Battle for azeroth will end tier sets.

[Olski11]

Its not even in the game yet people start complaining. Without any thought given to it. It wont kill raiding as it is.
The point of removing it is so you have more choice from the loottable, not being locked to 4 pieces from the start of a tier.
Raiding should feel fun to do, not a chore to get the 4p bonus as fast as possible, with titanforging involved, you may have passed on loot that would have been
a significant upgrade, but simply because of " im going to put a setpiece there" you didnt take it.

Welcome some changes guys, its a good Qol change overall.

[ls-]

It is not exclusivly under Ian. It's the WotLK+ leaders obviously. And in this case right here I am talking about more recent stuff like:
- Removal of Raid tier sets and their bonuses
- Removal of PvP gear and rating requirements (or grinding requirements)
- Removal of PvP realms
- multiple difficulties on Scenarios 2.0
- Titanforging
- Mythic+

Dunno, mate. M+ is the best feature in game since forever.

[Frood]

I totally understand his point, and am willing to give it a try to see where it goes. However, I feel that the set bonuses (when executed right) actually contributed to the various specs in terms of how fun they were. That slight change in rotation, new little DPS trick, or having to go into the spell book and dust off a spell you barely ever used is what helped differentiate the tiers and helped keep playstyles fresh and exciting.

Without tier set bonuses, I'm afraid specs are going to be bland in the long run, but perhaps the Heart of Azeroth will make up for it.

[Deleted]

In a way I like the change because it allows me to perform equally with raiders in mythic+ dungeons, but as a former raider I can see how it removes one of the main incentives of raiding. The removal of set bonuses should not in any way affect the visual appearances of class sets though, it’s just not enough to have a few recolors of the same set each tier.

Hopefully they can make the new legenday system incorporate similar unlockable bonuses for each tier.

[Palinn]

Disappointing news. I'm not quite sure on the logic here. How does removing gear/choices increase the choices for gear? If the problem was that set bonuses were so strong that nobody ever wanted to replace them.. why not balance them with the gear choices so people could choose? Hopefully it works out, but from past experience... it won't.

Oh well. Another reason to look forward to Classic over Live.

[Eurhetemec]

It is not exclusivly under Ian. It's the WotLK+ leaders obviously. And in this case right here I am talking about more recent stuff like:
- Removal of Raid tier sets and their bonuses
- Removal of PvP gear and rating requirements (or grinding requirements)
- Removal of PvP realms
- multiple difficulties on Scenarios 2.0
- Titanforging
- Mythic+

Dude, his name is ION, not IAN, for god's sake.

As for "WotLK+ leaders", that means ALL WoW leaders, because the WotLK-era leaders are the Vanilla-era leaders. All your complaints apply to EVERYONE who has been in charge of WoW. So you're just complaining about WoW generally. You're literally complaining about stuff from 9+ years ago in some cases.

Complaining about M+ is just incredibly awful as well. If you think that "makes the game less fun", you have no idea what fun even is, frankly.

[MiiiMiii]

Dunno, mate. M+ is the best feature in game since forever.

I wish dungeons and raids only had 1 difficulty. Some easy and some hard. Some 10 man, some 25 man.
I started losing interest already in TBC in dungeons because they introduced Normal vs Heroic versions of dungeons. Once I had beat and farmed the normal one, it was just not that cool to beat the same instance again with higher HP/DMG.
In WotLK Heroics were a complete joke (unrelated) and they introduced you can choose between 10 and 25 man. At least at this point the 25 man gave better loot. WotLK also introduced normal/hardmode in Raids. I remember when we beat Lich King for the first time, I was pretty happy but I had no interest in farming the whole instance again to beat him again on hard mode.

Mythic+ is kinda even worse because you play the same dungeon "forever" in an expansion. You never beat the content, because there will always be a harder + difficulty. I know many were happy with it but I have no interest in it. Scaling is just lazy game design.

[Eurhetemec]

I totally understand his point, and am willing to give it a try to see where it goes. However, I feel that the set bonuses (when executed right) actually contributed to the various specs in terms of how fun they were. That slight change in rotation, new little DPS trick, or having to go into the spell book and dust off a spell you barely ever used is what helped differentiate the tiers and helped keep playstyles fresh and exciting.

