Was PvP gear ever really the problem?

[haxartus]

Wait, so the gear from PvP will be from... strongboxes ? No, thanks.

[RelaZ]

Good news is that the first column of PVP talents is relatively easy to unlock. Bad news is that to unlock all the talents you need 45,000 honor. On live (WoD), the grind is far more easier and you are able to fully gear out a character in half the time (honor per hour).

Stat templates work as advertised (also good news), but the bad news is that players with better gear will still have an edge (eg mythic raiders) on a scale of 5% or greater.

This so much. Unless you're a glad level player you'll be forced into mythic to get bis gear (and even if you are, does anyone know if mythic > best arena gear? Did they datamine this yet?).

The legendaries will obviously be bis because of their high ilvl (though the procs are not enabled) so gl farming that too.

The farm for full pvp talents will most likely be longer than the farm for full honor gear is (or was since cata).

It's everything I feared from the second they announced this system. The only thing that's good is the pvp stat templates that allows for easier tweaking of classes. But implementing that doesnt require all the other changes, couldve worked perfectly with the current gear structure.

[haxartus]

Of course Mythic will be the best arena gear. Even if it's 5%, that is too much.
Not to mention that I don't plan spending the whole expansion in questing gear, even if it doesn't matter for PvP. I want to have some gear that doesn't make people laugh when they see it. Which means that I will be forced to raid to get some gear.

[Osmeric]

Wait, so the gear from PvP will be from... strongboxes ? No, thanks.

And its ilvl will depend on your rating. No more high ilvl gear from conquest points for casual PvPers.

[sykoex]

Of course Mythic will be the best arena gear. Even if it's 5%, that is too much.
Not to mention that I don't plan spending the whole expansion in questing gear, even if it doesn't matter for PvP. I want to have some gear that doesn't make people laugh when they see it. Which means that I will be forced to raid to get some gear.

Can't you get gear from PVP too?

[Caargon]

This so much. Unless you're a glad level player you'll be forced into mythic to get bis gear (and even if you are, does anyone know if mythic > best arena gear? Did they datamine this yet?).

You're forced to do the hardest content to get the best gear. That's.... kinda always been the point? I'm not sure what you're getting at with this. No word on actual stats/ilvls yet but if their plan is to tie the quality of your PvP rewards to your rating then there's no reason to have any difference between mythic and extremely high-end PvP rewards.

The farm for full pvp talents will most likely be longer than the farm for full honor gear is (or was since cata).

Sure. I have two 'buts' on this. 1. But some people like myself would say being "done" with PvP (you have all the rewards) in two or three days is bad for the game long-term. There's little motivation to keep playing when you have no goal to work towards.
2. But you're only required to farm up your PvP talents once, and your best talents aren't always at the highest level. If you choose to prestige, it's exactly that: a choice. Compare that to the old paradigm that basically resets you at the start of every season and forces you to do the grind over again if you want to be any kind of competitive.

[Deleted]

As we know, Blizzard is removing, or at least significantly reducing, the effect of gear in PvP in Legion. While this seems good on paper, after giving it more thought, I came to the conclusion that the gear was never really the problem for me.

Whenever I lost in PvP and the opponent had better gear, I was OK with it. I knew that all I needed to do was play more, get the gear, and I would beat them without problems. Never did I think 'fuck this game, PvP gear is ruining it'. But the times I thought 'fuck this game, class balance is nonexistent' were countless.

I just can't shake the feeling that Blizzard is fixing the wrong problem. Maybe they are in for an unpleasant surprise.

Fixing class imbalance in a complex game: impossible imo
Fixing gear imbalance: less work than implementing gear imbalance, so win-win

It's not like gear imbalance is god-given. It's not like working on those issues is mutually exclusive. It really is that simple man.

I never understood the mentality of getting shit on by geared baddies until you are geared enough to shit on people you shouldn't be able to beat. How does that make sense.

[Deleted]

Well, I just got back from a long break and figured I'd do some PvP. Now I get absolutely smoked by people with gear 40 ilvl's higher than mine. So yeah, I'm glad they're removing PvP gear, it's just a pointless barrier.

[Osmeric]

Well, I just got back from a long break and figured I'd do some PvP. Now I get absolutely smoked by people with gear 40 ilvl's higher than mine. So yeah, I'm glad they're removing PvP gear, it's just a pointless barrier.

So, what was it that's preventing you from spending a day and becoming fully decked out in honor gear? Because if you did that, you'd be 10 ilvls down, not 40.

[RelaZ]

You're forced to do the hardest content to get the best gear. That's.... kinda always been the point? I'm not sure what you're getting at with this. No word on actual stats/ilvls yet but if their plan is to tie the quality of your PvP rewards to your rating then there's no reason to have any difference between mythic and extremely high-end PvP rewards.

If you're not top rating you won't have access to bis gear and those above you will always have slightly better gear than you. To get around this people will feel forced into Mythic raiding to get access to the highest ilvl so they can fight on equal terms against those with a higher rating than themselves. And before you say "it's only going to be an X% stat increase anyway it doesn't matter" - people went out of their way back in WotLK just to get those Heroic PvE bracers/rings/waists etc that gave a 0.001% increase, this'll be worse than that I reckon.

