Project Lore

Fighting in Lake Wintergrasp is among the most effective ways to obtain honor. With the addition of the weekly quests, you can jump in once or twice a week for an absurd return on time invested. Its no wonder that there is such immense lag whenever the battles start. In addition to honor, there are many other rewards to be had in Wintergrasp! Just like in a battleground, you recieve Marks of Honor upon the conclusion of the battle; 3 for a win and 1 for a loss. These can be exchanged for a variety of great gear. The first set of gear to note is the variety of trinkets, which will run you 25 marks each. There are the "Titan-forged Runes", which provide the "PvP Trinket" effect of being able to remove all movement impairing effects every 2 minutes, but also give a PvE stat. I don't really understand these items to be honest or why anyone would use them over a Medallion of the Horde/Alliance. The next trinkets are the Anvil of Titans/Flow of Knowledge, which provide 84 resilience and a chance on a successful melee attack/spellcast to increase attack power/spell power by 1000/590. Some players may recognize this as the PvP version of the Mirror of Truth/Sundial of the Exiled. You should note that they all share the same internal 45 second cooldown. Finally, you can acquire the Platinum Disks of Battle/Sorcery/Swiftness to increase AP/SP/haste on use, as well as provide resilience. Since I usually burst down targets once I open on them in PvP anyway, I use the Anvil of Titans and Medallion of the Horde. Next up are the Titan-forged belts. These are iLevel 213 and are nearly identical to the Deadly Gladiator's series of belts. You can pick them up for a mere 15 marks. The Titan-forged chest pieces are also on par with Deadly Gladiator's chest pieces at 40 marks, while the Titan-forged helms are on par with Hateful helms, also at 40 marks.  The  Cloth wearers can choose between haste (Salvation) and hit (Dominance). Rogues get armor penetration (Triumph), while druids can pick between the rogue piece and hit or haste. Hunters and Shaman also get to pick between Dominance, Salvation, and Triumph, while Warriors and Death Knights get only Triumph. Paladins get the choice of Salvation and Triumph. These provide great alternatives to spending honor on your entry level PvP gear. However, note that by using Titan-forged pieces, you don't get the Gladiator's set bonus from those pieces. Choose wisely!

