Bismar

There's also the serious question of how socketting an item interacts with already socketted items.

If already socketted items can get an additional socket, how does this interact with socket bonus? Does this hit any other game limitations?

If only un-socketted items can get a socket... then does that make almost all socketted items 1 socket weaker?

 

Prinsesa

Again, pure speculation, but since item sockets are already considered as part of the item's budget, one could expect that all weapons can get a socket, even those that already have sockets to begin with.

Also, unless the single socket has a predetermined socket color (red socket needing primal fire mats?) and a corresponding predetermined socket bonus, I don't expect it to affect current sockets either.

That is, [Rage] would still only need to fill up the original single yellow socket to get the bonus, and the socket the BS put on it would have no bearing on that.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

flyingtoastr

I would guess (with no evidence, but it makes sense) that the BS added sockets would be a kind of "prismatic" socket. Whatever color gem you put in the socket would count towards the bonus. Either that or they just flat out won't count towards socket bonuses. Either way would work and make sense.

I don't think it will affect ilevels either. As it is right now all other enchants don't count towards ilevel budgets. For example, if they assumed enchants into ilevels than my [Crystal Spire of Karabor] would have -81 healing or -50 group Mp5 on it to balance out the additional stats of the enchant. Why would an "enchanted" gem socket be any different?

Divine Favor still costs mana.

 

PSGarak

I've noticed that Resist values, where they exist, are much, much higher in the expansion. ("Where they exists" means druid Mark of the Wilk and mage Mage Armor and Magic Absorption, along with warlock Curses of Elements and Shadows). It's made me think that resists and penetration could be a bigger deal in the expansion than they have been historically (in general, not on particular fights). I could be noticing ony deep breath more, or this could be part of one of two potential trends:
1) Players get more self-buff resists. This could be used to make Spell Penetration a PvP caster stat, further differentiating PvE and PvP gear.
2) Resists in general are a bigger part of the game. This makes the secondary (originally primary) effects of CoS and CoE more desirable, and probably encourages more spell penetration in general, because it is kind of a useless stat at the moment.
An ancillary event that could have caused this: "Resist All" is now a stat, taking up significantly less item budget than the equivalent amount of each of the five different resists. This is especially likely if the resist Auras/Totems are still 80, but CoS and CoE also have much larger amounts of penetration on them and those are school-specific.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

Prinsesa

@PSGarak: Unless dispel mechanics get a revamp or we get some kind of passive spell resistance (on PvP gear?) I think spell penetration will still generally be a niche stat.

Regardless of how large resist buffs are, I reckon they're still going to be stripped away rather quickly against any team with a dispeller, and spell penetration itself is mostly useless because the incidental amount you get from a Vindicator ring and an offhand (and/or the cloak enchant) is more than enough to offset the nonexistent resistance players have.

EDIT: On that note, another layer of PvE/PvP gear differentiation could be adding resistance on Gladiator armor. This would also make spell penetration that much more valuable since it would have worth beyond the rare 2v2 fight where you can't remove MOTW somehow.

I'd much rather they revamp spell resistance mechanics if this were to happen though - percentage chances to resist spells are more reminiscent of the old chance to resist talents. It'd be a more controllable mechanic if all damage was resisted by a given percentage and spell effects had their durations reduced.


============

Now that Death Knight abilities/talents are more or less out there, do they have anything to indicate an ability to reach uncrushable?

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Maax

Or they could be bringing spell vulnerabilities back (wishful thinking).

Devs: Our nerfs will block out the sun!
Druids: Then we will tank in the shade.

 

Leviathon

Blizzard has said they plan on phasing out crushing blows so its possible no boss in WotLK will crush.

 

Sharlos

They never said they were phasing it out, just that they plan on revaluating the mechanic.
And no, it appears that DKs will be using high armour, avoidance, and damage reduction abilities.

 

• Philondra

I noticed that upward trend as well. My first reaction was that they are probably scaling up the amount of resist needed to reach the cap post-70. Blizzard pretty much has to do this if they want to make any kind of resistance fight, or else many people will just use their level 70 gear + one or two extra items (it's "good enough"). The scaling of the resistance buffs would just be a reflection of that.