I don't want to do PvE to get BiS gear, and neither do PvErs want to do PvP to get their BiS gear. With this solution I'm fairly sure PvErs won't have to do PvP to get gear (because it'll probably be subpar without setbonuses and mostly bad stat combos etc, again did this get datamined yet?) but if you want to fight on an equal level for PvP most people (low rateds) will have to farm Mythic and legendaries. PvP and Mythic raiding isn't even slightly related, why force players who want nothing to do with it in there just to be on equal terms? It's PvP after all, competitive PvP on top of that - everyone's supposed to be equal (at least in my mind)? I'm willing to bet most people who care for competitive PvP don't want there to be a gear disparity at all. Just look at any other competitive PvP game out there that's not created by Blizzard!

Sure. I have two 'buts' on this. 1. But some people like myself would say being "done" with PvP (you have all the rewards) in two or three days is bad for the game long-term. There's little motivation to keep playing when you have no goal to work towards.
2. But you're only required to farm up your PvP talents once, and your best talents aren't always at the highest level. If you choose to prestige, it's exactly that: a choice. Compare that to the old paradigm that basically resets you at the start of every season and forces you to do the grind over again if you want to be any kind of competitive.

I mean your first point is valid however I'm of a different opinion, I think that the bigger the ramp up to even begin to compete in serious PvP is a huge turnoff for new players and a big reason the PvP-side of the game is dying out (combined with pruning+worst/slowest balancing ever). The second point is partly valid, I mean you're right, some specs won't have to farm the right hand side column at all, some won't even have to farm the middle column. But as far as I've read (and I might be wrong, correct me if I'm wrong) it's going to be 50k to unlock the last talent - which is pretty much double of what's needed now (27k), so I imagine at least most specs will have to go somewhat deep into the right column => overall longer farm.

An easy fix for blizzard is to just make the first prestige go much faster to fill out. Because as you said, once you prestige you made the choice yourself - I really couldn't care less about prestiges above rank 1. Let it take whatever time Blizzard wants at that point. But the first time you don't even get a choice and refering back to my logic for your first point I think this game needs less of a ramp up time to get started with serious pvp.

Wait, so the gear from PvP will be from... strongboxes ? No, thanks.

Yup, RNG gearing. Didn't they learn from strongboxes in Ashran? The entire PvP community went out and totally ravaged the idea of rewarding PvP gear solely through RNG (Versatility gear was only available from strongboxes in ashran), I've not met a single person who likes how the accolade trinkets are handled either. If you're unlucky you could go forever without receiving that last piece that you need.

[Venziir]

The biggest problem with PvP gear was how little effort they put into making the sets look wearable without transmog. They just reuse the skin and add a slight colour change. /thread

That was only true in TBC and WoD,- all other expansions had unique looking pvp sets.

[Deleted]

As we know, Blizzard is removing, or at least significantly reducing, the effect of gear in PvP in Legion. While this seems good on paper, after giving it more thought, I came to the conclusion that the gear was never really the problem for me.

Whenever I lost in PvP and the opponent had better gear, I was OK with it. I knew that all I needed to do was play more, get the gear, and I would beat them without problems. Never did I think 'fuck this game, PvP gear is ruining it'. But the times I thought 'fuck this game, class balance is nonexistent' were countless.

I just can't shake the feeling that Blizzard is fixing the wrong problem. Maybe they are in for an unpleasant surprise.

It's a change that allows them to do less work disguised as a fix.

[Deleted]

So, what was it that's preventing you from spending a day and becoming fully decked out in honor gear? Because if you did that, you'd be 10 ilvls down, not 40.

I've done about 7 battlegrounds since I got back, each one we lost horribly. It'll take me a lot longer than 1 day to get a full set and being a punching bag during that time is just not fun.

[Osmeric]

I've done about 7 battlegrounds since I got back, each one we lost horribly. It'll take me a lot longer than 1 day to get a full set and being a punching bag during that time is just not fun.

Honor flows much faster in Ashran. Go there, and especially learn how to farm artifact fragments from the caches that spawn at various points.

Trust me: gearing up with honor has never been easier than it is now.

You should also have the Gladiator Sanctum in your Garrison. Once you activate that you collect bones in Ashran from HKs that can be used to start work orders that give gear, honor, and conquest points (and gold?).

[Caargon]

If you're not top rating you won't have access to bis gear and those above you will always have slightly better gear than you. To get around this people will feel forced into Mythic raiding to get access to the highest ilvl so they can fight on equal terms against those with a higher rating than themselves. And before you say "it's only going to be an X% stat increase anyway it doesn't matter" - people went out of their way back in WotLK just to get those Heroic PvE bracers/rings/waists etc that gave a 0.001% increase, this'll be worse than that I reckon.