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Patch 3.2 is bringing sweeping changes to all sorts of PvP. Blizzard has been trying to push arenas to give WoW an "e-sport" status, perhaps hoping to follow their Starcraft model for longevity. As such, patch 3.2 is bringing major changes to PvP to extend the meta-game of arenas, notably hitting the issues that Ghostcrawler outlined. The first major change to note is the resilience mechanic. Resilience's major selling point has been reducing the chance that the player will be critically hit and reducing the damage players receive from critical strikes. Its lesser benefits include reducing the effect of mana-drains and the damage done by DoTs. Now, instead of only applying to DoTs, the damage mitigation applies to all damage done by players. This is a huge buff to resilience. Most players don't even notice a survivability difference from having resilience until they are at at least 500 resilience, and don't even think you will be effective unless you have at least 800 in this season. However, with all the stats you have to "sacrifice" by using PvP gear instead of PvE gear, many players go into arenas with tier 8 and clean house by bursting down the other teams with no problem. With this resilience change, Blizzard doesn't have to worry so much about itemizing resilience to take less of an item's allocated stats. Players will see much higher returns from resilience much earlier on, and resilience will become much more valuable in arenas, to the point of trumping every other stat. Expect price hikes on resilience gems! Another implication of this is higher survivability overall. Its a subtle nerf to RMP (rogue/mage/priest) in 3v3 as well as as cleave teams (teams that focus on damage rather than survivability). RMP has dominated the 3v3 bracket for quite awhile now and its hardest matchup has been defensive teams with good survivability. The viability of cleave and RMP teams is going to tank, and it its viability is always going to fluctuate proportionally to the survivability vs. damage trade-off. The second huge change to arenas is the change to the 2v2 bracket. The new tier of gladiator gear will require ratings in either 3v3 or 5v5, not 2v2. Your 2v2 rating can still be used to purchase furious gladiator stuff going into season 7, but if you can break 1500, you are going to need a 3v3 or 5v5 to get the new gear. Casual arena players who can't break 1500 won't care, but 2200+ players that have all of the furious gladiator gear already probably won't bother too much with 2v2. For those players or those who can play 3v3 or 5v5 as well as 2v2, the only reason to 2v2 is if their 3v3 and 5v5 can't net them things like the Gladiator title and Frost Wyrm. With less serious competition in the 2v2 bracket, I predict that 2v2 ratings will be easier to get in season 7, and arenas will continue to be more accessible. Blizzard has been trying very hard to push 3v3 and 5v5 since everyone is so concerned with 2v2, such as with the 3v3 and 5v5 rating buffs. Its difficult enough to balance classes to work in both PvP and PvE, let alone battlegrounds, 2v2, and the larger arena teams. This officially gives them an alibi to not have to balance 2v2 as carefully and make some sacrifices to 2v2 balance in order to ensure that the top tier of players playing in 3v3 and 5v5 have the best experience possible. The maps have also gotten some tweaks. The two new arenas in Wrath have been considered to be terrible, gimmicky, buggy, and random by the majority of the player base. They are even disabled for some tournament play. Dalaran sewers is getting a little bit of love. Its getting 25% bigger and the LoSing (line of sight-ing) on the crates is being adjusted. Mounts are also now usable in this arena. This gives this map more room to breathe and a better mechanic for LoSing instead of those tiny crates that are too close to the edge. Ruins of Lordaeron has had some terrain issues fixed with the tomb in the middle, and a couple of gravestones have been added for LoSing, while the starting alcoves have been removed (I wonder where players start after this change...). Finally, lets not forget the profession changes. Alchemy has a whole new mechanic and all the professions are getting buffed. Is this the best patch for arenas yet, or could you care less?

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Patch 3.1 introduced arena season 6. While PvP will likely get a large makeover in 3.2 and the number of arena players is at an all-time low, it isn't difficult to get some good PvP gear to jump into the fray if you are so inclined. The most successful PvP outlets are Lake Wintergrasp and the five battlegrounds, which award large amounts of honor. Players can also now convert arena points to honor by purchasing Commendation of Bravery for 100 (arena points, or AP), awarding 2,000 honor (and allowing you to get a head start in honor between seasons). Any team that plays 10 games a week gets arena points regardless of their rating. For teams below 1500, a 2v2 team will get 261 AP, a 3v3 will get 303 AP, and a 5v5 will get 344 AP. If you are just going for honor rewards, that is the equivalent of 5220, 6060, or 6880 honor respectively. That's a lot of honor for just playing 10 games! Below is the complete list of rewards from honor and arena and their cost. We earlier speculated about this list; this one is the correct and complete one for 3.0.8 and presumably the rest of season 6 and 3.1. Arena required denotes Arena Points, Honor designates Honor Points, Archavon/Emalon designates that those pieces drop from them, and Option Two lists a second exchange rate for some items. Rating is required only if bought with arena/honor/badges. This list does not include gear bought with badges. Later, we will look at the PvP gear available from Wintergrasp.

