Eh. 35k is pretty common. I just did 11 skirm wins for the weekly and at least half the games had above 30k. I saw a melee shaman and warrior at 35k, a havoc with 34k. Two warlocks at 37k which I know they get a boost.
I also saw a few 24k hp players that I literally 2 globalled (because pvp is about skill and gear has nothing to do with it lol)
Don’t get me started on this week’s weeklies, they’re all arena and skirm focused so the best way for me to get honor is losing skirms and tanking my rating before I even get a chance to compete. No thanks, I’d rather unsub.
I hear the gripe about item level, but expecting to be competitive with literally no effort sitting at 150 ilvl is going to fall on deaf ears.
It’s not about being competitive at ilvl 150, I’m aware that won’t happen. It’s that gearing up is horrible right now because there’s no way to efficiently PvE for gear, and PvPing for it means just experiencing what it’s like to be a doormat.
That’s the problem without templates, if you aren’t glad week 1 you’re left behind.
Did you start in legion or something?
I came back in Legion after quitting the entirety of WoD and the end of Cata. Quit until 7.3 because the start of Legion sucked, came back for the start of BFA and quit because that sucked, came back in 8.3 but brought a friend and right now he’s the only thing keeping me subbed.
Just had to quit playing for the night because I can’t even do my skirmishes with 35k Warriors on Glad mounts popping in because of the reset. So much fun, Blizz.
I actually can’t even play PvP anymore because I haven’t kept fully up to date. What’s even the point of a conquest catch up when almost all the gear comes from this stupid vault?
Can someone explain to me which part of RPG necessitates this? Requiring you to grind hours and hours to have a competitive set of gear is not inherently RPG. Guild Wars 1 was an RPG, it never had any of this nonsense, all gear at max level in PvP was cosmetic, and PvP in it was popular for a decade. People who keep pretending beating on baby seals is “RPG” need to start linking a definition that specifies this. You want power without having to earn it, because if you had to go up against someone with even gear, you know you’d lose more often. It’s completely anti-competitive, it’s anti-fun for at least one of the parties involved, and it masks losers with low skill under hours of grinding.
You can want this all you like, but pretending you’re not asking for free wins via time spent and not skillful play is a lie.
Talk about absurd.
We had templates in Legion. They weren’t fun. You couldn’t customize your stats at all, when such character building has always been an integral part of PvP.
Why would I want a system where a developer forces me into some unideal statistical spread, or forces me to play the spread other people prefer?
I want control over my stats. And yes, progression feels good.
You say I want to be carried by gear? I’ve literally been making posts asking for them to re-implement MoP/WoD-style gear/scaling systems, to bring the floor of PvP gear way up, and to ensure PvE gear won’t ever be better than it. Check my post history.
Kindly take your aggressive strawmanning elsewhere, 
.
In what world do templates preclude customization? They just need to give you a pool to be able to allocate to secondary stats as necessary (you can’t even customize your primary stat). This nonsense where you pretend the system they implemented in Legion is the ONLY type of system that could be done is without any proof. Yes, as long as you push for a gear-based advantage over someone else, you are LITERALLY asking to be carried by gear. There is no way around this fact. You are asking for it to be possible for someone to play better than you and lose, if you WEREN’T, the gear would make no difference. You literally can’t defeat this point without mumbling irrelevant blabber about “customization”
Literally what is the difference between choosing 2 pieces of gear with Haste/Vers over putting the stats from a pre-set pool to achieve the same result? Nothing, except a guy who’s good at the game can kick you around the arena year round without having to do mind numbing chores.
In the world Blizzard implemented them while precluding customization.
Where’d I do that, exactly? You have a wild imagination. This isn’t the RP forum.
Sure, they could implement templates again, this time with stat customization, and that would be far better than what they attempted in Legion.
However, I fail to see the effective difference between that and what I proposed. If they scale up honor gear’s ilvl in instanced PvP, while scaling down PvE gear to that same ilvl to ensure it’ll never be better than said honor gear, while having one set of Conquest gear for everyone – what’s the difference?
The floor for PvP gear is much more robust. PvE gear is irrelevant. Conquest gear is a decent upgrade, but honor gear is still competitive enough.
In Blizzard’s envisioning of templates, we still had statistical gains from ilvl, after all. They clearly have no interest in removing progression entirely. (And why should they? It’s an MMO and they want players to have a carrot.)
