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.
One problem with this idea is that you would have to pretty much itemize every boss to be 2 set tokens and a weapon. There would be a lot more demand for weapons if PvE was the only way to get respectable ones. You would also need to add a bunch: a cat form item is conspicuously missing.
I really don't see the problem with relatively easy to obtain PvP epics being very usable in PvE. It greases the skids for more casual guilds (an explicit design goal of WoW), and draws people who wouldn't normally PvP into the system. The problem seems to be that for many classes/specs there are big gaps in itemization. If they fixed that, then much of the complaining about PvP to PvE would go away.
Originally Posted by PSokar
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.)
For feral druids it does frequently. I don't know so much about other classes.
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. 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'm pretty sure you are very mistaken. Melee types have instant attacks that multiply their base damage - the effect becomes even more pronounced with normalized attacks that get a huge boost from the damage range of the weapon.
Well perhaps a bit of a tangential issue but a lot of the problems with PvE weapons (or items in general) dropping is that there simply aren't enough loot drops. This is partially fixed in 2.2 for SSC/TK but to illustrate the point I'll use 2.1 numbers.
A full Karazhan clear (no basement) yields 23 boss epics for 10 people. A Full SSC/TK yields 28 items for 25 people. A full BT/Hyjal is 36 epics fo 25 people (better). The problem that arrises is that with less items dropping, there are less places to put in weapons if they want to include a full suit of gear for each class/spec as possible. (Numbers could be slightly off, just guesstimating here). If the ratio kept up in the 25 mans as it does in Karazhan you'd have a lot more places to stick weapons into the boss loot tables, for instance having a boss who has a guaranteed weapon drop as his 3rd or 4th item.
I think the armament solution is a really good one, but that certainly shouldn't be the only source of weapons as that would get really old since that would be the only item people would really want.
Back to the main topic. I think your idea is great on paper Gurg and could provide a comparable boost in PvP power by rebudgeting the weapons. That being said I think the outcry from PvPers not getting the "full budget of DPS" would be insane enough to prevent the Item designers from considering it.
What exactly does this mean? Since they added ilvl-based +dmg/heal to weapons (a very long time ago), weapon slots are comparable across all classes. When your DPS is low because your weapon is a few ilvls too low and has a low damage range, mine is similarly low because for those few ilvls I'll lose a large amount of +dmg.
So for all classes, the weapon slot is somewhat more significant than any single armor slot. This actually makes the most annoying slot in which to have PvP stuff interfering with proper raid item progression.
Does 40-50% of your total DPS come from your weapon slots(s)? Because 40-50% of my total DPS comes from the damage range on my weapons.
I really don't see the problem with relatively easy to obtain PvP epics being very usable in PvE. It greases the skids for more casual guilds (an explicit design goal of WoW), and draws people who wouldn't normally PvP into the system. The problem seems to be that for many classes/specs there are big gaps in itemization. If they fixed that, then much of the complaining about PvP to PvE would go away.
The reverse is also a problem. We are a semi-casual raid guild, and we had 1 boss in SSC down when Season 2 came out...suddenly, we had access to weapons WAY WAY better then we could get out of PvE at the time. Now, most of us weren't even ON arena teams, and didn't give a crap about PvP at all. So this created the need to farm up another avenue every week to be able to raid to the best of our ability.
Our guild created 3-4 "scrub" 5v5 teams that only play 10 games a week. I'm on one of the higher rated ones, at 1567....we just don't like PvP, but it's a necessary evil to get the gear that will make that next boss a bit easier.
This also creates a weird "sub" community of teams rated 1400-1600 wearing heavy T5 gear, working for S2 weapons, and being PvE specced.
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.
Uh, attack power certainly does not multiply the raw dps of a weapon. The raw DPS upgrade on a weapon increases the overall damage of a melee player by more than the simple raw 6 dps upgrade, but not because of attack power or anything. It's affected by instant abilities, crit, haste, hit, etc. However, it's also affected by more than the simple coefficient for casters. I have multiple DoTs ticking at the same time, it affects my mana recovery, crit rate, damage increase on the mob due to debuffs (misery, shadoweaving, curse of shadows, imp shadowbolt), etc, so it's certainly more than 6 DPS for me as well.
