Savage-Gladiator
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Wrath 101: PvP welfare gear
With gear upgrades these days being so easy to come by, I'm not so sure 'welfare epics' is such an accurate term for PvP gear anymore. That said, Arena Season 5 started the other day without so much as a whimper. It kind of crept in quietly, without even a patch to go along with it. I'm sure it's taken a few players by surprise to see so many new PvP gear available from different sources that it can get confusing. I know I wrote about it in an old post, but quite a bit has changed since Beta, and some things don't quite apply. Don't worry, we're here to help you make sense of it all.First of all, in the new PvP rewards system there are three tiers of PvP gear. The Savage Gladiator, Hateful Gladiator, and Deadly Gladiator are equivalent to Level 80 dungeon blues, 10-man raid epics, and 25-man raid epics respectively, with a lot of item points thrown in the way of Resilience and sometimes Stamina. These items aren't the best for PvE, so gear accordingly. You'll be wasting a lot of item points by way of Resilience, so keep in mind that all this new gear is best for your Battleground and Arena pursuits.
UPDATED: Season 5 FAQ
Just like that, Arena Season 5 sprang upon Wrath of the Lich King. Even though Blizzard already made the announcement, it still feels kind of sudden. If Season 5 caught you with your pants down (we really hope not), then let's get you up to speed with what's happening in the latest and (hopefully) the greatest Arena season yet. Here's a quick FAQ about the new Arena Season 5.NOTE: Most of these answers are based on information taken from the Patch 3.0.8 PTR, such as gear availability and ratings requirements. If the items don't show up when servers go live today, this post will be updated when they finally do.At what level can I join Arenas?You can enter Arena skirmishes at any level, with brackets at Level 71-75 and 76-80. However, only Level 70 and Level 80 players may participate in rated Arena matches, acquire personal and team ratings, and earn Arena Points to purchase Arena gear. Only Level 80 players are eligible for end-of-season rewards such as titles and possible new 310% speed flying mounts, although none have been announced or found in the data files as of this writing.
Season 5 FAQ continued
Is it true that all Arena and Honor PvP gear require Arena ratings now?No, although the very best ones do. Savage Gladiator gear are excellent rare quality items that require no Arena points to purchase but cost quite a lot of Honor. These items are also purchasable with Emblems of Heroism, so players don't even have to participate in a single Battleground or Arena match in order to buy them. [EDITED: Removed all reference to Arena requirements for Savage Gladiator gear]Hateful Gladiator items require more Honor and Arena points and decent performance in Arenas... if you choose to buy them from an Arena Vendor. The gloves, chest, and leg pieces all drop from 10-man Archavon, so you can get Hateful Gladiator items from sheer luck. All Hateful Gladiator pieces, including the shoulders and head, are purchasable with Emblems of Valor. Most casual players will have a shot at Hateful Gladiator gear even without having an Arena team simply by joining a 10-man Archavon PUG.Even Deadly Gladiator items, the best of the best PvP has to offer, can drop off the 25-man version of Archavon, so again players needn't worry about Arena ratings. The only real pieces that require any true participation and dedication to Arena play are the Deadly Gladiator weapons, and head and shoulder pieces. These are not available through any other avenue but Arena points and personal and team ratings of 2030 or higher.So contrary to what many players have been crying about, this ironically makes Season 5 the most casual-friendly season and allows even complete carebears to run around in full PvP gear. It makes no sense, but the system is actually much more accessible than any other season before it.But what about the filler pieces like the belt, boots, and bracers?Hateful Gladiator Honor pieces do not require any Arena ratings but cost quite a bit of Honor and can be bought in the Hall of Legends in Orgrimmar or the Champion's Hall in Stormwind from the Apprentice Armor Quartermasters. Deadly Gladiator Honor pieces only cost Honor (no Arena Points required) but have moderate personal and team ratings. This means that players wanting the absolute best PvP filler gear must participate successfully in Arenas in order to purchase an Honor item. Note that since no Arena points are required, players need only to play enough games to raise his or her personal and team rating to the required level and purchase the item. Since personal and team ratings are calculated live, players can become eligible to purchase items as soon as their ratings change with every match.Should I even bother with Savage Gladiator gear?It could be much worse. Savage Gladiator items are several steps above the craftable PvP sets but inferior to the easily obtainable Hateful Gladiator gear. With persistence and luck, it's far easier to get Hateful Gladiator pieces off 10-man Archavon or even Deadly Gladiator from the 25-man if you get into a group. It will take much longer (you can only try Archavon once a week) but if you shun PvP, it's definitely the best route.On the other hand, Savage Gladiator items confer the Gladiator bonuses, which the craftable PvP sets lack. It also has higher Resilience and Stamina as well as sockets. Honor is extremely fast at Level 80 and it's possible to get over 10,000 Honor in a day casually playing Wintergrasp and some Battlegrounds. It will take some time considering the cheapest piece, the gloves, cost 50,000 Honor. I recommend pursuing the shoulder and head pieces first if you are eyeing Savage Gladiator at all. [EDITED: Removed all reference to Arena requirements from Savage Gladiator gear]Where are the Savage and Hateful Gladiator weapons?Good question. It seems like Blizzard has decided to restrict Gladiator weapons to the Deadly Gladiator or 2030 level. In the Beta, there were three tiers of weapons similar to how there are three tiers of armor sets, but these lower tier weapons no longer appear to be available. It remains to be seen whether they'll bring them back at some point in the future, although it's not very likely.Will there be better Level 70 Arena rewards?No. Go buy Wrath of the Lich King and level up. Level 80 is where it's at.
