i'm ok with iron banner gear getting people to 32, but not the way it currently is set up. Aeon Marine below actually made a very good point i hadn't ever considered. Iron banner gear should not be allowed in raids. Raid armor should be kept out of the iron banner. That actually solves the entire debate. I have some iron banner armor I bought this time because it had some intellect and previously i never played crucible so i deleted all of my excess raid armor with zero consideration for stats. Level was all that mattered at the time. It is misleading when people that don't have sufficient raid armor to be max level enter into the raid at max level without having done the work. It is also a problem for people who exclusively play pvp to not be able to be max level in a pvp event that benefits max level, although microscopically. I will say one thing in sharp disagreement with your statement, however. It is not in any way easier to get and max raid armor. Not even close. Yes, there was a lot of cheesing involved. I ran 3 hunters through the raid every week. It took several weeks to get all the raid armor, and i didn't even get the helmet until hard dropped. I had to rock and exotic. Then there was the matter of radiant materials. Those took twice as long as the armor did to get. Iron banner rank 5 can be easily attained in no more than 3 days. You just have to participate. Especially if you do it the last few days. Then it is so unbelievably fast. Especially if you just buy the buff, shader, emblem and class item. No way is it any harder to get iron banner stuff. You could just set your controller down and walk away for ten minutes at a time