If someone isn't good enough to access top end PvP gear, it's a hell of a jump to think they're good enough to get into a mythic-farm group. Sure, you can buy your way into a mythic run. You can also buy yourself an arena or RBG boost. I'm well aware what lengths the "best of the best" will go to in search of any edge at all. 99.5% of the playerbase might try to do the same, but if they're the sort who can't crack 2k-2200 I'd suggest the time spent chasing that mythic leg-up would be better spent getting good at their class and/or fixing their team comp, because those make a hell of a lot greater difference than 5% more stats ever will.

but if you want to fight on an equal level for PvP most people (low rateds) will have to farm Mythic and legendaries.

Methink you overestimate how significant the bonus stats are. Do remember it's .1% stat increase per item level. If a mediocre player gets stomped under this paradigm, it is not because they were outgeared, flat out.

I mean your first point is valid however I'm of a different opinion, I think that the bigger the ramp up to even begin to compete in serious PvP is a huge turnoff for new players and a big reason the PvP-side of the game is dying out

10 PvP levels gets you a full complement of talents. Playing a warrior, most of my best PvP talents come in those first 10 levels. But let's look at the possible exceptions. Level 8 gives me intercept, letting me take all damage for an ally for 10 seconds. Level 25 gives me shadow of the colossus, letting charge reset my burst CD. That's better than intercept.... sometimes. Level 10, wrecking crew. Apply MS to everything within 8 yards, passively. Level 46, sharpen blade. Moar MS damage, 4sec 70% healing debuff. Sharpen blade is almost always better... for me. While the extra damage is cool, lower level players don't have the sense of pacing or team coordination to capitalize on a 4 second debuff. AoE MS is always awesome for them.

Higher level talents are, in most cases, not upgrades. They're extra options. And having gone with my old healer into 1500-1700 games naked with nothing but our epic weapons and winning smiles, I can tell you that what kills these people is absolutely not their ability to follow a min-max guide.

Also, no, current alpha tuning is 50k honor to go 1 to 50. Not 49 to 50.

[rosebull]

This so much. Unless you're a glad level player you'll be forced into mythic to get bis gear (and even if you are, does anyone know if mythic > best arena gear? Did they datamine this yet?).

The legendaries will obviously be bis because of their high ilvl (though the procs are not enabled) so gl farming that too.

The farm for full pvp talents will most likely be longer than the farm for full honor gear is (or was since cata).

It's everything I feared from the second they announced this system. The only thing that's good is the pvp stat templates that allows for easier tweaking of classes. But implementing that doesnt require all the other changes, couldve worked perfectly with the current gear structure.

Legendaries have already been confirmed to not work in PvP via twitter. They said the difference between default PvP gear and Mythic/Top End PVP drops was 2.5%

I wouldn't worry too much.

With that said, losing to someone with 2.5% increased stats probably means they were better than you anyway. 2.5% is not enough of a difference that being a better player can't overcome. Like at all. I mean hell, even now i beat full conquest geared players in blues.

People overreacting to a very small difference per usual

Edit: It also took me 10-12 BGS to unlock most of my talents, half being losses. Its not as bad as people are making it out to be. Not anywhere as bad as the gear grinds of the past. Not having access to all of the talents from what i've experienced so far, is not as bad as being outgeared in MoP/WoD/Cata

[Mafic]

Legendaries have already been confirmed to not work in PvP via twitter. They said the difference between default PvP gear and Mythic/Top End PVP drops was 2.5%

I wouldn't worry too much.

With that said, losing to someone with 2.5% increased stats probably means they were better than you anyway. 2.5% is not enough of a difference that being a better player can't overcome. Like at all. I mean hell, even now i beat full conquest geared players in blues.

People overreacting to a very small difference per usual

Edit: It also took me 10-12 BGS to unlock most of my talents, half being losses. Its not as bad as people are making it out to be. Not anywhere as bad as the gear grinds of the past. Not having access to all of the talents from what i've experienced so far, is not as bad as being outgeared in MoP/WoD/Cata

It is going to be more than 2.5%. That 2.5% was used merely used as an example.

[rosebull]

It is going to be more than 2.5%. That 2.5% was used merely used as an example.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...ldstar-DLC-501

Gave up looking for that tweet about the max difference but i found these.

"You won't have to raid to get the best gear for PvP."
"As you get better gear, your stats are increased a smaller amount. For example, every 5 item levels may give you a 1% stat increase. This way gear still will increase your power, but it won't give you a huge advantage." So overall, again, the differences between max and a fresh character won't be that bad.

So at a 25 ilvl difference, thats a 5% difference in stats vs current WoW where its about 30/40% or more.

[Felrane]

No, the exact wording was the biggest difference between freshly entering a PvP instant vs a full geared person was going to be 2.5%. It wasn't used as an example.

You can also earn mythic quality gear from strongboxes if your rating is high enough. Its just 100% rng but the stats dont really matter in pvp since we have set stats. Its more for PVE stuff.

[rosebull]

You can also earn mythic quality gear from strongboxes if your rating is high enough. Its just 100% rng but the stats dont really matter in pvp since we have set stats. Its more for PVE stuff.

Yeah, for sure. But a lot of people here seem to thing you need to Raid to be relevant in PvP