This isn't really the place to argue about how classes scale with gear, though, I was merely pointing out that as far as the most basic forms of DPS on the items goes, ilvl causes exactly the same difference for both casters and melee. The argument that melee gets a much bigger proportional upgrade on their weapon is a stupid myth. Most players value their weapon upgrades much more than they're actually worth, melee especially.
Uh, attack power certainly does not multiply the raw dps of a weapon. The raw DPS upgrade on a weapon increases the overall damage of a melee player by more than the simple raw 6 dps upgrade, but not because of attack power or anything. It's affected by instant abilities, crit, haste, hit, etc. However, it's also affected by more than the simple coefficient for casters. I have multiple DoTs ticking at the same time, it affects my mana recovery, crit rate, damage increase on the mob due to debuffs (misery, shadoweaving, curse of shadows, imp shadowbolt), etc, so it's certainly more than 6 DPS for me as well.
This isn't really the place to argue about how classes scale with gear, though, I was merely pointing out that as far as the most basic forms of DPS on the items goes, ilvl causes exactly the same difference for both casters and melee. The argument that melee gets a much bigger proportional upgrade on their weapon is a stupid myth. Most players value their weapon upgrades much more than they're actually worth, melee especially.
This is simply un-true. The fact that a rogue can auto-attack WHILE using instants makes his weapon scale MUCH better than a caster's, who can't do secondary damage while casting. Consider a warlock spamming ONLY shadowbolt. He gets 100% of his spell damage every 3.5 seconds before talents. His talents will make this better.
A rogue will get the same 100% over that 3.5 seconds only auto-attacking, before talents. Since rogues can keep up 30% faster attack speed, they actually get 30% more from their weapon with just that. Add in Sinister Strikes, and they're way ahead.
I don't know what kind of 'perfect melee situations' you're playing in, but in the game I play, mobs have armor, which right there decreases the raw dps upgrade they gain from autoattacking to below 100%. This argument could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is that as far as the itemization is concerned, both the melee and the caster get almost exactly the same RAW DPS increase on the same ilvl increase, which is then affected further by the abilities of and specific situations in which either character is in. Once again, I really don't see any point in arguing about this, as it's the way that Blizzard sees it too and it's the way Blizzard itemizes things, and any debate on the subject is only really a debate of how much individual classes scale with the same raw dps increase.
I don't know what kind of 'perfect melee situations' you're playing in, but in the game I play, mobs have armor, which right there decreases the raw dps upgrade they gain from autoattacking to below 100%. This argument could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is that as far as the itemization is concerned, both the melee and the caster get almost exactly the same RAW DPS increase on the same ilvl increase, which is then affected further by the abilities of and specific situations in which either character is in. Once again, I really don't see any point in arguing about this, as it's the way that Blizzard sees it too and it's the way Blizzard itemizes things, and any debate on the subject is only really a debate of how much individual classes scale with the same raw dps increase.
This is turning into quite a nasty derail, and I don't want to pass judgment as I certainly do not understand caster classes to the extent that I understand melee. All I will add is by using the latest rogue DPS spreadsheet I lose ~400 dps by moving my 97 dps arena mainhand to 1 dps. Whether this is true for casters losing 225 spell damage I will leave for someone more knowledgeable to answer.
EDIT: This is buffed DPS (it also accounts for boss mob armor and defense) and I left my offhand at 97 dps.
Uh, attack power certainly does not multiply the raw dps of a weapon. The raw DPS upgrade on a weapon increases the overall damage of a melee player by more than the simple raw 6 dps upgrade, but not because of attack power or anything. It's affected by instant abilities, crit, haste, hit, etc. However, it's also affected by more than the simple coefficient for casters. I have multiple DoTs ticking at the same time, it affects my mana recovery, crit rate, damage increase on the mob due to debuffs (misery, shadoweaving, curse of shadows, imp shadowbolt), etc, so it's certainly more than 6 DPS for me as well.
This isn't really the place to argue about how classes scale with gear, though, I was merely pointing out that as far as the most basic forms of DPS on the items goes, ilvl causes exactly the same difference for both casters and melee. The argument that melee gets a much bigger proportional upgrade on their weapon is a stupid myth. Most players value their weapon upgrades much more than they're actually worth, melee especially.
