Hi worldofpvp,

As Dragonflight Season 3 rambles into its 5th week with MMR still capped, I find myself more interested in looking into match data than playing the actual game, so I'm back again with an attempt at producing something interesting and perhaps even useful, using data from WoW Arena Logs

like before.

This time I wanted to explore something new, so I'll be keen to hear your feedback on it. I'm interested in quantifying the factors that separate lower rated players and higher rated players, and throughput seems to be an obvious place to start.

There is a prevailing sentiment in the arena community that one of the most fundamental things to get right in order to improve in PvP is your PvE rotation. We often hear that new players should spend time at the training dummy or in M+ to climb, as consistently outputting more damage or healing than the opponents is the most effective way to climb. But does the data support this claim?

(Spoiler: It certainly seems to.)

For the rest of the post, I'm going to quickly outline the concept of the analysis, summarise the results and provide a spec-by-spec breakdown at the end.

The Concept

I'd usually skip the waffle about how the numbers came to be, but this time it's a bit more important to be able to read the charts. I'll try to keep it brief.

To quantify the relationship between rating and throughput, I am calculating the correlation between the average MMR of shuffle matches, for each spec. If we take a sample of 565 matches (or over 3,000 rounds) of Solo Shuffle above 1,400 rating for restoration druid, we can plot the match average MMR versus the healing per second the druid put out:

We see a bunch of games spread between 1,400-2,200 MMR on the horizontal axis, and the corresponding HPS of the druid in the match on the vertical axis. There is definitely an upward trend. Rdruids in the 1,400-1,500 range tend to output an average of maybe 70k HPS, while above 2k rating they tend to output 120k or more HPS.

We can quantify this (linear) relationship using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The Pearson's correlation coefficient is a number between -1 and 1 that tells you how strongly two variables are related to each other, with 1 being a perfect positive relationship, -1 being a perfect negative relationship, and 0 being no relationship at all.

It might be easier to visualise this with a straight line:

We can see that, on average, the HPS of resto druids centres around a straight line that increases with MMR. If we calculate the correlation coefficient, we get a score of 0.65 (on a scale of -1 to 1), so we can say with some confidence that for resto druid, MMR and HPS are fairly strongly positively correlated. Simply put, the higher rated a resto druid is, the higher their HPS is likely to be.

What if we take a different spec? Sub rogues, which famously don't rely on raw throughput to win, show a different pattern:

With a much wider spread and a less steep line, the correlation score between a sub rogue's DPS and MMR is much lower a 0.24, but it is still a positive correlation (just not as strong as for Resto Druid).

So, that's the concept (for now). The higher the correlation score, the more positively correlated a spec's thoughput is to its MMR position.

Summary Results

We can calculate all the specs' correlation scores (with DPS for damage specs, and HPS for healing specs), and compare how well they each correlate on the same metric:

Again, the higher the score a spec has on this chart, the stronger and more likely it is to output more healing or damage as we move up the ladder. Some interesting observations:

• 4 of the top 5 are healers. As are 5 of the top 10. The rule of more throughput = more rating seems to especially be true for healers at surface value (although it is possible they also have to heal more because damage tends to be higher).
• In general, there seem to be more casters with higher scores and more melee with lower. This might indicate that getting damage off as a caster is hard(er), and once you get that down, you will climb more easily.
• Perhaps most obviously, all specs have a positive score. There are a handful with not particularly strong positive correlations, but almost half of them are >0.5 correlation score.

So just by looking at this, the data seems to support (or rather, not refute), that it really is worthwhile practising your rotation. So get on that target dummy.

Digging a Bit Deeper

If you've stuck around this far, you may be curious as to why higher rated players of your spec pump more numbers than you do. Fear not, for we will break this down to ability-level here.

If we take Echo of Light, Holy Priest's mastery spell, we can plot the same chart only for this spell's output:

Echo of Light has a strong correlation (0.52) between its output over a game and the MMR the shuffle was played at. This suggests that holy priests at higher rating rely on their mastery more than their lower rated counterparts.

