The ilevel problem - reforging or remove secondary stats from items

[Khuzog]

Luckily as a PvPer I already carry around a set of item level gear for arena and BGs, so when I'm trawling for groups on my DPS character I just wear it for their ridiculous requirements, then switch back to my properly itemized suit and carry the group.

[Jimson]

There were times when not every item was an upgrade to a caster ( remember willpower on gear ). Was that a problem? Not really.

I've been playing since 2006 and I don't remember "willpower." What was it?

[Deleted]

I've been playing since 2006 and I don't remember "willpower." What was it?

I think he means spell power.

[Jimson]

I think he means spell power.

I couldn't decide if he misspoke or if willpower was some kind of pushback reduction stat on PVP gear.

[Deleted]

I think you missunderstood l33t, he said instead of giving reforge back.

[Deleted]

This made me smile. Thanks!

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There are some classes for whom versa is the best stat. That does not mean it is a good stat, just that the devs have done a horrible job balancing the other secondary stats well for those classes.

It's not a question of balancing the stats right, it's how those specs are designed. They either get guaranteed crits from procs, only need haste up until a breakpoint or their mastery doesn't affect parts of their damage (For instance with Frost DK and Balance druid, Mastery only affects 60% of your damage. And in case of Balance druid, mastery actually scales worse the more targets you have up to dot and if they're spread out.)

The flat damage boost from Vers affects all of their damage however, where as the other stats would be wasted above certain breakpoints. So it ends up being the best thing to stack, because it is a reliable damage increase.
The only issue with Vers is that it is a boring stat.

[God Save The King]

I think they should re-add some of the older secondary stats and make all secondaries have some level of interaction with one another. Like the way resto druids have haste/crit/mastery, they all kind of play off one another and you want to keep them all in the same general vicinity.

Gearing feels very bland with 4 secondaries no primary stat selection. There's no breakpoints, nothing to work towards. no gem customization, no enchant customization. Just, insert highest ilvl piece and go. No reforging.

It's probably just me, but basically gearing/raiding has boiled down into a forumla. Eat this one type of food, drink your only flask option, gem your 1 or 2 sockets, enchant with the only enchant you can use, and pop on your highest ilvl gear.

I like that jewelry has some depth for some specs. It annoys be that blizzard wants to remove it so ilvl trumps all.


There are ways to bring back customization without it being super math-based and addon dominated.


Reinstate gems for many slots, add back colored sockets & socket bonuses. Re-add reforging. Open up profession specific spells/enchants. Bring back enchanting for nearly every slot.

Now, instead of making all of the above provide crit or haste, flush out the tertiary stat system and make all gems/enchants/reforge/profession/etc provide those.

Enchant indestructible. Gem speed or leech. Maybe make a gem to increase energy/rage maximum by a few points.

Tertiary options could be:
Indestructible
Speed
Leech
Avoidance
Stamina(except maybe for tanks?)
Provide a small shield every 5 seconds like Pryzdaz
Increase healing received
Add some armor (except maybe for tanks?)
Add some magic resist
Etc

None of those are going to provide throughput, but it allows people to customize their character beyond a cookie cutter.

[Deleted]

Answers like this should be included everytime somebody complains that Blizzard doesn't listen to feedback.

Reforging is problematic, yeah - because on my Paladin, an item that is crap for Retri may be much better for Protection and perfect for Holy, so if I switch a lot I would be reforging all the time. As it is, I just keep 3 versions of several items in my bags, so that cannot be a solution really.

And I admit I don't have one, because as soon as secondary stats are removed we will drown in a flood of tears how "The game is dumbed down and having choice was so great and how it made it exciting to open a cache because it could be perfect titanforged and that was like christmas"

had to be brutal, but this is the reality

Reforge is pretty useless, blizzard is also "fixing" the secondary stats gap so reforge has no sense to exist for n reason

1 - There is no "real" choice because everybody will min max the first 2 stats of their stats weight, following guide or discord channel, like cookie cutter build back in the day with talent trees

Illusion of "customization"

2 - You already STRUGGLE to drop/win/get with dkp a single ITEM in RAID, if you get reforge BACK you will probably start aiming item COMPLETELY DIFFERENT/USELESS for your spec only because "this item gives 1600 of useless stats but i can reforge it in useful/bis stats making this item BETTER than usual BIS item (due to the fact that tri stats > )" so you will STRUGGLE EVEN MORE vs other players to get item that aren't even in your personal loot table at all

No plz.


3 - Beside the "Prot-Retri-Holy" dilemma the main concern is that reforge was "useful" when we had a truckload of different stats, hit/expertise/dodge/parry - was nice to get rid of expertise/hit overcapping ( "i hate this stats!1" ) but now?

We have CRIT HASTE VERSA MASTERY so why reforge it if nearly all spec have 2-3/4 stats to follow? just play with the "bis" you have atm and wish for better drops.


If blizzard introduce "extra" tertiary stats like : dodge/parry/absorb/leech/avoidance/crit dmg


then MAYBE reforge can be "tested" but im not sure how making so complicated the stats sheet could be useful for us.

[Mykk]

Sry but what? remove secondary stats? Kidding me right .D Whats the point of that?

