No. 226 is gated behind 2100. Here, look, I’ll break it down.
1400 is 207. 1600 is 213. 1800 is 220. 2100 is 226. 2400 is 233 weapons.
Keeping the above in mind, someone aiming to climb now has to fight an uphill battle because every upper bracket collides with every lower bracket.
In other words, as you climb, your MMR will increase. So lets say you’re 1800, and pushing 2100. When you hit around 1900, your MMR will be closer to 2k, which will begin funneling people already at 2100 into your games. You’re at an item level, and versatility disadvantage at that point. The versatility is especially important because of the double trinket bonus. It’s 40% of your current versatility, not 40% flat. This is the same for every bracket.
Combine such with the boosting problem we have, because what’s also happening is people are going and getting 2400 in something like RBG’s, and then going into lower brackets and boosting people. So you have people with 226 gear, and 233 weapons, beating people up in the 1400, 1600 and 1800 bracket who have no where near such equipment, and without scaling, absolutely decimating them.
I’m a 2400 experienced player. My girlfriend is also a 2400 experienced player. We keep queuing into blizzcon competitors at 1950 and 2k because of how the game is right now, all of them already in at least full 226 gear. We stand no chance. Between boosting, item level being attached to gear, etc - it’s all a very big problem, which I think Blizzard is learning considering the talk of possibly bringing back the WOD system. Item level being attached to rating was a horrible idea.
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It’s ok, those few skeptic posters(minority) will soon come to alleviate us from our true disillusions!
But yes, I stopped cold doing pvp, and logging into SL. But just one measly player grievance doesn’t surmount to this great system, as the larger base who loves the mechanics in game are still here.
IT is garbage. It was obvious early on that pvp was going to be a complete joke this expansion, but people kept talking about how awesome it was and how they like the fast paced action. Most of them probably have quit by now.
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It’s amazing actually, Corruptions turned late-BFA PVP into a complete clown fiesta of he-who-procs-first-wins.
When I saw Corruptions going and SL rebalancing I thought “yay some slightly more normalised PVP”. I didn’t think it was possible to have basic class design less balanced than Corruptions … but here we are.
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God forbid you want to pvp with an alt. Even at 0 cr everyone has 40k hp.
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I saw the leave arena button flash before my eyes as a big DEFEAT sign popped up moments later.
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I was an unranked pvp player for years. I even ground out my ‘Justicar’ title when WSG only gave a few rep IF you won. LOL like 1 out of 10 games. I ground out my ‘bloodthirsty’ title in random bg’s.
They used to be fun even when you had premades that invaded those randoms. Now? No way. It’s zero fun being fodder in a game that has NO balancing whatsoever. Ever since holinka started his reign of terror in wod pvp has just degraded into pay to win scenario with premades selling piloting and carries.
As each part of the game I used to enjoy gets destroyed with apathetic development it becomes painfully obvious as I am unwilling to pay to win under the current crap they release these days.
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Started to recently run into that with pals (rogues are at least counterable.) One stun, next hit, dead. Like, what in the maw is that about?
Wait till Tuesday and you see arms warriors mainly Venthyr, smacking you with 40k mortal strikes with exploiter legendary 
can’t lie and say I’m not crafting that leggo rn on my warrior :), if they’re gonna give us something game breaking I guess I’ll enjoy it for the time being until they nerf it next xpac.
Ret got nerfed bro, fire mage got buffed looool!!.
The decisions blizz are making are baffling to me. I mean it’s reasonably foreseeable that this problem would arise in such a system. The playerbase is tired of having things like this happen and then waiting several months for fixes, the devs need to be more savvy.
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I obviously only speak for myself here, but I don’t think I can ever understand how people enjoy fast-paced combt in an MMO-style game.
We have so many options, possibilities and outright abilities to use to get ourselves in and out of situations - but in a meta like this, everything can happen in the space of a couple seconds - if not fractions of a second. It feels antithetical to what MMO combat even is.
Many, many other games do fast-paced combat better than an MMO ever can. Hell, even a few MMOs have combat systems better suited to this sort of fighting than WoW.
The piano-style, 20 abilities and loads of options schtick just does not work alongside such short engagements. People need more room to breathe.
That said, disregarding the issue of metagame, making gear matter (gear being a marker of primarily PvE progress, by the way) again was a bullheaded decision.
You can’t have the outcome of a battle decided by something the player earned 5 hours before said battle, and outside of it in its entirety - not in a game like this. Maybe in something like EVE, where actual resources are expended and there’s a sort of risk in taking your super fancy gear into a scrim - but not here.
I mean Divine Toll got nerfed in the time it takes to apply Ringing Clarity to remove it’s Divine Toll’s one-shot. But they also get a 15% buff to Final Verdict making it a really decent option for PvP.
It’s more just a redistribution of damage than an actual nerf. Their burst with Final Reckoning, Execution Sentence, and Divine Toll is still going to be obscene.
I remember all the people defending the burst meta the first couple of weeks of SL season 1 by saying, “wait till we have all our finesse/endurance conduits unlocked”… how it would improve.
LOL
That always happens rofl these people never learn.
That final verdict buff isn’t sht, I promise you people will still be using Reigns. Rets need survival ability because our heal nerfs and scary mortal wounds from wars and monks. Final verdict is still going to be meh and mostly situational in pvp especially RBgs and completely trash in pve… Paladins legendarys are pretty lack luster in general.
The problem in most PVP MMOs, because healing (or that game’s version of sustain) is a thing there is a very fine line between “fast paced” and “no one dies”. If you increase the duration of combat then bunker builds dominate and sustain classes become immortal. I mean we already see this to some extent with Druid/Pal/Disc classes in WoW.
Other games had their own flaws, Aion was dominated by Magic Resistance, get to a certain level and become immortal so everyone maxxed out that stat and lived forever, Black Desert was dominated by armor from gear and their scaling curve making high geared players immune to damage.
GW1 & 2 were probably the most balanced (not perfect), their only main broken mechanic was stealth being OP in GW2.
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Mm. I remember this all too well in GW2 - a few too many balance changes were made, and it went from team fights ending in a few chaotic seconds, to a bunker meta where people would make classes with enough sustain to stall until help could arrive. (at least re: sPvP)
I’m not gonna lie, the burst meta was more fun to play in comparison … but I wouldn’t call either extreme very good.
I suppose it’s just a problem with the genre, in general - if you give people the means to pick their stats and build a character to the degree an MMO can, you’re going to see some probably unexpected outliers once people start pushing them to their limits.
I do think there is, and has been a happy medium though. Like you said, GW1 (and to a lesser, but no less valid extent) GW2 did it very well, and I feel like WoW has had a decent balance in the past.
People dying slowly isn’t necessarily a bad thing, so long as it’s not also matched by ridiculous amounts of sustain. If I hit someone for 10% of their health, and that goes on to dictate the entire rest of the fight, that feels really good.
Not so much when it’s healed almost immediately by an instant-cast spell.
Can you share contact? Want to make some money lol.
The argument that it is gated seems kinda weak given that those people at 2100+ had to go through the same thing to get there.
Thanks for the info though!