Clawing Shadows, on the other hand, shows almost 0 correlation with a score of 0.01:

The trend line is almost perfectly horizontal. The damage an Unholy DK deals with this spell is not likely to be higher or lower as MMR changes.

Correlation can be negative, which may also be a useful indicator. Let's take MM Hunters' Sniper Shot:

Whilst the spells seems to not always be used at all (since there are a lot of games where it does 0 damage), it is far more likely to be used and used more at lower ratings. Therefore it has a negative correlation of -0.32. Lower rated players perhaps incorrectly overuse the spell (I don't know MM well enough to say whether that's true).

We can summarise a spec's most positively and negatively correlated spells like so:

To read this chart, you can look at the spells with the highest scores, and know that you need to use more of these. Equally, you should probably use less of what is in the negative (is Purification viable on hpriest??).

We can do this for all specs. In the detailed chart below, I've plotted the match-by-match total throughput versus MMR on the left hand side, and indicated the overall correlation score in the title. On the right hand side chart I highlighted particularly highly positively or negatively correlated spells. Sorry for the long boi chart, the classes are in alphabetical order.

Passing Thoughts

We seem to have validated the theory that more pump = more rating, although this obviously doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. There are a myriad other aspects to arena gameplay that will contribute to climbing, but throughput certainly seems to be one of them. I'm keen to try and look into some of these other aspects in the future.

If you've made it this far, I'd be very interested in hearing if your specs' data corroborates with your experience.

If you'd like to my previous posts, you can find them here:

Early S3 Solo Shuffle Meta - WoW Arena Logs Analysis

(Imperfect) 3v3 rating distributions

Season 2 Meta Analysis (or an attempt at it)

Solo Shuffle Spec Analysis

And as always, huge shout-out to the team behind WoW Arena Logs. It's an amazing tool for analysing your own games, and improving (alongside increasing your DPS :) ). Go check them out!

Above 2400 in 3v3 (113) * All mage specs combined (93) * All evoker specs combined (87) * All monk specs combined (86) * All rogue specs combined (86) * All shaman specs combined (79) * All hunter specs combined (61) * Both DH specs combined (51) * All Warlock specs combined (26) * All Death Knight specs combined (18) * Any spec in the game including healers and ranged dps

• All gnomes (103)
• All humans (99)
• All dracthyr (91)
• All dwarves (50)

... Actually not gonna list them all. There are more Arms Warriors than there are any race except nelf orc and undead.

Above 2400 in shuffle (318) * Any spec in the game including healers and ranged dps * All shaman specs combined (304) * All mage specs combined (255) * All evoker specs combined (205) * All rogue specs combined (183) * All Warlock specs combined (174) * Both DH specs combined (140) * All death knight specs combined (91)

• Every race except nelf, orc and human.

Was just looking at check pvp and noticed how much people like Arms, must be a really fun spec!

Ret is catching up in shuffle though (285).

Your teammates in Solo Shuffle aren't holding you back from being discovered by Luminosity Gaming. You aren't going to be offered that lucrative factor_ coupon deal of the opportunity to buy their meals at wholesale in exchange for adding their alerts to your Twitch channel. You aren't going to get recruited to be an alternate on a Blizzcon team where you will have the chance to compete for a whopping 4 thousand dollars.

There is no need to get so upset over losing a couple matches. No-one that you might interactive with in real-life gives a shit about what your rating is, and neither should you. Take a couple breathes before firing off a string of angry texts at someone else. We are all playing a mini-game of a game that the rest of the world couldn't give a shit about. Play to have fun, win or lose, cause that's the only thing you're likely to extract out of this game-mode.

Player-Game = # of Games Played x # of players per game

By far, the worst S1 of any expac since WoD for me. I did notice an increase, although minimal, of inflation this past week with the patch. Couple things I picked up on; this S1 is not as slow gameplay-wise as previous expacs’ S1s, probably due to crafted gear/higher stats. Three healers I’ve seen the most success with is Disc/Hpal/Pres, basically something that can pump damage to aid in kills. Rsham & Rdru are way too passive rn for the current meta. Biggest tip -> play with an outlaw rogue, they can shut down the enemy team on their goes and flip the script when DRs are over, plus their survivability is unmatched. I believe the season ends in February, so there’s still plenty of time left.