However, I like your idea better.

 

Jagiya

I also recall reading that they were unhappy with the influence Crushing Blows had on raiding; and that they were going to phase them out completely in WotLK. Are you sure about this? They've already been phasing out Crushing Blows since Hyjal so it's certainly not a stretch of the imagination by any means.

Also; regarding the Warlock (Metamorphasis) ability; "Immolation" - It's merely a copy of the Demon Hunter Immolation from WarCraft 3. I noticed suggestions a few pages back indicating that it would be just like Hellfire. I envision that the Warlock will still be completely mobile while this ability is active. Unlike the WarCraft 3 version, however, it doesn't passively drain mana whilst activated. Costing 111MP/S for a passive 450DP/S (before spell damage is calculated) sounds attractive to me.

Besides, it certainly brings back joyous memories of running around in someone's base with Immolation active and watching all of their Peons/Ghouls burn to death passively. Except now you're in AV and all those Peons & Ghouls are nuking you down.

 

Prinsesa

The word "channeled" in the lower left tooltip description suggests otherwise, though.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Sharlos

I was hoping they wouldn't have any more resistance fights.

 

Malleus

The description of the skill doesn't specify a colour. I strongly believe that the socket will be colourless.

I also believe that you will not be able to socket a weapon that already has sockets, as the maximum number of sockets on an item is three and some 2H weapons already have that many. It's possible the ability could add one socket up to a maximum of three, but that would potentially allow repeat socketing of the same item. Prohibiting a resocket is just easier.

 

greendef

You could count [Netherweave Net]s as being a tailoring only perk.

[edit]I really need to refresh before posting, this was in response to a post one page ago.[/edit]

 

panny

One weapon doesn't have as great as effect as the FSW set especially since you needed at least T5 mats (Vortices) before you could get the equivalent item.

Also, the BOP recipies from Sunwell are useable by Warriors/Paladins, but not any of the other classes that take BS. I'm one of those Enhancement Shaman that took BS solely for Dragonstrike, and if I was still raiding, dropping BS would definitely be the smart thing to do. Having an additional perk would definitely nice.

Fix Spirit Wolves not responding to commands.
DK/Rogue

 

Ghilgam

I've just come across these while doing my morning browsing-at-work.

There are some fascinating scaling values going on here just from looking at the paladin talents. Resist auras up to 130, Blessing of light giving 1090 +heal to HL(!) and BoW going up to 91mp5 (41mp5 currently) by level 77.

It seems to me that this clashes somewhat with Blizzard saying Sunwell Plateau raiders will not replace their gear until they are well into WotLK raiding. What good is such massive healing going to do (1090 from BoL + new HL rank) on a tank that won't have significantly more HP (same goes for mana regen I suppose)?

 

Lamaros

Do you have a link to them saying that? All I heard was that it wasn't going to be as extreme a situation as TBC. I expect that people will be upgrading from the first WotLK raids, if not before.

 

Tanoh

Enchants aren't counted into the ilevel, as it would defeat the purpose of them. Enchants are meant to improve the item, ie enchant them. If they assumed everyone had the best enchants on them it wouldn't be an enchant, not to mention it's hard to know what the best enchant is. Especially as there are new enchants coming out every now and then.

Anyway, sockets are however highly suspected of being part of the ilevel calculations. The actual value for sockets are unknown, but it definitly looks like it costs a bit. However, adding something like a leg patch or enchant can not alter the item value as it's static for all items of the same type. So there's no reason adding a gem slot would change that.

Also, I don't see why it should be self only, one gem slot is not much. I think we can saftely assume that there will be new gems that will be better (or at least on par with) the epic gems we currently have. Take the +12 damage gem, adding 12 more damage to a caster weapon that already has ~250 is not a whole lot. And no doubt there'll be more powerful weapons in WotLK also, in the current form it's a nice thing to be able to further improve your gear and gives Blacksmiths something to sell and earn money with, assuming the mats aren't insane, everyone will want (at least) one when they get a new weapon at lvl 80.

