WoW Midnight: PvP Season 2 opened on August 19 — all reward tiers, both mounts and their requirements

World of Warcraft Midnight's PvP Season 2 opened the week of August 19. Blizzard detailed the full list of rating rewards in its official article on August 19, and this list is more readable than usual: each rank tier unlocks a specific piece of gear, with no random drops or intermediate currency. So you know exactly what you're earning by climbing a rank.

The principle boils down to one sentence. You climb the ladder, and each tier crossed unlocks one or two Season 2 PvP gear slots, from cloak to helmet. Beyond that come the prestige rewards: a weapon illusion, a special cloak, a tabard, two mounts, and a series of titles.

This guide covers everything Blizzard has announced for this PvP installment, tier by tier, with the exact requirement for each. It also points out what the official announcement does not say — and the gaps are notable, starting with item levels.

The schedule: two dates, not one

Blizzard split the PvP opening into two phases, which matters for anyone wanting to warm up before the ladder started counting.

• Week of August 12 — opening of the training grounds, meaning arenas against bots. No ladder rating in play, no tier rewards.
• Week of August 19 — start of PvP Season 2. Ratings reset, and tiers become earnable.

In other words, the week of August 12 was for testing out a comp. The counter that actually counts has been running since the week of the 19th. Today is Thursday, August 20: the season is in its very first days, the best window to start climbing, since everyone's rating is still low.

The full table of rank tiers

Here is the complete list of tiers published by Blizzard, with the gear reward, the title (if any), and the requirement to obtain it. The labels are those from the official French announcement.

An important clarification: up to and including the Elite rank, the condition is simply to reach the tier, and the reward remains yours even if your rating drops afterward. Starting from Gladiator, we're no longer talking about a tier reached but about wins counted: fifty matches won in 3v3 while you're at the Elite rank. This isn't the same requirement, and it's the steepest step in the system.

What's realistic, and what isn't

The ten rows of the table are far from equal. Three groups stand out clearly.

Within reach of a regular player: Combatant, Competitor, Rival

The first six tiers cover almost the entire PvP set of season 2: cloak, greaves, bracers, gloves, boots, chestpiece, belt, shoulders, helm. It's a nearly complete set, obtained without ever touching the top of the ladder. The Rival II tier adds the Venomous Coil weapon illusion, the first purely cosmetic reward on the list and a reasonable end-of-journey goal for most players.

Rating is required: Duelist and Elite

These two tiers no longer grant armor but visible prestige: the Season 2 PvP Gladiator's Prestigious Cloak and the Season 2 PvP Gladiator's Tabard, along with the corresponding titles. A stable team and serious play are required, but this remains a classic ranking goal, something worked toward over the course of the season.

Out of reach without playing at a competitive level

The Venomous Gladiator title requires being in the top 0.1% of the 3v3 arena ranking with at least 150 wins. The Venomous Legend title requires the same on the Solo Shuffle ranking (0.1% or top 8, with 50 wins). The Venomous Marshal and Venomous Warlord titles follow the same standard on rated Blitz battlegrounds. These are end-of-season rewards, granted to a tiny fraction of players: aiming for them only makes sense if you're already playing at that level.

The two mounts: a huge gap between them

This is the most useful point of the entire season: the two mounts are presented side by side in the announcement, even though they're nowhere near comparable in difficulty.

The Vicious Gleaming Boar comes through the Venomous Combatant reward. You receive a Vicious Saddle, which you then exchange for the mount. The condition: win rated PvP matches while having a rating of 1,000 or higher. A rating of one thousand is the bottom of the ladder — the threshold is designed to be cleared by anyone willing to play rated matches. Blizzard specifies that the mount exists in an Alliance version and a Horde version, and that its armor color adapts to the character's faction. Note, however, that the announcement doesn't specify the number of wins needed to obtain the saddle, only that rated matches must be won above this threshold.

The Venomous Gladiator's Bloodgorged Drake is at the other end of the spectrum. It requires 50 wins in 3v3 at Elite rank. So you have to reach Elite, stay there, and rack up fifty wins in 3v3 arena — not fifty matches played, fifty won. It's the most demanding reward of the season, aside from the 0.1% titles.

The practical takeaway is simple. If you only had to remember one PvP goal this season, it would be the Vicious War Boar: it's cheap and it won't come back. The Bloodgorged Drake, on the other hand, is decided now or never, because it requires building a 3v3 team and keeping it going for several weeks.

Solo Shuffle, Blitz, and rated battlegrounds: rewards by format

Beyond the arena rating tiers, each format has its own rewards, which are earned in parallel and not instead of the previous ones.

Two observations. First, the most cost-effective path for a healer doesn't go through a rating tier but through a round counter: fifty rounds won at Rival I are enough for the War Medic title, one hundred for the toy. Second, the rewards titled Solo Shuffle Medicine and Blitz Battlegrounds Medicine carry the note "during Midnight" rather than "during Midnight Season 2": they therefore don't seem to reset every season, unlike the rest of the list.

The 2,500 conquest points line also deserves a closer look: it's the only weapon reward in the entire set that doesn't depend on any rating. You earn conquest just by playing, regardless of your skill level, and you'll eventually get your two weapon tokens.

What Blizzard doesn't specify

Three gaps in the announcement that you'd better know about before planning your season.

Item levels. The official article gives the item level for Mythic 0 gear but publishes no item level for the Season 2 PvP pieces. We won't make it up: as of now, the exact value of the Season 2 PvP leggings, chest piece, or helmet is not disclosed in this announcement.

The rating thresholds for each tier. The announcement names the tiers — Combatant, Challenger, Rival, Duelist, Elite — but doesn't give the rating required for each one. The sole exception is the Venomous Combatant reward, which explicitly cites a rating of 1,000 or higher.

An inconsistency in the list. The official page assigns the same toy, the Venomous Legendary Pennon, to two different rewards: Legend (100 Solo Shuffle rounds at Elite rank) and Strategist (25 rated Blitz matches at Elite rank). The corresponding healer rewards, meanwhile, are indeed distinct. This is probably a copy-paste error on Blizzard's part, but the page says what it says, and we're reporting it as is.

Where to start this week

If you're starting PvP Season 2 now, in this order:

1. Win your first rated matches with a rating of 1,000 or higher. That's the vicious saddle, so the Vicious Gleaming Boar. It's the best effort-to-reward objective of the entire season, and it wraps up quickly.
2. Climb to Challenger II. At this point you'll have the cloak, leggings, bracers, gloves, boots, chest piece, and belt, plus the Combatant and Challenger titles.
3. Aim for Rival II for the weapon illusion. Venomous Wrap is the only reward on the list that's permanently visible on your character without being a title. That's the real stopping point for a regular player.
4. Stack up Conquest on the side. The 2,500 points come naturally if you're playing, and they earn you two Venomous Gladiator's weapon tokens.
5. If you play a healer, count your rounds. Fifty rounds won at Rival I or above in Solo Shuffle grant the Battle Healer title; a hundred add the Nightfall Pennon.

One last thing, true every season: rewards labeled "Season 2" disappear with it. There's no guarantee that a rank missed this season can be caught up later. The Venomous Gladiator's Bloodrake, in particular, can only be obtained here and now: in 3v3, at Elite rank, fifty times.