Season 10

Arena Season 10 (Ruthless) started on July 5, 2011, one week after patch 4.2.0 and the end of Season 9. The season lasted 21 weeks.

With the new season new items were made available for purchase with Conquest Points, and Season 9 items were made available for Honor Points.

• Feats of Strength achievements
• Ruthless Gladiator's Twilight Drake (achievement)
• Mount: Ruthless Gladiator's Twilight Drake

During the season there craftable Bloodthirsty items and an upgraded version of Vicious gear, branded as "Season 10" instead of "Season 9", available.

For a full list of relevant items, sets and their respective item levels see below: Note: Elite gear from the previous season (Vicious) was no longer attainable.

• Sold by in Stormwind, in Orgrimmar for Honor Points.
• Except for weapons and relics, the items sold were the upgraded Season 10 Vicious set.
• The items that dropped from Argaloth were still the Season 9 variants with item level 365.

• Sold by in Stormwind, and in Orgrimmar.

• Sold by in Stormwind, in Orgrimmar or in Dalaran.
• Required the equivalent non-elite Ruthless Gladiator item in addition to Honor Points.
• Required 2200 Personal rating in 3v3 or 5v5 Arena, or Rated Battleground.
• The items are recolors of the Ruthless Gladiator set.

• Following the release of Season 11 many PvP rewards from Season 10 became unavailable for purchase. See list below:
• All original Ruthless Gladiator items
• All Elite Ruthless Gladiator items
• In the Legion expansion all items, except for the Elite Ruthless Gladiator items, were once again made available for purchase with Mark of Honor.

• Mid-season Blizzard changed the matchmaking rating formula used for competitive PvP within the game. The change essentially made it impossible to gain rating equivalent to those who had already climbed to high ratings prior to the change, as matchmaking ratings would simply not reach those levels (3000+) due to the new, more conservative, formula reducing the intended matchmaking rating of players across the board. This caused most high rated teams to not play at all, as their respective arena team ratings were safely out of reach of anyone trying to catch up to them and upon playing they themselves would've almost inevitably lost Arena team. Season 10 is therefore considered by many as the most uncompetitive season of its era.
• Prior to Season 10 a precedent in which Blizzard would would give a two week notice of the season ending had been set, and followed. However, for unknown reasons, at the end of Season 10 the announcement was made just six days before the planned end of it. This cause a massive uproar in the PvP community which eventually caused the release of patch 4.3.0 and the end of Season 10 to be delayed by two full weeks from the original announcement.