Korlis

While it is always a waste to see that Paladin chest drop in Shadow-Labs with your warrior tank, and priest healer... the Relics are by far the worst in this manner. By design they are inherently useless to any non-specific class, while furthermore tending to focus on a particular talent tree, or ability, which limits the use of said item to specific specs of specific classes. This leads to many, and often times, repeated drops of the same Idol, or Totem when there are no characters available to use them.

There already an available and proven in game solution, that might also be implemented in a way that could address other class concerns regarding loot, gearing, and sharing armor-classes. That solution is to reengineer, on a much larger scale, the system used for items such as [Pattern: Whitemend Hood], or the other profession patterns that require a character with the appropriate profession to be present for said item to drop, or be looted.

Firstly the most obvious implication would be that relics and other class specific items, should more types be implemented, will only appear on the loot table if a character of the appropriate class and/or spec is present. This would solve the problem of Idols dropping with no druid in site. These relics, like the recipes, may be random dungeon drops, or additional drops for particular bosses in addition to a regular, non class-specific loot table with a general selection of gear. The system is already in place for patterns, all that needs to be done is to combine the items and the preexisting drop parameters for the recipes, while tailoring the profession specific parameters to the required class, on a per item basis.

In addition to being a solution to the "Useless Relic" situation. The system could be further employed to dictate class priority on items, statistical or otherwise, which in turn would result in more gear for everyone involved and less gear disenchanted or greeded. An example to portray the effects this could have on a current dungeon might be:

Group consists of Rogue, Druid (Resto), Shaman, Druid (feral), and a Hunter in the Heroic Slave Pens Instance. The boss, Quagmirran, has a loot table consisting of
3 Cloth DPS pieces, 3 Pieces of Leather (2 Rogue biased dps pieces and a pair of +heal pants.), 2 pieces of Differentiating mail armor(Spellpower shoulders and dungeon set 3, secondary set), 2 pieces of plate armor (paladin-biased chest and a class neutral tanking belt.), 3 Melee-based items (Neck, Sword, and ring), 2 Offensive Caster Items (trinket and mace), and a healing offhand.

So, as it stands currently, with the aforementioned group make-up there is nearly a 45% chance that one of the three Items dropped will be useless to the group. In addition, there is a smaller but equally important chance (25%) that the Epic Item will be unusable, except in rare off-spec occasions.

However that chance can be completely eliminated by implementing and developing a usable-by-class bias for loot tables that is dictated by the present company of players. It would diminish the repetitive and often-times frustrating sample of RNG disappointments when you've run your 36th run of an instance for a particular item of interest. As well as promoting variation is group make-up to get a chance to roll on items that may be prioritized for other classes or specs, and by so doing introduce players to different styles of play.

In addition to creating a balance to the "Random Number Generators are Random" situation that frustrates many a player on a daily basis, there may also be a renewed interest in the running of multiple dungeons over a smaller period of time. Thus giving players more opportunity to progress at a rate they deem reasonable for they're style of play. Providing an even spread of gear amongst the new instances would increase their use over-all.

Instead of the redundant "LFM Daily Heroic" or "LFM Ramps Badge Run" which forces players to do otherwise outdated, out geared, and often re-hashed content, for the sole purpose of attaining gear over a period of days or weeks which resembles so much the honor and reputation grinds that are also sources of contention among the player base. Players would now be able to focus on a number of dungeons they know they require gear from and be at least more likely to attain their sought-after gear in a shorter amount of time, or they may find it easier to establish off-spec gear sets. In either case, an integral part of progression in the game, and almost Exclusively the only way to progress at the level cap, is through gear.

Blizzard learned their folly in the execution of the 40 man raids requiring an extensive amount of specialized resistance gear and attunements, and subsequently started on the right track with the abolishing of Resistance heavy fights except in certain encounters, as well as with smaller raid sizes. Now is the time to address the issue of actually gearing ones character to be "Raid Ready." As it stands, practically every tier of BC progression past regular 5-mans instances (heroics all the way to sunwell) have a preferred level of gear, if not a required level of gear, that must be obtained before attempting to complete said content. This is, often times, a barrier for players who may not have the time to spend during the day running dozens of instances and doing tons of dailies, but who are capable of raiding with a guild that fits their schedule. With this proposed class-biased drop system players who would previously be limited by their schedule or amount of time to play, would still find the higher levels, at least the first 2 tiers of progression, to be accessible when it otherwise wouldn't, or sooner than was previously possible.

