PvP ilvl does not matter as much as people think.

[wholol]

I've been following this thread on the official EU wow forums for a few days and it has garnered the attention of quite a lot of people ( sadly no such thread exists on the US forums, not sure if people are aware).

( https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17622573467 ).

Basically the thread speaks of how blizzard secretly baked automatic pvp ilvl scaling into the game not just for low lvl vs cap but for max level chars fighting each other as well.

To summarize what the thread is about for those of you who are too lazy to read the original thread, ilvl and secondary stats are meaningless in terms of damage/healing output vs other players.

Blizzard has implemented a system that regulates damage dealt/received by players so that any ilvl difference is automatically adjusted to be equal to that of the opponent and vice versa.

An example of this would be that a level 120 with 350 ilvl hitting another level 120 with 300 ilvl for lets say 50k damage, would see 50k damage on their screen but the opposing player would receive an adjusted version of that damage ( equal to the adjusted ilvl ) and would probably see a number closer to 30k ~ on their screen.

Furthermore, a lot of things have been tested by the people in the thread to see how can removing gear or wearing lower ilvl gear impact your character, and a lot of seemingly useless/several tiers old gear seems to be showing advantages over wearing BFA gear.

This might puzzle a lot of people hearing this for the first time, but in short, downranking some gear for items dropped several expansions ago will yield higher damage values than wearing high ilvl BFA gear in pvp content ( wpvp/bgs/arenas).

Old items with 3x sockets seem to be working to empower characters even further by boosting stats on old ilvl pieces to skyrocket values after adjustments, what is also interesting is that old weapons and items that used to provide CC benefits were being tested and were working up until blizz's hotfixed very recently ( weapons that provided a chance to stun targets for example ).

If anyone has any doubts about what I'm saying here, I highly advise you to visit the thread that I linked above and see the ample amount of proof/data that was given there.

With this system, blizzard has basically nullified gear for pvp and erased all incentives for pvp gearing from the game, this is both infuriating and baffling at the same time as this is an mmo and incentives for gearing is the fundamental core of this game.

[apelsinjuice]

I never liked the concept of "everything needs to be equal because its competition", No this is a mmo, with character progresion, you want to progress you character, make it stronger and fight against other people. there is games like lol/dota/csgo/battlerite and more if you like that kind of pvp.

If ilvl dont matter the only thing that will matter is probably stuff like trinkets, azerite traits etc

[wholol]

I never liked the concept of "everything needs to be equal because its competition", No this is a mmo, with character progresion, you want to progress you character, make it stronger and fight against other people. there is games like lol/dota/csgo/battlerite and more if you like that kind of pvp.

If ilvl dont matter the only thing that will matter is probably stuff like trinkets, azerite traits etc

Azerite traits and trinkets will matter, but the damage portion /procs/stat increases all get scaled as well.

[Aleksej89]

Frankly i hate the concept of grinding PVP gear for hours just for your character to even remotely stand a chance in PVP.

I have one of every class at max level (not yet in BFA but at some point) and frankly i like to do occasional PVP on whatever spec/character i feel like.

Sometimes i even use my horde characters if my horde-only friends are online for some pvp.

Having to grind a basic set of "honor" gear on EVERY character (and sometimes even spec specific) has been the number 1 reason why i could not bother doing pvp.

For me PVP is a casual minigame in wow and something to do on the side when you feel like it.

If i have to go through hours and hours of awful grinding while insta-dying just to be able to get honor gear and then see how that spec even remotely compares in PVP then i would rather not play pvp at all.

[tangers58]

I never liked the concept of "everything needs to be equal because its competition", No this is a mmo, with character progresion, you want to progress you character, make it stronger and fight against other people. there is games like lol/dota/csgo/battlerite and more if you like that kind of pvp.

If ilvl dont matter the only thing that will matter is probably stuff like trinkets, azerite traits etc

Sounds like the only thing that will matter would be skill. Amazing how many pvp heroes are just trash without a gear advantage.

[apelsinjuice]

Sounds like the only thing that will matter would be skill. Amazing how many pvp heroes are just trash without a gear advantage.

if theres no reason for gear progression in a MMO character driven game, why dont play lol/csgo/dota or anything like that?, in that case, why do we even need to level to play pvp/arena at all, why not have the arena realms open 24/7 with premade max level characters for everyone to make it more like other competitive pvp games

[A Chozo]

I never liked the concept of "everything needs to be equal because its competition", No this is a mmo, with character progresion, you want to progress you character, make it stronger and fight against other people. there is games like lol/dota/csgo/battlerite and more if you like that kind of pvp.

If ilvl dont matter the only thing that will matter is probably stuff like trinkets, azerite traits etc

We apreciate your opinion, but there's also the desire for fair fights.

It's a mmo-rpg, sure, but the progression has a heavy element of RNG in it. Jorge the Rogue got lucky with his titanforged daggers, while I farmed 20 hours more than him and got nothing. Without the scaling, he would be stronger than me because he's lucky.

[apelsinjuice]

We apreciate your opinion, but there's also the desire for fair fights.

