Introduction

Top end PvE gear has caused a ton of balance issues in rated PvP over the years. Blizzard have constantly ignored the lessons of the past and failed to address the heart of this issue. The fact is, top end PvE items are not designed with rated PvP in mind and, while Blizzard are willing to nerf these items for PvP reasons, their method of addressing the issue simply causes resentment between the PvE and PvP communities and negatively impacts one area of the game for the other.  These items also tend to skew the rate of reaction in PvP—instead of been able to respond to high damage with healing or various survivability talents, people are instead killed before they regain control of their characters in the opener or randomly struck down by stars aligned damage. Blizzard needs to change their approach on this issue and today we’ll be discussing the issue and one such way of addressing it.

Lessons from the Past

PvE gear has plagued rated PvP since the inception of Arena. The War Glaives are synonymous with TBC and became a must have for Rogues everywhere, providing, as all legendaries do, a massive advantage to their wielder. This continued throughout Wrath culminating in an epidemic. Items like Mjolnir Runestone, Grim Toll, Deathbringer’s Will, Solace of the Fallen, Bauble of True Blood and, of course, Shadowmourne weren’t simply slight advantages over the competition, they were a means to dominate them.  It wasn’t simply limited to weapons and trinkets though. Indeed, the best in slot list for most classes were filled with various heroic PvE pieces, some making use of PvE set bonuses and most using the, easy as hell to obtain, heroic Ashen Band reputation ring

Failing to learn the lessons of the past, Blizzard failed to tackle this issue in Cataclysm. Theralion’s Mirror provided Mages in particular with some insane burst potential and the old version Unheeded Warning was insane, especially after the relevant buffs to Feral Druids in 4.2. Speaking of the first major patch of the expansion—that been 4.2 because 4.1 was as much as a major patch as the Double Shaman team was entertaining to watch at the Prestige tournament—Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest made its debut. Arguably the most OP legendary to date based on its RNG death potential alone, it started out as a rare sight and soon became widespread, plaguing rated PvP with its OP potential. It’s become so numerous in fact, the upcoming buffs to Hunters is to enable them to compete with Casters in PvE:

For the present situation, one option is to just buff hunters to make up for their inability to have legendary weapons, but when you look at DPS casters who have no legendary, it’s a tough option to take.

Yet, even with items like Variable Pulse Lightning Capacitor and the legendary staff, the items added to the game in 4.3 made them look like harmless kittens. These monstrous items such as Vial of Shadows, Gurthalak and Cunning of the Cruel even became easier to obtain with the implementation of the raid finder—making them more numerous in rated PvP than any PvE item to date. Of course, the raid finder provided lesser versions, but they were and still are powerful nonetheless. The ease at which Rogues could obtain 397 PvE daggers also made them appear extremely strong, especially with the other items on top. There’s also yet another legendary, although this time limited to just Rogues.

In fact, the failure to tackle the effect of legendaries on rated PvP is the most laughable part of Blizzards inability to tackle the overall issue of PvE gear in PvP. There’s ample evidence of the effect these items have had on PvP and yet we’re about to be plagued by yet another legendary in the form of the Rogue daggers—Rogues been particularly strong without these daggers of mass destruction. Amusingly, the first wielder of these items along with some other OP gear has had limited success in arena:

While funny and showing items alone can’t carry an individual to success, this doesn’t and shouldn’t push this issue under the rug. Indeed, a capable Rogue with all those goodies is deadly to say the least. Take two teams of equal ability and have one member of one team wield all those items and the other team rely on PvP gear alone and well, the items would make the difference and this is at the core of the issue. It’s the effect on balance and the negative implications to the competitive aspect of rated PvP.

Blizzards Response and the Rate of Reaction

Blizzard might appear oblivious to these issues, but they aren’t. In fact, they actually try and tackle such issues from time to time with varying results.

Unheeded Warning:

In both PvP and PvE, it was scaling disproportionately for Feral druids, to the extent it’s been more desirable than 4.2 items for a lot of players, including non-druids. We want the process of obtaining loot to still feel meaningful as new gear is released, so your character is still progressing in power along with the content to which the items are linked. This one just remained a little too good for its level and relative difficulty to obtain.

Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest:

Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest: The chance for this item’s effect to be triggered has been reduced.

Vial of Shadows:

Vial of Shadows damage (Lightning Strike) has been reduced to approximately one-third of previous damage. However, it will now trigger approximately 3 times as often. This is intended to keep overall DPS the same while reducing burst damage, especially in PvP.

Gurthalak:

Likewise, random burst can sometimes cause high damage in PvP, but we don’t think those situations with Gurthalak are reliable or severe enough to be a balance problem.

The Unheeded Warning change is suspect. There was a PvP element behind it, but overall it seems to have been made because the trinket dropped from the previous tier of raiding and proved overwhelming superior to everything in the then current tier of raiding. It wasn’t nerfed for PvP reasons alone and that’s worrying. The same is true of Dragonwrath. Fortunately, the change to Vial does prove there doesn’t always have to be PvE implications on top of PvP ones to see a change made, but it does seem to be the case most of the time.

In terms of burst damage alone, the change to Dragonwrath also highlights Blizzards poor understanding of the situation and procs in general.  Indeed, whether an item has a 90% or 1% chance to proc is of little concern to an individual struck dead by the absurd damage potential of an item like Dragonwrath. In fact, it’s difficult to regard nerfs to proc chances as nerfs at all. It does absolutely nothing to stop the absurd damage from occurring and is never the correct answer. The problem is Dragonwrath can still proc on a 30k crit, not that its chance of doing so is too high. They didn’t solve the problem.

Take a look at this video:

The individuals involved in this matchup are not amateurs. They’re all rank one calibre players. The problem is how PvE gear tends to skew the rate of reaction in PvP. This is the amount of time an individual or team has to respond to the actions of their opponent. The higher damage is the lower the time to react. If damage is too high then you have little time to react to it and skill doesn’t come into play. If damage is too low then you have too much time to react and there’s no pressure and, therefore, little fun to be had. It’s an important component of PvP and determines how fast or slow a matchup is.

As you can see from the clip, there was no time to react and skill did not have a chance to come into play for the pressured team. This type of damage is never justified. Indeed, the rate of PvP should be fast paced, but slow enough for skill to determine the victor and not who possesses the most ridiculous PvE gear or best RNG. There must be time to react in order to make PvP combat engaging, otherwise there’s little reason whatsoever to view rated PvP as nothing more than a poor mini game. Also there should never be a necessity of insane damage to kill anyone, if such a thing is necessary then there’s a problem with your game Blizzard.

The Item Level Problem

There’s also a glaring issue with item level when comparing the best PvP and PvE gear. The top PvP items available are the tier two weapons and they’re item level 410. The rest of the PvP items available are item level 403. Yet, the top PvE gear available is item level 416 and includes various different items and even includes weapons for basically every class and spec in the game. However, these 416 items do not cover every slot and the majority of top end PvE gear is item level 410. To put it simply, the top PvE gear is better than the top PvP gear on item level alone. This was also the case in Wrath in terms of Lich King heroic items, but a number of other PvP items at least match the other PvE heroic gear available.

Presumably then the resilience levels on top PvP gear is not designed to withstand the damage potential of someone in top end PvE gear. Indeed, we know for a fact someone in top end Vicious gear isn’t suppose to have equal survivability or damage potential to an opponent in full Ruthless—they’re at a disadvantage based on item level alone. This means top end PvE gear is overpowered based on item level alone. The PvE gear has a higher stat budget and the resilience levels on the requisite PvP gear isn’t designed to counter the damage increase that stat budget provides. Therefore, it isn’t just trinkets, legendaries or the proc weapons that are the issue; it’s the entirety of top end PvE gear.

