That's under the assumption that reforging only works on one's own gear.
It doesn't, it works on anyones gear. They specifically said it wasn't self only during the blizzcon panel. But well, everything could be changed until it's released, I guess. Maybe it'll require some reagent (think vellums) to do it on others though but that's just cosmetic.
Has there been any talk about what will happen to buffs, specifically Paladin blessings? Blessing of Might is straight AP, does that change or does the no AP thing only apply to gear itself? The same goes with Blessing of Wisdom and it's mp/5. Does it become a straight Spirit buff? That would conflict with priests then and most likely wouldn't stack.
I'd imagine Battle Shout falls in the same category as BoM as well. I'd imagine Arcane Brilliance will have to be tweaked also now that Intellect gives spell power as well.
I'm not entirely sold on the "remove all spirt and return 50% of it to hit" idea and think we're reading too much into his example (because he's always careful with his examples, right?). The example lends a little credence to it because he happens to pick two stats from different worlds where losing spirit and gaining 50% equivalent hit isn't a big deal for a dps caster. However, from a high level design perspective, it would make more sense to just reduce one stat by a certain % and add the equivalent into another stat that doesn't already appear on the item. That way the item retains its stat budget for its ilevel. Completely removing one stat for half of another effectively reduces the item's ilevel and only really makes sense in specific situations like spirit > hit.
Isn't this specifically what they want? They explicitly said they didn't want forging gear to be a min/maxers dream. It was to help fill some gaps and make some unwanted gear potentially useful again. You have to sacrifice iLevel on gear in order to change it. Makes sense to me.
Has there been any talk about what will happen to buffs, specifically Paladin blessings? Blessing of Might is straight AP, does that change or does the no AP thing only apply to gear itself? The same goes with Blessing of Wisdom and it's mp/5. Does it become a straight Spirit buff? That would conflict with priests then and most likely wouldn't stack.
I'd imagine Battle Shout falls in the same category as BoM as well. I'd imagine Arcane Brilliance will have to be tweaked also now that Intellect gives spell power as well.
From what I could gather at the panels, the jury is still out on the AP issue. They said when it comes to shared items (rings, trinkets, necks, cloaks, etc) they will likely have AP on those items so they remain attractive for a larger spectrum of classes. I imagine buffs will behave the same way, but I think it's still on the drawing board.
Isn't this specifically what they want? They explicitly said they didn't want forging gear to be a min/maxers dream. It was to help fill some gaps and make some unwanted gear potentially useful again. You have to sacrifice iLevel on gear in order to change it. Makes sense to me.
You don't necessarily have to sacrifice item level to accomplish this in the 'unwated gear' scenario. 50% less Spirit for equivalent Hit rating is still a an effective sacrifice to a dps caster since the remaining Spirit is still useless to them. Thus the item doesn't compare to an item that's itemized for your role. However, take an item that would be itemized for a dps caster and replace spirit in the spirt > hit with crit. I just can't see removing all crit from an item to boost 50% of it into hit as something they want to have happen.
Maybe salvaging unwanted gear is the only intention from reforging. But from GC's comments ("Think of reforging more as a consolation prize or as a way to work around things like hit caps" in particular), that doesn't seem to be its only intent. Sticking with the dps caster theme, completely removing crit to boost one's hit by a fraction of that crit is taking an already desireable item and making it worse just to juggle the hit cap. That just doesn't make sense to me as much as it would to simply reduce crit by X% and add hit by X% of crit.
While I look forward to all the changes anounced the faction and race change is what I'm most excited about. However, I dug up the original faction change thread and saw no tentative date for when this might be and I saw nothing in this thread about it either other than it's relation to same faction race changes. Has there been any mention on when either of these things would happen or can we expect to just have to wait until the expansion?
I'm a little concerned about how itemization is going to fall out of all of this.
