The New Caster Legendary

♦ Lrigatonmai · 05/23/06, 3:09 PM

Given the hype surrounding the legendary staff that is supposed to be present in Naxx, I'd like to ask the kind people here how they felt about it.

Specifically, how does your guild plan on handling the shards? Are you going to pick a person to try to focus your collection efforts on (assuming they really do have to collect 40 some-odd shards), or are you going to let people grab them as they come until someone completes it (again assuming the only item necessary is the shards, I doubt it)?

Will you give drops by DKP, or will the progression value of the staff be weighed in to decide who should get it? I've noticed that it gives a buff aura to the wielder, will this affect which class you choose (if you are doing such a thing) to give the staff too?

We've already had some of our caster-folk drooling over the thing on our forums. Even though it is almost certainly going to be rare and it will probably be months before we actually see anyone with a completed one, I'd like to get some input on how any of you plan on handling it. I'm hoping to at least have a plan going in to what we're going to do, just like we have for thunderfury now. And I realize that if the stats I have seen are true that it is an amazing weapon for all casters, my main concern is making sure the buff aura is on someone who is usually in a position where it will be most effective. This reasoning leads me to think that a druid or priest in the MT healing group would be the best candidate for the staff. However, I'm open to suggestions and would really like some input on how some of the other guilds plan on handling it.

Thanks for your input.

Kalman · 05/23/06, 3:14 PM

My theory: splinters drop every time, from every boss. Except Kel'thuzad, whose item will have an Eye/Bindingish drop rate.

So I think (when we get there) we'll just /roll them to interested casters. When someone gets the rare item, at worst they'll have 2 weeks of Naxx to wait to get the rest of their splinters.

(This is based on the assumption that the splinters will be guaranteed or very common.)

♦ Praetorian · 05/23/06, 3:20 PM

That might be a very inefficient approach. If you look at the completed Frame, it's a right-click to begin a quest item. My hunch is that once you have the Frame, you get the head as a quest-drop from Kel (a la Essence of the Firelord for Thunderfury). The Splinters, instead, may be the limiting factor.

We'll be picking someone before we set foot in Naxx who will loot all the splinters, with attendance being a major factor since in their absence splinters will go to waste.

Also, the item itself is nothing spectacular. Take away the aura and both healers AND offensive casters can do better. Really. So the aura is everything, and the most useful auras, by far, are the mage and warlock ones. That's my way of thinking, anyway.

♦ Lrigatonmai · 05/23/06, 3:25 PM

As someone who has always preferred melee chars in MMO's, I have to ask, why do you consider the mage and warlock aura's to be more beneficial?

Because they can really help all casters while the priest, and to a lesser extent, druid auras only really benefit healers?

♦ Praetorian · 05/23/06, 3:28 PM

Yes. Because damage is king and you can never have enough. Mana regen is only crucial in a fraction of fights. A bit of extra +healing for a few people (and only if you stack the group and make your healers stand near each other) similarly so. Damage is useful in all fights, from clearing trash to killing the big boss at the end of the zone. You can fudge a bit of healing and you can fudge regen with consumables or more efficient use of mana, but there is no substitute for raw damage. I want a mage or a warlock wielding this thing in a warlock/mage/mage/mage/priest group, personally.

If my raid can kill something faster, then that saves healer mana too.

saramin · 05/23/06, 3:28 PM

Edit: Redundant to what Gurg said.

Brown Bread · 05/23/06, 3:32 PM

I'd say the Druid one is best for sure, the extra regen could benefit every class with mana but the warlock/mage one would be only really beneficial to those two classes, the crit from the mage staff would be handy for healers but meh.

Edit: Beaten

♦ Lrigatonmai · 05/23/06, 3:33 PM

That makes sense to me. We're almost certainly going to be focusing our efforts on one person. However, we (the officers of our guild) were trying to decide who should be the "chosen one."

Brown Bread · 05/23/06, 3:39 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

Yes. Because damage is king and you can never have enough. Mana regen is only crucial in a fraction of fights. A bit of extra +healing for a few people (and only if you stack the group and make your healers stand near each other) similarly so. Damage is useful in all fights, from clearing trash to killing the big boss at the end of the zone. You can fudge a bit of healing and you can fudge regen with consumables or more efficient use of mana, but there is no substitute for raw damage. I want a mage or a warlock wielding this thing in a warlock/mage/mage/mage/priest group, personally.

If my raid can kill something faster, then that saves healer mana too.

I don't know about this, I feel that mana is more of an issue on the harder fights than damage, especially when mages and warlocks suffer from agro problems. I'd go for the regen simply because it allows you to be so much more versatile, and even if you had a fight where damage was more of an issue than healing the extra regen wouldn't hurt a mage or warlock either.

Kalman · 05/23/06, 3:40 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

That might be a very inefficient approach. If you look at the completed Frame, it's a right-click to begin a quest item. My hunch is that once you have the Frame, you get the head as a quest-drop from Kel (a la Essence of the Firelord for Thunderfury). The Splinters, instead, may be the limiting factor.

