pvp gear tied to rating (and mythic ilevel)

[rda]

Really? So when I queue for a random BG everyone has 740 ilevel like me? Not a chance in hell. Half the team is sitting with less than 200k health between 620 and 690 ilevel. They get stunned and drop in 2 seconds. Even 700 to 740 gets you rolled. Due to class scaling you can alter the stats you want to further skew your power. See survival hunters...

In Legion your stats all start at whatever Blizzard decides they will be. It won't matter if you stack mastery on all your gear it will be normalized to a template. Then as your gears ilevel goes up your base stats will slowly improve up to 5% for a 50 ilevel swing.

Each season they can alter the template to boost everyone's minimum back to normal so the curve never exceeds 5%. Even if they did no change a 150 ilevel swing would be what, 15%? That's nothing compared to how far it swings right now.

Look, I know what you are talking about. I don't think your numbers are correct, because they scale gear up in all PVP scenarios and so you can't go below a certain (pretty high) level, but fine, whatever, again, I understand where you are coming from.

Right now, there are two stages of each PVP season for everyone: the warmup stage where you get gear, and the regular stage where you already got all gear there is to get. In the warmup stage there are gear differences. In the regular stage there aren't, in that noone can have better gear than you do.

You are talking about the warmup stage. Yes, it is an important stage. Yes, many people who PVP casually never leave it and never manage to obtain full gear. That's why they have been adding various things to help it - (a) scaling all gear up to a certain ilvl in PVP scenarios, (b) adding conquest catch-up, etc.

Yes, they can do more, and if you want them to do more (I certainly have no issues with that), let's ask them to do more - ie, let them have that system where the ilvl differences get scaled down and decrease the difference between a non-geared player and a geared player even further. When they are discussing what that difference is now, they are citing high numbers like 50%, but that's misleading, because it's only like that in non-PVP scenarios. The moment you account for scaling up to the minimum ilvl and limiting down to the maximum ilvl - which is what happens in PVP - the difference shrinks to maybe 10-12%, and that's me erring on the high side. But fine, let's have their system with gear templates and the scaling of the ilvl difference make that difference even smaller, let's have it be 2%. Heck, let's have it be 0%, I am all for it - it is Blizzard who would object.

So, if there's a problem in the warmup stage, sure, let's solve it, we are all for it. But what do they do instead? They throw away the regular stage when you are maxed, and they turn everything into the warmup stage. They make it nearly impossible to be maxed even for top 1s who play all day long, and impossible to get anywhere near maxed to all others. You wanted less grind? Hah, welcome to permanent grind. They also remove the ilvl caps. Hi, gear from raids dominating PVP, we missed you (not). And if you think that the ilvl scaling will save it, because you have some number like 5% max difference from no gear to max gear in mind, then I kind of doubt it, because, (a) I don't know where you get that 5% number from, they only talked numbers in tweets as illustrations, it's much larger than 5% on the current alpha and even if they scale it down, we'll have things like the second raid tier and mythic warforged and whatnot expanding it, and (b) it's not that far from 5% now (and as I say, if it is too high now, let's reduce it, by all means, they have all the tools already implemented and had them since MoP, we are talking about changing two-three numbers, that's it).

So, yes, with Cata / MoP / WoD, you had to get through the gearing stage first. But after you got through it, you are all set. You are maxed. No gear disadvantage. And as you were getting through the gearing stage, the gear disadvantage was becoming smaller. Because there was a limit and each piece of conquest was getting your closer and closer to that limit. (In practice, once you had a 4-piece set + weapons + trinkets = 8 pieces out of 16, you felt like you can start breathing, the rest of the gearing was feeling pretty good.)

With Legion, it is constant gear disadvantage. You can never get maxed. Worse, as you get geared, you *don't* get closer to being maxed, because those higher than you who spend *the same effort as you* (= play the same number of games, have the same winrate) get better rewards, the distance between you might actually increase instead of decreasing.

It becomes much worse.

Also, we had it already. It didn't work. It is a huge step back.

