Happy Patch Day All!
While we are all in the waiting room for 11.2 and the interim week before season 3, there has been one issue that has been stuck in mind for a few seasons now. This issue is the fact that your entire conquest gear set is entirely replaced day 1 of the following season/interim period. It is essentially nullifying all work done in the previous season.
In summary, it just feels like there is no progression with gear season to season where it now feels just too seasonal.
I am not sure why it is designed this way besides making it easier for people who have not played to catch or to even the playing field. The simple issue is that elite conquest gear that is optimized for season 2 is completely replaced by honor gear on one day of a patch is insanity.
My personal feeling and thoughts about this situation is how it used to work inWoD/MoP/Cata is the best method. I miss the old days where the new honor gear was equivalent to the prior season’s conquest gear. In fact, I would almost prefer it to be the case.
Now what do we have you might ask? Conquest gear is entirely replaced week 1 with honor gear or dare I say crafted gear. (The crafted gear situation while it is awesome I can optimize every single piece; THE ISSUE IS THAT I HAVE TO KEEP RECRAFTING ALL OF IT SEASON TO SEASON ON AN ENDLESS HAMSTER WHEEL)
And that is my major problem with what retail has become. I am kind of getting burnt out by the fact that previous season gains are beyond trivialized by week 1 of a new patch. Look at pve gear even, mythic level gear is being replaced potentially by champion gear in mythic level 0 dungeons.
This situation is worsened especially when it comes to alts. Now I recognize this is both a positive and a negative in that if you never played a character in a previous season, then they get on par with new gear day one with other players. Yet, this would still be preserved if it was the same gear as the previous season. The reason why this is a negative for alts is for people like me that play multiple alts. I do not want to honor and world pvp grind out 13 classes every single season over and over in addition to conquest gearing. I would prefer the conquest gear to carry over relative to the honor gear for the following season.
If we were to change this system slightly, there would be a massive bonus.
YOUR CONQUEST GEAR GAINS ACTUALLY FEEL MASSIVE.
Instead of it being a small gain, conquest gains would feel impactful again.
Here is how it works now in season 2:
Honor gear: 671 ilvl
Conquest: 684 ilvl
A 13-item level difference while noticeable at the end of gearing feels awful overall.
Imagine it being the starting conquest item level of 639 gear from season 1 to 684 in season 2 for perspective.
New version of the system to have conquest gear feel good again:
Honor 639
Conquest 684
The conquest pieces would feel far more impactful and you would be so much more enticed to gain your conquest pvp pieces again. You actually might care more about your conquest gear again and hopefully bring some life back into it.
And a sidenote on this topic, ELITE rated pvpers should get a bonus/incentive to their pve gear from their conquest gear. (I know they added a token that allows you to convert pve gear into pvp gear which is cool but I should be able to upgrade a pvp piece to at MINIMUM hero track level loot). If I am 2700+ in PvP, my gear should not be capped at champion (yes it is champion level capped in pve) item levels when I want to use a pvp piece in pve. It’s ridiculous especially if I play all three areas of the game being pvp, mythic plus, and raids. And if it is an issue, gate keep it by 4-6 weeks before it unlock upgradability or a certain amount of conquest needed to be earned to do it like how it was in MoP.
Imagine creating an incentive for pvers to pvp. Season 1 of Shadowlands saw record pvp engagement due to that similar system.Mists of Pandaria Classic has the same incentive for pvers too that we are seeing now with pre-raid BiS lists. And to anyone who tries to refute this point, I do not care if a world first raider has to pvp to get a single item to make their progression just a little bit faster. Let them run their 50 splits, 10,000 keys, and 10,000 arenas to get a small advantage. What they do should NOT affect our quality of life as pvpers and the rest of the player base. If you want to be the best of the best in WoW, you should have to play all forms of content. PvPers have endlessly dealt with having to PvE to PvP for many seasons. It is not until recently that this was not the case. And while it is nice, I think there should be content mixing from time to time. This would be a better way to bring some life back into pvp again.
Anyways, how do others feel about this issue or topic? Perhaps I am mistaken in my feelings about this, but it just feels jarring to me at least the honor gear replacement and to a lesser degree pvp gear being practically useless in pve sides of content.
(For context of why I feel this way, I have played since original Cataclysm where I mained a holy paladin and have pvped ever since except for a handful of seasons. I have also raided at a heroic level or higher since WoD and ran keys since legion. I just want the gearing process to be slightly adjusted for pvp. I could be entirely off base here, but I think the topic could provide some fruitful discussion.)
