10-03-2005, 08:13 PM
One of the biggest problems coming to light in the end game now is the fact that as non-Caster classes gear up, they become much more powerful gaining more from their gear while Casters languish with only small gains. Part of this comes from Blizzard's statistics creation process on items (where +damage/healing and +critical is expensive on items), but the big imbalance comes due to the 5 core stats.
If we look at the core stats, we have Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intellect, and Spirit. We can remove Stamina from this list as all classes need this to some extent and it only really does one thing, increase health similarly across the board for all classes. So let's break down the physical stats, Strenght and Agility, to the mental stats, Intellect and Spirit.
Strength and Agility combined for the physical classes gives the following benefits: increase melee attack power, incrase range attack power, increase dodge, increased armor, increase crit rates for physical attacks, increase parry (IIRC on this one).
Intellect increases mana and increases crit rate for spells.
Spirit increases regeneration, yet no mana regeneration is allowed for 5 seconds after casting a spell barring talent/special power.
This means that when looking at a piece of armor for non-Caster class, the non-Caster benefits far more from stats as they will gain a variety of side benefits from Strength and Agility. For a Caster, adding Intellect gives them a little more critical chance (1% every 100 points of Int) and more mana (can cast longer before running out of mana) and Spirit allows for mana regen during the fight if the caster takes breaks between casting to regenerate mana.
If you compare the Tier 1 non-Caster sets to the Tier 1 Caster sets as well as the weapons each would benefit from the most, non-Casters get around a 30 DPS improvement over their Blue sets and weapons while Casters get around a total of 12 DPS to their Tier 1 sets and weapons. The descrepancy grows even larger when you get to the Tier 2 items as well (case in point, Nemisis, the Warlock Tier 2 armor set, gains only about 6 total DPS over Felheart, the Warlock Tier 1 armor set).
As such, Blizzard needs to relook at what benefits the casting oriented stats give beyond just more mana, crit chance with spells, and regeneration to allow for Casters to try to keep up with non-Casters. Suggestions that have been put forth has been having X points of Spirit and/or Intellect increasing base +damage/healing. Another would be the higher your Intellect or Spirit, the more likely you are to be able to get around resistance someone has, say set a threshold of 300 in one of the stats and then say that every 3 or 4 points above that would lower the target's effective resistance to your spell by 1. In the end though, something needs to be added to make Caster stats more balanced towards the non-Caster physical stats.
If we look at the core stats, we have Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intellect, and Spirit. We can remove Stamina from this list as all classes need this to some extent and it only really does one thing, increase health similarly across the board for all classes. So let's break down the physical stats, Strenght and Agility, to the mental stats, Intellect and Spirit.
Strength and Agility combined for the physical classes gives the following benefits: increase melee attack power, incrase range attack power, increase dodge, increased armor, increase crit rates for physical attacks, increase parry (IIRC on this one).
Intellect increases mana and increases crit rate for spells.
Spirit increases regeneration, yet no mana regeneration is allowed for 5 seconds after casting a spell barring talent/special power.
This means that when looking at a piece of armor for non-Caster class, the non-Caster benefits far more from stats as they will gain a variety of side benefits from Strength and Agility. For a Caster, adding Intellect gives them a little more critical chance (1% every 100 points of Int) and more mana (can cast longer before running out of mana) and Spirit allows for mana regen during the fight if the caster takes breaks between casting to regenerate mana.
If you compare the Tier 1 non-Caster sets to the Tier 1 Caster sets as well as the weapons each would benefit from the most, non-Casters get around a 30 DPS improvement over their Blue sets and weapons while Casters get around a total of 12 DPS to their Tier 1 sets and weapons. The descrepancy grows even larger when you get to the Tier 2 items as well (case in point, Nemisis, the Warlock Tier 2 armor set, gains only about 6 total DPS over Felheart, the Warlock Tier 1 armor set).
As such, Blizzard needs to relook at what benefits the casting oriented stats give beyond just more mana, crit chance with spells, and regeneration to allow for Casters to try to keep up with non-Casters. Suggestions that have been put forth has been having X points of Spirit and/or Intellect increasing base +damage/healing. Another would be the higher your Intellect or Spirit, the more likely you are to be able to get around resistance someone has, say set a threshold of 300 in one of the stats and then say that every 3 or 4 points above that would lower the target's effective resistance to your spell by 1. In the end though, something needs to be added to make Caster stats more balanced towards the non-Caster physical stats.
Sith Warriors - They only class that gets a new room added to their ship after leaving Hoth, they get a Brooncloset
Einstein said Everything is Relative.
Heisenberg said Everything is Uncertain.
Therefore, everything is relatively uncertain.
Einstein said Everything is Relative.
Heisenberg said Everything is Uncertain.
Therefore, everything is relatively uncertain.