Hit and Expertise: An Outdated System?

[Kanadei]

I just had a few thoughts on what separates Hit and Expertise from other, more "interesting" stats, and whether the original design philosophy still holds true for these "mandatory" caps.

We all know that back when hit, and later on expertise (or weapon skills in its original form), were introduced they functioned much like any other stat. It was passive on gear and as you collected more pieces you inevitably ended up with an amount which was suitable for the content you were undergoing.

Then Blizzard changed up how stats worked. On top of the original enchants we had in place, they brought in gems so you could further tailor your gear to provide the stats you wanted. This was intended to make it easier for players to get their desired stats from gear, and was also to help people move away from all having exactly the same items as they did in vanilla with 8 and 9 piece tier sets.

Then came reforging for further augmentation, and finally we have item upgrading which enhances stats on the gear we choose to improve.

All of this brings us to today, where we constantly gear around two things:

1. Our desired "interesting" stats like haste/crit/mastery
2. Our "necessary" caps for hit and expertise

Now Blizzard has already come out and admitted that hit and expertise don't feel fun to balance around in their current iteration (I don't have the blue post for this but if someone can point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it) - so that raises a few questions for me:

Firstly, do we even need these in the game? I mean we dont want 86s with 100% hit against level 90 or boss level mobs, but surely just giving max level characters the correct hit/expertise automatically isn't too gamebreaking? Is it?

Secondly, if they do need to be a stat which is constantly in play, do we need them to function as a secondary stat that we balance around? Couldn't they be something which is just automatically improved as per your level of gear (ie. full 463 blues means you are hit capped against heroic bosses, full 476 epics means you are capped against LFR level bosses, full 486 means you are capped against 5.0 bosses and so on)?

I mean, take these ideas with a grain of salt since I'm just spitballing here, but surely we can come up with a more efficient system than these mandatory caps which you are constantly balancing your gear around (and usually going over by 0.1-0.3% in order to "make sure" you are capped).

I just wanted to have a bit of a brainstorm and see how people felt.

TL;DR do we really need hit/expertise? Is there a better way than how they are currently in the game?

[Deleted]

Why shouldn't 89s have 100% hit chance on 90s? What's the difference between a 89 hitting a 92 boss, or a 90 hitting a 93 boss? Both require 15% hit rating now, therefore both should have 100% in the proposed system.
Everyone should have 100% hit against anything that's own lvl + 3. After that it should scale down like 80% for + 4, 64% for + 5, 52% for + 6 etc.

[Primaliron]

I don't have time (nor the desire) to really explain the nitty-gritty of it, but these two stats tie in heavily to problems with stat inflation and how it relates to design. It is true they are unwieldy but Blizzard has never shown the desire to do a total stat reform (and I can't blame them to some extent). Go read up all the blue posts about stat inflation and I'm sure you'll figure it all out. Just remember all the item budget of hit/exp will be re-allocated to other stats if they are removed.

[Kanadei]

Why shouldn't 89s have 100% hit chance on 90s? What's the difference between a 89 hitting a 92 boss, or a 90 hitting a 93 boss? Both require 15% hit rating now, therefore both should have 100% in the proposed system.
Everyone should have 100% hit against anything that's own lvl + 3. After that it should scale down like 80% for + 4, 64% for + 5, 52% for + 6 etc.

My mistake, that was obviously a flawed example as I didn't know off the top of my head the amount of hit 89s needed. I'll change it to 86 for accuracy's sake.

[kangamooster]

Removing hit/expertise is boring.

If they were gone all you would reforge for is more of your preferred DPS stat. Even with specs that have all three secondaries weighted close together, all you have to do is run a 5 min simulation and reforge for more of that stat.

Now Blizzard has already come out and admitted that hit and expertise don't feel fun to balance around in their current iteration (I don't have the blue post for this but if someone can point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it) - so that raises a few questions for me

I've never seen Blizzard say this ever.

