shadowlands is without question a pve welfare gear plan for pvp just like bfa although moderately less severe but it may just appear that way because of the level squish shrinking down the tier gap numbers
shadowlands pve players will have the best pvp gear without spending one second in pvp, pvp players will have a meaningful and sometimes huge disadvantage if they don’t chase pve gear. Questing emissaries and world quests easily beat pvp honor gear and barely require any time in comparison.
random bg honor gear 158 upgradeable to 190 after about 100 bg’s - no lifers may get this somewhat quickly while many many players could take 2-3 months to get this done and by that time it would be completely worthless
conquest gear starts at 190 and is upgradeable but not finalized, high rating is part of it
(the pvp gearing is going a bit of iteration right now due to negative feedback but so far they are just adding some versatility and really bad set bonuses for pvp stuff)
meanwhile you have way way better options via pve, this will definitely be BfA 2.0 as predicted
world quests/emissaries go up to 200 (a couple even higher)
heroic dungeons are 170 (better than default honor gear)
mythic 0 is 183 (pretty much equal to huge time sink upgraded honor gear and almost equal to conquest gear)
mythic 2 is 183 loot and a 200 weekly chest
mythic 10 is 204 loot, 220 chest
mythic 15 is 210 loot, 226 chest
LFR is 187 with a couple bosses at 194
normal raids are 200/207
heroic raids are 213/220
mythic is 226/233
world bosses 207 (gonna be super popular in the first tier like usual)
crafted gear 168
crafted legendary gear 175-235
Basically doing boring super repetitive activities will give you better rewards than dynamic skill based competitive multiplayer with bad matchmaking and very little reward if you get stuck with a bad team. The expansion will be a test of how much pve boredom you can endure to get pvp gear, although some of you may not mind it for a bit.