. Al'ar for me as a rogue 10k+ is real nice, there have been a couple
<Al'ar flame buffets you 2.3k>
<boom addbomb b/c you stayed in too long 7k>.

Of course pvp gear for trash and alot of learning pulls as well :]

no PvEer NEEDS the arena gear. Sure the extra stam is helpful, but it's not necessary for the most part.

As long as it is only for Season 3 gear that is quite ok. So new players can still have decent weapons. If it is to buy this will be big business.

On other hand if it is required to wear this could seriously be bad.

Just imagine the team leader to kick someone out of the team and that guy couldn't use his weapons anymore.

I guess my questions are "Who cares, and why is this a problem from Blizzard's perspective."

I am Joe Casual as far as the arenas go- I love doing BG and did the honor grind to commander and love pvping, but have never found a team for arenas. I basically am on two craptacular teams, and it is just to farm to get some points and to have a little fun. Hell, I don't think my 2v2 is even over 1500, because I group with a guy in my guild's alt druid which is undergeared. But it makes him happy, we earn a few points, and I don't fall terribly behind in pvp gear while I wait to find a solid team that wants to arena seriously. Who knows, maybe once he gets some gear and we start to work better, we will have some more success. On my pally, things are different, and I am on a 3v3 team hovering around 1900.

But back to the point- who cares if Joe Casual is using awesome season two daggers in Kara? Really- does it ruin the content for them? I am betting if they are still in Kara, the content is going to remain just as challenging even though he has two daggers that are itemized well above the zone. Season two daggers do not stop nubs from moving during flame wreath.

And who cares if that rogue goes into an arena with those weapons- certainly not the people with 1900+ ratings- they will stomp him into the ground anyway- if they ever see him. You can't say it is unfair to the people at his level, because they too have access to the same gear. If arenas are really all about skill (and they are not at the 2v2 and 3v3 level where gimmick teams reign supreme), then even if these nubs have complete gladiator gear and season 2 weapons, won't you beat them anyway?

And again- who cares? Will Death and Taxes's next Black Temple kill be somehow cheapened because a less skilled rogue on their server has a season 3 sword?

People play this game for fun, and fun for some people constitutes different things. I know folks who have picked up an arena weapon after weeks of getting their head kicked in at the 1400 level (not my idea of fun, although I am doing it for my friend's druid), and then farmed dutifully for the mats for mongoose or whatever, and it makes their week. It makes them happy. This is bad, why? It certainly didn't throw SSC or Tk on farm for their guild.

Maybe it is just me, but on my server we are having a hard time progressing because of a lack of qualified people. The game just isn't as much fun to people. From my perspective, I want Blizzard to make this game as much fun as possible for as many people as possible. I loved it when GM weapons became available to people without long grinds. Finally, I could get some of my guildmates, who previously had been uninterested in PVP, to run some WSG and AB with me. It breathed new life into battlegrounds I was already exalted with, and for them it was a new dimension of the game for them to explore that they had previously ignored because of the time sink.

Arena weapons availability was not making the raid content too easy, it was not ruining pvp, and it was not a problem. All it was doing was giving people who would never have access to similar gear access to some nice toys. It was letting people in little guilds who can't raid or aren't in raiding guilds get a shiny purple. Why this is a problem is beyond me, because it will not impact pvp at the higher levels in the slightest. I see no real reason for this change whatsoever other than to sate a few epeens.

If the season 3 weapon upgrades are on par with the season 1 to season 2 upgrades, isn't it likely it will only be about a 6 dps upgrade in the weapon?

What's the big deal about purchasing a season 2 weapon and then working on season 3 armor?

By the time season 4 will have come around it will be time for the next expansion and level 71 green quality weapons that surpass the season 3 weapons.

I'm with Cwealm. The big deal is that it's a pointless limit to people that are already limited by the gear.

I am quite certain they will do neither of that. The ratings restrictions will apply to weapons only. So your average arenaer will still run around in T6 equivalent armor.

They are also unlikely to massively increase the costs, because that would leave PvPers uncompetitive. If they say doubled the item costs, someone at 1900 in 5v5 would get about one item every 4 weeks. It would take over half a year to get decked out in arena stuff - in the meantime that person would get stomped by PvEers who are less skilled but are sitting at a 10ilvl advantage. Clearly not a way to promote competitive play.

The same situation arose last season. Just it was S2 vs T5 instead of S3 vs T6. And they did not raise the cost of items at all. Because of backlash they raised the bar for weapons, and that is really how far they can go without damaging arenas.

If you call arena items "welfare epics" and think that PvEers should have a significant gear advantage, and that not having that advantage is a "mistake" and would kill raiding, then you need to get with the times. Raiding to PvP is so 2006. I will never again raid to PvP. If I cannot be competitive PvPing alone then I will find a game where I can.

They can also add more "pve-useless" stats to Season 3 gear.

For example, "reduces incoming damage from players by X%, and increases damage against players by Y%", balanced such that the net effect is zero if both parties have a complete set.

Or, they could add magic resist to some pieces and an equivalent amount of spell penetration to other pieces, additional physical armor to cloth, leather, and mail, although I'm not sure what they would add to melee to counter the latter without helping pve.

I guess I see arena weapons as the PvP->PvE side of "those who play all aspects of the game have an advantage over those who don't". Even though that phrase is usually used to justify several high-quality PvP items that were available only through PvE, I think it's equally valid to apply to items only available through PvP that are useful in PvE.

It's not blocking progression. All the items needed for progression drop off the bosses already. There isn't a single item from arenas that doesn't have a better option from PvE (although in a couple of cases there are apparently only 1-2 upgrades even from T6 content). The only reason there is a perceived "need" to have these items is that it is possible to get them when your guild is not yet progressed to a point in PvE where weapons of that quality are available, or your guild just has crappy luck on weapon loot drops and you're sitting behind 4 other rogues/fury wars looking to upgrade their spiteblades and malchazeens and the arena system would allow you to bypass that.