It’s normally assumed that an individual wearing a piece or two of PvE gear (excluding proc items) receives a damage buff and that this is counteracted by a decrease in survivability—although there is an increase in stamina on the top PvE gear compared to their requisite PvP counterparts. Yet, while they do receive a loss in resilience and, therefore, survivability, it isn’t a fair trade off.  They don’t receive a redistribution of stats; they receive more stats, especially with going from 403 to 416 gear. Indeed, there’s not a need for stacking massive levels of resilience and regardless of the loss of resilience, the 416 weapons are better than the tier two weapons for melee classes. It isn’t a case of trading off survivability for damage—it’s the case of getting upgrades for PvP that aren’t available via PvP alone.

The difficulty of obtaining these 410 and, in particular, 416 PvE items is irrelevant to this discussion. Indeed, as we approach the end of the season, the difficulty of obtaining those items will have decreased substantially and they’ll be far more numerous. Regardless of that though, it doesn’t matter how few of these items are currently been used in rated PvP. The fact is, anyone who has possesses these items and currently uses them in rated PvP have an advantage over those who just want to PvP or those who can’t tackle heroic PvE content.

Arguments like this though are normally met with the assertion that participating in every aspect of the game should provide an advantage. Indeed, these people have worked hard and put the extra effort in to obtaining these advantages so they deserve to use them we’re told. However, the problem with this argument is, firstly, that balance and promoting a competitive playing field should be at the forefront of rated PvP and, secondly, that the argument is flawed to begin with.

Participating in all aspects of the game doesn’t provide an advantage in all those aspects. The fact is participating in PvE provides an advantage in PvP, the reverse is not true. There’s no benefit to be gained for PvE by engaging in PvP. In fact, where there was a benefit, Blizzard intervened:

The decision to further delay availability of weapons requiring 2200 rating was not made lightly. Currently very few guilds are clearing PvE content that drops weapons of this caliber, which would make rated Battlegrounds and Arenas the primary source for top-tier weapons. We of course don’t want players who are pursuing PvE content to feel as though they must engage in heavy PvP to obtain these weapons in order to be competitive or successful.

They went on to increase the cost of weapons so the PvE community didn’t feel pressured into engaging in an aspect of the game they may or may not particularly enjoy.  Blizzard themselves do not believe in the in this “all aspects of the game advantage” mentality and acted to counter it for PvE reasons.

Yet as stated in “Epic Gems Now Available via PvP. Sort of”:

The reason this is such an issue is firstly because of Blizzards Mists of Pandaria philosophy of play the game how you want to and, secondly, because one of the core reasons the cost of tier 2 weapons was increased was so PvE players wouldn’t feel obliged to engage in PvP. This mentality doesn’t apply to PvP where there is somewhat of an obligation to engage in PvE for the gear advantage. Indeed, it’s faster to obtain a heroic weapon via PvE then it is to solely PvP (RNG noted). The trinkets and other goodies available as resilience becomes less of an issue is another reason. Finally, the gem situation and Blizzards poor attempt at a solution have just increased this feeling of obligation.

In 4.3 Blizzard even supported this Mists of Pandaria philosophy of play the game how you want to by allowing conquest points to be capped from random Battlegrounds. There was no longer a necessity for people who enjoy random Battlegrounds to engage in arena or rated battlegrounds to cap their points. Yet, they’ve left this huge discrepancy of where the PvP community and the PvP community alone is pressured, if not forced (for top players) to engage in an aspect of the game they may or may not enjoy to succeed. It needs to be fixed!

The Titans Grip and Vengeance Solution

In image above you can see a piece of PvE gear and a red message stating “Not usable in the Arena”. This is from the Cataclysm beta, but failed to make it into the game. Unfortunately, Blizzard never discussed this great feature and nor did they explain why they never went ahead with the idea. In fact, it might even have been a bug. Regardless, it does the raise the question of how you’d go about making such gear unusable in arena.

One such way they could achieve this via the same means they ensure an Arms warrior can’t make use of Titan’s Grip—this been the talent which allows a Fury warrior to dual wield two handed weapons. When you switch from Fury to Arms, your weapons remain equipped. However, it seems the game checks for the talent and if it fails to find it, it sets the durability of the weapons to zero until the offhand is unequipped. An item with zero durability can’t be used and gives the wearer zero stats—it makes the items useless. This includes all slots except neck, back, finger and trinket.

