2.4 Details, as they arrive - Page 17

deadlights · 02/05/08, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

What the hell? It offers a hell of a lot more survivability than my leather BT epics do. You need to stop and use some critical thinking skills. 98 > 0. Understand that? 0 Resilience = Instagib. 98 Resilience may not be full S3 survivable, but for someone struggling in a 1500 or 1600 bracket, its enough to stay alive more than a minute.

How about you actually post the reduction of crit % and crit dmg along with that. Sure 98 > 0 but that level of resilience is still an insta gib against anyone with respectable burst damage. The ad hominems can cease by the way. If you want to discuss then discuss. If you want to be disingenous about your stance then and cast aspersions then WoW forums ---->.

My warrior is essentially pve geared in blues a boe epic and a crafted epic weapon, maybe 3 peices of veterans gear before I got bored with him, and he'll still rip through anyone with that little resilience. It's not about standing up to full season three. It's about standing up to just respectable burst. Your exaggeration about your BT epics is not warranted especially considering you are attempting to try to compare leather to mail. Throwing out "BT" for shock effect is just that. You know good and well that if you walked into arena in full BT gear with the much higher stamina and insanely higher damage output, you would be supremely more effective than in HWL gear. 98 reslience does not make that much of a difference. So let's not go there.

Now if you have a point I'm more than willing to concede as I did with the hybrid option. But HWL gear is simply not arena effective. Moreover my main point is that it really isn't important whether it is easy to obtain or hard to obtain because it is subpar gear for all purposes and will not create any balance issues. Now maybe you took issue with my statement about gearing their class properly but that's just my anecdotel experience. Everyone I've seen that runs around in HWL on my server has gaping gear and spec issues upon examination.

If it will move away from this ridiculous back and forth then I can simply apologize for that one sentence. But my main point/question still remains. Why is it important where this gear goes when it will present absolutely zero balancing issues? Additionally if they had announced that they were removing HWL gear from the game would any of you really be upset about it.

KamPa · 02/05/08, 12:16 PM

You might "rip through" person with that 140 resilence, but it will still take longer than 0 resilence and 1000(or more) hitpoints less, especially if this is an alt that didn't instance much and only has most basic gear. Even if the difference is minimal, it's still something to make first visits on BGs less painful, where crits take away half of your health. A welcome change, provided it doesn't need too high reputation.

Moogul · 02/05/08, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by deadlights

How about you actually post the reduction of crit % and crit dmg along with that. Sure 98 > 0 but that level of resilience is still an insta gib against anyone with respectable burst damage.

I might be misreading you, but you seem to be implying there's a magic point of resilience at which you suddenly start surviving burst damage, which is rather misleading. It's like the whole Epic>Rare>Uncommon gem issue, each upgrade is small, but it all counts up. I'm not sure off the top of my head how much crit reduction that is (I'm at 265 and thats about -6%, so I'm assuming it's about -2.5% crit and -5% crit damage, which seems noticeably to me), but it all mounts up. Sure, you'll still get bursted some of the time, but some of the time you wont, when you would have had before. When you start adding in some Vindicator/Veteran gear (since you're not spending honour on S1 straight away), you can start to slowly build your way up to something more respectable.

Malan · 02/05/08, 12:20 PM

Originally Posted by deadlights

You know good and well that if you walked into arena in full BT gear with the much higher stamina and insanely higher damage output, you would be supremely more effective than in HWL gear. 98 reslience does not make that much of a difference.

My 2v2 record this past weekend where rogues who weren't wearing a single piece of PvP gear ripped me apart in under 30 seconds, strongly disagrees with your assesment. Its not 98 resilience, its 140 if you gem it properly, which is more than 3% crit chance reduction and more than 6% crit damage reduction. No matter what else you may think about it, its still more survivable than not wearing gear built for pvp. Regardless, your original point was that anyone wearing this gear "likely does not know how to itemize their class properly and consequently probably doesn't know how to play it either" which is incorrect either way. (You want to point fingers about ad hominems after you posted that? Come on.)

