The new changes are definitely a step in the right direction and I am very glad to see blizzard listened to the feedback.
I would suggest two additional modifications. I understand Blizzard’s perspective that no player who focuses on one form of content (raid, m+, PvP) should be able to get their BiS from solely that one content form. I am not trying to debate or otherwise relitigate that stance. I believe my suggestion is a fair compromise between our concerns while still sticking to Blizzard’s design philosophy.
In light of that belief, I feel that the best way to address the concerns we still have would be to enhance the already good set bonus that was put into place on PvP trinkets. Unfortunately, an issue still remains in that the set bonus for the two trinkets is simply not strong enough to encourage players to not equip unbalanced PvE trinkets (if we end up with more drests, bikes, tank trinks, vitas, etc).
Creating a further set bonus for 4 and 6 PvP items equipped (mandating 2 PvP trinkets to reach the 4 and 6, in other words you can’t just equip 6 other items and no PvP trinkets and get this bonus) would fix this issue in the best way. [Quick aside - Why 6 and not 8, 10, or an entire set? Because this is a compromise solution. I know many of us would just want it to be for equipping all PvP gear and only PvP gear should be good in PvP. That is not in the cards, they have said as much dozens of times now. Let’s try to propose realistic solutions instead which fit in with Blizzard’s stated gearing philosophy].
While again I am not here debating the philosophy behind requiring players to do other forms of content, by the very nature of the current PvP gearing system (honor is not capped, but is low ilvl) and simply due to the fact that conquest is capped weekly for what you can farm and buy at the vendor, this further change is needed to put our gearing process more on par with M+ and raiding.
As it stands currently, I know myself and other PvPers are planning to just do all M+ to gear. Nobody will be doing BGs because of the time sink for low gear, and once we get our conquest cap and fill the chest to the maximum weekly, that’s it. M+ currently allows players to farm 15s over and over again to obtain upgrades with no limit. Since there is no PvP stat, this essentially forces us to do endless M+ still in order to gear in the most efficient manner. PvP gearing still is second rate for PvPers.
We should expand the 2 trinket set bonus to reward players who equip 4, and then 6 (including PvP trinkets) items. A simple way would just be to expand that versatility improvement number. Plus, if you make the 2 set trinket required to unlock the 4 and 6 set bonus, this would remove the issue of unbalanced PvE trinkets. And the best part is, the design philosophy of encouraging players to do other content still exists. For those other 8-10 slots (depending on if two hand or one and off hand user, and depending on if the set bonus is 4 or 4 and then a 6) players are free to pursue PvE gear, or even just fill out the rest of their set with PvP gear. Given the design of what the vendor sells, players will need to do M+ and/or raid anyway to get their BiS since the vendor won’t contain all of the stat combos for each piece. I have no issue with this. What I do have an issue with is there is still no incentive to not just chain queue M+ for 3 days straight to get a full set of gear before even the first weekly reset. Incentivize us to wear at least 1/3- to 1/2 of the gear we earn from doing our content. And as an added benefit, the gear we earn from doing our content will be the best for our content. A 2400 elite player will have the highest ilvl equipped for his/her 4 or 6 PvP items. By default those who are better at PvP will have a slight advantage that can not be taken from them, even with mythic raid gear or m15 weekly chest gear. And since it’s just 4 or 6 items, they won’t be able to roll over low rated players because the gear will only be about 5-10 ilvl higher and only for 4 or 6 slots. But, we still get a small, rewarding advantage for our higher rating. As it stands now, the small rewarding advantage in arena is afforded to those with enough WoW tokens to buy mythic raid carries. This shouldn’t be.
I hope this is a constructive feedback. TLDR is essentially that the set bonus should be expanded beyond 2 trinkets to include a 4 piece and then a 6 piece set bonus for equipping PvP gear (but still requiring the two trinkets equipped to reach 4 or 6) Versatility in PvP increasing substantially with each higher set bonus number. I believe this will assuage most of our concerns that M+ is still a better gearing method because we are going to inherently always need 6 pieces of PvP gear total equipped regardless. All the while, it allows blizzard to stick with their main design philosophy of requiring players to do other forms of content (m+,raid and PvP) to fully gearing BiS.
Thanks and stay healthy and safe