I’d argue progression is the Focus of WoW, Gear is only a Tool to help you progress further.
However over the years many new option and ways of playing wow have been introduced. However Progression does and should continue to be the main focus of the game.
YES, YES, YES. Make gear matter in pvp again! its a mmorpg, not a freaking moba game.
So glad people are starting to wake up. I know lots of ppl ingame that feels the same way but dont care enough to be vocal.
Respect for the post.
I kinda have similiar views with Dejorus on this case.
If gear was responcible for 95% of my dps then tehnically I could just auto-attack the boss and be doing orange…OR purple parses(lets leave the 5% for the orange just for the sake of discusion).
Yet on a wild guess. Auto attack is like …5k dps?(JUST for the sake of discusion. I am bad with memorizing numbers). Yet a proper rotation can do like 95 k dps?(AGAIN…for the sake of discusion).
So those “5%” skill is responsible for doing 90k more dps?..it simply doesn’t compute…
Edit:
Sure. Lets gatekeep any new or later arrivals into PvP. Since getting oneshot before you can even sneeze seems soo much fun.
Pretty sure gearing was the best thing about pvp in dragonflight, especially at the start when we had to go do world pvp 
Right now though it is very good for catching up aswell. However… What is not good… is the queue situation… Another thing wrong with pvp is simply its game mode in my personal opinion. I don’t think arena is the best format for wow’s core pvp. Maybe they could introduce some sort of dota2/hots map and experiment a little. Soloqueue RBGs also have potential, but lots of maps need a retouch for this to be worth.
There could also be more rewards for doing pvp, that may be not rating related. Potentially our traveller’s log from our trading post could play a role here.
it doesn’t have to be fun when you get oneshot. But its very ultra fun when you do the one shot. It adds more passion to the game. After you get destroyed, it makes you wanna be the destroyer one day. So every item slot you upgrade, it will feel epic.
You people become way too sensitive and passionless. For real now.
Not playing pvp, but based on forums it’s endless ping-pong cycle of gear should matter in pvp and templates skill only
its just the snowflakes and crybabies that still try to make the pvp gear worthless. Thinking if everyone will have identical gear power, they will lose less. But that will never be the case. True mmorpg fans knows that’s a mistake.
You say this, but I quit the game in shadowlands due to not being able to gear up, and when I finally found a mate, I got destroyed by boosters unable to do anything into a group disband. When I say quit, I mean that I stopped playing retail for over 6 months. No. Dragonflight is way better gearing-wise.
Or it makes you give up. Whats the point? if you are nothing more than a target dummy who walks and you got absolutely no chance to even as much as leave a dent on your opponent. I am not against gear progression or having an advantage over leaser geared players but it needs to be balanced out so that the leaser geared folks feel that they have more “value” in a BG than just walking “free kill cattle, ready for slaughter”
Its all fun if you are on the giving angle but not many will put up to sacrifice their fun to fuel yours since the giving end gets absolutely nothing in return. Call me sensitive or passionless or whatever, but people play video games to have fun…not to provide fun for others and get nothing in return.
Hey, to use abilities in the most optimal way requires skill, however, to simply use abilities decently doesn’t require much skill.
No, i am not saying that auto attacks are providing 95% of your performance. Not sure why you got such impression.
With that claim. Any person with ilevel 415 should be doing around 80k dps(again for the sake of discusion) with the difference being 5k to account for the (5% skill) yet in real life the range can be between 10k-150k. So how come such a huge disparity if the gear should be doing like 95% of the heavy lifthing?
Guys where are you finding those 10k dps people, how is that even possible unless deliberate sabotage or something.
Your own 5%. You claimed it yourself. Gear does 95% of the dps.
So if player input only does the remaining 5% of the dps then tehnicaly I could leave my character to auto-attack, knowing the I already got the 95% guarenteed dps anyway cause I got the gear and the remaining 5%…hmm auto attack…maybe cast 1 CD in 10 mins…maybe?
Yes if I try this on the field, I can only squeeze those 10k dps. So how come my gear which SHOULD do 95% of my dps leaving 5% for my own input…and 5% is…well walking towards the boss and leaving it at auto-attack…not doing the promised 80k?
Well, then you’re a boring weak person, if you give up just because of that. I doubt most people will give up just for that tho.
Btw, that’s the thing, you will not be forever that dummy. You will progress from dummy to hero and it will feel epic.
Shadowlands had these dumb legendaries. Gear progression felt awful because of that. Anyway, im not saying we need shadowlands gearing. But for sure even shadowlands gearing is way better than what we have now in dragonflight (in pvp at least).
If the geared person is pretty much untouchable. The only way to kill him and get some honor or ranking is either A: Another just as geared person kills the target for you. B: Target DCs and you manage to scratch him down before the server disconnects him.
So that Bravado talk about “becoming a hero” is the same as saying to a person who is holding a plastic table knife against a modern tank to “keep going lad. I am sure you will destroy it eventually!” Gee thanks…but not everyone is as blind cattle as you believe they are.
What does that mean for a given gear ilvl and a challenge matching that ilvl ?
That 95% of the players with that ilvl will be able to overcome the challenge ?
That if anyone have that ilvl, they can roll their face on their keyboard (= 0 skill involved here) and overcome the challenge 95% of the time ?
That if anyone have that ilvl, any action (moving your character, activating a skill, moving or clicking the mouse) more than once every 20 seconds is a waste of energy ?
Back in Vanilla / TBC many high end raiders stopped playing the game. Because at the end of the day WoW is one of the worst competitive games in existence.
You could play Dota in WC3, you could play 1.6 in Counter strike at the time or even SC:BW. All infinitely better when compared with this trash (competitively).
The truth is the high-end raiders that stick around and do it for ´´the competitive aspect´´ (lul), just do it because they like being kings of the AFK-mount farmers and Pokemon wannabe trainers. They also make up such a minority that you might as well compare them to people who only play WoW because they have fallen in love with their characters or whatever.
Remove gear and raiding dies in less than 24 hours. Facts.
There is also the funny fact that almost all ´´cOmPeTiTiVe rAiDeRs´´ seem to play League of Legends instead of Dota… If they were looking for a competitive game on the side, why not play the game being played by REAL men and women? Not the game where you beat up 9 year old children?
IRL you go to the gym to get stronger, not buy a pair of boots 
How about playing for fun?
the reality of wow is that even the bigest dum dums will eventually get carried once they get gear.
its only a matter of time - if you have enough time for farm. if you are like 418 now you will clear and time 20s with enough dedication - its just a game of numebrs - if you join enough groups eventually some will carry you . and in process you will get score anyway .
so yes . gear is everythign in wow.