Do you like "mastery" as a stat?

[Daws]

Well considering how previous expansions have gone for WoW I wouldn't be surprised to see yet more secondary stats disappear. For me master isn't much of an issue but the whole hit/expertise seems rather messed up. Typically you struggle to get these to the correct level in first tier of raiding in xpac but by time you get to the last tier you are swimming in the stuff and it's just useless. I'm betting that hit and expertise are up for some modification next expansion (either dropped merged or staggered so a new tier requires a higher amount)

[Deleted]

As an arms i'm mostly impartial to my choice, extra hits are nice but i don't really notice them in pvp.

As a fury definitely NO, it forces us to stay berserk all the time or we lose out on a shitload of damage, even more when crit % is the main factor to this.

[mistahwilshire]

I'd like it more if they actually put some effort in to fixing the useless ones. Some are interesting and useful and others are totally irrelevant to go after.

[Tinykong]

Mastery is cool when it does something. When you get an extra stack of Tiger's Eye Brew as a Monk, you notice it. When your dot deals double damage, do you really notice it? Or if you get an extra swing?

Mastery was supposed to be the dial they used to buff/nerf classes, and it wound up just being another boring stat you either love or hate.

[TheWindWalker]

You could remove all of your mastery and put it into crit, and likely never notice a gameplay difference.

Largely, all the stats are like this, short of Haste. Haste is the one stat that you'll always notice if you go from 0 to 100% reforge/gem.

You've never played a *deep breathe* Blood DK, Feral/Guardian/Restoration Druid, Windwalker Monk, Paladin, Holy Priest, Elemental Shaman, or Arms/Protection Warrior, have you? I'd imagine you have but you might want to look again because each one of these has either a mastery that has a fairly noticeable effect aside from occasional double-damage or a flat increase of damage at all. Especially Windwalkers (more stacks of TeB in shorter periods of time), Elemental Shamans (Auto-crits, anyway), and Arms Warriors (those extra swings can refresh Colossus Smash and thus more frequent sparkly button.)

[Boricha]

I'm prefectly fine with a classes best stat being mastery or better yet haste. It does bother me when it's crit though.

[tiporispit]

same shit different day...everybody still runs the same cookie cutter builds specs enchants gems and reforges its no different than how the old talent system used to be

In general, it's the same old shit. However, straying from the cookie cutter doesn't cost anyone nearly as much DPS or HPS as it did in the past. Personally, I like the old way, but this is part of dumb'ing the game down. Doesn't matter what you pick, reforge or enchant. The difference is negligible outside Heroic raiding.

[Deleted]

no its a very boring stat that simply gives you a flat dmg increase most of the time, might aswell remove it

[Gheld]

I like mastery, although it was introduced as a replacement for Arpen because Arpen was too complicated, but mastery makes things even more complicated for damage classes because it's differently beneficial to different specs in different situations.

I think it's cooler than Arpen but is a pretty sad attempt at making something "simpler".

[Jimson]

On my Destro lock I love mastery, it completely removes the RNG that crit provides. More mastery and all of my spells are going to do more damage, that is huge. I wish I could increase the amount of hit that I can re-forge off of gear to mastery, even if the gear already has mastery on it. So much of my lock gear has hit on it that I cannot get below 18%. Being able to completely remove hit would be a big help.

I don't know what your gear level is, but this sounds improbable if you're being selective rather than just grabbing i-lvls.

[eschatological]

I like it when it affects "partial" amounts of your damage. For example, BM hunter, it ups your pet's damage, which is about 60-75% of our damage. It makes you prioritize those kill commands and pet micro, which is what you should do in BM.

And in SV, it buffs magical damage, which is everything but Kill Shot/multi-shot/auto shot, but it was still interesting interplay with mastery-heavy reforges on big AoE fights to benefit the most from Serpent Spread (instant nature magic damage on a multi-shot, plus 15s nature magic DoT), which allowed mastery to overtake haste on certain fights.

I also think mastery is pretty interesting on tank classes, and a few other classes, like ele shaman. On my destro lock, it buffs all my damage EXCEPT chaos bolt/shadowburn, which are your big nukes, so I think that makes it somewhat interesting.

In fact, I went through all the masteries by role, and there seems to be very few that strike me as wholly uninteresting.

[Kelimbror]

In fact, I went through all the masteries by role, and there seems to be very few that strike me as wholly uninteresting.

Frost damage, bleed damage, shadow dmg, blood shield, etc. There are enough that the system needs to be revisited. +% of x dmg is wholly uninteresting.

Add to that:
increased armor
icnreased pet damage
increased magic damage
etc
etc
etc

None of these change your rotations or playstyle, no matter how many people say otherwise. The priorities are still the same as you use those abilities regardless.

[Verain]

As a rogue, we have three masteries that deal damage, and all of them have something to recommend them.

