Andemoni

As I've started to get to the finishing line in collecting my pure healing gear, I've also started to realise the inherent problem in the current honor and arena system when it comes to dealing with gearing up hybrid classes. The issue I'm about to speak of impacts paladins, shamans and druids most of all with priests, warlocks and rogues coming right behind.

The root of the problem is that the cost, let it be honor or arena points, to acquire the gear to do your job effectively is not independent of the class you play. Getting a full honor set or a full arena set involves a lot of effort. The current system is overly taxing on people playing classes which are able to use different types of armor sets or weapons. Currently paladins, druids and shamans are able to wear three different types of armor (healing, spell damage and melee). Warlocks require two sets to play all their specs effectively (pure spell damage and a mix of spell damage and spell crit), as do priests (healing and spell damage). Rogues require three different types of weapons (daggers, swords and maces) if they choose to try out another type of spec. Mages, hunters and warriors are unaffected by this problem.

So, what could be done to make gearing up the problematic classes easier? My solution would be as follows.

Instead of buying items from a season directly, you would unlock an item slot. That's right, you would use your honor or arena points to unlock a specific item slot, let's say the main hand weapon slot. The cost to unlock a slot would be dependant on the class played, as rogues, for instance, would be able to use three different types of main hand items effectively (melee sword, mace and dagger). The overall cost to unlock all slots for all classes would still remain the same across the board, so the effort required to gear up your character would not be influenced by the class you play. After a slot is unlocked, you would be able to attain any number of items for that slot from the vendor without an additional price. Hoarding more than you need would not be in any way beneficial, as honor and arena rewards cannot be sold to a vendor or disenchanted.

The benefit of this system would be to make the arena playing field more leveled in terms of gear; currently the people in high-rated teams will receive a more varied gear, with top rogues being able to pick up any weapons if they so desire. This change would also bring more activity to the enchanting and jewelcrafting businesses, as the amount of items that need gems and enchants would grow. Also, this would benefit all the aforementioned classes in terms of gear diversity. For instance, rogues could have two different off-hand weapons of the same types with different enchants (mongoose or weapon chain) depending on the match-up at hand.

The current system, in my opinion, only endorses playing the most effective spec for your class. It does not promote testing out different specs, since the effort required to gear up your character from, for example, a holy-specced paladin to a retribution one is, quite frankly, insane. The same goes for all the other classes that have specs that require specialised gear. There is just no reasonable explanation why some classes would be forced to gear up their characters two or even three times more than others. Promoting diversity is what would make arenas more exciting, and you would see more "off-specs" playing as the season evolves. I know I'd try out retribution in a heartbeat. I'm quite certain the same goes for all the shamans, druids and priests as well, the ones who would like to see how effective they can be with a different spec without having to exert the insane effort required to gear up their character twice, or in the worst case, thrice.

To those that would say "but this means that the players of class x will receive more epics for their effort than I do", I can only respond that it is, in no way conceivable, away from your gaming experience. They would still have to grind the same amount of honor as you. They would still have to save up their arena points to unlock those slots. They will still have to pay for their respecs. It does not diminish your playing experience, but on the contrary, gives it more depth. Would you not love to see more fluffy moonkins running around in the arenas? Would you not love to laugh at all the retribution paladins trying to mow you down with their massive swords, yet marginal damage? Would you not cuddle up against that dual-wielding enhancement shaman that, until recently, was a submissive healbot? Diversity, embrace it!

Making arenas a more varied, interesting and most of all fun experience is for the benefit of all. Speak out and express your opinion.

 

Schneeb

Theres absolutely nothing forcing you to spend honour on healing upgrades, the same cant be said for arena's but they are competative and finite when it comes to reward/week. If your role in your arena team is dps, thy buy the dps items - sure an arena team with hybrid dps may not be as successful but thats called balance.

 

Randor

This is true.

Rogues and warlocks are not a hybrid class in any aspect. Don't confuse different specs with what a hybrid is.

That is a joke? Warriors not a hybrid class? Warriors don't tank as well as dps? That's laughable.

Get the gear you want/need and enchant it and gem it to fit your needs. You don't need to gear up for every possible spec under the sun unless you choose to do. And while itemization across WoW could use some refining, I find your "solution" as far off the mark as your original assumptions were.