Right now it looks something like this:
DPS Caster Cloth (SP/Hit) -- wanted by 3xMages, 3xWarlocks, Shadow Preists
Healer Cloth (SP/Spirit) -- Wanted by 2xPriests
Melee Leather (Agi) -- Wanted by 3xRogues, Feral Druids(DPS/tank)
Caster Leather(SP/Spirit) -- Wanted by 2xDruids
DPS Mail (Int/Agi) -- Wanted by 3xHunters, Enh Shaman
Caster Mail(SP/Hit) -- Wanted by Ele Shaman, very rare
Healer Mail(SP/MP5) -- Wanted by Resto Shaman, usually used by Ele Shaman
DPS Plate(Str) -- Wanted by 3xWarriors, 2xPaladins, 3xDKs
Healing Plate(SP/MP5) -- Wanted by Holy Paladins
This is a mess and needs addressing, sure, but, as pointed out, if DPS Mail changes to Agi and no Int, then it's going to look exactly like melee leather. Furthermore, if MP5 is changed to Spirit, then healer plate is going to look exactly like healer mail, which is going to look exactly like healer leather, which is going to look exactly like healer cloth.
Also, this is going to further isolate Elemental Shaman, isn't it? If they're going from MP5 to a strict Spirit->Meditation model, then Spirit is going to be completely useless for non-healers without a Meditation talent, making healing mail even less attractive for elemental shaman, and if they're serious about no Spirit->crit or whatever then all caster leather will likewise be useless, forcing them down to cloth. I don't play an ele shaman but I've oft sympathized with their current plight, and it sounds like it's getting worse.
The loss of intellect on enhancement shaman will hurt their mana pool considerably, but if they retain a talent to translate melee to spell damage I guess it will have to be in the form of Agi->Int or somesuch which may fix this issue out of the gate.
So I guess my biggest concerns are:
1) Healer cloth = healer leather = healer mail = healer plate; what differentiates?
2) DPS leather = DPS mail; what differentiates?
3) Ele shaman itemization even more of a corner case; what benefit?
Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm 100% for simplifying stats, but I'm worried that the distinction between armor classes is about to blur even farther.
Has there been any talk about what will happen to buffs, specifically Paladin blessings? Blessing of Might is straight AP, does that change or does the no AP thing only apply to gear itself? The same goes with Blessing of Wisdom and it's mp/5. Does it become a straight Spirit buff? That would conflict with priests then and most likely wouldn't stack.
I'd imagine Battle Shout falls in the same category as BoM as well. I'd imagine Arcane Brilliance will have to be tweaked also now that Intellect gives spell power as well.
I imagine the buff will stay the same as the stats will still be in game, just not on items.
The loss of intellect on enhancement shaman will hurt their mana pool considerably, but if they retain a talent to translate melee to spell damage I guess it will have to be in the form of Agi->Int or somesuch which may fix this issue out of the gate.
So I guess my biggest concerns are:
1) Healer cloth = healer leather = healer mail = healer plate; what differentiates?
2) DPS leather = DPS mail; what differentiates?
3) Ele shaman itemization even more of a corner case; what benefit?
Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm 100% for simplifying stats, but I'm worried that the distinction between armor classes is about to blur even farther.
Regarding enhancement shaman, I would not worry about this. In BC, we wore almost strictly rogue leather because our mana costs were low, and Shamanistic Rage + Water Shield was plenty to keep us going in most situations. In WotLK, our spell costs went up, the number of spells we used went up, and we switched from Water Shield to Lightning Shield, but our mana pools went up with int being a not-entirely-worthless stat, and we kept SR. If mana becomes a concern for us, they can simply play with mana costs again, which is an easy game for them to play.
As for your elem shaman concerns, don't forget about boomkin as well. Balance druids will be in the same boat if spirit remains a useless offensive caster stat for them as well. Keep in mind that with all the stat changes that were announced, anything that relates class mechanics to itemization is purely speculation. Example speculation: it's entirely possible that these two classes will retain DPS value from spirit (probably more than boomkin do now, even) in order to keep gear types to two types of leather and two types of mail, physical and caster. I'm not saying they'll do it that way, just that it's one example out of a myriad of possibilities, and worrying about hybrid itemization months before it even goes into beta is a bit premature.
While I look forward to all the changes anounced the faction and race change is what I'm most excited about. However, I dug up the original faction change thread and saw no tentative date for when this might be and I saw nothing in this thread about it either other than it's relation to same faction race changes. Has there been any mention on when either of these things would happen or can we expect to just have to wait until the expansion?
Tom Chilton said at the DirectTV table that most of it was in place and they were waiting for the web interface to get finished. Some testing is probably needed after that. Time frame was very soon(TM).
Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm 100% for simplifying stats, but I'm worried that the distinction between armor classes is about to blur even farther.
