Hi, and thanks for taking the time to read this short stint of what I think the prime issue with WoW currently is, has been for a short while (BFA end game especially) and the one change that should happen. Item level.
As we all know item level is a big deal, whether you’re getting accepted into groups for mythic+, or grinding that arena rating. What ever it might be, item level seems to come before anything else. It’s quite unspoken of to say its such a huge part of the game. People will talk about how easy it is to get higher item level through different content compared to others, but no one seems to talk about how absurd the jumps in item level actually are. So I’m just going to go into, in short detail, what I think is wrong with the whole gearing system. Let me know what your thoughts are and if I miss anything out, let me know in the comments.
Okay, lets begin. So Blizzard implemented item upgrades for PvP gear which require more honor, or more conquest, depending on what item you were upgrading. Essentially making PvP, on par with the rest of the game, a grind fest. “Wow its so great”, “this is such a good system”. No. You’re either forgetting old systems, or you’ve never experienced the old systems if you’re a newer player. You used to get your honor gear at a competative item level, on par with heroic gear. (Which at the time was fine because Mythic+ didn’t exist). So you could either go run Heroics, or go play PvP for your gear. This gear, just for the sake of argument was, lets say 180 item level. You then had your conquest and raid gear. This would be around 190 item level and that is what you would progress toward, whether you were PvPing or PvEing, your choice. Then you would have your Heroic raid gear, around 195 item level, better but not too absurd. Thats about as far as it went. I might have missed some minor details here, but you catch my drift. Now that was 5-10 item level difference. Not too bad, still rewarding to get, maybe added an extra 5-10% of stats.
Fast forward to today. We have newer systems, extra content, more gear to work toward, which is great. I just feel its implemented slightly wrong. Going back to the PvP item upgrading first. This, on paper, sounds like a good idea, initially. But bear in mind, we are only 1-2 months into Shadowlands and already new players who are hitting 60 and looking to PvP have a long grind ahead of them to catch up. Its about 12-13k honor to buy the starter gear at 158 item level, you likely got that whilst leveling 50-60. So all is well, you’ve just bought your gear, you go into a BG with your 22k health, and what’s that? Everyone else is around 40k health? Already? You’re getting 1 shot and dealing no damage? Fun right? No. So you think, well… I just have to grind BGs getting slapped for the next 3 weeks to catch up. Nope. You have to go do your callings for renown to upgrade your gear past 171 (which in fairness doesn’t take too long due to catch up system, well done on that one Blizz), oh and you have to run Torghast for your legendary as well. Why don’t you just do heroics for 171 gear? What? Heroics drop 171 gear? YEAH! Oh, but you can’t upgrade it… maybe I can run Mythic 0s for higher item level. Nope. Drop rate too low. But the vault will give me something I want. Nope. RNG machine strikes again. So anyway. We have people at over 40k health, at around 205 item level, compared to a full 171 geared 60 who has grinded honor 2hours a night for a couple of weeks, they’re sat at around 25k health. You’re looking at about 30-40 item level difference between you and the guy slapping you in BGs already. And people are getting gear with over 220 item level. Tell me that’s not ridiculous this early on? That is a huge gap.
Gear upgrades only worked for the first couple of weeks. In the long run it is torturous. PvE drop rates are so low that you have to PvP for gear. And you can’t upgrade your PvE gear without RNG drops. I primarily play PvP, but even I know thats not fair.
The way I think item level should work is;
For PvP:
- 180 ilvl for honor gear, increasing to 200 ilvl in PvP (Arenas and BGs, not Warmode).
- 190 ilvl for conquest gear, increasing to 210 in PvP (Arenas and BGs, not Warmode).
I really saw nothing wrong with the way WoD PvP gearing was. It was great and everyone loved it. (Maybe not PvE players at the time, but that’s because WoD lacked content - but all that has changed we have so much now, too much some might say, too little some hardcore players say. You can’t please everyone).
For PvE:
- 180 ilvl for Heroics
- 190 ilvl for Mythic 0 and Raid Finder
- 195 ilvl for Mythic 6 and Higher Wings of RF
- 200 ilvl for Mythic 10 and Normal Raid
- 210 ilvl for Mythic 15 and Heroic Raid
- 215 ilvl for Mythic Raid
Bring back item reforging. No item upgrading. Just gear to work towards without insane jumps in item level. 180-215 is 35 item levels. And that’s the highest end. The stat difference between these should be 35%. You get 1% increase per item level basically. Not sure on percentages in the current game but its a lot higher than that. In my scenario, if you have 25k health, in full honor gear, at 180 item level, and you got into a PvP scenario, your health would increase by 20% to 30k health. Your stats would increase by 20% as well. If you had full conquest gear, outside of PvP you’d have 27.5k health, but in PvP 32.5k. Its an increase but not an absurd one. For PvE, players the percentages are the same but, outside of PvP, if you’re completing Mythic 6+, you will have 5% more stats than someone that has been PvPing. Min maxers will go complete mythic raids for the extra 5% in PvP, but for the majority of players, I think this is much fairer. You can get your gear quicker, not be at a absurdly huge disadvantage from other players, reforge your gear for the stats you want to focus on, work toward a PvE and PvP sets
of gear, if you want to. If not, thats fine too, because you can just play the parts of the game you enjoy without having to worry about the grind. Go for your mythic leader boards, go for higher arena rating, run Torghast for your Legendaries, what ever.
Which reminds me, I’ve not given legendaries an item level… 220. There you go. All these item levels would go up every season, like they do. Conquest gear would become normal PvP gear, new conquest would be 200 ilvl, scaling to 220. Mythic+ would increase on par with these increases. Mythic Raid would be 225. Legendaries would be 230. You catch my drift. The point is, there wouldn’t be out of control scaling, people wouldn’t be getting 1 shot - literally 1 shot, we’re talking 30-40k crits, on players…
Item level has been out of control for too long, and I think its very overlooked by the dev team. Its definitely the biggest culprit for scaling issues. I for one, hope it gets fixed. I also hope they add reforging back, it will benefit everyone. Allow more character customisation, let you play around with maxing out haste or crit or what ever. Stops the vault from screwing people over with bad stats as well.
I feel this will get mixed reactions but these are my thoughts on how the game could be fixed to benefit everyone. You should enjoy the game not be tortured by it. Whether its low drop rates, getting slapped in PvP, whatever, the game shouldn’t feel like a chore. I’m not saying its like this for everyone, but not everyone has 10 hours a day to play. Thats an exaggeration, but players playing for so long will still play, regardless of closer together item levels. It just works for everyone. Casual players will feel they can return and enjoy the game they once loved. People that grew up playing WoW but now don’t get as much time to play because of family life would feel they can return. Hardcore players can focus on the hardcore content and reaching that world first goal. Literally everything boils down to the item level being out of control. Everything feels like a grind, new players/level 60s quit because they either cant get gear from PvE, or get 1 shot in PvP.
I honestly think a change such as item level squish would fix a lot that is wrong with this game.
Anyways, I might have missed some important points and this whole thing was just an example. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far. Let me know what you think in the comments. Cheers and happy gaming 