This is a computer-generated message and needs no signature.

 

Andemoni

Almost forgot to add that PvE-oriented people should propably not read or comment on this thread. I'll also give you a slight hint why warriors aren't listed to suffer from this same problem: why did I list paladins having only three types of armor sets, instead of four?

 

Zorac

I do belive that you have a point here, its a good suggestion. Although I havent played arena past 2100k raiting so I cant comment wether there are only main stream speccs there, but I do know that I face retri paladins/moonkins/enchantment shamans quite alot. And they are quite alot more dangerous than you might think, it could ofc just be a case of me underestimating them.

I do know of a team 3on3 team in my battle group who went with the odd composition of, retri paladin/enchantment shaman/shadow priest, and they were very successfull and even obtained a netherdrake.

Even so if teams would have the opportunity I belive that the top teams would still be consisting of the same group setups, simply because its the most effective.

 

Nausicca

This idea has good pve applications too, it would be great for an armour token to 'unlock' an armour slot so you could purchase at a small cost the whole range of armours to go in that slot, it would sure help pure healing classes gear for off-specs/grinding/pvp fun.

Have love, will travel.

 

DarKNecross

There's actually a board for PvP related discussions here. I think this discussion would be more suited there.
As for the arguments discussed here, the problem i see with it is you're taking away the individuality from the game. You don't see mages collecting +Fire damage gear when they aspire to be frost. You shouldn't be picking up +Healing gear if you want to spec Retribution. From a balance point of view, I still remain unconvinced. Doing the same honor grind for 3 times the gear as someone else isn't really fair, regardless of if you think a paladin getting 3 items doesn't subtract from your gameplay when you get one. If I got paid 3 times the amount for doing the same job as someone else, that would be unfair. I don't really see how this is different.

http://crimson-guild.com

 

Gearshifter

Then again, you do not benefit three times as much just be course you get to buy three types of items, as you will only be able to wear one set anyways (duh... I know).

On the other hand I'm not so sure what to think about this. I would love to see this added to the PvE part of the game though, so healers also will get some items suitable for grinding.

But I guess if this change was to be implented, which I doubt it ever will, it will be added to both apects of the game.

 

Lavode

as a practical matter this is a nonissue - people run arenas with as fixed teams as they can manage, and if your job in that team is EG: dps/feral obnoxtiousness, you will be buying, and wearing dragonhide at all times in the arena. Noone willingly runs an arena team where the priest is healing one week and dps the next, as that would be just silly. The only actual problem that can arise is stuff like a the guild tanks getting together on one day/week and having the warriors spec MS and the ferals resto to farm up some arena points and the points then being spent on gear they never ever use in the arena. But thats not really a very serious arena team anyways, no?

 

tristantio

As has been mentioned, this is primarily a bad idea simply because it removes the individual impact spec and gear choices have.

As it is, there are more or less two types of hybrid players as well, those who spec into a certain role and stick with it, doing whatever they can to become the best at that role, and those who try to be mediocre in all the various roles. My paladin tries to be mediocre in all of them (I've got sets of healing, tanking, spell damage, and ret gear, however I'm nowhere near as efficient as a player who has stuck with one spec and completely geared and advanced his character for that aspect of the game).

 

Kinz

Personally I'd like to just see an 1 for 1 switch at the end of season for the same item of that season, be it dps to healing or vice versa (In pally/druid case 1 of 3), so season 1 gear for season 1 gear, just to be clear. Make it destroy gems currently in it so there is a cost.

Reason for this is due to people chaging teams at the end of the season, last season I was Holy/Disc PvP healing, this season I am full shadow and part of the dps section of the 5v5, so I have 4 pieces of Season 1 healing and 1 piece season 2 dps. Advantage here is I could swap my old healing for some old Shadow sets.

 

tristantio

While that's convenient for you and other players changing their spec entirely, it removes any sort of permanence your purchase choices have.

Would it make sense for a warrior to be able to swap back and forth from tanking tier 4/5/6 to DPS tier 4/5/6 with no repercussions?

