Confusion regarding BG gear scaling

PVP Battlegrounds
1

TL;DR: Bring back (visible) Legion health scaling in battlegrounds so people don’t dismiss lower-geared people because they think they will die super-fast.

Why can’t we have gear scaling be more obvious, as it was in Legion? When my fresh ding’d 110 friend in Legion joined a battleground, the toon’s health pool would jump up to maybe 10-20% below my moderately geared toon. Right now they come in at ~100k, and moderatly geared people are sitting around 300k.

People say things scale with health, but I really can’t tell if that’s true (see point later about healing). And it almost doesn’t even matter. It’s perception, not reality, that pushes many people’s interpretations.

Last night I’m in Twin Peaks, and for some reason my team could not run the flag. The pally that was trying complained that he only had <200k health and was getting trashed (was it gear scaling? who knows? it was 1v2 at least… but maybe he really was getting trashed).

My team had about 2:1 kill ratio, and I decided to run the flag (even though I was healing). I’ve been running flags since twink druids and shammys in vanilla. As soon as I pick up the flag I see “oh no, not the guy with less than 300k health”. And I’m thinking… this means at least one (and now probably 2 or 3) people aren’t really going to help me. Surprise, surprise, I get all the way to the our bridge; I use two clever tricks to pull two people off me, (of course they can close range after); I drop off the bridge, circle under, head for our side ramp… etc. and die relatively quick to two people (as resto, but without instant thorns) as I burned through the rest of my tricks and heals (I may have been getting purged).

I don’t know about this whole “it shows you a lower amount, but you hit the other person for an amount scaled to their health”, but I can see (with my own eyes), that my heals hit people for the same amount regardless of their health pool (you can watch their health tick up). So at least healing doesn’t hit your teammates heavier. Maybe it’s an illusion. Maybe it’s hitting for more. I’ve tested it in the open world and it didn’t do bigger heals on better-geared people.

But geez, many people don’t believe the health-pool scaling is actually happening. This isn’t a big deal in world pvp, and if it’s working there, that’s great (and I really do appreciate it). But in battlegrounds the scaling (as opposed to scaling everyone’s health pool) is a major letdown.

There’s a good chance it’s a big part of why I took a solid 4 months off. I just came back and saw this problem again. And I’m feeling the pull of not playing again. FWIW I managed to claw my way from 397 to 407 gear score pretty quickly. But short of imposing on guildies or paying for a run, it feels like it’s going to be a long slog to 300k health when maybe people won’t complain that I’m in their battleground.

Until then, it’s most likely back to world pvp for conquest, and mythics as healer or tank (where <415 gear doesn’t automatically get you ignored) to get enough gear to not be a real or imaged dead weight.

2 Likes
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power creep has totally offset the mysterious scaling that they never really explained

i would like to see the exact formula for the scaling, if its ultra complicated then i would laugh. it doesnt even do much in practice

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Between all the essences {soon to be 4} the azerite traits and the broken pve gear the power difference is massive and the gear scaling people call it is a complete joke. I am seeing a lot of people around 350k-400k lately and if 1 group has a lot of them more then the other they will usually win

1 Like
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I say let them complain. You know scaling happens and I’m assuming you do fine, so let people be salty.

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I’m not convinced heals scale this way. But it is hard to test, and probably can only be tested in a battleground or arena.

Side-thought: I didn’t start BFA till 8.1. When I first got my druid to 120, I went to arena after getting some WQ gear. I found 2 people who were chilling to do 3s with. I was around 100k health I think. Geared people were at 160k. Anyways, we went 7 wins before the first loss. After the loss, the other guys said, I think they looked at your health pool and decided to focus on you. Then they removed me from the group (they might have just stopped for the day…). But after that, every group I was with complained about my gear or refused me outright.

Salty is fine, but not when it results in your team or potential team altering how they handle things.

6

Completely get what you are saying, but arena is meant to be the competitive version of random casual PvP .

Shouldn’t you want to gear up and be prepared before entering .

We all know that currently the game requires you (in arenas) the be slightly geared and to know your class

The other option is to create your own group

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Run mythics , it’s is incredible fast to gear up .

You are a healer . Should be no trouble pugging for groups .

I wish I knew how to heal :joy:

Edit:- Anyway WoW is a progression based game . If you want fair PvP then you need to play the game where they jump off a plane naked and go at it . :grimacing:

1 Like
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If they followed Legion’s model of 10 item levels = 1% power creep then we would be around 14% in raw stats alone from a fresh 120 at 300 item level to a geared one at 440. Then you add in traits, essences, trinkets, and other pve items like the kings rest 2h sword that does 14-16k per tick and you create a pretty significant power gap.

The scaling is just preventing one shots and slowing deaths.

1 Like
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Based on what I’m reading here, it is a good move to eschew (woot vocabulary, thank you Bard’s Tale) pvp till I’ve geared up. That’s what I thought. The only person countering that was Jugaa. It’s not a problem. I won’t do battlegrounds. By the time I’ve geared up, I probably won’t care about arenas or battlegrounds, either.

It’s unnecessarily sad that it’s confusing, and such a big move from Legion.

I generally tank pretty well, on top of healing. I won’t have a problem with mythics.

1 Like
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Once you hit 400, you’re fine in randoms. You can get that easy by CP capping and Benthic gear.

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Arena ? Yes at least till you are 400 …

Random battlegrounds? You can do that “out of the box”

1 Like
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@OP I feel ya, but sometimes people are just stupid and defeatist too, and it has nothing to do with your HP. I do think scaling should come back though, to help normalize gear power in casual BGs. More fun for all, except the people who know their PvE gear is doing most of the work for them.

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Unfortunately, a big part of BFA PvP is who has farmed better gear from PvE.

1 Like
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I noticed that scaling kinda doesn’t exist anymore