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Armory Stats - Character Item Level Distribution
Today we are taking a look at the item level distribution of Level 90 characters. There are 5.5 million characters and 2 million accounts that were active after November 1, 2013 that make up this sample. Main character is defined as the highest item level character on an account. The All Characters category has been scaled down to 37% of its true value to be easier to compare to Main Characters.

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Addon - Timeless Answers
If you are still doing the lore question daily quest (A Timeless Question) on Timeless Isle, the Timeless Answers addon may be helpful. It will automatically select the correct answer for you!




Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
I'm so sad you are leaving. However unbalanced things are,I must thank you for making my paladin viable after TBC's horror.
Things are pretty balanced. It's fine for players to like BC class design, but it wasn't balance they liked. (Source)
things are not balanced at all what even
They are balanced enough. You can play any spec and progress meaningfully in PvE or PvP. (Source)
it's true but you have to walk a fine line between balanced and unique I felt classes lost a lot of unique sadly
We do too, and that's one of the advantages of a larger mythic raid size. (Source)
The alternative was some specs were just never going to get brought to a group, esp. a 10 player raid. Maybe would be better? (Source)

I know correlation isn't causation, but when came in, Frost was relegated to PvP, and as he leaves it's strong in PvE.
It was a philosophy change. Early on some specs were intended for PvP or PvE. I have no real objections to that model either. (Source)

I never understood after dual spec was added why you guys didn't stop trying to balance pve and pvp and just have a pvp spec
Some Frost mages and Sub rogues want to PvE with that spec. Not saying that's the best design, but that was the motivation. (Source)

I thought it was added because bosses were winding up with some needing 2 heal and some needing 3.
Dual spec was added because at the time, tanks and healers were terrible solo. That is less true today. (Source)

Is it possible for stacked CDs give diminishing returns, so that stacking CDs has higher burst, but lower dps? Unintuitive?
That is one solution. Another is just shared cooldowns. (Source)

Real question, so don't laugh. You think they will ever let hunters/locks gear pets, example collars with stats ?
Would there be sufficient gameplay there though? Wouldn't you just stack haste or int or your best stat? (Source)

Making some classes deliberately subpar was not a great thing, but some old mechanics were better
We're always happy to discuss old mechanics that you miss. I don't think it's e.g. short term blessings or Shadowbolt spam. (Source)

Why is this argument acceptable for some things and unacceptable for others? The issue of ability bloat, for instance.
Well for example, we changed talents and lost some players who preferred the old model. Same would be true of a large spell purge. (Source)
Yes, but, in theory if the change was actually better for the game you'd recoup any subscriber losses with gains, correct?
Theoretically. But hard to argue that cutting 20% of abilities (for example) would directly lead to many new or returning players. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Mana was never a issue and MoP hunter model was the worst yet. I think the LK/Cata hunter was much more fun
I prefer the MoP hunter, but obviously it's subjective. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I made a twitter account just to ask one question: do you not see a problem btwn Holy vs Disc. HPriest here.
Disc is too versatile, esp. in 10s, and Atonement is too good at healing for no real mana cost. I've said that for awhile. (Source)

Dear Greg.. buddy... from Hpriest to another Hpriest, let's do something about our mana regen
I think it feels about right TBH. Mistweavers and Disc can get away with too little regen. (Source)

g/f keeps telling me holy is terribad compared to disc. what makes you stick to holy? ps. armory link?
Holy is fine. CoH and Divine Hymn can do things that Disc can't. I would agree Disc is too versatile, esp. in 10s. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
not sure this is your dept but why are rogue combo points still unique to the target and not the rogue like pally holy power
Target switching was always seen as a skill test for the rogue. You can argue it's archaic, but that was the design. (Source)

UI / Addons
along with millions of others, thanks! One if the best game additions ever.
Transmog needs a better UI and collection mechanic, but it will get one eventually. (Source)