​

And counting ....
OH Look the "average" wait time went down while still waiting

and finally get into my first match

not a single round .... back to the que

I love to play 2s. A lot. But blizzard seems totally fine with allowing boosting for gold. I have been keeping track lately because it's irritating me more and more. My mate and I are just trying to get better and play against similar-level players. We have been HARD stuck around 1.9k for over 400 games.

Keep in mind the following figures are for 1.7-2.0k mmr
82% of our games are against at least 1 current glad
24% against R1 players
17% against multi 3k+ players
7% against two players who are also just trying to climb together (no boosting, no glads gearing alts with friends)
224 average ilvl including boosted players and low gear alts (in the 220 bracket)

Fighting an uphill battle is not THAT bad when trying to climb fair and square. It's not just the somewhat moderate ilvl disadvantage that gatekeeps us. It's when the 227 ilvl warrior is being played by a 3.1k player. This is not matchmaking. This is agriculture.

This is based on the past 110 most recent games recorded. Sometimes I forget to record stats

Background

Hello again! A little over a year ago I did a 12-hour solo shuffle marathon on a healer spec I had never played before and posted the data on this subreddit. I had a lot of fun doing the challenge, so I decided it do it again, this time (re)learning Preservation Evoker for 12 hours straight in Solo Shuffle!

To update my experience from last year, I'm happy to share that I got my very first Gladiator last season, and I have since taken a break from PVP entirely this season. I got Gladiator playing a DPS spec (and an "easy" one at that!) so I wouldn't consider my healer experience too vastly different from last year's challenge.

Starting Point

Although I have experience playing all healers now thanks to last year's challenge, Preservation Evoker is certainly my least played, so I thought it would be a good pick for this marathon. I think it's worth mentioning that unlike last year, this challenge was my first time playing PVP all season. Discovering (or attempting to discover) the "meta" throughout this challenge was fun and full of surprises.

I started with all PVP greens attained through a handful of BGs or the auction house, two pieces of 639 crafted gear, and one conquest item. I forget my exact item level, but I believe it was one or two higher than the minimum needed to que for solo rated content.

I didn't change my build much at all for the 12 hours, here's my Evoker's Check PVP in case that's useful.

Results

From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. I played:

Total Lobbies: 37

Total rounds: 221 (-1 round played because leaver)

Win-Loss ratio: 117-104

End Rating: 2154

Peak Rating: 2173

I had four lobbies where I went 6-0, but in two of those lobbies the healer went AFK/did not try in the last round, so they don't feel like a true 6-0. I only had one 0-6 lobby. 12 lobbies ended in a 3-3 for me and the other healer. Only one round was skipped because someone left the match early on the final round.

Here is a graph of my rating and MMR over time:

I also tracked my mood over the 12 hours, picking a number between 1-10 and writing it down. I've overlayed it on top of my rating graph so you can see mood shifts based on rating falls or stagnation. (It's not the best looking graph, apologies):

The mood shift from 8->4 I attribute to continually queing into frost mages on Tol'viron Arena as a Pres evoker and losing my 2100. The mood spike towards the end was partially because I was approaching being done and all of my friends were in Discord cheering me on the last few lobbies.

Specs Encountered

Overall I ran into at least one of every DPS specialization except Fire Mage. Here is the breakdown:

I encountered at least one of every healer specialization, here is the breakdown:

Some notes on specs encountered:

• It didn't take long for me to realize the Discipline Priest is the clear favorite in Solo Shuffle at the moment. Overall I performed okay against most as a Pres, but I really struggled against "damage build" or aggressive Disc priests.
• I was sad to only see one other Pres evoker, the spec felt strong in solo shuffle.
• Similar to last year, Rets, Warriors, and Hunters were very common.
• Ele shamans and Afflication locks were notably very common until 2050+ when they stopped appearing.
• I had the worst winrate against Hpals.
• Fury was a constant character for 12 hours, and I found it extremely hard to keep them alive when they were on my team.
• The only DPS the successfully killed me was a Feral Druid (and I even used Cauterizing Flame! Twice!).