Item	Honor Required	Rating Required	Arena Required	Archavon Normal	Archavon Heroic	Emalon Normal	Emalon Heroic	Option Two: Honor	Option Two: Arena
Deadly Gladiator’s Wrists	31600	0	0			Yes
Hateful Gladiator’s Gloves	31600	0	0	Yes				7200	200
Hateful Gladiator’s Shoulders	31600	0	0					9600	275
Deadly Gladiator’s Necklace	38000	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Cloak	38000	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Ring	38000	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Belt	49600	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Boots	49600	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Battlemaster Trinket*	49600	0	0
Hateful Gladiator’s Legs	49600	0	0	Yes				12000	350
Hateful Gladiator’s Tunic	49600	0	0	Yes				12000	350
Hateful Gladiator’s Helm	49600	0	0					12000	350
Deadly Gladiator’s Idol/Libram/etc**	6400	1250	350
Deadly Gladiator’s Gloves	7200	1300	400		Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Legs	12000	1350	700		Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Tunic	12000	1400	700		Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Wrists	39400	1400	0				Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Helm	12000	1450	700
Furious Gladiator’s Belt	62000	1450	0				Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Shoulders	9600	1500	550
Furious Gladiator’s Boots	62000	1500	0				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Necklace	47400	1550	0				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Gloves	0	1600	1300				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Rings	47400	1650	0				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Legs	0	1700	2150				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Tunic	0	1750	2150
Furious Gladiator’s Trinket	62000	1800	0
Furious Gladiator’s Offhand	0	1850	1100
Furious Gladiator’s One-hand Weapons (tier 1)**	35000	1850	1200
Furious Gladiator’s Two-hand/Range Weapons (tier 1)**	50000	1850	1400
Furious Gladiator’s Helm	0	1900	2150
Furious Gladiator’s Thrown/Wand/Idol/etc	0	1950	1150
Furious Gladiator’s Shield	0	1950	1950
Furious Gladiator’s Cloak	47400	2000	0				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Shoulders	0	2050	1750
Furious Gladiator’s Tabard	0	2300	500
Furious Gladiator’s One-hand Weapons (tier 2)***	35000	2350	3000
Furious Gladiator’s Two-hand/Range Weapons (tier 2)***	50000	2350	4250

*designates iLevel 213 items from this list **designates iLevel 232 weapons from this list ***designates iLevel 239 weapons from this list What PvP rewards are you picking up these season? What image should I use for PvP articles; I'm as tired of Murkimus as you are. Make or link one in the comments and maybe you'll see it on the next post!

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Recently I commented on crafted PvP gear and how cheap it was. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. While its a cheap way to get started for PvP gear, PvE is so easy right now that you can easily get much better gear from heroics or even just level 80 instances. The next step up (although debatable) is the Savage Gladiator's set. The Savage Gladiator's set is not that much better than crafted PvP gear by and large, and for the amount of effort it takes to get Savage Gladiator's items, its not difficult to clear some heroics for comparable, if not superior, gear. In patch 3.1, Savage Gladiator will no longer be obtainable. Instead, the current step up from Savage Gladiator, Hateful Gladiator, will be purchasable for about the same amount of resources. In short, Savage Gladiator is really not that spectacular unless you really like playing battlegrounds and Wintergrasp and have lots of extra honor to burn. Most players are probably better holding off until 3.1 hits and Hateful Gladiator gets cheap. There are three options for purchasing the Savage Gladiator set in 3.0.x. You can use a lot of honor (45,000-70,000 per piece), arena points and some honor (200-400 arena points and 8,000-12,000 honor per piece), or Emblems of Heroism. You can purchase Hateful Gladiator's pieces with Emblems of Valor or arena points, rating, and honor. In 3.1, Hateful Gladiator will likely still have the option of being bought with Emblems of Valor, but you will definitely have the option of using only honor. Anything in the columns "Season 6" is still uncertain. It is unclear how VoA drops with work in Season 6, so I showed my best guess. Emblems of Conquest may be exchangeable with a requirement of some lowered rating for Furious Gladiator's gear; its unclear. "X honor" means that we know it will require only honor to be bought with a possible option of a mix of arena points and honor. "X arena points" means its certain that it will cost only arena points. "Removed from PvP currency exchange?" means that these items are probably no longer accessible.

