New details on cataclysm stat changes

[PapaSmurf]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/catacly...system-changes/

I haven't had time to digest it all. Some initial thoughts.

1. Looks like there will be a more definite differentiation between caster dps and healer gear.
2. Warriors, DKs, and Ret paladins will want to start removing mail/leather gear from their sets.

[Kevin]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/catacly...system-changes/

I haven't had time to digest it all. Some initial thoughts.

1. Looks like there will be a more definite differentiation between caster dps and healer gear.
2. Warriors, DKs, and Ret paladins will want to start removing mail/leather gear from their sets.

I hope a lot of plate DPS gear drops before then for Girly... He is using a fair bit of leather and mail because a 251 decently itemized piece of mail typically gives more DPS than a the 232 piece of plate I had. :)

It sounds like the mail in his healing gear won't kill me.


Oh and you forgot to mention...

Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.

I have hated this mechanic since, well day 1. :)


I expect raid wide damage to start going up with all the that extra stam they say people will have as well.

[Klaus]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/catacly...system-changes/

I haven't had time to digest it all. Some initial thoughts.

1. Looks like there will be a more definite differentiation between caster dps and healer gear.
2. Warriors, DKs, and Ret paladins will want to start removing mail/leather gear from their sets.

It sounds like they will be moving to having only one type of caster gear for mail & leather, with the caster DPS talents for Shaman and Druid including a way to convert the "heal" stats into DPS stats. This sounds like a good plan to me, but it also means that when you swap specs from DPS to heal, you can still use the same gearset. This still sounds fine to me, except that it means you can do multiple jobs with one set of gear (or at least with lots of crossover), and other classes can't. Do tanks still need different gear for tanking and DPS? Priests will need different sets of gear for DPS/heal.

I like compressing the loot tables a bit, but if this is how it's going to work, it feels a bit unfair. Of course, taken to extreme, there would only be one flavor for each armor class, with talents to convert those stats to what you need. This would be no fun, either, as "what dropped?" would boil down to "plate, mail, leather or cloth?". :P

And of course, they still seem to be intent on keeping healing plate, which I was hoping they would find some way to eliminate.

[Shamago]

It sounds like they will be moving to having only one type of caster gear for mail & leather, with the caster DPS talents for Shaman and Druid including a way to convert the "heal" stats into DPS stats. This sounds like a good plan to me, but it also means that when you swap specs from DPS to heal, you can still use the same gearset. This still sounds fine to me, except that it means you can do multiple jobs with one set of gear (or at least with lots of crossover), and other classes can't. Do tanks still need different gear for tanking and DPS? Priests will need different sets of gear for DPS/heal.

I like compressing the loot tables a bit, but if this is how it's going to work, it feels a bit unfair. Of course, taken to extreme, there would only be one flavor for each armor class, with talents to convert those stats to what you need. This would be no fun, either, as "what dropped?" would boil down to "plate, mail, leather or cloth?". :P

And of course, they still seem to be intent on keeping healing plate, which I was hoping they would find some way to eliminate.

Looks like they get to do what feral druids do, your leather/mail-slot items can be used for both easily while your misc-slot items may be a bit more focused. But then your enchants and gems are different anyway... I wonder if they'll fold set bonuses together like they do for ferals in Cata. This would reduce druids and shaman down to 2 sets instead of 3...

Paladin healers should be forced to wear mail. Especially in PvP. :P

Oh and hooray for not having to order up any more knuckle sandwiches.

[LochnarITB]

Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.

So, getting all possible weapons on all 10 80s to 400 was worthless?! I object!! :angry:

:lol:


Actually, though, this feels like further dumbing down the game. It may just be a shift in how we understand the game, but I'll have to see it to believe it. It does make sense for Blizz to dumb it down from a business stand, I guess. There are a lot of people that want to just kill stuff and get phat lewtz, but I have always preferred to have to gain knowledge along with skill. I think that the easier they make it, the faster people lose interest. It is quite a way off yet, so I have no doubt there will be huge changes in what we actually see.