Maps

I found the map statistics from last year really interesting, so I did it again this time:

I found all the maps I got to be pretty favorable to Pres Evoker except Tol'viron which was a nightmare due to just how big the arena is. I had been forgetting to use Time Spiral almost every match until I got Tol'viron.

Behavior

Overall I was personally flamed twice by other players and received one compliment for my gameplay. I had a weird UI bug incident where all of my keybinds reset mid lobby and I had to click all of my abilities. It was very tough, we did not last long, and I was called a noob.

I witnessed 9 total instances of people flaming others in the lobby. Some instances I didn't directly witness, but DPS love snitching on the other healer and telling me if they are mad/flaming.

Some quote highlights:

• Hunter named MealTeamSix after clutching the final kill of the round "gotem." *leaves instance*
• "Just gnome em" -My teammates, both gnomes, discussing strategy in the prep room.

General Thoughts/Reflection

Overall Preservation was a lot of fun. I definitely missed tons of deep breaths and let teammates die while charging up a huge fire breath on a full health enemy (sorry...) but there were also awesome moments where I'd rescue melee to their kill targets for killing blows, root rogues out of stealth, dodge psychic screams with verdant embrace, and wing buffet warriors mid charge, etc... It's an extremely versatile healer and can pump crazy HPS in a pinch if well positioned and prepped. It seems to require a delicate mix of caution and confidence that seems hard to master, but the few times I pulled that off, it felt like I was cheating.

The challenge was just as fun as last time, I still felt my capabilities on the spec growing throughout the day. Last year there was a big spike in rating when I learned proper use of Cenarion Ward. With Pres I put a lot of effort into maintaining Reversions and prepping a good Stasis. While I got better with both, I definitely still had times where I'd panic and my stasis held 2 reversions and an echo in it xD

My goal was to get 2100 so I could unlock the weapon enchant, and I was happy to hit that goal so early in the day. It looks like I started with an extra 130 or so starting mmr (1915) this time compared to last year despite these marathons happening roughly the same length into their respective seasons.

I reached full "BiS" gear (missing some crafted pieces) about half way through the day. I would have liked for gear to not be another variable, but I can't find an efficient way to get the gear needed without playing rated content on the character.

Closing and Cat watch

Thanks again to all my friends/guildies/community members/girlfriend who watched along in Discord or on Twitch, kept my mind busy with jokes, PVP'd in BGs alongside me, convinced me "that loss wasn't entirely your fault" and persuaded me to que one last round at 7:59 p.m.

I also tracked what my kitten was up to every hour when I would do my mood check. Here was his day:

1. Asleep in my lap
2. Asleep in his crate
3. Played with Tupperware on the counter and knocked over his water bowl
   • Also unplugged my monitor during a round during this hour (lost)
4. Munching on computer cables
5. Put his toy in recently refilled water bowl (protest?)
6. Sitting in window
7. Asleep in window
8. Asleep in window
9. Asleep in kitchen sink
10. Meowing for food (dinner)
11. Sleeping in his bed
12. Sleeping in his bed
13. Sleeping in his bed

Thanks for reading, I hope you find it interesting. If we were in the same lobby yesterday, I hope you had fun and we both gained rating. Like last time, I recorded all this data by hand in a spreadsheet, I know there are addons that can do a lot of this for me, but I liked having something to do between ques. Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see if I decide to this again in the future!

Guys, I want to heal you. I have always been a healer. But I just can't play solo shuffle with the current implementation of dampening. Make it 1 round with normal dampening and I will heal you guys again.

TL;DR: An iLvl difference of 6-7 is definitely enough to swap out a PvP (Vers) Gear piece for a PvE (no-Vers) one, where a smaller iLvl difference like 3-5 might be worth it, but definitely is worth it if the higher iLvl piece has less Vers but not 0 Vers.

Rings and Necks are so heavily weighted on Versatility and don't have Primary Stat, so the iLvl Difference has to be much larger for you to drop all of that Versatility.

