Zephro

The original idea was to have it not work outside of PVP, which solves that problem.

That's skating close to explicit and enforced PVP and PVE gear, I suppose. Maybe they should just do that.

 

Talgog

They can certainly have specific "not on players" flags for abilities, the most notorious one being warlock Curse of Doom which is understandable as my baby 67 lock can break 7K with trinket and Amp. Curse. So Blizzard can clearly code for quick check flags for PC's as well as for things like mob class versus specific stats (+200 damage to undead, etc.). They also have "increase damage taken" mechanics already in game with the engineering belt.

It would certainly seem to be within their capabilities to write a set bonus penalty that would increase damage taken from players by XXX or reduce your resilience by 200 when fighting players, which would serve the same purpose as the no stamina while not impacting the splash damage issue.

Blizzard has probably considered doing something like this at some point, and appear to have rejected it.

 

mclem

On a similar note, this would invalidate these pieces for my Hydross tanking set; admittedly, the difference in levels of progression would make that irrelevant, but if it turned out that there was a similar resistance fight in Sunwell, it'd somewhat reduce the options for gearing for it.

 

Yaelle

As a Feral Druid I really think negative resilience could be a solution one could think about.
Why do Feral Druids use resilience after all ? It's because high end gear lacks defense so much, we have to fill a gap to be crit-immune. I think this could work under two other circumstances.
- Enough defense on high end gear so we don't have to rely on resilience for crit-immunity.
- If resilience is zero or below, it does not increase the chance to be critically hit.

 

Lau

The problem with feral tanks is that Defense is a poor (maybe even bad) stat as a whole, whereas dodge/agility does not help preventing from being critically hit.
I have the feeling that using a PvP base stat in PvE to balance this is not optimal design...
As someone stated, they could add a new stat that adds dodge and non-crit/non-hit (so basically, it's defense without parry and block), with a budget slightly more interesting than defense for druid. But well, adding a new stat for this specific purpose is maybe a bit annoying. We could also imagine solving the problem through talents, having part of agility return some non-crit bonus, e.g.

Another idea is having a talent that improves the bonus gained from Defense (say you double the dodge bonus, for instance, this will at least replace parry) and add Defense to the PvE feral sets. The main problem is that, this way, this kind of set couldn't be used for dps purpose (or, at least, wouldn't be the best for it). Well, let's add another set, or let "feral dps" use non-set equipment... would that be a big deal? At least, it will solve all these problems of having a single set being usable for dps AND tanking (it's nice that druids have this particularity, compared to paladins and warriors, but is it worth the effort ?)

 

Seneku

Time to perhaps look at a "Feral Defence" stat, akin to Feral AP which would allow it to be lower cost on stat budget and perhaps only effective in Bear/Dire bear form. Atm no Druid Tier item has any defence on it because the Tier items generally have to cater for both tanking and DPS yet they still need to hit the crit immune cap. If it were to have something like say "Equip: Increases Deral Defence Rating by 25 while in Bear/Dire Bear Form, Equip: Increases Feral AP by 100 while in Cat form" would something like that not be more efficient and at the same time reduce the risk of something like the old prob we had pre 2.1 where Bears were doing almost as much dmg as cats and without sacrificing tankability.

Mind you this is straying OT I guess so apologies.

 

Enova

Actually, expanding further on that little though, you could actually have "feral combat rating", which acts either as defense/dodge or AP/crit in the adequate forms.

Guilty as charged ^

 

Gumibear

I'd gladly trade every bit of intellect on the new gear for stamina. Intellect has poor returns for a warlock and stamina is at least good for "oh shit" moments.

 

raffy

Or, Blizzard could just make Survival of the Fittest (our tank talent for -3% chance to be crit, with 3 talent points) a straight up -5.6% chance to be crit, then Feral Druid's don't have to worry about defense/resilence for PvE and can better fit the role of tank/dps hybrid.

 

impossible!

Easily doable, I'm sure, seeing as how set bonuses already cater to forms. Unfortunately, the level of versatility offered by this is a little more delicate than you're making it out to be. You would effectively be able to switch gear sets mid-combat with no repercussions.

Your OT protection warrior in his DPS kit sure as hell can't swap into his tanking gear when your MT eats an unlucky crush, salvaging the wipe.

edit: And yes, I do realize it's pure to hybrid class comparisons. I just don't think offering that much role swapping mid-combat is an easy thing to balance.

 

Seneku

This kinda what they're already doing in terms of the tiered gear atm, the "jack of all trades" style set which really is master of none because you need all sorts of additional stuff from other items to supplement it. This is ofc especially true when you factor in gems/enchants on the items which can change a DPS item into a Tanking item already, difference is you cant ofc change it in combat atm.

 

SanSul

This idea of flagging gave me a good idea probably already suggested. PvP gear would get a bonus, all stats would be buffed by 20% when entering a battleground and arena. Would remain normal for outdoor, and would be nerfed by 20% when entering an instance or raid.

