Loot specialization also comes up for casters and healers.

The generic stats of stam, int, +heal, and mana/5 are useful for all four healing classes.

Only Druids and Priests want +spirit on their gear due to getting talents for mana regen while casting and talents that key off of spirit. All four classes can use spell crit%, but Paladins get probably the most benefit from it.

For DPS casters, hit% and crit% aren't that great for Affliction Warlocks or Shadow Priests, but are very important for Destruction Warlocks, Mages, Balance and Elemental Druids. Mages, Druids, and Priests are also the only classes that want Spirit.

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I think having generic gear is good for leveling, while specializing the gear for specs and classes is better for the end game. They last a longer time then, and they become goals as opposed to something that is bypassed because the unoptomized level 63 version is better than the optimal level 61 item.

Class specific sets solve no problems long term and never will. We hate them, they cause loot waste, and all that. Items that many classes can use don't go to waste and we all love. People drool over Neltharion's tear and Rejuvinating Gem because they are amazing, AND cross class.

Cross-class items will always be very important, not every slot has class restricted items. Jewelry, trinkets, etc etc.

I agree with Lord BEEF. Just make them get 2 AP from 1 Str. It hurts nothing budget wise (same budget for equal AP). All they have to do is be careful of double dipping AP + STR items, which they must already be careful of due to druids, warriors, shaman, and paladins. There will still be slight differences in what is optimal for each class. Rogues will probably want an item with STR and AGI with a lean towards more AGI, and druids the other way. Arms versus Fury warriors are similar in their optimal skew of stats, and I'm sure melee shaman have similar build flavors that affect optimal stat balance.

"But warriors want 1AP per AGI too!". Yeah, do you want the same agi to crit ratio as well? I thought not.

This simplifies things. Rogues would value (per item budget) STR and AP the same (as will DPS warriors and Shaman). Thus, rings, jewelry, etc are all very much cross class for all melee and hunters, with slight variances (some specs might like AGI more in each class, others want more AP instead of crit, etc).

No argument against it above holds much water, and most of them above are filled with incorrect information.

1. First, as stated many times 2AP is the same item budget as 1 STR anyway. There is a 'double dipping' risk but there already is one for every other class, and even rogues (10 STR + 70AP cost less than 80AP with same benefit to rogues and more for everyone else)
2. Druids get more from 1 point of STR than 2AP. Cats get 2.4AP with talents, and ferals can get 0.5 +healing. There are multiple posts above that don't understand druid mechanics.

My last two thoughts.
- This is a good change for itemization of non class specific stuff for all melee. But if one class is overpowered because of the change other class tweaks can be made.
- The most interesting point (to me) in previous replies was about how this lets blizzard control class scaling via itemization rather than talents/mechanics. However, I find that a very bad way to control things. It makes players angry when they see their loot being unoptimal (too much STR on a rogue item, or AP instead of STR on a druid one, etc). Furthermore, this approach is really a hack and there are many examples of it failing in the past. If things aren't scaling right, fix the source of the problem, don't make loot itemization more complicated.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean, but I always thought that was a very good way of controlling demand for specific items. Consider for instance the old Band of Reanimation (34 agi) vs Band of Unnatural Forces (52 ap 1% crit 1%hit). The former wasn't really appealing to anyone other than hunters, while the latter was appealing to hunters, rogues, warriors, druids and shamans. However Reanimation happened to be so good for hunters that hunters who had it often wouldn't bid heavily on Unnatural forces unless they really needed the +hit, freeing it up for melee. With the changes to Reanimation with 1.13, it continues to be lack lustre for warriors and druids, but delicious for rogues and slightly less delicious for hunters. So competition is a bit worse on Unnatural forces, and worse on Reanimation. Even more dramatic would be the choices of capes at BWL level - hunters went for Shrouded Mists (22 agi) and melee went for Firemaw (50 AP) or Puissant (AP + Hit). Now however Shrouded Mists is pretty shitty for hunters and there aren't really any capes more suited to hunters than to rogues (although there are things like Concentrated hatred that are more suited to rogues than hunters).

Making stats worth different amounts of AP and crit to different classes was a nice way to direct itemization towards different classes and specs without slapping a "class: X" on everything. Homogenizing everyone's itemization desires is more efficient in terms of loot rot, in that everything that drops is likely to be wanted by everyone, but it makes for more boring itemization, more competition, and less thought being put into what items you want to loot. It's lazier item design - make everyone want the same things, so we only need to make one item instead of three.

And FWIW, I selfishly hope to see fewer items with STR on them, not more. God I hate them for putting STR on Cloak of the Fallen God instead of AP. And I keep seeing more and more 2H blues dropping post level 60 with delicious amounts of crit on them, completely ruined by having Str on them instead of AP or AGI.

It would be nice, but I suspect it's a pipe dream and would just mask the real issues that are going to crop up at 70. It would definitely be a step in the right direction, though, as we'd still have the lowest self-buffed AP of any melee class.

A lot of people seem confused and are really not on topic, or are arguing points that no one made or contested. What I see there are 2 points. Only one of the points is "should rogues get 2AP per str" the other point is "after we make the first change, lets remove the +AP and make it the equivalent is +str)

So, my opinion is:

Leave it as it is.


