Season 12

Arena Season 12 (Dreadful and Malevolent) is a PvP Season that started one week after the release of Mists of Pandaria. The season ended on March 5, 2013. This season includes two armor sets for each class, Dreadful Gladiator (item levels 464 for armor and 476 for weapons) and Malevolent Gladiator (item levels 489 for armor and 502 for weapons).

• Season 12 was the first season for many new things, including but not limited to:
• Resilience being split into PvP Power and PvP Resilience
• The inclusion of the new class monks
• The new arena map Tol'vir Proving Grounds
• The two new battlegrounds (Silvershard Mines and Temple of Kotmogu) were made available as rated battlegrounds as of 5.1.
• The maximum Arena duration was decreased to 25 minutes as of Patch 5.1.0
• Item upgrading of PvP gear was introduced allowing for upgrading Dreadful gear once with +8 item levels, and Malevolent gear twice with +4 item levels (for a total of +8).
• New PvP gear vendors, selling the best PvP rewards throughout all PvP seasons during the Mists of Pandaria expansion, were located in the Pandaria zones and are as of Patch 5.1.0 marked on the map for the respective factions.

• Feats of Strength achievements
• Malevolent Gladiator's Cloud Serpent (achievement)
• Mount:Malevolent Gladiator's Cloud Serpent

• Sold by in Kun-Lai Summit and in Valley of the Four Winds.
• The item level upgrade cost 1500 Honor Points per item.
• No Dreadful weapons were sold or otherwise attainable, despite existing in the game data.

• Sold by in Kun-Lai Summit and in Valley of the Four Winds.
• Each item could be upgraded twice, with each upgrade costing 750 Conquest Points, for a total of 1500 Conquest Points per item.
• Neck, back, wrist, hands, waist, feet, finger, ring and legs drops from Sha of Anger in Kun-Lai Summit.

• Sold by in Kun-Lai Summit and in Valley of the Four Winds.
• Purchasing Elite gear only required only the exchange of the equivalent non-elite version of the item, and had no Honor Point or Conquest Point cost.
• The items are recolors of the Malevolent Gladiator set.
• Only the weapons offered a 20 item level upgrade over the normal versions of the same item. All other items were purely cosmetic changes.

• Season 12 was the only season during Mists of Pandaria to make use of item upgrading for PvP gear.
• During the season popular arena compositions included KFC (Arms Warrior, Beast Master Hunter, Holy Paladin) and Godcomp/Shattreeplay (Shadow Priest, Frost Mage, Restoration Druid).
• For a substantial part of the season the ability Stampede (hunter talent) was suffering from bugs, causing the extra pets to deal considerably more damage / healing than intended, allowing Beast Master Hunters to perform exceptionally well.