I’m sure many of you have seen a recent youtube showing 1 shots by well-known player which illustrates how extreme PVP scaling can work in BFA.
This post will discuss legion vs. bfa PVP. The differences and why we need to change in shadowlands.
In legion we had stat templates and ilvl basically got squished. People were on pretty even territory in PVP. That system in many ways was better, but those stat templates weren’t idea for certain specs or for certain classes in rated games. Also, this system didnt encourage PVP’ers to go into PVE content to farm a BIS trinkets from raid.
In legion, most PVP’ers logged on to queue and then logged off. In the end, this didn’t work because it didn’t encourage game growth and multi-content play.
Currently in BFA we went to a PVP scaling system in place of the legion system, where all secondary stats apply but the damage you do and received is based on a modifier that can change by over 200% based on your ilvl. Meaning the damage you take or perform is not based solely on your character, its based on a % modifier that the game applies.
You can check google for, “PVP 1 shots featuring PVP scaling” to understand how this works.
The issue is that as we gain gear in BFA we are both being penalized for having higher ilvl and in other ways rewarded.
The other issue is that sometimes queuing for arena skirmishes the games are either MUCH easier or much harder vs. rated PVP games because of freshly boosted players queuing vs. mythic raiders, and causing a larger PVP scaling issue. I think this can frustrate a lot of people and turn them off to PVP.
At the same time, it’s fun to be a 115 level player and win a match vs. a geared 120 in world PVP. But is it realistic and fair?
PVP at its core was based on gear gained matched with player skills.
As players climb rated PVPand gain more gear they aren’t being truly rewarded for their efforts.
I think we have to do a couple things in shadowlands. 1. Make sure covenant abilities are not available in PVP situations. 2. Go back to a raw item level system, like the game was originally design. Remove all PVP damage scaling and modifiers. Your character is what you make it and then only nerf certain abilities or trinkets in PVP situations to balance the game. With our ilvl squish a pure gear environment should work again.