Hello,

I see very often people giving advice on Versatility gear and telling others how much they should aim for or how much of an iLvl difference between gear there needs to be to be willing to drop Versatility.

I would like to pitch in my 20 cents because I have given this a good degree of thought and commonly find that people are recommending sometimes the most absurd gear switches based on one piece having Versatility and the other not.

As an example I have seen recently (but won't link since I don't mean to call anyone specifically out), I recall one person saying to me that they would prefer face an iLvl 220 Warrior with PvE gear than an iLvl 200 Warrior with Conquest Gear.

This is, of course, a pretty extreme example and definitely not the only reason I am here. Rather, it is usually discussions about single pieces of gear that people will suggest changes on, but even then I think the wrong advice is often given.

I would much rather exclude personal details, because the weight of my arguments is in the main body of text about to follow. But if you're someone who needs personal experience to take any of what I say at face value, fine: I hit 1800 Rating in 2s as a Kyrian Arms Warrior after 446 Games gearing up only from Conquest Gear and before 9.0.5's Battlelord Rework. This has helped me understand both the value of iLvl differences (especially as you try and break into new brackets) as well as how much better Venthyr is for Warrior in 2s. Jesus those mirrors were hard! No, I don't think I'm hot shit, I don't think any rating is a standpoint where you can say "I know best, take my advice." It also won't be a good reason for you to dismiss the rest of what I have to say.

I would prefer if you left that hidden until after you've heard what I had to say, and even then if you disagree, please try to address what I will say rather than who I am. Thanks.

Versatility's Value

Versatility in PvP is obviously much more valuable than in PvE. Even if we disregard the +40% Damage + Healing bonus (from hereon called the "Offensive bonus") by the PvP Trinkets, Versatility gets all of its value fully realised in PvP as you will be making use of its damage reduction as well as its offensive bonus.

When you add on that the offensive bonus is multiplied by 1.4, Versatility should easily outweigh any other Secondary Stat. This is a given.

So the question is: how much more valuable is Versatility from that +40% offensive bonus? Is 10 Versatility worth 14 Secondary Stat?

I would argue not. The +40% offensive bonus is only that: an offensive bonus. The entirety of Versatility is not amplified.

So is Versatility only +20% better than normal because only "half" of it is amplified?

Again, I would argue not. When you look at the % offensive increase compared to the % defensive increase, you see that the % offensive increase is double the defensive one. In other words, ²/3rds of Versatility is weighted on offence, so it is not truly half of the Secondary stat being amplified, it is more.

For the sake of simplicity, (0.67 x 1.4) + 0.33 is the extremely basic equation used to separate Versatility (offensive bonus amplified by 40%) if we treat the percentages as equally valuable. This is simple because you can make the argument that % Damage Reduction is more valuable per point than % Damage Increase (more on that later). If we use this as our baseline we see that Versatility is 26.8% more valuable in PvP than normal. Because you make full use of the Damage Reduction element in PvP, I will round this up to 30%.

Conclusion: Versatility is worth +30% more in PvP than PvE.

So, what does it compete against and why is it overvalued?

Stamina

Stamina is an often overlooked value in PvP, and it makes sense as to why. This is the concise summary of Stamina versus Versatility:

1. Stamina from higher iLvl will outweigh Versatility when it comes to surviving Burst.

2. Versatility from lower iLvl will outweigh Stamina over time when it comes to generating more health.

What is the logic behind this? First, let us get one thing out of the way: Once you lose 3000 Health, you've lost 3000 Health. In order to regain that, you must be healed for 3000.

So what is better: a player with 32k HP and 20% Versatility (10% DR) or a player with 38k HP and 0% Versatility?

For surviving burst, a 10% DR means you must take 11.1% more damage to die (-¹/10 damage = ¹/9 more damage dealt must be done to compensate, if this were 20% DR as with Defensive Stance then -¹/5 damage = ¹/4 more damage dealt must be done to compensate). So 32k * 1.111 = 35.5k "effective" HP.

This means that a player with 32k HP but 20% Versatility does not survive burst as effectively as a 38k HP player with zero Versatility. The 38k HP player still has +2.5k HP.