And no, the BT was not "shock effect," it was illustrating that a high end PvE DPS set doesn't do crap for me in an arena. Being able to produce "burst" doesn't win arena matches if I can't survive.

Pixen · 02/05/08, 12:23 PM

Originally Posted by deadlights

Why is it important where this gear goes when it will present absolutely zero balancing issues?

Assuming this is the core of your point, you and everyone else are arguing completely different things. If you are saying that the gear is useless and people shouldn't even bother getting excited about it, obviously many people disagree with you.

If your point however is that adding this gear doesn't, as I've suggested, affect anything at all on the high end and thus doesn't merit the debate of how much rep you should need/what vendors it should go on/etc, you might be right.

I don't think it should appear in your mailbox when you ding 70, but I don't think there should be a high barrier to obtaining it either.

thevidon · 02/05/08, 12:24 PM

Deadlights, I don't think you have recently had a fully greened out 70 to gear up. It is a terrible awful grind to get the honor epics. I dont understand why you are arguing that people dropping BT epics for this gear is not a gain....thats not who the gear is for. It is a starting point for the fresh 70 who has 7k health and zero stam. This gear is great for them. No it wont take you to the 1800's, but once again that is not its purpose .

Also as previously posted with the bonus and gems it puts you at 140 or so resilience, which is pretty nice. I wish I had this gear available when I came back from my 10 month hiatus a couple months ago and started my honor grind.

deadlights · 02/05/08, 12:25 PM

Where did I ever say it was a bad idea? I just said the gear was subpar and it doesn't matter how easy or hard it is to get because it is not highly desired by players knowledgable about their class.

thevidon · 02/05/08, 12:30 PM

Wowblues keeps crashing. Here are the combat log notes.
_______________________________________________________________________________-

Hello Fellow UI Modders,

With the release of patch 2.4.0, we’ve made some enormous changes to the existing combat log. While this will result in some hard work now, it should be easier to maintain your AddOns in the future.

The feature we’re most proud of is the ability to filter your combat log. The combat log stores the last five minutes worth of raw combat events. Filters can be setup on multiple criteria, affiliation, ownership, etc. Any events that match the current filter are passed through the client via the COMBAT_LOG_EVENT message. The combat log filter is global. However, AddOns which want to parse all events the moment they happen can register for the COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED message. This should allow all existing AddOns to still respond to combat events without a complicated middle-manager AddOn.
While the default combat log will only be setting 1-2 filters at a time, the WoW client supports many simultaneous filters. It’s possible to setup multiple filters to filter very specific source-target-event combinations. If a combat log event passes any of the filters, the COMBAT_LOG_EVENT event fires. This allows AddOns to define extremely specific settings we chose not expose in the base UI.

The new combat log will be coming with two text formats. One is the familiar, grammatically correct sentences with substitutions. The other is a terse format, containing the source, target, spell, action and result. There will be a number of ways to manipulate the formatting, from unit name coloring to coloring the damage numbers by their magic school. The settings used for these formats are stored in the Blizzard_CombatLog_Filters variable.

The result of the new terse format is that it’s very easy to write AddOns to modify or extend the format which ships with 2.4.0. In the formatting section, you can read up on a quick demonstration of how to convert the combat log to a “Nurfed” style combat log. While you can do a lot by just adjusting the settings within WoW, it’s also possible to provide an AddOn that changes the strings used to generate the Combat Log messages. This allows for more extensive formatting changes without re-writing the entire parsing engine. See the Formatting Section for an example.

The whole combat log also supports a new coloring model, based on context. While by default, entire lines are a single color, highlighting the most important details. The combat log also supports coloring just unit names, spells, actions and damage numbers. Spells and damage can also be colored by school. However, there are several features not exposed in the base UI that AddOns can use right away. These are event-specific coloring, unit coloring with greater granularity and the ability to customize the list of highlighted events.

There are several other formatting related features. You can enable timestamps which show the time that spell or attack happened. You can show or hide square braces, change formatting without refreshing the combat log and disable the display of raid icons. These features were too niche to go into the base UI, but can be easily exposed for power users. By now you’ve already thought of some features of your own and are ready to get to coding. So let’s jump straight to some examples.

