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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsRaiding gear vs. Arena gear
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Jun 14th 2007 at 11:26AM
With the advent of Arena season 2, a lot of people are looking forward to the new arena sets. But others are wondering if gear gained from the arenas should be better, worse, or equal to gear from raiding. Two forum topics -- "ARENA GEAR should NOT = RAIDING GEAR" and "Raiding gear should NOT = Arena gear" purport to pit PVEers against PVPers, even though most people seem to do a mix of both.
Basically, the argument goes like this:
- Raider: Anyone can get arena epics fairly easily just by PVPing a few matches a week, so why should they be as good as the drops I spent hours raiding for?
- Arena player: Any brainless monkey can mash a keyboard against programmed opponents. Facing other people is the real test of skill in WoW, so we should get the best gear.
- Everyone else: Hey, aren't the PVP sets better for PVP and the PVE sets better for PVE? What's wrong with that? It's not like that stamina and resilience are gonna do most people tons of good against Kael'thas.
Personally, as one of those elusive casual raiders, I like having the arena sets equal to raiding sets. It gets all the people who just want to gear up through raiding, then /gquit and PVP all the time out of raiding guilds. PVP gear should be best at killing other players, and PVE gear should be best at killing bosses. And when did doing Arena for a month to get ONE epic item become "easy epics"? It's only easy if you compare it to the old PVP honor system, which was life-destroying.
Drysc puts it pretty well in one of the threads: "You're not actually concerned that someone else is getting something easier than you, because you would go do it and wouldn't look back. You're either unable or unwilling to switch to what you perceive is the easier route, and want what you're invested in or willing to do made easier based on what you perceive matches the effort invested in the other." Basically, if you're raiding for gear and complain that Arena is easier, go do Arena, and vice versa.
Are you okay with the gear from raiding and from Arenas, or would you like to see one part of the game buffed? Is "PVEing to PVP" still a viable way of winning in PVP?
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
drakar Jun 14th 2007 4:05PM
I would consider myself a casual raider. We raid Kara 2-3 times per week. What I like about the Arena is that you can do 10 matches relatively quickly, score some points and when you have enough you are a guarenteed a good weapon at the very least. Rather than going in to a particular boss a million times and never having your weapon drop cause it's completely random, or losing it to someone else on a roll/DKP when it does drop.
The swords/daggers in arena are good enough for raiding and I'm saving for my swords right now rather than wait for Netherspite to drop that freakin' sword!
Quoi Jun 14th 2007 4:48PM
@20
Too bad everyone can't be on an arena team...oh wait. And last I checked, the epic bracers, neck, cloak, and boots came from BGs.
Gurei Jun 14th 2007 5:27PM
Arena gear,and raid gear,wahtever.
My only complain(also from my friends) is that the pvp and pve gear are now to o diferent,resielence and higher stam really ruined the fun of mixing both gear,my hunter friend was GM but he used that pvp gear on raids,now arena gear wouldnt be that good for dps right?
Also,ARENA=RAID,should also =PVP
pvp and arena are just as easy,if anyone says they arent hes just deniying it.
dude mcguy Jun 14th 2007 5:38PM
I think I can sum up the raider problem really quick.
Raid: I hope my [Item] drops and I win the roll.
Arena: What do I want to get today? Head or Chest
Raid: We all know this fight and where to stand right? All"Yes"
Arena: We don't know what we are up against but were gonna give 'em what for right? All"Death to our enemies"
10 wipes later
Raid: Aww man my gears all red.
Arena: Wanna go again?
Fadenor Jun 14th 2007 8:05PM
Has anyone else noticed how absolutely HORRID the Druids Arena Season 2 set is?
Seriously, horrid.
I'm going to complete my Season 1 set before even thinking about buying any of 2 just for the looks, as silly as it sounds. And I've never done anything like that before.
Mats Jun 14th 2007 9:38PM
I kinda have to agree with 14. The time spent in Arena or PVP should reflect the gear you get. Putting in 2 hours of Arena to get a head-item that requires something along the lines of 50 hours of raiding in PvE is useless.
If we should balance it out: Every time you down a boss, everyone in that raid gets a token. Token is worth 1 Epic item. This way, with 50 hours of raiding, every raider in your raid will have every item they needed from the instance. Just like after 50 hours of Arena PvP, you have every arena gear you want.
As for BG pvp, it should be worth more. 100 AV tokens is quite a task to get, and after getting them you should have a better item then what 4 weeks of 30min Arena pvping each week will get you.
