I spent countless hours with PVP analysis since 2012. I gave up a few years ago when damage increased by so much that it was impossible to tank anything anymore (I’ve tried 100B+ toughness builds). For more of my backstory, I used to be one of the most avid PVP players back in patches 1.0.7-1.0.8 (late 2012 - early 2014) and one of the most knowledgeable theory crafters for PVP builds.
Unfortunately, with the transition to the new forums in July 2019, the older forum data was taken offline (or lost?) late last year, so I cannot provide you ample information regarding this topic. Thus, I’ll give you a quick rundown here of why PVP doesn’t work in D3 anymore (after patch 2.0).
- Player damage and toughness were increased at different rates throughout many patches to compensate for how GR levels scale monster damage and life differently. As such, players do millions/billions of times the damage they did in pre-RoS days but only have tens to hundreds of times the toughness. This disparity makes meaningful PVP impossible as virtually any attack versus any character build will 1-shot the other player.
- The common argument that reducing all player damage by 99.99% or something will not fix the issue as it will introduce unkillable characters (life generation exceeds damage taken) making for a stale experience. The problem is the HUGE variance in player builds when it comes to how much damage or toughness a player can get by changing equipment. While a blanket damage reduction might work to balance the PVP setting between two specific builds, it would remain as a 1-shot fest or stalemate in other settings.
- Banning set items will push players to go with Legacy of Dreams builds circumventing the core issue. Next, banning legendary items (yellow gear only) will kill build diversity and open up the meta for unkillable characters (stack all resist, life regen, etc.). Going all the way to allowing only white items will at least prevent unkillable characters and 1-shots for the most part but the duels will become very boring very quickly (and very one-sided for some matchups).
- There are no ways to enforce rules aside from agreeing to using or not using certain things with your opponent, so brawling isn’t really suitable for meaningful PVP where both players want to win (one player can just claim a certain ability or item is “unfair” and have no way to be proven right or wrong with flexible rules).
- There is no spectator mode, scorekeeping method, matchmaking ranking, item/paragon locking system, or otherwise any reasonable features that a PVP environment should have. Countless pleas have been made to the developers since 2012.
These are the main issues surrounding the brawling system in its current form. Since many of the original D3 developers are likely hard at work with D4, it is a waste of time to expect anything for D3 PVP. The best use of the Scorched Chapel nowadays is for mechanics testing in a closed environment (e.g. for PTR testing).