dont even think of playing arena above 1400 without 220 ilvl.
I am NOT saying it cannot be done. But you will find that even with superior gameplay and perfect cc - it cannot stop the random 100 percent heals from a conduit mechanic or a NPC spawn that does more damage than a RET or a basic attack criting for 9k or a onslaught of GPIE quality attacks that take you from 100-0 in less time it takes to react to a spider on your shoulder.
you can do everything right, outplay the other player and they will win. The old joke about rolling your face on the keyboard to win…is actually real right now below 1800.
I mean not really, if you are good at the game you can climb. Getting 1400 gets you good enough gear to get 1600, then 1600 gets you good enough gear for 1800 and so on. If you are playing people who are 220+ that low then they are terrible at the game. Players who aren’t will be able to still win against them.
I’ve been doing bgs lately to get ready for arenas and I’ve inspected a ton of the 220s floating around there. The amount of 1800-2100 rbg yet stuck in 1400 2s/3s with 300+ games is insane.
No… They’re boosters. That’s the point you’re missing. Most of the lower bracket (1k-1.6k) atm is 220+ Rivals in 3’s/RBGs selling boosts out of LFG. These players are rolling in with 38-42k hp with full vers gear crushing people who are in 197’s from either Covenant, or Honor BGs. There is no realistic way to compete against a 220’d out meta class as two people trying to climb in what would be “rank appropriate” equipment currently.
Very, very, very rarely you get another “Let’s play and try to climb, or have fun.” team. But it’s almost exclusively a 30k hp person, and a 42k hp meta class (war, ret paladin, boomkin, fire mage, etc) who zero one of your people off the map in a global through trinkets+defensives because dealing 35% more damage than them via vers coupled with having tremendous stat advantages is an impossible statistical value to overcome.
Yes occasionally gear is a factor, but in 95% of my games I can pick out things my team did wrong. It is our first time playing this comp so there are growing pains, but in 3’s I rarely say, MAN if the other team wasnt insanely geared.
Posting on a 45 seems like some big bait but in case you’re serious. At least 60% of matches in the 1200-1800 bracket are boosters. A 227 carry can shred anyone in 1600 gear like paper. Skill is so far removed from this gear discrepancy meta that you can drastically outplay people and still get globalled. Even the people that are dogwater but in 220 gear can still dish out more than enough damage to kill most people in 1400-1600 gear.
If you don’t think the ilvl difference is that huge, consistently try to beat someone that’s 10-20 ilvls higher than you. I guarantee you that you are incapable. Gear matters far too much, and boosting is much too frequent.
The system you described where you should be able to get 1400 gear to get 1600 is a great idea, and ideally it would be like that. But when high geared people can come down and run the lower brackets, it’s impossible.
Gear should scale with your current MMR. If you are in 1600 MMR, your gear should scale to 1600 ilvl. It would actually make PvP involve skill again.
Completely agree with this, it’s not that you can’t climb if you’re in this situation. I made a post yesterday detailing how I managed to climb in this rating despite this, but god it results in a lot of loses that just straight up feel wrong or moral crushing.
Can you win against really high geared players by just playing better? Absolutely, sometimes. Sometimes however if you’re fighting against a high gear ret for example on a low gear character who has 10k less health than him? If that ret gets good rng you lose, no amount of counterplay can get around the fact. Even for other specs there are times when facing someone with that level of gear when you only have say 30kish health, you’ll just randomly die through all CDs when you wouldn’t have otherwise.
This is completely ignoring the rampant boosters which tbh if you’re not equal gear to them with how well they tend to play and you can’t randomly 1 shot the person they’re boosting that’s just a lose 9 times out of 10. The only counterplay is if you notice someone is being boosted and they have no health you can just tunnel them and pray.
I mean not really. Do you really think the only people playing in these brackets are carries? They really aren’t. And even if they are a carry, that means they have either 1 or 2 people who are absolute bots.
I’m currently working on a video where I’d taking a 200 ilv dh and grinding it up through lfg. I’ve only been going at it for a couple days, but I’m already 1800 on it so that much is possible.
Ilv does matter, but nowhere as near as you make it out to.
and prob play a Paladin 
