A large problem with the reduces resilience by X amount stat is once again how it affects different classes. The easiest one for me to point at is warriors, if you lower a weapons DPS by X amount, you also lower rage generation by that much, it's a very tough task to balance that with how much additional rage general will be regained by the reduction in resilience.
I think the big issue isn't the quality of the weapons but it's the dichotomy in people's arena purposes. On one hand you have people PvPing for loot aka welfare epics or PvP2PvE. This is what you're looking at. How they compare vs say Kael items. But look at it the other way, at the top end the games are highly competitive and close, and things like Torch vs S2 weapon, or the healing weapon vs Illidan's mace, the healing trinket from Illidan, hell even 4pce paladin T5 can have a drastic effect on competitive balance. I can tell you we won plenty of games due to the stat gain, and bonus from our paladin wearing 4pce T5.
I just think the fact that people can get somewhat close to T5 equivalent in all pieces, not to mention the look, is pretty bogus. Grinding out your 400 pts a week is no where near as arduous as raiding to get the T5 tokens and so to reward even the weakest of players just for 10 games played seems very unfair. So to make the weapons very very close to the raiding equivalent is really just diminishing the accomplishment of downing the bosses that give the real gear. Pre BC if someone was wearing full dreadnaught you knew they had done some very cool things and there was no substitute. they had that awesome looking armor, stats far beyond all other armor and nothing that compromised it as unique and special.
This is not really on point for this thread, and has been covered countless times in past discussions. First off, getting full S2 gear with 400 points a week would take you until 2008. Second, "unfair" isn't a relevant part of this discussion. Third, I think everyone with a reasonable perspective agrees that arena armor is fine -- weapons are the problem.
I just think the fact that people can get somewhat close to T5 equivalent in all pieces, not to mention the look, is pretty bogus. Grinding out your 400 pts a week is no where near as arduous as raiding to get the T5 tokens and so to reward even the weakest of players just for 10 games played seems very unfair.
This is not an arena gear whine thread. It is about how some gear is valued by the stat allocation it has received and some gear (mainly weapons) value is determined solely by ilvl.
This is unrelated but I heard there is a trash drop spell damage weapon in 2.2. If it is sporting ilvl 141, it should be a very attractive option for those with no desire to do arena.
The very basis of this discussion, as I have said since it first appeared, is that PvE weapon drops are far too rare. The whole carrying over points from the previous season, then splurging on weapons immediately was also a major problem. They shouldn't have been made available immediately, forcing people to spend points on the armor first and work their way back up the ladder.
The very basis of this discussion, as I have said since it first appeared, is that PvE weapon drops are far too rare.
I do not really agree with this. For caster weapons it is clearly true, there are only a few and they are highly contested. Hunter and melee dps weapons are at an all time high. Any guilds that can step foot into Hyjal and BT will have half a dozen nice melee weapons available to them within a week.
Maybe they will, maybe they won't. There's 2 sword mainhands total, and 1 sword offhand total before Illidan. There are 0 sword offhands in tier 5 instances, making the only viable offhand epic sword at that progression level an arena weapon. It's very possible for a guild to see 1 or none of these dropped weapons before reaching Illidan.
I do not really agree with this. For caster weapons it is clearly true, there are only a few and they are highly contested. Hunter and melee dps weapons are at an all time high. Any guilds that can step foot into Hyjal and BT will have half a dozen nice melee weapons available to them within a week.
Mostly daggers, which are just about completely useless for PvE. We haven't had a single BT/Hyjal sword drop yet, we've had plenty of offhand trash maces but only one Syphon and one Talon. Most of our rogues HAVE to use gladiator weapons for PvE not because they're better but because they're all that's available, and if the weapon drops actually came we wouldn't have to resort to that.
I'm skeptical of this. You forget that when you lower the DPS of a weapon below its ilvl default, you free up massive item budget for use in other stats.
Originally Posted by berg
I think this is an unplanned consequene of the itemization mechanics.
Item Level alone determines the Armor, mean weapon damage, +damage, +healing or +feral AP.
This is both the crux of the problem and the solution. There has never in the history of the game been an item with lower armor or DPS than the values fixed by the item level. And I could be wrong, but I can't think of an item with higher DPS either. It's just not something they do. They have done a few negative stat items (such as the corrupted ashbringer), but never a lower base DPS.
Of course, it seems clear to me that they need to start doing this. I don't buy the argument, "It's never worth giving up DPS on a weapon for more survivability." I would gladly pay 20 DPS for an extra 10,000 stamina. In other words, "So, we've established my proposal as sound in principle. Now, we're just haggling over price."
