Swoops
Legend
Hey guys,
Seeing a lot of confusion and guessing out there as people try to figure out how gearing works in Legion. Understandable with such huge changes (and seemingly random stat differences), but there is some rhyme and reason to it. I'm still doing testing and figuring out some minor details of the system, but for now this should be a decent overview.
There are three main gearing factors that determine your stats in instanced PvP (in order of importance):
Stats on gear and item quality don't matter at all. The white rings and necklace are BiS up through 40-49. Mist-Piercing Goggles aren't BiS for anyone that can gear up fully in their main armor type.
Enchants, set bonuses, trinkets, procs, Engineering on-use gear/enhancements and weapon enhancements (Sharpening Stones, Wizard Oil) are all disabled in instanced PVP. Elixirs/consumables still work in BGs.
Item Level
There are two important item levels for each bracket, I'll call them Min and Top because I'm creative:
Main Armor Type Bonus
All levels now get a bonus to their stats from only wearing your main armor type. It looks like it's around a 5% increase on stats gained from gear/template (i.e. everything above your naked base stats). Regardless of the exact number, it's a bigger increase than you'll get from item level scaling.
This is an all or nothing stat increase. Wearing one piece of cloth on a druid will be the same as wearing a full set of cloth.
This bonus affects both primary and secondary stats.
Starting with Legion, Shamans/Hunters get Mail and Warriors/Paladins get Plate starting at level 1 instead of level 40. They get bonus stats from their endgame armor type.
Quick and unnecessary refresher on armor types:
Weapons
Weapons are a bit different because PvP stat templates don't normalize weapon speed. Any attacks that scale directly with weapon damage will benefit greatly from a slower weapon. Warriors, Rogues, Hunters, Enhance Shamans and Paladins will want to use the slowest weapon possible. Druid and Monk abilities scale with weapon DPS, so they can just use the highest item level options.
@StS Ralso put together a great guide on weapon choices here: http://www.xpoff.com/threads/weapons-and-how-to-swing-them-harder.69189/
Above level 30, you'll need to weigh the trade-off between stats and damage if the slowest available weapon is below the minimum item level.
Wands are also a special case. They currently count toward your template as a 2H weapon, so using a Wand and Off-hand gives you three gear slots worth of template stats (for the price of two!). Priests, Mages and Warlocks should all use the highest item level wand available.
Bracket Item Levels
Minimum and Top Item Level are consistent within brackets, with the top determined roughly by the x9 heirloom scaling. I'm almost positive it doesn't change with character level, I'll update this if anyone has evidence otherwise.
TL;DR:
Equip decent-ish gear from your main armor type. Use a slow weapon if you're a Paladin, Warrior, Hunter, Enhance Shaman or DK and a wand if you're a Priest, Mage or Warlock. Boom, you're Good Enough-in-Slot.
I'll keep an eye out for changes and update things when I have more info.
Let me know if anything isn't clear or seems wrong...who knows what other secrets this system is hiding.
Seeing a lot of confusion and guessing out there as people try to figure out how gearing works in Legion. Understandable with such huge changes (and seemingly random stat differences), but there is some rhyme and reason to it. I'm still doing testing and figuring out some minor details of the system, but for now this should be a decent overview.
There are three main gearing factors that determine your stats in instanced PvP (in order of importance):
- Full template stats for filling every slot with eligible gear (there is a minimum item level starting with 30-39)
- Every gear slot counts for the same proportion of your template stats. Taking off your bracers is the same stat loss as unequipping a 1H weapon.
- Stat bonus on top of template for only using your main armor type
- Small percentage gains for increasing your average item level over the "top" item level of the bracket.
Stats on gear and item quality don't matter at all. The white rings and necklace are BiS up through 40-49. Mist-Piercing Goggles aren't BiS for anyone that can gear up fully in their main armor type.
Enchants, set bonuses, trinkets, procs, Engineering on-use gear/enhancements and weapon enhancements (Sharpening Stones, Wizard Oil) are all disabled in instanced PVP. Elixirs/consumables still work in BGs.
