Project Lore

A new season of PvP is upon us! Along with all the great new armor for arena players, there is a lot of gear you can get without ever stepping foot into the arena. The entire Deadly Gladiator set is available for honor only, and many pieces can be attained in the Vault of Archavon. The chart below should be a handy reference for what pieces you can pick up. Its sorted first by rating required, with the first dozen or so not requiring any rating. This means you can get them from just doing battlegrounds. The "honor required" and "arena required" columns are non-exclusive; that is, a piece with an entry in both columns means that you must pay both the honor and arena points cost. For some pieces, you have a choice as to whether to use just honor or honor and arena points. Those options are listed in the "option two" columns. The VoA column shows the pieces that drop in the Vault of Archavon, with E25 standing for 25-man Emalon, K10 standing for Koralon 10-man, and K25 standing for Koralon 25-man.

Item	Rating Required	Honor Required	Arena Required	VoA	Option Two: Honor	Option Two: Arena
Deadly Gladiator's Idol/Libram/etc	0	15300	0
Deadly Gladiator's Gloves	0	31600	0		7200	200
Furious Gladiator's Wrists	0	31600	0	E25/K10
Deadly Gladiator's Shoulders	0	31600	0		9600	275
Furious Gladiator's Necklace	0	38000	0	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Rings	0	38000	0	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Cloak	0	38000	0	E25/K10
Deadly Gladiator's Legs	0	49600	0		12000	350
Deadly Gladiator's Tunic	0	49600	0		12000	350
Deadly Gladiator's Helm	0	49600	0		12000	350
Furious Gladiator's Belt	0	49600	0	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Boots	0	49600	0	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's PvP Trinket	0	49600	0
Furious Gladiator's Idol/Libram/etc	700	6400	350
Furious Gladiator's Gloves	800	7200	400	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Legs	900	12000	700	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Tunic	1000	12000	700
Furious Gladiator's Helm	1100	12000	700
Relentless Gladiator's Wrists	1200	39400	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Belt	1250	62000	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Boots	1300	62000	0	K25
Furious Gladiator's Shoulders	1350	9600	550
Relentless Gladiator's Gloves	1400	0	1300	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Neck	1450	47400	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Rings	1500	47400	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Legs	1550	0	2150	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Tunic	1600	0	2150
Relentless Gladiator's Battlemaster Trinket	1650	62000	0
Relentless Gladiator's Cloak	1750	47400	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Weapons/OH/Wands (Tier 1)	1800	15000+	1100+
Relentless Gladiator's Helm	1900	0	2150
Relentless Gladiator's Shoulders	2000	0	1750
Relentless Gladiator's Weapons/OH/Wands (Tier 2)	2200	0	1245+
Relentless Gladiator's Tabard	2350	0	500

What are you going for this season?

Click to read more ...

Maintenance day is always a good time for implementing hotfixes and this one is no exception. Several tweaks and (dare I say it) "nerfs" to Heroic Trial of the Crusader have been deployed onto servers, amongst other things. Here is a run-down of the changes: Northrend Beasts:

• Fixed a bug where the flag that prevents a creature from gaining attack speed after a parry was inadvertently left off Gormok the Impaler. This bug is fixed in normal mode as well.
• Gormok the Impaler no longer attacks quickly after a parry in any difficulty.
• Icehowl receives his fair share of change in the latest round of hotfixes. Increased the amount of time players have to defeat the encounter before Icehowl berserks.
• You have an extra half second to get out of the way of a very angry charging Yeti. Players with high ping rejoice.
• Icehowl will become tauntable. (This particular element isn't hotfixed quite yet, but should be shortly).
• Icehowl takes a bit longer to enter the arena in 10- and 25-player Heroic modes.
• Icehowl takes longer to berserk in both 10- and 25-player Heroic modes.

Lord Jaraxxus:

• Infernal Eruption will now spawn an additional Felflame Infernal the instant the eruption occurs.
• Nether Portal now summons Mistresses of Pain slightly more often.
• For both 10- and 25-player heroic modes, the Felflame Infernals and Mistresses of Pain will spawn a little quicker in the Lord Jaraxxus encounter.

Other

• Relentless Gladiator ranged weapons damage has been adjusted to the appropriate value for their item level.
• Holy Wrath now has diminishing returns and shares this with all other stuns (Blue poster, Daelo expands upon this in an additional post).

Seems like most of the changes are to the first two encounters which likely represent the wall most guilds are hitting when they attempt Heroic mode. While these aren't hardcore tweaks or anything (more issues of timing than, say, reducing health or damage dealt), I certainly hope they don't make these fights significantly easier in practice. I know my guild was quite happy to be presented with a fresh challenge, even if we wiped on Northrend Beasts for a good hour-and-a-half. Hard modes are supposed to be hard, right Blizz? What say you of these hotfixes, readers? I know they aren't drastic, but I'm always afraid of the slippery slope that even the smallest of nerfs can send us sliding down.

Click to read more ...