This way, PvP gear would maintain an advantage in pvp, would still be usable for solo and dailies, and would be inferior for collecting pve gear. It would also solve the issue of people using arena rewards over the raid drops for pure dps. PvPers could still get their ``welfare epics`` but they simply would not be as versatile as they are now, but a line would still be drawn between pvp gear and pve gear. Pve gear would ofcourse recieve no penalty and would be the most versatile gear in the game to have for all situations, just not the best for all situations.

 

Malan

I think the solution of 'negative resilience' works if you're talking about a fully geared Arena competitor in the current season, but that pretty royally screws over some guys that want to transition from PvE into PvP and don't have any BG or Arena gear to fill those slots. Putting a -20 Resilience on his belt that negates the resilience on his PvP trinket (for example) is a pretty good kick in the nuts.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Zaq

0 Stam on said belt is not exactly roses and sunshine either though. I really hope the lock set gets some of that stam back, it's nice to still be over the gibb hp levels after I lifetap. It seems like such a rushed job, with little thought given to the implications of increased raid-damage but more squishiness.

"I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions. I'm just, like, inviting you to join me on the bandwagon of my own uncertainty." -Taylor Mali

 

• Playered

Considering the implication is of PvP reflection, why dont they just make the Gladiator (cross season making this completly fucking viable) set bonus move from 4 part to 5 part? everyone is using it anyway and you dont exactly mix/match PvP gear when you have exactly 1 option for each slot (considering the cross season set bonus too) unlike PvE where theres a reason for a 4part+1part optional before.

However, I dont mind my new pieces, im sure several DPSers dont mind their pieces (except Warlocks who love stamina so they can lifetap more to increase their DPS...) either, and a complete revert of them would be somewhat annoying as to these classes they have got their hand in the cookie jar and they dont want to let go.

 

Grub

This makes me sad. This alongside the other recent 2.4 changes have convinced me that Blizzard is quite serious about PvP balance. I assume that the Skull is still a competitive high end trinket even without the stacking mechanic, though?

 

• Playered

Alternate PvP option which gives 0 impact on PvE: Make it a Magic Effect thus dispellable?
They cant keep going on eliminating PvE items for the sake of PvP forever, heck I actually think the Naaru Sliver is a channeled mana restore simply to reduce its viability in PvP because it sure as hell is a non-attractive thing to have in PvE as a healer in most cases (considering the relative gain from Memento).

Can they not just throw a flag which makes these items 'fizzle' in PvP? then again the massive stacking of strong abilities makes the burst potential over-strong in general, it needs to end up being addressed in PvE aswell for the long-term implications (ie: LGG became a flat +HP modifer instead of a %age based one).

 

impossible!

Given that they're [seemingly] trying to make it easier to get started in PvP -- reputation items, easier honor -- would it really be that big a deal?

 

achille

Playered, you might want to change your sig since drain mana got nerfed to oblivion with the soul syphon nerf, the relience buff and the now reverted base mana drain coefficients

Is emberstorm decreasing incinerate casting time past rank 1 (ie the tooltip is messed up) or it's really that stupid?

 

Tyrian

Yes, the dissappointment stems from the fact that because its an Illidan drop - many felt it was justified in having that extra nice perk. Myself included, of course

 

Maeltne

So I was thinking about the moronic removal of stamina from all new T6 pieces, and was trying to come up with another solution. The best I was able to come of with was the changing the PvE 4 pieces bonus to a 5 piece bonus.

There is a small window where this would be a nerf (i.e. when you have 4 pieces, but not 5), but in the end it is business as usual.

Seems to be to be a much better solution that the current one. Thoughts?

 

achille

I had the same thought. Anyway, talking about warlocks since that's what i'm currently playing, i'd never use the old tier6 belt/boots/bracers + say shoulders just to keep useless set bonuses and loose all the stam and resilience anyway.

 

Riallatar

Why does it have to be a flat Resilience reduction?

Could they do something like 'Reduces Resilience by 5%?'

They don't have to balance this stat with ratings, because every top tier piece could have that stat from here to eternity - it wouldn't make any difference to a raider as far as progression goes.

Just let it be a flat % - I know they moved away from this in the past, but this may be a case where it actually makes sense.

For the new-to-pvp player, a -2% Resilience stat would turn 20 resilience into 19. Sucks, but not a big deal. For the full-on PvP player, it would turn 400 resilience into 380. Noticeable difference between the two. Stack up enough of these and it becomes a big deal if most of the raiding sets have the stat on them.

Edit: I suck at math.

 

Elendril

This is the same kind of reasoning that had people arguing that Thunderfury should be absurdly powerful - "But it's a legendary!". Skull of Gul'dan is still the best caster trinket in the game - now it just follows the same rules as every other clicky trinket.

 

Gumibear

I don't think anyone is going to argue that the current Skull of Gul'dan is on par with the power level of pre-nerf Thunderfury. What part of the game is being harmed by letting the Skull and Hex Shrunken Head or Icon of the Silver Crescent stack? No one in their right mind is going to use combos like that in the arena.