Scaling for DoTs just need to be available in a second stat. Crit or Haste...it really doesn't matter which. DoT casters simply need a secondary stat to play off of +DMG and vice versa. Living solely off +DMG doesn't work because

A) The itemization formula punishes using only one stat with the stat costs
B) Even having items like these would be geared solely towards Shadow/Affliction (which Blizzard seems to be moving against having niche gear as previous noted in this thread)
C) Using just +dmg lacks a percentage multiplier which Haste and Crit give. +DMG gives a linear increase in damage, but as you add two stats into the mix each increases the effectiveness of the other significantly.

I don't think that's a fair comparison to make, because DOTs and AOEs all serve their own separate purposes.

AOE spells are supposed to be used in AOE situations - even if haste works on DOTs, most targets would likely be dead before they ran their course from all the other AOE being thrown at them (Arcane Explosion, etc.)

The fact that you can DOT up multiple targets in an AOE situation is a consequence of their functionality, but does not imply that that's their intended use.

This is a little similar to what Starfire said about Renews vs. Flash Heals - yes, a Flash Heal would top someone off much faster than a Renew would, but then Renew would be more efficient than Flash assuming the target is in no imminent danger of dying, and spell haste won't change that. Different spells work for different situations, regardless of how haste works.

It might not be so significant for renew, but it's pretty important for several druid hots.

Firstly, rejuvenation lines very nicely with swiftmend cooldown (especially with 2T6 bonus). You can instantly cast rejuvenation on a target after swiftmending and that rejuvention will still be up right as your swiftmend cooldown finishes. Getting more haste means casting rejuvenation increasingly more often just to maintain the ability to swiftmend.

Then you've got lifebloom which can be used either as a rolled spell or as a end-loaded HOT. Lifebloom can be rolled on tanks in which case making it tick faster is usually better but it can also be used to keep up select raid members against AoE, a particular example would be felmyst. Lifebloom stacks will quite easily provide 900+ HPS which is way more than is needed to sustain someone on Felmyst, increasing the frequency at which the hot has to be renewed just means more mana gets burned for no real benefit. RoS is another good example.

Lastly there are situations where you think someone might take damage sometime soon. Illidan P2 (or Naj'entus) is a good example of this. A resto druids will sometimes just throw hots around on people already at 100% just "hoping" that they might get a blast hitting them. Making lifebloom faster would simply reduce the odds that that they take damage before the hot finishes.

I'm not saying that making dots/hots faster wouldn't benefit on the average, but there are certainly situations where haste would be downright detrimental.

Correct. It's much easier, straightforward, and fair to just increase the size of the ticks in some way.

Ideally they should benefit from both haste and crit, just like other spells do and for the reasons you gave.

Maybe if we can get Gurgthock to start a petition or something. ;P

You can think of HoTs in two ways: as a heal for low-priority targets (environmental damage, among other things), and as a buffer against expected damage. In the first case, having the HoT tick faster means that your low-priority target gets healed somewhat faster and makes it somewhat less dangerous (see: Naj'entus); currently haste helps you keep more of them up at once (in the case that you actually need that many HoTs up and can't make use of a larger hammer like Chain Heal/CoH). In the second case, you're basically guessing that the tick time will correspond to after the target (typically a tank) takes damage, but before the direct healing gets there. As an extension of this, you can use HoTs for situations where direct healing CAN'T get there: Maexxna is an extreme example, but even short silences (Gruul/Azgalor) disrupt healing for ~5 seconds (silence duration + reaction time after silence + 2.5s), and if the silence is a low-priority ability, haste just means you have to cast the HoT more often to make sure it's up with a reasonable duration when the ability goes off.

In fact, Maexxna is a particularly bad example for this if you apply haste to other "over time" abilities, such as Abolish Poison.

Is there a compelling reason why DoTs need to scale as well from haste as do nukes? I would agree they need more scaling than they have at present, but doesn't making every stat benefit every spell or style equally kind of water down the game?

It makes intuitive sense to me that haste would increase the number of afflictions and curses I can cast in a given time frame, but would not do anything to increase the effectiveness of those spells once they leave my hand. I don't really see why casting faster should make my DoTs more powerful (or faster acting).

They need to do something to let the DoT classes keep up (or maybe they don't - after all, neither warlocks, even affliction ones, nor shadow priests are exactly underrepresented on the raiding scene, and increasing the power of DoTs would be fantastically destructive in PvP) but is haste really the answer? Now that I think about it, the real problem seems to be PvP. DoTs in their current non-scaling gimped form are already extremely powerful (especially in BGs, but even in arenas). Can DoTs be buffed into top tier raid DPS without completely overpowering affliction warlocks in PvP?

I'm of the opinion that the problems with these three abilities (Slam, Steady Shot and Seal of Command) are more the ability's fault than haste's. Namely, haste not reducing the GCD nor the cast time of Slam, and not reducing the GCD for Steady Shot.

