Rival II: Dragonflight Season 1

So you came here because you were wondering about rating. For people new to the PvP scene, note that since Shadowlands you can earn rating without having to get into a group by queuing for Solo Shuffle. It's a 3v3 arena mode where you are randomly instanced with five other players, swapping around to two different teammates for each round of a six round match.

The PvP gearing for Dragonflight smoothes out the pure item level discrepancies a lot better than in recent expansions because most people will be around the same effective item level in their PvP gear, and PvP gear is more easily acquired from a variety of activities. Skill is still very important, of course, to reach the highest ratings, but anyone who is making more than a token effort should be able to at least get to Combatant/Challenger through Solo Shuffle.

Here are the rating scores necessary for each upgrade level of Gladiator gear and what PvE item level they become. They all promote to ilvl 424 for PvP.

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• Combatant I - 1000 Rating, upgrade 2/9, ilvl 385
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• Combatant II - 1200 Rating, upgrade 3/9, ilvl 389
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• Challenger I - 1400 Rating, upgrade 4/9, ilvl 392
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• Challenger II - 1600 Rating, upgrade 5/9, ilvl 395
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• Rival I - 1800 Rating, upgrade 6/9, ilvl 398
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• Rival II - 2000 Rating, upgrade 7/9, ilvl 402
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• Duelist - 2100 Rating, upgrade 8/9, ilvl 405
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• Elite - 2400 Rating, upgrade 9/9, 408
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Reaching Elite will unlock the transmogrification appearances that you can purchase with [item=137642] from [npc=199720] in the PvP Hall in Valdrakken (right next to the upgrade guy, [npc=199603]). Sadly, the Elite: Dragonflight Season 1 Feat of Strength achievement is not account-wide, so to collect all possible mogs you have to reach Elite on classes with the relevant weapon/armor proficiencies. [! needs confirmation]

50 wins at Elite will also earn you the Gladiator title. There are also two unique titles at the end of Dragonflight Season 1:

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• Crimson Gladiator - End season at top .1% of the PvP ladder with at least 150 games played.
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• Crimson Soloist - End season at top .1% of the Solo Shuffle ladder with at least 50 games player.
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