Well, approaches designed around one set of assumptions often are inefficient when put into a system with totally different assumptions. :)

Splinter-limiting seems like a very painful approach to me, given the necessity of so many splinters. I really do feel the splinters will be common, the C'thun item will be the "Essence of the Firelord" equivalent, and the Kel'thuzad item will be the limiting factor.

Circumstantial evidence against splinter-limiting:

On average, Blizzard seems to feel that a legendary item should occur for a given timer every ~30 weeks (using drop rates as the limiting assumption, both Bindings and Eye come in around 3%). If every boss in Naxx has a chance to drop a splinter (safe assumption, if the first one can drop splinters), then the splinter drop rate in order to maintain the 30 week "goal" would need to be around 7% (expectation for N independent trials is equivalent to N*p(event). If events have dissimilar probabilities, its the sum of the probabilities per event.) It should become clear very quickly whether this is the kind of drop rate we're seeing.

♦ Praetorian · 05/23/06, 3:47 PM

What if the splinters were a 20% drop rate?

Why even bother making them BoP if they aren't the limiting factor? Ingots aren't BoP. Elementium isn't.

I think the Splinters are BoP because the 40 of them, collectively, are meant to serve as the equivalent of the two Bindings of the Windseeker. The problem with two very rare drops is that probability is a whore, and you can end up with one guild getting both in one night while another guild gets zero in a year.

The solution is to let the law of averages do its thing. Instead of two super-rare drops, have 40 uncommon drops, so that no matter how unlucky a guild gets, a clear is almost certain to yield at least a few splinters towards that goal, and no one is going to hit the jackpot and get the whole thing in one day. That's how I'd design it, anyway.

We'll know soon enough as more raids kill some early Naxx bosses. My hunch? A 20% or so rate, yielding ~3 splinters on average per clear.

♦ Lrigatonmai · 05/23/06, 3:54 PM

As someone who has been holding Garr bindings for months, I have no desire to see splinters spread around. Our focus will be on one person to be safe, so we don't end up in the position of some guilds (thankfully, not my own, Geddon is just a bitch) who now have one person with Garr's bindings while 2 other people are holding on to Geddon's. Our view for now is it's best to be safe and designate someone who will most help with the aura and who is trustworthy to be the focus of the effort.

Kalman · 05/23/06, 3:59 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

What if the splinters were a 20% drop rate?

Why even bother making them BoP if they aren't the limiting factor? Ingots aren't BoP. Elementium isn't.

I think the Splinters are BoP because the 40 of them, collectively, are meant to serve as the equivalent of the two Bindings of the Windseeker. The problem with two very rare drops is that probability is a whore, and you can end up with one guild getting both in one night while another guild gets zero in a year.

The solution is to let the law of averages do its thing. Instead of two super-rare drops, have 40 uncommon drops, so that no matter how unlucky a guild gets, a clear is almost certain to yield at least a few splinters towards that goal, and no one is going to hit the jackpot and get the whole thing in one day. That's how I'd design it, anyway.

We'll know soon enough as more raids kill some early Naxx bosses. My hunch? A 20% or so rate, yielding ~3 splinters on average per clear.

If they're a 20% drop rate, you'd see a staff on average every 11 weeks, 3 times as fast as the drop rates on the other items imply is desired by Blizzard.

If the splinters are the limiting factor, assuming the same desired rate of legendary accumulation, the drop rate needs to be on the order of 7%.

• Hamlet · 05/23/06, 4:08 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

while another guild gets zero in a year.

Coming up on a year from first Garr kill on 6/02. One more chance . . .
The sad part is that all the people who were slated to receive them at various points are still in the guild.

Actually, just talking about this reminds me of the long period of time where I actively hoped they wouldn't drop, because we didn't know what they were for, and it would have been an RP nightmare.

-------------

As far as the staff, I'll basically agree with above posters--there's no reason not to designate someone before you start. Maybe they should be willing to take the RP hit (or a fraction of it) at the beginning of the whole operation, if necessary (perhaps after it's known exactly what is involved, though).

Since the effect of the item on a raid-wide scale is not as large as, say, Thunderfury, picking the person isn't something to agonize about. I expect most guilds will just go by their RP with a strong restriction on attendance.

• Hamlet · 05/23/06, 4:11 PM

Originally Posted by Kalman

If they're a 20% drop rate, you'd see a staff on average every 11 weeks, 3 times as fast as the drop rates on the other items imply is desired by Blizzard.

If the splinters are the limiting factor, assuming the same desired rate of legendary accumulation, the drop rate needs to be on the order of 7%.

One thing that makes me suspicious about this is the "Portal to Karazhan" ability. How important will this be? Will every guild need one in reasonably short order? It is just a minor convenience?

If it's an important ability, then Blizz is probably tuning for more of these things to be running around than previous Legendaries.