Well, in fact the answer to how the items scale seems pretty simple: The blue items (some of them anyway) follow item budgets of current epic items.

Those quest rewards for example hit both the armor values and stat budgets of current iLvl ~66 epics. Same for the 2H hammer, it has DPS of iLvl 65 epic and stats a little below that.

Except that there is an easier explanation - blue items are ilvl 70-71, and stamina just cost half the normal cost.

one of the clear goals for expansion PVP is to increase survivability. if you look at a lot of the new talents, you'll see more disorient/daze/etc effects rather than just pure damage - especially with a shift to arena PVP, one and two shotting is really not much fun, so there's more emphasis on strategic/tactical use of CC and such. yes, CURRENT dps classes are much weaker without the ability to instagib people. but mages with Dragon's Breath/Blazing Speed or Slow? They have a lot more tools.

So yes, expansion items look so much better because of the relatively decreased cost of stamina, which is the result of an overall design direction that is moving toward increased survivability. we can only assume (or hope?) that existing items will have the new budget costs retrofitted so they're not immediately obsoleted.

Doesn't fit to half the items.

Besides, armor values are exactly what you'd expect from equal level epics. Same for the DPS of the 2H hammer.

Further, it seems that if item has sockets it has a stat budget of a current rare item + the 2-3 sockets. However it still has the armor value of an epic item.

Some items are a bit overbudget though, going to check if I can find a newer spreadsheet to check. Haven't been able to fit the green items yet either.

Yeah I was thinking that as well. I remember when they anounced some of the details on the Arena PvP system, people were thinking about some of the possible class combinations for 2v2 and the general feeling was that a double mage team would be extremely difficult to beat by many other combinations. You'd sheep 1 and destroy the other. But with more stamina across the board it may force people to think more tactically.

Let me rephrase: they are moving away from stuff in smaller instances that would normally be really hard for a group made very easy by use of long cooldowns. When a 5-man group that has a Shaman and a Warrior in it, and the Windfuried, totem buffed warrior blows Recklessness when the Shaman uses Bloodthirst and his elemental pet, things will die that have no business being killed by such means. By lowering the DPS of the bosses and increasing their hit points, these sorts of alpha strike tactics will no longer work.

Hmm, actually it fits surprisingly well so perhaps there's some truth to it. Funny how item formulas work. :)

That would mean expansion rares having around iLvl of about 10 higher than the required level with stamina at half the cost. And if the item has sockets then it would have stats of an uncommon item of similar iLvl, but still the armor of a rare.

Not quite sure how it works yet though.

Well, what items exactly don't fit ? Here is the one i checked

Jade Warrior Pauldrons, ilvl 71 blue, predicted value 71.5, actual value 70.47. Expected armor 551.49, actual armor 552.
Mantle of Magical Might, ilvl 70 blue, predicted value 70.45, actual value 70.32. Expected armor 74.39, actual armor 75

Blue items mostly fit to iLvl = rLvl + 11 if stamina is considered at half the old StatMod.

The green items fit to iLvl = rLvl + 14 if you only reduce the StatMod of stamina to 2/3 of the old one. All the green items have "of Bear" or similar bonus so it probably means that any combo-stat that includes stamina gets a 50% boost to the stamina part, not 100% like a separate stat would.

A blue item with sockets has the armor (and DPS?) of a regular blue but has approximately the budget of a green item of same iLvl. The number of sockets doesn't seem to have an effect, but perhaps all socketed chest / helm / legs items have 3 sockets and other slots only 2.

Edit: Still can't fit jewelry though.

That solution is so simple it's brilliant. Now it's obvious how Blizzard plans on closing the gear gap between weekend warrior casuals and uberguild diehards, at least for the leveling up portion of TBC.

So I thought at first too, but it appears I was wrong. See the couple of posts above yours.

With the stamina changes and iLvl tweaking the result is close to changing blues to purples though.

You know, hearing about the possibility of effectively doubling the amount of stamina available on gear probably made more excited about Burning Crusade than anything else since the announcement of an ELO-Rating based Arena system.

