Blizzard posted an update yesterday about the PvP rewards in WoW: Shadowlands, prompting community outrage over how hard it’ll be to acquire PvP gear.
Conquest was re-added in this expansion as a way to acquire PvP gear just like in the old days. But one of the biggest downsides is that there’s a fixed cap that can’t be modified.
In the past, Conquest Cap or Arena Points scaled with rating, giving you an incentive to play rated matches every week instead of just completing the cap and moving on to other activities. The current cap that doesn’t change based on rating doesn’t motivate top PvP players to constantly grind ranked matches, diminishing the competitiveness in Shadowlands.
Another big downside of this cap is that it’s going to be much easier to acquire PvE gear from Mythic dungeons or the upcoming Castle Nathria raid, putting those who only do PvP at a disadvantage. By the time you acquire a Conquest item, those who PvE will most likely be already fully decked out in high item level gear.
In addition, there was an achievement tied to acquiring weapons by earning 5,000 Conquest Points. Following feedback from the PvP community, Blizzard has changed it since it reportedly would’ve taken PvP players 10 weeks to get a Conquest weapon.
Even with the removed requirement, getting full Conquest gear will take roughly 20 weeks, prompting doubt from the community as to whether this is a good direction for the game. For reference, the upcoming raid will allow players to get decked out in PvE gear much faster, giving them a huge advantage over those who can’t raid.
While doing a bit of PvE sometimes is fine if you want best-in-slot items, some players might not agree with the idea of being forced to participate in this side of WoW just to be competitive. One of the biggest problems in the last expansion was that PvP players had to constantly run Mythic dungeons alongside raids for top-quality gear. If Blizzard doesn’t take action, fans might be looking at Battle for Azeroth 2.0 in terms of PvP.
Blizzard was previously praised by PvP players after it tweaked a lot of things to create a great PvP ecosystem for Shadowlands, but the Conquest Cap wasn’t tested since it wasn’t available in the beta. As a result, Blizzard should listen to the players on the live server now and adjust it accordingly. Otherwise, most of the company’s work will go unnoticed by the PvP players if the main issues remain unsolved.
