9.1.5 PvP Changes

Coming in 9.1.5 we have a big buff to PvP gear’s item level while engaged in PvP!

This is a massive buff for unrated (Honor) PvP gear. This is going to help fresh characters, alts, and those catching up to compete on a more level playing field.

New Honor Gear Item Levels

We can see from this that the beginner gear actually gets a larger item level boost than its upgraded counterparts:

• 177 -> 213 is 36 item levels
• 184 -> 216 is 32 item levels
• 190 -> 220 is 30 item levels
• 197 -> 223 is 26 item levels
• 203 -> 226 is 23 item levels
• 210 -> 229 is 19 item levels
• 216 -> 233 is 17 item levels

The fact that the gear scaling starts very strong and tapers off indicates that Blizzard is trying to give undergeared players less of a gear disparity when engaged in PvP.

What does this all mean?

The net effects from this change mean that the power boost you get from engaging in PvP with Honor gear, especially with low rank Honor gear, is much stronger. This will result in players with Honor gear having less of a disadvantage against fully geared players than before. This is undoubtedly one of the hardest things to deal with while gearing a new character. It’s a great solution, but it’s not perfect.

The biggest two issues I see for Honor gear is the fact that the cost for upgrading the gear scales up as the item level increases, meaning getting a full set of fully upgraded Honor gear will take even the most dedicated of players months of farming. The second is that upgrades are locked behind Renown requirements. For a new character with no gear and a big Renown grind ahead of them, this is overwhelming. In 9.1.5 changing Covenants will no longer reset your Renown, so at least this part of the grind will only be required once per character if you want to try another Covenant.

If you want your alt character to dominate in PvP, you can easily purchase Honor points farm, so you’ll be able to buy and upgrade all the Honor gear you need for your alts. This option is not only for alt characters, let’s say you’re 

Reduced Honor Gear Costs

Player versus Player

The Honor cost to upgrade Unrated gear reduced by around 25%, and the Conquest cost to upgrade Rated gear has been adjusted to spread across the new ranks.

(Source)

To clarify some of the wording on this post: there isn’t a Conquest cost to upgrade Rated gear (it costs Honor) so we can assume this means that although there are new ranks of gear, the Honor cost will for fully upgrading the piece will be spread across the new ranks and the upgrade costs have been reduced by 25%, giving us some much needed relief with regards to the long Honor grind. Thank you, Blizzard!

My advice to players still gearing and especially to those without Renown would be to supplement your PvP set with gear from other sources. As a PvP-only player myself, this is frustrating – but when I look at how previous expansions handled gear I am thankful that we at least have agency and a deterministic way to get our best pieces, even if the grind is on the longer side.

We can see that it’s now possible to get up to a 233 PvP Item level with Honor gear. This makes it stronger than Season 1’s Conquest gear and equivalent to Korthian Gear, the new Mor’geth World Boss gear, normal Sanctum of Domination gear, and end-of-the-run Mythic + gear. In my opinion, this is a great balance. Honor gear being equivalent or stronger than everything up to Heroic Raid gear is about where it should be. If you want gear that will surpass Heroic and Mythic Raid gear, you’re going to have to step into rated PvP – which thanks to buffs in 9.1 means Conquest gear is best-in-slot in PvP.

Here is how it compares:

Conquest Gear

We can see how the power gap has been narrowed, as Conquest gear provides a consistent +13 item level boost in PvP. This makes your base Conquest piece as strong as a fully upgraded Honor piece! 

Conquest gear is especially important for those specs, who have BIS (or close to the best) PvP gear, trinkets in particular. For example, Unchained Gladiator’s Badge of Ferocity for Fire Mage or Retribution Paladin. 

So, as we see, the 2400 rating is no more useless as the scale of item level is being increased. That’s why, feel free to buy a 2400 (or less) rating boost on our website. Best PvP players among all the servers will easily boost your rating in the shortest period of time. 

Also, check out our gladiator title offer, which guarantees you 249 ilvl items from Vault, 259 PvP ilvl and a gladiator mount.

Conquest Point Buff and Bind on Account Cache

Conquest awarded by all activities has been increased by 70%.

This is a significant quality of life buff, especially for those starting late in the season. There is still an enormous Honor grind as mentioned earlier, so speeding up the Conquest catch-up is a very welcomed change. This is also good news for players that acquire their Conquest through limited activities such as the Daily Battleground! Rated Battlegrounds are considered one of the fastest ways to acquire Conquest, so if you have a lot of points to catch up on, that’s what I recommend.

Additionally, a Bind on Account Conquest cache, Unchained Equipment Chest, will be available for players rated 1600+.

Unchained Equipment Chest for Conquest that contains 1 piece of item level 220 unranked PvP gear. The chest can only be purchased by a character with a 1600 or higher rating in any PvP bracket.

This will be useful if you have a geared character with excess Conquest points to spend as you can mail it to your other characters. Opening this will generate a random, unranked piece of Conquest gear which can be upgraded with Honor to higher ranks if your rating allows. If Blizzard keeps this available during the start of a new season, we may see players funnel all of their alt’s gear onto their main to gear them extremely quickly. Hopefully, we see that addressed before it becomes an issue.

New PvP Titles & Group Finder Changes

9.1.5 brings new PvP Titles, and Group Finder will now allow you to set rating requirements as a parameter. Blizzard is also requiring use of an Authenticator to help get rid of advertisement spam.

New PvP Titles

These changes together should help breathe some new life into the PvP community. Having different tiers of gear unlocked alongside the corresponding titles should add some depth and diversity to the Group Finder as the only metric available before (without addons) was item level, which is next to useless for gauging a player’s skill.

So if you want to be offered in all the groups without any doubt, you may purchase the PvP arena boosting, with an eye to having not only the best PvP gear but also PvP titles and high rating.

On top of this, Group Finder will allow you to browse for groups while hosting your own, which will allow your listing to get exposure while you’re simultaneously able to browse the pool of players for potential teammates. These are good changes and I’m looking forward to seeing how they play out!