3.1 Upcoming Changes - Page 40

alienangel · 03/09/09, 5:49 PM

Originally Posted by Esoth

Is anyone else concerned about the relative importance of our melee and ranged weapons? What I mean to say, is that it appears I get more benefit from an upgrade to my melee weapon(s) instead of from my ranged weapon. In the spreadsheet, the difference between Cryptfiend's Bite and Journey's End is greater than the difference between Arrowsong and Envoy of Mortality (assuming no racials there). The same appears true if you compare Journey's/Envoy to this gun and this sword taken from mmo-champion.com. It's not necessarily a problem, except in loot distribution (which may be a problem) but it strikes me as odd. I wonder if it would make sense to give hunters an AP bonus or something for our ranged weapons similar to what druids have with their staves, to make our ranged weapons have more importance.

Things like this mostly make me respond, "yes, but so what?" Parity in all things between classes isn't important unless it actually causes lasting problems, and I don't really see this as causing much of a problem - hunters aren't terrible DPS when they have the wrong ranged weapon (assuming something within a half tier of the content they're doing), and they're not terrible dps if they have the wrong melee weapon either.

To change this case I think they'd have to rework our melee weapons to be less of a contribution too, which would be awkward with all the classes we share them with.

As for how little an effect ranged weapon has, not a week goes by where I won't forget to switch from thoridal for trash to final voyage for a boss, and no-one will notice the difference until after the boss, when I might be wondering why I was a spot or two lower on the meters than expected.

Btw, thoridal *still* steadyshots harder than final voyage with engineering arrows - but the autoshots are pathetic :/

TrevvyTrev · 03/09/09, 6:42 PM

Originally Posted by Esoth

Has this been confirmed though? I don't recall seeing anyone testing boss armor on the PTR, but I could have missed it. The 25% buff to ArP made me wonder if they were ditching the idea of giving bosses less armor in favor of buffing the ArP, but they could do both.

There are a couple reasons that they are likely to do both. The first is that if you aren't itemized for armor pen, then you just get flat out nerfed by the sunder changes if boss armor stays the same. The second is that irrespective of the sunder changes (and before they were even announced), the designers said they felt that the return on armor pen rating seemed low, and that they wanted to address that.

Occam's Razor suggests that the armor pen change simply is related to their earlier statements regarding the poor return on armor pen rating, and not an unraveling of previously announced boss armor changes.

Tizzi · 03/10/09, 11:30 AM

hi guys, i have one question...
after the ArP buff, if i wpuld play SV in the 3.1, i must wear ArP gear?
Surv is based on magical damage (see ES), but ArP can improve anyway the SV Spec? (example: GrimToll+ nobles instead nobles+badge trinket)
or is prefered respec MM for take improve damage from ArP?

stickums · 03/10/09, 11:33 AM

Must? No. Will? Yes. Since it's on practically everything you have no choice. But the changes only take it from a wasted stat to barely useful. You will not want to gear for it over better stats such as AGI, AP, Crit under any circumstances though.

Fierra · 03/10/09, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by stickums

Must? No. Will? Yes. Since it's on practically everything you have no choice. But the changes only take it from a wasted stat to barely useful. You will not want to gear for it over better stats such as AGI, AP, Crit under any circumstances though.

Keep in mind, it will be even LESS valuable for SV than the other 2 specs; since 40%+ of our damage is Fire damage, and therefore ArP does not apply. It's still slightly better than haste, but still; syphilis or AIDS?

Mugsley · 03/10/09, 12:02 PM

Originally Posted by Fierra

Keep in mind, it will be even LESS valuable for SV than the other 2 specs; since 40%+ of our damage is Fire damage, and therefore ArP does not apply. It's still slightly better than haste, but still; syphilis or AIDS?

So true. I about spit out my drink when I saw all the ArPen on our gear so far in Ulduar. Hopefully T8 will be devoid of it.

stickums · 03/10/09, 12:08 PM

I wouldn't bet on it. It really seems like a good stat for them to use to control gear upgrade progression. They can use a budget fully while not maximizing damage output, yet still making some number a little bigger than before. If they took all the ArP on a current 25m item and made it hit/ap/crit then we would be insane.

alienangel · 03/10/09, 12:24 PM

I honestly don't mind. More chances of a few good pieces coming out of it, and eventually building towards the glorious 100% ArP sunwell days before they nerf it again.

