Not sure I want to jump into a thread that is 6 pages of yelling...but basically everyone in here sucks at communicating.
Based on what we know about scaling,
@Warglave is most likely right. Theres a chance that 110s get combine into the bracket when a pre-patch comes out and a bunch of stuff changes - but no one can really predict that (and its still likely to be the same scaling, even if some numbers are squished).
The way scaling works in BGs now is that...
- Levels less than the cap are brought up to the cap
- Gems/Enchants that scale will scale to that new level
- The % secondary per rating is brought to match the new level
But lets delve into that a bit further and give some examples.
Number 1 should be fairly self-explanatory. You go into a BG at 111, you come out at 119. Same for 101->109. Same for 10->19.
Number 2 can be seen most easily with vets in the 20-29 bracket. Currently, the best agility enchant to cloak at 20
outside of BGs is
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=44631/shadow-armor . At level 20, it gives 3 agi and 7 armor. The way the scaling works, it also gives 3agi/7armor at 29. BUT the best agility enchant for 29s is
https://www.wowhead.com/spell=25083/stealth - which gives 3 agi/3 dodge at 20, but at 29 gives 4agi/4dodge. [Note these enchants are changing next week in 8.1.5...but thats the current setup.] So vet rogues actually take the stealth enchant - as in BGs, it scales up to 4agi. This principle applies the same for each bracket. For our specific case - even though 110 has worse gem scaling than 111, that gem will scale up to 119 values in BGs.
Number 3 can be seen from the picture that Warglave has repeatedly posted. You can see that a 111 in BGs maintains the same crit strike
rating, but the
effectiveness has gone down. If you get a natural 119 and give it the same 267 crit rating - then the 119 will have that same 15.44% crit. This applies to all levels. Its why a level 10 from the MoP days isn't strong anymore - they scale up to 19 and the effectiveness per rating goes down to that of a level 19.
So now lets examine what would happen if we took a 110 into the 111-119 BG tomorrow and followed these rules.
Rule #1 should be straightforward. The 110 would be scaled up to 119. Rule #2 gets a bit more complicated. Enchants, gems, and legendaries now treat you as a 119. BfA enchants are going to scale up to BfA levels. BfA gems are going to scale up to BfA levels. And legendaries will stop working since you're above level 115. (I'll note that currently, many 110s don't use BfA gems/enchants because they tend to be the same effectiveness as the legion gems/enchants, but are more expensive. We're going to assume the 110 has switched to the same BfA enchants/gems that a 111 currently uses. While this is done to compare on equal footing, it is also what 110s would do if they wanted to BG in 110-119, the same way that level 20 vets enchant based on the 29 scaling.) Finally, rule 3 says that for your secondaries, the amount of rating stays the same - but the scaling ends up what it would be at 119. But keep in mind that our rating will actually go UP since the BfA gems/enchants scale better.
So looking at Warglave's image for a more specific scenario. Lets imagine a 110 DH that has the exact same gear and enchants as a 111 (we'll ignore tincture and any other 111-specific gear). We can guesstimate that our 110 DH might naturally have, say, 230 crit rating outside of BGs. As has been stated - some is lost due to the way BfA gems/enchants scale. Rule 2 says that when the 110 is brought up to 119, then the gems/enchants scale up, so we actually go up to 267 rating! But then Rule 3 kicks in and the effectiveness per rating is brought to 119 levels, giving us the same 15.44% crit strike chance as the 111.
@Veechard - You've been coming at it with a different angle. You're looking at the % stats lost going from level 101 -> 109 (or 60->69, 70->79, etc). Its not a bad way to look at it, and was considered when people were trying to figure out how scaling works. You've found a pattern that most of the time, 10% stats are lost between the bottom and top of the bracket. The 111->119 situation doesn't fit your pattern, so you're assuming that 110+ or 111+ (current xpac levels) is scaled differently for some reason. Its not a bad train of thought - but it isn't quite correct. Lets go through a couple of points.
First is the pattern happens to fit the data, but that ends up being a coincidence rather than blizzard straight applying a 10% stat loss. So lets test it. Given rules 1 and 3 above - lets pick a 101 toon with one set of gear, no enchants, and no heirlooms. If we level from 101 to 109 and stop in a BG each level
without changing gear, then your toon will stay the same power and have the same crit % every level. Agreed? Thinking through it - a level 101 with an arbitrary set of greens will scale up to 109, the greens will provide the same crit rating, but its scaled down to 109 effectiveness. We're basically a 109 in 101 greens. Say we level to 102 and don't replace ANY gear. We go into a BG and the greens still give the same rating, but we're scaling up to a 109 and get 109 effectiveness. We're still basically a 109 in 101 greens. Skip a few steps and we finally hit 109 - but we're really bad and haven't upgrade any gear. We'll actually have the same effectiveness outside of BGs as we do inside of BGs - as we're 109 in both places. And we'll have the same numbers as every level before - since we ARE a 109 in 101 greens. If you have an old toon that is near the beginning of a bracket - equip a set of gear (no scaling enchants and no heirlooms) - you take a screenshot in the same gear in BGs and your stats will be about the same as you level through the bracket. Note that the amount of health per stam increases per level, so your health will scale up. You may also have some slightly different numbers due to talents or skills learned - but it'll basically be the same.
So then to the second point. Why is 111->119 so different in % stats lost compared to the earlier brackets? Warglave brought it up (in a non-helpful and combative manner, but still...) - its due to the stat squish that happened at the end of legion. Before that stat squish, the amount of stats on gear was growing exponentially. Its like watching dragonball Z - each season (xpac), theres a new big bad enemy that is going to destroy the earth/solar system/universe (azeroth) that is WAAAAAY stronger than before, so our heroes need to train to crazy new levels of super saiyan or special abilities (level up to the new level cap and get raid gear) in order to beat them. However its not really sustainable...what started as over 9000 in the first season was probably something like 9 trillion or some shit by the end (I didn't get that far). Likewise, without the stat squish - you would probably have 20 or 30 million health right now. So what the stat squish did is flattened that exponential curve into a linear curve from 1-110. Then BfA happens and does its usual exponential growth bullshit - but since we flattened the curve from 1-110, its only 110-120 that has the exponential growth. Thats why most of the numbers look pretty similar when going from 60-69 or 101 to 109 - the stats have been flattened. But the gear from BfA scales exponentially.
So we have 119s with 333 ilvl gear. That is way better than the 110/111s which are limited to mostly 265 gear. When a 111 steps into the 119 BGs - they are basically a 119 wearing 111 gear and fighting the 119s wearing 119 gear. But since BfA growth is exponential, the difference in gear between 111 and 119 is way bigger than it is from 60 -> 69.
Chances are there will be a pre-patch for next xpac when the bracket is merged. And who knows wtf they'll do. But as of right now, this is our best guess of how it works (backed by numbers).
I hope that helps.
TL;DR - Warglave is right, but couldn't quite communicate the details. Veechard had a decent starting theory, but wants the details that Warglave wasn't able to communicate. And then things went downhill from there....for 6 pages...god damn guys.