Sub mastery is cool because it also boosts slice and dice. So you can really game that if you have, say, a trinket that temporarily boosts your mastery (rune of reo is basically your only option here, sadly). Then you can carry a really solid slice and dice into other parts of the fight, and line up burst with it.

Sub mastery also boosts buttons you actually press, and as such, is pleasing.

Mutilate mastery is cool because it boosts poison damage. You can get a lot of aoe damage going, and it's just generally solid and interesting. It does mean that wound poison is pretty much out of the question, sadly.

Combat mastery is the worst, but even it has some narrow coolness. Specifically, it is your best stat during killing spree, so if you are concerned about burst, the rapid KS hits really capitalize on it. Other than that, it's pretty lame because it's essentially just improved autoattacks.

[Ponzoo]

I enjoy mastery, but only because I am a MUT rogue. <3 my poisons!

[Wildberry]

Meh, dislike mastery, ArP seemed like it was a much more "fun" stat, for most classes (NOT YOU ELE SHAMANS) Mastery feels like a passive damage upgrade for a few of your abilities, really nothing beyond that.

As far as the talent systems go, I actually prefered the WotLK trees, mostly since all of the interesting/fun talents (For DK's atleast) Got scrapped and didn't get baked in, as far as the MoP era talents go, none of them really feel like a "choice", it's moreso X=more DPS than Y or Z, better get good at using X, or, X is better for this fight, Y is better for the next, better have my Tomes ready.

[vep]

I do like mastery as a stat.

The only stats I really dislike and think should be removed are parry and dodge. I don't main tank but my alts do, so even the few times I see parry/dodge gear I get very disappointed.

Yeah, because tanks feel very tank-y without dodge and parry.... But sure, let's put crit and haste over actual tanking stats.. Because why not? Why couldn't I play a tank and do more dps than a mage? Makes perfect sense.

As for mastery... I really couldn't care less. It's a stat like any other.

And yeah, talents are complete and utter bullshit now. I'd prefer it that we get to choose a specialization and each of those specializations to have three TBC-like talent trees that maybe focus on a specific stat, thus allowing you to choose your play style. (for example: 3 talent trees, one for strength/mastery, one for haste and one for crit. And you get to choose what you like more) Or you know, something along those lines.

[Kelimbror]

(for example: 3 talent trees, one for strength/mastery, one for haste and one for crit. And you get to choose what you like more) Or you know, something along those lines.

You think that having arbitrary stat increases in tree format would somehow be better than choosing between real abilities? I too like the nostalgia of putting tons of points in 5/5 +% damage in order to unlock some special ability, but it's pointless. Much better to have a real decision between engaging abilities that may affect how I play the game.

Could they do an even better job designing these abilities? Sure. But to think that passive stat increases are better?..not so much.

[PrairieChicken]

Mastery is best stat I would say. Adds more diversity than any other stats could

[Gestopft]

I love it. A stat that affects everybody in a slightly different way is awesome in my book.

- - - Updated - - -

Mastery was supposed to be the dial they used to buff/nerf classes, and it wound up just being another boring stat you either love or hate.

They quickly realized (and rightly so) that the "dial" concept for mastery wouldn't work that way. Using a stat on gear to buff/nerf specs wildly changes the value of said gear, forcing people to regear, re-reforge, regem, etc.

[Manabomb]

This I disagree with. I have always seen those stats as the 'ready mark'. What I mean is, when you have them capped, you are ready to start raiding/pvp/whatever your endgame is (and yes I know the PVP and PVE hit caps differ). I have always made sure fulfilling those stats was the most important thing I do each expansion I hit the level cap. As a DPS, there is no more important goal than this.

On subject, I like mastery, even on specs where mastery is the worst stat. This is because EVEN on those mentioned specs mastery has the most immediately profound and recognizable differences. Our OP is a rogue, and they have specs that both love and loathe mastery. Even the one that loathes it (sub) you can see a very distinct change with one piece of gear with mastery on it.

The biggest problems with hit and expertise is them having a static solid cap where all points after hit and expertise cap are wasted. They are useless stats after cap and it's very difficult, even with reforging to keep at the maximum potential of secondary stats. Removing of hit/exp and giving say giving back spell pen/arp that scale accordingly to a cap, but then become half as valuable after cap is a much better system. Spell pen/arp just being pure damage.

Sure it's boring mindless damage stats, but as is every stat you stack, and hit/exp is a much more punishing system, especially when a single piece of gear can give you more than 1/3 your total hit cap.

On topic, mastery is very much a static "Here have damage reduction, more healing or more damage" stat. But it was designed around that. A lot of masteries that were cool or interesting had to be redesigned because the stat was useless otherwise. (See original ret paladin mastery, marks mastery, mw monk mastery.)