Does gear matter in PVP? How so?

PVP Battlegrounds
61

the only stats that change are ones you get from azerite pieces, all azerite items were changed to be only 50% effective in pvp starting in S2.

if you get 5% vers from azerite traits, you will only have 2.5% in pvp. otherwise your stats stay the same in pvp.

62

I don’t see any stats change when I go into a BG or Arena.

This was what I got from asking the question with a support ticket. “aren’t even known to us in support.” This is quite frustrating the developers don’t even provide an explanation to the support teams. Makes me wonder if the developers even know it works.

Thanks for your patience while we investigated this problem for you. My name is **********, and I checked out your question about how gearing in PVP works mechanically.

As far as your question goes - gear DOES provide a slight edge in combat, but exactly how much that is, or the exact mechanics, aren’t even known to us in support. We don’t have special information beyond what players outside of the development team have - and that information is intentionally hidden. Because of that, there’s nothing we can really share in this situation - it’s better to check out sites like icyveins, mmochampion, and other fan sites for discussion on the mechanics.

There’s plenty of information on theorycrafting and optimization out there, but the tl;dr of it all is that in PVP, what you choose to do tends to have more impact than gear. Having better gear does improve your overall chance at surviving and the amount of damage you do, as you anticipated, but the impact of it is felt more when you’re doing PVE content. In PVP everything gets downscaled significantly to small percentages. Again, we don’t have the exact percentages, but the contribution you feel from gear in organized, instanced PVP (battlegrounds/arenas) will be far smaller than what you’re used to in the open world.

In PVP, I tend to follow Dark Souls methodology. “Git gud, but also git geared”. The extra gear doesn’t hurt, but at the end of the day, gear won’t save you if you get outskilled by another player. If you have a theoretical situation where two identically skilled players of the exact same class/skill/build are fighting, the more geared player will likely win, but the most powerful gear of all in PVP is going to be your brain.

Hope this has at least been philosophically informative, if not helpful. Best of luck on your quest for understanding!

2 Likes
63

The stats DO change. I watch them constantly with titanbar. Here is a screenshot of me before entering a BG and right after:

https://imgur.com/a/cAkCKnF

You can see all my secondary stats went down, my stamina went up, and my character level went up.

64

you’re not level capped, you are scaled to your bracket max level.

1 Like
65

I see.

A similar thing happens with TW where it puts me at level 80 and all my stats change, so it looked like the same thing to me.

EDIT: I mean, this is still scaling though. Why did my stamina go up and my str stay the same?

How could they scale me to 109 when my items would be inferior to those players who are actually level 109?

If you are correct, when I am level 109 I should see zero stat changes?

66

Mythic 0’s give 400 (except Mechagon), and BG’s give 395. Back when they gave 370’s, BG’s gave only 360. The gear gap is closer this season.

67

Well yea but the big weekly reward is actually 410 for the weapon and if it follows the trend might be 420 for the rest of the gear.

68

i just got a 360 piece from a bg.

my damage at 340 is so low that i cant really kill other players and im near the bottom of the boards. to gear up i basically have to play 20+ games to get a set of 360 gear, and then the 395 stuff will start dropping?

sounds pretty crappy to me thats a lot of games of being basically useless

1 Like
69

Maybe the rewards are scaled your ilevel is too low to get anything good yet?

70

i dont want to be useless for that many games. we have like 16 gear slots. i have 130k health while others have up to 300k.

i cant do much to them, and the scoreboard confirms my damage is low along with my hp

71

My guess is it won’t take filling all gear slots before 390/395 gear shows up. Likely starts at ilvl 350 or 360

72

Gear definitely matters, but it’s not everything.

73

Do you have laser cannons? Or does the other team have laser cannons?

1 Like
74

I will concede here. 65k hp players are 100% getting blown up. Maybe they nixed the scaling, or it bugged with the new patch?

Edit: but there was this https://imgur.com/a/DkOyME8 didn’t get the full scoreboard, but it was a 5 man raid group of Horde mercs who got GY camped :joy:

75

The advantage a 420 has over even a 400 right now is significant. I’m chunking people that have 200K health or lower.

76

I’m not seeing this at all. I didn’t even realize I was against a mythic raid group in that BG I linked above until the person I was doing BGs with pointed it out.

77

Double post I know, but they really should make an ilvl requirement, kind of like they have for LFR and Dungeons. People want gear to matter, now it does and they complain it’s too bad as a fresh level toon. Either that or reinstate ilvl scaling.

78

Have you look them up to see their neck lvl and how much traits are unlocked or what traits are used.

Also, another thing that can effect them is if they have a 415 ilvl in there position without equipping the gear.

Not going into every little aspect but I am sure they are gimping themselves unknowingly.

79

See i told you about those sub 100k people

1 Like
80

You did. It’s the first one I’ve seen so they seem scarce anyway.