All in all though, yes it is frustrating for those who feel they must have the absolute best gear available to them at any point in time or they they are somehow letting down their raid, but I guess I don't see it as a major problem (I'm just a semi-casual PvPer these days though). As someone else said, it's not going to transform a Kara guild into a BT guild, and it's not going to make all T5 guilds have to arena on the side in order to progress (although it might give them an advantage if they do).

That would result in almost no one playing Arena, and of those playing Arena, no one would be able to amass enough points to actually qualify for the 1900+ weapons.

If you, say, tell the bottom half that they will receive nothing, they quit. Then the next half up (which was the second quartile) becomes bottom half, and they quit because now they aren't getting anything.

Eventually, you wind up with a situation like one of the second-round tournaments, where everyone is good and playing nothing but teams that are equally good, and not only will half of these teams still lose, there will not be enough games won at a consistent enough rate to elevate someone's rating to what their true strength actually is.

What if you tell the bottom half that instead of fantastically uber-powerful weapons, they're allowed to have quite uber-powerful weapons, and they're just going to have to put up with the top half players having a few more dps on their weapons than them? Will they quit then?

This all seems like quite a hysterical over-reaction to quite a sensible approach to layering PvP rewards out into tiers.

At the moment, season 1 gear is deader than dead. Has one piece been sold since season 2 started? Who knows?

After these changes, things will be tiered thus:

Skilled gladiators with good arena ratings will have access to Season 3 weapons and armour.

Less skilled gladiators without the good ratings will have access to Season 2 weapons and Season 3 armour.

And everyone will have the option to farm honour for some Season 1 gear to supplement this, if they want to burn the hours of game-time to gear up faster, in calendar time, than they can with their weekly allotment of arena points.

Tell me - what is so bad about that setup?

I dunno about caster weapons, but weapons for melee class have no stamina at all in area gears.

On the contrary, 2-handers obtained from PvE usually have tons of stamina.

T4: 120
S1: 123
Malchezaar/Maulgar/Gruul/Mag: 125

T5: 133
S2: 136
Vashj/Kael'thas: 138

T6: 146
Archimonde/Illidan: 151

I'd actually expect S3 gear to be ilvl 149.

Arena gear is overtaking PvE gear because most guilds are not through with tier 5 instances. In order to maintain "balance", we will need one of these things to happen:

1) Restrictions on S3 Loot
2) Creative extra features on S3 loot, in lieu of raw item budget
3) Major nerfs to SSC and TK, opening the floodgates for guilds to enter MHJ and BT

My money is on a little of one and three. Two, well, it would be nice.

I think you underestimate how overpowered the Illidan Bow of the Black Betrayer is compared to anything else in the game for the Hunter class or how broken Armor piercing(a PvP stat imo) is on a PvE geared warrior versus a Gladiator geared warrior. Its huge, and having something like the Black Bow would make my class so much more effective in arenas.


People at the higher end of Arena PvP are experiencing a wall in terms of gear progression, and its prety unfair that we have to deal with teams who not only have access to Shadow sets, but also have the best possible gear in every slot outside of Arena sets(Tsunami Talismans, Choker of Serated Blades etc).

If the mantra of not having to PvE for PvP gear is to remain true, then Blizzard must release a newer tier of gear fairly soon. The later they wait , the worse this problem will become. Its bad enough as it is.

How quickly in this debate perspective is incredibly lost.

Your character, as a PvE construct, has very little to do with your weapons. It's every single slot spread across your character. You are the sum of your slots, not a weapon, but we, as players, love our weapons dearly. This is why the debate is emotional, not logical.

Give players the current s2 weaps and, pulling from this thread's example targets: Take a PvP geared player into any instance and run the meters. Take any scrubby heroic geared PvE player into any instance and run the meters. You will *decimate* them. There is no comparison, whatsoever.

Ignore these players. They can't touch you. They can't come into your raids and "own it up" with their s2 weapons. Their characters are crippled beyond compare to yours.

I ignore them inside PvP. They're butter soft. You should ignore them inside PvE. If you find it difficult at any time, run your meters. It doesn't matter in the least if they have a single solitary slot which is competitive, nothing else about them is.

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Why does this matter so much to me? I work evenings. I play on a server with very little PvP interest. Couple the two and my ability to put together strong Arena teams is very strained. I've watched people interested in high end PvP leave the game much more rapidly than they are replaced and, when they are, the road to gear up is very long. The teams I've been a part of, well, it rotates continuously, much to my gear's detriment.

Hey, that sounds familiar. It's a very common issue with raiding guilds. We share a similar interest - I need some basic, cheap means to revitalize my roster pool, and the general interest in PvP weapons helps me do that. Even if that character is only 33% effective, at least that's a third less I have to equip on the way to viability.

Thats kind of a shitty thing for people to say. I assure you, every thing I wear in arena i have earned with a ton of time, effort and gold invested. Along with a healthy dose of damage to my own ego.

But the same can be said about any PvE gear from bosses that are on farm. There is little to no difference between killing a boss you can down in your sleep week after week, and loading up and crapping out in arena week after week. Provided you put in enough time, you will eventually get your item. Both are obtained via questionable means, and there is little one can do to change that.


People who solely focus on PvP and play it at the highest level possible, should have gear as equal to the highest level PvE gear. All things considered. They should also have armor piercing procs and haste items availible to them without ever stepping into a raid, just the same way that PvE players have access to resilience gear and incredible PvP weapons without ever stepping into arena.

Currently Blizzard has some balancing issues to deal with, an some things they need to reconsider(Armor piercing and Haste) prior to implementation.