Dean Jun 14th 2007 10:24PM
"You lose in arena? You still get a little honor. I think it's nice they give the pvper's some pretty nice gear for putting in a lil time, but to make it equal to raid gear?... then honestly what the hell is the point to raiding then?"
You don't get honor in ranked arena games.
But anyway, if you don't enjoy raiding then you're right, what is the point? If it's not fun, why are you doing it? I know you can apply that arguement in a lot of places: some people don't like levelling or grinding rep, but when asked why they do it it's always "so I can do better in raiding or PvP".
Raiding *is* the end game, it *is* what you get all the gear for, so if you're not enjoy that, what exactly is the point? You can't even argue that it's to get gear for PvP anymore as most raid gear sucks in PvP...
CrpyTech Jun 15th 2007 12:07AM
#27 "Raiding *is* the end game, it *is* what you get all the gear for, so if you're not enjoy that, what exactly is the point?"
This thinking is why WarHammer is going to suck the WoW servers empty. I solo'd my first warrior to 60 and then spent months in BG pvp and it was the best fun I've had in any game.
BC comes out, what was decent purples rewards in BG now don't compare to arena or raiding at all. Hell they didn't even get new skins, the look is the same as it was 2 years ago. Why be a 70? So you can grind endless useless fation rep. BG's are almost empty compared to pre-BC and the raid content is beyond the reach of the Majority of WoW's 8,000,000 declining subscribers.
ben1778 Jun 15th 2007 9:52AM
Ive read this a couple times in here, "There's no good gear to be had from the regualr BGs".
So, the Epic level Boots, belt, bracers, cape, neck, and rare-quality ring aren't any good? I beg to differ. I think those are pretty decent pieces of PvP gear. Plus there are the (now very cheap) gems to be purchased with honor. Also, if you haven't checked mana-users can buy 7200-mana water in a 5stack for 25silver + 2 honor points from the accessories quartermaster (which is about HALF of the normal vendor water of that level).
Plenty of pvp stuff to get from the regular BGs. Plenty of stuff to get from the arena.
Plenty of stuff to get from raids.
As has been said before:
People aren't really upset with gear equality, they are just upset that other people might get more purples than them. It's an ego thing. if you compare the numbers and compare the gear in opposite situations (taking PvE gear to the arena for example) anyone who witnesses this can tell you it doesn't work. Raiders jealous of arena set wearing people? Fine, bring one of them with you to Mag and see how long they last. Likewise an arena team would most likely rather a caster have 200 resilience and 700+spelldmg than 0 resilience and 1200+ spell dmg.
The gear doesn't translate well from one activity to the other... so it's really only about "That guy is getting purples with fewer minutes spent" without considering if they'd actually WANT those purples the other guy has.
Bill G Jun 15th 2007 12:39PM
For rogues, the arena weapons are an incredible deal in terms of time invested vs. value received. Guaranteed "drops" of exactly the weapon types you want, as good as the best able to be raided at the time.
I have a PVE rogue, I suck at PVP and haven't put any talents into it, but I still play my 10 matches a week keep an ~1500 rating and will be choosing my weapons soon that will equal anything that drops for my guild in the next several months.
Kaylek Jun 15th 2007 12:41PM
inc Holy Paladin:
If you're a Shock build Paladin, tier gear doesn't do anything for you. Tier sets do one of three things: melee damage, block+defense, or healing power. Notice the lack of anything specializing in spell damage (ie. a stam+int set with damage+healing).
On the other hand, arena gear was the wonderful Aegis set, with the Shock Paladin in mind. Stamina, intellect, resilience (which every PVPer wants, and ever tier set lacks), and most of all, spell damage and crit.
In other words, if you're a Holy/Ret shockadin for the sake of PVP (hell, even if you're trying to run PVE as Holy DPS, however ludicrous that is), Arena gear is hands down the gear of choice.
That's not so much the case for other classes, but it comforts me to know that doing what I do best (PVP) will get me the best gear for my role, without having to make glances over at the big raiding guilds and plot how I'm gonna weasel my way in for spell gear as an honorable run-of-the-mill healadin (only to go head to head with mages and locks for spell swords).
However, the only issue I have is that the best spell damage shields are only available through PVE. The arena weapons have no such shield to speak of.