[WimpySmurf]

Sounds like you'll end up with these item types:

Plate tank = DK, Warrior, Pally (P)
Plate dps = DK, Warrior, Pally ®
Plate heal = Pally (H)
Mail dps = Hunter, Shaman (Enh)
Mail heal = Shaman (Ele), Shaman ®
Leather dps = Rogue, Druid (F)
Leather heal = Druid (M), Druid ®
Cloth dps = Warlock, Mage, Priest (SP)
Cloth heal = Priest (H,Disc)

Looking at it this way it's points out how there's a gear style with only 1 spec that could use it, and a 2nd one with only 1 play style that can make full use of it (heal cloth). You also end up with only Plate having 3 types of gear. I think it'll be better, but I would still love to see Holy pallies get a "You gain twice the AC from your Cloth, Leather, Mail items" talent piggy backed into some core Holy talent like HS or Bacon.

-WimpySmurf

[Taelas]

So, getting all possible weapons on all 10 80s to 400 was worthless?! I object!! :angry:

:lol:
Actually, though, this feels like further dumbing down the game. It may just be a shift in how we understand the game, but I'll have to see it to believe it. It does make sense for Blizz to dumb it down from a business stand, I guess. There are a lot of people that want to just kill stuff and get phat lewtz, but I have always preferred to have to gain knowledge along with skill. I think that the easier they make it, the faster people lose interest. It is quite a way off yet, so I have no doubt there will be huge changes in what we actually see.

While in general I agree (they are dumbing down the game -- they practically say so when they speak of the stat changes), I do not agree on this specific point. Weapon skills does nothing for the game except say you've hit something a lot. It ends up being frustrating when you've only encountered one weapon type for a prolonged period during your levelling and then you only encounter another, forcing you endure a period where you cannot hit anything. Yes, you could keep low-level weapons of the other types to skill up along with your main weapon, but why should you be forced to? It's just tedious.

I'm happy they are removing them. They could have done something else with them, I suppose, but this works for me.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Actually, though, this feels like further dumbing down the game. It may just be a shift in how we understand the game, but I'll have to see it to believe it. It does make sense for Blizz to dumb it down from a business stand, I guess. There are a lot of people that want to just kill stuff and get phat lewtz, but I have always preferred to have to gain knowledge along with skill. I think that the easier they make it, the faster people lose interest. It is quite a way off yet, so I have no doubt there will be huge changes in what we actually see.

Sadly, I think this is all too true. The early adopters are typically the more hard core gamers. Each succeeding wave tends to be more casual. Blizzard seems to have the magical ability to match the game style to the wave of the present. This has the down side of causing the early adopters to lose interest and leave, but they would typically be leaving anyway as new games come out, so the impact on Blizzard's cash flow is minimal.

It would be nice if Blizzard kept some realms at the original game play, others at the intermediate stages, etc. But that probably isn't practical since it greatly increases the code base they have to support. A shame.

--Pete

[Jester]

Actually, though, this feels like further dumbing down the game. It may just be a shift in how we understand the game, but I'll have to see it to believe it. It does make sense for Blizz to dumb it down from a business stand, I guess. There are a lot of people that want to just kill stuff and get phat lewtz, but I have always preferred to have to gain knowledge along with skill. I think that the easier they make it, the faster people lose interest. It is quite a way off yet, so I have no doubt there will be huge changes in what we actually see.

I'm not sure I understand the motivation here. Spreadsheeting was what kept you in the game? Why not just solve really difficult math problems if that's how you get your kicks?

The stats, as they currently exist, are just frustrating head-scratchers that don't require tactical or strategic skill to figure out - they require a visit to Elitist Jerks, and little else. When they change it with some new patch tweak, the values all change. This isn't knowledge, in any helpful sense. I don't feel I've learned anything except trivia.

And in answer Pete's comment: WoW with original code would be terrible relative to what we're playing today.

-Jester

Afterthought: Not even really difficult math problems. Those might be interesting. Try really boring math problems. Ones that just involve basic operations and a whole crapton of brackets.

