Loot in TBC vs Loot in WoWv1

Caeryn · 10/17/06, 1:48 PM

I thought to do some maths this morning to figure out how much better the new items in TCB are compared to WoWv1.

If you're not interested in this, just skip over. If you are interested, help me check my maths ;)

From wowwiki.com
* Green: ilvl = ItemSlotValue * 2.0 + 4.00
* Blue: ilvl = ItemSlotValue * 1.6 + 1.84
* Epic: ilvl = ItemSlotValue * 1.3 + 1.30

As a note
Tier 1: Level 66 epic
Tier 2: Level 76 epic
Tier 2.5: Level 78/81 epic
Tier 3: Level 88 epic

So I am interested in how much better a purple is compared to a green

ilvl(g)*2 + 4 : ilvl(p)*1.3+1.30
ilvl(g)*2 + 2.7 : ilvl*1.3
ilvl(g)*1.5+2:ilvl(p)

Based on my calculations then a level 105 greens (fairly common in TBC) is equivalent of a level 68 purple. So we know now that level 70's greens are better than MC loot.

But how much better is the blue?

ilvl(b)*1.6+1.84 : ilvl(p)*1.3+1.30
ilvl(b)*1.6+0.54 : ilvl(p)*1.3
ilvl(b)*1.23+0.42 : ilvl(p)

So, a level 105 blue (still fairly common because of the quests rewards) is equivalent to a level 85 purple. Which puts them nearly on par with T3 which is what the devs have been saying.

As an additional note: The highest level blue item I've seen on ThottBot so far for beta (max level is 67) is ilvl 115
http://www.thottbot.com/beta?f=a;nam...t=0;sort=level

This is equivalent to a level 93 epic currently which does indeed surpass T3.

Author: Caeryn Dryad

Sri · 10/17/06, 2:03 PM

Nice and all, if the same item formula is being utilized for TBC - which honestly I dont believe is.
The fact that the STA stat (and other stats in general) is really high puts these items at a much higher iLvl than what they really could be.

There seems to be another way the stats and abilities on an item are being calculated.

Fenrus · 10/17/06, 2:11 PM

Originally Posted by Caeryn

Based on my calculations then a level 105 greens (fairly common in TBC) is equivalent of a level 68 purple. So we know now that level 70's greens are better than MC loot.

Are you getting the ilvl info from the actual game files or are you deriving it? Just curious because 105 seems a little high for greens found in level 60-70 areas. If you're deriving it you have to take into account the apparent stamina inflation.

Creediki · 10/17/06, 2:13 PM

Also, Hyz and I were looking at the items coming out trying to find a pattern.
Currently, Blizzard is following the itemization plan where you get blues up to about level 60ish.. Then you get epics that go from 63+.

In the xpac, this seems like it is changing. Going from the arena rewards that are level 115, that will probably be around the max level of epic in the initial release. Probably illidan will drop slightly higher. However, if you look at the highest blue rewards, they are 115 as well. So the theory is that item progression will go like this...

Random quest rewards -> blue up to around 105.
Instance quest rewards -> blue up to 115 (roughly equivalent to a level 85 epic).
Instance Hard Mode Rewards -> Purple level 95 items
Starter raid rewards -> Purple 105 items
Black Temple raid rewards / Arena PvP / BoP Tradeskill items -> Purple 115

Caeryn · 10/17/06, 2:15 PM

Originally Posted by Fenrus

Originally Posted by Caeryn

Based on my calculations then a level 105 greens (fairly common in TBC) is equivalent of a level 68 purple. So we know now that level 70's greens are better than MC loot.

Are you getting the ilvl info from the actual game files or are you deriving it? Just curious because 105 seems a little high for greens found in level 60-70 areas. If you're deriving it you have to take into account the apparent stamina inflation.

I am taking it from the ThottBot beta site. I also originally expected the items to follow the previous trend which is Level Req + 6 = item level. I *expected* it to be around 70-80 for TBCs green and I expected the devs to have problems scaling it.

It appears that they resolved all of it by breaking the ilvl => wield level relationship.

