9.1 PvP Gearing and why it is BAD

Hey all, I’m sure you’ve all seen/heard about the new changes slated to be implemented in 9.1 for gearing, whether they be positive or not. Stoopzz just released a good video on this as well, but I wanted to make a forum post because this NEEDS to change.

In 9.1 the plan is to reintroduce the gearing system where gear scales to a higher item level in PvP combat, a change most likely aimed at addressing concerns among PvE players that PvP was required or nearly required, especially at the highest levels. This change was pretty much certainly not made in any way to address PvP player concerns.

HOWEVER, not only does this change do very little to alleviate the PvE issues (according to some top end raider friends, PvP will still be desirable for early raid gearing at the highest levels), it also addresses literally NONE of the issues that we PvP players have been complaining about. Since gear will still have ilevel based upon rating, massive rifts are created at rating cutoffs, where you’re forced to play versus players that may have 10-15 or even 20 ilevel on you, making pushing certain ratings extremely difficult (particularly 2.4k).

This change does somewhat alleviate the boosting problem created by those who are getting a boost for PvE purposes, but doesn’t entirely, as people who want the gear for PvP will still want boosts to certain ratings. Additionally, if any player who is 2.4k+ (or 2.1k, or 1.8k) wants to play another bracket, play with a friend, play with viewers from their stream etc. etc. their gear will be massively superior to those they are qing into which just isn’t fun for anyone.

This system is actually arguably worse than the current one - PvP gear won’t be great in PvE past the first week or two (possibly okay, ilevels are not final), and the PvP honor/conquest grind is STILL as bad as it was before unless things are addressed . The honor gear is essentially useless, conquest gear is hard to obtain because of how little you get per game and then you still have to do a tremendous amount of honor grinding to even upgrade your conquest gear and then on top of that, rating is required to get it to the highest ilevel.

Personally, I believe Blizzard’s logic behind limiting conquest gains and adding upgrades to PvP gear that were locked behind rating were systems added to gatekeep the usefulness and obtainability of PvP gear to use in PvE. Adding the ilevel increase that only activates in PvP eliminates this, so there is absolutely no need to keep these systems in place.

In my opinion we need to go back to one set of gear for each “level” of PvP - 1 honor set, 1 conquest set. No upgrades, nothing tied to rating. I also think we need to earn more conquest per game. Making PvP gear less useful in PvE is fine, if you can get gear for PvP via PvP relatively quickly and efficiently. The system in WoD lead to more alt activity, more people being encouraged to try other classes and more players having fun in PvP in general. Any issues with WoD ladder activity were tied to balance alone (and that’s a different story).

The biggest pushback to this that I’ve seen is “What will the reward be then?” Realistically when has gear EVER been "THE NUMBER ONE PvP reward”? Some very old systems valued gear as a reward, but they were removed for the same reasons. The disparity in gear made pushing unfun. We have titles, rating achievements, mounts, etc. that are the reward for doing arena. Arena in the past has primarily been about these rewards and about HAVING FUN PLAYING PVP. Never before has gear been the driving factor to q up.

I think what 99% of people want is an even playing field. That’s the starting point, and that’s what players deserve to have so they can prove their skill.

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So what? PvE is also desirable for PvP players for early PvP gearing. If you aim rank1 you also go for Mythic Raid last 2 boss gear.

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+1, glad people are speaking up about how awful the current iteration, and next iteration of the system is. Those old systems, like you said, were removed for a reason. We just need one honor and one conq set, with no ilvl locked behind rating.

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Thank you for articulating this. I agree with what you are saying and am anxiously awaiting bloomsday and all the other acti-blizzard apologists response to this so I can destroy them.

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Something I am not sure about. They say that PVP gear will get the boost also in war mode. Well, if you are in war mode will that boost also stay active when fighting an NPC? If so all PVP players will just stay war mode.

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Thanks for tweeting about this. Pretty ridiculous that we have to try and convince the devs that a competitive game mode needs to be fair but here we are.