PS: You might wonder why they do it like that in the first place, when - if they are worried about gear differences in PVP - they might simply use the existing scaling tools and just tune the numbers closer. They do it because they want you to grind constantly and they want to simplify things. Their logic is: in PVE as you progress further, you get better gear, so let's do the same in PVP. The problem is, they forgot that this works in PVE solely because you fight a fixed set of bosses. In PVP, the bosses you fight gear up same as yourself, and so it doesn't work. If every time Method wiped on a boss, the boss got a small boost (because his rating got higher and that translated to his ilvl or whatever), they'd likely have never defeated it. Seriously, I don't know, maybe it's that they have some new guys who come all cocky and think they are going to change all PVP from the ground up to the better with nobody to tell them why PVP painfully came to use the gearing model it uses now, etc. It definitely looks like it. And they will see that they are making things much worse, not better, absolutely, they will hear this from the forums aplenty. It just might take another expansion of PVP being even more broken than before for that to happen. We are looking at a trainwreck. :-/

[Eapoe]

I don't really see much of a problem with the setup. Gearing up will still take roughly the same amount of time, whether RNG loot crate or not, unless you are just some crazy die hard PvP player that refuses to step foot into a dungeon. Current model, win roughly 4+ random BG's to get one piece of honor gear vs inc play, win 4+ bgs and get 4+ pieces of loot. Granted, they can be the same and that always sucks, but when you count crafted items as well as dungeons, the gearing up process can take significantly less time than the current way. Now, once you get that gear, you're now winning rated BG's or arenas and getting up to 1700 rating that is now giving you 1 piece of raid level gear per win. Comparing that to 30 people rolling on a piece once a week, and this isn't even counting amount of time for the average player to even kill heroic bosses, let alone mythic bosses, and it can theoretically take a raider longer to gear up than a straight pvp'er.
Granted, this is better case scenario (not best), but still in favor of people continuously earning pieces on wins.
Now, I see the issue a lot of people have with RNG loot crates, but other than equalizing all gear on live and alpha, there's not too much of a better way to do this while allowing people to have equal footing on PvP and PvE, which is what it really seems like Blizzard wants. Also the issue of they did that then a fresh 110 in greens then equals implicitly a Gladiator or mythic raider.

[IBZ]

I think 5 % for 50 ilv isn't gonna make much different I think.

I compare this to hero of the storm that if you are behind in lv you can when the teamfight or pvp if you have more skill.

[rda]

The problem is not being able to max gear and not getting much closer to max as you play because you are on the same treadmill as your enemies with no reachable ceiling (so if you both spend the same effort and have the same winrate, etc, the distance between you increases instead of decreasing - unlike before).

But regardless:

... win 4+ bgs and get 4+ pieces of loot. ... you're now winning rated BG's or arenas and getting up to 1700 rating that is now giving you 1 piece of raid level gear per win.

Where do they talk about getting 1 piece of loot per win?

[ShiyoKozuki]

Wow.. This makes me want to not even play WoW anymore as a PvP player.

That's what they want.

[Eapoe]

The problem is not being able to max gear and not getting much closer to max as you play because you are on the same treadmill as your enemies with no reachable ceiling (so if you both spend the same effort and have the same winrate, etc, the distance between you increases instead of decreasing - unlike before).

But regardless:



Where do they talk about getting 1 piece of loot per win?

Current iteration on Live as well as first post of this forum, "RNG lockboxes from wins." As it stands now, a win gives you a lockbox. If it's like it is now, the box will contain a random piece of gear, gold, or even extra honor to level your PvP talent tree. I admit there are some assumptions in my post, such as what is in the boxes, but the released info as of now, it's a box per win, and assuming it stays that way, I will stand by my last post.
As far as the treadmill goes, if you are on a bad streak of finishing out appropriate ilvl gear from the boxes, there's 3 crafted pieces you can specifically wear or even go into a dungeon or raid and flesh out gear as well.

[rda]

Current iteration on Live as well as first post of this forum, "RNG lockboxes from wins." As it stands now, a win gives you a lockbox. If it's like it is now, the box will contain a random piece of gear, gold, or even extra honor to level your PvP talent tree. I admit there are some assumptions in my post, such as what is in the boxes, but the released info as of now, it's a box per win, and assuming it stays that way, I will stand by my last post.

Well, if it's either gear OR gold OR honor, it's different. But if it's gear AND maybe also gold and / or honor, and if it stays at one box per win, and so it really is one piece of gear per win, then it's better than I thought.

If gear is going to be that plentiful, then this might partly alleviate the issues that they are introducing - ie, you will quickly gear up to, I don't know, 1600-1700 - and that'd essentially be your max. You won't be able to progress higher without a huge effort because it won't be just rating climb, you will also be fighting the difference in gear and that difference will increase with each week and quickly get to the insurmountable levels. And that means that you won't ever be on equal foot with those higher than your rating in battlegrounds. But at least you'll get to your max (which is lower than others max) fast.