I wonder what they'll do with two hands weapon though, will they get 2 gems? If so, what about off hands and shields?

 

Alcemon

How will the gear reset end up its really undetermined at this point (Blizzard may have a plan to follow but even they probably don't know how is it all going to end up).

That said, Stamina is not getting its budget modified on WoLK (as far as we know), so that should help Lv70 gear be more useful at Lv80 than what Lv60 gear was at Lv70.
And even with the Stamina budget modifier, I do remember that Tier3 geared players did not feel undergeared for the most of Karazhan when the expansion launched.
Without the Stamina thing and provided no major design changes are introduced, we can expect the situation to be a little better than that, meaning that Sunwell gear will probably be on par for the 10man Naxx(assuming thats the first WotLK raid) and still decent for its 25man version.

There are still many unknown factors though, like the advertised Spirit revamp and the Mana potion changes, that may have a non trivial effect on all this.

 

Ghilgam

Yep, apologies. After some searching I can't seem to find the quote of them talking about when the best-geared raiders would get their stuff replaced. I'll have a stern word with my brain later...

I haven't heard anything about potion changes (which I suppose would go well with any mp5/spirit changes) - can someone fill me in on this?

 

Jerry

What I find really interesting is that most people tend to think backward about iLevel. The iLevel is not calculated based on the stats of the objects. The stats of the object are calculated based on the iLevel.

When items are under or over budget, Blizzard will change their stats without touching their iLevel. It just means that there has been a mistake when calculating the stats. When Blizzard decided that Karazhan loot needed to be more attractive, they raised their iLevel, and thus their stats got increased. iLevel change implies stat change, whereas stat change does not necessarily imply iLevel change.

The thought process, in terms of design, is probably something like : We have this new instance. It will have bosses and they will have loot. Let's decide that their iLevel will be N. Then let's decide the number of bosses and what kind of loot they will drop (a good example is Hyjal where Rage = bracelet, Anetheron = boot, Kaz'rogal = belt). Based on that, the item design team starts working, and use the iLevel and the different modifiers (quality, slot, number of stats, ...) to get the item budget, and then spend this budget to get the stat values to put on the item.

Because iLevel is at the start of the item design process, it doesn't need to be updated as extra stats are added to the object (through enchants or extra-socket).

 

mclem

It's not *all* warriors and paladins, either. High-end blacksmithing is rather limited when it comes to tank gear; it seems that Engineering has been the profession to get the huge tanking perk. I'm hoping that armorsmithing - which always struck me as something that ought to be a tank profession - will get decent tanking gear in WotLK, but right now, I'm really liking the sounds of an extra socket.

Presumably this won't be limited to MH weapons, either, so those calculations which were talking in terms of 'it's not equivalent to two rings' should also factor in dual-wielding.

 

Wander

Well, the Dispel has to get through its own resistance check *first* before it can dispel your buff; so a Mage with Magic Absorption (+80), Mage armor (+40) and Shadow Protection (+130) is going to have 250 Resistances, which is what, a 60% chance to resist a Shadow Spell at level 80? Devour Magic isn't getting through that on a regular basis. Heck, a Warlock would have trouble getting Curse of Shadows to stick.

I have a feeling what they're doing is ramping up to make "Spell Penetration" a standard gear stat like "Armor Penetration" is, but rather than do do by reintroducing negative Resistances and Spell Vulnerability, they'll balance it around all players having an expected amount of Resistances, like Armor is balanced, only in reverse: Casters will have more innately, while Physical Classes have less innately.

This would run afoul of the the fact that Caster debuffs and CC are mitigated by Resistances, but Physical debuffs and CC aren't mitigated by Armor, so trying to balance casters around a non-zero amount of Resistance as standard is going to lead to a lot of heartache and tears, but that's still what I suspect.

 

◊ zirky

How about an entire set of resist gear, requiring a lot of (at the time) hard to come by badges which is never used.

 

Malan

Never used huh? What did your tanks wear for Illidan? What did your warlocks wear for tanking several fights? Admittedly the FR badge set wasn't used *widely* but you're stretching it to claim it was ~never~ used.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06