PvP is functionally unplayable for someone with a few hours a week

PVP Battlegrounds
1

I came back to WoW after a 15 year hiatus as I have heard good things about DF, and I wanted to give it a try. I’ve always focused on PvP in this game and I primarily play games in the Fighting Game genre. Since I last played I have grown up, started a family and work a full-time job so my time to play has become more limited. Because of all of these responsibilities I have somewhere between 3-6 hours of gaming time a week and generally not all at once.

When I started playing again everything was pretty smooth. Leveling took a couple weeks & I was even able to queue a couple low lvl BGs while I played. Gearing was straight forward (or so I thought) as I bought a set of crafted 503 aspirant gear and went to queue my first solo shuffle excited to dive into the meta of pvp.

Well turns out I can’t, Ilvl is stopping me. On its own this isn’t too bad. I just need to queue some BGs or blitz to get my honor/conq to get better gear before I can queue. So I queued up and sat at the dummy & did some rotation training. I read a bit on my class and even watched a YT video on current pvp meta… Then 20min passed and I realized I wouldn’t have time to finish a BG if I started. I have to bathe my baby and put him to bed. Okay so it was disappointing start, but I’ll have another opportunity!

Fast forward a couple weeks and I’ve had to drop 2/3 of the queues I enter because they simply took too long to pop. I can farm world quests for gear, but I want to pvp, not do world quests. I ran into a few players in the world who massively outgeared me to a point I don’t believe it would have been possible to kill them. I was nearly globaled in my first encounter. Of the BGs I have been able to play half of them earned me almost nothing. I upgraded all the gear I could, but I am still at 509 and unable to queue the primary game-type I want to engage with.

I’m realistic and I don’t expect to instantly have glad gear or even a full set of 515 gear in a week. I do however think I should at least be able to play the game in a setting I’d like to? In contrast to Fighting Games which I can hop on and be in a match with someone around my skill level inside 5 minutes. I just find that the experience of playing PvP in modern WoW requires a minimum of time which is unobtainable to most people’s busy lives. As much as the game interests me on an intellectual level, I look at the prospect of actually playing it and realize that functionally I cannot and will not ever be able to play even the fastest pvp modes of this game.

This is disappointing to me. I was hoping to have some fun learning a new PvP experience, but as things stand I will probably cancel my sub. I have many other games which don’t require payment to play and offer me an opportunity to engage with the game on a level which is actually fun to me.

13 Likes
2

Honor levels less than 30 are placed in their own bracket which may not have enough players to consistently make matches in a timely manner. You can try to queue epics which I thought would mix you with higher honor level players but might not or queue with someone in regs which will put you in the common queue. Also, battleground blitz has 1 queue, I believe.

3

Thats interesting. From what I can tell though honor levels are basically the slowest progression path compared to gearing/rating correct? Its odd to me that they’d separate lower levels into a smaller pool. I feel like the experience is worse being unable to play vs playing against more experienced players. At least give me a choice…

Blitz is definitely one queue, I have had honor level 300+ in games with me. This is by far the most interesting (accessible) game mode to me because sometimes I do get quick queues and have fun playing regardless of win/loss. I just wish it actually progressed me into arenas better. I enjoy my time till I realize the only play session I will have in a few days earned me 1/10 a piece of honor gear and no conq.

4

As you gear you’re more likely to find others in LFG to queue with, especially in a specialty role and WPvP offers some good gear. Honor levels were introduced in Legion when they tried to remove pvp gearing and they wanted a sense of progression. Gear was brought back next xpac but the faux progression system created to accommodate it still exists. Just shows the priority of fixes in the world of pvp.

5

You can do basically anything in pvp with a few hours a week.

2 Likes
6

I’ll have to try LFG this week. I scanned it when I started playing again and was pretty turned off of the majority of “Must have XXXX exp to join”. Felt like job searching where someone is looking for 3 years of experience to get an entry-level job.

2 Likes
7

There are some yolo groups just wanting some organizational advantages. I think you’re doing right with BGB, others have run into the same issue previously and that seems the best. You can try epics but I don’t know if that will work. You should be able to get pretty good gear from BGB, best in game for pvp (upgrades to gear only affect pve ilvl).

1 Like
8

Maybe you know something I don’t, but I explained why I felt this way in the post above. Is there some way you’re aware of I can consistently get at least a full game in around an hour?

9

This old system they have is completely broken. Overgeared bullies stomping new or undergeared players all day. No skill involved, just gear.

I don’t understand either why it takes so long to enter a battle ground. Sitting in que for 10 - 20 minutes, like is there not 20 people ready to enter a battle ground? The system is broken and they don’t want to fix it. They concentrate on mythic dungeons because that’s what must bring in the most revenue. I personally can’t stand Mythic+ dungeons lol. Just spam a rotation and sweat to not miss one click is not my idea of a fun video game.