Formatting & Coloring
One of the major combat log formats we considered while redoing the combat log was the Nurfed Combat Log format. This combat log format was very concise, made heavy use of color-coding and was one of the final candidates for the combat log. We eventually axed it on the basis of being too overwhelming for new users. However, we left in all of the options to convert the current combat log into the Nurfed combat log.

Here’s how:

Combat Log Settings -> Colors

Unit Colors:
Me -> Green
My Pet -> Dark Green
Friends -> Blue
Enemies -> Red
Neutral -> Yellow
Colorize:
Unit Names -> Checked
Spell Names -> Checked
Spell Color-by-School -> Checked
Damage Number -> Checked
Damage Color-by-School -> Checked
Damage School -> Checked
Entire Line -> Unchecked
All Highlighting Options-> Unchecked

Formatting:
Verbose -> Unchecked
Braces -> Checked
Timestamps -> Checked

However, some people may want it even more terse than that. For this, we present:

Hyper Condensed Mode

To get rid of the word “Fire” and “Frost” type:

/script TEXT_MODE_A_STRING_VALUE_SCHOOL = “”;

That will remove the Fire from “55 Fire”. However, let’s go even farther:

(Critical) (Crushing) (Blocked) (Resisted)

All of these are really long. Let’s compress them:

TEXT_MODE_A_STRING_RESULT_RESISTED = "R";
TEXT_MODE_A_STRING_RESULT_BLOCKED = "B";
TEXT_MODE_A_STRING_RESULT_ABSORBED = "A";
TEXT_MODE_A_STRING_RESULT_CRITICAL = "C";
TEXT_MODE_A_STRING_RESULT_GLANCING = "G";
TEXT_MODE_A_STRING_RESULT_CRUSHING = "Cr";

Now we get

[You] [Fireball] Hit [Spider] 64. (C) (5 R)

Filters
Filters consistent of 3 parts:

* Source
* Target
* Events

Source & Target can be one of two types:

* String
* Number

If it is a string, then that string is assumed to be the GUID of the unit in question. If it’s a number, it is assumed to be a bitfield assembled from the following criteria:

Constants

-- Affiliation
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_MINE = 0x00000001;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_PARTY = 0x00000002;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_RAID = 0x00000004;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_OUTSIDER = 0x00000008;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_MASK = 0x0000000F;
-- Reaction
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_REACTION_FRIENDLY = 0x00000010;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_REACTION_NEUTRAL = 0x00000020;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_REACTION_HOSTILE = 0x00000040;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_REACTION_MASK = 0x000000F0;
-- Ownership
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_CONTROL_PLAYER = 0x00000100;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_CONTROL_NPC = 0x00000200;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_CONTROL_MASK = 0x00000300;
-- Unit type
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_PLAYER = 0x00000400;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_NPC = 0x00000800;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_PET = 0x00001000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_GUARDIAN = 0x00002000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_OBJECT = 0x00004000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_MASK = 0x0000FC00;

-- Special cases (non-exclusive)
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TARGET = 0x00010000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_FOCUS = 0x00020000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_MAINTANK = 0x00040000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_MAINASSIST = 0x00080000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_RAIDTARGET1 = 0x00100000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_RAIDTARGET2 = 0x00200000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_RAIDTARGET3 = 0x00400000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_RAIDTARGET4 = 0x00800000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_RAIDTARGET5 = 0x01000000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_RAIDTARGET6 = 0x02000000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_RAIDTARGET7 = 0x04000000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_RAIDTARGET8 = 0x08000000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_NONE = 0x80000000;
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_SPECIAL_MASK = 0xFFFF0000;

A unit can only be one of the following four categories:
1. Affiliation
2. Reaction
3. Ownership
4. Type

Here’s a quick explanation of how these flags are broken down:

Affiliation:
A unit’s affiliation is the unit’s relationship relative to YOU. Either it is owned by you, your party, your raid or someone else.