Ha. This won't do anything to "fix" purple-itis. Your average casual is a complete and utter moron, who has been told by others that "epix is better!"

If Blizzard added a quest with the two following rewards, I guarantee you over half of my server's population (and most likely every other server out there would take the (not as good) purple simply from their "purple = better" brainwashing and not understanding even the simplest game mechanics.


Blue Wristguard of Neatness
Plate
+18 Stamina
+1 crit
+1 hit
+2 dodge
+1 defense

and

Purple (epix!!) Wristguard of not-so neatness
Plate
+16 Stamina
+2 defense

Certainly it's going to be a bit painful for the guys in all Naxx/BWL/AQ40 gear when BC hits and they're seeing all this really interesting blue socketed gear come in that still just isn't quite as good as what they have already. I suppose the problem will only last until we start seeing the socketed epics from the heavier level 70 instances, but still.

In order to keep the boards civil, I won't swear at you about the casual thing.

You're mythical items don't have an armor value, so if your blue has 50 armor and your purple has 2000, one is better than the other depending on what your doing.

For those of us who are unfamiliar with the itemization formulas you're discussing here, can anyone provide a link or google key words so we can follow the conversations. I've seen the word 'ilvl' used, but haven't been able find any posts that didn't assume a pre-existing knowledge of the term.

That's pretty much what I've been thinking. I know that I'm going to be following around a mage aoeing the piss out of mobs so we can level up fast, or maybe speed running some dungeons depending on which gives more XP. I'm sure most of my guild will be doing the same so we can continue to be toward the front end of progression. To me, the gear that I get from quest rewards and boss drops will be free shards, which isn't a bad thing. On the other hand, a "less serious" player will spend a large amount of time experiencing the world of the expansion, and will take their time leveling and questing. Also, to them the gear will be upgrades. Sure, some of this gear will approach what I've gotten from AQ40 and Naxx, but by the time "casual" players get a full set of that gear the hardcore raiders will be sitting in end game dungeon epics. I don't really have a problem with the gear gap closing since by the time it would have closed raiders will be sporting a new suit of shiny purples.

I'm getting really excited about the expansion because it seems that Blizzard now has a good sense of what different types of players want from their game.

Priest damage gear. We don't have too many other ways to get mana back without consumeables ...

Watched a friend play a bit, and 1% melee crit is 14 crit rating, 10 hit rating is what becomes 1% hit, 20% speed becomes 200 speed rating. (I dont remember dodge, critical avoidance, spell hit and spell crit atm). 1 agi is 1 ranged ap (ouch hunters) while agi per crit for hunters has been lowered, and all ranged weapons gotten damage boosted (mc bow is 53, ouro gun 58 for example). 1 agi seems to give 1 more armour then it did before too. As was stated, Stamina is now noticably cheaper then before, which affects the items a lot. And all his lvl 60 epics from mc to naxx had a 1% crit to 14 crit rating conversion. (there were items dropping in TBC with both more and less though). Also, dmage increase for the hunter from a mob being sundered seemed to be higher then normal, so even with the AP nerf, it might end up being a raid dps increase (and hopefully even more so with the talents) sorry that the post became very hunter centric, but that was what the character was.

Priest damage gear indeed, just like the Mage T2/2.5 with mana/5 on them? Hey, at least later on I get the wickedly wonderful Spell Penetration. Spirit is considerably better for Mages than mana/5 is with any reasonable raiding build and yet mana/5 is featured heavily on most of our sets.

As an aside, sorry for my confusion on the "reseted group experience" thing. I was aware (dim memories) of the group bonus but the phraseology had me thinking it was a reseted bonus for being grouped or something strange I suppose. Nonsensical now that I pause to think about it but presumably there is some sort of mechanic that will come out in due course.

Just to add, late of course, bosses give roughly double xp.

How are you playing a hunter/ seeing a hunter be played? As far as I had heard hunter was simply not in the game yet.