What it seems like you're saying is that you want to be able to just have free gear handed to you for whatever spec you happen to take. The fact is being a hybrid, you could have chosen the +damage AND healing set when initially gearing up in arena gear, but you gave up the benefit it would have to your damage stats in favor of even more powerful healing gear. It's the price you pay for excelling in healing (you're behind the curve when you switch to dps). You could have went with the multi-hybrid gear (damage/healing) from the start and not excelled as much at healing, but be ahead the curve when switching to dps.

On my paladin I've been getting the +damage/healing arena gear for this exact reason, as opposed to going for the full +healing.

 

Zarick

Warriors might not tank in the arena, but they still have weapon specs just the same as a rogue. In reality, this applies to just about every class. If you were going to make this change, don't you think mages and warlocks would want new gear with specialized elemental damage on it?

I understand that people feel the grind is quite tough for this gear but it is meant to be for the arena. You can use it outside an arena too but it should match what you do in the arena. Most people have a specific role in the arena as was mentioned previously.

It doesn't seem fair to me to allow people to buy up complete sets for each role you can play. In fact, given that you can quickly leave combat, I feel it might give a little too much power to a hybrid since they could switch gear during a fight and suddenly have great gear for a different role.

If you're raiding, it is the same issue. Most guilds are using a DKP system and you have to pick and choose what you get. Why should the arena hand out so much extra gear?

I also think that some talent spec's are less popular due to how well they work in the arena at the different team sizes and not because they can't get the gear. Shadow priests are in lots of well-rated 2v2 and 3v3 teams but you see less of them in the 5v5 teams. Some classes and talent specs are better in different situations.

 

Kinz

Did you miss the part where I said at the end or start of the season? I fail to see how forcing a player to stick to the gear for 2-3 months is removing the permanence of the gear, and removing the gems is a hefty cost.

 

tristantio

You already got your use out of the gear, there is no solid reason that the one time purchase should mean you're set for life. The main portion of WoW consists of gear collecting.

If this were implemented, where should it stop? Every 3 months would all players be given the option to trade their PvE Tier gear for a different set for free? It makes no sense.

A 3 month time is not permanence. Permanent implies final and unchanging, a 3 month time is temporary.

As I mentioned in my previous post, you got the benefit of having the extremely good healing gear, instead of the hybrid gear, yet now you change your spec and want the other gear to come free of charge?

In PvE if an item drops for a certain slot, it doesn't mean you're set for life for that slot, it means that you have that particular item. The difference here is you get to choose what you fill that slot with initially, it's no one's fault but your own if you chose poorly.

 

Tierce

Being a druid, I run into this problem a lot with PvE and PvP gear. Currently my dilemna deals with PvP. I've come to the conclusion that Feral Druid is about the worst arena spec in the game. Without getting into a debate about that statement, what I have decided I should do is just respec to a restoration build every week for when my team gets their games in. The problem with this is, I don't have any PvP healing gear, I've been picking up the dragonhide set to match my spec. I wish that I could trade in my dragonhide stuff for the same season's healing items. Instead, I will have to set myself back to zero and restart if I want to respec. Why can't I just exchange my items for the equivalent ones for the other spec so I can stay at relatively (still several slots I don't have PvP gear for that I'd be lacking in) the same gear level I'm already at. Why must I restart from the beginning?

Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?

 

Siddown

Being able to swap your current gear for a different, identical iLevel equivalent hardly sets you up for life. A Druid changing their Season 1 PvP gear from Resto to Feral doesn't mean they don't want Season 2 gear.

I'm not sure I'm on board with the change either, but saying it doesn't make sense is a complete falsehood. It makes perfect sense. Some classes have one set of PvP gear, some have multiple sets. So if a Rogue changes spec, their gear doesn't automatically become useless, but if a Shaman, Druid or Paladin changes spec, they bank their gear.

This is a game after all, people do play for enjoyment, and having certain classes spending money to swap their gear over for identical iLevel gear would hardly change the game, in fact I'm sure it'd make the game more enjoyable for all those that play Hybrid classes.

I can't remember if I'm still listed as a Shaman on EJ, but I'm a Rogue now, so I have nothing to gain by such a change going through, I just think it'd make a lot of my guildmates happy because theey wouldn't feel like they "wasted" gear when they make a spec change.

 

Caarl

I agree with the posters that said that this takes away the very important choices regarding gear and spec.

