The below is from a forum post on wowhead about Monk’s taking off gear in arena and one-shotting players with Touch of Death (now very aptly named) and the problem with “behind the scenes” gear scaling.
"The main problem in BfA’s PvP is the “internal” and hidden scailling.
Other expansions like MoP and WoD had sucessful “external” scalling that weren’t complex to understand and did not have side effects like this.
The best competitive PvP system would be Legion’s Templates, but it limits player choice in stats.
The second best system - but the most interesting - would be MoP and WoD’s, because it allowed for a gearing process and made PvP gear the overall best one for PvP.
(OBS: PvP-only stats don’t fix this problem and are also hard to balance. Having PvP gear that could upscale in instanced PvP is a simple and better solution)."
I personally wasn’t a fan of Legion template: I felt it made gear irrelevant (largely). PvP gear scaling in PvP situations was amazing, like in previous expansions, and is a great idea. Here comes the raid-geared player thinking that the guy/girl sitting herbing is an easy target based on HP. Then once combat engages, the herbalist’s stats jump because they are in PvP gear.
I personally wish PvE gear would be PENALIZED in PvP: I hate Raiding and Mythics, yet it’s literally required for the best ilvl/time spent. What I mean by that is I love PvP but have like 5+ toons I enjoy playing: to remain competitive on just one, I must PvP all the time and even then I fall behind when I can just hop on and do one Mythic+ or a pug Raid and get better gear in that time than if I spend it grinding Arenas/RBGs. It’s silly not to be able to play what I want and excel in that area of the game (PvP vs PvE) after this game has been out for 15+ years.
PvE gear should only be boss in PvE.
- You have War Mode off: PvE ilvl applies in the open world at all times.
- You have War Mode on: PvE ilvl only applies when not in combat with other players, once engaged then you lose some percentage of stats. This would result in literally the largest QQ-fest ever from PvE players (even though they could just leave War Mode off), so I doubt this will happen.
Similarly, PvP gear should be best in PvP.
- You have War Mode off: PvP ilvl applies in the open world at all times.
- You have War Mode on: PvP ilvl only applies when not in combat with other players, once engaged then you gain stats at some percentage.
I would also like to clarify that I’m not screaming, “I PLAY ALTS, I WANT FREE BIS GEAR!” What I’m saying is that I should be able to PvP and get gear that is better for that gameplay than having to do PvE. Again, I’m talking time played/gear ratios. Gladiator Gear and Mythic Raiding gear will still be BIS and should be on par base ilvl: but given a Mythic Raid geared toon and a Gladiator geared toon, the latter SHOULD do better in PvP and the former SHOULD do better in PvE.
Maybe make the ilvl jump like 30ilvl: comparable PvP gear is 15ilvl lower than equivalent PvE gear. Thus a Gladiator geared toon in Mythic Raiding won’t do as well as a Mythic geared player because it’s 15ilvl behind, but if you stick a Mythic Raid geared character in PvP, the Gladiator will have a 15ilvl bonus.
I’m not saying it’s an easy fix, but I’m also not a game designer. If I can come up with the above off the top of my head, someone getting paid to do this should be able to run with the idea and make it work! Lmao. It wasn’t a perfect system when the aforementioned scaling existed, but it was on the right track. I really think what I outlined could work well at solving this imbalance, at least the concept if not the numbers (which I used as example).