Seal of Command not scaling well with haste is something I'm SURE is a problem with SOC itself, as Seal of Blood is all the proof you need of making an ability that makes full use of haste.

That being said, I acknowledge that I've heavily digressed this thread - while there are ways to change these abilities to work well with haste, all of what we currently know of WOTLK does not indicate that it will happen nor that it is planned. You all put up very good arguments (especially Incoherence's reference to Maexxna and periods-of-silence) and I recognize them as valid.

If gear is going to be homogenized, there has to be a compelling reason for different specs to take different stats.

Example: STR on tanking gear. Right now, STR is almost completely useless for a Prot Paladin, because it does nothing for threat nor mitigation. However, introduce a STR to spell damage talent in Prot and suddenly Prot Paladins can share tanking gear with Warriors.

More concrete example: New Resto Shaman talents to refund mana and cause HOTs on crit heals, because they're going to share crit-heavy gear with Elemental Shaman.

Affliction Warlocks and Shadow Priests scale poorly with spell crit and spell haste, but those same 2 stats work generally well for other casters/specs. Because loot streamlining may cause Afflocks/SPriests to take the same crit/haste laden gear that the Mages are rolling on, there has to be a compelling reason for them to like those stats.

Ret Paladins used to be in a similar boat - an item with +49 STR and 23 spell damage. The 49 STR was awesome, but the 23 spell damage was completely underwhelming. Sure, it made some kind of contribution, but the contribution was so marginal it was more depressing than exciting.


EDIT: I suppose it doesn't have to be spell haste, that just the stat that was most relevant at the time. Spell crit could also work, increasing DOT damage (and HOT heals) by a percentage. Resilience reduces DOT damage by a percentage, so it feels a little clunky that we don't see the inverse.

I guess it just feels like you can take this gear homogenization too far. I like the idea of less moonkin bracers and so on, but I wouldn't want to see every class reduced to the same benefit from the same stats. At some level you may as well just give each item a "power rating" and let every class/spec's DPS or HPS or TPS/mitigation scale perfectly evenly from this one stat "power rating." There would be no loot rot, but it would be quite boring.

On the contrary, I find the "AP vs. crit vs. haste vs. AGI vs. expertise" metagame one of my main draws for this game, even if it sometimes devolves into just plugging spreadsheets, except the current piss-poor scaling of crit and haste for the DOT classes usually devolves the multiple stat balance dance into "HURR MORE SPELL DAMAGE".

That is, what you're saying about devolving item stats into a single "power rating" is pretty much on target for a Shadow Priest, except they call it spell damage.

Without running any maths on it, I'd say yes. Keep in mind that all you'd really need is to make affliction damage _scale_ better with haste/crit, they wouldn't have to actually add crit/haste to warlock DoT PvP gear. The problem isn't that DoTs don't scale as well as our nukes with haste and crit, the problem is that we can't itemize these stats away completely - which leads to scaling issues when compared to builds that do take advantage of those stats - as well as the fact that it leads to the kind of gear stacking Prinsesa mentioned above; We get spell damage, without really having to blanace our stats. It's both boring, as well as unbalancing.

('course, in my opinion, the ideal solution is simply to go even further with the various changes they've been making to the affliction tree since TBC to ensure that affliction is a justifiable spec not because of the damage it deals on its own, but because of utility and control in PvE and PvP respectively)

Hypothetical question:

Bliz is combining melee hit and spell hit, melee haste and spell haste, +dmg and +healing, etc. If that's a good change, would it also be a good change to further combine, say, AP and +dmg? Or crit and hit? Classes could have different rates they convert the raw stats into AP or dmg. And plate wearing classes could just get a really big percentage modifer to the AC they get from armor. Take it to the logical conclusion and you could just have one stat - ilvl - and all the other stats could be derived from that based on your class, spec, and level. Would that be good?

My thought is "hell no", and I suspect most would agree with me. So...where's the sweet spot? Or to put it another way, how many pieces of chest armor should have to drop for everyone to be happy? 1 per spec is obvious not a good idea, but how much overlap should there be? Is there a reason why there should be seperate tanking leather set? You could just give bears better multipliers to "tank" stats and just make them use rogue/kitty DPS gear. Hell, you could do the same with warriors, paladins, and deathknights and do away with tanking plate too; set it up so +AP converts into dodge and defense via a deep prot tree talent. Good ideal? Why not? It's no crazier than combining caster and healer loot.

In short, I'm a bit confused as to what Bliz is trying to do by merging stats; it either seems like a radical change to no real purpose, or not nearly radical enough.

Healers and Tanks have always tended to be somewhat 'boned' because their gear was tailored for dungeon environments mostly, thus questing and grinding often was rather difficult (and it also made finding them for instances harder).
Having Healers use 'DPS gear', and Tanks using more agressive stats in their sets allows them to be of use outside of instances.

