The most annoying thing is having to have to grind gear to be any good in pvp imo. After you do it a few times it gets annoying. Other games that embrace the gameplay instead of grinds is better for the experience.
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if you can wipe in a raid for better gear you can wipe in a battleground for better gear to make you better at pvping. Just because you died in a battleground doesnt mean you lost unless youre one of the many posters here who complains that they died in a battleground and start acting like its the end of an expansion for them
Pretty sure the idea for shadowlands pvp gear system went something like:
“Hey let’s just go back to them farming honor, then buying a pvp set with conquest…”
“Yeah but see that’ll cut into time played metrics so we can’t do it”
“Ok well what if we make them buy the sets like 8 times each?”
“Ok you may have something there!”
And then we got shadowlands pvp gearing
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I think it would have been better if pvp scaled you to a top pvp ilvl. And then the extra ranks were just to upgrade the pve part.
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The issue is the quality of experience you have as you enter as a new player or on a fresh 60.
In every expansion, you initially get stomped, but you start to slowly acquire more honor gear. With only 2 power levels in gear, the smaller difference between a full honor gear and full conquest geared player is smaller than today in SL.
Once you get you honor set, you get beat 1v1 with conquest sets players, but it takes some time.
In SL you bought an honor set, then upgraded it 7 times! And you still get stomped because conquest gear also has 5 tiers of power progression. For a very long time in the grind, you feel hopeless; no matter what you do, you will die quickly.
This discourages alts, off meta specs, and new PvP players.
Recently a blue post was made on the Community Council speaking about the gearing issue. Here is part of what Blizzard Entertainment had to say,
We believe that the current arrangement – using PvP item level – has reduced the power gaps between players to reasonable amounts that make for fulfilling games where your team usually has a good chance to defeat your opponents in Arenas and Battlegrounds. You can get started quickly, and perform adequately
I never subscribed to the idea that our developers never played their own video game. But I cannot offer any other explanation for this level of ignorance. 105 upgrades to still be 26 item levels below competitive is not in any way adequate, Desvin.
Who are you trying to convince, Desvin?
Desvin, do you know you guys tried Item Level Upgrading in Mists of Pandaria in PvP & had to revoke it the next major content patch? Why do we have to deal with the same problems over & over again? This time, however, we are dealing with the issue for an entirety of an expansion.
Link to Community Council post: PvP Gearing in SL - #8 by Desvin-1200
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I am back after not playing for a year and in the catch up process. When I first started a specific amount of renown with the covenants, a PVE gimmick, was required to upgrade your PVP gear further. I was sort of ok with it but not enough to continue my subscription. I am close to getting to 70ish renown and upgrading PVP gear has increased to up to 7 or 9 which is absolutely absurd.
What makes matters worse is what little PVP gear I had at the start of the expansion is not even upgradable. Does that mean when next season starts, if there is one, people will have to repeat the same process? Its like the current system only exists to keep fools queuing for BGs so all the try hards and people who are already geared get their enjoyment while everyone else suffers. If you are Alliance, it must be even more unbearable.
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LIke you even have to ask lol.
they didn’t even give season 1 gear the pvp boost.
177 gear fresh off vendor is better as it carries the bonus.
I’d say they were being nice letting trinket set keep the bonus. But part of me is rolling up some tinfoil. they forget to remove season 1 trinket from the bonus granting list is that foil fat. made it to live and too late.
All of the grinds in Shadowlands are excessive. The main one being the unskippable campaign quests 
Gear should never be a reward in pvp because the rich stay rich and prevent new entry.
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WoW devs don’t play WoW, it’s just a 9-5 job for them.
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I thought they nailed PvP gearing in WoD. Why can’t we go back to that?
Currently it often isn’t even worth grinding out your honor gear because if you’ve completed the Archivist Codex rep grind, you can just get ilevel 233 gear from that. A lot of gear in Korthia has good stats for PvP (the ring dropped by Consumption, the cloak dropped by Relic Breaker Krelva, etc.)
The current PVP system is so weird, it’s like they looked at over a decade of PVP design choices and took the worst parts from them.
All they need to do is make it how it was in WoD. You have a chance of gaining aspirant gear from BGs, you get your honor set and earn conquest as you go. You have scaling that gives an ilvl floor and an ilvl ceiling so gear still matters but no one is useless. There was a surge of PVP participation at the start of the expansion because everyone was in the same general ballpark and even though some classes were overtuned, it was still fun.
Oh yeah and let us buy the prior season’s conquest gear with honor points. Not just ensembles, the individual pieces. Even Legion allowed us to buy ensembles the season right after, and for Cata/MoP/WoD we could always buy the prior season’s pieces with honor for mogging purposes. PVE’rs can get the raid gear of the prior tier, why do PVPers need to wait until the end of the expansion and are limited to only a class locked ensemble?
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Fortunately it looks like they may have gotten the memo (sort of) and are increasing honor gains by 40%.
Still seems a little low, but it’s a start.
I still think upgrading is just obnoxious, but this feels like a losing battle.
This will mostly help players who want to upgrade rated conquest gear. I don’t think it will be more than a bandaid fix.
People still complained like they are now, mainly higher rated players saying they should be rewarded more since people that were 1.2k could have the same gear as them. That’s what I recall anyway
It’s really tough spot. Rewarding the good players while making the average player happy is pretty tough, especially when they constantly change how gearing systems work.
To some the reward of skilled pvp is not dying.
While eve offers the chance of riches….reality is many targets are running the same modest gear as you. Now you can drop a target with nice expensive gear. That is not the norm in my experience. Carebearing paid my pvp fees. Way too many drop cheap crap lol.
You will make say 10 mil off the 5 tech 2 modules they dropped.
Your reward in eve pvp is more often than not….flying away in your ship. And not a pod. That is a good pvp day in eve lol.
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I always thought that was silly. The more people that get “high rated” gear, then the greater the participation in rated play.
Also, high rated players already have rewards that the average or casual player may not easily attain. These are usually:
- Mounts
- Titles
- Tabards
- Illusions
- Elite transmogs
It honestly doesn’t sound that difficult to implement. It was wildly successful in MoP and WoD with similar implementations.
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Agreed. High skilled players get rewards already. Giving them power is unhealthy for the game.
When I get beat now, is it because of their power or skill? How do I discern which factor. How do I learn to play better?
Competition in arenas and rbgs should be about skill and comps. Not power.
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Yes. Unless they have a 180 change of heart, players who currently have upgraded 1800/1950/2100 conquest gear will likely be starting next season with an ilvl advantage due to blizzard timegating honor gear ilvl so that pvers don’t cry about having to do pvp and new season conquest gear having a weekly cap
Season 3 should be the same as season 2 in terms of early season advantages unless they make this season’s max level conquest gear purchasable pre-season for honor or somethihg
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