PvP Gear for PvEers - Can You? More Importantly, Should You?

We recently had a moonkin apply to our guild.  As our resident moonkin, I decided to look at his gear and saw several problems from not being enchanted and gemmed.  However, one of the things that I noticed was that he had two pieces of PvP gear.  I asked him a question about using PvP gear in the PvE environment.  One of my guild members thought this would be a great blog as to could you use PvP gear in a PvE setting.

First off, can you use PvP gear in PvE raids?  Yes, you can do it.  It makes your Gear Score look good and gets you into raids with a higher Gear Score for people who think that is important.  However, does it improve your output.  That is where I would like to look at what you get between pieces.  I'll start with two moonkin pieces and then also include an example of two pieces of mage gear.

Now, a note of warning.  I'm only talking about DPS and healers.  Some of the best tanking equipment is PvP because of the high stamina and high resilience.  I think the BiS tanking weapon for feral druids is the highest arena staff.  Since tanks need stamina and resilience, they may actually wants some PvP gear.

One thing that is always good to remember with gear is what I call the rule of addition/subtraction.  For Blizzard to put a certain stat on a piece of gear, they must take away other stats to balance the gear.  You will see that this holds true for both of the examples I'm going to be talking about.  It is also the explanation as to why you shouldn't take PvP gear into a PvE setting.

Let's start with the moonkin example.

Lasherweave Trousers vs Relentless Gladiator's Wyrmhide Legguards

Both of these pieces of gear are iLevel 251, so they are equivalent pieces of gear for both PvE and PvP.  Lets start with the base stats.  If you use the PvP gear, you have the following differences between the 251 T10 gear:

Resilience = + 96

Stamina = + 56

Intellect = - 36

Critical Strike Rating = - 16

Hit Rating = - 80

PvP gear is heavily reliant on resilience and stamina.  However, to add that to equivalent PvE gear, they have to take away three important stats from the gear, which is intellect, critical strike rating, and hit.  In addition, the big difference is you could be missing out on the set bonuses from the 251 PvE gear for two or four pieces.  You can see how much you are sacrificing if you use PvP gear instead of PvE gear.

Now that we have seen the moonkin, let us also look at the mage gear.  This is an example that I personally looked at because I have both pieces of this from lucky VoA drops.
   
Bloodmage Leggings vs Relentless Gladiator's Silk Trousers   

Looking at just the stats between the two pieces of gear, he is what you gain and lose using PvP gear over PvE gear.

Resilience = + 96

Stamina = + 56

Intellect = - 36

Critical Strike Rating = - 16

Hit Rating = - 80

First off, you may notice the gains/losses are the same as with the moonkin gear.  This shows that Blizzard follows a very similar pattern between balancing gear between PvP and PvE.  If you add stamina and resilience, you have to take away more important stats for PvE.

So, all this analysis means one thing.  You can use PvP gear in a PvE setting, but someone who has equivalent PvE gear will likely give greater DPS output then someone who is in the equivalent PvP gear.  And if your applying to a guild, you probably should try to get the best PvE gear you can.

I know a lot has come out this weekend about changes in Cataclysm and hopefully, I will be able to get those sooner rather than later.  I may even try to post a new blog this afternoon with those changes.