• Smithist

It's certainly not terrible, but a bit strange. The abundance of spirit and complete lack of hit has left some (mages at least) scratching their heads. Here's hoping there's a few other items like the 50-hit staff waiting to be found.

 

Moogul

I've been wondering this too. Looking at the graphics posted on MMO-champion, many of the sets have multiple different colourschemes, and not all of these seem to be present yet.

For instance, MMO-champ showed 4 different colours for the Plate set, yet the Transmute vendor shows only 2 colours - the prot paladin/healing paladin loot shares 1 colour, and the dps warrior/tank warrior shares another. This means that 2 of the colourschemes are unaccounted for.

I see three possible reasons:

1) the datamined coloursets were ideas they had, but eventually decided to just go with the 2 colours we've seen on the vendor.

2) they haven't gotten round to changing them yet, and eventually they will spread the colours out, so dps warrior is a different colour to prot warrior, and prot paladin is a different colour to holy paladin

3) the other colourschemes are for loot we haven't seen yet, quite possibly the 'sets' that were referenced in previews

 

Malan

I was just thinking of the same thing. The new system of turn-ins is helpful to be sure, but it definitely means more competition between specs/classes that previously never had interaction on loot.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Batguus

Reporting back from the Int/Spirit thread, the conclusions are:

- Mana regen from spirit no longer differs between classes.
- There is no more base mana regen.
- Mana regen from spirit now depends exclusively on Intellect, Spirit and Level.

For lvl 70 characters the new formula is:
Mana per 5 seconds from spirit = (0.001+SPI*0.009327*(INT^0.5))*5

The constant is different for other levels, check the Theorycrafting thread for the complete list put together by Whitetooth, and any further discussion of the formula should also go there of course, just wanted to report on the results of the Math Geeks.

 

Malan

So the real difference now is just talents in a tree that affect the spirit regen in the 5sec rule?

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

gia

The general idea seems to get items for the more popular specs in the loot table while also having loot available for offspecs on the vendor. It reduces randomness by making the actual loot table smaller and reduces the chance a raid gets an item that nobody at all can use while at the same time providing properly itemized loot for everyone. Win - Win. The trade is not always in the same direction (resto->elemental or elemental->resto) to avoid a "sunmote tax" on specific specs (like elemental shamans) so they don't have to use a sunmote every time they loot an item.

I don't know much about ehn. shaman and hunter itemization but I'm guessing they just made generic mail drops itemized for both of them so no trade in is required. Just like there is nothing itemized for ret paladins, they expect them to use the generic plate dps that is intended for warriors too, the fact that they are no longer reliant on spell damage helps a lot to that end.

 

Enova

Actually, until we see some more loot tables, we can't really be sure. However, the items you can purchase might actually be drops as well, and the only real reason that you can trade something else for them would be a quick and last moment respec, or to turn an item that you just replaced into offspec gear. Most likely wishful thinking, but, again, I'd like to see the full loot tables first...

So far, I haven't actually seen any physical dps mail at all, hunter or otherwise. Again, that simply may mean there's no need to trade them because the gear itself will be itemized to suit both classes' needs, but I'd damn well like to see some +strength, + haste mail for shamans, and some low stamina, no haste, insane agility mail for hunters.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Midnight

Actually this throws up a diffrent question.
As there are currently only two cloth sets (healing/spelldamage) for three classes whereas at least leather and plate wearers get four sets for two classes and mail will propably follow suit assuming there´ll be two new sets for enh. shaman/hunters. If every set would drop equally often that´d leave cloth wearers at a huge disadvantage. So the question is - will Blizzard try to balance it out with an not-so-RNG or will they just settle for two more cloth sets which would still leave them at an - admittedly smaller - disadvantage?

 

• Falk

Or, turn all the tanking/healing gear in for levelling gear when WotLK releases. Asides from the fact that instancing may be the best way to level, I'd bet more than a few people would want to experience each zone as it was designed to be experienced, so having the gear to play solo (at the gear level reflecting this expansions' achievements) without having to collect a set of offspec loot seems pretty awesome to me.

 

Hythloday

I would assume the unseen sets are S4 items.

 

Bendyr

This is going to force a lot of guilds into a Loot Council distribution, IMO.

 

gia

The point of the trade is to make niche items tradeable into other niche items, the generic cloth damage gear without spirit is certainly in the loot table already and there's no need to trade it since it's the most popular.

 

Malan

I don't think so, the vendor clearly states which item you need to turn in for exchange. If what you said was true, every item would be listed as a possible turn in for one of the other items. But that's not how it is on the vendor, its very specific items giving you access to one for a different role. Its slightly better this way because it means the boss loot table can be smaller and let you see all the items more frequently, ie retadin, moonkin and elemental loot isn't clouding up the loot tables. But it does increase the competition for the item that does drop since its effectively a set token.

