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Arena Season 2 item stats (Warrior) [u]
MMO-Champion comes through again with concrete details on new content. As listed in the patch notes, 2.1.2 on the PTRs contains the Arena Season 2 items. The set names are apparently "Merciless Gladiator's [Whatever]." Most of the sets do not seem to be activated yet, but we have the full stats and appearance of the Warrior set, Merciless Gladiator's Battlegear (pictured at right).Thanks to a helpful commenter at Wowhead, I have the following comparison between this set and the Season 1 equivalent, Gladiator's Battlegear. The new set has, as compared to the old one:+639 armor+36 strength+31 stamina+22 crit rating+18 hit rating+6 resilienceThe gem slots and set bonuses remain the same. It would be nice if you could mix and match between Season 1 and Season 2 sets in order to get set bonuses, but I'm not sure whether this is actually the case.Hopefully stats on the other sets will come to light soon; if that happens, I'll update this post.Update: skins and set bonuses for all the classes' sets are now available.
Collect the whole set!
My little blood elf pally has finally hit 40 and got her free mount, and with it comes a new goal -- collecting the entire Chain of the Scarlet Crusade set from Scarlet Monastery. I probably would have never thought of doing it until I got the only BOP part of the set during my first Cathedral run. Then I got the Aegis of the Scarlet Commander and Herod's Shoulder, and realized that I was starting to look pretty cool. At that point, it became a quest. I knew it would be difficult -- and that I'd even have to go back at 70, most likely -- but I still want to do it. As I write this, I'm off to tag along in Armory with a 70 rogue from my guild who is doing silk farming in hopes of getting the Ravager or the mail helm from Herod. All in all, I only need the helm, chestpiece and boots to look like a real Scarlet Crusader. The tabard would be nice but not necessary. The boots are extremely rare, so I'm either going to have to do a lot of farming or plunk down some money from my epic flying mount fund. But it'll be worth it when I can stand in the lobby of Scarlet Monastery and taunt the Alliance. Hmm, the Ashbringer would also be a nice fit ... Have you ever wanted to collect the full set of something, whether it be from BRD or Naxx? Have you ever bought an item just because it was cool to have it?
AddOn Spotlight: ItemRack
This is one AddOn that I'd recommend to just about everyone. ItemRack lets you construct sets of equipment, and allows you to switch them based on hotkeys, events, or menu activation. For example, on my Priest, I have a heal set, a solo set (pictured), and a fire resistance set, which I use ItemRack's menu to switch between, although I should probably set hotkeys (it's also got plugins for FuBar and Titan Bar). I also have a Plaguelands set, which consists of my Argent Dawn trinket, that gets auto-equipped whenever I enter the PL, and a mount set, which has my boots with spurs, that gets auto-equipped when I mount up.
Tier 5 stats from the BC beta
It appears the vendor for the Tier 5 armor has appeared on the beta (like Naxx, Tier 5 will be distributed via a token system), and I gotta say it looks cool. I found all the pictures here (a few classes are still missing at the moment), but I've hosted them here as well in case that resource disappears for whatever reason: Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Warlock.As a point of reference, I see a lot of** damage and healing* on one of the Priest sets (the Tier 3 set has +483), and that's not counting all the pluses to spell crits, hits, and so on (not to mention filled jewel sockets, of which none of these currently have). The set bonuses are nice as well-- particularly the Hunter's, where only a two piece set bonus gives every pet attack a chance to heal the pet for a small amount. Finally, it looks like the sets are made up of only five pieces each, which means it'll be that much easier to get those bonuses in place (and combine them with other sets that may happen to show up).So what do you think? I'm not blown away by the stats completely, but there's no question these are extremely nice upgrades, even from Tier 3. And I still think that the Warlock, Mage, and Rogue sets look freakin' sweet.*Update: Druid dude insightfully points out what I missed: the Priest bonus is for damage and healing, not just healing. I might take back what I said about not being blown away-- that's awesome.**Update2: My math skills FTL. For specific numbers on how the new sets' +dmg and +healing compare to old sets, see the comments below.
Breakfast Topic: Your Dream Gear
Ocelot Eyes in the WoW ladies LJ group has a dream-- and it is to dual wield Thekal and Arlokk's Grasps, two uber looking fist weapons that drop from the bosses in ZG. There's the gear we're all working towards right now on quests or drops-- and then there's the dream gear we all want.Sure, we'd all love to be walking around in Tier 3 (and for my little Gnome warrior, that's exactly what I would love to see him in), but for each one of us, there's probably some gear that just fits with what we want our characters to be. For my Shaman, it's the Tier 0 shoulders, the Pauldrons of Elements. Yeah, it'd be nice to have the Tier 1 shoulders (my guild is working through MC, and it's likely that I'll get them before long, to go with a few other Earthfury pieces I've already picked up), but the Elements, with those little hooky things, just seem like the perfect shoulders for my Shaman. Just seeing those on other characters was one of the reasons I rolled Shaman, and so even if I get better stuff, I just have to have them.Likewise, on my Priest I'm already determined to jump the hoops for Benediction / Anathema-- it's a tough (and long) quest, but that's just so the right weapon for my Priest, especially since I plan to keep her shadow specced. And I sent my rogue on many, many more runs through Deadmines than I needed to, just because I wanted to have the Defias Leather set early on.So spit it out-- what's your dream gear? What's that one piece or that one set of armor that you just have to have?