[ATZenith]

That's what they want.

That's not cool :'(
Jokes on them, I'll play Overwatch. or at least maybe that IS what they want me to do.

[ShiyoKozuki]

If you dont have time to, or dont like doing - raiding or rated pvp...you'll be stuck with blue gear. Maybe a little higher with lfr or world questing. Basically dungeon heroic level gear, for the whole expansion. Would you stay subbed in past expansions being stuck with dungeon gear? Doubt it.

People with full gear can and will go to random bgs when they are bored, as well as be in low rated games. There will be people purposely tanking rating in order to carry. I consider "only 5%" to be pure bs, it will make a huge difference. You probably should not blindly accept it because there is no reason for it to exist. Health pools are ~ 1.5 million but there's also inflated primary and secondary stats. And buffs that buff your stats on a percentage. Throw in the multipliers to calculate damage and cooldowns used and it gets crazy complicated.

Sure, the people that can get the gear want to have the advantage and will be for the system. But people that like pvping but dont like "rated" or raiding have no progression path. They might as well not even bother buying the game if that's going to be the case. Why pay money to be stuck at a permanent disadvantage?

Honor gear needed massively nerfed. Ilvl700 for what is the EASIEST content in the game(ashran and random bgs) should not reward anything worthwhile.

I'm glad honor gear is being MASSIVELY nerfed to completely worthless garbage. It was needed.

I'm a PVPer, btw. I just like what's better for the game. Less bots in bgs, less PVErs in my pvp just there to leech gear. Better quality PVP.

I'm actually proud of Blizzard.

[rda]

As far as the treadmill goes, if you are on a bad streak of finishing out appropriate ilvl gear from the boxes, there's 3 crafted pieces you can specifically wear or even go into a dungeon or raid and flesh out gear as well.

Look at what I am saying - if you (you and your enemy who has higher rating) both spend the same effort and have the same winrate, etc, the distance between you increases instead of decreasing - unlike before.

You craft, they craft. You lose a bg, they lose a bg. You win an arena, they win an arena. In the end, you got ilvl 800 from craft (number imaginary) and ilvl 800 from the arena win, and they got ilvl 800 from craft (same as you) and ilvl 810 from the arena win (higher). You do the same things, and previously the distance between you would have decreased (because they'd hit an ilvl cap), but now it is increasing. No amount of scaling is going to change that, because scaling can't change the sign.

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I'm a PVPer, btw. I just like what's better for the game. Less bots in bgs, less PVErs in my pvp just there to leech gear. Better quality PVP.

I'm actually proud of Blizzard.

ROFL

It's going to be *more* bots in BGs (especially if gear is going to become more plentiful) and *way more* carries and wintrades. There's going to be *more* PVErs in your PVP, because they want gear for raids and rated PVP is now another source of that gear, and you yourself, by the way, will have to buy carries to raids - or, fine, fight an uphill battle against not only better ratings but also superior gear.

You didn't think it through.

[gcsmith]

Look at what I am saying - if you (you and your enemy who has higher rating) both spend the same effort and have the same winrate, etc, the distance between you increases instead of decreasing - unlike before.

You craft, they craft. You lose a bg, they lose a bg. You win an arena, they win an arena. In the end, you got ilvl 800 from craft (number imaginary) and ilvl 800 from the arena win, and they got ilvl 800 from craft (same as you) and ilvl 810 from the arena win (higher). You do the same things, and previously the distance between you would have decreased (because they'd hit an ilvl cap), but now it is increasing. No amount of scaling is going to change that, because scaling can't change the sign.

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ROFL

It's going to be *more* bots in BGs (especially if gear is going to become more plentiful) and *way more* carries and wintrades. There's going to be *more* PVErs in your PVP, because they want gear for raids and rated PVP is now another source of that gear, and you yourself, by the way, will have to buy carries to raids - or, fine, fight an uphill battle against not only better ratings but also superior gear.

You didn't think it through.

If gear quality is tied to ratings, then it will be easier to grind mythic+ for raid gear.

[Tojara]

The way I understand it, in PvP (instances) gear really doesn't, or shouldn't matter a whole lot. I think they said something like iLvL is fixed, but you can and will get slight advantages in INSTANCED PvP (important) if you have high end raiding gear, high end challenge mode dungeon gear, high end world quest gear, or high end gear obtained by having a high ranking in PvP.