They could use the same principle as switching from Titans Grip Fury to Arms. They certainly have the technology to do so. Instead of checking for a talent, the game would instead check for a zone or environment. All the overpowered top end PvE gear would have a durability of zero and therefore be worthless while in rated PvP. The user of said gear would of course be informed of this like with zero durability items in general and be able to switch the items out in the starting area. The neck, back and finger slots could be exceptions to this since they provide only a slight DPS increase in comparison to all the other items.

As to trinkets and any item with a proc, the planned change to Vengeance provides a solution:

Vengeance is no longer triggered by receiving damage from other players.

These PvE items should only proc from damage done to mobs. The player should be informed of this on entering rated PvP so they can swap out such items before the gates open.

Now there is an issue here as to what extent PvE gear should be banned from rated PvP. It’s undeniable that certain comps such as RMP rely on PvE gear to score kills. The RMPs at the recent Prestige tournament were unable to score a kill on the double Shaman team due to a lack of PvE gear. Indeed, Khuna might have been disqualified for using PvE gear against the retarded never should have been allowed comp, but it proved the point that RMP were actually effective when PvE gear came into play. In fact, Mages seem utterly dependant on PvE gear to be effective.

In that regard, it’d be better to decrease the durability of every item above 403 to zero and any weapon over 410 to zero. Trinkets and other items with procs above 403 would receive the vengeance treatment and those below or on the mark would function as normal. Of course, if there’s any particularly nasty item below these levels, exceptions could be made. Indeed, if a trinket is functioning just fine in PvE, but is proving an issue in PvP, it could be added to a list and made useless regardless of item level. This would prevent PvP negatively impacting on PvE. Of course, this would apply in the future via the same means. The maximum item level of the PvP weapon and armour should be used every season. For example, in season 12 if the top PvP weapon is 514 and the top PvP armour piece is 520, then all PvE weapons and items over those levels would have zero durability in arena and fail to proc where appropriate against players.

Now as to the reverse of banning PvP items in PvE content, it doesn’t really work. The gear isn’t as useful as PvE gear in a raiding environment.  A PvP weapon might be superior to a PvE weapon from the previous tier, but a PvE weapon with the same item level as the PvP weapon will always trump it. You’d never choose a resilience piece over a PvE piece. Although, let’s just note it did used to give defensive rating so there was some exceptions to this in the past, but they were wiped out at the start of Cataclysm. Not to mention it’s easier to obtain useful—as in this tier—PvP gear then it is PvE gear. The new five mans provide some loot, but the RNG element and the inability to cover every slot from Justice Points doesn’t help. Indeed, the raid finder certainly made it easier, but if you were to level a new character, the easiest way to reach the required item level for raid finder entry is PvP. There is no starter set for current tier PvE and perhaps there should be.

Conclusion

PvE items have a negative impact on rated PvP and cause issues from both a balance and competitive standpoint. The current flock of proc items in particular have caused a massive headache for the PvP community and have turned arena from a somewhat competitive battle to an RNG zerg-fest where players are routinely dying in openers before regaining control of their characters. Blizzard has acted to fix these issues, but their solutions are poor and have done very little to limit the impact of these items. Furthermore, these solution have continued to adversely affect one area of the game for the benefit of the other—a mentality that cannot continue.

Also in the same regard that Vicious gear isn’t designed to withstand Ruthless gear, the top PvP gear is not designed to withstand top end PvE gear based on item level alone. This is even more worrying when considering that resilience will be a base stat in MoP and they’ll be less need to gear for it, potentially increasing the use of PvE gear in rated PvP without balancing it with the loss of survivability as we still partially do today.

Finally, there is a solution to this issue via lowering the durability of high end PvE items to zero in a rated PvP environment and making trinkets and other proc items unable to proc from damage done to players. These solutions potentially aren’t perfect and there may be better suggestions, but Blizzard should think through how to solve this issue because the current situation isn’t adequate and these issues will repeat themselves in MoP to a greater extent due to the resilience change.