I don't think the point is that one scales better that the other. The point is, I as a rogue receive 40-50% of my dps from my two weapon slots. Weapon itemization is far, far away more important for a physical dps class than a caster class.
This is turning into quite a nasty derail, and I don't want to pass judgment as I certainly do not understand caster classes to the extent that I understand melee. All I will add is by using the latest rogue DPS spreadsheet I lose ~400 dps by moving my 97 dps arena mainhand to 1 dps. Whether this is true for casters losing 225 spell damage I will leave for someone more knowledgeable to answer.
EDIT: This is buffed DPS (it also accounts for boss mob armor and defense) and I left my offhand at 97 dps.
This isn't the correct comparison to make. Blizzard always assume you have some type of weapon and the upgrades are in a way relative to that weapon. To better answer the question of who cares more about dps upgrades, melee vs. caster you should instead compare let's say how much of a dps upgrade is going from a lvl 115 blue to a (karazan, S2, BT, pick whatever you want) purple for caster vs. melee.
Just off the top of my head going from lvl 115 blue cast 1h weapon to S2 arena weapon is roughly going from about 120 +damage to about 220 +damage, i.e. nearly doubling in damage. I forget the dps on melee lvl 115 blues but I'm pretty sure going to a purple isn't double dps.
In effect I'm pretty sure going from certain ilvl blue to certain ilvl purple gives roughly the same dps increase for casters vs. melee, that was the whole point of the change to weapon scaling for casters with TBC. If that's not the case it should be :P. Your argument for how your weapon is 40-50% of your dps is alot like a mage saying that 40-50% of his frostbolt's damage is from the base of the spell rather then his gear upgrades. Well.. yeah, so what? It's not like you're going from no weapon to purple weapon, or from rank 1 frostbolt to max rank frostbolt + spelldamage.
As for the topic at hand: while it hasn't been done yet there is at least in theory no reason why what Gurg proposes could not be implemented. All the comments as to "I wouldn't loose 20 dps for 20 resilience" are kind of missing the point. No one would do that trade. But 20 dps for 100 resilience? 200 resilience? at some point it will be worth it in pvp, after all that's exactly the tradeoff in using gladiator gear vs raid gear in arena.
I don't know that I'd really want for the pvp and pve games to be further removed from each other however. I think the current situation of one impacting the other to a relatively small degree is preferable, although what a "relatively small" degree is, is a matter of personal opinion obviously.
Class scaling is entirely another can of worms, so please keep it closed for now
When i first heard about more different itemization for pvp and pve, i thought they would, for example, increase the value of +hit/+spellhit for boss fights, which is where the dps matters the most, and the value of +crit/+spellcrit for pvp. This would keep pvp weapons useful for every situation except raiding, however, the better ones would be on par with, let's say, kara epics.
Lowering the damage in any form on pvp weapons, would probably only shift balance in favor of every class that has -healing debuffs, because the damage would come with smaller spikes. And i still think Blizzard wants people to experience more content, so they are making it easier almost every patch, but still it doesn't get to the scary levels of green-geared people whinning that Hydross is too hard and so on... You can also see weapons as some sort of status symbol, If you see someone with Fang of the Leviathan, you know his guild is probably well organized and focused, however, the arena weapons say absolutely nothing until you inspect them.
Opened up the spreadsheet, went over and changed the weapons to spiteblade (from S2 MH)/S1 OH (from S2 OH).
The unbuffed dps went from 885, to 791. So going from Khara level epics to S2 (with that sheet's default gear/combat spec).
Again with the default settings on the spreadsheet the DPS using Talon of Azshara/S1 OH was 881 (compared to 885 w/ S2 weapons)
So going from Khara gear to S2 seems like a pretty big deal, while going from SSC level gear to S2 seems like a pretty small deal. I am not sure I did that right, so if a rogue could go double check that would be great.
Edit: For clarification, I am not trying to make a point about class scaling. If what I did is a reliable comparison of dps (w/ changing the weapons) then it would seem that S2 make a big difference to a insignificant difference depending on what you are upgrading from.
For those players starting SSC this seems like it could make a big difference in their DPS. However, I believe this is intended (and positive). It also seems like that for a rogue progressing through BT these S2 weapons (or lack of) do not matter much. Again, not positive I used that spreadsheet correctly.