I think you're confusing gear homogenization with armor classes, because saying "even farther" implies that blurring has occurred previously in significant quantities. If anything, armor classes have been becoming more distinct over time as Mp5 and Spirit were separated, and armor->AP talents were added. As such, a step back isn't necessarily a wrong step.
Also, Armor classes will always be distinct for the simple reason that cloth is squishy and plate is not. If you've ever healed a bad Heroic PuG on a Priest, and later on a Paladin, Shaman, or even Druid, the usefulness of armor becomes staggeringly apparent. With fights like Thorim, Jaraxxis and the Faction Champions being a big part of raiding, armor isn't something you can blissfully ignore.
Any further distinction that doesn't directly benefit that class/spec (remember the +Str/Agi/Int/Sta/Spi leather for Druids in vanilla?) isn't a good thing. In fact, forced distinction through itemization has historically blurred distinction by unintentionally encouraging people to downgrade armor classes for the best gear anyway (See Vanilla Clothadins/Fury Warriors in Leather).
What I lack in intelligence I make up for in verbosity.
I'm a little concerned about how itemization is going to fall out of all of this.
Right now it looks something like this:
DPS Caster Cloth (SP/Hit) -- wanted by 3xMages, 3xWarlocks, Shadow Preists
Healer Cloth (SP/Spirit) -- Wanted by 2xPriests
Melee Leather (Agi) -- Wanted by 3xRogues, Feral Druids(DPS/tank)
Caster Leather(SP/Spirit) -- Wanted by 2xDruids
DPS Mail (Int/Agi) -- Wanted by 3xHunters, Enh Shaman
Caster Mail(SP/Hit) -- Wanted by Ele Shaman, very rare
Healer Mail(SP/MP5) -- Wanted by Resto Shaman, usually used by Ele Shaman
DPS Plate(Str) -- Wanted by 3xWarriors, 2xPaladins, 3xDKs
Healing Plate(SP/MP5) -- Wanted by Holy Paladins
This is a mess and needs addressing, sure, but, as pointed out, if DPS Mail changes to Agi and no Int, then it's going to look exactly like melee leather. Furthermore, if MP5 is changed to Spirit, then healer plate is going to look exactly like healer mail, which is going to look exactly like healer leather, which is going to look exactly like healer cloth.
Also, this is going to further isolate Elemental Shaman, isn't it? If they're going from MP5 to a strict Spirit->Meditation model, then Spirit is going to be completely useless for non-healers without a Meditation talent, making healing mail even less attractive for elemental shaman, and if they're serious about no Spirit->crit or whatever then all caster leather will likewise be useless, forcing them down to cloth. I don't play an ele shaman but I've oft sympathized with their current plight, and it sounds like it's getting worse.
The loss of intellect on enhancement shaman will hurt their mana pool considerably, but if they retain a talent to translate melee to spell damage I guess it will have to be in the form of Agi->Int or somesuch which may fix this issue out of the gate.
So I guess my biggest concerns are:
1) Healer cloth = healer leather = healer mail = healer plate; what differentiates?
2) DPS leather = DPS mail; what differentiates?
3) Ele shaman itemization even more of a corner case; what benefit?
Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm 100% for simplifying stats, but I'm worried that the distinction between armor classes is about to blur even farther.
I was a bit interested in how that's going to play out. For your first point, it's pretty much like that now. Healing gear is healing gear is healing gear. Healing gear today has Haste, Crit, Spirit, and MP5 (along with spell power). The only difference is now it's just Haste, Crit, and Spirit. Slightly simpler than before, but not terribly different.
To your second point, there's no difference aside from armor value which doesn't mean much to a dps role. I wonder if Blizzard will be ok with leather melee dps items being equally attractive to physical mail dps. Perhaps implementing a talent that grants +% agi for their respective armor class will help separate the two a little.
As for enhance shaman, one would think they could get pretty close to a pacing mechanism similar to focus seeing as enhance will be operating on base mana with minor additions from buffs. That gives them a rough "mana cap", and from there they can design ability cost and regen around this rough cap.
As for elemental shaman, it almost looks as if they're going to join the plate healing club when it comes to itemization unless blizz expects them to reforge healy mail or gives them some type of spirit > dps conversion mechanism. However, since itemization will be slightly more homogenized based on role, picking up leather or cloth dps pieces should easier fit into their scheme despite the idea being somewhat repugnant.
To me it seems like reforging is intended to be the more elegant solution for spirit on caster DPS gear and whatnot, let me explain.
