Can we get a pvp dummy?

Great suggestion. I'll be sure to bring it up with the team :)

That said, we're doing a lot of retuning of how health works in comparison to incoming damage in Warlords, with the hope that we won't need (or can significantly lessen the effects of) things like Battle Fatigue or Base Resilience. If all goes well, there shouldn't be as nearly as substantial of a difference between PvE and PvP damage output.

Still, it's a great suggestion, and there will likely still be at least a small difference (due to PvP Power if nothing else), so I'll make sure to pass it on.

01/13/2014 11:40 AMPosted by Whoknowz

If all goes well, there shouldn't be as nearly as substantial of a difference between PvE and PvP damage output.

Sounds like a good goal but probably to hard of goal to hit.

It's definitely tough, but we think we can at least get things a lot closer than they currently are.

01/13/2014 12:10 PMPosted by Lokthen

There SHOULD be a difference in damage output between pve/pvp gear. Pve gear should hit harder in pve, and pvp gear should reduce dmg more in pvp.

I think he means more along the lines of "Why can I Chaos Bolt for 1.5 million in PvE while PvP I can rarely go above 180k?" kinds of situations, which I think is a legit concern.

Precisely.

If you guys are doing as much number tinkering as you claim I don't know why you wouldn't take this opportunity to rethink pvp power altogether

I'm all for differentiating gear but I find it pretty silly that a stat called "pvp power" exists at all.

We are planning to revisit PvP Power in Warlords. Our current thinking is that, instead of a flat percentage increase to your normal damage/healing in PvP (as it is currently), it'll be a bonus amount of your spec's primary stat (Strength, Agility, or Intellect).

Here's an example with some completely made-up numbers: lets say a piece of gear has 80 Strength and 30 PvP Power on it. In a PvP environment, that would total out to be 110 Strength. Meanwhile, an equivalent piece of PvE gear might only have 100 Strength on it. Again, those numbers are purely hypothetical, but hopefully it illustrates the idea.

That change accomplishes a couple of things for us. First, it lets us keep PvP and PvE item levels closer together, while still ensuring that PvP gear remains best for PvP and vice versa. It also "demystifies" PvP Power quite a bit; a percentage-based increase can be hard to really quantify without a lot of math, but raw stats are much easier to understand.

As to the name, we can talk about it, but part of why we chose the term "PvP Power" to begin with was that it makes it extremely obvious that the stat only functions inside PvP environments. We want to be sure that players who purchase PvP gear know that it's going to be less effective in PvE situations. I'll bring it up, though :)

This example looks like

pvp gear in pvp 100% dmg/healing
pve gear in pvp 90% dmg/healing

pve gear in pve 100% dmg/healing
pvp gear in pve 80% dmg/healing

Is this the goal or still to many missing pieces on this.

Completely made-up example, I wouldn't read into the actual numbers that much.

I really like the idea behind that and it's similar to what I suggested previously. Why not something like this (ROUGH numbers):

PvP Item A has 70 agi/str/int + 30 PvP Power
PvE Item A has 100 agi/str/int
PvP power does not function in PvE "instances", but functions everywhere else.
1 PvP Power = 1 agi/str/int in the open world
1 PvP Power = 2 agi/str/int inside PvP instances

That way both gear types are basically equal in the open world and equally handicapped in the respective instances. I see no reason that PvP gear should be weaker in the open world against mobs. Gear differences are mainly been for instances anyway.

We've discussed a similar idea (and may yet decide to go with something like it), but our concern with it is that it's still somewhat complicated for players to figure out. As I mentioned earlier, one of the issues we'd like to solve is how difficult it can be to figure out exactly what impact PvP Power is going to have on your effectiveness. "1 PvP Power = 1 Strength vs Players" is easy to get across and understand. "1 PvP Power = 2 Strength in Arenas and Battlegrounds, worthless in dungeons and raids, and 1 Strength in the open world," not so much.

One other thing I should mention based on some other comments in here is that, just like today, PvP Power will be active vs players in any context, not just inside PvP instances. So if you're comparing a PvE and PvP piece of the same item level -- for example, a piece of Conquest gear and a piece of Heroic raid gear -- it should work out something like this:

• The PvE item is stronger in PvE instances
• The PvP item is stronger in PvP instances
• The PvE item is slightly stronger vs creatures in the open world
• The PvP item is slightly stronger vs players in the open world

Once again, I need to be clear that this is all early development thinking and anything might change, but our hope is that whatever we end up doing makes things work something like that.