[LochnarITB]

Jester and Alliera, you both just love to grab onto something to pick at without seeing the actual topic. If you look at my post you will see the LOL emote. I was mocking the mechanic. Even though I did use it as a goal, it was used to give me something to do since all 10 slots were 80 and I loathe PUGs and seeking achievements. Even that ended, when every possible skill was capped, so now I have moved on to doing another 10 on Terenas.

The sword mechanic changing is a symptom, not the disease. Surely, even the two of you would agree that the game, as a whole, continues to be dumbed down. Maybe they will keep going with the process so we can soon get millions of Playstaion players, or, do I dare to hope, a version for the Wii!:wacko:

[Jester]

Jester and Alliera, you both just love to grab onto something to pick at without seeing the actual topic.

Um, what? We're talking about Cataclysm's stat revamp "dumbing down" the game, a process you lament. Right?

If you look at my post you will see the LOL emote. I was mocking the mechanic.

Yes, I got that. My interpretation was that this was a joke, and that what followed was a "... but seriously." The words "actually though" seem to signpost this - was that not your intent?

The sword mechanic changing is a symptom, not the disease. Surely, even the two of you would agree that the game, as a whole, continues to be dumbed down.

No, I absolutely wouldn't agree with that. The game is becoming more *convenient*, maybe. But that's not the same thing.

Boss encounters are becoming, on the whole, harder and more strategic. How did you beat Molten Core? And even half of BWL? Yeah, you stacked FR, and to a lesser extent SR, and those stats were provided for you on a "this is your item, learn to love it" progression path. Talent trees were more shallow, and usually only one of them worked per class. (Frost mage, anyone?)

The game now has hard modes, which allow for elite challenges. The game now has Arenas, which take PvP to a level of finesse unimaginable in classic WoW.

The game is getting better. It's getting less irritating. It's getting more challenging, if you seek out the challenges. Content tiers are far better, and accommodate both large and small guilds, both casual and elite raiders. It's getting more balanced, more nuanced, and more diverse. If it's not improving fast enough to overcome the stalking hound of nostalgia, then that's unfortunate, but that's definitely the direction the game is going in.

-Jester

[shoju]

Combat ratings - All ratings will be much harder to "cap out" at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.

So, does this mean level 88 trash and level 90 bosses?! This sounds absolutely horible, and a way to keep hit rating in around, and crit rating from being inflated.

It is also something similar to what they said about defense rating in WotLK. There was talk about it being harder to hit 540, and that you might be not be crit immune when tanking the first couple of bosses in naxx. Well, was able to hit 540 in an off off spec, pretty easily pretty early.

This is a change that I for one, do not care for hte sound of.

[Sir_Die_alot]

While in general I agree (they are dumbing down the game -- they practically say so when they speak of the stat changes), I do not agree on this specific point. Weapon skills does nothing for the game except say you've hit something a lot. It ends up being frustrating when you've only encountered one weapon type for a prolonged period during your levelling and then you only encounter another, forcing you endure a period where you cannot hit anything. Yes, you could keep low-level weapons of the other types to skill up along with your main weapon, but why should you be forced to? It's just tedious.

I'm happy they are removing them. They could have done something else with them, I suppose, but this works for me.

I agree on both points. I play a warrior as my main (and even a couple alts!) and holy crap I hated weapon skills. Getting that last point sometimes could take a half an hour of beating on something. Leveling my main I avoided daggers like the plague. I absolutely refused to use a dagger on a warrior because it assaulted my sensibilities of the class. Then came the Kael fight. I spent so long beating on a mob in blasted lands that I fell asleep, broke the 2 daggers I was using, and spent so long punching the mob after that my unarmed was almost maxed too when I woke up. It's also murder on a leveling physical damage class when you have been using the same weapon class for 20 levels or more, then find a different type that's a large upgrade.