[Kanadei]

I don't have time (nor the desire) to really explain the nitty-gritty of it, but these two stats tie in heavily to problems with stat inflation and how it relates to design. It is true they are unwieldy but Blizzard has never shown the desire to do a total stat reform (and I can't blame them to some extent). Go read up all the blue posts about stat inflation and I'm sure you'll figure it all out. Just remember all the item budget of hit/exp will be re-allocated to other stats if they are removed.

Well Blizzard has definitely removed stats in the past. They took away armor penetration, spell penetration, resistances, converted + spell damage/+ spell healing, converted weapon skills, added in mastery.

I dunno if it would be that big of a difference to remove these, although you are correct in saying that item budgeting would have to be changed - likely this could be done by making this change at the beginning of an expansion and applying it to everything new 90+ for example (so you would still need hit and stuff until you got to the next expansion greens which then factored it in automatically as you progressed).

---------- Post added 2013-01-09 at 03:20 PM ----------

Removing hit/expertise is boring.

If they were gone all you would reforge for is more of your preferred DPS stat. Even with specs that have all three secondaries weighted close together, all you have to do is run a 5 min simulation and reforge for more of that stat.

Is it really so interested to reforge around mandatory caps as it is? Note that "challenging" doesnt equal "interesting".

[Linkedblade]

Well without them you would be too powerful from the start. Capping Hit and Expertise comes with gear so it helps both mechanicallly as it makes you more powerful statistically as time goes on and lore wise as it makes you actually stronger.

I agree the system is clunky and not fun if you don't want to crunch the numbers. Yet the alternatives seem to lack the dedication.

[Mirishka]

GC actually recently commented on this, saying that it was getting harder and harder to make the case for hit as an 'interesting stat'. So, I wouldn't be surprised to see it go away in the next expansion.

[kangamooster]

#1 Armor Penetration: The way this stat worked was insanely WEIRD and mathematical, and it scaled too well. A stat that gets better with more you have is a stat that is too weak at low gear levels and too good at high gear levels - a specific problem Blizzard does not like. It's a crappy system for balance as well.

#2 Spell Penetration: The way this stat worked was also really weird. Like, seriously, plateaus of 10% for partial resists and a binary resist system for binary spells like Polymorph, when casters always itemized for spen cap yet you needed to have the auras up still JUST IN CASE? That's idiotic.

#3 Spell damage/healing: Crippled hybrids too much, although when you look at spriest etc now one may argue it made them too strong in the end.

#4 Weapon skills: Go autoattack a mob for an hour! FUN! I think it's rather obvious why weapon skills were removed.

#5 Mastery: Because 2 DPS stats are fun? Mastery was a very good addition to the game, and for some (not all) specs, it adds quite a bit of flavor to the spec.

[Primaliron]

The stats removed before have not had the same level of impact. Resistances were situational in usage, penetration of both types was replaced with stats that also played the same role. Bonus healing really just became incorporated into spellpower as did specialized bonus spell damages. Mastery isn't really a new stat in many ways, it is a generic modifer stat that adds things like specialized spell damage, block percentage, etc. to gear.

Hit and Expertise are different from all these stats as they work as a yoke on damage and effect applications. They are specifically used like this in expansion stat cliffs to minimize the effect of the transition.

It's also important to note that hit and expertise are not automatic things to cap for all specs. It's almost always a safe route to go for those not wanting to bother with spreadsheets and simulators, but there are often times hit capping is not the best allocation of stats. This often happens as one actually approaches the cap and creates a functional difference between players who want to bother with calculations, spreadsheets, and simulators. In many ways Blizzard does not want to simplify these aspects because theorycrafting is a part of the game.

On top of that some classes have lots of different caps. How do you handle white hit, yellow hit, spell hit caps for these classes? Dual-wielding caps are different than 2H or MH alone.

The real question is... why change it? It's a just another skill you have to learn to play more effectively. Does it really need to be any easier? If so does it outweigh the amount of effort required to change it? Is it worth spending the time and effort here rather than elsewhere?