That was sometimes true. But I think you can agree that at other times, sets bonuses merely lead to some specs underperforming, or overperforming, and in other cases were more irritating than enjoyable, and that they were difficult to balance for, because it was quite possible to run an awful lot of raids and still not actually get your 4-piece (let alone higher numbers!).

Without tier set bonuses, I'm afraid specs are going to be bland in the long run, but perhaps the Heart of Azeroth will make up for it.

Hopefully. That does seem to be the entire concept behind HoA, but it'll all be in the execution. Given how unreliable getting set bonuses was, though, I suspect that for most players, even if HoA is slightly less exciting, then overall, it'll be more exciting.

[MiiiMiii]

Dude, his name is ION, not IAN, for god's sake.

As for "WotLK+ leaders", that means ALL WoW leaders, because the WotLK-era leaders are the Vanilla-era leaders. All your complaints apply to EVERYONE who has been in charge of WoW. So you're just complaining about WoW generally. You're literally complaining about stuff from 9+ years ago in some cases.

Complaining about M+ is just incredibly awful as well. If you think that "makes the game less fun", you have no idea what fun even is, frankly.

Thank you for telling me what I should think is fun.

You know people like Jeff Kapplan left the team in the middle of WotLK? And people like Mark Kern left at the end of vanilla? These guys were way up on top.

[Eurhetemec]

I started losing interest already in TBC

That's pretty much your entire position and complaints here.

So go play Classic. I am astonished you even stayed sub'd for this long.

[Rixarius]

Not a fan of this choice, although I understand why they're doing it. Tier sets can really shake up builds and make classes try new talents and builds. I always found them to be fun, and also cool to look at because they were designed thematically around your class. It seems while Legion was all about your class pride, BfA is going the opposite direction.

I'm hoping they'll at least add them back for the last tier.

[MiiiMiii]

That's pretty much your entire position and complaints here.

So go play Classic. I am astonished you even stayed sub'd for this long.

I will play Classic don't worry about that.
Why can't I play the game even though the raiding system sucks?
I had quite a lot of fun doing only PvP in Cataclysm for instance.

[Revamp Man]

Can we have something interesting to replace it with then?

Legendaries were OK, but a bit too much grind for my liking. Stats are pretty dull, it just means your playstyle doesn't really change through the expansion, which feels like it will be stifling. We need gear with interesting effects that can drastically alter the way a class feels.

azerite bonus

[Eurhetemec]

Thank you for telling me what I should think is fun.

I'm saying you have no idea what "fun" is.

Something like 85-90% of people here like M+. That's incredible, given how bitter and twisted we are. That you think it's "the worst" just tell us and you that you don't like the same things as 90% of players, yet you think we should all do it your way.

You know people like Jeff Kapplan left the team in the middle of WotLK? And people like Mark Kern left at the end of vanilla? These guys were way up on top.

Kaplan was responsible for World Design. He was behind the whole concept of Heroic dungeons, and later behind Hard Modes and Heroic Raids (which were conceptualized and developed whilst he was still in charge of World Design, even if finished later). So why are you complaining about him leaving WoW? He added content you hate. He also was not responsible for mechanical/balancing stuff.

Mark Kern is a bit more interesting, I admit - he was part of a group of WoW designers who left pretty early on. I dunno about you but I had high hopes for him and Red 5 generally. However, all they did was create Firefall, and Kern got fired from his own company.

[LowestFormOfWit]

Tier and set bonuses are as Ion says, an outdated system. My Ret Paladin is 940 equipped, but would be 950 equipped if I wasn't locked to keeping my 4pc Tier, 3/4 of which are stuck at 915 ilvl (Had no luck in TF or Mythic drops), while evrery other slot is 935+. Add in the two legendaries, and you effectively have 6 dead slots where even max TF pieces won't be upgrades.

I'll be happy to see it off. Put the effort from what would have been tier sets into more Heritage armor sets. I've wanted armor more closely aligned with race identity than where I killed some baddies at.

It seems a waste to have all these flavorful races with their own styles and architecture, only to see hardly any item sets in game that allow you to channel those looks.

[ls-]

I wish dungeons and raids only had 1 difficulty. Some easy and some hard. Some 10 man, some 25 man.

I strongly disagree w/ this.