The rarity of PvE weapons isn't really the topic at hand. Personally I feel that they're plentiful, but we have t6 content on farm so its a big difference from someone working on Vashj.
The topic is that someone can nullify pve upgrades until vashj/kael or t6 loot by having a decent arena team.
I don't think anyone is really arguing for pvp items being useless in pve. Personally I used gladiator pants for a long time until I got BT healing pants, but t5 or even t4 would be quite a bit better.
Mostly daggers, which are just about completely useless for PvE. We haven't had a single BT/Hyjal sword drop yet, we've had plenty of offhand trash maces but only one Syphon and one Talon. Most of our rogues HAVE to use gladiator weapons for PvE not because they're better but because they're all that's available, and if the weapon drops actually came we wouldn't have to resort to that.
This is exactly why I'm okay with the weapons being as good as they are. WoW suffers from weapon syndrome in the same way that EQ did where weapons make up a disproportionately large amount of the character's DPS.
When weapon drops are in short supply, and a few weapons on your melee classes can make the difference between a boss kill and wiping, bring on the welfare epics. Relying on luck to make progress sucks. Being able to directly influence that rate of progress by participating in other spheres of the game, be it tradeskills or PVP is a good thing.
Isn't there some value to incentivizing arena play for those who are primarily pve-interested? My own perspective: I'm a rogue, midway through SSC. I upgraded from kara weapons to Season 2 after months of grinding out 2s and 3s in the 1600-1700 rating range. I agree that the offense upgrade is pretty monumental relative to the cost, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Since they announced the possible 1900 rating minimum for Season 3 weapons, I have really started to put a higher priority on acquiring pvp gear in order to take a shot at that level of arena play. It may or may not work out. The point is that the offensive power of those weapons has provided incentive for me to actively play in BGs and arenas. It has lured me into a dimension of the game that I would otherwise avoid completely. If the S2 MH sword were not comparable to the Talon, I would more than likely avoid arenas and BGs on my rogue entirely.
I know many others -- and not just melee classes -- who play arena for the pve-crossover aspect. Even if the weapon in question doesn't have the overwhelming offensive appeal that melee weapons do, they are still dkp-free and can be earned in one's offtime, which is alluring to many, especially those with limited raid time.
If you turned every arena slot into arena-tanking gear only, you'll see a lot of people stop playing arena and BGs altogether, I think. The minimum rating requirment is a pretty good compromise in my opinion.
This is exactly why I'm okay with the weapons being as good as they are. WoW suffers from weapon syndrome in the same way that EQ did where weapons make up a disproportionately large amount of the character's DPS.
When weapon drops are in short supply, and a few weapons on your melee classes can make the difference between a boss kill and wiping, bring on the welfare epics. Relying on luck to make progress sucks. Being able to directly influence that rate of progress by participating in other spheres of the game, be it tradeskills or PVP is a good thing.
I tend to agree with this point. At 4/5 Hyjal and 3/9 BT we've seen maybe 3 Gruul swords and that's it for caster weapons. Melee weapons consist almost entirely of 1 Al'ar fist and 1 melee mace off kael. That's it. Because of this most of our rogues / casters at this point are using gladiator weapons to make up for it. I purchased the dps mace because dagger itemization is awful and I've never seen Mindblade or Najentus's mainhand drop.
I guess my point is that although they could rebalance the items a bit for pvp a lot of people would still be using them simply because they have terrible luck with weapon drops. I don't know why it is, but some guilds seem to have the same terrible luck with weapons from MC all the way to BT.
I do not really agree with this. For caster weapons it is clearly true, there are only a few and they are highly contested. Hunter and melee dps weapons are at an all time high. Any guilds that can step foot into Hyjal and BT will have half a dozen nice melee weapons available to them within a week.
Whatever happens for your guild is not gods-truth for other guilds.
We had a couple of streaks where we had Talon of Azshara dropping every week, and then a couple of weeks later we had almost every single caster weapon drop from every boss possible.
We've not had any melee weapon (aside from Archi's PvP weapon) drop in Hyjal or BT sans the trash maces (good for our token Fury) in BT.
The AQ armaments were good, you had a static chance of a weapon (in general) for multiple classes, moreso now that hybrids are rampant, and it was limited by needing mats from other instances (incentive to use old content).
BT would be the ideal place to use this in as its the only zone with enough bosses to support it and a general theme to follow.