[Splatter]

GC actually recently commented on this, saying that it was getting harder and harder to make the case for hit as an 'interesting stat'. So, I wouldn't be surprised to see it go away in the next expansion.

i dont know about go away but i think we will see it change and do something more exciting, i.e. have an effect past the cap.

[Aquamonkey]

They need to add hit to healing spells. With people dancing around all over the place, how are heals not missing?

[Kanadei]

i dont know about go away but i think we will see it change and do something more exciting, i.e. have an effect past the cap.

This is more the kind of discussion I was looking to foster. Let's not get bogged down in "removed? NO!! What do you want easy mode or something?!"

[Deleted]

i dont know about go away but i think we will see it change and do something more exciting, i.e. have an effect past the cap.

In some other games, the accuracy (hit) stat overflow gets converted into +crit chance and +crit damage.

[Celarent]

Balance stats make gearing and reforging a kind of Jenga — without them, it's just a matter of dumping the least valuable stat or avoiding certain pieces entirely. Boring.

Granted, the massive stat allotments at the current iLevel make overages more difficult to reconcile. And caster Hit levels could be argued as excessive.

A sliding scale for reforging will work in general, and casters could either receive a unique balance stat or be designed around 7.5% (or equivalent) only.

[Primaliron]

This is more the kind of discussion I was looking to foster. Let's not get bogged down in "removed? NO!! What do you want easy mode or something?!"

That does sound better to me. A lot of specs don't ever fully cap, but a fair number do and that really should be changed. Also Aquamonkey makes a point, it could add a little fun to healing, but maybe not so much for me tanking :P

[Mirishka]

i dont know about go away but i think we will see it change and do something more exciting, i.e. have an effect past the cap.

Well he said that about spell penetration and resistance-type stuff, and we know what happened to them. o_o

[topapagaramonde]

When it comes to hit and exp, I like the affliction Warlock model (though it might have been unintended). For those who don't know, Mastery is better than hit rating for aff locks, so you mainly forge/gem into hit as per your comfort level as you have to factor in RNG and difficulty to maintain rotation with higher chance to miss.

I find that to be very interesting. Right now, my affliction lock could have 7% hit, but I go for around 12%, some go for close to 14%, others are fine with 10% hit. More interesting than just a hard cap you have to reach or you suck.

[Kanadei]

Balance stats make gearing and reforging a kind of Jenga — without them, it's just a matter of dumping the least valuable stat or avoiding certain pieces entirely. Boring.

Granted, the massive stat allotments at the current iLevel make overages more difficult to reconcile. And caster Hit levels could be argued as excessive.

A sliding scale for reforging will work in general, and casters could either receive a unique balance stat or be designed around 7.5% (or equivalent) only.

I hear you, and I'm not advocating that as a perfect solution. Balancing around haste/crit/mastery alone would be a little simplistic.

But equally, it seems odd that we currently have a system where you can have your gear perfect, upgrade your BiS chestpiece and suddenly find yourself .12% over hit cap with no possible way to reconcile that.

---------- Post added 2013-01-09 at 04:09 PM ----------

When it comes to hit and exp, I like the affliction Warlock model (though it might have been unintended). For those who don't know, Mastery is better than hit rating for aff locks, so you mainly forge/gem into hit as per your comfort level as you have to factor in RNG and difficulty to maintain rotation with higher chance to miss.

I find that to be very interesting. Right now, my affliction lock could have 7% hit, but I go for around 12%, some go for close to 14%, others are fine with 10% hit. More interesting than just a hard cap you have to reach or you suck.

That does sound a lot more interesting. I definitely think there is potential in adding a modifier to the stat, at least for a certain percentage over cap.

That being said, then you would have to balance that in a way that didn't result in 15% hit and 2% over cap is the new cap because that additional effect is so desirable.

[Assumi]

It's all a boring outdated fun tax system. It's too binary, you either need it, or you don't. It's extremely rare that any spec doesn't want it capped, you go for the cap then you forget it.

It's just like the resist gear of old. You either needed it, or you had it, the switch flipped in 2 directions only.

No break points, no value beyond cap, ect. Hit and Expertise are boring stats.