Although they use this statement to conclude that it would be unfair.

Actually it would finally make things fair. From day one Mages, Hunters, Rogues, Warlocks, Warriors (in that order of severity) never had to make the kinds of choices Druids, Pallys, Shamans have had to make.

And now suddenly it would be an injustice to even the playing field? Just admit it, you guys have been spoiled for too long. You had your cake and ate it too and now you dont want anyone else doing it.

The vast VAST majority of people who play the classes I listed will be agaisnt this because they will somehow see your suggestion as giving hybrids an advantage over them. Having a few more purples in our BANK will make us overpowered in their eyes.

After experimenting with several specs with different combinations of friends on 2v2 and 3v3 and 5v5 teams I have purchased 2 pieces of resto arena gear and the boots and belt. Also I baught 2 pieces of the balance arena gear and the bracers and neck. I dont usually complain but I doubt many of the people who play the afformentioned classes have any idea how difficult such choices can be.

I wanted to get a feel for how I would do in arena with different specs and class combos, and now I am punished by not having a full arena set and instead having 2 half sets.
Oh well its not a huge deal. I know it will always be like this. But it sure as hell is not FAIR.
What the original poster suggested would be a lot closer to FAIR.

Also I cant believe that anyone from a hybrid class would think such a change would make things unfair? Maybe you are content with never changing specs i guess.

DISCLAIMER: I know some of the classes I listed could have multiple gear sets but it isnt really drastic by any means. Maybe warriors could have tanking set but I dont see that affecting pvp in any way. All classes to an extent can perform different roles, but the ones mentioned are affected least by gear.

 

Siddown

Talk about exaggeration for the sake of effect. No, the VAST majority of those people don't care. Answer this, when they removed the incredibly long Attunments for the 25 man raids, you honestly don't think the "this is a slap in the face to all real Raiders" posters represented the majority, do you?

I won't make a blanket statement and say that the vast majority of X Class will be against this because they are pricks, I'll leave that too you. Most of the people I know upon hearing of a change like this would shug their shoulders, say "whatever, sounds fair to me", and move on. Remember, most players have multiple characters or multiple classes.

Before you blame anyone from X Class that you deem as beneith you, take a long look at Blizzard, they are the ones who decide what does and does not make it into the game. And if you think they won't make a change like this because Rogues are getting angry, you're sadly mistaken. Rogues have a litany of issues that rank a lot higher on their anger scale than whether a Druid can change his old armor.

 

Caarl

I'm sorry you took offense to my post, I didnt adress it to you personally...
I have to disagree with you though.
I really do see a relation between certain classes who whine typically on blizzard forums and big changes in the game.
Warriors for example whined A LOT when BC came out and feral druids were "ovp". Warriors were useless they said and it was not fair that druids could "DPS and heal". We get a huge feral nerf as a result in the next patch. (maybe not "huge" maybe just "excessive"? lol)

If it makes you feel better I am pretty certain Blizzard will be balancing out the Warrior/Rogue problem right now either by nerfing them or buffing rogues. Anyone can see its definately needed. Rogues are a very highly played class, they will take care of you.

Sorry I really dont wanna derail the thread and I really should apologize for making such a blanket statement. I wish I would have said "a majority" instead of "a vast VAST majority"

I guess I am just too used to posting on blizzard forums where blanket statements and personal attacks are the only way to be heard.

 

Andemoni

There are some quite nice posts made on this thread by now, and I would like to address one of them, which is the "you have to choose what type of gear you want to buy and use". While this freedom of choice is excellent in theory, for the majority of players it is merely an inconvenience. I'll talk about my class of choice, paladin, as an example.

I want to play high-end arenas. There is simply nothing more luring in this game for me personally than the competion the arena system brings. I simply love it. This is the reason I'm 41/20/0, which is the most effective spec a paladin can have for the arenas. There are no gear choices to be made, it's pure healing gear for me, all the way, all the time. While spell damage gear would be somewhat usable in 2v2, I just simply cannot make myself grind for it. It's too much. And if I haven't bought the best possible healing item for a specific slot, I sure as hell won't be spending my honor or arena points getting marginally useful gear for it that serves a very specific or novelty purpose at best.