Maybe I'm just dense, but whats the problem anyhow?
I mean, I can see clearly that a discontinuity exists: That itemization for PVP and PVE weapons is a little off. I fully accept that part of the argument. Its a bit like worrying why the sky is blue and nitrogen scatters red light instead of vice-versa though.
What does it matter in the end?
Originally Posted by Lord BEEF
The topic is that someone can nullify pve upgrades until vashj/kael or t6 loot by having a decent arena team.
...okay? Someone puts effort into being good at arena, and gets a weapon. This is a net *benefit* to your raid as now the remaining weapons drops are only in competition amongst X - 1 raiders.
Someone might not replace that weapon until later on, I agree. Whats bad there except for a case of the "sposeda's?" It has been traditional to change weapons every instance or whatever... now things are different. Its just a change around.
Has it been confirmed that season 3 is going to have weapon/armor upgrades? Blizzard has said from the beginning that new arena seasons won't necessarily have new gear, and I honestly don't think there's any way they can upgrade the current weapons for season 3 without totalling destroying any balance that's left at this point.
I think Blizzard has a good dynamic going, and I think it is purposeful. Those who participate in both PvE and PvP will progress moderately in both aspects, those excel in PvE will progress well in PvE, those who excel in PvP will progress well in PvP, and those who excel in both will progress fastest in both. Its a good dynamic, but nothing is perfect, and I'm sure they will continue to tweak both, but I don't see them ever having good reason to make PvE and PvP progression completely divergent.
I think this thread has done a pretty good job demonstrating;
A) That arena weapons are good, and sometimes better than their PvE counterparts and
B) There are interesting and viable alternative to the current way blizzard budgets weapons.
This could be due to a lack of imagination on my part but here is what I do not see in this thread. If A&B are true, what is the problem? In Praetorian's old thread about the problem of content being designed around full consumable usage (pre 2.1) the problem for the average raider with the status quo was pretty clear.
What is the problem here? Does using merciless weapons really augment PvE in a fundamentally problematic or different way than say a warrior using Cataclysm's Edge (138 DPS, 75 str, 49sta, 335 armor penetration)? I think the answer is no; in both cases it slightly augments PvE/PvP respectively. Doing one without the other is very feasible. I am very happy with how blizzard has kept the two aspects of WoW separate.
A bit of casual PvE will probably not get you that sword in the near future. A bit of casual PvP can (relatively easily) get you a merciless weapon in a few months time. Both rewards are potentially desirable in both PvE and PvP, and both activities have potential for enjoyment (for me). Where is the problem?
Gurgthock's thesis is correct. I'll rewrite and summarize for clarity as to what is going on:
1) Normally, PvP gear sacrifices "potency" stats for "survival" stats, reducing the PvE power level of the item by spending some of its ilvl budget elsewhere.
2) Weapons get DPS from their ilvl, but outside the normal ilvl budget system.
3) Caster/healer weapons "sacrifice" this DPS to add a fixed amount of +healing, +damage, or +feralap.
4) Since these stats -- weapon DPS, +damage, +healing, and +feralap -- are outside the scope of the normal ilvl budgeting system, they are never "accessed" to provide more "survival" stats on PvP weapons.
5) This means that PvP weapons are roughly as powerful as their PvE equivalents of the same item level.
6) Now, since the Season 5 gear is ilvl 136, which is 8 ilvls higher than SSC/TK loot and 2 ilvls less than Vashj/Kael loot, people can acquire weapons that are strictly superior to most of T5 content -- for raiding purposes -- via PvP.
This is the issue Gurgthock is addressing. In addition, his solution is a valid one, it's simply never been implemented. The DPS on melee weapons is considered sacred by the itemization team (apparently anyway, as it's never been sacrificed on a melee weapon for any other stat -- be it str/agi/ap or stam/resilience/avoidance.) In the same vein, melee DPS on a caster weapon is sacrificed to provide either +damage or +healing in a single block -- they have never before divided it up into "sections" such that a +200 damage weapon would become a +150 damage weapon with an extra 40 resilience.
It's theoretically possible and the calculations are simple from a mathematical perspective. The only possible conclusions are that either the people in charge of itemization will not implement the idea, or have never thought of it before.
'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.
I like that the arena weapons are really good. The PvE weapons should simply be better, always, because they much harder to obtain.
because merciless weapons are currently negatively affecting PvE and/or PvP in (*explain problem here*) way. I'm curious about the part in parenthesis. Something along the lines of "the DPS increase raids are gaining is trivializing content" or "PvE weapon drops serve no purpose!" Also I assume you mean that the PvE weapons should always be better for PvE vs "simply be better, always" (including PvP?)
