I’m trying to put two-and-two together to understand. It’d be helpful to compare it to what we’re currently working with in Shadowlands. I wasn’t around and I’m confused by all of the outdated lingo.
It seems that the gear was equal. Seems fair enough, but if that’s the case, how were the exceptional PvPers “rewarded”? Transmogs? Titles?
This also seems to be a hot topic and I have no opinion either way so please don’t crucify me.
Was two sets. One honor, and one conquest. Both were mediocre ilvl in Pve but scaled up to be bis in pvp. Yeah the rewards were non gear related. Although I think the higher rates you were, the more conq you’d be able to cap weekly, which was the only “power advantage” available. Also getting your starter honor set thru bgs and ashran was really fast
I could get a fresh char to max, hop into a 2s match with some of the boys on their similarily undergeared characters, and win the games through simply being good at our specs.
Gear wasn’t the be all end all, obviously it impacted heavily vs good players, but if you were playing up until about 24ish, you’d be able to win through pure skill alone, would just take that extra pump, no jumping through rings of fire to just be able to try to beat some 1500 monkeys.
Exceptional PVPers were rewarded through being able to maximize what they could do with what they had, it’s why warlocks are a point that everyone hates. When you face an insane affi lock, you feel the pain, but if you faced a mediocre one you just want to smile. Legion and on, they became the point of “No skill but rewarded”
I could get a fresh char to max, hop into a 2s match with some of the boys on their similarily undergeared characters, and win the games through simply being good at our specs.
Does this mean fresh max level toons in all blue gear had their gear scaled up when in rated arena? Or was PvP gear just scaled down that low? This is mind boggling as a returning player to Shadowlands.
Was two sets. One honor, and one conquest.
I take this to mean that honor gear was earned pretty quickly, but then everyone sat at that gear level until they had earned enough Conquest (which was probably weekly time gated) to get their Conquest gear? How much stronger was Conquest gear over Honor gear?
Both were mediocre ilvl in Pve but scaled up to be bis in pvp.
So if I wanted to PvP 90% of the time, but my friends invite me to a 15 key, I would have needed to do some PvE grinding to have that option? It’s similar now, just curious what “mediocre” means. Personally I wouldn’t call SL Season 2 1800 gear “mediocre” in PvE–definitely not ideal, but one could contribute meaningfully in a 15 key with that gear.
We didn’t have gear scaled up iirc, we just weren’t heavily impacted by not having gear in the same way we are now. a fresh max level still had the output to be able to win on its own if it was played properly. Gear just accelerated the damage.
Honour sets also weren’t expensive, No upgrading involved. You simply bought the piece for anywhere between 500-1800 honour and that was that. Conquest was gated around 1800 a week I believe on average.
Back in ye olde days, PVP gear was basically the equivalent of norm raid gear. Keep in mind we didn’t have mythics in the game yet, it was different stuff back then. But it was pretty bad, it was specifically meant for PVP alone.
Anyways, back to #2. Iirc the conquest cap each week was 1800 in WOD, if you won a game you got 180 conquest, and I believe losses were 90? So the grind was much easier, Week 2 weapons weren’t unheard of, because people simply saved their first week for big spikes on the second week.
Extra points from higher rating I believe was removed in WOD, I honestly can’t remember.
The rare exceptions, in WOD atleast, were a strength trinket from Highmaul that was used in PVP by literally every DK because it gave them MASSIVE amounts of strength until its eventual nerf, and it was better than your PVP on use. Also add onto the fact it was shorter CD, and human trinket was 2 minutes + didn’t DR with PVP trinket at the time.
You could get a fully geared toon in 1week once you hit level 100.
BGs/Ashran to get honor gear, then start doing arena once you’re almost fully bg gear that’s about day 2 or day 3 in.
Then there was a conquest catch up system, you could farm conquest till matching the current’s week cap. And you gained 360 conquest per win.
Also honor gear was 720ilvl in pvp and epic gear was 740. And that is the equivalent of 249 vs 259 right now. Except honor gear is 171ilvl in Shadowlands.
And on top of that, there was a scaling if your ilvl was below 710 in BG and Arenas, it scaled to 710.
The main difference between wod and now is how long it takes to get full gear. It was very easy to get geared in wod and the honor set wasn’t completely useless.
I should probably mention, as per my last post. I just found an old video of mine from WOD.
https://gyazo.com/794127d622d6dde979b4b885411778e2
PVP gear did increase in rated PVP, but on top of this here’s what my stat sheet looked like in full gear.
https://gyazo.com/33d57869ad26eee96eb58a57235d4ded
Versatility was new to the game and had much less impact than it currently does now. But there were other things in the game, like multistrike (bring this back btw please). Stats overall were less impactful.
Back in ye olde days, PVP gear was basically the equivalent of norm raid gear. Keep in mind we didn’t have mythics in the game yet, it was different stuff back then. But it was pretty bad, it was specifically meant for PVP alone.
Okay, I guess this is where I get confused (and I’m guessing this was before Warmode was a thing).
How would something like this be implemented in the current iteration of the game (noting that we now have 4 ilvl groups in each tier, LFR through Mythic)? My mind jumps to Conquest gear being 259 in Warmode/instanced PvP, Honor gear being 249?
But then one would get one-shot until they have their honor gear.
