Blizzard has really been doing an awesome job this expansion bringing us consistent, frequent, and meaningful patches. Upcoming patch 5.3 appears to be no exception so far. While, there are a lot of strange data mining discoveries so far (such as a spell for a third talent specialization) the biggest changes I’m seeing are to PVP. First off… hunters – gone! Second, resilience is being removed from gear. Finally, PVP will now feature gear scaling similar to challenge modes. Okay, so only two of those things is true. Follow after the break to see which and also the rest of the patch notes relating to PVP.
- All characters now have a base Resilience of 65%.
- Resilience has been removed from most PvP gear.
- PvP Power will remain on PvP gear.
- Season 13 Tyrannical gear had their item levels increased to ilevel 496, up from ilevel 493.
- Season 13 Tyrannical Elite gear had their item levels decreased to ilevel 496, down from ilevel 512.
- Battlegrounds, Rated Battlegrounds, and Arenas now have an ilevel cap. All gear will be scaled down to ilevel 496.
So, what does this all mean? Well, it means we still have hunters (yes, I know, tears all around). But also, it’s taking gear out of the equation for high-end PVP. It’s also eliminating the possibility of PVE gear being better for PVP simply because of item level – because item levels will be normalized and PVP gear has PVP stats. Formerly, as one would try to climb the arena or rated BG ranking ladder, they’d find themselves facing a wall of teams that had much higher item level gear and found it hard to progress. Now, once you’ve at least gone through the grind of conquest gear, it’ll be an even playing field. Admittedly, this isn’t really a huge change for casual PVPers, as your raiding gear will be even less effective vs PVPers and you’ll still conquest gear to be on equal gear footing, but at least the differences between someone fully decked out in the best stuff in a random bg won’t be quite as superior by item level (since his/her gear will be scaled down to 496). Though, chances are if you’ve barely started an honor gear set and he was in elite conquest gear, your skill because of practice is likely quite different anyway.
For the future, I could see this being the beginning of a sweeping change to player versus player in World of Warcraft. Maybe one day we’ll see gear removed from that entirely (or at least fully normalized). That could be a step towards arena or rated bgs actually becoming a bona-fide e-sport. Or, maybe the changes won’t even make it to the live servers. Who knows?