Sure, they'd fall down into the second tier of Arena gear. Blizzard previously said that the personal ratings would only be required for the top tier of Arena gear.

Hopefully something that looks unique.

You know take some actual effort and make something that isn't just a color palette change like PVP gear used to.

It was always gear to tell who the best PVPers and Raiders were rather then who has the discolored raid gear.

Maybe they'll reuse Dungeon Set skins, who knows?

I dunno, as a tanking warrior there's NOTHING in the PvP stuff for me. Maybe if I'm desperate and defense capped I'll use the Merciless shoulders but the badge DPS shoulders will probably be my first choice there.

The "worth" of PvE has nothing to do with gear, at all. People who enjoy PvE will continue to PvE regardless of the availability of PvP gear. If what you said was true, then all the raiding guilds would have /gdisband 'd by now and gone off to PvP, by they haven't (As evidenced by Guildwatch's 'Downed' section)

QQ

For tanks, arena gear isn't going to help.

For nearly everyone else, the process of running instances for blues to gear up for heroics to gear up for Kara is largely obsolete. Arena gear isn't ideal for PvE, but it's allowing some shortcutting.

It's already having an effect of letting players that haven't even learned their proper role in a 5 man jump into Kara. Not a great situation.

Arena gear is great for Off-Spec Builds like Retribution Paladins. Since Crusader Strike no longer gets a bonus from Spell Damage those Scaled Merciless Legging look great.

Is the whole point of raiding not to see new content? Who cares if PvP gear becomes available to more people...

To Matthew Rossi and George: are you f'n kidding me?

Unless you're among the handpicked few that raid Hyjal/BT, the S3 Vengeful Shield is the best thing you can get and it's not hard to store some pts for it in advance, since you won't need the arena rating of 1850 for it in S4.

Talk for yourselves maybe, but not in the name of us tanks out there.

"Arena isn't going to help"...shish.

Yea as a tankadin there isn't much for me in PvP gear. I think there is a spell damage mace that might be useful but that is it. It's not even that great considering being prot in PvP isn't all that fun anyhow.

Right, because one shield really changes what Matt and I were saying. *eyeroll*

This isn't just him and I saying this, it's essentially every tank I'm in contact with.

What I was getting at (that you clearly missed in your misplaced rant) is that with a full set of glad gear (any variety) for DPS and healing will let you walk onto Kara with little understanding of your class.

Tanks get a shield... and what about the rest of their gear?

"For nearly everyone else, the process of running instances for blues to gear up for heroics to gear up for Kara is largely obsolete. Arena gear isn't ideal for PvE, but it's allowing some shortcutting.

It's already having an effect of letting players that haven't even learned their proper role in a 5 man jump into Kara. Not a great situation."

This here is more of what I was referring to. Apologies for being obscure. My guild has JUST started on Kara, and I've already (as raid lead) had to lay out specifically what a few people are supposed to do. Mind you, these are people who are decked out in FULL S1 sets and decent blues. Yet they haven't run but 4 instances that require proper coordination (I'm looking at the Kara attunement line) so they have NO idea what role they occupy in the raid.

It's possible to raid in pvp gear but unless you're extremely lucky with your pve and pvp stats meshing or playing an off spec, like survival hunter or retribution paladin, going into any form of serious raiding is like going into a 2k rated arena match in your pve gear. You'll fail misserably.

It would've taken me ages to get ready for kara if I had to do it with the honor system back when we started raiding kara, but that was because everyone and their mother was doing 5man dungeon grinding. These days it's another story, and the avaibility of pvp gear is actually helping new guilds and late commers start raiding if anything.

Next season it'll be s2, and s2 is fairly decent - but at the time the next arena season arrive the game will be in a state where you'd be complete left behind if you were stuck in blues/s1. I think it's a marvelous system, because it ends the whole pre-burning crusade problem where some of us were wearing NAXX gear while others were wearing greens.

Equipment is not the point of raiding, obviously everyone likes getting it, but the reason we want it isn't to be better than anyone else, no, it's because it's the tool that lets you progress.

I play because I like the challenge, I like defeatining new content, but I also enjoy competing against other players - and I certainly don't want ot beat other players simply because I'm wearing much better equipment than they are.

I disagree with Mr Rossi....Merciless Gladiator shield wall is probably better than anything you can get from badges or in karazhan...the shield in gruul's lair is the first to challenge it IMO