Cataclysm Stat & System Changes

[Tang]

The only new information is the spirit to hit conversion for balance druids and resto shaman, but it's cool to get all that info into one spot.

[bloodelf06]

Here's a thought. For locks the LTap Glyph is based on 30% of your spirit. Will they rework the glyph or drop it entirely. It is a very powerful glyph hate to see it go.

They will probably tune it so that a different stat will be the basis of the Life Tap Glyph more likely then not Intellect as they plan on the PTR to make the Life Tap spell itself increase with spell power instead of spirit to receive more of a health loss and mana gain.

[Tang]

Changing armor pen to haste or crit?

I hope they add the talent changes at the same time they do the stat changes, or arms is going to be fucked senseless.

Yes, it's all going to be a part of the 4.0 patch.

[Logabas]

Well don't forget that with Mastery you'll be getting Armor Pen for just speccing as arms.

Assuming that is what our mastery goes towards.

Besides, they aren't changing the current ArP to mastery, they will be swapping in haste or crit, which would cause DPS to fall drastically with the talents aren't changed to compensate.

[fiveiron1]

Why are they leveling out stamina, armor and mitigation between armor types/classes? Isn't differences in those things the reason there are different armor types? In cataclysm are there only gonna be different classes with different armor limitations for RP value?

[Tang]

I'm wondering the same thing because if spirit gives mp5/hit will human ret paladins benefit from their racial bonus and have it converted to hit rating?

Since Paladins are not Balance Druids or Elemental Shaman, spirit will not be converted to Hit.

Holy Paladins will use Spirit for mana regen, and Ret Paladins will not use Spirit at all.

[Twintop]

]
My guess is no and will share gear with Mages & Warlocks.

The more I think about it, though (I know, it's been ~5 minutes, and that isn't a lot of time to think about it more), the more I think Priests in general are going to want to stack spirit whether they're Disc/Holy/Shadow. Look at what caster gear for each type of armor is going to have:

Cloth: Non-Spirit (2 classes/roles -- Mage and Warlock), and Spirit (2 classes/roles -- Holy and Disc Priest)
Leather: Spirit (2 classes/roles -- Tree and Boomkin)
Mail: Spirit (2 classes/roles -- Resto Shaman and Elemental Shaman)
Plate: Spirit (1 class/role -- Holy Paladin)

I have a feeling that Disc Priests will be dipping in to the Non-Spirit (and non-hit) pieces though since Disc has relied more heavily on Intellect than Spirit, and the only reason to stack any spirit now is for regen purposes. If they do end up pulling from both, then you would have something more like this for the Cloth use line:

Cloth: Non-Spirit (2.5 classes/roles -- Mage, Warlock, and 1/2 Disc Priest), and Spirit (1.5 classes/roles -- Holy and 1/2 Disc Priest)

If the devs want to balance out how many roles are using gear, then shadow would fit in well with the Cloth-Spirit category. Additionally, when looking at itemizing drops off of bosses presently versus in Cataclysm, there are a lot of overlapping pieces between Cloth DPS and Healers, but that will be changing since the Cloth DPS gear is not going to be sought after by healers anymore.

Did you consider there was a reason Blizzard made two categories in the post and called them "dps caster" and "Balance druid/elemental shaman"? If you are a shadowpriest, you are not a balance druid. If you are a shadowpriest, you are not an elemental shaman. Conclusion: You are in the DPS CASTER group.

See the top part of this post. It doesn't make sense to have non-spirit and spirit items for Leather and Mail because the usability would be very, very limited. The only reason it is like that for Paladins is because Paladins don't have a caster DPS spec.

[Seragan]

That is a mad explanation and I cannot wait to level up my shaman and druid! It will be much easier to maintain off spec sets now too (aka no need )!!!

[Magnett]

[blizzquote="Eyonix;http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/23425636414-cataclysm-stat--system-changes.html][list][*]Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs.[/list][/blizzquote"]

No! My Dispel fodder!

[argent42]

There goes me using mail/agi ashen ring for ret. Well again expansions bring both joy and despair. The joy being the weapon skill achievements will now probably be feats of strength, and no more arp for ret =). The despair being I can't steal anymore hunter gear.

[Tang]

Why are they leveling out stamina, armor and mitigation between armor types/classes? Isn't differences in those things the reason there are different armor types? In cataclysm are there only gonna be different classes with different armor limitations for RP value?

There will still be a difference between armor types, it just won't be as drastic. This goes hand in hand with the elimination of armor pen stat, to allow physical DPS a fair chance to damage plate wearers.

[DrgnDancer]

This is impressive. They've simultaneously give us a ton of information to chew on and told us virtually nothing. They've laid out all the details of how every stat will affect every class and how they plan to overcome many of the difficulties inherent in such a major change; but without actually seeing how a piece of gear gets re-itemized or seeing how that re-itemization actually affects DPS, Healing, or TPS/Avoidance we still can't theory craft or make any educated guesses about what it all means. I suspect gear choices will remain far more complicated than people think. If they are particularly successful, there may even be instances where a character can pick the stat to stack. It would be interesting if I could chose to be a "haste" rogue or a "crit" rogue, with similar max DPS potentials, but significant impact on how I chose upgrade pieces.

[jessmaster]

"plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth."


Brb, re-rolling rogue to take advantage of this retarded change....


And just for reference, I would much rather be wearing plate armor as opposed to cloth if someone is swinging an axe at me....

[Shamslam]

So...playing a shaman/pally in Cata is gonna be like...a whole new experience lol. Other classes are just getting stat changes, we're getting turned upside down

Gonna be really weird with no int as enhance, and spirit as resto, and ...no hit as ele? I actually really like the idea with that one.

[Lafleur]

No more " Spirit is great for shamans yo" jokes I guess

[Krem]

Welcome to World Of Warcraft's New Game Enhancement.

SWTOR can't get here fast enough

Please... this is ending up very much like vanilla was, theres 'little' NGE about it, it's taking what they had in vanilla with the better ideas from TBC/Wrath and throwing out all the crap that completly made the game piss easy to 'power stack' in the first place.

Any comments stating this turns the game into 'ezmode' have a quick reread of the post - Caps are harder to hit, hence tanking WILL be much harder to do as they CAN be critted, dps can no longer 'max' and healers will have to stat balance and heal manage a LOT better - welcome to the hell we had back then - no more spoon feeding with 5k+ GS and 1 key bashing to 'win', be prepeared to have your arse handed to you when you half-arse instance run in T11

[Tang]

So...playing a shaman/pally in Cata is gonna be like...a whole new experience lol. Other classes are just getting stat changes, we're getting turned upside down

Uh what? DPS casters are losing spirit as a stat. Hunters are having their entire resource system changed. The only thing that's changing for Paladins is that they'll use Spirit.

[Tang]

And just for reference, I would much rather be wearing plate armor as opposed to cloth if someone is swinging an axe at me....

And you'll still prefer to wear plate. You just won't prefer it as much.

[Dio the Holy Diver]

Since Paladins are not Balance Druids or Elemental Shaman, spirit will not be converted to Hit.

Holy Paladins will use Spirit for mana regen, and Ret Paladins will not use Spirit at all.

I guess.

[Tang]

I guess.

I'm not designing the game, I'm just reading the article and explaining it to Paladins.