1. #1

    5.1 item upgrading system.

    So, considering 5.1 is being released for the US today, and EU tomorrow, I wanted to make a thread and hear everyone else's opinions on the system - if they feel like it's a good idea, and the implemention that's being used.

    Now, here's the thing - I have two alts and my main, all are done using VP points. My DK tank, who hasn't done any raiding at all (bar standing in on stone guards HC and Emperors HC due to setup issues, and got the stone guards neck/belt), finished this week, and has been left with 500 valor points.
    My Resto druid and Hunter both raids, and have gotten alot more loot from raiding, and are thus both capped (as of this week) at 3K points.


    What I don't like about this system, is the fact that our VP caps at 3K points. This means that when we reach the cap, we are "forced" to pick an item to upgrade, in order to not lose any potential VP's from our caps.
    For my hunter, this is allright - I have 4 BiS items (ring, belt, trinket, bracers) on it already. None of the items will be something I regret upgrading...
    Except our VP caps at 1K every week, which means that it would take 23 weeks to gain enough VP to upgrade every item.
    Obviously, we're not gonna sit in this tier for another 5 and a half months, which means we have to prioritise -
    You're not going to want to upgrade your boots, gloves, belt or the likes, as the stat increases they give compared to legs, chest, trinkets and weapons are far smaller.
    This means that my hunter all of a sudden only has one "viable" upgrade if I don't want to lose potential, it's trinket. After that, I have to pick a sub-optimal item to upgrade, unless I get a BiS item with max stat outputs next reset.
    If we're only getting 1K vp a week, I really feel that we should have the cap increased, so we don't feel "forced" to upgrade items that we will regret later, as we can't upgrade everything.

    For my druid and DK, all of a sudden, new VP items are introduced - some of which are just minor upgrades of "old" items that I already bought (case and point - http://www.wowhead.com/item=89080 vs http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=93255 ) - it's the exact same items, with a +7 item level slapped on top. Thats not just lazy, but also majorly disrespectful to people who spent two resets worth of valor points buying the "lesser" item, because they had a blue trinket and the upgrade was obviously huge, along with all the hush hush about the release date of the patch (no knowing if it'd be this week or in a month.
    Now the choise comes down to either paying full price + 1.5K to upgrade the NEW trinket to the best potential, or paying 1.5K to lose 7 item levels in the end. It's frustrating, really. Atleast some of the items are different (EG, agility trinket provides crit instead of haste as the shado-pan one does).


    So end of, I like the idea about being able to upgrade my BiS items to make them even stronger by using VP I wouldn't otherwise have use of. As a "perfectionist", I don't like that I'm forced to pick an item to upgrade every 2 weeks, or feel like I'm losing out. What if I run out of heroic-level items to upgrade? Ill literally exchange the upgraded item as soon as it's heroic counterpart drops. My alts choises all of a sudden got impossible - even if I assume I won't get heroic items on my DK or Druid, and work off of that, should I then spend tons of VP on the slight upgrades this new faction introduces? Why can't I just save my VP up for upgrading items I want to upgrade when they finally drop?

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by Dracodraco View Post
    Obviously, we're not gonna sit in this tier for another 5 and a half months, which means we have to prioritise -
    I'm not so sure about that... Firelands took about 7 months to come out didn't it? the nerfs haven't even started yet and if it'll be 5 % / month again, going to 20-30 % it will mean 4-6 months just for that. Not to mention we only just got 5.1 and haven't heard a thing about 5.2.

    having said that, I'm not massively fond of the system because of exactly what you said - not wanting to waste it on non-bis but not having much choice after the one piece I have is upgraded. It's nice for alts tho I guess, have been steaming for a while over not having anything to spend my alt's VP on because I just refuse to do the dailies on it.

    I'm also curious about what the next tier will be tuned for. Upgraded gear or not? If upgraded gear, it will make it hard for alts, casual low-progression raiders and beginners, if non-upgraded, top guilds will just steamroll all over it. wonder if this will turn into a similar problem as 10 Dragonwraths in the raids did :P
    Last edited by Summer; 2012-11-27 at 08:26 AM.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Summerwind View Post
    I'm not so sure about that... Firelands took about 7 months to come out didn't it? the nerfs haven't even started yet and if it'll be 5 % / month again, going to 20-30 % it will mean 4-6 months just for that. Not to mention we only just got 5.1 and haven't heard a thing about 5.2.

    having said that, I'm not massively fond of the system because of exactly what you said - not wanting to waste it on non-bis but not having much choice after the one piece I have is upgraded. It's nice for alts tho I guess, have been steaming for a while over not having anything to spend my alt's VP on because I just refuse to do the dailies on it.

    I'm also curious about what the next tier will be tuned for. Upgraded gear or not? If upgraded gear, it will make it hard for alts, casual low-progression raiders and beginners, if non-upgraded, top guilds will just steamroll all over it. wonder if this will turn into a similar problem as 10 Dragonwraths in the raids did :P

    They have never implemented a zone-wide nerf in anything but an end tier, there's no predecessor, which means that they might not even activate the zone wide nerfs till the next tier is out - looking at wowhead, I can't even find the spell-ID for the "Dampening field" which is the supposed name for the debuff in Mogushan vaults, suggesting that it's not even on the servers as a string yet. So it's more likely that when 5.2 and next wave of raid(s) are released, they will implement the debuffs to help people get through old content if they couldn't, to get ready for the new content.