Quasar · 10/17/06, 2:19 PM

Erm, there are green quest rewards (accessible and easily done at 60) that are as good as BWL epics (a cloak in particular that is damn close to Shroud of Pure Thought).

Caeryn · 10/17/06, 2:20 PM

Originally Posted by Sri

Nice and all, if the same item formula is being utilized for TBC - which honestly I dont believe is.
The fact that the STA stat (and other stats in general) is really high puts these items at a much higher iLvl than what they really could be.

There seems to be another way the stats and abilities on an item are being calculated.

All this can be tweaked by modifying StatMod for the primary stats which is probably much easier than modifying the ilvl concept. This is a theory though and not a fact. You can get more info here => http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Item_Values

I think they just halved the stat cost of Stamina and then modified the critpct/hitpct etc to the rating system.

I got a note from a friend that

Weapon Skill Rating 2.5 rating grants 1 weapon skill
Hit Rating 10 rating grants 1% hit chance
Spell Hit Rating 8 rating grants 1% spell hit chance
Critical Strike Rating 14 rating grants 1% critical strike chance
Spell Critical Strike Rating 14 rating grants 1% spell critical strike chance
Haste 10 rating 1% haste
Spell Haste 10 rating grants 1% spell haste

If so, all they really did was change
14 StatMod = 1% crit chance
1 StatMod = 1 crit rating

Possibly normalizing the 1 hit rating, 1 spellhit rating and all the other mods to 1 StatMod each

Fenrus · 10/17/06, 2:33 PM

Originally Posted by Creediki

Also, Hyz and I were looking at the items coming out trying to find a pattern.
Currently, Blizzard is following the itemization plan where you get blues up to about level 60ish.. Then you get epics that go from 63+.

In the xpac, this seems like it is changing. Going from the arena rewards that are level 115, that will probably be around the max level of epic in the initial release. Probably illidan will drop slightly higher. However, if you look at the highest blue rewards, they are 115 as well. So the theory is that item progression will go like this...

Random quest rewards -> blue up to around 105.
Instance quest rewards -> blue up to 115 (roughly equivalent to a level 85 epic).
Instance Hard Mode Rewards -> Purple level 95 items
Starter raid rewards -> Purple 105 items
Black Temple raid rewards / Arena PvP / BoP Tradeskill items -> Purple 115

So as you're leveling from 60-70 you'll be getting gear that is basically 35-40 levels higher. This will result in kind of a wierd power level jump in the normal leveling process if you think about it. Basically, after BC hits anyone who levels a new character will be aquiring gear that is around their current level from 1-60, then once they hit 60 and move in to Outland they'll suddenly get access to gear that is several orders of magnitude more powerful than what they've been wearing. Interesting.

Obviously Blizzard intends for most people to be replacing the vast majority of their gear on the way to 70. This is I assume to both undo some mudflation that has occurred, normalizing the relative power levels of players, and also to make people interested in all the new content.

Skiace · 10/17/06, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by Sri

Nice and all, if the same item formula is being utilized for TBC - which honestly I dont believe is.
The fact that the STA stat (and other stats in general) is really high puts these items at a much higher iLvl than what they really could be.

There seems to be another way the stats and abilities on an item are being calculated.

blizzard has basicly said the item buget for stamina has been increased, i.e. the cost of stamina on items has been decreased for ilvl calculations. the end result is that everything has more stamina than before.

Vhal · 10/17/06, 5:00 PM

Interesting that epics and blues both seem to be available up to the highest ilvls, in stark contrast to retail WoW itemization.

Vhal · 10/17/06, 5:11 PM

Also, something else that strikes me as interesting.

The "Lvl 70 Dungeon Hard Mode Token Turn In Fast Offhand Dagger" is 78.5 dps.

The top-end Arena reward for the same slot is 87.9 dps. A difference of 9.4 dps on weapons between what is apparently top-end casual stuff and top-end PvP (and, presumably, raid) stuff. At least, at expansion release. That's around a 12% increase in raw weapon dps.

