I've chronicled my gear and arena records week by week on my blog, but I think what you're seeing is pretty universal.

I have fought folks with Gladiator titles and full vengeful that are on 1450 rated teams. I could tell all the same stories you're telling. If you just ding 70, you are at a severe disadvantage to folks who may be completely horrible but have slowly accumulated S2 and S3 gear.

The good news is Patch 2.4 rep-based-PvP items help. My first week in arena was spent with my new shamans (3 of them) at 6600 HP, 0 resilience, and 500 or less spell damage. I played with a warlock and we went 2-13. Things have slowly bounced their way up and down since then.

I'm sustaining between a 1550 and 1600 rating now, and I expect that with a couple more pieces of arena gear and some spell damage that we'll start breaking 1700. I think of our current situation as training to run with ankle weights on.

Hang in there, accumulate as much honor gear as you can, and work on your spell damage. That's going to be the biggest thing for you. The good news is that a S3 warrior on a 1500 team and a S3 warrior on a 2200 team will have about the same HPs. If you can get your tactics and teamwork with your partner solid, you'll be set for when your gear improves.

We are getting better, so my current complaint is not that the teams in the 1500-1600 have much better gear, it's that we will occasionally lose to a team that's at a 1300-1400 rating but is full of S3 geared folks. 18-20 point losses stink!


Keep at it-- If you can get better now, you'll totally mop up once the gear levels are matched better!