In general, the point is that a caster weapon upgrade is at least comparable to a melee weapon upgrade. What matters is that it's far more significant than any other individual slot. If you roughly approximate your white DPS gain from a weapon upgrade in terms of AP, and imagine that AP stuck on the weapon instead, you can an idea of what they've done for caster.
Also, you all should realize that the conclusions in Gurgthock's OP are pretty evident, and I'm pretty sure he made the post not for a huge debate, but because the very existence of this thread significantly raises the chances that this will be addressed in the near future.
because merciless weapons are currently negatively affecting PvE and/or PvP in (*explain problem here*) way. I'm curious about the part in parenthesis.
Just reiterating this because that whole derail business didn't seem to shed any light on it and I'd hate for it to be buried.
As for the topic at hand: while it hasn't been done yet there is at least in theory no reason why what Gurg proposes could not be implemented. All the comments as to "I wouldn't loose 20 dps for 20 resilience" are kind of missing the point. No one would do that trade. But 20 dps for 100 resilience? 200 resilience? at some point it will be worth it in pvp, after all that's exactly the tradeoff in using gladiator gear vs raid gear in arena.
Resilience is hard-capped at 493/494, its not something that stacks high into the sky forever, and its already fairly achievable. Making it easier to "clump" would just drive the trends in favor of the three or four "clumpy" spots and go for the high damage/crit frills of PVE all over again, once again destroying the intended "balance," just in the other direction.
If you're talking about just piling stamina over and over again to make up for plunging DPS, you just turn the arenas into retards beating on eachother with nerf bats. It would be a fundamentally bad, tedious change to a major part of the game.
As for the topic at hand: while it hasn't been done yet there is at least in theory no reason why what Gurg proposes could not be implemented. All the comments as to "I wouldn't loose 20 dps for 20 resilience" are kind of missing the point. No one would do that trade. But 20 dps for 100 resilience? 200 resilience? at some point it will be worth it in pvp, after all that's exactly the tradeoff in using gladiator gear vs raid gear in arena.
Practically speaking, people might still not find this tradeoff acceptable, because resilience is currently theorized to be capped at 494, which is already attainable with current gear. I suppose the offer is still considerable, since you could then find other tradeoffs in other slots, but I doubt most people will choose to sacrifice offensive stats where they are found to be the strongest (weapon slot), so they can use offensive gear in other, more defensive slots.
And beyond that, quite a few classes have much less of a "need" to hit that resilience cap than others, simply because not every class enters the arena with the same likelihood of being focus fired. Some people already start looking for more offense around 250-300 resilience, far short of the 494 cap.
A few things. To begin with, I think everyone is missing the point when comparing melee weapons and caster weapons. As a rogue, the big issue is that weapons are the only place I can directly add damage to my hits (enchants and the ogrilla trinket notwithstanding). Base damage is fantastically important to a rogue (note: NOT dps, base damage) and an artifact of almost all mainhand swords being 2.6 speed is that increasing dps increases base damage. This is exactly the reason the Talon of Azsahara has always been better than the S2 sword, despite having a much lower dps. The difference between a 2.6 and a 2.7 speed mainhand is huge, as well as the difference between a 1.5 and a 1.4 speed offhand. I would joyfully choose a 75 dps sword with a swing speed of 3+ over any of the pvp or pve items outside if the full illidan set.
The issue is that there is no equivalent stat for casters. +spell damage is +damage regardless of whether it's on a weapon or on armor. What this means is that weapons are disproportionately important to melee dps. Look at enhancement shammies who will use a 2.7 speed green or a lvl 60 HWL weapon until SSC.
Now to the issue at hand. My guild is rather slow (at least for these boards) as we are just starting SSC this week due to small size, casual nature, and general drama. The ability to engage in dynamic small group encounters that vary in difficulty according to my skill and let me work towards worthwhile rewards has been a huge boon (I mean pvp here). Not only has it allowed me to increase my skills and see rewards even during those weeks when we can't get a raid to fit together, it has also helped alleviate internal pressure by letting me pass items on to others who aren't interested in pvp. Having the arena weapons available has added to my enjoyment of the game, as well as that of the rogues who only run pve.
The fact is, weapons are disproportionately important for a melee class, and as such competition for the few weapon drops will be high. Having a place where, if a player should choose to, one can engage in intense and difficult small-group content and relieve some of that pressure is purely a good thing.
