How exactly does gear work in BGs?

I believe in legion it was like every 10 ilvls equaled 1% higher stats in BGs, but I heard that this isn’t the case in BfA and that ilvl is now completely irrelevant, but the proption of stats at specific ilvl does matter. For example if you had a ilvl 340 chest piece with 100 intelligence and an ilvl 350 that also had 100 intelligence, then the ilvl 340 piece would do more dmg after scaling in BGs.

I havent found anything that can confirm this or really anything to confirm how gear works in BGs, but this is what ive heard, so is this true or does it work differently.

This is all I’ve seen blizz say - or rather, draw - on the issue:

https://twitter.com/ckaleiki/status/1041878657701052416?lang=en

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Well that’s nice, but I wish I could hear it from Blizzard and with some actual numbers and all the specifics. I dont know how much I want to invest in gearing up my character if I dont know whether that will actually make my character stronger or not in BGs

You’re assuming that Blizzard knows how it works. I wouldn’t bet on that.

After 6 hours of testing with a guildie, I do have the outlines of how it likely works now. The main thing to know is that gear scaling reduces but does not eliminate the difference in power if the ilvl difference between the characters is no more than 30. More than 30, it appears that there’s no further scaling, so a 300 facing a 360 is going to face a severe gear disadvantage.

Previous exploits used to magnify Azerite traits appear to be largely fixed, although you can mess yourself up by not keeping progression roughly even between Azerite and nonazerite gear. There are likely some Azerite traits that are still broken irrespective of ilvl, though. Note that we didn’t test healing, though we suspect there’s a bug there, and our testing didn’t involve void storage use and didn’t involve scrapping of peoples’ best gear, so those things might - or might not - change the picture on exploitability.

A different form of selective gear use can still yield a small advantage in certain specialized types of fights, but probably only RBG teams would care.

Edit: yes, it should be a background system that players shouldn’t have to think about, but unfortunately, it isn’t. The sad thing is, there is a way to do gear scaling that would actually make it something the player didn’t have to think about, but Blizzard didn’t use it.

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So would everyone else. Sadly, blizzard is keeping that information behind the curtain. We are supposed to be the numb brained playerbase and not ask these type of questions.

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Fascinating. I wish more folks would test things and share findings with the community at large.

Six hours is a lot of time to spend testing. Most people would prefer to “test” by just playing a bit then cherry picking the things that confirm their biases. Even of those willing to invest that amount of time in rigorous testing, most are probably on rated teams that keep the information to themselves to gain an advantage. Then there’s the fact that the scaling system is now sufficiently complex that even six hours is sufficient only to test one set of circumstances.

Sharing quantitative results on the forums is an exercise in futility anyway. Last time I did that it was on level scaling, and I was shouted down by 120s who just wanted to pwn noobz and hated the level scaling that gave people a level or two lower even the slimmest of chances against them. Blizzard of course listened to the whiners with the result that it’s impossible for a lower level to beat a 120 unless the 120 is AFK, and difficult even then, with consequent detrimental effects on people who might want to level in war mode.

Most people are only interested in hearing things they want to believe, not in learning the truth.

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Had a buddy queuing for bg yesterday in full leveling gear (around 300) beating the snots out of people in full purples.

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I agree Blizzard should be more clear with it, as people see HP and freak out all the time. But my understanding of it is that if you’re 150k HP and the other guy is 75k HP your spells and abilities are pretty much halved when in combat with him, and his are roughly double.

It’s not a 1 to 1 obviously, the geared guy does have a slight advantage, but it’s just a slight advantage.

True but if they did come out with it, the people who really want gear to matter might bust a vessel. I think they want people to “feel like” they have progression but in reality it’s just slight like Legion. This is kind of a win on both fronts.

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It is but people are losing their minds and have been for most of the expansion. It’s a “morale” issue, and has fed the conspiracy theorists.

I would prefer they just tell us. I can’t see the harm in it, but i do see the harm in not telling us.

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As evidenced by the posts from the peanut gallery since this post.

Absolutely. In this case, the lack of transparency really has hurt things.

People join BG’s, and see the other team has a lot of people with 50% more HP and think “WOW WE’RE UP AGAINST SUPERMEN HOW IS THIS FAIR”

I hear you. I am extremely interested in the truth. Players used to be able to find it in the vanilla era thanks to the hard work of data-loving number cruncher types who’d do the testing themselves then post it for all to see on the forum. I agree with you in this day and age of WoW, testers would likely not be very welcome, especially by those kinds of players who enjoy the status quo and do not want especially useful info getting out to the unwashed masses.

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