Item Level
There are two important item levels for each bracket, I'll call them Min and Top because I'm creative:
- Minimum Item Level (min): The minimum item level that an individual piece of gear needs to count toward your PvP stat template.
- In 39s, the min is 15. A piece of ilevel 14 gear is the same as an empty slot while ilevel 15 gear will give you full template stats.
- Doesn't seem to exist in 10-19 and 20-29. Most likely explains why the bug with heirlooms at the patch launch didn't affect these brackets.
- Top Item Level (top): The average item level that you need to pass to start gaining stats above the template. In lower brackets this is the same as your heirlooms' item level - haven't confirmed the exact numbers for upper brackets yet.
- You gain 0.1% more primary stats (Armor, Agi/Int/Str, Stam) for every point of average item level above this.
- This scaling is a bit hard to pin down with decimals hidden at a couple different levels of calculations, but it appears to be affected by the stat adjustments in the PvP template. (i.e. WW monks get 85% Agility, and seem to gain around 0.085% Agility with each item level)
Main Armor Type Bonus
All levels now get a bonus to their stats from only wearing your main armor type. It looks like it's around a 5% increase on stats gained from gear/template (i.e. everything above your naked base stats). Regardless of the exact number, it's a bigger increase than you'll get from item level scaling.
This is an all or nothing stat increase. Wearing one piece of cloth on a druid will be the same as wearing a full set of cloth.
This bonus affects both primary and secondary stats.
Starting with Legion, Shamans/Hunters get Mail and Warriors/Paladins get Plate starting at level 1 instead of level 40. They get bonus stats from their endgame armor type.
Quick and unnecessary refresher on armor types:
- Cloth: Priest, Mage, Warlock
- Leather: Druid, Monk, Rogue, Demon Hunter
- Mail: Hunter, Shaman
- Plate: Death Knight, Paladin, Warrior
Weapons
Weapons are a bit different because PvP stat templates don't normalize weapon speed. Any attacks that scale directly with weapon damage will benefit greatly from a slower weapon. Warriors, Rogues, Hunters, Enhance Shamans and Paladins will want to use the slowest weapon possible. Druid and Monk abilities scale with weapon DPS, so they can just use the highest item level options.
@StS Ralso put together a great guide on weapon choices here: http://www.xpoff.com/threads/weapons-and-how-to-swing-them-harder.69189/
Above level 30, you'll need to weigh the trade-off between stats and damage if the slowest available weapon is below the minimum item level.
Wands are also a special case. They currently count toward your template as a 2H weapon, so using a Wand and Off-hand gives you three gear slots worth of template stats (for the price of two!). Priests, Mages and Warlocks should all use the highest item level wand available.
Bracket Item Levels
Minimum and Top Item Level are consistent within brackets, with the top determined roughly by the x9 heirloom scaling. I'm almost positive it doesn't change with character level, I'll update this if anyone has evidence otherwise.
| Bracket | Min | Top |
|---|---|---|
| 10-19 | 0 | 24 |
| 20-29 | 0 | 34 |
| 30-39 | 15 | 44 |
| 40-49 | 25 | 54 |
| 50-59 | 35 | 82* |
| 60-69 | 45 | 143* |
| 70-79 | ??? | 183 |
| 80-89 | 84 | 443* |
| 90-99 | 150 | 605 |
| 100-109 | (<359) | 710 |
*Unconfirmed - estimate based on heirloom ilevel at the top end of the bracket
I don't have any characters in the 70s right now to test the min there, I'll get that eventually. Also limited in well-geared 50+ twinks, looking for confirmation on the ilevel you need to hit to start scaling in some of the upper brackets.
TL;DR:
Equip decent-ish gear from your main armor type. Use a slow weapon if you're a Paladin, Warrior, Hunter, Enhance Shaman or DK and a wand if you're a Priest, Mage or Warlock. Boom, you're Good Enough-in-Slot.
I'll keep an eye out for changes and update things when I have more info.
Let me know if anything isn't clear or seems wrong...who knows what other secrets this system is hiding.
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