Role unique stats are as follows:
Cloth
Healer: Spirit
DPS: Hit
Caster leather
Healer: Spirit
DPS: Hit
Melee leather
Everyone wants everything.
Caster Mail
Healer: Spirit
DPS: Hit
Melee mail
Everyone wants everything.
Plate
Special case due to healing paladins but remove them and everyone wants everything(depending on role).
As you can see in almost all cases there's only one unique stat for every role or no unique stat at all. Say if you could convert one existing stat to an equivalent amount of another stat in accordance to the ilevel formula then we have a scenario where a lot of gear can still be shared as it is now but they don't have to implement band aids such as warlocks getting spirit to spellpower conversion just to justify it's existence on their gear. This as far as I can tell will actually improve elemental shaman itemization as they will be able to pick up a resto item and turn the spirit into something he really benefits from. Only thing they need to sort then is healing paladins.
I really don't think it is safe to assume we won't still have tank plate drops separate from DPS plate. While they are removing the defense stat, and I think I remember block value being mentioned as well, they didn't say anything about removing the other tanking ratings from gear. There's no current evidence to think that dodge rating and parry rating at least won't still be around, and potentially bonus armor and block rating as well.
I really don't think it is safe to assume we won't still have tank plate drops separate from DPS plate.
I didn't intend to imply this, sorry. Plate currently covers all 3 roles, however there are several speccs that want tank plate and several that want dps plate but only one that want healing plate however.
Point is if reforging will work as I described, a lot of speccs can still share the same gear despite the removal of spirit from dps casters, healers not wanting hit et cetera. The only specc with completely unique stat preferences will be healing paladins but healing paladins will want all the stats the other healers want so they can pick a perfectly good piece of gear that may not be plate however. It's a bit of a band aid solution but it's better than currently at least.
Reforging will convert 50% of one stat into another stat (from the panels). Ghostcrawler's example was for how it could be implemented ingame -- a tailor would have the recipe of "Convert spirit to hit on a cloth item". It was also mentioned that you can only reforge into a stat that wasn't currently on the item.
There are two basic ways to go with reforging - one is a FFA approach where anything can be converted and the goal is to make marginal upgrades or sidegrades (due to haste being worse than crit) into upgrades by dumping the bad stat for a good stat. The other is to make it easier for healers to grab gear (by converting a rating into Spirit), to manipulate Hit/Expertise caps, to convert healing gear into DPS gear (by dumping Spirit), and possibly to convert DPS gear into tanking gear by adding Dodge/Parry. The second method is built around the idea of picking up items that would rot and making them usable, but not optimal. It's so far away and so much in the planning stages that I believe the only things that are accurate about reforging is that it will involve Spirit and Hit and will not involve Stamina at all.
Defense removal brings to mind druids tanking Thorim with resilience, and certain DPS and frost resistance items having more stamina that tanking ones. Reforging may be in part a way to convert strength to avoidance, which would be ignored by many tanks in favor of threat. I'd prepare for high-HP sponges of damage reception in such a scheme. They could award mitigation or avoidance in end-game more, alternatively. It's a bit odd that to gem for my tank which needs more skill to play than my DPS, I rarely think, but to cover the soft caps of DPS correctly, I have to use an excel sheet.
The oddity I see with the gear changes is that it seems to create just as many isolation issues as it apparently solves.
For instance, as they mentioned Warriors won't want DPS Leather anymore. Then again, now Shaman and Hunters will want DPS Leather instead. Is that much better?
On the caster side of thing, Spirit has recently been purposefully made a useful stat for Mages and especially Warlocks. In fact, it's one of the better stats for Warlocks currently, which makes Spirit gear all-around more desired. However, after the change the only cloth wearer(s) that will want Spirit are healing Priests, with the rest of the classes cursing the terrible Spirit drops. This also seems like a bit of a step backward.
Additionally, with Paladin healers being able to use the excess Cloth and Mail nobody else will want (due to the Spirit) they will probably unhappily not be using much Plate, leaving Healing Plate even more redundant in the loot table than before. However, I somewhat doubt you can just tell Paladins to stop wearing their iconic gear just for reasons of itemization.
I also have to say that, as a tank, I would have rather them removed something like Expertise as a stat I had to juggle rather than Defense. Defense was at least a "tank" stat, while having to juggle two "DPS" caps doesn't seem to be that functionally different in the complexity side of things. (In fact, if anything, I'd say that the differing Parry rates for directional facing combined with Parry hasting make it a much less user-friendly mechanic than Defense.)