The dumbing down in general I understand but I wish they would do it like Ulduar. I think it was the best designed dungeon of the expansion along with the obsidian sanctum. The easy/hard mode design is obviously here to stay but I think it was done best in that instance because the easy and hard modes were the same fights, but with different rules rather than just boss hits harder (for the most part) which kept them from being stale after you had done them on easy a bunch of times.

[Tal]

Actually, though, this feels like further dumbing down the game. It may just be a shift in how we understand the game, but I'll have to see it to believe it. It does make sense for Blizz to dumb it down from a business stand, I guess. There are a lot of people that want to just kill stuff and get phat lewtz, but I have always preferred to have to gain knowledge along with skill. I think that the easier they make it, the faster people lose interest. It is quite a way off yet, so I have no doubt there will be huge changes in what we actually see.

In some ways I'm glad that some of these changes are going in - I hated juggling around the defense minimum and arguing with idiots that there isn't a defense CAP but a minimum. And trying to have a conversation about diminishing returns was useless. Further I hated that if I hadn't kept current on a weapon that my threat sucked for tanking.

It also annoyed me to no end that it was always far easier to level up weapon skills on Sharanna my paladin than Shalandrax my warrior.:P

[Kevin]

So, does this mean level 88 trash and level 90 bosses?! This sounds absolutely horible, and a way to keep hit rating in around, and crit rating from being inflated.

Assuming the cap will be L90 (though isn't just 85, i don't remember)

I read it more as entry level raid will be L90 trash L92 bosses. Next tier raid will be L93 bosses. Next tier raid will be L94 bosses, next tier raid will be L95 bosses. Or whatever.

I'm assuming they are going to keep the badge/emblem system in place which currently allows a newly capped toon to be ready for entry level raiding on the current tier very fast (I had my hunter ICC ready in about 14 hours /played just run a bunch of random heroics, hit the new 5 mans buy set gear with emblems get a drop or two a couple of crafts using the older badge bought mats and go).

So that means that newer tiers of raids can be scaled up a bit so that your uber gear isn't quite as uber in them and that all that hit you have on gear isn't wasted but is now useful. It may cause some other problems but they have put other potential solutions to those in as well with the mastery and stat changing stuff.

Maybe I read the change wrong though.

[shoju]

Assuming the cap will be L90 (though isn't just 85, i don't remember)

I read it more as entry level raid will be L90 trash L92 bosses. Next tier raid will be L93 bosses. Next tier raid will be L94 bosses, next tier raid will be L95 bosses. Or whatever.

I'm assuming they are going to keep the badge/emblem system in place which currently allows a newly capped toon to be ready for entry level raiding on the current tier very fast (I had my hunter ICC ready in about 14 hours /played just run a bunch of random heroics, hit the new 5 mans buy set gear with emblems get a drop or two a couple of crafts using the older badge bought mats and go).

So that means that newer tiers of raids can be scaled up a bit so that your uber gear isn't quite as uber in them and that all that hit you have on gear isn't wasted but is now useful. It may cause some other problems but they have put other potential solutions to those in as well with the mastery and stat changing stuff.

Maybe I read the change wrong though.

Cap is 85, so it would be 88, 89, 90 by that idea. The problem is, without using zone wide buffs/debuffs, the amount of hit you need is going to be exponential. It doesn't go from 8-9-10% for each level.

[TheDragoon]

I expect raid wide damage to start going up with all the that extra stam they say people will have as well.

Actually, I think this will probably be a good change. Now Blizzard will be able to know that any player at gear level X is going to have ~Y health and they can design AoE based upon that. That will mean fewer issues with glass cannon casters getting blown away before healers can heal them back up. Also remember that Blizzard has also stated its intent to increase health relative to the healing that is available so that healing is more strategic and less "heal someone in 1.5 seconds or they die." I'm sure that combinations of well tuned AoE damage and single target damage to the tank will make that more interesting.

The most interesting thing, I think, will be how Blizzard balances PvP around this. The way it seems things are currently balanced is that ranged attackers have less health but they can start attacking earlier (plus they have snares and such though melee have snare breakers, for the most part). Does this mean ranged DPS classes are going to have to deal less damage to make up for them being able to get the jump on melee combatants? Similarly, they are boosting the armor on cloth and such, so it sounds like cloth casters are going to get a double bump in survivability, so how is that going to play out?