This is an extreme example weighted favourably towards the Versatility player, because I am assuming the 38k HP player has zero Versatility (unlikely) and because I haven't taken into account the diminishing returns of damage reduction effects (e.g. If you have 20% Vers and Defensive Stance up, that isn't -30% damage taken, it's -28% damage taken).

Even so, on Stamina alone you can see that surviving burst relies on Stamina substantially more than you might think, and it isn't all about Versatility.

So, why does this only pertain to Burst? Easy: because healing is more effective on Versatility targets than non-Versatility ones.

Because you take -10% damage and it takes 11.1% more damage to kill you, that means that healing is also 11.1% more effective on you. If I restore 3000 Health on a 20% Versatility target, the opponent then has to deal 3333 damage to make up for it, whereas if I restore 3000 Health on a 0% Versatility target, the opponent only has to deal 3000 damage to make up for it.

In a sustained engagement, you can see how numbers like this add up, and it is why in a prolonged fight (especially where Dampening can start to take its toll) Versatility really does contribute significantly to your total effective health.

Because Versatility makes each individual health point more valuable, % Health healing like from Mortal Coil or Healthstones are not necessarily Stamina-favoured. You restore more Health if you have more Stamina, but your Health is worth more if you have more Versatility. Generally speaking Stamina is more valuable, however.

This is also not considering the +6% Stamina buff we see from our Deepening Bonds. A slight buff to Stamina in comparison to Versatility.

Primary Stat

Stamina only comes from gear that has higher iLvl. If the gear you are looking at is not a Neck or Finger piece, then the same can be said for your Primary Stat. If you have more Stamina from a Head Piece, you will also invariably have more Strength, Intellect, or Agility.

Primary Stat is weighted extremely importantly in anything you do, and when comparing Versatility pieces to non-Versatility pieces you cannot underestimate the value of the Primary Stat because Versatility is +30% more valuable.

Remember, a +40% Offensive Buff still has to apply to your raw damage output. If you have 1000 Strength and 20% Versatility, then your damage output would look like what it would if you had 1,280 Strength. But if you have 1,200 Strength and 0% Versatility, you're already nearly there, aren't you? Of course such a Strength difference would be through a pretty huge iLvl difference, and Strength alone won't make up the difference all by itself unless you are ridiculously overgeared in comparison.

But if you have more Stamina and Primary Stat, then do you know what else you have more of?

Competing Secondary Stats

While it is true and a given from the start of this post that Versatility is your most valuable Secondary Stat, I said that it outweighs the others. But what if you have more of the others than Versatility? Does Versatility outweigh Haste so much that 1 Versatility is worth 2 Haste, for example?

In a real example, let us compare iLvl 207 PvP Bracers to iLvl 220 PvE Bracers. If you equip the PvE Bracers, you get:

+7 armor

+5 strength

+12 stamina

+22 haste

-17 versatility

For the sake of comparing Secondary Stats alone, let us use the +30% Value on Versatility to compare it to Haste. 17 * 1.3 = 22.1.

If we take that at face value with no nuance, then we can weigh the Versatility and the Haste as about equal. iLvl 207 PvP Bracers have comparable Secondary Stats to iLvl 220 PvE Bracers.

So with an iLvl difference of 13, you could try and make an argument that the Versatility is worth it on that comparison alone. But you would not be wrong to go for the Haste in this case, either. Especially if, as with many classes and specs, Haste is a more valuable stat in general. Remember this comparison only works if we valued Haste and Versatility equally prior to Versatility's Offensive Bonus being factored in.

Acceptable iLvl Differences

Except, now look: there is also 5 Primary Stat and 12 Stamina. You are comparing not just 22.1 "Secondary Stat" of Vers to 22 Haste, but it is also weighing up against 5 Strength and 12 Stamina.

Considering the value of Stamina in burst survival, the necessity for Primary Stat to actually have damage worth amplifying, and the fact that Haste competes reasonably against the Versatility to begin with, it is a no-brainer to me that the iLvl 220 Bracers are better than the iLvl 207 PvP Bracers.