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You can thank the “muh rpg” idiots for this one.

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Oh trust us, we have been complaining about it lol we know it sucks. Keep up the good fight rev! Keep the tweets coming too :slight_smile:

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Yeah but we also need it during Torghast, why would we spend more time in a mandatory power progress PvE content?.. Even our Legendary will scale down and up. So they must treat Torghast as Warmode too.

Mythic Raid First 8 252
Mythic Raid Last 2 259
PvP Duelist Baseline 246
PvP Duelist In PvP 259
Mythic+ +14 Vault 252

This is no different than calling someone idiot for not liking a food that you like which is idiotic in its core.

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Ya and look how lively the game is right now with all those sick RPG gearing aspects! :slight_smile: The main issue I have with the whole RPG garbage is PvE =/= PvP, we want our competitive environment to be fair. I know it’s probs a hard concept for a lot of people to grasp.

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Great post and I agree with this.

You can ignore forumgodx, replies. He’s someone that trolls and exploits the boosting culture that has ruined rated pvp.

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BfA and Legion had fair, it sucked, it was boring and plain.

And PvP actually can never be fair. If everyone had 200 iLVL with no changes or upgrades you’d come to complain about overpowered classes this time. Item progress is a crucial part playing this game even if we mostly spend time in arena, for many. Forum mostly consist of people who are more inclined to complain so I don’t find complaints unexpected.

The system has its flaws but after being through BfA (A sudden disgust appears) current system feels really good to have. I had to do m+ for only 2 weeks this season, in December.

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I disagree, this system is completely terrible, promotes boosting and horrible ilvl discrepancies. What was wrong with the WoD gearing system? Higher rated players obtained their gear faster, but everyone ended up at the same ilvl as long as they capped for their end of the season push. Still had progression.

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There is a problem with PvP community. PvP must be appealing for all people. As in the example of OP, mythic raiders will probably arena for progress. It is still appealing.

PvP gear must be almost equal to PvE gear for it to attract new players. This community is smaller than it normally should be, the reason behind it has always been mostly superior PvE gearing for all content. What people ask is making gear equal for everyone, easily reachable, everyone can have everything which is something devalues PvP.

We got free Deathwing mount, do you see anyone using it nowadays? No, because everyone had it. Nowadays gear is important because not everyone has it which makes PvP appealing for both PvP and PvE players. It is expected to have some forfeiters but they need to adapt too if they don’t they will already be replaced by new participants.

Don’t think that I don’t understand what you want or expect, I know but for us to grow as community such power jump and power gap is a requirement.

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Are people still using gear from then?

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Thanks so much for posting this, I hope we can get a Blue to chime in on this. This NEEDS to be addressed before 9.1 is released.

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I admire your effort to counter-argument but I believe you understand what I mean Panda Priest.

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I understand you’re trolling, but I can promise you that probably 90% of PvE players that are PvPing aren’t doing it because “it’s appealing”, they’re doing it because they feel like they have to to do the best dps. PvP should be appealing because it is FUN.

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I don’t intend to troll. If I act by your logic I must also assume you are trolling.

I’m sure there are alot of PvP players disagreeing with you, are we all trolling you?

No, it is hitting 2 birds with 1 stone. People are more likely to play arena if they are getting power increase alongside participating a different kind of content. I met alot of PvE players, even top 200 cutting edge raiding guild healers during this season. Not all of them are there to only get gear and leave the place, some stay, some don’t.

If you devalue PvP gearing, that some stay part will never exist and you’ll die in a small community constantly shrinking by time. In order to make this community grow, you should put a bait on the fishing pole.

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You say BFA and Legion had fair. I assume you mean a level playing field. Sure, it was more of a level playing field than SL which was good. Just because the class balancing and pvp wasn’t the best ever does not mean it was the level playing fields fault.

A level playing field is a good thing in a competitive pvp environment. Stop trying to argue against that. It is a consensus of anyone who takes competitive pvp seriously.

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