Ultimately I'd prefer zero advantage in PvP on gear, but if done right it essentially removes the necessity in grinding gear. If you're actually good at PvP somebody who has a 10% advantage stat wise probably isn't going to beat you, unless they are equally as good. If you're actually good at PvP, you can't really complain because you're going to have top end gear regardless. The only caveat in my previous example is if the arena/RBG rating for the good mythic level gear is gear you pick like you did with conquest points currently, if it was subjugated to random lock boxes it would be pretty awful.

While I'm not gladiator level anymore, I'm still seasoned enough in PvP to know that this system will benefit me greatly. Fairly likely the rating requirement is going to be something like 2000-2200 max, which is pretty easy to obtain, and will ultimately be an outlet that people who raid and have success at PvP can exploit to gear up faster.

Part of me hates it because being forced to PvP to get quality PvE gear (and usually, PvP gear is amazing in a system where there is zero RNG tied to it allowing you to pick what you want) kinda sucks, and beckons back to a period in TBC when I was forced to do just that. If people remember such a time in TBC, you could get weapons in S2 that were just as good as anything you could obtain out of TK or SSC for just having 2k arena rating. The glorious thing about this is that they were only very slightly worse than the weapons dropped from raid (because some of the budget used resilience) but you were assured you were getting them at 'x' week as long as you qualified based on your rating. Most people would likely take the item that is statistically ~5% worse but could get it instantly, over an item that is 5% better that you have to compete with 4-5 people for and might not EVER drop.

I suppose this probably won't be too much of an issue outside of a few slots, considering that PvE gear usually has set bonuses, and will randomly come with WF/sockets (which will probably be turned off in instances PvP, or at least I'd hope so).

If it's tuned correctly it's not going to make much of a difference in instanced PvP. It's just running with their philosophy next expansion of multiple outlets to get the best gear. Mythic raiding, mythic dungeons, high rated arena/RBGs, world drop legendary items, and supposedly rarely from solo content in the world. It will only make a difference in non instanced combat, which most competitive people (in both PvE/PvP) don't care about and in the even that they do, they are going to have the best gear anyway if the system gives gear out correctly.

If the current PvP system awards gear at the same rate as it does on live, but actually gives equal iLvL to top end Mythic raiding, I don't really see the issue? Even if PvE gear has a socket and the occasional WF advantage, that's rare enough currently to not really matter. You aren't going to have WF or socket, or both in every slot, and in all likelihood it's also far more likely that you are going to be missing certain pieces as you're at the mercy of things actually dropping. In PvP, assuming the system is the same for buying gear, you don't have to worry about RNG. Combining the system from Legion would allow PvP players to likely buy 735 in every single slot with zero RNG. The person who exclusively raids can theoretically get some pieces that are higher iLvL, but is also at the mercy of those things actually dropping.

TLDR; I think people are making it out to be a bigger deal than it was. People wanted multiple outlets to get end game gear, and apparently they are giving several different ways of obtaining it, aside from exclusively raid or die, which has been the default for the last 11 years. Get better at the game, simply put. The best PvPers aren't going to change, they are the best for a reason. I don't even like WoW PvP, but I doubt most of the best PvPers are going to lose to somebody who exclusively PvEs for a 5% advantage, unless that PvE player is actually amazing at PvP as well.

[Toppy]

I wonder where legends will place in this system. They currently have a higher ilvl than mythic, and slowly throughout the expansion you can equip more and more.

If this ilvl applies to PvP as well, will blizzard let PvPers get them through PvP, or will they have to grind out PvE to stay ahead with no PvP option.

[Deleted]

Info just leaked.

No pvp vendor.

Gear comes from RNG lockboxes from wins:

• bg/skirm = dungeon heroic ilevel
• "1700" rating = normal raid
• "gladiator" = mythic

Guess they never learned from the previous mistake of gear tied to "rated" anything. FOTM specs [or combos] get gear and the rest get hosed. And nowadays, cheating is practically guaranteed and somewhat allowed.

Current gear acquisition system (aka in wod) is the best it has ever been.
Legion pvp gear acquisition is bad for the majority of the player base.

We already knew that since blizzcon.

[Deleted]

Sorry still don't really understand the system, lets say I'm a casual PVPer where I only do random bg's & some LFG heroics, does this mean I can never get my gear on par with people that do Rated Bg's?
At the moment I can gear up the same like this, it just takes forever which I'm ok with that.

Is there some sort of rating for competing in random bg's?