Breakfast Topic: Are you ready for Season 5?
It's finally here. The real reason I rushed to 80 and moderately gear up by mid-December is because I wanted to be ready for Arena Season 5. To be quite honest, now that it's here, I'm a bit nervous. Not nervous, that's not the right word... giddy, I think, excited like a six-year old going to the playground. Strangely, though, I've been having so much fun in Wintergrasp that I've hardly given a thought to Arenas.Now that I've given mulled it over a bit, I realize that the gear gap -- or lack of one -- is going to become immediately palpable simply because so much gear is readily available in Northrend. Any player who has just hit 80 will have immediate options for gear, and it won't be so hard to catch up or gear up for Arenas. Even without Resilience, so much gear has massive amounts of Stamina. I mean over 100 Stamina for a trinket? That's kind of insane. Players have so many options for gear now that some people won't even be doing Arenas to get Arena gear.It's going to be a completely different ballgame. The presence of Death Knights will completely change Arena PvP, as it already has in PvE. Knockback effects such as Thunderstorm or Typhoon will be exciting tools in the movement-heavy environment. How will players react to a sudden Death Grip into the opposing team's kill zone? Will HoT-impairing effects like Shadow Embrace or Plague Strike be enough to curb Druid dominance? We'll see. It's exciting. Are you prepared for Season 5? Not just in terms of gear, but psyched and ready for the unpredictability of the metagame, at least for the first few weeks?
Blood Sport: Everything Savage, Hateful, and Deadly
I realize now that the debate about Arenas will never end. A lot of you don't like it -- this is apparently the wrong blog site to enthuse about it. But the fact is that Arenas are a big part of the World of Warcraft today. Some would say too big, but I personally think it fits its niche rather nicely. There's a lot of room for debate on this, and reading through everyone's comments in past columns, it's easy to see that there won't be any resolution to it. Well, we're not talking about that today. This column is for people who like Arenas. If you're not a big fan of the format, you can skip right to the end of the column and post your well thought-out arguments about it (a lot of you are very impassioned about the matter, and I'm greatly impressed) or you can skip to another post as we've got a lot of good reads elsewhere around the site. No, this column is for those Arena freaks, the guys who get giddy when the queue pops up and get an adrenaline rush when the gates open. The next Arena season is going to be fun. We'll have ten more levels to slog through and a lot of experimentation to do before we settle on a PvP groove and find out which specs and playstyles actually work for us. At the end of it all, when we finally hit Level 80, a new era of Arenas will begin and there'll actually be three tiers of gear to reward every level of play. For anyone who's ever stepped foot into an Arena and liked it, it promises to be the best season yet.
The Art of War(craft): Kalgan speaks on Blizzard's PvP philosophy
Like it or not, Arenas are here to stay. I think we should all learn to live with that. A couple of days ago, Kalgan showed up on the Beta forums and put up a lengthy, illuminating post about Blizzard's philosophy when it comes to PvP itemization. He talked about and mostly defended Arenas and the existence of Arena ratings for obtaining PvP gear. It goes a long way towards explaining the new tiered itemization -- an impressive three tiers that appear to be concurrently available -- within the PvP system.One poster's contention was that there was no access to PvP gear before engaging in Arenas was countered with Kalgan mentioning their efforts to include craftable PvP gear. This was an omission in The Burning Crusade that became apparent as the seasons progressed, with newer players or Level 70s struggling to break into the Arena format faced against opponents who had gathered gear through several Arena seasons. This was addressed philosophically with the introduction of Outlands reputation PvP gear, which were identical to the rare PvP sets obtainable through Honor. I say philosophically because by the time these item sets became available to players, it was too late. Starting Arenas at that point would find players matched up against other players wearing epic gear from the past seasons. In fact, wearing such dated gear only served to mark the player as easy targets.
Savage, Hateful, and Deadly
Really, who comes up with these names? They're not so bad, though. They just sound funny when you bunch them all together -- like what we're about to do now. You see, more Gladiator gear has popped up on the Beta realms, with a slew of Deadly Gladiator items showing up on Wowhead and previewed on MMO Champion. We've seen Savage Gladiator items, which are blue quality gear for PvP, and I made a quick post about Hateful Gladiator items a week ago. Now comes the Deadly Gladiator pieces, which have been dropping off the Wintergrasp raid boss.Right now it's too early to tell if this is really how PvP loot will be distributed, although a faction-locked raid boss really does provide a good incentive to participate in Lake Wintergrasp. It might simply be a way to quickly distribute Arena PvP gear in Beta for more testing. For one thing, it's highly likely that Archavon will be dropping tokens rather than the pieces themselves. Furthermore, this leaves the Arena system without any rewards left to give -- though Deadly Gladiator weapons have yet to show up. It's pretty safe to assume that the way these items are distributed will change greatly between now and November 13.