	Season 5				Season 6
Item	Emblems	VoA	Rating Requirement	Cost	Emblems	VoA	Rating Requirement	Cost
Savage Gladiator's Gloves	30 Emblems of Heroism	X	0	50,000 honor OR 275 arena points and 9,600 honor	30 Emblems of Heroism?	X	0	Removed from PvP currency exchange?
Savage Gladiator's Shoulders	30 Emblems of Heroism	X	0	50,000 honor OR 275 arena points and 9,600 honor	30 Emblems of Heroism?	X	0	Removed from PvP currency exchange?
Savage Gladiator's Helm	45 Emblems of Heroism	X	0	60,000 honor OR 350 arena points and 12,000 honor	45 Emblems of Heroism?	X	0	Removed from PvP currency exchange?
Savage Gladiator's Legguards	45 Emblems of Heroism	X	0	60,000 honor OR 350 arena points and 12,000 honor	45 Emblems of Heroism?	X	0	Removed from PvP currency exchange?
Savage Gladiator's Chest	45 Emblems of Heroism	X	0	60,000 honor OR 350 arena points and 12,000 honor	45 Emblems of Heroism?	X	0	Removed from PvP currency exchange?
Deadly Gladiator’s Trinket	X	X	X	X	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator's Bracers	X	X	0	31,600 Honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator's Cloak	X	X	0	38,000 Honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator's Necklace	X	X	0	38,000 Honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator's Rings	X	X	0	38,000 Honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator's Belt	X	X	0	49,600 Honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator's Boots	X	X	0	49,600 Honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator's Trinket (Medallion of the Horde/Alliance)	X	X	0	49,600 Honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator's Gloves	30 Emblems of Valor	Normal	1615	7,200 honor and 400 arena points	30 Emblems of Valor?	Normal	0	?? Honor
Deadly Gladiator's Belt	X	X	1630	62,000 honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator’s Leggings	45 Emblems of Valor	Normal	1645	12,000 honor and 700 arena points	45 Emblems of Valor?	Normal	0	?? Honor
Deadly Gladiator's Bracers	X	X	1660	39,400 honor	X	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator’s Chest	45 Emblems of Valor	Normal	1675	12,000 honor and 700 arena points	45 Emblems of Valor?	Normal	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator’s Helm	45 Emblems of Valor	X	1735	12,000 honor and 700 arena points	45 Emblems of Valor?	X	0	?? Honor
Hateful Gladiator’s Shoulders	30 Emblems of Valor	X	1775	9,600 honor and 550 arena points	30 Emblems of Valor?	X	0	?? Honor
Deadly Gladiator's Wand/Relic/Idol/Libram/Totem	X	X	1930	1,200 arena points	X	X	1250	?? Arena points
Deadly Gladiator's Gloves	X	Heroic	1750	1,350 arena points	X	Heroic	1300	?? Arena points
Deadly Gladiator's Leggings	X	Heroic	1810	2,250 arena points	X	Heroic	1350	?? arena points
Deadly Gladiator's Chest	X	Heroic	1870	2,250 arena points	X	Heroic	1400	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Bracers	X	X	X	X	X	X	1400	?? Honor
Deadly Gladiator's Helm	X	X	1990	2,250 arena points	X	X	1450	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Belt	X	X	X	X	X	X	1450	?? Honor
Deadly Gladiator's Shoulders	X	X	2050	1,800 arena points	X	X	1500	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Boots	X	X	X	X	X	X	1500	?? Honor
Furious Gladiator's Neck	X	X	X	X	X	X	1550	?? Honor
Furious Gladiator's Gloves	X	X	X	X	30 Emblems of Conquest?	Heroic?	1600	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Rings	X	X	X	X	45 Emblems of Conquest?	X	1650	?? Honor
Furious Gladiator's Leggings	X	X	X	X	45 Emblems of Conquest?	Heroic?	1700	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Chest	X	X	X	X	X	Heroic?	1750	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Trinkets	X	X	X	X	30 Emblems of Conquest?	X	1800	?? Honor
Furious Gladiator's Weapons	X	X	X	X	X	X	1850	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Helm	X	X	X	X	X	X	1900	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Wand/Relic/Idol/Libram/Totem	X	X	X	X	X	X	1950	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Cloak	X	X	X	X	X	X	2000	?? Honor
Furious Gladiator's Shoulders	X	X	X	X	45 Emblems of Conquest?	X	2050	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Weapons (2nd tier)	X	X	X	X	X	X	2220	?? Arena points
Furious Gladiator's Tabard	X	X	X	X	X	X	2300	??

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