[thefkuffyrocker]

While i am happy that people can get gear from various sources there are problems in general when it come to PvP that makes it an issue.

Every expansion they have introduced a new PvP system and every expansion i try to return to PvP in the hope it will be better than before only to find the same old problems, botting of various types, FOTM classes, races, compositions and even factions which if your not one of you can only achieve half decent rating it you are exceptionally skilled and have almost no chance of reaching top rating while the FOTM types can almost mash their keyboard most of the way up to high rating.

Then you feel like you need to cheat to compete, kick bots for example, or you can not cheat and hope blizzard eventually ban the cheaters but really the experience is already ruined by then.

You can roll a FOTM character but then you find it gets nerfed half way through the season and you need to reroll again.

I remember back when arena's were introduced and blizzard wanted to turn it into an e-sport and how much i laughed my ass off because PvP is so broken it can not be taken seriously and nothing has really changed since then.

Even if the new system does what they want where it lets them balance PvP with the PvP specific talents and abilities it still doesn't fix the botting issue.

With all that in mind i am cutting my losses at the beginning and simply going to ignore PvP completely in Legion.

[Demeter]

Thats an interesting concept whats wrong with trying out the new system bro, we might like it.

[Toppy]

Sorry still don't really understand the system, lets say I'm a casual PVPer where I only do random bg's & some LFG heroics, does this mean I can never get my gear on par with people that do Rated Bg's?
At the moment I can gear up the same like this, it just takes forever which I'm ok with that.

Is there some sort of rating for competing in random bg's?

Doing random BGs will get you heroic dungeon level gear.

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Thats an interesting concept whats wrong with trying out the new system bro, we might like it.

This isnt a new system. Its the combination of multiple unpopular old systems.

[Mafic]

Legendaries, trinkets and enchants will be disabled in intsanced PVP. However, this presents the problem that you need to grind a 2nd set of gear for PVP while you can use legendaries in most Legion PVE content.

Grinding a second set of gear, honor talents, and artifact talents is more punishing to players that want to casually PVP than obtaining all the conquest gear within a month. My gut tells me it is going to take more than a month to grind out a 2nd sete of gear, honor talents and artifact talents.

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Thats an interesting concept whats wrong with trying out the new system bro, we might like it.

This isn't new. This is kind of like the failed model from WotLK PVP gearing model.

The failure with the WoTLK model was there was no honor weapons, so there was a big barrier to reach the rating for PVP weapons or you were forced to do PVE for weapons. At least Legion solves that problem with having artifact weapon from the start and stat templates.

[Eapoe]

Look at what I am saying - if you (you and your enemy who has higher rating) both spend the same effort and have the same winrate, etc, the distance between you increases instead of decreasing - unlike before.

You craft, they craft. You lose a bg, they lose a bg. You win an arena, they win an arena. In the end, you got ilvl 800 from craft (number imaginary) and ilvl 800 from the arena win, and they got ilvl 800 from craft (same as you) and ilvl 810 from the arena win (higher). You do the same things, and previously the distance between you would have decreased (because they'd hit an ilvl cap), but now it is increasing. No amount of scaling is going to change that, because scaling can't change the sign.

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ROFL

It's going to be *more* bots in BGs (especially if gear is going to become more plentiful) and *way more* carries and wintrades. There's going to be *more* PVErs in your PVP, because they want gear for raids and rated PVP is now another source of that gear, and you yourself, by the way, will have to buy carries to raids - or, fine, fight an uphill battle against not only better ratings but also superior gear.

You didn't think it through.

True in a way, but Blizzard is taking efforts to make this not be an issue. On Live, I do mythic raids and have an ilvl of 744/745, I go into a BG I go down to 700, where people that do only BG's since the beginning will have roughly 730-736 ilvl in PvP gear and the people who do arena/RBG's will have 740. On Live a difference of 10 ilvl's is pretty big in PvP, let alone 40. On Alpha, that difference will (in theory from what they stated) will only be a power level gap of 1-4% difference. So yes, players that do ranked PvP will still be at an advantage over casuals like always, but players doing mythic raids will be closer to equal footing as ranked players. The difference in win/loss ratio will come down to player skill and team comp more than the gear will, even considering a mythic raiders gear vs someone who only does heroic dungeons or casual BG's. Also, with things like Ashran still being around, it might be safe to assume doing the daily with 4 events/leader killed will still award a higher ilvl piece. This is a very good system to allow all players access to a new part of the game, but still focus on the PvP minded players being the ones who dominate on skill and planning.