[WoW] Level 80 PVP gear info and screenies

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Main link, ('http://vnboards.ign.com/world_of_warcraft_general_board/b19789/108703877/p1/?15') or link 2 ('http://www.spooncraft.com/pvp/wrath-of-the-lich-king-beta-arena-gear-update-savage-hatefull-gladiator/') , or link 3. ('http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=17417.0') Looks like the info was from Sept. 18, so might not be news to some of you. :P

Note that the screenie I saw with the Blue starter PVP set showed a hunter with about 22k HP, 10k mana and 3100AP with the dual-wielded "Savage Gladiator" weaps (blue).

Yeah, remember people saying that stamina wasn't going up as much as it did in BC?

+447STA/+222RES for the blue 1st-tier (Savage Gladiator's) 5-pc + dw weapons on a hunter. <--- same gear the guy with 22k HP posted above.
+643 stamina for the purple 3rd-tier (Deadly Gladiator's) 5-pc + dw hunter weapons.
versus today's:
+378 stamina for S4 hunter 5-pc + dw weapons
+317 stamina for S2 hunter 5-pc + dw weapons
And for a frame of reference, the Arena 6 beta gear for locks has:
+644 stamina _just_ for the 5-pc set.

[Dominian]

Disapointing that all wepons look the same just with different colour.. Well atleast the blue pvp set is not the same as the two epic ones?

What is required to get the deadly gear compared to the hateful gear btw?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Disapointing that all wepons look the same just with different colour.. Well atleast the blue pvp set is not the same as the two epic ones?

What is required to get the deadly gear compared to the hateful gear btw?Check the links. ;)

[merujo]

its all the same sh!t in different colours. but the worst imo, its how ugly the sets can get, i mean, theres not a single set, from blue to best epic, nothing looks nice.

it was said that pve and pvp sets would get different skins... if this is the idea, gz to the designer.

[Baía]

I'm amazed on how Blizzard is lacking creativity when making new gear sets for WotLK. Come on, they all look like sets you get when u're leveling... it's ridiculous.
Where are all those glowing effects that make you drool each time you see someone with a high level gear set? I've seen green pieces with better look than the ones belonging to all these Gladiator sets.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'll agree on the armor. Ever since T3, IMO, the armor sets have looked like the artists were running out of ideas except for weapons and shields.

[FtGeno]

Wow, no imagination whatsoever in designing the appearance of these armor sets. At least the stats are good but still, they look completely uninspired. If they're having this hard a time designing these sets why not hold a contest, put the artists to work? At the very least they could hold a poll (on the log in screen) and let us pick our favorites of previous sets, maybe put a new spin on them? Nice find though.

[Ken]

Damn this really sucks ...
If you compare the level 80 gear that requires no arena ratings with the gear that requires the highest ratings, you see that the second is about a third more powerful in stats!
This means that better players aren't just better, they also get a +-50% gear stat advantage. It's good that people are being rewarded because of their effort, but 50% is just rabid in my opinion.
Another Blizzard balancing fail... This is almost as worse as introducing the 'resilience' stat after they failed to fix their "critical hit" system. :thumbdown:

[edit] When you consider that the current difference in gear (blue vs best epic pvp gear) is already 20% and imo way too much, I don't understand why they made the difference even bigger.

[edit2] And on that note: Isn't it sad that you don't have any chance in an Arena when you're wearing a full blue PvE set?

[bugilt]

You have to give it to them though. Designing that much crap for a game is just amazing. If you have 1,000,000 things to design in a game I'm sure you'd reuse some models to save time. With that being said, I'm glad they take the time to make the high level stuff new models. I'm sure if anyone could come up with one good idea and posted it they would more than likely implement it. I was the guy who knew everything about my class and everything related to it when I was getting in my t1-t6, but Just seeing all the content they have put into these games is to time consuming for me. I can look through it on MMO over a few days, but that doesn't do it justice for the amount of work put into it.

They also typically add more models into the game at the release of the patch or xpac.

[pixelimp]

Ugliest set ever ?

Not looking forward to seeing my shamans in that

[emesis]

Guess I'm not going to do a whole lot of PvP on my shammy team which is about to reach 70. Just going to do enough to get the S2 weapon to streamline leveling in the x-pack.

Now I need to bring up my second team to 31 so I can insta-upgrade them to 60 via RAF before that runs out. Deciding on the composition has been what's holding me back on that ... so many choices, though I will definitely start a pally tank.

