Since tier sets were added back to the game in Shadowlands, anyone who PvP’s knows how much of a headache they have become. With the current format of having tier sets be the same for PvE and PvP, but the effects being nerfed for the latter, every season you have to determine whether it is beneficial to have sucky secondary stats or to skip 4-set/tier entirely. While I can’t speak for every class and spec, I can speak for my main and let others chime in on their specs as well. Currently, Retribution Paladin tier set actually performs worse in PvP than if you were to skip it entirely and have better secondary stats (this video from Lvladen breaks it down well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dass-GzuJ1Y&t=625s ). This should never be the case, acquiring the seasonal spec power up should always feel good to use. This brings me to my next point. If tier sets need to be made to cater to PvE players but retuned for PvP, why not just make PvP specific tier bonuses? With the current structure some specs have tier bonuses that make them wildly better, while others skip them entirely because after tuning they’re useless. I’m not advocating for anything super fancy or gamebreaking, in fact I think PvP specific tier should be the opposite. Small bonuses that don’t break the game but still feel good to acquire and use as you gear up. Using Retribution Paladin as an example, tier set could look something like: 2-set The Judgement debuff causes the target to suffer an additional 5% damage from your next Templar’s Verdict or Divine Storm. 4-set When Templar’s Verdict or Divine Storm consumes the Judgement debuff, they strike again at 15% effectiveness. This set combo is a nerfed version of last season’s and this season’s tier set, without all the fluff the requires it to be nerfed in PvP. Also, with PvP specific tier, we could have tier from vendors like we used to where it’s already on the conquest gear when you buy it, no need to convert your conquest items to tier and have the stats change. The balance of this for PvE could just be that the tier bonus only applies to outdoor world content when Warmode is enabled and instanced PvP combat, so PvE mains don’t feel required to farm PvP to be “optimal” for M+ or raiding. TL;DR Get PvE tier out of PvP and make specific tier for PvP’ers. Thanks for reading 
in theory its a good idea, but lets be honest, will they really put the effort in? you don’t need tier set in pvp, just makes it more imbalanced and more of a headache.
I’d rather gladiator (and honor) gear just had a static tier bonus that stayed the same every season. Like it is in classic where the first 2 pieces give more primary/secondary and the 4 set gives a unique effect. Could help for tuning classes too.
Agreed. General class balancing is already a sufficient amount of meta shaking, and it would be so much easier to maintain a reasonable level of balance in PvP if your starting point were just counteracting the baseline impact of the changes necessary to accommodate PvE tier bonuses in PvE.
I don’t think PvP needs tier bonuses at all.
But if they have to exist, then I’d like to see PvP tier be made specifically to shore up weaknesses in PvE design.
The downside of that is what happens when the next season roles around? Do you keep last seasons tier bonus because it’s so crucial or are developers now inclined to make something entirely new?
No way. op actually made a tldr? This is technology weve never seen before. Greater invention than the flying car
Can get totally behind this. Demo 2 set bonus sucks in PVP.
There is a huge disconnect between people designing tier bonus and those in charge of pvp balance.
I don’t mind tier sets being used in pvp, but there should be more options.
I hate being pigeonholed into feral frenzy with my feral druid, but thanks to the bonuses from the tier set, there is almost no other playstyle that can compete.
Ya I just want pvp specific set bonuses back again tbh.
Mighty convenient they did all that big data testing and arrived at ‘50% is balanced’ across all specs.
tier sets make things more interesting but some need to be toned way down in pvp
Hot take, they should make tier sets evergreen and let us continue using them throughout the entire expansion so we can mix and match 2ps’ or just use the 4p of the sets we actually like.
On my shaman I hate primordial wave, yet im basically forced to use it this season. Thats not cool.
It sounds like this is where they are headed in the future. Removal of the PvP vault and all in the future expansion(s).
They specifically said they will be providing more conquest at a faster pace so that we can get our gear at similar rate to what we have now with points cap plus weekly vault reward, minus the RNG factor of the vault reward because “RNG is not great for PvP. Go figure. It took us a while, but we learned that lesson from player feedback over the years”.
I have a feeling we are going to see unique PvP sets with their own PvP themed bonuses similar to what the game used to have.
Decoupling PvE tier gear from PvP is advantageous for the developers. It’s one less thing they have to consider when making balance changes to either game mode.
They LITERALLY HAD THIS FOR TEN YEARS 2006-2016
I"M SCREECHING AT THIS POINT
WE"RE NEEDING TEN YEARS TO COME FULL CIRCLE TO WHAT ACTIBLIZZ RUINED POST WOD.
I SERIOUSLY think I’m the last WoW PvP’er left alive from pre-legion era.
The lack of knowledge of the older xpacs is blowing, me, away, from how things used to be.
Goes back to vanilla.
We had PvP set bonus on the rewards from the honor rank grind in vanilla.
I think there were some neat 2pc bonuses you could get from WSG/AB/AV faction rewards too.
I believe the issue with tier sets in pvp is that those with MMR from previous season boosting them to higher ratings, are much more likely to gain those tier sets. Meanwhile those who casually queue shuffles, are going 3-3 and gaining 0 rating… 2-4 -40 rating. All because of MMR.
stop gatekeeping ppl from tier because of MMR mountain.
reset mmr. if you’re truly that good, you will climb back to 2k, not be boosted because of previous season mmr. Someone with a higher mmr, can go 3-3 and win rating compared to someone who doesn’t have a high mmr 3-3 0 rating gain.
Literally every single person you will ever encounter in the arena forums has played since MoP at a minimum
just watched pika stream 1-5 solo shuffle on his windwalker and still gained 96 rating because of his 2400 mmr.
ive gone 3-3 in 4 consecutive lobbies now, and haven’t gained any rating.
reset mmr each season, or stop gatekeeping pvp tier from players. thank you
Tier sets specific to PvP seem redundant and might even cause further balancing issues as each spec design has it’s own glaring issues that the respective PvE tierset aims to compensate for. Also, PvP talents in their current iteration satisfies (or at least should satisfy) whatever purpose or function PvP tier sets could serve.
I think the current iteration of PvE tier sets works really well. If any improvements were to be made, I’d like for them to make a class-by-class tuning pass for each set vs just throwing a 50% modifier on everything. Anything else would require too much bandwith with how things currently work.
I want to think that but I keep being called a classic player anecdoting from stuff 10-15 years ago that I don’t think is even active on classic wotlk atm.
As if people are completely unfamiliar.