[TheDragoon]

So, does this mean level 88 trash and level 90 bosses?! This sounds absolutely horible, and a way to keep hit rating in around, and crit rating from being inflated.

I took it to mean that they wouldn't necessarily change the "level" of the bosses (that could handle it to a certain extent but it would likely cause other side effects unless they take a hard look at how levels work), but they would buff the avoidance of stuff as you progress through the content tiers in order to make hit rating and expertise rating a good stat to have one items throughout the end-game.

As an analogy to the WotLK content, imagine that in Naxxramas you needed +8% hit to hit bosses and 25 expertise for your ilvl 200 gear. Maybe in Ulduar you would require +10.6% hit and 33 expertise for ilvl 219. TotC could be +12.2% hit, 38 expertise at ilvl 232 and ICC could be +14.6% hit and 46 expertise at ilvl 251.

(Note that I estimated these numbers by estimating how much gear allocation increases with each tier by looking at the growth of stamina allocation on the DK DPS sets for each 10-man raid tier)

According to the summary on the MMO-Champion website, it sounds like they plan to scale crit chance in a similar way, as well. If they don't scale it via level, as you noted, it will be interesting to see how they display statistical information to people or if everyone will just have to figure out how much hit rating they need by testing. It might be nice for them to display some statistical information on mobs in the tooltip if they are making this sort of change. :)

[Kevin]

Cap is 85, so it would be 88, 89, 90 by that idea. The problem is, without using zone wide buffs/debuffs, the amount of hit you need is going to be exponential. It doesn't go from 8-9-10% for each level.

Why not? Just because it doesn't do that now doesn't mean it can't then. Boss levels are already special cases compared to normal monster levels, why do you assume they won't just flesh out those rules?

It doesn't have to be exponential just because it is now. I'm assuming something like this because I think that is simpler than tuning each boss individually. Yes having two types of mob levels adds complexity that Blizzard seems to mostly be moving away from, but it also makes it easier to design.

Actually, I think this will probably be a good change. Now Blizzard will be able to know that any player at gear level X is going to have ~Y health and they can design AoE based upon that. That will mean fewer issues with glass cannon casters getting blown away before healers can heal them back up. Also remember that Blizzard has also stated its intent to increase health relative to the healing that is available so that healing is more strategic and less "heal someone in 1.5 seconds or they die." I'm sure that combinations of well tuned AoE damage and single target damage to the tank will make that more interesting.

I actually agree with this. I think in general, at least in 10 mans in mostly 10 man gear, they have made healing more interesting as the game has gotten more mature. I don't just spam one spell over and over on one target. I have choices that matter for longevity, speed, or throughput. I know that in 25s there is still a lot of "this is your one job, you do that" but I agree that larger health pools in general in PvE are a benefit.

It also more easily opens up non traditional tanking jobs. You don't want a ton of these, people play tanks or DPS for a reason but change of pace fights are generally received fairly well though they can be a bit of a "well if this person isn't here" annoyance because they usually required very specialized sets. If you can assume that the average player is going to be much closer to tank health you have more options along these lines and I think potentially more flexibility in general.

The changes to defense and such will actually make spec more valuable for the tanking classes as it will be harder to do some of the jobs without the spec. So perhaps non traditional tanking won't happen as often, dunno. This also makes me hope they will allow more than dual spec too. I've been ret spec tanking stuff since wrath came out and doing just fine and enjoying it. This looks like it will no longer be possible and that isn't such a bad thing, but some of us will still want more than 2 roles without constant respecs. :) Or maybe I'm just really weird.

[Shamago]

Cap is 85, so it would be 88, 89, 90 by that idea. The problem is, without using zone wide buffs/debuffs, the amount of hit you need is going to be exponential. It doesn't go from 8-9-10% for each level.

Aha! But they can change it so that it does. Or any number of other changes to make it work.