This is not to say that I wouldn't love to have a spell damage and a retribution set, just to play around with them, test them out. The amount of time and effort you have to invest, at the expense of arena viability, to attain these sets is simply too much. Warriors can easily spec to deep fury to test it out without having to completely overhaul their gear and rogues only need to swap their weapons.

I just find the stressful having different types of styles of play and specs and not be able to even try them out without having to spend a lot of time, honor and arena points for it. If you're playing a class that can have multiple specs with the same gear, such as mage, warlock or warrior, enjoy it.

 

Siddown

You didnt offend me, I just think making blanket statements that cover millions of people is just not a smart thing to do. You bring up the WoW forums, do you honestly think the WoW forums represent the average player of WoW? I don't, and I know most people here don't.

Also, the reason Warriors were complaining about Druids was not because they could dps and heal, it was because (at the time), in Bear form they had the midigation of a Prot Warrior and could dish out insane damage.

Like I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm a Rogue and I really don't see a problem with people swapping old gear. I'm sure they'd need to find a way to make them pay a bit, like removing Gems or something just to deter people from Changing three times a night, then I'd gladly be on board. Even if Rogues never get fixed compared to Warriors, it won't change my opinion on this issue as they are completely unrelated. Don't confuse the few people in this thread, or the 100 or so posters on the WoW Forums who just like to fight for the sake of fighting with the masses, the masses really don't care about this sort of thing.

 

tunah

Correlation does not imply causation. Common cause in this case - feral druids were overpowered and warriors were pretty broken by comparison. This caused both the fix, and the whining.

Not huge, but significant. Not excessive, at least after the subsequent mangle changes. (My main is a feral druid, before you accuse me of hopeless bias).

Deep breath

I'm not sure it's reasonable to get full benefit in season 1 from (say) the S1 feral gear, then in season 2 get full benefit from S2 feral gear and S1 healing gear.
The two obvious mitigating arguments:
* pure classes get all they need - the S2 gear. But in general there isn't a fast-track to alternate sets (maybe old honor grind? I didn't play it) in PVE or PVP. A change to this would have to be wider reaching.
* The S1 gear is outdated in season 2. Only if you're high end raiding, as far as I can see. Most aren't.

On the other hand if you do want to change roles there should be a way to do this. I don't see how it should work though, maybe allow trading for previous season gear at 50% of the current cost of the gear?

 

Darkrom

More often than not, you'll find Holy Paladins healing in arenas to obtain Retribution oriented gear. As they gain rank, they require more resilience to compete against better teams and are often forced to sacrafice arena points for a Holy oriented piece or 5 to gain more resilience...to gain more points per week, to be competitive ect ect.

This is the struggle that I have come across myself so I would definately support some option of swapping 1 arena piece for another....with some cost, of course. The Karazhan ring exchange comes to mind.

 

BlackCadian

Very interesting discussion I must say. Especially the direction into which it develops. At the beginning I was quite sceptical about the whole idea, with the basically "free" trades.

But towards the end of the thread I started to like it more and more.

There are a various suggestions as to how the swapping could be made viable, and I would like to throw in another (basically a mixture of some of the above mentioned):

How about taking the slot system that was mentioned, but instead of being able to swap or receive all items for that specific slot for free, reduce the AP cost for each additional piece of armor that fits this specific slot cost by, say... 75%? Or for the sake of simplicity, instead of implementing the slot system, just add a requirement for the reduced cost with "Must have at least 1 corresponding armor piece".
So if a shaman wants to get the resto and the elemental glad head piece, he pays the full price for whichever he buys first, and then the price for the other one automatically gets reduced by x.


Something else I would like to add. It has been mentioned before, but only on the sideline. This change would also be a HUGE step into the right direction in solving the problem heal classes and to a degree warriors (tanks) have when trying to quests/farm gold/rep whatever. I remember when I got my first char (priest) to 60, got into my first raiding guild etc. Ofc I was specced holy/disc. Solo viability? Zero. After a couple of attempts I didn't even bother anymore. This would help somewhat. Yes, you can always team up with someone, but it's not a lot of fun. Also, it would be a change of pace, getting away from watching green bars 24/7, maybe resulting in less "healer burnout"?