With Legion, PvP in World of Warcraft will change significantly. Many questions remain unanswered, but now a large part of them has been addressed.
Many Questions, Some Answers
With the announcement of World of Warcraft: Legion, Blizzard revealed quite a bit at Gamescom. PvP gear will completely disappear from the game – will raiders from the PvE side have the best gear for player duels? What about the strong set bonuses of the T-Sets? Is there still any progression at all? Not all of these questions could be answered comprehensively – but the answers are sufficient for a first impression.
Fixed Stats for All Specializations
The stats of your characters will no longer be primarily determined by items in PvP! Instead, Blizzard will choose a specific stat distribution for each specialization. This essentially ensures that all shadow priests have the same amount of intelligence and all subtlety rogues fundamentally have the same critical strike rating. However, players with good gear will still be granted a slight advantage: Instead of your stats increasing directly through the armor’s attributes, they will take a mitigating route. As a (non-final) example: If your character’s item level increases by 5, you will receive 1% better stats in PvP. It has been emphasized that the best PvP gear will definitely not come from raids.
These changes are intended to allow developers to quickly and easily buff or nerf individual classes to better balance them.
No Set Bonuses, No Trinkets
Another message brings joy on one side but harsh criticism on the other. Set bonuses, trinkets, and enchantments will not be active in PvP! The reason for this is that currently, many players only feel truly powerful for a few seconds when they activate all trinkets and class cooldowns simultaneously, doing almost no damage for the rest of the time. Whether this will intensify the feeling of weakness or truly address the problem at its root can only be shown by the future. However, those fearing for their beloved Horde/Alliance badge don’t need to create a flame thread right away…
PvP Talents Replace Item Progression
The new PvP talents take the place of many elements that have become standard for PvP players. The CC cleansing effect of trinkets is an additional ability here and only an option – those who want can also unlock a reduction of all CC effects by 20% instead.
What was previously achieved through new gear and thus enhanced abilities is now replaced by the PvP talents that will be unlocked with the new PvP level. Newcomers will thus require some time to unlock the talents, but in terms of raw stat strength, they will be on par with their veteran counterparts and thus far from being a burden.
Even though the developers do not yet know exactly what to do with the racial ability of humans (which functions like the current PvP trinket), these changes sound promising to engage more players in the conflicts between Horde and Alliance.
For more information about the new expansion Legion, you can find articles about artifact weapons, the demon hunter, or our World of Warcraft topic page.