By the by, I’m pretty sure a template system isn’t going to help you get higher achievements than 1550. You talk a lot about skill prevailing – why not practice what you preach and improve?
What, indeed?
That is the exact opposite of what needs to happen. Casual pvp should be capped and rated should require you to progress gear to stay relative. Arena being templated leads to even greater disparity it what specs are overturned and would even further reduce the number of viable comps. In bgs at the moment the major outcome in a win or loss is the gear that each team has. Team composition on both sides is constantly changing so it has much less of an affect on the outcome
However, I fail to see the effective difference between that and what I proposed. If they scale up honor gear’s ilvl in instanced PvP, while scaling down PvE gear to that same ilvl to ensure it’ll never be better than said honor gear, while having one set of Conquest gear for everyone – what’s the difference?
Not much, other than instant alt participation and the fact that it prevents people from falling behind late in the season. You never want people to have to catch up on something like Corruptions, templates alleviate that issue. That said, your solution proposed is undeniably better than the current system, while I disagree about it being optimal, I’d be very much in favor of it over what we have now, so fighting further over what appears to be split hairs feels pointless.
By the by, I’m pretty sure a template system isn’t going to help you get higher achievements than 1550. You talk a lot about skill prevailing – why not practice what you preach and improve?
I like to improve in games that are competitive and do not give advantages to teams based on time played. It’s why I play DotA2 over LoL (don’t have to unlock heroes, everything they sell is cosmetic), it’s why I play CS over Call of Duty or Battlefield (except casually with friends). I am practicing exactly as I preach, but I don’t expect someone like you to understand.
That’d already be achieved. Alts already easily hit 15k honor before 60, allowing them to buy and begin upgrading a full set of honor gear (which would be scaled up in instanced PvP), while latecomers would have the same conquest catch-up as everyone else.
The only problem, catch-up-wise, would be mid-season due to Vault rewards having no catch-up. But if you ask me, Vault is kind of a dumb system.
You know you can buy conquest gear directly from the vendor, right?
This sounds like it makes sense logically in regards to the ‘major outcome’ in the match, but i found this to be not true at all.
I had a game just yesterday night where a 176 pal/war duo just dominated the game, war had 21 kills no deaths and wrecked 200+ ilvl players.
After that i started watching a little more carefully and the end game stats were roughly equal for high and low ilvl performers.
I’m actually less convinced of ilvl disparity determining outcome (as long as we aren’t talking something wild like 30-50+ ilvls) 
I’m feeling your pain man… I have a similar history with the game, coming and going. I don’t like to raid or do too much rated because it involves a time commitment and you can’t just walk away from the game when your family needs your time.
I have been playing constantly since Shadowlands launched and I’m around 191 item level and I still run into 80% of players in random BG’s and skirmishes having much higher HP than myself.
It seems to me that in Shadowlands, if you don’t heroic or mythic raid or run 15 mythic keystones, you get ROFL stomped in pvp. Unless you are a pro rated player that can eventually upgrade your gear. I hold my own okay depending on if I’m on my hunter or rogue but I’m definitely feeling the gear imbalances more now than at launch haha.
It’s doubtful I’ll be sticking with wow much longer. Too many annoying things like Torghast and the balancing issues.
The warrior was 214 
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/darkspear/tgo
Wow thanks man, I definitely didn’t literally talk about conquest in that comment and explain why that doesn’t catch you up.
You know you can read a whole 2 sentence comment fully before you reply, right?
This is a re-roll character,
It took me 2-3 weeks after max lvl to get to 200ish ilvl with awful luck
Gear is still more than easy enough to get,
The campaign now rewards 196 welfare gear for light’s sake AND a 187? 184? weapon now…
We’re talking quest campaign and anima,
How much easier do you want it?
Honor is super plentiful AND you can upgrade honor items to 184 previously, and now 196?
PLAY THE GAME
People want gear to matter less because they don’t have it/don’t want to work for it so the people who do have it should be rewarded less for their effort? Or be hindered because their opponent: don’t make me do stuff
RPGs are about character progression through gear, if you want something without gear play a moba or overwatch.
The good enough to have fun gear floor is so stupid easy to get to it’s insane the laziness of some people to complain about.