Tier 7 for pallies does look a little metro, however: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-A1VMDHtpc

(not a Rick Roll; very funny if you haven't seen this yet, I promise ...)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

On a related note, Kalgan had some feedback ('http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10544541923&pageNo=1&sid=2000#4') regarding the availability of tier 1(S5?) PVP gear for arena points:

To address the point of not having access to any pvp gear before attempting to start arenas, I don't actually feel that's accurate. We've made a point to include easily craftable pvp gear of dungeon quality to give players a chance to get their feet in the door before moving along the upgrade path.

The Savage Gladiator set is actually of item level 200s (superior), equivalent to the item level of a heroic instance. So, in much the same way that you might expect a player to first gear up in normal mode instances and get a handful of ilevel 187s items before proceeding to the heroics, the philosophy is that in the pvp case players will get the 187s crafted pvp items before attempting endgame pvp activity.

In addition, players have access to ilevel 200e (epics) for the boots, belt, bracers, ring, neck, trinket, cape exclusively through honor (equivalent item level to end-boss heroic instances, nax 10, or items from the Emblem of Heroism vendor). These items, combined with the crafted items, provide a pretty good base of items from which a player might make an entry into the arenas.

At that stage, the number of arena points required for a player to get a piece of Savage Gladiator equipment is tuned to be pretty generous. Even at a significantly sub-1500 rating, a player can generally get about a piece of the Savage Gladiator set with the points from one week (10 games), which is generally about a time investment of less than an hour of arena play per week. This seems to stack up very competitively with how long it might take running heroic instances to get a piece of gear for your character.

As far as the question as to why the Savage Gladiator set requires arena points, there needs to be a set of gear obtainable through arena points that requires no rating, otherwise there's simply nothing for a player of 1500 or below to play for, beyond the hope that they might at some point go above 1600 rating (which not everyone is guaranteed to do).

It's certainly valid to express one's dislike for the arena playstyle, although is it entirely different than requiring players that love the arenas to play in the battlegrounds to get their boots, belt, bracer, rings, neck, trinkets, and cape? One could also make the argument that it's somewhat similar to the fact that we "require" all players to level-up in order to participate in end-game content, or perhaps that engaging in tradeskills is "required" to be maximally competitive in raiding or pvp gameplay.

We’re also doing what we can to address the fact that players that don’t have high ratings can often still get steamrolled by highly rated players that are starting new teams, helping friends, etc. As I’ve described in another post, we have plans to keep a persistent “under-the-hood” rating for all characters that is used for determining matchmaking, so that even if a highly rated player starts a new team (or joins another low-rated team), the system will know what opponents that team should really be playing against.

That being said, the fact that some players feel there is too much emphasis on the arena as a method for getting powerful endgame pvp gear is heard and understood. We'd love for players to be able to get high-end gear from the battlegrounds, and it's something that will definitely factor into our plans for the future. However for now, we don't have a way to measure "skill" in a battleground in a way that getting the "best" items in the game through battlegrounds would feel equitable when compared to what is required as far as co-ordination and success in pve to get items of equivalent power.

Of course, I realize that the subject of "skill" is another topic of debate on its own, with many players citing gear quality and team comps as factors in determining the outcome (some seem to go as far as to imply that it's all that matters). Clearly, those factors do influence the outcome, but not in a way that makes skill irrelevant. If that were the case, it wouldn't be very hard to step onto the stage with some of the pro-gamers in the tournament and take them down in a match of even gear and comps. However, I can assure you that while I consider myself (for example) a pretty respectable player when it comes to arenas, I and a pair of similarly skilled teammates probably wouldn't win more than 1 in every 100 games against the top players despite using identical gear and comps. Like it or not, that's skill.

That aside, it is important for me to point out that the arenas were never really meant to become quite as much of a focal point for the overall pvp game as they have (part of why we set the system up so players could get the full benefit from the system with only 10 total games per week), it's more of a natural consequence of the fact that because we have a way to measure success that feels reasonably balanced against pve, we're able to put high-end items there, which on its own creates the focus of importance. I'd venture to say that if there were no item rewards in the arena system, they wouldn't be quite the subject of debate that they are now (either with respect to overshadowing battlegrounds or with respect to the microscope that class balance gets put under as a result).
[ Post edited by Kalgan ]

[mmcookies]

i actually like the arena points + honor for pvp gear idea

i really hate farming for BG marks in the current system