Gladiator's Coliseum Tournament - The Hunger Games of Azeroth

Getting the stuff done for the Gladiator's Sanctum can be a little bit annoying! Whenever I've been in Ashran I kept seeing people getting the bones and I wanted them too, so I finally gave in and dumped my inn and traded it for a Gladiator's Sanctum.


It's not a pretty building.  There are a lot of achievements associated with it though which will probably take me the whole of the expansion to get (and I very much doubt by the next expansion I will be doing any Ashran) and the other bonuses is that the tribute (which are the work orders) gives a decent amount of gold and draenic dust as low level PvP gear comes out of it (which is only good for one thing - disenchanting). It also gives honour and conquest points, which is ok I suppose if you're not capping conquest every week but with Ashran, arenas and BGs, conquest is not hard to cap.  I admit I have been very lazy though this season and have not been pushing rating, preferring to play around in Ashran instead grinding achievements.

Doing the Nemesis things is a bit annoying.  You start off by getting ONE kill. Not many outdoor places to kill these things, so I do them in Ashran, but after your one kill you have to go out and complete your quest so you can start your 500 kills of each race.  Which means another 2 hour queue for Ashran.  BLEH.  Would probably be ok on a PvP server, just go out in the world somewhere and hunt down that race and kill it and you can avoid that queue and requeue.

At level 3 you gain access to the Highmaul Gladiator's Coliseum Tournament - which you see in Kargath Bladefist's Lords of War episode and if you raid Highmaul then you would recognise it as the same place.


Once up though, it's a little different to the Kargath Bladefist fight!  The tiger pits are closed and there are these piles of bones everywhere.


I'd gone in on Friday with Shab and Sev - Shab had gone in previously, and he prepped me and Sev on what to expect. We teamed up, with me trying out Moonkin, and Shab had the clever idea of polymorphing us to heal up.  We got a few kills our first round and second round.  There was a rogue there complaining about people teaming up and complaining and saying how crappy it was.  And I was thinking how it was just like Hunger games, making alliances so you can win, and then turning on each other at the end.

On our third round, Sev was getting smashed and he was yelling for polymorph.  Shab and I killed the guy who was on Sev and Sev healed up and soon after I was burned down by a hunter.  Shab and Sev killed him and then Shab was running around the arena trying to unstealth any hidden rogues.

"Shab," said Sev.

"We gotta get any stealthers out!" yelled Shab.

I was giggling.

"Shab, look, there's only 2 gladiators left alive.  That's you... and me."

"OH!" Shab sounded a bit sheepish.  Then he sounded indignant.  "Oh... I'm not ready!"

"You should let him win," I said to Sev. "He saved you!"

"No, no, let's do it properly.  You ready?" said Shab.

And so they fought it out.  And Sev won.  Woo! Now he was a Lord of War!


I wanted to go again, but Sev and Shab weren't on! So I decided to try by myself.  I didn't last long.  I got 2 kills in before I was toasted.  So I sat down and watched the match for a while.  I saw a boomkin come out of hiding trying to take the last paladin down, but it was a good fight and the paladin won.

It was cool, all our followers are in the stands! I even got to see the ghost of Admiral Taylor.


So I decided to try it as heals, and my first forage was a success! I got 9 kills (well tagged people who died) and so I decided to try again.  Not so lucky the next time.  3 melee targetted me staright up - a DK, ret pally and something else and I was the first to die.  Poop.  No kills that round!

I watched the event until it went on for a really long time and then the bones all turned into fire and there was a purple circle in the middle that kept sucking the last 2 combatants in.  This was what Luxy had told me - that healers can win if you wait until the end because they can knock people into the fires and win that way if they just survive till the end.

I've decided that I will wait and go in again with a bunch of friends. It's no different to going into Gurubashi or Darkmoon Faire arena with all your friends!  So look out Coliseum, Frostwolves are getting ready to fight!

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