PvP Item Levels in Chains of Domination
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
In Shadowlands, we’ve been happy to see that the reintroduction of Honor, Conquest, and PvP gear vendors has been well-received by players. Nonetheless, we feel that there is still room for improvement. One piece of feedback we’ve heard repeatedly is that PvP gear needs something special for it to stand apart in PvP specific situations.

In an upcoming build of the Chains of Domination PTR, you will notice that all Season 2 PvP items have +13 item levels in PvP. This means that in PvP situations (such as battlegrounds, arenas, and war mode), the power of these items will increase by 13 item levels. Along with this, the baseline item level of these items will be reduced by 6 from where it would have otherwise been.

If this arrangement had been in place during Shadowlands Season 1, Duelist gear would have had a baseline item level of 220 and would have scaled up to item level 233 in Season 1 PvP.

What we want here is for the different endgame sources of gear to be viable in all content, while the very best gear for PvP generally comes from PvP activities, and the very best gear for raids and dungeons generally comes from raids and dungeons. We believe this small adjustment gets us closer to accomplishing that, while still allowing for plenty of crossover play between PvE and PvP.
This article was originally published in forum thread: PvP Item Levels in Chains of Domination started by Lumy View original post
Comments 121 Comments
  1. Vasilisa's Avatar
    This is a good change. Pvp gear is superior to pve gear in pvp situations while pve is superior to pvp in pve. Sounds quite logical to me.
  1. Glinn's Avatar
    This change feels backwards to me.

    What if, hear me out, make PVE pathways to gear as attractive as PVP instead of decreasing incentives for PVE players to gear through PVP?

    That way, I log in to WoW whatever way I feel like playing the game flows well into my character progression.
  1. Belloc's Avatar
    Extremely solid change. PvP gear is still accessible to PvE players, but is far more effective in PvP content. This change hurts no one and makes PvP more worthwhile it for PvPers.
  1. Frosteye's Avatar
    This is like WOD pvp gear, which was honestly the best part about WOD

    good change
  1. Kel_Sceptic's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Glinn View Post
    This change feels backwards to me.

    What if, hear me out, make PVE pathways to gear as attractive as PVP instead of decreasing incentives for PVE players to gear through PVP?

    That way, I log in to WoW whatever way I feel like playing the game flows well into my character progression.
    Because people who will be doing M+10 will come into PvP and until hitiing 1800 will destroy those that ONLY play PvP.

    I am at ilvl 202 on my PvP only Fury Warrior and I'm struggleing like hell at 1200-1400 with bumping into heroic PvE geared people that want to shortcut to mythic ilvl gear.
  1. Couchpotato2013's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sentynel View Post
    Yes, this change will certainly fix things like this:

    Things are only broken when the punching bag of specs since vanilla, ret paladin, starts doing something. Otherwise business as usual for whatever rogue, mage, or lock nonsense is going on in X season.
  1. Hyperaffe's Avatar
    Sounds awesome.
  1. Echo of Soul's Avatar
    So PvE players will get less gear due to PvP being useless and PvP players will get less gear due to PvE being useless. Both PvE and PvP will have much less participation because of this. It feels like a loss on all fronts, gear was already scarce to begin with.
  1. Bats's Avatar
    Still a big ilvl power issue to address which allows this:
  1. Qnubi's Avatar
    And now do the same for M+ and Raids.

    All maximum content is baseline 220 and gets +13 ilvl in the area it's acquired from. Literally every problem solved. Best gear for PvP is from PvP, best for M+ is in M+ and best Raid gear is from raiding.
  1. Freedom's Avatar
    OK, so they basically say "PVP gear is WoD again," which I have heard requested a fair number of times by multiple people, and is a solution that mostly makes sense overall and people still complain? Give me a break.
  1. OokOok's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kel_Sceptic View Post
    YES, 2 birds with one stone.
    1. PvE players will lose interest in farming PvP gear since -6ilvl;
    2. PvP players that only PvP will now have an actual chance against highend PvE players that come in 1000-1600 rating.

    Really great improvement!
    Kids like you make me chuckle.

    You do know you're the minority right? Players like you are constantly making these silly childish ignorant comments without thinking about the consequences.
    You want a world where "PvE players will lose interest in farming PvP gear" except that the vast majority PVP players are also PVE players. I don't know why you kids seem to think that you're some large player % of the game in your delusional mind but you're actually not.
    Strictly PVP players are a fraction of the playerbase, i'd even go so far as to say 0.1-0.3% of players do ONLY pvp.

    So let's say you get your wish and all pve players stop doing pvp at all and lose interest, now ALL of your arena/rbg games are going to be against the same people. So when you and your buddies que into a 3 team that destroy you cause they're win traders....or selling rating... you're going to que into them all night. Then you'll be back on here crying that blizzard sucks
  1. datguywhocomments's Avatar
    I'm at ilvl 190, and kind of stuck because I get absolutely destroyed in pvp. I tried doing the skirmish quest and it took me 3 hours of constant queueing to get my 10 wins. I'm rocking 28k hp vs usually 38k+ hp, and they're critting me for 14k sometimes. The HP gap is way too big and the crits are too big as well. I have 20 pct versatility and it feels like nothing.
  1. Thage's Avatar
    So basically, they were upset that players who didn't do Mythic raiding opted out of the skullfucked loot system the devs dug themselves into over the past few expansions in favor of deterministic loot through PvP vendors? Like, maybe this should be a "HELLO McFLY!" moment regarding the benefits of deterministic loot drops versus everything ever relying on random chance. Maybe that's what players kept talking about when they requested the return of Valor, not just putting it all into the MoP item upgrades system.

