Hellfire Citadel item levels altered [datamined info]

[Natureseer]

warning: the following information is datamined from the PTR and should not be considered final

while browsing wowhead today, checking to see if HFC items have had their stats added to them yet (they have not) i noticed something odd: about 2/3 of the items in HFC had their item levels altered in the latest build. it appears that the mythic loot now ranges from item level 720 to item level 735, such that items that come from the beginning bosses is now ilvl 720, items that come from the midway bosses remains 725, items that come from the final portion of bosses is now 730, and archimonde loot is 735.

this is a list of weapons from the raid, which shows what im talking about (however it applies for all items)
http://ptr.wowhead.com/items=2?filte...20%3Bmaxle=740

now, this is obviously just the PTR which means nothing is final, but i think its obvious that this is a change they are, at the very least, considering. i personally feel this is a very poor decision, as it essentially makes at least a third of the drops in the raid useless. in a raiding environment where ilvl>all, the lower ilvl loot will simply have no place other than to be de'd. if you have different thoughts, feel free to share.

[Clrg]

Who asked for this?

[Mister Cheese]

Who asked for this?

Nobody. They haven't used this system in... ever? I really hope this is just a placeholder. Will this be the same for normal and heroic loot though? They're already dividing item level by difficulty. Do they really need to divide it further by what bosses you fight? Considering some later fights might even be EASIER than the earlier ones. How much later a boss is doesn't mean it will be harder.

[Natureseer]

Nobody. They haven't used this system in... ever? I really hope this is just a placeholder. Will this be the same for normal and heroic loot though?

if the item levels remain the same as they are on the PTR currently, yes.

[wordup]

I've heard about this recently also. I think it's ridiculous that some classes will be fundamentally weaker by means of item level on weapons or gear based on where it drops within an instance for endgame progression. I would be amazed if this actually made it in, but if it does then it is a very, very poor decision.

[Usagi Senshi]

Now this is a good change IMO. I was always a fan of the loot getting better the deeper you go into a dungeon. Miss that in earlier expansions.

The last boss should ahve always dropped superior loot!

[threads]

Nobody. They haven't used this system in... ever? I really hope this is just a placeholder. Will this be the same for normal and heroic loot though? They're already dividing item level by difficulty. Do they really need to divide it further by what bosses you fight? Considering some later fights might even be EASIER than the earlier ones. How much later a boss is doesn't mean it will be harder.

Lich King weapons were higher ilvl. But there were also weapons for everyone.

[Natureseer]

Lich King weapons were higher ilvl. But there were also weapons for everyone.

I wasn't opposed to the last boss dropping higher item level loot (given that there was something for every class) but this change causes all the loot in the raid to vary in ilvl. Loot from 2/3 of the bosses will go generally unused.

[Zylos]

They haven't used this system in... ever?

Well...sort of. Vanilla item levels were all over the place until like AQ or naxx, but item level wasn't a visible stat at the time.

[wordup]

Lich King weapons were higher ilvl. But there were also weapons for everyone.

That system was fine, great even. Wealth of difference from that and here where some classes will sadly get with this with weapons capping out at 725

This wasn't cool at Ragnaros, and people complained then, and it it's even less cool now having higher ilvl weapons for some and not for others.

[xskarma]

Lich King weapons were higher ilvl. But there were also weapons for everyone.

In which case no one would complain I'm sure. That makes the last boss a significant power upgrade if you manage to kill him, that's fine.

The current implementation where some classes get superior weapons, and some classes do not, are stupid. And that's coming from a caster who'll have access to one of the weapons, so this isn't even a case of envy. It's just basic gamebuilding to make sure every spec and every class has at least the potential to have equal gear (even if kill order of bosses might mean some classes have their important stuff behind later bosses then others (like Hunter weapons behind 2 of the later bosses in BRF I think)).

I'm against this scaling of ilevel as you get further in general though, and nto just cause of this weapon issue. If the ilevel scales up that means gear in the earlier part of the raid will not be as good as the later gear, meanign you shrink the amount of gear available, meaning that if you want that Mastery/Haste piece, but the later item in the raid is actually a Crit/Versatility peice, then well, sucks to be you.

There's absolutely no good reason to create this artificial lack of gearing depth when there's allready tier gear that you can put on later bosses to ensure the later bosses are more interesting to kill.

[Malefic]

When testing content on PTR we've been scaled to incremental ilvls based on boss difficulty so this doesn't surprise me.

The start of HFC has been scaled to 690 iirc with Mannaroth testing being scaled to 705 iirc.

[Zekyu]

No way they're going to have some classes have higher ilvl weapons than others. Would be really really dumb. A LK style system is fine.

[Licarius]

Keep in mind that OP said 2/3's of the items have been changed and not all. Perhaps there are placeholder weapons that haven't been given the ilvl boost. They flat out will not have certain class/specs able to wield different ilvl weapons.

[lunchbox2042]

They'll probably gate the raid over the course of a couple months for all difficulties to extend the life of the content.

[Natureseer]

Keep in mind that OP said 2/3's of the items have been changed and not all. Perhaps there are placeholder weapons that haven't been given the ilvl boost. They flat out will not have certain class/specs able to wield different ilvl weapons.

the loot that remained unchanged is from the "middle" bosses which are ilvl 725 (between the 720 and 730 bosses.) 725 just happened to be the ilvl of all loot prior to this build.

[threads]

Spine and Deathwing also had higher ilvl than the rest of the bosses if I remember right. So it's nothing really new it's just a retarded way of doing it across the raid.

[FeralSynapse]

Spine and Deathwing also had higher ilvl than the rest of the bosses if I remember right. So it's nothing really new it's just a retarded way of doing it across the raid.

It was only Deathwing and he had weapons for everyone. Last boss currently does not drop weapons for everyone. There is no Agi/Staff or polearm on his list currently which means a "higher ilvl" weapon is not available to me. Either give everyone weapons or don't put weapons on his loot table.

[neck deep]

It was only Deathwing and he had weapons for everyone.

nah, spine's trinkets and random pieces were also 416 vs 410, and currently only casters of all types and 2 hand strength users have archimonde weapons, so i doubt it will stay this way.

[Sethanor]

this whole expansion just keeps getting dumber and worse ... and here we are thinking "nah, it cant get any worse" and blizz gets us every time xD