[[[Mine]Party]Raid] Outsiders

Reaction:
This is the unit’s faction reaction, relative to you. Anything that hates you is Hostile, anything that is friendly with you is Friendly, everything else is Neutral.

Ownership:
This is who owns this object. It can only be controlled by a player or the server.

Unit Type:
This is the way the unit is currently being controlled. Units directly controlled by their owner are players. Units controlled by the server are NPCs. Pets are controlled by another player or unit. Guardians are automatons that are not controlled, but automatically defend their master. Objects are everything else, such as Traps.

The result is that these bits can tell you what kind of unit that combat log object was.

Example:
A player who is dueling you is 0x0548.
(A hostile outsider who is both owned by a player and controlled as a player)
A player who was mind controlled that attacks you is 0x1148.
(A hostile outsiders who is owned by a player, but controlled as a pet)

Default Filters
The default filters are constructed by summing certain bit combinations together:

COMBATLOG_FILTER_MINE = bit.bor (
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_MINE,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_REACTION_FRIENDLY,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_CONTROL_PLAYER,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_PLAYER,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_OBJECT
);

This means that everything colored mine by default must be affiliated with me, friendly, controlled by a player and be a player.

Any unit that matches at least one bit in each of the four exclusive categories will pass the filter test. Filters can have more than one bit set in a category.

COMBATLOG_FILTER_FRIENDLY_UNITS = bit.bor(
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_PARTY,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_RAID,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_AFFILIATION_OUTSIDER,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_REACTION_FRIENDLY,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_CONTROL_PLAYER,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_CONTROL_NPC,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_PLAYER,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_NPC,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_PET,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_GUARDIAN,
COMBATLOG_OBJECT_TYPE_OBJECT
);

This will allow messages relating to any unit who has a friendly reaction with you, the player. (Another way to do this is to use the “_MASK” suffixed globals, rather than specifying all bits, but I did it this way to make the point clear).

Setting up Filters
Each time you call the CombatLogAddFilter() function, you add a new filter. Any unit that passes that filter fires the COMBAT_LOG_EVENT event. For example, if you wanted to see anything that you did and anything hostile enemies.

• Anarkii · 02/05/08, 12:32 PM

It's stupid that we're still discussing this point, but yes it is highly desirable by players knowledgable about their class if they have rolled a fresh 70.

Malan · 02/05/08, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by deadlights

it is not highly desired by players knowledgable about their class.

Did I not just link you the Enhancement set as almost a perfect example of pvp itemization for that spec? I mean I consider myself knowledgable about my class and I'm sure I can get some vouches for that if you need them, and I sure as hell plan on buying up the HWL items to fill in a starter arena set for myself.

Nezralix · 02/05/08, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

Assuming that the 2.4 PTR went up today (its not), we'd be looking at something like 4 months before its live right?

Realistically, I think it'll be up for two months. And then we have to assume *at least* two months before any WotLK beta, and then another 3-4 months before WotLK release. A little bit disconcerting that we'll probably be dealing with TBC content for as long as WoW1.0!

Polleke · 02/05/08, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

Assuming that the 2.4 PTR went up today (its not), we'd be looking at something like 4 months before its live right?

I expect another week of them releasing these small snippets each day. I seriously think they are trying to setup something for the hunderds of guilds that will rush the PTR to try SwP.
I wouldn't be all too suprised if SwP is not even open on the PTR and all this delay is caused by them play testing it internally.

Pyros · 02/05/08, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Nezralix

Realistically, I think it'll be up for two months. And then we have to assume *at least* two months before any WotLK beta, and then another 3-4 months before WotLK release. A little bit disconcerting that we'll probably be dealing with TBC content for as long as WoW1.0!

They might start wotlk beta as soon as PTR is done(or a few days after) for all we know. Because the beta process takes a lengthy amount of time, if they started it as soon as 2.4 went live, it'd still leave their content live for a decent period of time, at least comparing to Naxx in terms of boss/months.

As for PTR today, I don't know, the last post about the class changes saying there weren't that many class changes and whatnot sounds weird the day before patch notes are released. It sounds like they're not totally ready yet, so they're making a few comments ahead of time. I'm somewhat betting for a PTR on friday/saturday(which happened quite a few times before), even tho I'd rather know the changes affecting my class before next clear in case of I'd want to get new items ^^.