Several classes (Rogues - Poisons, Enh Shamans - Shocks, Paladins - lots of stuff...) suffered from several aspects of their mechanics requiring melee and caster modifiers which they were really unable to get, and the merging of Hit/Crit allows them to work as 'intended' now.

There is still a significant lump of gear wasted as it needed to be tailor made to certain class/specs, for example you go from Moonkin / Resto leather gear, to just Caster leather gear.
If you assume both the Moonkin / Resto gear had a 15% drop rate, then the new Caster leather *should* end up with a 30% drop rate, or atleast 2x 15% drop rates.
This makes the gear less likely to be wasted as you wont alienate the class spec which it's not suited for - as both can use it.


I don't think anyone can complain about these things, they are both benefical for the classes intended and don't 'harm' the other classes whom it does not effect - and anything which helps remove some of the randomness in loot from PvE is always good.

Playered: Well, right. But their efforts so far seem awfully haphazard. For example, DPS casters tend to want hit, but healers don't; healers want mp5 but DPS casters don't. Some specs want haste, some want crit. Merging +dmg and +healing isn't going to mean that healers and warlocks will want the same set of gear; it won't even mean that all warlocks will want the same set of gear!

So... what have we gained? All the stat merging still leaves us with most cloth wearing specs wanting a different set of gear, even if it all will have the new "spellpower" stat on it instead of dmg and healing as in the past. If they do have a single "cloth" set drop in an instance, nobodies going to be happy. If they still have multiple sets with gear that focuses on crit, hit, haste, regen, and raw spellpower, they won't have saved any room in the loot table. So...why do it?

Or to put it another way - merging the moonkin and resto leather gear seems like a really really excellent idea, since it's pretty hard to cram two complete sets of caster leather gear into each Tier. But moonkin and trees are going to want different stats even in WotLK, right? Hit and crit for moonkin, and spirit for trees, or something like that, right? Is it possible using known WotLK mechanics to make a single piece of leather gear that both moonkin and trees would prefer to a more focused cloth equivalent? All of the stat merging they've done doesn't seem to even begin to help the moonking/tree gear problem, which I would have thought was one of the biggest with the current approach to itemization.

Not every piece of gear needs to cater for everyone. Pretty much all cloth & leather casters can use at least the following stats:

stamina
intellect
spirit
+spell power
(nobody wants MP/5 anymore)

That currently leaves crit & haste somewhat spec dependant, but let's remember that most gear in game currently is still itemized so it only has one out of hit, crit or haste. Class sets quite often mix two of these, but that's hardly an issue since those can be tailored for the specific classes anyway. A few select pieces combine hit/crit at the blue gearing level, but those are more the exception than the rule.

Blizzard is perfectly capabable of making hit mostly a stat acquired via: enchants, gems, class sets, quest/reputation/badge rewards.

I have seen some screens concerning an achievement system in WOTLK. What you think about it? I think Warhammer has a similar system.

Re: Earthliving Weapon, the new shaman weapon imbue.

Is anyone else concerned about the problems with this and Windfury totem? It's not uncommon now to put Resto Shamans in a melee group for Windfury. But now doing so will nerf the resto shaman's heals. (I imagine this will be an even bigger deal in Arena, but I confess I do not have much experience there).

Or does this seem like a minor concern? At the very least, resto shaman shouldn't be "balanced" around having Earthliving anymore than Brilliant Mana Oil.

Shaman totems don't overwrite other weapon buffs, including the shaman's own weapon imbues. If it did, being in a melee group would already nerf enhancement shamans, as Windfury totem's buff is inferior to Windfury weapon.

Totem weapon buffs have lower priority than poisons, personal weapon buffs, or other manually applied weapon buffs. So a resto shaman can have an oil or earthlinving weapon as they see fit.

What are you on about?
Earthliving is a weapon imbue like Windfury Weapon.
Totem enhancement's do not overwrite a weapon imbue.

Thus a Resto Shaman can enchant his own weapon with Earthliving and keep Windfury Totem up for his group with no loss*.

The other thing about loot homogenization is that there will most likely be more than 1 piece of each slot. With reduced loot tables and big instances like Naxx it is pretty safe to assume there will be multiple sets of caster legs (for example)- one with spellpower, crit and spirit - one with spellpower, crit and spirit - one with a shitton of spellpower and spirit but no crit - etc.

I think the real idea is to make less of the old "damn another stupid pair of boomkin boots" by allowing those same boomkin boots to be used by resto druids as well. They may not be ideal, but they could be a nice sidegrade to hold them over until the best itemized set rolls around.

Considering that it at least appears that Blizzard is trying to design Windfury at least somewhat out of the equation--better poison procs, good talents in Assassination, weapon imbue in the DK Frost tree, etc.--a lack of windfury might not be as big of an issue in WotLK as it has been in the past.

That and, like everyone else has mentioned, totems don't overwrite other weapon buffs.