  4. #4
    It's possible there will be no nerfs of course Still doubt we'll see a new tier in less than 5 months but we'll see^^

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Summerwind View Post
    I'm also curious about what the next tier will be tuned for. Upgraded gear or not? If upgraded gear, it will make it hard for alts, casual low-progression raiders and beginners, if non-upgraded, top guilds will just steamroll all over it. wonder if this will turn into a similar problem as 10 Dragonwraths in the raids did :P
    That is a very interesting point you bring up. I think the only way they can truly fix that, is make normal modes tuned for non upgraded items, say an av ilv of 498? Then either give the normal mode loot from t15 more than the standard 28 ilvs, or make the first few HC bosses fairly easy, with a major ramp up on the final bosses to require some gear farm to slow the HC guilds down.

    On topic; I'm torn about the item upgrade. Mostly because of the use of PVP items in PVE content. For example, looking at loot tables as a balance druid, my BIS bracers are 509s from hc spirit kings. whilst my guild plans to kill them soon, with MSV realm first gone to a 10man guild, we're considering pushing more in HOF HC first. Which potentially makes my 483 (+8 491) BIS excluding the low drop rate trash bracers from HOF. Similarly, as I have almost full BIS PVP gear, alot of those items upgraded with conquest points may see me using more PVP gear now, than I did at the start of the expansion, for the simple reason, I can gain over 3000 conquest per reset - and do quite easily. Whilst with being sat out for rotation in raids, (although I should) I can't always bring myself to cap valor.

    In my opinion, conquest is much more appealing to cap, and will be the way to go for lower progressed guilds to outgear content, and I don't believe PVE'ers should be forced to PVP to profit.

    For anyone who has the will power to cap VP one reset, I believe it should extend their potential cap next reset, more in like with the way the PVP system works, and much like OP, the 3000 cap should be removed with 5.1.
    Vexxd

    LFG to push 15+ m+,
    maybe streaming @ http://www.twitch.tv/vexxee

  6. #6
    I hate the system. I hated the dailies and this is just through the roof. Not only it's impossible to cap valor in raids, you will have to run the content you might not enjoy (LFR/LFD, dailies, scenarios). I actually love logging once a week before new content is released and never had problem with that. With this system I will be forced to cap valor for months by doing useless shit I would've never done.

    They seriously need to consider increasing valor gain from raids. I mean, you get same amount of valor for Grand Empress Heroic as you get for doing 5 Klaxxi dailies. This is just ridiculous, to say the least.
    Torty - Highmountain Druid - Turalyon EU

    Icy-Veins Guide for Restoration Druids

  7. #7
    It's a waste of VP to upgrade anything that's not BiS for T14, so if you don't have any Heroic BiS gear, the two candidates are DMF trinkets and 496 weapons from Sha of Fear (assuming most guilds won't down Heroic Sha in the next couple of months).

    As for Conquest, I find it extremely easy to cap 2k conquest. It takes me less than an hour to cap. 1 hour for +8 ilvls is a pretty good deal to me.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Dracodraco View Post
    For my druid and DK, all of a sudden, new VP items are introduced - some of which are just minor upgrades of "old" items that I already bought - it's the exact same items, with a +7 item level slapped on top. Thats not just lazy, but also majorly disrespectful to people who spent two resets worth of valor points buying the "lesser" item, because they had a blue trinket and the upgrade was obviously huge, along with all the hush hush about the release date of the patch (no knowing if it'd be this week or in a month.
    Now the choise comes down to either paying full price + 1.5K to upgrade the NEW trinket to the best potential, or paying 1.5K to lose 7 item levels in the end. It's frustrating, really. Atleast some of the items are different (EG, agility trinket provides crit instead of haste as the shado-pan one does).
    Seems that the new 496 valor items are not upgradeable. So, that's respectful to people who already bought 489 valor gear - they can upgrade it to 497 ilvl for 1500 valor, when newcoming 90s should buy 496 for 1750 valor (less ilvl and higher cost if not bracers/rings etc).

  9. #9
    I like the system in theory but without an unlimited cap or better ways to gain VP This is juat going to be another massive chore. Its just another excuse to force you into doing boring ass dailies or dragging higher tier raiders into LFR. Blizz always like saying how LGR isnt designed for the higher ranked players but they seem hell bent on forcing us into the place.

    i really dont know how im gonna handle this atm but if i have to do 2 things i hate to keep up to speed with something I love im going to be less than impressed.


  10. #10
    The system is great in theory, but yes, the weekly (and overall) caps do kind of ruin it a little. I'm lucky in that I have two items from the BMAH that I can safely upgrade without fear of wasting my VP, but a lot of my guildies are currently stuck for something to upgrade without it feeling like a bit of a waste.

    So yeah... Little bit of tweaking would be great, I think. I think the weekly cap should be done away with altogether, really: with this new system there'll never be a concern of 'stockpiling' VP. And even then, even if we do stockpile VP... What's the harm? They'll just downgrade VP to JP with each new tier of raiding, so I honestly don't get why the overall cap exists at this point.

    Remove that cap, and this system is just about perfect.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Here's my question, with 23 weeks of valor grinding required to upgrade a full set of BiS gear into a a fully upgraded set of BiS gear, does that mean we can expect the next tier in 6 months time, or will the new BiS be based on the time between raids + prioritizing upgrades. I suppose given that this will now be available immediately upon the release of all tiers in the future, getting a full set of fully upgraded BiS gear before the next raid isn't impossible.

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