I am in a guild that intends to do some high end raiding. I am not worried about druids taking my loot. I also am not worried about druids out dpsing me on raids, even as a full time feral. It just seems to me it is an entirely pointless change.

Druids now have some decent feral itemisation. Changing items as you suggested would accomplish nothing except to buff druids as they get 2.4 AP from str with talents (if I read correctly). Nothing I have seen/read justifies this to me. I do not see druids hurting for lack of choice, or being weak. Until we start to see ferals at level 70 with level 70 feral gear (that will surely stack strength), and we see ferals having problems, then and ONLY then, should we consider a drastic change like this. And I assure you the change won;t be to adjust rogues and lota of leather pieces, it will simply be a tweaking of ferals.

While it is certainly true that due to the itemization Beef described there will be more loot to rot, this is mainly true for the 5 man content. As soon as raiding start, folks will focus on set items which will reduce the number of sharded items greatly. There will be some slots that are not covered by set items but assuming there are always some druids or enhancement shamans wanting to pick up dps leather focussing on base stats rather then ap and crit.
On the other hand the hassles from the past, where much drama ensued in PUGs when druids rolled for dps leather will be reduced by a great margin I guess.
Furthermore I agree with the assessment that this kind of itemization allows for a better finetuning of ferals and rogues. This won't be the only source of balancing but it will surely help. I also think that having AP as one primary stat for hunters and rogues (and the decision to change the hunter's RAP calculation) was exactly what Blizzard wanted.

Regarding haste rating: I don't see how this would become a rogue only stat. Shamans and warrior have their flurry ability, hunters have rapid fire and IAotH as well as some new haste abilities from their new talents. Haste is already spread between all classes able to deal physical damage.

I think the old way of doing things was a problem, not a good thing. The problem is that there HAD to be a hunter ring somewhere. And there HAD to be a more melee general one. This changed variety somewhat, but led to loot rot and the inverse: one class getting the shaft because 'their' item never drops. Also, it pollutes the loot tables. Everyone complained all day long with the AQ40 itemization being "feral". All hunters had the same optimal gear set just about with little options at all.

Yes, there was high demand for such "hunter" gear, because it was the only good option. But that is bad overall, as loot "niches" like this lead to CLASS homogenization (everyone of one class wearing basically the same thing).

The hunter change homogenized some things and I think that is a GOOD thing because when a class has itemization that is extremely unique it forces items to be made just for them. A 34 AGI ring is useful to only one class (pre 2.0), it might as well just say "class: hunter" on it. Rogues should get similar treatment so that STR/AGI/Crit items are useful to everyone, druid, rogue, warrior, and shaman alike. Overall, with fewer "niche" items there will be more general use items, which means each individual player has more choices and ability to be unique rather than pigeonholed into one optimal gear set. There can only be so much loot, I'd rather have 2 items useful to 2 classes with small differences in effectiveness for each, than having 2 items with each being basically only good for one class.

Note, things are not totally homogenized -- ferals will want more STR than AGI, rogues will want more AGI than STR. But an item optimal for one is not a bad item for the other. The same is true of rings between rogues/hunters today. One will favor %hit a lot more and the AP/AGI balance preference differs -- but one that is optimal for one class is no longer a poor choice for the other.

In short, it doesn't make sense to me to force rogues into AP itemization over STR 'just because'. The old reasons for doing this are long broken mechanics and scaling wise. Itemization wise I much prefer fewer "niche" item requirements. Hunters being rediculously AGI based was bad. Rogues avoiding STR is also bad when an equivalent item cost AP stat is there because it creates another "niche" of items that HAVE to drop somewhere, leading to item rot or scarcity of a variety of choices from the individual perspective.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, sorry for the wordiness and redundancy.

In an ideal solution, itemization changes would just apply to leather. Cloaks, rings, trinkets, and weapons would stay as-is. Unless you're a hunter who routinely wears leather this would have no negative impact on you.

But it has an impact on Feral DPS. It would actually increase it.

It seems to me that the strength arguement spawns from lack of itemization for bear druids, which is understandable.
Personally, I rather enjoy the split between Feral Gear and Rogue Gear, it's nice to be able to have a piece drop, take one look at it and go...oh that's for druids, or oh, that's for me.


You could, as people have, argue that it means less itemization for cat or bear druids and more for rogues, and you'd be correct. However, looking at class demographics; a rogue has 1 form: "Rogue" while a druid has 4: "Caster (Moonkin)", "Healer" "Bear" "Cat" so obviously there's going to be less frequent gear for one specific form otherwise all you'd ever see is Druid armor drops.

As stated earlier, buffing rogue strength causes a chain of balance and scaling problems that include: itemization, raid buffs, enchants, talents, pvp, etc. etc.

While in the leveling process I understand where Druids are coming from, but at the same time...for the first time, Feral and Moonkin druids have their own Tier Sets, which is a big step forward for druids.

If Blizzard wanted to fix the lack of itemization pre-70 for bear druids they could make all rogue friendly leather drops able to be "converted" to bear druid pieces or something, say by some Druid trainer or something, turning the AP into strength. It'd be something like AP x .43 = strength. That would save problems with flooding the loot drops with druid gear and make druids happy at the same time.