The issue with this comparison is that, just like sports, one can invest time into the game to get stronger and gain an edge.
Athletes train to get to where they are. They earned that place, just like a geared player earned their gear
Not really fair to sit there and demand that you be equal just because you showed up…
I play this game 1 day a week. I work 72+ hours a week, and spend most of my free time lifting, eating, sleeping, etc. I have two toons above 2100 in rbgs. My alt is 204 ilevel. Lack of time is not an excuse and I definitely don’t feel handicapped by gear. If you don’t have enough time to be competitive at the game then you shouldn’t be given a system to make you competitive against those who do.
You’ve been 198 ilevel for 2 months because you choose to not do any other content. That is a you problem and nothing else.
You constantly post about rbg carries but do you have evidence of this?? “Many people get gear from carries” is a grossly exaggerated statement. RBGs aren’t M+ or raids. This isn’t scripted content.
If skill is also a non-factor why have you never pushed rbgs??? If it’s so easy, then do it.
Gear should matter in pvp
buttttt, this ain’t true. At 225 item lvl, if you put 10 people who are like item lvl 200 in front of me, I could quite possibly kill them all in my burst lmao.
I don’t have friends or a guild to do anything further!
I am sure many others are in the same boat…
The problem here is a lot of the folks that comment are speculating and giving their “theories” but haven’t really seemingly experienced the actual reality.
Just do some M+, World bosses, some raid and get vault gear if you don’t want to do rated. It will go up slowly, but it will go up. I won’t give the advice to queue up into you RBGs because honestly, if I was to actually invest time into rated (which I don’t find attractive, based on a few things) I would want to do it well and not halfway.
I was 160 ish last week and got to 199 pretty fast. Will get higher “hopefully” this upcoming week 
you don’t need friends to use a group finder
Lik Bob said use group finder, You will be surpised to find out how much of a good networking tool that is to help You push ratings and get gear…if all You are doing with Your wow time is random BGing then yes You will most likely lose to people putting time into unlocking the better gear gated behind ratings, ilvl still doesn’t matter because I think the same people would beat majority of the people here complaining about Ilvl’s if they were wearing the same gear…
Gear shouldn’t matter in raids or m+ then either… I’m fact let’s all grab some walking sticks and run around like newd Harry potter. Yay more care bear stiff
ilvl certainly shouldn’t matter to the historic extent that it does right now. The inflation is actually bonkers, combined with the stupidly wide ilvl range you have to grind through.
Templates as implemented weren’t the right solution. Unfortunately, in templates’ implementation, they actually scrapped the far better and alt friendly system we had in WoD, where ilvl scaled within PvP combat, and we still had vendors and full control over our stats.
If we were still using that system, none of the problems we’re currently beset by would exist. PvE gear wouldn’t be an issue; alts wouldn’t be pathetically weak for dozens of hours of playtime; conquest gear’s ilvl disparity wouldn’t be an issue.
I literally left my wife and gave my kids up for adoption so I could get gear for my main. This is how dedicated I am to winning random BGs.
My mom called, she’s in the hospital with COVID and she wanted me to help to take care of her cats while she was gone. I called the doctor and had the plug pulled. What a trash noob my mom was, I don’t have time for her petty problems.
Im ELITE PvPerZ! My GEAR MATTER! I AFKed for hours waiting for slow boosters to boost me through rbgs and I maxed 7 of my moms credit cards buying gold for these boosts.
I refuse to play game where people arent as dedicated as me.
it’s almost as if LFG is the tool people should be using to make friends. Do people think I have a full btag of 200 people that I know IRL to play with? lmao
Go play an FPS if gear shouldn’t matter.
I have eight level 60s. Want to know how many items and/or conduits I got from last week’s boss?
Zero. I did get ~75ish gold on each toon though.
Well, not quite full control since there was a limited number of choices (iirc). What would be interesting is a system where all of the vendor items had versatility (or a true pvp stat) and then a “missive” slot with any other stat that you also purchased for honor.
No progression = no incentive = no participation = lost sales. Blizzard sorta tried this in legion. It was a disaster. Lowest PvP participation rate of any expansion. Even lower than BFA.
Believe it or not, it is a RPG. People want progression.
I like the idea, but Blizzard won’t switch to a system that lost them tons of money.
This sounds like a good argument behind not having item level locked behind rating since it wouldn’t matter anyway. Well said.
Why do they always contradict their own arguments lol…