In terms of power, I don't see a problem with the S1 sword being on par with the Spiteblade (although slightly worse) and the S2 sword being on par with the pre-buff Talon (again, slightly worse). Quite simply, having a pressure-release system that allows players to smooth the rate of gear progression and help prevent certain players/classes from becoming massively under-geared due to bad drops (this is what happens to a melee class that is 1 tier behind in weapons) is a good thing for the game.
From a pvp perspective, the disadvantage I have using a Deep Thunder vs. a Stormherald or Torch of the Damned is huge. Sure I can get a S2 mace but it is widely considered to be a downgrade from Deep Thunder and certainly isnt as good as the other 2 equal ilvl maces. Making the S2 weapons better for pvp through pvp procs (stuns, roots, melee or spell slows) I completely agree with. The procs on the blacksmithing weapons should have been put on the gladiator weapons from the start. Adding these types of procs and reducing the str/crit would improve them for PVP and not force people who do not want to PVP to also do the top end PVE or vice versa. To help fix the true problem PVE players are having, token weapons would be perfect.
If blizzard wants pvp to be fair, the best pvp items MUST come through the pvp system. That is not the case currently and sadly never has been. In the same vein, the best PVE items must come through the PVE system. This is the case, and for the most part always has been. Issues with PVE itemization and PVE progression pace are being fixed this patch. As more guilds get into BT, the problem of PVE affecting PVP is going to become more severe.
The key is that they need to reduce or remove PvE stats on the PvP weapons. Give them the same DPS/+dmg/+heal as a PvE weapon, but the remainder of the budget should go toward Stamina and resilience.
Like Gurg said, when you look at PvE armor compared to PvP armor, you say "wow, not enough Stam for PvP" or "wow, way too much stam for PvE" if you use them for crossed purposes. It should be the same with the weapons.
Regarding the comment of "99% of warriors are using Stormherald", that's not for the stat distribution, it's the stun proc. A total red herring in this PvE vs. PvP weapon discussion.
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.
I'd argue that it's not a valid solution for melee DPS. First, we need to establish a relative worth for a weapon's DPS. Let's take a [Merciless Gladiator's Maul], and assume that we want its inherent FAP to be equal to [Terestian's Stranglestaff], and we'll add straight resilience in its place. That's 141 AP, which is roughly 70 resilience. Add that to a weapon with 33 resilience already, and we've got 103 resilience.
Things that would need to be balanced:
- adding an additional 70 resilience to every class? Let's make crit even less valued in PVP and marginalize crit-based classes some more!
- rebalancing every class in PVP given a different baseline DPS
- All of a sudden you've given feral druids (oh, and other classes too!) a weapon to make them PVE crit immune... and does decent enough DPS! I know I'd PVP for that, if only for the magic resist fights.
I could go on, but we've already had to re-balance the entire PVP game and have not even completely solved the problem!
From Blizzard's perspective, their idea of implementing a ceiling on acquiring PVP weapons seems far, far more reasonable and easy to implement. Let them, say, require that you purchase 3 pieces of a season's set before you get a weapon, and you at least filter out the people who aren't having fun PVPing. A rating cap is more controversial (and open to holes like getting invited to a top team for a week to buy a weapon) but still better than increasing current stats.
And in the meantime, "welfare epic" items are simultaneously
- filling itemization holes
- encourages PVE players to PVP/Arena
- arguably no worse than forcing a character into a profession for progression gear (rerolling a profession > weekly re-specs), Blizzard's current itemizaiton solution for off-spec classes
Regarding the comment of "99% of warriors are using Stormherald", that's not for the stat distribution, it's the stun proc. A total red herring in this PvE vs. PvP weapon discussion.
Stormherald is just the most obvious example of end game (yes i know its not really end game) PVE affecting PVP. PVE players in BT gear have a significant advantage in PVP due to higher dps weapons, better trinkets, more gem slots, epic gem availability, wider gear selection, etc. It is the exact same problem that SSC PVEers are complaining about arena weapons but on a far larger scale. PVPers have no option to move to a harder PVP zone to get better PVP gear that is better for PVP than the PVE gear. PVErs do have BT available though. I realize blizzard has a very difficult time making PVP gear that is better than PVE gear for PVP but not for PVE, but going back to the raiding players 2 shotting the PVPers is not the solution.