It’s almost like honor gear should be given to players for free, but equal to greens in PvE. Then Conquest being scaling up in PvE based on what rating you’ve won a game at that week?
Yeah but just do away with the rating gating altogether. I’d be 100% down for honor being given out for free. People already get one shot before they have honor gear. Free or very cheap honor gear that is not THAT much worse than the one ilvl conquest gear, no upgrading.
Well, the PVP gear literally had the equip “In PVP combat”. That’s it. If you were flagged into PVP combat, the stats scaled into that set IL+stats. So in the gyazos from above, my 700 gear in PVE would still remain 700, but if someone hit me and tagged me in PVP, they’d jump to 730 until PVP combat ended.
There was no real “one shots” in WOD. You could def die fast, WWDK and DK/rogue, skilling spree rogue, etc… were proof of dying. But you didn’t die in 0.1s. Generally the “one shots” took about 5-8 seconds to do. The game was much more fair paced imo.
And yes, I agree with honour being equal to PVE greens, that to me is fair. There should be no upgrade levels in PVP, it turns this game into a grind no one wants to do.
Full blue honor gear in a weekend or 7-10 hours of play
They actually did scale everyone up to a baseline ilvl (below honor gear), and you earned some basic PVP gear really fast through loot boxes from PVP activities so you did not stay low ilvl for very long. Even fresh questing greens put you within 30 ilvl of max gear i think.
Reading the official post from Blizzard is worthwhile:
For starters, we’re vastly improving the bonus rewards you can earn from doing Random or Call to Arms Battlegrounds. At the end of a match, you’ll earn a Bronze, Silver, or Gold Strongbox. Which Strongboxes you earn depends on how well your team did in the match, but you can still earn them even if your team doesn’t win.
…
Another issue on our radar is the ever-increasing item level gap between the gear you can purchase with Honor and Conquest points. To help bridge that gap, in Warlords, we’re going to have three separate tiers of PvP gear.
It starts with an introductory set of a quality similar to today’s Honor gear, except you’ll earn it much, much faster. That set comes primarily through the Strongboxes, and you’ve got a high chance of getting a piece in each Strongbox you earn. After that starter gear comes a new set: Veteran’s gear. There’s a small chance to find a piece of Veteran’s gear in a Silver or Gold Strongbox, but you can also purchase Veteran’s gear with Honor points. That gear’s PvP item level will be halfway between the starter gear and Gladiator’s gear.
Adding the Veteran’s tier accomplishes a lot of things for us. First, it makes sure that someone who wants to step into rated PvP later on in the season isn’t nearly as far behind their opponents in gear. Second, since the basic gear is earned so quickly, that helps make sure players get those important set bonuses, trinkets, etc. without too much trouble, and helps ensure everyone is on some baseline in their ability to compete. For players who enjoy PvP but aren’t really interested in jumping into rated competition, earning Veteran’s gear will feel a lot more rewarding.
And to top it all off, PVE gear (mythic raid gear) was actually nerfed in PVP so conquest was still the best gear for PVP.
The WoD system made levelling and gear lots of alts really fun, so trying new specs and classes was actually enjoyable (not a chore).
And, you could just PVP and be fully BiS geared for PVP. No PVE needed.
Lastly, the difference between full conquest gear was only 10-15 ilvl depending on the patch i think. And get this: Gear was not rating gated, and could be earned entirely doing unrated content. Higher rated players did have a higher conquest cap per week though.
It was absolutely hands down the best gearing that WoW has ever had.
You ignored literally everything I wrote after with screenshots
But yes, WOD was way better than people gave it credit for.
The gameplay was kinda zzz but the gearing was unmatched. Plus when you’re comparing it to legion and onward it’s of course going to look amazing.
I mean even then I didn’t mind it. Don’t get me wrong, I hated qing into WLS/FLS and the strat being “Target the blue”. But generally nothing really “Beat” you just for existing.
Like I still remember staying up at midnight one night qing into dilly’s jungle w/ nutzs & joxi and we stopped him from getting his 3k for 3 games. Banger games, and somehow he still got I think 3016 or something that night.
People played, even if the game wasn’t amazing balance wise, it was still enjoyable and had its moments.
Legion best pvp expansion
Bring templates back
Templates were great, pruning half of everyone’s abilities + orc + relentless sucked. Gameplay got much more shallow and it began the introduction of grindy systems.
I leveled up, played ashran for a day or two. got my honor set and some conquest gear. hopped into arenas and got my conquest set in a week or two. Then I was ready for the big leagues.
It wasnt a long drawn out 2 month process to become competitive on alts.
Templates were way less fun than WoD and the ilvl gap was the same as WoD.
WoD gearing was basically templates that you could choose your stats. Far better than Legion IMO
WoD gearing was def admired by many. But the gameplay was surely pretty uninteresting. Handful of comps felt really scripted/telegraphed, and comp variety wasn’t that great also for numerous classes/specs. I liked how Legion turned it up a notch with comp variety after s4 until the end. But WoD just felt like it turned it down 2 notches from MoP when it came to comp diversity.
Hated a lot of the class changes also from MoP to WoD. Felt like they ruined some playstyles with different design philosophies and couldn’t really reshape a lot of them properly. Only reason why I give Legion an edge over WoD was because most classes/specs had the multiple options for comps and didn’t feel as restricted.