A very long way to go still, but 5% from a melee weapon and 56% from a good uptime proc are a good start.

Mugsley · 03/10/09, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by stickums

I wouldn't bet on it. It really seems like a good stat for them to use to control gear upgrade progression. They can use a budget fully while not maximizing damage output, yet still making some number a little bigger than before. If they took all the ArP on a current 25m item and made it hit/ap/crit then we would be insane.

I thought that was what Spirit was for.

>.>

Esoth · 03/10/09, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Fierra

Keep in mind, it will be even LESS valuable for SV than the other 2 specs; since 40%+ of our damage is Fire damage, and therefore ArP does not apply. It's still slightly better than haste, but still; syphilis or AIDS?

I don't know that it's necessarily better for any of the three specs. Marks has a lot of nature and arcane damage. BM has a lot of pet damage, which doesn't benefit from ArP. All three specs look like hunter physical DPS makes up about the same percentage of total DPS.

As for ArP being on all of the gear, I don't think that's so bad. Right now we have haste on all of our gear. If our gear stayed exactly the same but all of the haste was changed to ArP, it would be an upgrade. Still far from being ideally budgeted, but it is better budgeted than T7.

alienangel · 03/10/09, 1:00 PM

And hey, if they change all my haste to ArP, I can pop rapid fire and haste pots without feeling slightly silly too.

Trickytrout · 03/10/09, 1:53 PM

Well, we have to remember that haste is actually a very important stat for SV and MM. We just don't think about it that way because anyone who can clear Naxx has enough haste to reach the soft cap. If too much haste is converted to ArP we could start to have a tougher time fitting in 3 SS in our rotation.

Of course, even if some haste budget goes to ArP, the amount of haste per item will still likely increase, hopefully allowing to still reach the soft cap.

I wouldn't worry too much about losing a lot of haste, but just some food for thought.

ankah · 03/10/09, 1:55 PM

Originally Posted by Esoth

I don't know that it's necessarily better for any of the three specs. Marks has a lot of nature and arcane damage. BM has a lot of pet damage, which doesn't benefit from ArP. All three specs look like hunter physical DPS makes up about the same percentage of total DPS.

As for ArP being on all of the gear, I don't think that's so bad. Right now we have haste on all of our gear. If our gear stayed exactly the same but all of the haste was changed to ArP, it would be an upgrade. Still far from being ideally budgeted, but it is better budgeted than T7.

I was wondering about that myself, so I ran some numbers thru the spreadsheet (version 85h) and was a bit surprised.

Bm, once hit capped, shows ArP as just ahead of atk pwr or crit rating on the pawn value. Changing some gear around also showed an increase in dps. It is all theoretical of course, but intriguing, and it some what makes sense, since they let off the most auto shots. If this it is indeed true, it could mean they would scale better then the other 3 builds if Blizz continued to greatly increase ArP on gear.

MM was second, but ArP was significantly behind AGI, CRIT, and just a tad over ATK PWR, but ahead of every thing else. Something else I noticed, only 1 point into rapid recuperation would allow you to do infinite sets of Serpend sting, Rapid Fire, Chimera, readiness, chimera, shot rotation, RF when back up without going oom with traditional replenishes skills from other classes.

As some one noted earlier, ArP is only over Haste and intellect for Survival.

Could it be, that ArP would scale better and better with haste stacking?

Has anyone seen anything in relation to the boss armor of 3.1?

Berfert · 03/10/09, 1:59 PM

Originally Posted by stickums

I wouldn't bet on it. It really seems like a good stat for them to use to control gear upgrade progression. They can use a budget fully while not maximizing damage output, yet still making some number a little bigger than before. If they took all the ArP on a current 25m item and made it hit/ap/crit then we would be insane.

The problem is that they itemized t7 poorly and, when confronted on it, gave us the explanation that they did so on purpose so that they could make future tiers better by both ilvl and itemization. That means they planned on itemizing t8 better than t7, at least at one point in time.

Rosamonde · 03/10/09, 2:03 PM

At one point the word was that our pets were going to inherit some portion of all our stats, and not just hit, AP, stam, and armor. If this were true, ArPen would have some additional value for all specs, BM in particular. I haven't heard anything about it in a while, though, and I don't see anything about it in the PTR notes. Has this idea fallen by the wayside?