Pixen · 02/05/08, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Polleke

I wouldn't be all too suprised if SwP is not even open on the PTR and all this delay is caused by them play testing it internally.

Yeah, I'd have to guess it's a tough balance. On the one hand, you want to make sure your new content is tested thoroughly. On the other hand, you don't want people torching the instance the first week it's out because they already ran it ad naseum on the PTR. What can you do.

Zyxx · 02/05/08, 12:45 PM

Second part of the Combat Log change notes, including Q&A.. and link to original thread:

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> 05/02 2.4.0 Guide to the New Combat Log

Setting up Filters
Each time you call the CombatLogAddFilter() function, you add a new filter. Any unit that passes that filter fires the COMBAT_LOG_EVENT event. For example, if you wanted to see anything that you did and anything hostile enemies did to you, you would call the following
[pre]
CombatLogAddFilter(nil, COMBATLOG_FILTER_MINE, nil)
CombatLogAddFilter(nil, COMBATLOG_FILTER_HOSTILE_UNITS , COMBATLOG_FILTER_MINE nil)
[/pre]

Retrieving Combat Messages
Once you setup your filter, all of the entries which match that filter are organized into a linked list. By calling CombatLogSetCurrentEntry(1), you set the current pointer to the beginning of that list. If no message exists, CombatLogSetCurrentEntry(1) will fail. If you pass a negative number into CombatLogSetCurrentEntry(), it will select the Nth entry from the end of the list.

To move the pointer forward, call CombatLogAdvanceEntry(1) to move to the next entry in the list.

The CombatLogGetCurrentEntry() and COMBAT_LOG_EVENT events will return all of the arguments for that event. The exact argument order depends on the event, but here are the arguments that do not change:

timestamp, event, srcGUID, srcName, srcFlags, dstGUID, dstName, dstFlags = CombatLogGetCurrentEntry()

Events
There are honestly too many events to go into detail on all of them here, but here’s the basic organization.

Base Events:
SWING – These events relate to melee swings, commonly called “White Damage”.
RANGE – These events relate to hunters shooting their bow or a warlock shooting their wand.
SPELL – These events relate to spells and abilities.
SPELL_CAST – These events relate to spells starting and failing.
SPELL_AURA – These events relate to buffs and debuffs.
SPELL_PERIODIC – These events relate to HoT, DoTs and similar effects.
DAMAGE_SHIELD – These events relate to damage shields, such as Thorns
ENCHANT – These events relate to temporary and permanent item buffs.
ENVIRONMENTAL – This is any damage done by the world. Fires, Lava, Falling, etc.

Suffixes:
_DAMAGE – If the event resulted in damage, here it is.
_MISSED - If the event resulted in failure, such as missing, resisting or being blocked.
_HEAL – If the event resulted in a heal.
_ENERGIZE – If the event resulted in a power restoration.
_LEECH – If the event transferred health or power.
_DRAIN – If the event reduces power, but did not transfer it.

Special Events:
PARTY_KILL – Fired when you or a party member kills something.
UNIT_DIED – Fired when any nearby unit dies.

Q & A:
Q: The combat log only stores 5 minutes of events. Why 5? Why not 10?
A: We feel that 5 minutes is a good base number for most players . You can change this length, however with the CombatLogSetRetentionTime(seconds) function.

Q: Will the combat log be saved when I logout to my character list?
A: No. However, if you only reload the UI, the messages stay in the client.

Q: Why did you do it this way? Why didn’t you do it X way?
A: We tried to expose as much information as we could, without compromising gameplay and giving us the feature set we needed.

Q: Why didn’t you include information about who owns <Summoned Pet Name Here>?
A: This was one we considered for a while, but decided to leave out for the sake of simplicity. We’re going to be watching how the new combat log plays out before adding new features or making additional changes.