All in all, a re-evaluation of the way class-specific gear drops is in need of some revamping without question. The further benefits to establishing and implementing a system such as this that would cover all gear is still theoretical, but I feel there is enough data to support at least a margin of the aspirations that I have laid out for you.

Oh yeah... first post on EJ... long-time lurker here! Woo, go me!

 

Moogul

Whilst your post is well written and shows thought, Korlis, it doesn't really seem suitable for this thread. This is meant to be about WotLK, and ideas on preventing loot-rot and giving better loot distribution have been brought up many times before.

What's important for now is that relics are still in WotLK at this current time, and we should try not to stray in to pure speculation.

Ijago <Casual Jerks>

 

Talgog

The tailoring gear certainly had a lot to do with it. All damage casters pretty much had no use for pieces that took up the same slots as tailoring loot.

iLevel 115 blues versus iLevel 100 epics never should have happened, though.

 

• Playered

I wonder if the large jump in buffs / pot power will result in a higher level difference between raid gear (yes I know that the ilvl difference would be higher in Wrath than in TBC naturally) - fair enough we wont know this for a long time if at all during Beta.

One thing that always bugged me.. especially as more gear was available (Arena / Badges) was that there was still a seeming minor upgrade between gear-slots untill the implemention or expertise / haste was added in but that was very late in the cycle and just seemed more powerful due to being a 'new' stat and not being upgraded from anything else much.

With so much of these stats seeming to be floating around already.. im curious if it will result in the same seemingly small upgrades... something I feel which hindered real gear checks (sans SWP) being available - it also helps provide lifespan to previous content if you cant just skip an entire tier because the gear difference doesn't matter at all (T5..).

 

Korlis

I was posting under the belief that what I was writing would fall into this category found in the first post of this thread, in regards to WotLK.

I think that, although my examples were based solely in the present, the fact of the matter is: the Development Team has already made motions to mold the concept of progression into a more accessible part of the game with the introduction of 10 and 25 man versions of all raids in the expansion. In lieu of that, discussion of or introduction of the topic of loot progression in relation to content progression is something that is important to the game, the expansion, and the general WoW populace.

Now its neither here nor there but I would like to reiterate the fact that my previous post is primarily addressing the issue of Class Specific items being dropped in instances, and the issue of useless drops. Yes, I did express that the solution could also alleviate other issues. However, at the very least, Relics and any new class specific items that may be introduced should be on a class-specific drop table that depends on the attending group of players. The current static loot system in place that chooses from a consistant table is inherently unfair when that table includes a class specific item. Relics should not take up the slot of another classes gear when there is no character that can use the item.

 

• Falk

No, what I meant is, in my opinion, the nerf to tailor epics was reverted with the knowledge that gear levels were being re-evaluated. Not gear levels being re-evaluated as a result of the nerf being reverted, as a result of forum uproar.

Was this the case? Who knows? (And who cares, at this point)

 

Sydane

Basically what BRD was, was SM without separate entrances. It's really 3 or 4 instances all in one, with different paths, and different conclusions. And remember, in the early days, it was a 10 man. It's just having all that in one instance makes it overwhelming in many ways. Imagine if Hellfire Citadel was all one instance, just chained together, or even split up with doors similar to BRD. It would be cool, but it would seem insane. At least they do tie things together visually somewhat when you see Mag below the boss in Blood Furnace. But imagine if you had to clear BF every time to get to Mag? Choice is great, but the "illusion of choice" is more important, because in the end, people are just going to take the fastest, easiest way 99% of the time. The choice to make is which instance to go in (Ramps, BF, or SH).

I expected the uncommon gems to be equal or slightly worse than the current epics (+9 maybe), not the next notch up. The gear isn't getting replaced immediately, I can understand the rare gems being better than current epics but they just made the current generation of epic gems completely pointless on release, which is really surprising. The day of release, people are seriously going to be regemming their Sunwell gear that they will use all the way to level 80, with uncommon gems from the first nodes mined and prospected.

Way too much of the new profession stuff seems to be just another rank of the current. Hopefully the creativity is yet to come, but they've already recreated the same tiers of useless enchants (spell crit to gloves compared to the others, for example), and mediocre potions. Would be nice to have more choices rather than just best in slot and mana pot.