Dal'Rend's Sacred Charge to Brutality Blade is a 10.2 dps difference, or a 25% increase in raw weapon dps.

Are we looking at a vastly reduced power differential between raiders and non-raiders?

Beliar · 10/17/06, 5:14 PM

This would make sense if the Hard mode dungeons would really be hard - as hard as raid content, but only for 5 people.

• Vykromond · 10/17/06, 5:27 PM

This would make sense if the Hard mode dungeons would really be hard - as hard as raid content, but only for 5 people.

That's not really feasible.

By the same token I don't think a reduced power differential between raiders and non-raiders is at all a bad thing. I'm ready to go back to the pre-release promises that raiders just get swords ON FIRE.

Vhal · 10/17/06, 5:28 PM

Originally Posted by Beliar

This would make sense if the Hard mode dungeons would really be hard - as hard as raid content, but only for 5 people.

Even still, if we assume the top-end arena rewards are maximal drops (as the top-end PvP rewards were prior to Naxx), that's like being able to get a Dragonfang Blade farming UBRS. I'm sure the level of farming will be rather intense, but still -- that's pretty radically different from the current gear setup. Opinions, I'm sure, will vary as to this being a good or bad thing.

Creediki · 10/17/06, 5:29 PM

The orginal difference was way too stark imho.

60 blues -> 63 epics is a HUGE difference. So much so that guilds didn't bother with BWL because they felt the relative gain wasn't worth their time (Conquest). Yes, we know BWL has awesome items, however, perception is everything and the relative gain was poor.

Taking blue up to max level (115), and then starting epics lower (95), is a very smart move, it evens out the curve, and brings a lot of different ways to progress into the game.

Vhal · 10/17/06, 5:32 PM

Originally Posted by Vykromond

This would make sense if the Hard mode dungeons would really be hard - as hard as raid content, but only for 5 people.

That's not really feasible.

By the same token I don't think a reduced power differential between raiders and non-raiders is at all a bad thing. I'm ready to go back to the pre-release promises that raiders just get swords ON FIRE.

Personally, I'd like to see more situational bonuses on raid gear -- something like a lot of "+80 attack power versus undead". Then hand out abilities that allow targetted bonuses to work on targets of different types -- say, a rogue poison that makes anti-undead AP bonuses work on beasts and dragonkin. But, that's a derail ;)

Anyway, the arena system has me most excited about TBC. Here's hoping that top-end PvP doesn't require a top-end raiding guild as it does now.

BByte · 10/18/06, 5:27 AM

I posted my findings on item levels a couple of days ago: http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=8929

To elaborate further, Iâ€™d expand the table this way (cLvl = Challenge Level, essentially level of the mob or the quest, rLvl = Required Level, iLvl = Item Level):

        WoW1.x                          WoW TBC
cLvl    rLvl    iLvl                    rLvl    iLvl
                Green   Blue    Purple          Green   Blue    Purple
60      55      60      60      60
61      56      61      61      61 
62      57      62      62      62      57      81    
63      58      63      63      63      58      84
64      59      64      64      64      59      87    
65      60      65      65-74   65-92   60      90      85
66                                      61      93      88
67                                      62      96      91
68                                      63      99      94
69                                      64      102     97
70                                      65      105     100
71                                      66      108     103
72                                      67      111     106
73                                      68      114     109
74                                      69      117     112
75                                      70      120     115     95+

Relation between cLvl and rLvl/iLvl isnâ€™t always exact, but itâ€™s close.

Armor scaling seems reasonably simple, most TBC items follow the old armor scaling formula but greens have 95% of the expected armor and blues have 90%, didnâ€™t test epics extensively yet. There's some variation so it could be a result from some other mechanic but I doubt it. Individual armor pieces follow the 16/16, 14/16, 13/16, 12/16, 11/16, 10/16, 9/16, 7/16 scaling, same as previously.