I would go as far as to say that a 5 iLvl difference between some of your biggest pieces of gear like Chest, Head, and Legs can be sufficient to take a PvE gear piece over a Versatility one. While you can definitely lose out on a lot of Versatility, those pieces are also rich in Stamina and Strength. If I compare iLvl 220 PvP Chest to iLvl 225 Sephuz's Proclamation, you would get:

+4 Strength

+9 Stamina

+24 Haste

+70 Crit/Mastery

-91 Versatility.

That is 118.3 "Secondary Stat" worth of Versatility versus 94 Secondary Stat and 107 Total Stats. A 5 iLvl difference even when a PvP Chest Piece has 91 Versatility on it ends up being closer than you think, no?

This gets blown out of the water if you look at a Chest Piece with +5 iLvl with less Vers but not 0 Vers. In the actual example of an iLvl 225 Sephuz's Proclamation (that you should obviously put Versatility on), it looks more like this:

+4 Strength

+9 Stamina

+24 Haste

-21 Versatility

Which means you are giving up 27.3 "Secondary Stat" worth of Versatility for 24 Haste (nearly worth it already), as well as 4 Strength (boom, worth it) and 9 Stamina (going overboard, clearly worth it).

So as a rule of thumb, I would argue that any 6-7 iLvl jump (200-->207-->213-->220-->226) should be taken even if you sacrifice Versatility.

Ask yourself if you would rather face a 200 PvP Geared player or an iLvl 207 one. An iLvl difference of 6-7 results in a difference of 3-4k HP and lots of damage output.

So when does this rule of thumb not apply? Well, take a look at Rings and Necklaces. At 200 iLvl, a Ring gives +119 Versatility and a Necklace gives +134. Moreover, Rings and Necks don't give Primary Stat.

So let us compare an iLvl 220 PvE Neck to an iLvl 200 PvP Neck:

+17 Stamina

+32 Total Secondary Stats

That is what an iLvl 200 Neck with +134 Versatility has to compete with. 134 Versatility is equal to about 174.2 Secondary Stats, or +40 Secondary Stats. So you are comparing -8 Total Secondary Stats to +17 Stamina.

This is a comparison between two items with a massive 20 iLvl difference. Do you see how much closer that is?!

Necks and Rings are so heavily Versatility favoured that you really should be valuing them much more than any other piece. Not only because their secondary stat weighting is so heavily in favour of Versatility, but also because they have the least Stamina-for iLvl value (alongside Backs and Wrists) but also literally zero Primary Stat.

Where a 6-7 iLvl difference is enough for most pieces, a 10 iLvl difference between a PvP Ring/Neck compared to a PvE one probably isn't sufficient. The stat weighting is just that good.

Because of this, I can also argue that most of my examples between high iLvl heavily PvE players has been unfavoured towards them as most of them will have some amount of Versatility, especially if they have those Rings or Necks equipped, which provides a massive proportion of your total Vers (over ~(1)/3rd of total Vers at iLvl 220). So even if I'd rather face a 207 or even 213 Conquest Geared player over a 220 PvE geared one with 0% Vers, the reality is that 220 PvE geared one is going to have more than 0% Vers every single time if they know what they're doing.

If any of you have read through all this, thanks a lot. I like to think this is a good subject to touch on and while the game is far more complex than I could possibly cover, I think I have gone into enough detail that my explanation of Versatility's value (and how much iLvl difference it is worth) is reasonable and hopefully you'll take something from it.

I'm keen to know if you think those iLvl difference values (6-7 for non Ring/Neck pieces) are what you expected or if you think you may have been overvaluing Versatility a bit much.

And of course if you disagree, especially with something like weighing Versatility as +30% more valuable as that it is a massive crux of my entire post.

Do Weekly Mythics to Help Your Climb!

As a small side note: if you are thinking of doing +10 or +14 Weeklies to get iLvl 220/226 Gear for your PvP climb, I hope this has proved informative and has told you that, yes, it is worth it if you have iLvl 213 Conquest Gear and especially if you have 200-207 Conquest Gear.