 

Bismar

Is anyone else surprised by how many talents/abilities are centered around increasing haste?

Windfury and Wrath of Air totem, the new Paladin Judgement interactions, talents for pretty much every DPS class that proc haste, and for some of the healers too. Probably a bunch of things I'm missing. They seem to be going down this rabbit-hole deeply, and my concerns are

a) a lot of haste buffs currently in game don't stack. Are we now going to find that say, Wrath of Air doesn't stack with most class buffs?
b) constantly changing casting speeds are pretty tricky, and make aspects of the game more into Twitch gaming than you'd expect in a typical RPG.

 

djhbrd

Well, it's safe to say that I'm happy looking at the new Jewelcrafting stuff. I plan to make a healthy amount of money in the first couple weeks of Wrath

As far as Azjol-Nerub, am I the only person who sees it as a huge letdown? I was thinking Anub'Arak would be an Onyxia/Magtheridon style encounter, as the raid version of multiple smaller instances inside the Nerubian city.

 

Emory

Not to derail any discussions currently going on here, but since they are adding a tenth class with the expansion, how do you all think the tier tokens will be changed? I figure they will switch to a two-token system with five classes per token,
as that sounds the most logical to me.

 

Sydane

Not sure if they have the means, but a random token (ie, tokens with 3 random classes on them) would be interesting. Would eliminate (or at least reduce) some of the "omg not three conquerer again" issues.

 

Nurru

That wouldn't change anything. Instead of "Stupid conqueror" we're just back to "Man, ______ never drops Might but every Warlock has full Felheart", except with a bit more flexibility.

< Aislinana> Why would it be my job to sleep with vontre? Don't I have standards?

 

Sando

Despite being a hunter, i´m not quite up to date with armour pen, i think the current cap is 7700, but i don´t know how this will change in WOTLK, and as far as i´m aware you can´t hit the cap currently. But Armour Pen seems to be the stat that is getting the biggest boost in WOTLK, i mean a blue quality gem with 112 armour pen on it is insane in todays gear standards, while stats don´t seem to be increasing by the same amount.

If the trend continues into epic gear, will we be looking at maxing out armor pen with passive, procs and abilities like sunder armour? Will Armour Pen become a stat like hit, something you max and then move on?

 

Moogul

Armour Pen is 7 points per item budget point, 112 ArP is 16 item budget points, ie. 16 str or 16 crit, which are the same as the other blue wrath gems. So no, it's not increasing any faster than any other stat.

Ijago <Casual Jerks>

 

Sando

Ok, but it´s certainly more prevalent in WOTLK than it is now, pre-sunwell it was pretty hard to get a significant amount of armour pen, but with gems and blues having high armour pen, it´s a fairly safe assumption that armour pen will be a significantly higher part of your item budget than currently. And i´m just wondering if it will allow you to cap out the armour pen stat, reducing the boss to 0 armour.

 

Grungo

Well, different bosses have different armor values (granted, only one of two different values in most cases). But you're probably right in that physical dps classes are going to want to get the cap when possible, considering how much bang for your buck you get out of armor pen. What we may see is people building a set of gear that reach armor-pen-cap for high armor bosses, and another set for low-armor bosses, much like many casters have their sets with different amounts of hit rating for bosses versus trash. This is, of course, assuming they make armor pen commonplace enough that you can easily cap. It may also wind up like hit rating for melee rogues: get it where you can, since it's itemized so well, but don't focus on capping to the exclusion of better pieces.

 

• Sajukar

You could already, pre-sunwell, with some specific gear, reach the ArP cap (although for a soft cap on higher armor bosses you'd end up having to use the ZA-Badge stuff, which is quite suboptimal).

When I "left" T6 content, I did so with roughly 1100 passive ArP which is very close to the soft cap for lower armor bosses, this without any badge stuff so it was purely T6 level of gear.
In all likelyhood, the ArP gems just allow more flexibility and gear-sharing since you won't have a piece of armor that warriors prefer due to ArP while another class would prefer another stat and so on.

