Originally Posted by
Kagthul
The guide itself is stellar; thanks to the OP for compiling it. Im sure it will be helpful to people who haven't been following along.
Some of the responses, though... bleh.
First off:
The Template system is a trainwreck. It should never have been a thing. Its just an uncessary step that doesn't allow customization or fun. We (players, including myself, who were in the original beta for vanilla WoW) have been telling Blizzard they need to separate PvP from PvE for a long time (you know, since the original beta) - but not with some silly band-aid template - by assigning separate tuning/coefficients/durations to each skill/spell separately... and listing them on the fucking tooltips
... they fuck with the templates and then STILL have to do this anyway. The template was a waste of time. (see the recent Warlock hotfixes - they nerfed the template - and then had to tune-up several abilities because they were gimped by the template change).
Secondly:
"But the template makes it so starting level 100s can just jump into PvP and not be massively behind like they were in WoD!".
Complete, total, and utter bullshit.
A fresh 100 wont have PvP talents, which arguably makes him worse of his team than being undergeared. On top of that, you also wont have a maxed out Artifact - which, singlehandedly, is worse than any gear gap. (The "final" AP-waster ability is a flat 15% damage/healing/damage reduction (depending on spec and class)).
But lets not forget the "But at least you wont be 40% behind like in WoD because of gear!"
... the gear gap in WoD, before the recent update to the new Legion style system... was 9.2%... that's it. Because Honor gear was essentially free and could be earned in four hours WITHOUT PVPing. Measuring the gap between a freshly dinged 100 in greens and people in CQ gear was never a valid argument because you could get a full set of honor gear without even pvping in mere hours.
And you cant tell me that 9.2% didn't matter and change the outcome of games. It was huge...
And guess what? The gear gap in Legion between casuals and the top end of the ladder/people who can acquire mythic gear? About 8.5-9.5%. So.. you know.. EXACTLY THE SAME AS WOD.
Furthermore, theyve screwed casual PvPers completely out of even wanting to participate. The very nature of a pyramidal ranking system means over 80% of players who participate will NEVER see rewards better than they can earn in fucking LFR! AND you have to do rated to even get that! There's literaly -no- incentive for the casuals to inflate the rated ladder/ranks, so rated participation is going to plummet like a rock.
There's no reason for me (a relatively casual PvPer who just likes to get in some random BGs when he has some downtime, and occasionally plays with friends) to participate at all. I can get better gear than im likely to ever earn on the ladder from crafting and LFR. I can PuG a Heroic Raid within 2-3 weeks of release and get better gear than MOST people can get on the ladder. Or Mythic+ Dungeons for the same thing.
No incentive at all. Ladder participation is going to shrink massively.
And dont even get me started on the unbalanced shit-show that is "World PvP" (not that i wont be enjoying the piss out of soloing 3-4 dps at once on my Blood DK).
Legion PvP is just awful. If there was ever any proof that the PvP team needs new leadership and a new direction - it's now. Its going to be an unmitigated fucking nightmare shitshow.