A new practice of cheesing the personal rating requirement on s3 shoulders and weapons has been defeated according to this succinct post by Tyren:
Please be aware that with this week's maintenance, purchasing arena season 3 items that have a required arena personal rating will now also require the purchaser's arena team rating to be at the same point values as well.
Unfortunately, this will not be properly displayed within the game; the in-game display will be fixed soon in an upcoming patch.
This change is a response to a new method the always ingenious arena crowd developed. Members make up a team full of their mains and alts, then proceed to win with their mains and lose with their alts, keeping their team in the 1500 range. Since many teams in that range are of the "lose 10 games a week and get your epics" mentality, they can easily farm up their personal rating without moving into the more difficult brackets. No longer so, as now their hampered team rating will prevent them from getting the tastier pieces of gear that were previously available to them.