I started losing interest already in TBC in dungeons because they introduced Normal vs Heroic versions of dungeons. Once I had beat and farmed the normal one, it was just not that cool to beat the same instance again with higher HP/DMG.
In WotLK Heroics were a complete joke (unrelated) and they introduced you can choose between 10 and 25 man. At least at this point the 25 man gave better loot. WotLK also introduced normal/hardmode in Raids. I remember when we beat Lich King for the first time, I was pretty happy but I had no interest in farming the whole instance again to beat him again on hard mode.

Mythic+ is kinda even worse because you play the same dungeon "forever" in an expansion. You never beat the content, because there will always be a harder + difficulty. I know many were happy with it but I have no interest in it. Scaling is just lazy game design.

I wish there's fewer difficulties, 4 is too much, because difference between lower difficulties aren't that significant. 3 modes would be enough, easy/tourist, normal and hard, there's no need to have piss-easy (LFR), easy (N), normal (H) and hard af (M). People have different capabilities, difficulties allow people to raid on appropriate level.

But with your attitude I think you're playing the wrong genre. You shouldn't be able to beat MMO. Period. It's a genre that's entirely based on endless grind and repetition.

[MiiiMiii]

Kaplan was responsible for World Design. He was behind the whole concept of Heroic dungeons, and later behind Hard Modes and Heroic Raids (which were conceptualized and developed whilst he was still in charge of World Design, even if finished later). So why are you complaining about him leaving WoW? He added content you hate. He also was not responsible for mechanical/balancing stuff.

This is simply not true. I want sources.

If you want to hear what kind of raiding Jeff liked, look up "Blizzcon 2005 Warcraft Raid Design" on youtube.

[Eurhetemec]

This is simply not true. I want sources.

If you want to hear what kind of raiding Jeff liked, look up "Blizzcon 2005 Warcraft Raid Design" on youtube.

2005 isn't 2009, MiiiMiii. You can't ask for "sources" and then point to shit from 4 years before the event.

The source is here: https://wow.gamepedia.com/Jeffrey_Kaplan

If you don't think Jeff Kaplan changed over time, either, compare the vile, horrible, nasty little troll who was Tigole, who could turn any civilized discussion into a flamefest, a man so shitty and nasty and crap that BLIZZARD banned this Lead Game Designer from their OWN FORUMS, to modern Jeff Kaplan, who is charming, witty, fundamentally decent-seeming, kind-hearted (to at least a certain extent) guy who likes to joke around, rather than to humiliate and insult.

He changed, a lot.

[Khrux]

This change makes sense, look at Legion today. We have 6 slots dedicated to 4pc+2pc set bonuses then another 2 slots dedicated to leggos, then our weapon is locked in. In most cases the only item slots you actually change up anymore are trinkets. Usually when a new raid drops you look up the loot tables and decide instantly "these are the best tier slots, so I need X offpiece and I'm done".... instead of having like 3-4 gloves, 3-4 legs, 3-4 helms etc. to choose from based on stat priorities.

I do share the concern that they'll now just design 1 appearance for each armour class (cloth/leather/mail/plate) meaning all Paladins/DKs/Warriors look the same in raid gear etc. but in a world with transmog I don't really think its an issue. In all my time raiding over the last few xpacs, I could prob count on one hand the number of people in my raid that are wearing a full *current tier* appearance.

Lastly, this also removes another balancing headache for Blizzard. No need to try balance 13 completely different set bonuses, or having certain classes be weak before tier bonuses, OP with them or the more recent problem of previous tier bonuses being so good they have to nerf them to stop being self imposing ilvl reductions on themselves because their old set is better than the current one....

[ls-]

If you don't think Jeff Kaplan changed over time, either, compare the vile, horrible, nasty little troll who was Tigole, who could turn any civilized discussion into a flamefest, a man so shitty and nasty and crap that BLIZZARD banned this Lead Game Designer from their OWN FORUMS, to modern Jeff Kaplan, who is charming, witty, fundamentally decent-seeming, kind-hearted (to at least a certain extent) guy who likes to joke around, rather than to humiliate and insult.

He changed, a lot.

TBF, he still shit posts on OW forums from time to time, but then he's made to apologise.

But they can't silence him again because now he's also the guy that talk to community in YT videos and stuff.