It's a mmo-rpg, sure, but the progression has a heavy element of RNG in it. Jorge the Rogue got lucky with his titanforged daggers, while I farmed 20 hours more than him and got nothing. Without the scaling, he would be stronger than me because he's lucky.

I understand both sides trust me, I would love an arena based game like WoW arena but never found one good enough. Its no easy thing to solve for sure, seems like this system might have problems as well with people using old expansion items with special bonuses, 3x gem slots etc to get advantage

[Deleted]

Sounds like the only thing that will matter would be skill. Amazing how many pvp heroes are just trash without a gear advantage.

This would be a perfect argument if they didn't take so much of the tools away that can show skill on all the classes.

[MrCool]

The simple fact that you can game the system by hiding gear in void storage (or vendoring it) and still be MORE THAN viable in PVP with gear from past expansions (due to stacking legacy sockets and set bonuses) is simple enough proof that the system is completely broken and not sustainable.

Players are smart and will figure out the inner workings of the PVP scaling, even if Blizzard intentionally refuses to clearly explain it. And then, competitive players will exploit its loopholes. It's normal, smart players want to get any advantage they can in PVP, even if the game rules dont make sense. I'll be cynical and say it's another form of skill (for the plebs that have been advocating that PVP should be more "skill based", but prep'ing your character also takes some skill)

[Rankstar]

I play on oceanic and noticed this right away.

for reference my partners and I were 2200 last season.

I have 109k hp unbuffed (349ilvl)

I died to a hunter with 60k hp in 1.7seconds.

this should not happen, not ever. If the guy has no gear, he should hit like a wet noodle and melt when facing a geared opponent.

[papaz]

This is great news!

It needs some changes though to cater to everyone:
1. Gear should make 0 difference in RATED PvP
2. You can earn PvP gear in RATED PvP
3. In normal PvP all gear matters
4. Introduce 6 vs 6 solo queue RATED bg where people can choose chars in the loading screen. Since gear doesnt matter people can have many alts to choose from (healer/dps/tank)

And there you go. Everyone happy. Yeah and give some welfare bad gear to normal bg grinders that are scared of solo queue rated bg.

[Schmilblick]

I never liked the concept of "everything needs to be equal because its competition", No this is a mmo, with character progresion, you want to progress you character, make it stronger and fight against other people.

This should matter ONLY in PvE.

there is games like lol/dota/csgo/battlerite and more if you like that kind of pvp.

And why do you think those games are successful ? every players on the same level, only skill matter.

[apelsinjuice]

And why do you think those games are successful ? every players on the same level, only skill matter.

But those games are not MMO games with a character you level and progress

[Deleted]

The simple fact that you can game the system by hiding gear in void storage (or vendoring it) and still be MORE THAN viable in PVP with gear from past expansions (due to stacking legacy sockets and set bonuses) is simple enough proof that the system is completely broken and not sustainable.

this was a bug and blizz already fix'd it

[MrCool]

this was a bug and blizz already fix'd it

Sure, they will implement obvious stealth hotfixes to hide the most obvious holes in the system so the majority of players won't realize how shitty this system is. Excluding gear below ilvl of gear from current xpac is the first obvious fix they probably have already implemented.
It remains, that a system that penalizes you for owning gear you don't even equip is broken. It may be 1-2% penalty in most situations, but it's already horrendous from design standpoint... and still too much for rated PVP.

It will encourage weird behaviors, like with void storage. Or "PVP-only" characters, where you will aggressively get rid of items that may fuck your optimal equipment setup.

[apelsinjuice]

this was a bug and blizz already fix'd it

The ilvl scaling is still in full effect, blizzard just trying to fix some of the biggest holes like old expansion item weapons with certain effects being overpowered.

[Loxotron]

Sounds like the only thing that will matter would be skill. Amazing how many pvp heroes are just trash without a gear advantage.

Skill ceiling is incredibly low in wow compare to a competitive games like cs, quake, overwatch and etc, there is no way game can sustain it self without gear progression, simple as that.

- - - Updated - - -

This should matter ONLY in PvE.

No it should be a consistant across both pve and pvp, the game has nothing aside of rpg progression at all.

And why do you think those games are successful ? every players on the same level, only skill matter.

Games like cs has a complex combat system where you need to aim and be fast on reaction, while wow has none of it. If you want a fair playground in pvp then i am awaiting the complex combat system to be implemented with people to actually aim and hit the shots, for example lets mages fire/frost bolts be like rockets in quake so u have to predict and land a hit to actually do any damage. I want to see how many actual wow audience could handle it... probably close to 0.

[FAILoZOFF]

MMO

are you (and everyone else bringing on) even aware that MMO stands JUST for Massive Multiplayer Online and nothing in there implies anything else, right?

[apelsinjuice]

are you (and everyone else bringing on) even aware that MMO stands JUST for Massive Multiplayer Online and nothing in there implies anything else, right?

Its a MMORPG based on character RPG and gear progression, there is a reason pvp participation drops of incredibly fast for casual pvpers as soon as they have no gear progression goal to work for.