Edit: I guess a lot of this just comes down to what people prefer. I prefer the current version of my merciless healing mace over say one with less healing, but more stam/resilience. I understand that the stam/resilience on the mace could say allow me itemize more healing stats somewhere else (say in sockets or just PvE loot) in other slots to make up for it, but why go to the trouble?
Additionally I think there is a practical limit to how much stam is useful and the hard cap on resilience could complicate the benefit of just tossing more of those on the these weapons. Doesn't that door swing both ways; wearing gladiator gear during some encounters that allow you to wear *no-stam leggings of +12dmg socketed gems* (I really don't know, my end-game experience is limited.)
A change I could go for would be (because I'd prefer it over the current version in pvp) a reduction on the healing stats but with an effect that read something like "your healing spells ignore 5% of MS/wound effects".
I apologize, I didn't mean to imply that this wasn't the case. The weapon slot is the most significant slot for virtually any class, with regard to pure damage dealing or pure healing power. That said, I believe a rogue going from, say, a [Malchazeen] to a [Merciless Gladiator's Shanker] is going to be looking at a larger percentage damage boost than a caster going from a [Nathrezim Mindblade] to a [Merciless Gladiator's Spellblade].
If I'm incorrect about this, I apologize...I admittedly know far less about caster itemization than I do about rogue itemization.
In a very real sense, the upgrade is exactly the same for both casters and melee. 3.5 spell damage is, for any single cast-time non-cooldown spell, 1 DPS. A 3.5 second spell gets a 100% coefficient on the 3.5 damage, and a 3.0 second spell gets a 100% coefficient after 3.5 seconds (about 86% on the actual 3.0 second cast). This is most easily theorycrafted for mages who often use one nuke over a long period of time, and less difficult to model for warlocks who can be casting various spells at the same time, but you get the idea. In this sense, where the melee gets a little less than 6 raw dps on their dagger upgrade, so do the casters, with 18 damage increase.
I think i should add the view of someone who does not play this game at all for PvP. I do not like the player versus player aspect of World of Warcraft. The system is horribly unbalanced and not fun at all to me. I enjoy pve and that is the reason i play this game. I do everything i possibly can to improve my character and my performance in raids. But i feel wronged that to do so i had to pvp for hours out of my week to get the best pve item in the game available to me at that time. I would gladly farm primals for ten times the amount of time it took to get my mace, or whatever, than doing pvp, to give you an idea of my dislike for all forms of pvp in World of Warcraft.
There is something wrong with being forced to pvp for pve items. As a shadow priest, the best weapon in the game for me currently and the ONLY one better than the merciless is the Maelstrom's Fury, which i have to compete with four classes for, roughly 8-10 other people, and only drops off of one boss, once a week. Blizzard really needs to add more caster weapons to the game. One drop of a spell damage dagger in T4 instances and one drop in T6 instances is too little when magic dps takes up roughly the same raid slots as melee. Adding to that, why is there not a single magic dps mace dropping atm?
I totally agree that some kind of token system for weapons would be a great idea, and i would really like to see something like this soon.
In a very real sense, the upgrade is exactly the same for both casters and melee. 3.5 spell damage is, for any single cast-time non-cooldown spell, 1 DPS. A 3.5 second spell gets a 100% coefficient on the 3.5 damage, and a 3.0 second spell gets a 100% coefficient after 3.5 seconds (about 86% on the actual 3.0 second cast). This is most easily theorycrafted for mages who often use one nuke over a long period of time, and less difficult to model for warlocks who can be casting various spells at the same time, but you get the idea. In this sense, where the melee gets a little less than 6 raw dps on their dagger upgrade, so do the casters, with 18 damage increase.
Yes, melee gets a 6 DPS upgrade, which is then increased from being multiplied with attack power to a much, much bigger upgrade than 6 DPS in practice. What you're saying is buying a grey sword with 1.0 DPS should reduce my DPS by 96, and I would still do over 1300 DPS on average, and that's simply not true.
Since they announced the possible 1900 rating minimum for Season 3 weapons
Please stop this right now. The 1900 number was thrown out randomly as an example. The rating requirement won't be a hard cap for all battlegroups, it will certainly be a sliding scale or percentage based.
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. - Dwight Eisenhower
08/28/07, 1:33 PM
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