Challenge Mode Difficulty

[Senen]

My raiding gear has I think 21 sockets. At the start of the expac if you wandered in there with 5 you were doing ok. That's 16 sockets more or 1280 primary stat and double that in secondaries. On 463 gear that's massive.

Each socket on an item cost 80 primary stat and 160 secondary stat. It's not free, it is in the stat budget.

[Deja Thoris]

Each socket on an item cost 80 primary stat and 160 secondary stat. It's not free, it is in the stat budget.

I checked spaulders of primordial growth (543 1 socket) - 588 int 766 secondary stats without the socket

Mantle of winged triumph (561 2 sockets) - 508 int 709 secondaries

Add 2 sockets and they even out on primary stats but the one with more sockets pulls ahead on secondary stats. Meh, I may be confused as to exactly how it works but it looks like more sockets win out.

**Edit, later gear has higher socket bonuses too and they weren't factored in. The 543 item has +60 spirit and the 561 item had +120 int.

[Siri]

I checked spaulders of primordial growth (543 1 socket) - 588 int 766 secondary stats without the socket

Mantle of winged triumph (561 2 sockets) - 508 int 709 secondaries

Add 2 sockets and they even out on primary stats but the one with more sockets pulls ahead on secondary stats. Meh, I may be confused as to exactly how it works but it looks like more sockets win out.

**Edit, later gear has higher socket bonuses too and they weren't factored in. The 543 item has +60 spirit and the 561 item had +120 int.

Here's the thing about secondary stats, the closer the two secondaries are to each other in terms of magnitude the less budget is used. An item with 999 spirit and 1 haste uses significantly more budget than an item with 500 of each. That's why (in this case) the mantle has more secondaries when you gem it.

The socket bonus is not included in the item budget however, it's free.

[xoggyux]

Its NOT easier due to more gem sockets available since the start of the expansion. Rather, its more easier due to all the class changes that affect AoE since the start of the expansion, among other changes.

Monks- DPS wise, monks recieved a HUGE AoE buff with SEF addition, RJW change, and Chi-burst change. BrM monks also got a similar AoE buff with the RJW/Chi Burst change. For survivability, BrM monks now get more mastery compared to the start (~25% more), and for CC, the RoP change was very helpful, as its essentially an 8 second disarm/silence in C-modes.
MW has gotten changed to the point that they are great attonement healers with the BoK memory muscle change, but not so strong otherwise anymore.

Shamans- Enhance hasn't recieved any signficant buffs, but Elemental recieved a HUGE AoE buff with the CL/Lava Beam buffs. For survivability, Elemental also recieved Shamanistic Rage, and all shamans have baseline HTT in addition to AG, which is a very nice healing buff. Bring 4 elemental shamans+1 tank, and you can clear most Cmodes fairly easily with enourmously big pulls.

Mages- AoE buffs all-around.

Warlocks- the change to Mannoroths Fury allows warlocks some HUGE AoE burst in c-modes.

Druids- not many changes to feral, Balance recieved an AoE buff with the DoC change. Resto has gotten uber buffed in the healing department, with Genesis, super Shroom, perma-effloresence, swiftmend buff, ect. Guardian has recieved both a stamina and barkskin buff that makes them a much tougher tank in C-modes.

Warriors- BS change along with Bloodbath has made Warriors an extremely good AoE dps in Cmodes. The ability to not have to use a shield for shield wall and spell reflect also boosts their survivabilty.

Hunters- have recieved numerous AoE buffs and ST buffs since the start of the expansion. Great burst.

DKs, Rogues, and priests have recieved a few buffs, but nothing outstanding for c-mode content. Paladins have actually gotten extremely nerfed in relation to C-modes as prot, and relatively unchanged as ret/holy.

But yea, the majority of classes GOOD at c-modes in the beggining have recieved numerous huge buffs to AoE and utility.

So many things wrng what that post I dont know where to start.
1.- Monks have actually gotten nerfs rathen than buffs. For starter 10% nerf across the board. Not to mention additional nerfs to kegsmash. RJW changes are irrelevant since xuen is actually a much better talent now, If anything the only thing that could be considered a buff for monks on cmodes is that xuen now beneficts from vengance (the reason why RJW is not a dps gain and rather a dps loss in most instances) and even then xuen buff is nowhere near enough to make up for the 10% nerf and the kegsmash nerf.
Warlocks: You seem to ignore the outcry of just about every single lock due to the kil'jaeden's cunning which most of them will argue it is a massive nerf (probably true since there is a lot of movement on challange mode) in any event the most popular spec for locks on challange modes right now is destruction and manoroth fury is uther crap for destro anyway so all things considered locks prolly got a nerf rather than a buff just considering the movement nerf from Kil'jaeden's Cunning changes.
Hunters, yes it is true hunters have received some "straight" buffs in terms of dmg during the expansion but you also forget hunters also received several nerfs (for isntance readiness, that was a major dmg increase in challange modes, and not just that but also a lot of utility with dual feign death, dual dissengage, etc. Stampede got a nerf early on the expansion as well although it recently received a buff in 5.4 (though still nowhere near the levels it was on release) Having played hunter since day one of the expansion (my main is a hunter) I can tell you that all in all the class is about the same, some nerfs here, some buffs there but at the end about same performance.
Warriors, yeah u got that one right, they are much better now.
Elemental didnt receive any huge aoe buff. CL is still capped at 5 targets (if glyphed) and thats the major source of aoe from shamans. The HTT is definitely nice though certainly not a game changer, it is still nowhere near AG and definitely is not gonna be a huge difference (GL trying that 4 shaman + tank strat u talking about)
All in all some classes got nerfs other got buffs. If anything this would only change the balance not the easiness of a challange mode.