Reforging would be much welcomed back now but blizzdoes not want to do that

[Deleted]

No will not welcomed.

[satimy]

The problem is mainstats like agi and are being half the value in some cases of secondary stats.

[MasterHamster]

I can't imagine how boring gearing will be when the only thing people look at is ilvl. Increase relative power of main stats a bit, but completely removing secondary stats from the equation (ie weights depending on spec etc) will probably be the final nail before items are truly just a brainless "x ilvl > y, equip x".

So many stats has been removed over the years and we're truly getting close to the point where we don't even bother looking at the item anymore.

[Lucetia]

However, I have another suggestion and this is entirely my own opinion:

-Remove secondary stats from all items
-Make secondary stats bound to AP which earns you levels to spend in secondary stats on your character - this is similar to how diablo has paragon points and each level you spend into a stat.
-Where items had secondary stats, replace with utility stats like leech, speed etc... to keep item flavor

What do you think and why?

Blizzard will be making a change to address this so make yourself heard

So you want gear to be like it was in Vanilla where there was no secondary stats and if it had any it was extremely rare? Would rather not revert back to that model.

[Jastall]

Reforging was a PITA. Even with Hit/Expertise gone you're still going to end up going "Awesome, an upgrade! I'll just wait for break to HS and go reforge it so it's actually better..." - It also adds nothing of value again because everyone just imports>optimize>auto-reforges from AMR or other reforge addons. Simply put, it's pointless to re-add it.

As opposed to Valor upgrades, which have you do the same thing? As opposed to sockets, which have you do the same thing? As opposed to enchant-less necks, backs and jewels, which have you do the same thing? Having to wait until break/raid being over to equip an upgrade is a small price for the big convenience boost Reforging is. As Fury, I'd love being able to turn some Crit and Versa into Haste.

I don't think secondaries need to go at all; some amount of decision when gearing is still important, and they give an increase to player power that's more interesting than +mainstat (well, save for stupid Versa). What Reforging would do, is lessen the impact of RNG which the game desperately needs to do right now, and it would also serve as a small gold sink to boot.

[Absoul]

I think they should re-add some of the older secondary stats and make all secondaries have some level of interaction with one another. Like the way resto druids have haste/crit/mastery, they all kind of play off one another and you want to keep them all in the same general vicinity.

Gearing feels very bland with 4 secondaries no primary stat selection. There's no breakpoints, nothing to work towards. no gem customization, no enchant customization. Just, insert highest ilvl piece and go. No reforging.

It's probably just me, but basically gearing/raiding has boiled down into a forumla. Eat this one type of food, drink your only flask option, gem your 1 or 2 sockets, enchant with the only enchant you can use, and pop on your highest ilvl gear.

I like that jewelry has some depth for some specs. It annoys be that blizzard wants to remove it so ilvl trumps all.


There are ways to bring back customization without it being super math-based and addon dominated.


Reinstate gems for many slots, add back colored sockets & socket bonuses. Re-add reforging. Open up profession specific spells/enchants. Bring back enchanting for nearly every slot.

Now, instead of making all of the above provide crit or haste, flush out the tertiary stat system and make all gems/enchants/reforge/profession/etc provide those.

Enchant indestructible. Gem speed or leech. Maybe make a gem to increase energy/rage maximum by a few points.

Tertiary options could be:
Indestructible
Speed
Leech
Avoidance
Stamina(except maybe for tanks?)
Provide a small shield every 5 seconds like Pryzdaz
Increase healing received
Add some armor (except maybe for tanks?)
Add some magic resist
Etc

None of those are going to provide throughput, but it allows people to customize their character beyond a cookie cutter.

I agree with a lot of this. I would like the level of customization so that I can find some crazy balance of stats that works awesome for me with the gear I have and get away from the cookie cutter builds which I find very boring.

What I was getting at with the way diablo allows you to customize your toon (and I believe they took many lessons from diablo 3 for legion) was a system where you are allocated points to spend in your stats - so you could spend all your points into a glass cannon build and do crazy dps but your survivabilty would be lacking, you would decide how to spend your stats to maximize dps while having enough stats in things that keep you alive. So you would have stats that aid dps/healing, stats for survivability and stats for utility

Now a stat that could make things very interesting and I think they have had this in the game before to some degree is introducing modifier stat of a certain type eg. fire, ice, physical, chaos etc... which have different effects and may even interact with each other in unique ways and can synergize with the talents you choose.
ice slows enemy movement speed and attack speed etc, chaos ignores armor etc....
Basically take from warcraft 3 those "orb" effects we are familiar with and incorporate them in the game in a way that allows so much customization that you are forced to experiment to find your own optimal build.

So lets say you have personal stats you can allocate points to (earned from AP) which are bound to your character, not your gear.

mastery,
crit,
haste,
versatility,


Gear would have the primary stats plus a "modifer" stat
So it might look like:

+n1 [primary stat]
+n2 [Stamina]
+n3 [Modifer stat]
+n4 [Utility stat]

Also, talents trees could be re-written so that every tier offers an option to enhance specific modifiers like the way they synergize with secondary stats.

[Zeth Hawkins]

I just want enchants and gems that affect stats removed.

Bringing back reforging on top of that would just be gravy.