
Originally Posted by
Alroxas
Pretty sure there would be an uprising if there was a permanent power progression that players had to do. The WoW player (specifically the min/max player) mindset is that anything that is a player power increase should be/must be done to achieve that x% power difference gain even if it that gain is small (but measurable).
For those that forgot, back in BFA, when the 2nd warfront was added, a bug meant that Alliance could get their hands on 1 piece of gear that was 1 tier higher than the Horde (because the warfronts event switched which faction could do them each week). Wouldn't you know it but a HORDE guild faction switched their raiders over to Alliance just so they could do the warfront and get that 1 piece of gear to "get ahead" in terms of gear before faction switching back to Horde to continue their progression. Ultimately, I don't think it made ANY difference but that's the lengths WoW min/max players will go to.
So if there was a permanent power (even if it was "optional"), WoW players would farm it just to be that little bit stronger.
Heck prior to the TW change, there was an entire discord server dedicated to players who "optimized" TW gear so you could have the BiS TW gear that scaled better than average gear in TW. This trinket from this old raid or Chromie Time version of this weapon or armor scaled the best at max level etc etc.
At least with the current system of gearing being the sole arbiter of player power - players can have defined stopping points provided to them based on the level of content they want to engage in. A player only wants to do solo content? Well you'll probably cap out with Delves with GV delves giving you 616 gear and through the upgrade system, the cap would be around 619 ish (gilded crests being the limiting factor).