With every new expansion that Blizzard releases, a new arena season closely follows. This is no different for Warlords of Draenor. This guide will talk about a few ways to quickly get yourself geared and into the PvP action.

Overview of Gear

A new feature for this expansion is the implementation of iLvL scaling in PvP environments. This means that all of your gear that you are currently using will have its iLvL increased (along with its stat bonuses) to a balanced level in line with everyone else in the battleground. So you are probably wondering what the point of PvP gear is if all gear is scaled to an equal level? Well, there are now tiers of iLvL scales. If you have a piece of PvE gear equipped and enter a battleground/arena, the gear’s iLvL will be scaled to 650.

Primal Aspirant Gear

The first tier of PvP gear is Primal Aspirant and each piece of this armor will receive and iLvL of 660 when entering a battleground/arena. This gear can be obtained from daily strongboxes from participating in random BGs, winning arena skirmishes, treasures/rare spawns in Ashran, Ashran repeatable quests, and Gladiator’s Sanctum in your Garrison. This gear also has a chance of being warforged, giving it a slight iLvL boost.

Primal Combatant Gear

This is the second tier of PvP gear and is the gear you are currently aiming for until the conquest gear is fully released. This gear can be bought with your honor than you earn from BGs, arenas, Ashran combat, and dailies. The vendor for this gear can be found in each faction’s respective bases in the Ashran zone. Similar to Primal Aspirant gear, Primal Combatant gear can also be obtained through the strongboxes with the chance of a slight upgrade in the form of warforged.

The Strongboxes

New to WoD, players can now obtain strongboxes that contain honor, gold, or a piece of PvP gear. You can get these strongboxes a few different ways. Winning arena skirmishes will award both players with an uncommon quality strongbox capable of giving Primal Aspirant gear to its owner. Another way to acquire these strongboxes is from participating in random battlegrounds. The quality of the strongbox depends on the performance of your team.

A victory in the battleground will result in an epic quality strongbox, a close defeat can grant you a rare quality strongbox or uncommon quality strongbox, and a crushing defeat or shutout will result in no strongbox being awarded to the losing team. The Ashran Events that occur periodically grant the player with an uncommon quality strongbox. The final method of acquiring a strongbox comes from killing the final boss in your opponent’s main base. This particular strongbox is the only possible way to get a piece of epic quality PvP gear before the Arena season actually begins, and can only be received once a day.

Honor Points

Honor points can be acquired in all the same methods as previously mentioned for the strongboxes. A good strategy when spending honor is to buy your weapon first and then hold on to your honor until you can determine which pieces of gear you will still need. During my time gearing up, I found that about 60-70% of my gear came from the strongboxes I was opening and the remaining gear that I needed I purchased with my accumulated honor.

Best Method for Gearing

I’ve found that the best method for gearing as fast as possible is to queue up for the random battlegrounds and attempt to win as many as possible. While waiting in queue you can participate in the Ashran battle, acquiring broken bones for your garrison and a few extra honor points. If you find yourself losing the majority of battlegrounds you can switch to skirmishes but be aware that these only reward an uncommon strongbox. Save up your honor points and spend them on your weapon and remaining missing gear and you will be ready for the approaching arena season in no time!