Due to the way item budget works, moving dps stats into pvp procs/static abilities makes a lot more sense than trying to move dps stats into more stamina/resil.
Every other piece of Gladiator's gear has less AP, or +crit, or +dam/heal, or +mp5, than its PvE equivalents. In exchange for giving up damage, heal volume, or regen, you get more stamina and resilience. You become sturdier but less effective in your primary role. And the tradeoff is large.
The rogue S2 BP gives 37 agi, 13 crit, and 40 AP, along with 3 sockets. The t5 BP gives 33 agi (37 if you socket it for the bonus), 17 crit, and 94 AP, along with 3 sockets. Basically you lose 54 AP in order to get the resilience from the arena piece. That's a large chunk of the offensive power of the piece. A rogue who can value their stats better than I could probably give you an exact number for how much of a reduction it is, but eyeballing it, I'd say that the arena gear is 2/3 as offensively powerful as the PvE equivalent.
This thread is titled "Arena Weapons" but I had to reply to this quote. While Rogue gear may somehow be that much more optimized for PvE than a DPS Warrior, the next logical "upgrade" for my chest is the Krakken off of Vashj. Yet I can guarantee you that it will in no way be a 30% upgrade over my current. 3-5% at best. The problem with Arena gear is not limited to weapons. It's just that the weapon disparity affects more classes than what the armor does.
I think that the most sensible response to all of this has been the notion of adding Armaments/Regalia to the majority of bosses. If weapon drops continue to be wholly luck-based, then there is no point in removing the one reliable source of weapons. I also see no problem with allowing synergy between PvE and PvP similar to the benefits of tradeskills. (Loot from outside the instance.)
What I do have a problem with is that the DPS'ers in my guild feel required to get these items because they are:
1) A thousand times more reliably attainable. Each week we kill Tidewalker and no Talon of Azshara drops, I spit on the corpse. I do the same for Gruul when he doesn't drop a DST. A Rogue in my guild with near-100% raid attendance is still using a Blinkstrike mainhand. Why? Because he has not even seen a Hope Ender, a Talon of Azshara, nor, for that matter, any other weapon. His DKP is high. He could compete with other DPS'ers for the item, but not if it never drops.
2) Always the same. There are itemization holes for weapons with +hit for casters - but every arena season has identical distributions with more stats. There is a glaring itemization hole for every spec of Rogue regarding fast offhands. Every season has 1.5 offhands in every weapon range. The same Rogue mentioned above is using a Blazefury offhand because he is currently saving arena points to replace his mainhand since the chances of him actually getting an upgrade seem lower every week.
I like the idea of extremely powerful, unique weapons dropping off the last boss. Even flavour items off every boss, sure, bring it on. If your Warriors had needed to wait until they got Elementium-Reinforced Bulwarks off Chromaggus instead of being able to get the AQ40 shields, how would that have been? That's the current situation with the Gruul shield...except for the PvP alternative.
Leave the PvP weapons the way they are. Put in well-itemized token-based weapons, just like in AQ40. Leave the last boss dropping unique weapons, but every previous boss should be dropping tokens. Stick the vendor inside the instance, if you want, although preferably not post-Twin Emperors far.
PvP weapons will be far less common in PvE if this occurs. PvE-focused weapons are better, given similar ilvls and intelligent budgeting. Keep the ilvls similar between the PvP sets and the token-based drops, and people will focus on the PvE drops. It would also make hoping for weapon drops more enjoyable...seeing whether Chromaggus had dropped a Chromatically Tempered Sword or a Crossbow of Smiting was just irritating. It encourages streaky garbage and just frustrates people. There have got to be better ways to artificially slow the rate of content consumption.
Surprised as I am to say it, AQ40 had it right. Set tokens were guaranteed, weapon tokens were used to ensure, insofar as it was possible, that everyone had a weapon, and the last boss dropped whoa, cool weapons that were noticeable, but not enormous, upgrades over the rest of the bosses as your reward for finishing the instance. Even better was that the Armaments/Regalia meant that they were able to itemize some things more heavily than they would otherwise have been able to - there was a feral mace, there was a tanking shield...
08/28/07, 3:46 PM
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