Weapon DPS scaling is very different from the old formulas and some earlier calculations: http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=8410

Previously it was EpicDPS(iLvl=x)=BlueDPS(iLvl=x+6)=GreenDPS(iLvl=x+12), now there doesn't seem to be any simple pattern between weapons of different quality. Also DPS for green & blue weapons in the expansion the DPS seems to scale linearly with iLvl, slowly at first and then around iLvl 95 it scales up sharply. For epics there really aren't enough data points, but the scaling is slower there too. 2H weapon DPS is still equal to 1.3 times the 1H weapon DPS.

As for item budgets, seems they are all over the place. Iâ€™ve run a few hundred items through a spreadsheet and most items are over budget. I use stamina value of 2/3 of the other stats, but it doesnâ€™t seem to matter whether the item has stamina or not, itâ€™s still most likely to be over budget. There could be more changes to the StatMods, or SlotMods, or practically any part of the formula really.

As for ratings, my theory is that StatMod of any of the ratings is equal to StatMod of the basic attributes. Thatâ€™s really the only thing that makes sense to me considering the Rating => % conversion has different values depending on what rating is converted.

Drauk · 10/18/06, 5:39 AM

Originally Posted by BByte

I use stamina value of 2/3 of the other stats, but it doesnâ€™t seem to matter whether the item has stamina or not, itâ€™s still most likely to be over budget. There could be more changes to the StatMods, or SlotMods, or practically any part of the formula really.

Isn't its already established that stamina is 1/2 of old value ?

BByte · 10/18/06, 5:50 AM

Originally Posted by Drauk

Isn't its already established that stamina is 1/2 of old value ?

I doubt anything is really established yet. :)

The way stats are spread on most items (stamina 50% higher than other stats) would indicate a value of 2/3. In any case that's not the only problem with the old itemization formula, so it's hard to say.

Vetinari · 10/18/06, 6:45 AM

I think that the real reason why MC loot is worse than greens is pretty damn simple.

MC stat distribution sucks hardcore.

TBC greens' stat distribution is damn near perfect.

Which is why we are seeing level 61 greens as better than t1, and sometimes tier 2. :)

Dawme · 10/18/06, 7:02 AM

Obviously. Some months ago, I looted a blue rog item in silithius which was almost as powerful as empowered leggings from chromaggus in bwl. Why's that ? Because sili ROGs sometimes have +healing / +mp5..
In current WoW, green and almost all blues drops are crappy not only because of their ilvl but also because the only way to get massive good bonuses (healing, dmg, atk power, mp5...) is to get epics. In TBC, you can find some greens with +atk power AND +agi.

Bury · 10/18/06, 10:18 AM

I know this is a theorycraft thread, but I can't resist sharing these items from a 68+ quest (The Ring of Blood: The Final Challenge):

http://picasaweb.google.com/ralphs/W...39790971846674
http://picasaweb.google.com/ralphs/W...33931526930450
http://picasaweb.google.com/ralphs/W...33899894603794
http://picasaweb.google.com/ralphs/W...33807582167058
http://picasaweb.google.com/ralphs/W...33866445750290
http://picasaweb.google.com/ralphs/W...33836066865170

♦ Praetorian · 10/18/06, 10:26 AM

True, but that's no ordinary quest mob!

Fenrus · 10/18/06, 10:26 AM

Thinking about it in terms of game progression, I'm not entirely certain that Blizzard wants to "narrow the gear gap" between so called casuals and hardcores in the long run, although that may be a side effect early on. I think their goal is also to have some headroom in terms of item progression. So right now it looks like the maximum item level is 115. Drops from Illidan might reach 120 or 125. Any future instances will have to have items of at least that level to continue progression, at least until the next expansion when they raise the level cap again and reset things all over.

Keldor · 10/18/06, 10:52 AM

I think it is in ALL players best interest for item gap to be lowered as everyone hits 70. Doing this, they allow a clean slate for the arena pvpers. It will be based on skill and not gear. Lowering the gear gap also helps raider. Most raiding guilds will see much change in membership during this time. Having new players or even alts in pretty much equal gear gives the new raids options. I fully expect the gap between the hardcore(raider or PvPer) and casual groups to grow after 70 as it should.