Q: Why did the CombatLog.txt file change?
A: Changing the CombatLog.txt format freed us to implement the combat log in this new event-driven way. We also felt that providing the combat log as raw data made parsing easier for sites such as WoW Web Stats, avoiding localization issues.

Q: Will the combat log format change again?
A: We’re always dedicated to improving our game, so we will very likely be making changes again in the future. However, we do realize the frustration that comes with AddOns breaking between patches. Hopefully, this new system will actually reduce how often you need to recode your AddOns, by decoupling AddOn authors from localization changes.

Q: Can we provide feedback on the new combat log?
A: Absolutely! We’ll be reading the Test Forums during the 2.4.0 PTR and gathering feedback. The more constructive, clear and concise the feedback is, the more responsive we can be.

deadlights · 02/05/08, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by thevidon

Deadlights, I don't think you have recently had a fully greened out 70 to gear up. It is a terrible awful grind to get the honor epics. I dont understand why you are arguing that people dropping BT epics for this gear is not a gain....thats not who the gear is for. It is a starting point for the fresh 70 who has 7k health and zero stam. This gear is great for them. No it wont take you to the 1800's, but once again that is not its purpose .

Also as previously posted with the bonus and gems it puts you at 140 or so resilience, which is pretty nice. I wish I had this gear available when I came back from my 10 month hiatus a couple months ago and started my honor grind.

I actually do have a resto shammy that just dinged 70 last weekend. So you sir would be wrong. I have 5 70s over all, lock, hunter, mage, warrior and shammy. It's not nearly as painful to gear up as you are insinuating. If you do the daily BG quest while leveling you'll have your first season 1 piece by the day you ding for instance and I'm on the border line of having my 2nd S1 piece today depending on DR calculations. This is while maintaining a raid schedule on my lock in BT/Hyjal so it's not like I'm devoting a terrible amount of time to the shammy.

Malan... my comments regarding HWL are reflective of the current system where you actually have to spend honor to obtain them. And yes I highly question anyone's knowledge of their class and gearing choices if they wasted honor that could be put towards vindicator and/or season 1 pieces but opted for HWL out of impatience. You clearly are offended by that because you took that as my main point when it is not and I addressed that already.

deadlights · 02/05/08, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

Did I not just link you the Enhancement set as almost a perfect example of pvp itemization for that spec? I mean I consider myself knowledgable about my class and I'm sure I can get some vouches for that if you need them, and I sure as hell plan on buying up the HWL items to fill in a starter arena set for myself.

So you dinged 70 under the current system and said... hey let me go spend my honor on HWL instead of Vindicators/S1?

Buiden · 02/05/08, 12:53 PM

The combat log changes are long overdue, makes me wonder why they didn't initially go with an event driven system. It is going to be fun to change all those mods over... heh!

Talgog · 02/05/08, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by deadlights

Where did I ever say it was a bad idea? I just said the gear was subpar and it doesn't matter how easy or hard it is to get because it is not highly desired by players knowledgable about their class.

Compared to what alternative, though? A new 70 does not have the option of acquiring raid gear quickly unless it is handed to them, does not have the option of acquiring S1 gear quickly, period, and can't even stay alive long in battlegrounds much less Arena. The only way he will gain Arena gear at any real rate is by buying points.

The blue gear is "bad" because it costs way too much to get when you just have to upgrade it to S1 anyway. However, it is still iLevel 115 blues statted for PvP, which is waaaay better than quest greens and blues and most instance drops.

Even S1 geared characters do not exactly put out piddling damage. My gear is out of date because of a six-month break (Thunder, Half S2/Half S1) and I can still mow down anyone who isn't in full Glad with very little effort, almost regardless of class. Heck, I insta-gibbed a fresh 70 Ret *paladin* last EoTS I was in. Down in ten seconds from a crit string that started with a Victory Rush crit, and he wears plate. Sure that was a RNG streak, but the whole point of Res. is that it makes that sort of thing far more unlikely.

New 70's absolutely need somewhere to start that doesn't involve being massacred like world guards for what is at least a couple months of RL time.