 

Korlis

I think this issue of gear-gap and "to upgrade or not to upgrade" will, to some extent, be addressed in the revealed combining of stats and buffs that otherwise were equally weighted in regards to item/stat budgeting. As can be seen with the proposed global Haste, Spellpower, and Hit Rating changes, former item budgeting guidelines may end up being reviewed, modified, or even scrapped entirely. For instance, Many pieces of raiding gear from the MC and BWL raids actually got better when they shifted from their pre-bc percentage budget system, to the new rating system. We can only expect the same, or similar, effect when they implement this new wave of "stat balancing:"

However, should stats become disproportionate to their previous iLvl itemization weight, or there is another "jump" in the average level 70 green's stat allocation when compared to level 71 greens, it will just result in a minor overall decrease in the longevity and prolonged usefulness of your tier 4-5 gear past a certain point, just like replacing Tier 1 with level 64 greens and blues and even the old Naxx-tier 3 being close too or on par with most of the 68-70 dungeon blues.

As the expansion looms closer and more word is given on the stat changes, there will be a much more pronounced and clear understanding of the gear level that one would want to stick to as he or she arrives at the new level cap and end game content. Similar to the suggested minimum +healing a priest needs per tier of progression in BC, the same will be seen in Wrath. However, unlike BC, one must assume that there will be fewer occurrences of new stats being introduced mid-progression, or mid expansion, which can and do slightly upset the balance of item budgets. Now that they have all the stats in game, they may just tweak it to perfection. Instead of experimenting with new stats they may experiment with new ways to itemize.

With the addition of new stats and badge gear on par with tier 5, 6 and even sunwell gear, the lifting of attunements half way through BC was also a cause for the progression-hopping epidemic that started flooding the raiding scene on many servers. If blizzard can get attunements correct, or portray progression as stages and prerequisites that require linear progression through a set path, then we can actually revisit the concepts of "gear-checks" and "skill-checks" within the new progression line and utilize the information they give us, because data will no longer be pocked with outliers and missing data such as skipped fights, or pick-up raids. The raiding progression in Classic Wow was very linear and cohesive, the only flaw was the "crap" one had to drudge through. The irrationally large amount of hoops one needed to jump through per step of progression only ended up slowing guilds down or stumping them all together. The simpler and more straight-forward attunements used for the BC raids early in their incarnation were of a reasonable difficulty level and at least hinted at progressive game-play. Their removal leads me to believe that either the developers didn't appreciate their intended complexity and and underestimated us, disallowing players to struggle and overcome scenarios on their own, or that the player base as a whole does not comprehend the concept of progression, or, by default, the concept of Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games.

Whatever the case is, to see and discuss the progression in WotLK, we must first look at BC for what it was, a test in the ways of building upon previously established core ideas. The progression guilds that first tackled the BC raids had a very mishmash idea of progression to deal with. There were so many new concepts to deal with: 5 man heroics, 10 man raids, 25 man raids, badge gear, inconsistency in all added content's level when compared with the attained progression of the wow raiding populace. For instance there were, for several months, heroics that were more challenging than 10 man content, the original Heroic version of BM comes to mind. But as things went on, blizzard pigeon holed us into a rather redundant cycle of badge collection, and honor grinding.

The result? Lack of linear design and a shattering of the core concepts of Progression as a whole. With the now common Pick-up raid, you can get a pug for 5 of the 8 raid instances in the game on any reasonably progressed server. While in wow classic you were lucky if you got a pick-up ZG run, much less an MC or BWL. Now that Blizzard knows how players will utilize these new tools(Heroic mode, Badge of Justice, smaller raid size), and also how to balance these interweaving processes of Content and Gear Progression, they can better plan a more linear and successful progression path.

The current state of Progression as it stands right now, 2.4.3, revolves around the state of the individual, instead of the now archaic concept of Guild Centric Progression. For example in classic wow, you had to have a good core of players, and a good guild to get things done. On the converse side of things one merely needs to have some minuscule amount of reputation to be able to start a mindlessly easy, uninteresting, and unsatisfactory trek to the upper echelons of attainable gear. Progression is defined as moving from one thing, person, or place to another. World of Warcraft, completely and utterly lacks progression. If one desires to excel and progress, one must take the required steps to get there. You can not reach the top of a flight of stairs by stepping repeatedly onto and off of the same stair. Without obstacles to overcome, what purpose is there for rewards? There are very few restrictions or requirements to access special parts of the game like there used to be, and the restrictions that are in place are merely cosmetic and hold no real value.

