Archavon-the-Stone-Keeper
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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.
Victory in Lake Wintergrasp yields a raid boss
If you're one of those people that absolutely hates PvE in PvP and vice versa, you're not going to be much of a fan of an aspect of Lake Wintergrasp that was introduced recently. After your faction wins in Wintergrasp, a raid boss becomes available to you for four hours afterwards: Archavon the Stone Keeper. Like all Wrath of the Lich King raids, this instanced raid comes in both 10 and 25 man flavors. It seems like a rather quick and easy fight, and its rewards are a bit curious. Beating this boss yields high end PvP gear. You know, Hateful Gladiator. And the 25 Man version? 4 pieces of Naxxramas equivalent gear.Currently, the encounter is trivial according to just about everyone that has tested it. The 10-man version is a breeze, and the 25-man version can be done with 10 people. I think it's safe to say this encounter isn't complete yet, or at least it needs some major retuning. I'm not sure how I feel about what loot this encounter drops. If it's intended, it seems like a rather trivial way to award those things. Season 5 armor from a raid boss? I know around Patch 2.4 they put in the ability to trade armor tokens from dungeons for old season gear, but this boss is essentially awarding the cutting edge arena gear for a 10 minute jaunt into a dungeon. Granted, your faction needs to have control of Wintergrasp, but the point remains. It's really, really easy to get gear that should take a little effort to get. There's still the RNG to deal with, but I still think this boss should have a wholly different loot table.