Falazure Jun 28th 2007 8:33PM
ok .. this is how i see it. Im a PvP lock i have 8k hp and 9k mana, my guild wont let me raid karazhan cause i spent the last 3 months doing AV, AB, ect. i have 4/5 pieces of the merciless gladiator set, total i have 10 epic items. this is insane...PvP'ers shouldnt be punished for doing PvP. i personally think PvP is much better than raiding...but i would still like to try those really tough raids simply because i want to see what it is like. I can destroy most of my guild but since i dont have PvE raiding gear tier crap im not allowed in... Warning if you ever want to raid...DONT DO PVP!!!!
fiffer86 Jul 18th 2007 5:54PM
Well im sorry to inform you guys, but the arena gear IS as good as the pve gear, just not for pve. You think Blizzard doesent know what their doing? And for anyone to say the raiding gear is "harder" to get then arena gear.... plzzzz. All it takes is a guild. The only thing that makes getting the raiding tier gear hard is, 1) schedule of raids 2)not in a good raiding guild. But if you fit both of those catagories, guess what!? You can get multiple epics in a week! Of course with a little luck. So in perspective how many guilds are getting tier 5-6 gear on your server, then compare this to the amount of arena teams ON YOUR SERVER, that have a ranking of 1700+. Why 1700+? becuase with a 1700 raiting you would be able to get about 1.5 epics a month, if you keep playing at least 10 matches a week, and winning. On my Server their is 19 teams with this kind of ranking. (server, not Battle group). That means 24 people on my server are able to get 3 epics in 2 months (at most 48 acount for the people in the 1600 range). Thats 48 people in total. Raiding guilds have to run 25 man instances with 2+ bosses with multiple epic drops per boss. And on top of that if your lucky you have a chance of getting multiple drops in a run, or a week. So considering each week roughly 12 epics drop in a raid group (if your only running whats necisary could be more if your farming Kara and grulls). In a month thats 48 epics. So about 2 epics per person. In a month, reguardless of how uberleet you are at pwning the raid bosses :P. So i say its slightly in favor of people that raid. Just because on my server we have 5+ guilds that are at tier 5, and 1 or 2 that are tier 6 (last time i checked, could be more). So that is 125 people that care getting tier 5, and 25-50 thats getting tier 6. Compared to the whoping 48 (at max)thats getting arena set 2 gear, 2 epics a month. Still think pve should be better then arena and not balanced(if not more powerfull in pvp, which it is)?
fiffer86 Jul 19th 2007 3:32AM
srry, it should be 96 people for arena, not 24, so at most it would be 192 people. And I looked up our guild status. 12 are in tier 5, and 1 is in tier 6. So this means their are roughly (at least, not acoutning for guilds that are running with more then 1 group) 325 people on my server that are in tier 5. So 325 people vs. 192, and people still argue that raiding gear is harder to get? Sure it takes more time, but its not harder. In perspective, if you took every raid you ever did, and tally'd up how many times you failed the raid, and compare it to how many times somebody lost in a BG, or arena match, i know the amounts of whipes would be much lower. Becuase after you know what your doing in an instance/raid it becomes cake. Your fighting computer controled events, that you already know exactly what you need to do. But in bg or arena, their is always a slight variation, or the other team could have an edge due to gear. You dont get that in raiding. Im not trying to make raiding look bad, but i think its stupid when people that raid, make raiding look hard. Its not, get over it. You play wow because its fun, not because its a hard game to play. And anybody thats raiding tier 5 and 6, just to be able to gank, might as well relize now, that thats what the arena gear is for now.
mijuil Aug 25th 2007 11:30PM
the whole point of arena was to reward those that pvp'd WELL. not those that pvp'd A LOT. so rewarding time spent isnt going to work. its set up so that the good players will get better gear more quickly. similar to pve progression.
if your guild is uncoordinated and crap, you will get nowhere fast and get stuck in kara with kara loots. same for arena. sure you still get epics either way and arena takes less time, but each group of 'crap' players is getting the bottom of the barrel loot-wise(which is the whole idea).
you also need to consider how many epics are getting handed out each week. an average arena team will probably get 1 piece per month each. in a 5v5 thats 5 epics in a month for 1hr per week. an average pve guild will probably get to opera without much trouble. thats something like 12 epics per run. every week. yeah obviously some are going to be duplicates and not everyone will upgrade with every epic, but for an average guild id say at least 2-3 ppl are getting the upgrades they want out of each run. week by week pve is a lot more efficient for getting epic quality gear. dedicated pve'ers really have nothing to complain about.
yeah pve is spending more time, but they also get more epics. and you arent meant to be comparing time spent in pve vs arena anyway. theyre designed differently.