Its also going to make looting a pain in the ass since everyone will need to figure out which item the drop is exchangeable for before they make any bids/claims on the item.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Akka

Maybe a way for Blizzard to make yellow slots a bit more interesting for casters.

If violence doesn't solve your problem...
... you simply haven't been violent enough !

 

gia

I'm really curious on how Magtheridon was changed, the odds of someone actually putting a raid together on the PTR and heading to him instead of SP are very low though. My money is on Mind Exhaustion being completely removed so that you no longer have to rotate people clicking the cubes.

 

Enova

Yes and no; for instance, looking at the turn ins currently listed on the previous page, you can see 3 turn ins from dps plate to tanking plate, and only one from tanking to dps plate

Also, one turn in from feral to rogue, and 4 from rogue to feral; granted, the feral druid gear seems VERY dps itemized, but given the disparity between a druid and a warrior's defense rating requirements, I'm sure some of these pieces could easily be used in a kit of tanking gear.

So, it's pretty early to get a good idea on what Blizzard's idea is for this whole gear exchange thing.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Seneku

Am I the only one thats having a big problem with this distribution system?

On our average raid we take: (Split into "token" groups)
2 Prot Warriors, 1 DPS Warrior, 0 Retri Paladins.
1-2 Feral Druids, 2 Rogues.
3 Holy Pallies, 0 Prot.
2 Resto Shaman, 0 Elemental Shaman.

Unconfirmed Groups(?)
1-2 Hunters, 0 Enh Shaman,

So those guys are all competing within their "groups" for the loot...then we have the clothies all competing for 1 set:
1-2 Holy Priests, 2-3 Shadow Priests, 2-3 Mages, 3-4 Locks...

That is a massive imbalance in competition for items for us and probably many similar guilds, much worse than any of the current/previous token assignments. I seriously hope that they're going to be balancing this out some way as it makes any DKP system an utter farce due to the lack of competition within certain groups compared to others.

 

Thorongil

While it might be true that looting could be more complicated I definitely favor it the way they seem to do it in Sunwell. Wider usage-variety for one drop means less disenchanting and there´s nothing more pointless to a raid than shards instead of distributed items. Also, it will benefit those raids who have good communication and mutual understanding since loot distribution will be much easier in a homogeneous group.

However, I agree with Enova so far that until we have loot tables for the bosseswe really can´t figure how the system really is intended to be working.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Idril.png

 

starsin

I don't think this new system is a problem. If there's a cloth item with +spelldmg you let Warlocks/Mages bid/roll on it and if there's a +heal cloth item then your cloth healer will bid on this. The new system comes in handy when you get too much drops of +spelldmg gear or +heal because you are now able to trade items and maybe after 5 +spelldmg and zero +heal drops you just give the +spelldmg item to a healer who can trade it for a +heal item. Same for leather/plate/mail armors.

 

vorda

Thats maybe how you guys would do it, but say a healing item drops and the only person who wants it is 'unreliable raider A'. Instead of giving it to him, you can give it to 'reliable mage B' and just make him swap the item.

As said previously, this new system favors loot council alot imo.

 

Midnight

I think you misunderstood how the system works. There won´t be any spelldamage drops. There´ll only be addhealing items that can be traded for spelldamage items. Spelldamage items can´t be traded for addhealing items in return though. Of course this is just what we know yet and might change in future.

 

Moogul

Except that set tokens have been posing this exact same situation since AQ40. Each item the drops is a choice between 2 items, it's just that rather than being in a token form that can become either ItemA or ItemB, it's already in ItemA form but that can become ItemB. If you think loot council is better for this new loot, then presumably you also thought loot council was best for old token loot too.

Now, as for the apparent *grouping* of the tokens, that's a complete other matter, and yes, from what we've seen so far, it doesn't look good for clothies. It's going to be the reverse of hero tokens, by all appearances.

 

starsin

We would do it exactly the same way as you mentioned. I referred more to situation were the players are equal in terms like reliability and so on. If you have some slackers in the raid then this system becomes even better. I agree with that one.


Ok, i didn't know that one. So we'll have to wait for some bosskills and more drops.

 

Seneku

From what we've seen from the Transmute vendor so far thats half true, basically half a set drops and the other half is available via a transmute of items so in the case of rogues you can have healer helm and chest dropping but the DPS caster Shoulders, legs, gloves are drops. In order to get a full set you will have to transmute half of your gear to whatevers appropriate, at least that's how it appears (and yes I did make up the item allocations but its purely illustrative).

As it stands Priests and DPS casters will all be competing for 1 set of items dropping in comparison to other classes/roles being split dramatically, an average raid group will have 2-4 chars per group except clothies, they're looking at 9+ for their loot.

 

Fendryl

Sunmote rarity will probably play into it. If they're relatively common, or don't have a lot of other uses, I could see why a guild would just lump the transmute version in with the base item. If they're rare, or have other uses, I could see them being 'second class' items.