Advertisement

Raiding gear vs. Arena gear

With the advent of Arena season 2, a lot of people are looking forward to the new arena sets. But others are wondering if gear gained from the arenas should be better, worse, or equal to gear from raiding. Two forum topics -- "ARENA GEAR should NOT = RAIDING GEAR" and "Raiding gear should NOT = Arena gear" purport to pit PVEers against PVPers, even though most people seem to do a mix of both.

Basically, the argument goes like this:

  • Raider: Anyone can get arena epics fairly easily just by PVPing a few matches a week, so why should they be as good as the drops I spent hours raiding for?

  • Arena player: Any brainless monkey can mash a keyboard against programmed opponents. Facing other people is the real test of skill in WoW, so we should get the best gear.

  • Everyone else: Hey, aren't the PVP sets better for PVP and the PVE sets better for PVE? What's wrong with that? It's not like that stamina and resilience are gonna do most people tons of good against Kael'thas.

Personally, as one of those elusive casual raiders, I like having the arena sets equal to raiding sets. It gets all the people who just want to gear up through raiding, then /gquit and PVP all the time out of raiding guilds. PVP gear should be best at killing other players, and PVE gear should be best at killing bosses. And when did doing Arena for a month to get ONE epic item become "easy epics"? It's only easy if you compare it to the old PVP honor system, which was life-destroying.

Drysc puts it pretty well in one of the threads: "You're not actually concerned that someone else is getting something easier than you, because you would go do it and wouldn't look back. You're either unable or unwilling to switch to what you perceive is the easier route, and want what you're invested in or willing to do made easier based on what you perceive matches the effort invested in the other." Basically, if you're raiding for gear and complain that Arena is easier, go do Arena, and vice versa.

Are you okay with the gear from raiding and from Arenas, or would you like to see one part of the game buffed? Is "PVEing to PVP" still a viable way of winning in PVP?