1 Like
10

I don’t think gear diff is all that bad in organized pvp at lvl 70. At least this season buying into 505 gear for < 10k gold including enchants is pretty doable. Glad gear is only 528 making it an effective difference of 4% (is my math wrong?). In any random BG thats likely not going to turn the tide of a battle and in any 1v1 a 4% power increase is likely not going to change the outcome of the skill between players.

I actually think gear is in a decent spot for what it is. I’d prefer there to be no barrier to entry into endgame pvp, but this is WoW and I played vanilla in '05 so I’m not as turned off by it.

My biggest problem is I frankly do not get to play the game if I have less than a couple hours to dedicate to it. As a comparison I had a 15min break over lunch and was able to play 3 sets (first to 3) in my favorite fighting game. I just get WAY more game out of it for a fraction of the time investment.

11

Yes, your math is wrong. The general power increase from gear is approx 1% per ilvl, meaning if you’re in purchased greens it will be a 23% difference in player power between that gear and conquest gear (roughly). That’s only an estimation because players can also craft gear with specific stats which will give you a large increase in output - some classes benefit from this more than others

The hardest thing for returning players is how to gear, as it isn’t explained at all in game. You will have:

505 purchased (for gold) gear from the AH (or crafted)

515 honor gear. This is purchased with honor from the vendor in valdraken

525 epic world pvp gear, this is purchased in the same room as the pvp vendor in valdraken. They cost bloody tokens and trophies, trophies are obtained by completing a quest (you also get the quest in that same room). Bloody token are sometimes annoying to get but if you look at the pvp world quests in the world there is sometimes one that will give you 500/800 bloody tokens, complete the quest and you’re partway there. There is also a catchup mechanic to buy trophies if you’re behind, but it costs honor which you may not have a ton of

528 conquest gear, purchased from the vendor in the pvp room. pretty straight forward

528 crafted gear. If you don’t know how to craft pvp gear, I would suggest watching a youtube video - watching someone do it will help. The basics are you get a conquest token, combine spliters of awakening into a spark (it takes 2 splinters and 250 flightstones to combine). Once you have that you go to an auction house like vendor who shows the mats you need. Buy the mats, you can choose your secondary stats and someone will craft it for you. Again, watch a youtube video, my explanation was lazy at best

The 528 crafted gear is important becase your first pvp box of the season (the reward from winning a bg/blitz/arena etc) there will be a quest item in your bag, you can accept it and turn it in within the pvp room and you will get 2x conquest tokens. Very easy to access gear with good stats and embelishments. If you got the item and ignored it like I always do, it’s just a quest item sitting in your bags

Last, this is important, upgrading your pvp gear does nothing except increase ilvl in PVE. If you attack someone in the open world or join any pvp instance your gear will automatically increase to it’s highest possible ilvl. Upgrading gear at the upgrade things won’t matter for ilvl in pvp combat

1 Like
12

If 1 ilvl is 1% more power, and I have 500 ilvl that means my baseline is 500% more power than nothing. So a difference of 500% to 528% is not 28%, its 5.6%

So unless I completely misunderstand the first assumption I am pretty sure my math is right?

13

Yes, I know what you’re saying but you’re taking a percentage of two percentages. You don’t need to. Just look at the difference of both percentages

If you get a full set of gear all 10 ilvl above what you currently have, all with the same stats and distribution, expect to have approx 10% more power than you did before

14

I see, that is entirely counter-intuitive.

I am firmly of the belief that gear makes PvP worse, but I can take it as it is so long as the gear is obtainable through playing.

I am not trying to make this thread about gear either. I just want to play the game and I feel as though it doesn’t want me to using the systems that are available to me.

15

Gear is very obtainable, one of the most it’s ever been. If you like blitz, just play blitz. It gives you lots of honor and decent conquest, games are quick and you’ll eventually start playing with people around your skill level once your rating evens out

1 Like
16

Yeah, maybe I just can’t play WoW then. My experience with Blitz is that cues are an average of 20-30min and games are ~15min long. That requires a full hour of gameplay for a single game.

That spread out at the rate I get to play and I’ll be geared as soon as TWW releases…

1 Like
17

Queue times for dps aren’t great. If possible, if you queue with a healer the queue times get better

18

It was suggested above to look for YOLOs in LFG as well. Maybe I’ll try LFG simply to find someone who wants to queue with me then.

Thanks for the honest and normal discussion.

19

Consider doing a search on the communities’ tab and filtering by PvP.

There’s active communities that play battlegrounds, some of them pretty big, some them pretty friendly, the best of them both.

One the most useful features can be the community chat where members regularly organise groups to do BGs or world PvP or w/e. Get a big enough community and there’s often something going on, especially during prime times.

G’luck with it all. Hope you find a few fun hours to have battles.

20

What? When and where are you queing? My DPS que times are 5-9 minutes. My heal que times are virtually instant. All of this for blitz that is. And it adds to the vault which is nice.

Gearing is easy right now. Even crafting is a convoluted mess that I still don’t quite fully understand lol