[Deleted]

Warlocks: You seem to ignore the outcry of just about every single lock due to the kil'jaeden's cunning
Elemental didnt receive any huge aoe buff.

Destruction has gotten alot of incredible buffs throughout MoP. Incinerate, Immo have both been buffed alot. Yea, MF might suck for Destro, but AD is probably the go-to choice while KJC is still extremely potent as most of the movement in CMs are either sprinted, invised, or filled with massive aoe, where the new KJC is better than the old as there's no slow.

Shamans were buffed so incredibly much in the AOE/CL department. If you dont know, they decided to remove the % decrease damage on CL per mob (I think it used to be 10% less damage per mob it hits, so 90-80-70-60-50 while it now is 90*5 when glyphed ofc)

I do disagree alot with raugnaut about gems not mattering. It has been shown over and over again that more gemslots add a very real and tangible increase in stats (each extra gem is somewhere around 20primary,40 secondary or something).

Oh yea, warrior and DK tanks were made alot more powerful with riposte, free damage is free, especially for warriors who are now one of the highest dps tanks (minus BrM Zen med cheesing silly vengeance).

Also; I dont play a hunter at all, but didnt SV get a huge SS buff? Like +100% damage on it, although ISS was nerfed accordingly so the burst aoe is similar while sustained is alot better

[xoggyux]

I just did a cmode a few minutes ago and something happened that remainded me of a very good example of why gear (in particular gem sockets) are NOT the main culprit (or even a major player) in why challange modes might feel less difficult today.
The example is the following: In more than 1 occation me or my friends have used the WRONG gear for a spec in challange mode, and only notice of this fact after completing 3-4 golds and usually notice it because we happen to caught the wrong trinket proc or the inability to use an on use trinket etc. This has happened for disc priest using their shadow gear, resto druid using their boomkin gear, anyone using their pvp gear and even GUARDIAN druids using their BOOMking gear. I am sure there are many people that this has happened to besides me (in fact I was remained today because a random guy from openraid had the same issue) and i think is proof enough that gear is not the major reason for any difference in difficulty perception.
I do believe cmodes feel easier now, but I believe the main cause is that there are many many many people out there with a lot of experience now, and just getting into a random group with 1 or 2 of those people make the whole run a lot easier. Groups of 5 people that had 9/9 in an alt (even if they are missing it on the toon they are bringing) are likely to 1-2 shot most dungeons and even if there are wipes involved the whole experience will feel a lot less "difficult" because you dont have to "troubleshoot" the strategies, you already know that certain strat works, there is no question about it, its just matter of execution.
Back at the begining of the expansion, you could have a group of extremely capable players but back then there was no "set" strategy (yes even from week 1 there were a couple of guides, but most of them were very class specific and overall pretty poor strategies) and there was a lot of trial and error and switching of strats.

In addition, there are many factors that can and WILL influence a cmode time (and success) way more than whether you got 1, 5, 10 or 25 gems. I can guarantee you that the OVERALL group dps will be higher for a group with a tank that doesnt kite (surprizingly enough, apparently tank kiting is an option in openraid) and do decent dps as a result than the dps difference attributable to 30-40 extra gem slots distributed amongst your 3 dpsers. For instance, the average time to kill the 40 monkies in brewery (before first boss) for a tank that pulls and kites the trash until it dies is about 20-30 seconds more than if you simply tank it until it dies (e.g. 20-30secs maximum if you tank it, compared to 40s+ if you kite) at the end of the dungeon, a chronic kiter tank could cost you well over 1 minute (or about 5-10% time depending on the dungeon) now, how many slots would you need to raise your dps by 5-10slots.... youd prolly need like 3 sockets per item!

[Oggiva]

Each socket on an item cost 80 primary stat and 160 secondary stat. It's not free, it is in the stat budget.

Actually it's 80 primary and 80 secondary stats, so there is a little gain per socket. (In addition to socket bonus.)

Here's the thing about secondary stats, the closer the two secondaries are to each other in terms of magnitude the less budget is used. An item with 999 spirit and 1 haste uses significantly more budget than an item with 500 of each. That's why (in this case) the mantle has more secondaries when you gem it.

I didn't know about this, but testing suggests that it is correct. I can also add that having more different stats increase the total number of stats, like legendary cloak vs normal cloak (3 vs 2) or normal weapon vs pvp weapon.

I guess this means that secondary stats have diminishing returns, making each extra stat of a kind cost slightly more than the last one. This could mean that having the hit spread around the gear in small portions is better than having all the hit on one or two t16hc piece(s).