Anyhow, as mentioned, my biggest question mark is that of saying they would remove Spirit from the needs of DPS casters. To me, this isolates the healing gear on all the item types and will create a lot of DEing opportunities. Even with the reforging, if Spirit is of little to no value to Moonkin, Warlocks, Mages, or Elementals then it's still generally going to end up as sharded gear.
after the change the only cloth wearer(s) that will want Spirit are healing Priests, with the rest of the classes cursing the terrible Spirit drops.
'Who gets what in loot drops' problems (that are mentioned sporadically in this thread) can be safely ignored if one assumes loot tables are designed to accommodate proper percentages according to real needs; in the model of 4-classes tokens having higher probability to drop but in a grander scale.
I also have to say that, as a tank, I would have rather them removed something like Expertise as a stat I had to juggle rather than Defense. Defense was at least a "tank" stat, while having to juggle two "DPS" caps doesn't seem to be that functionally different in the complexity side of things. (In fact, if anything, I'd say that the differing Parry rates for directional facing combined with Parry hasting make it a much less user-friendly mechanic than Defense.)
"Cap juggling" is only one concern with stats on gear, and it isn't necessarily the reason that all of the stats being removed are getting changed. Defense was problematic because it was viewed as the gateway to tanking -- if you didn't have 540 defense (or whatever the number is), no one wanted you to tank anything. This was a problem because in order to get to 540 defense, you needed to run instances, presumably as a tank (so you could get the practice). But no one wanted you in instances because you weren't defense capped. And the cycle goes on and on.
Conceptually, defense served to make sure that the right people (tank specs) were the ones doing the tanking, instead of other classes with a ton of HP buffs or whatever. I think they realized that this goal can be met by putting talents in the tank specs, so that people can get to their jobs of tanking things off the bat, and they simply will get better at it as they gear up (more armor, more health, more avoidance, more threat).
For instance, as they mentioned Warriors won't want DPS Leather anymore. Then again, now Shaman and Hunters will want DPS Leather instead. Is that much better?
This is a strawman argument, as shaman and hunters already want leather sometimes.
I think the whole Spirit -> Hit Rating thing was probably a bad example for them to use, and as a result, has been responsible for alot of confusion. A few better example would have been this:
You score yourself a Pyrite Infuser, but unfortunately, you're already riding the Hit Cap, so this doesn't help you much. As a result, an Engineer is able to Reforge the trinket by reducing the Hit Rating by Half, and replacing it with Crit.
So you'd end up with the following:
[Pyrite Infuser]
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 219 Equip: Improves hit rating by 47 (1.45% @ L80).
Equip: Increases critical strike rating by 47 (1.45% @ L80).
Equip: Chance on melee and ranged critical strike to increase your attack power by 1234 for 10 sec.
For those suggesting that the item level/stats would decrease as a result of Reforging, that would kind of defeat the purpose. The idea is to expand your loot options, not penalise you.
EDIT: To be clear, I doubt you'd actually see conversions like "SPIRIT -> HIT." More logical Reforging options would include "SPIRIT <-> INT" and "HIT <-> CRIT"
The idea is to expand loot options, but they've also stated that it won't factor into the optimization game that we currently play with enchants, gems, food buffs, etc. Allowing the item to retain the same item level while shifting itemization is basically the definition of min/maxing, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if reforging lowers the item level. It still increases your loot options in that a piece now has only 1/2 of a bad stat instead of a fully bad stat, but it won't make your BiS list either.
Was reforging resilience ever touched on? Being able to take hit from a weapon or wand and convert it to resil would be quite compelling.
Why on earth would you ever want to add resilience? Being able to remove resilience, on the other hand, would be awesome!
I'm fairly certain, from the information given, that most stats will be able to be modified one way or the other. What I'm not certain of is how they will handle the whole resilience issue - I know they've recently changed how it functions, but with the total overhaul of the rest of the stats, will resilience be changed as well? I might expect so, for the very same reason that TrevvyTrev pointed out that defence is a problem: you want to play arena, but can't do so effectively because you don't have resilience, but can get resilience because you can't do well in PvP...
(Yes, this statement is hyperbolic in order to illustrate a point)
08/25/09, 11:28 AM