    Instead, they decided that the best solution is "I will make them love you, sloppy loot systems."
  1. Kallisto's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by blizzard View Post
    What we want here is for the different endgame sources of gear to be viable in all content.
    The unfortunate nature of the epeen chasers in the wow community is that you can't have this. If everything is viable then in their little minds everything is mandatory. If something gives even a 0.01% better chance of loot that becomes the mandatory way.

    And just like the wow community the change (which is basically revert to how it was in WoD) is now bringing out the crybabies again. Seriously do people cry for the sake of crying or is it at the point that wow simply put needs a Thanos to snap out half the playerbase so the other half can get focused on?
  1. Couchpotato2013's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zypherz View Post
    Probably my least favorite change of the expansion so far.

    So it's ok that PvErs can have 1 set of gear that smacks in all content, but PvPers have to do both? Why is it fair that Mythic raiders can jump into arena and not be scaled down? Why isn't there a 'Goes up/down to ilvl x in PvP content'? Add the fact that I now have to carry multiple sets of gear around, yippee...

    Did you know that PvPers cant get BiS gear without doing Castle Nathria? You literally can not go higher than 227 with just PvP; We already have to PvE if we want to truly be BiS.

    A change was needed, this wasn't it. There are much better solutions.
    You can’t have one leg of the pedestal lopside the others. When world first raiders were heavily “forced” to do pvp up to duelist vs heroic split or spam 14+s, then you know that method of loot acquisition is too good. Why? Because pvp has the extra element of playing against players and even with that added layer of difficulty it is still cost effective.

    Additionally the pvp gearing system of season 1 was broken because it did not require at all a win per week in order to access the upgrade npc. So you could literally get 1800/2100/2400 (boosted or not) and then never queue pvp ever again for the rest of the season so you wouldn’t lose your cr. And then just slowburn your way to whatever upgrade cap you unlocked. Sure the conquest will be an annoyance but who cares just mentally afk in BGs while you let others do the work. Or space out your rating climb over 2-4 weeks in order to get 2-4 vault pieces, hoping for a weapon.

    There should have been a win at your CR requirement per week to unlock the vendor and there should be rating decay.

    Also hasn’t anyone wondered why blizz hasn’t put comp stomp for SL? It’s because they wanted to prevent people from spamming out that week for easy honor acquisition with this new pvp gearing system.

    Lastly, pvp gear should have set bonuses (4 or 6 piece set) with the final set bonus being something like conflict and strife major giving an honor talent in pvp situations.
  1. datguywhocomments's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Thage View Post
    So basically, they were upset that players who didn't do Mythic raiding opted out of the skullfucked loot system the devs dug themselves into over the past few expansions in favor of deterministic loot through PvP vendors? Like, maybe this should be a "HELLO McFLY!" moment regarding the benefits of deterministic loot drops versus everything ever relying on random chance. Maybe that's what players kept talking about when they requested the return of Valor, not just putting it all into the MoP item upgrades system.

    Instead, they decided that the best solution is "I will make them love you, sloppy loot systems."
    Being that I don't do M+'s, my valor points are worthless. Wish they'd at least allow us to purchase some pieces with valor...or convert it to honor/conquest.
  1. OokOok's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Echo of Soul View Post
    So PvE players will get less gear due to PvP being useless and PvP players will get less gear due to PvE being useless. Both PvE and PvP will have much less participation because of this. It feels like a loss on all fronts, gear was already scarce to begin with.
    Not really, pvp players who join pugs to get gear for arena are usually terrible players that can't do mechanics. See a PVE player can pvp, you're just doing what you always do except against a player. Aslong as you know what the class you're against is capable of doing it's quite simple.
    But a pvp player steping into a raid is whole new world. They're garbage at pve usually, this is a plus for us pve players. Tired of all the PVP crying, this works out for us. PVP players will no longer be able to get carried in raids for better trinkets/easier pieces of gear and now their playerbase doesn't exist and will just que into the same sellers again and again because let's be honest, 90% of the pvp playerbase are raiders.

    Win for pve
  1. Couchpotato2013's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Thage View Post
    So basically, they were upset that players who didn't do Mythic raiding opted out of the skullfucked loot system the devs dug themselves into over the past few expansions in favor of deterministic loot through PvP vendors? Like, maybe this should be a "HELLO McFLY!" moment regarding the benefits of deterministic loot drops versus everything ever relying on random chance. Maybe that's what players kept talking about when they requested the return of Valor, not just putting it all into the MoP item upgrades system.

    Instead, they decided that the best solution is "I will make them love you, sloppy loot systems."
    Now you know why they dropped pvp vendors with legion. When they had the literal npcs there standing in obvious pvp spots. All because they didn’t want people focusing on deterministic gearing vs their newest endgame implementations to the expansion (m+ and titanforging).

    And as a pve player I have say sorry.
  1. Argorwal's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Frosteye View Post
    This is like WOD pvp gear, which was honestly the best part about WOD

    good change

    It’s not even close to the WoD version because there is still massive gaps between unranked conquest and 2100 conquest.

    In WoD all conquest gear was equal.

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