Puretide · 02/05/08, 12:54 PM

I personally love the idea of having blue pvp sets available from rep. Not only does it make it much easier to get into the pvp world (the difference between 0 resil and 150 is staggering, especially considering the extra HP you get from it, at least in BGs where most of these items will be used), but it'll also help for gearing up a new spec for the hybrids. Like I've been enhancement for the majority of my 70 career, but I've been interested in giving resto a shot. If I can get a set of decent healing gear with just a few gold down, that'd be excellent.

Plus, has it been confirmed if its just the blue set? Or is it all the blue pvp gear (rings, necks, armor, weapons, etc). If it is everything, then you could easily break 200 resilience with just pve rep (plus there is the spirit shard ring too)

KamPa · 02/05/08, 1:00 PM

Originally Posted by deadlights

So you dinged 70 under the current system and said... hey let me go spend my honor on HWL instead of Vindicators/S1?

Which exactly why this gear is being made available through vendors. Back in S1, when there no Vindicators and you only had Season 1 on Arena, there was no alternative, so some might actually get HWL set. Just as S2 = discount on S1, there should've been discount on HWL gear when S1 was changed into honor gear.

And on different note, they better not break WWS with combat log changes

Or does it actually add some improvements there?

deadlights · 02/05/08, 1:14 PM

Originally Posted by KamPa

Which exactly why this gear is being made available through vendors. Back in S1, when there no Vindicators and you only had Season 1 on Arena, there was no alternative, so some might actually get HWL set. Just as S2 = discount on S1, there should've been discount on HWL gear when S1 was changed into honor gear.

And on different note, they better not break WWS with combat log changes

Or does it actually add some improvements there?

I never said any of that was false. I swear people just read what they want to read. All I said was the gear was subpar and it is. And that people opting for HWL gear are making questionable gearing choices and they are currently. And my main point was that it makes no difference how easy it is to get or how hard it is to get. If this vendor idea had never been floated to begin with and instead blizz said they were just eliminating the HWL gear from loot tables would anyone be complaining? I highly doubt it.

Why? Exactly what you said. It's no where near worth the effort it takes to get it and no one who is knowledgable about their class is going to spend their honor buying HWL gear when it can be used for MUCH better gear if they wait a little longer.

Say for instance they spread the set pieces out to different factions and require revered to buy, which is the baseline for blue lvl 70 pve items. Would you really be interested in rep grinding to revered with 5 different factions to accumulate the set?

Buiden · 02/05/08, 1:14 PM

Originally Posted by KamPa

And on different note, they better not break WWS with combat log changes

Or does it actually add some improvements there?

According to the post, CombatLog.txt did in fact change so I'd imagine they will have to rewrite some parsing code.

Malan · 02/05/08, 1:20 PM

Originally Posted by deadlights

So you dinged 70 under the current system and said... hey let me go spend my honor on HWL instead of Vindicators/S1?

No, I hit 70 almost a year ago and said "screw the honor system, BGs suck" and never touched them. Then I wanted to do Arenas at some point but got destroyed because I hadn't spent umpteen hours grinding honor to get some basic resilience gear. Now I, or a fresh char, can walk up to a vendor and pick up a decent pvp set just from questing normally and earning reputations. Is it 'scrub' gear? Yes. Is it 'bad itemization that shows you know nothing about class'? Hell no.

[e] You keep talking about 'waiting to use honor for something better' than the HWL gear. I don't understand why you're bringing up how the current system does it, we're talking about how it will work in 2.4 when the gear is available for reputation from Thrallmar, Cenarion, Lower City, etc etc vendors.

KamPa · 02/05/08, 1:22 PM

Originally Posted by deadlights

Why? Exactly what you said. It's no where near worth the effort it takes to get it and no one who is knowledgable about their class is going to spend their honor buying HWL gear when it can be used for MUCH better gear if they wait a little longer.

By the same logic, it makes no sense to buy S2 stuff, when you can get S3 if you wait a little longer - with exception of two items. Either way, no point arguing, there's no readily available PvP gear on 70 - since grinding thousands of honor doesn't counts as such for me - which means that even "subpar" one for free is better than nothing.