Blizzard needs to breath new life into progression and linear game-play to keep the game itself intact. Should arena remain in the spotlight for much longer than there is time left until WotLK, the game will start to degenerate quickly. Even more so than it already has. The required and simple path of progression in the Arena subculture offers a more in-depth challenge to the player base, while providing equivalent gear, a reasonably balanced system of dictating what rewards one will receive, and not to mention the equivalent or better rewards when compared directly to any current raid content. In addition to the linear concept of the ranking system, limited time requirements, and the rating restriction for higher valued items, any player who plays in arena has many more times the amount of relative control over a fight. However the Arena system lacks one element that PvE content has plenty of: creativity. PvP is only a small percent of this game, yet it is the only constant, replicable, and time efficient manner in which to progress one's character. The sense of accomplishment, valor, success, skill, and prestige that comes with attaining the Gladiator tittle or some-such coveted and limited reward, needs to be replicated in other aspects of the game, particularly the PvE area. Otherwise the already splintering and warring player-base will begin to tire and whittle away as new franchises and competitors begin to take the upper hand.

Until more information is revealed about Blizzard's plans for WotLK and all subsiquent content, the subject of gear consistency, and by extension progression consistency, end up being an uncoordinated and grossly over propagated pile of speculation. We are in the dark in regards to any official word or news on the more intrinsic and integral aspects of this expansion such as: the complexity of the raids, dungeons, and quests; the capable and projected speed at which players will move through content; the power-level of endgame content in comparison to Level 80 players; stat allocations for gear in the Uncommon, Superior, and Epic categories throughout WotLK; and the relative scaling in character power from level 70 to 80. That information will, unfortunately, have to wait until such things hit the beta realms, or the expansion itself releases and we get our hands on the dirty ourselves.

 

Moogul

It does make a difference in PvP though I believe, where ArP is very strong against cloth wearers (or so I'm led to believe).

Ijago <Casual Jerks>

 

Valerian

Also need to take into account armor increases by a fair bit with level. Further last time they completely redid the armor curve. If bosses keep roughly the same mitigation as now, their armor levels will likely be significantly higher, requiring that much more ArP to get rid of it.

 

• sordee

Suggestion: (I know it could be overpowered if not balanced properly.)

But couldn't this easily balanced with a potion that instead of the current [Heroic Potion] of +700 health (and some strength) for 15s, to a +10% dodge (converted to rating) for 15s? (Insane Avoidance potion)

Effectively giving a [Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch] clicky to a potion.

 

djhbrd

They might have to have it be uneven like it was back in Naxx v1. But honestly, if you think about the viable specs (roles) for each class, something could probably be worked out.

Warrior: 2
Paladin: 3
Shaman: 3
Hunter: 1
Rogue: 1
Druid: 3
Warlock: 1
Mage: 1
Priest: 2
Deathknight: 3 (obviously we won't know for sure for a while, but let's assume all specs are somewhat viable)

You could organize them out by roles so that there are an equal number of roles vying for each piece. Something like the following:

Group 1: Mage + Hunter + Druid = 5
Group 2: Shaman + Priest = 5
Group 3: Warrior + Paladin = 5
Group 4: Deathknight + Rogue + Warlock = 5

There are 20 roles to be filled, so there will obviously be some overlap and some specs that may not always be brought (Elemental Shaman, Balance Druid, Ret Paladin, etc.), but generally you'll have an equal number of people in need of each piece. Sure, there may involve some raid stacking, but hopefully a system like this will not resolve in too many or too few of a certain piece (This can be seen now in T4/5 content. Hero pieces are sought after by 3 classes, and only 3 roles, while Champion pieces are sought after by 3 classes that fill 7 roles).

 

• Darkmyst

I fail to see how that would do anything but ensure someone whines everytime.

The only thing you can do to better the status quo is have mobs drop 100% generic tokens that the winner turns in at a vendor for what they want. And I really don't think Blizzard is going there.

 

Tacitus

Dropping from 2-3kish armour (I have no idea about the exact values, since I do not PVP on my lock) to near zero makes physical classes tear through cloth like nobodys business. My fellow guildie warlock was basically foaming from his mouth when he heard about this.

Brotherhood, Peace, Unity

Welcome back, Comrade

 

PsyBomb

While the ArP problem will exist, I disagree that it will be quite so bad as people are assuming. At level 80, all 3 cloth classes are going to have a decent melee defense in PvP specs. Nobody is going to be stuck tanking an arms warrior unless their team messes up.

To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.