Have you considered making "fire" in raids easier to see like static neon circles/boxes where it would/is happening?
Putting too many UI elements right in the world takes away from the world itself. It can look ugly. (Source)

PvE
Any plans in WoD for improving the endgame for people who don't like organized raiding?
It's something we discuss a lot but coming up with something fun and challenging has proven difficult. (Source)

Misc
Currently its raid or die.. while there is a lot more the game should be about. Low level content was abandoned too early
You mean like someone would go play a new level 40 dungeon? Or that leveling should be slower and less focused on finishing? (Source)

Have Blizzard ever thought about releasing a sequel to an expansion? Like 'Wrath of the Lich King 2' ?
It's always a balance between revisiting things players remember fondly and avoiding that rehashed feeling. (Source)

Dark Legacy Comics - #418
DLC #418 has been released!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Armory Stats - Character Item Levels, Timeless Answers Addon, Blue Tweets, DLC #418 started by chaud View original post
Comments 87 Comments
  1. The Flavour Cat's Avatar
    An addon just for one quest? That's a bit much, and quite frankly, pointless. If you don't know your lore, brush up on it! The questions aren't even that hard.
  1. Warlord Booty's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azrile View Post
    For me, once I killed Garrosh I could care less about increasing my ilvl.
    Same. The numbers being "low" is due to it being a sample size, and it being post-last raid. This is when most people take a hiatus.

    And my alt outgears my main. My alt is the only one with the cloak due to RNG. 69 sigils of power and 4 sigils of wisdom is a damn shame.
  1. Kryos's Avatar
    My idea to solve many problems. Remove the levels - no joke. If there are no levels every zone can be used for content. Every zone can have challenges and quests with good rewards. You still need to equip for raids and you could learn your spells when you start your first character in some kind of tutorial that lasts an hour or so.

    There would be waaaay more stuff to do in the world and new players could instantly join the fun. Blizzard gives away a level 90 character soon, but that's only the first step to that because that is what would make all the nice world zones interesting. Right now only mines and herb collectors visit old places. Without levels you could do quests anywhere you want with similar rewards. You could start way more events all over the world and fill the world with treasures to find, valuable for everybody not just someone between level x and y.
  1. TrollShaman's Avatar
    the DLC was out last week. This week's pretty good.

    Also that addon... doing the quest for people... urgh, if I didn't give a crap about lore i'd rather pick the wrong answer.
  1. Austilias's Avatar
    Their justification for Rogue combo points being bound to their target rather than themselves continues to be moronic. As recently as MoP they made a class with a similar resource (Monk), and their 'combo points' are still bound to them.
  1. Forni's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ferrouswheel View Post
    2 million players. Well what do you know? That's about the same as competing mmo's. It's quite shocking how little the sub number is when you're not using chinese time cards to inflate your numbers.

    "sample size" ....
  1. taheen74's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by The Flavour Cat View Post
    An addon just for one quest? That's a bit much, and quite frankly, pointless. If you don't know your lore, brush up on it! The questions aren't even that hard.
    There have been a number of addons for just one quest: one back during LK, one that I recall in BC, I'm sure there was one for Cata...
  1. Moradim's Avatar
    reason for ilvls: majority of people are doing 10s, where warforged gear doesnt exist

    also "disc too versatile in 10's"? well its not like we can just have a tank kite adds for 10 garrosh...different formats are different?
  1. Diamondium's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by chaud View Post
    The 2 vs 3 thing is just rounding. 2 * 0.37 = 0.74, which rounds up to 1.

    I used percentages originally, but looking at 0.0000057% isn't an easy to parse number. The main thing here is the shape of the curves and item levels, not so much the exact numbers.
    Ah cool, thanks for the clarification on the 481 thing.

    I still want to believe though.
  1. Hairyseaward's Avatar
    Why are people saying sample size? That would make sense for a 1000 person survey but isn't what they are doing is using armory scrapping techniques to track all the players they can find. So any player that has posted an auction or has been in a guild with someone who uses the ah. Sure you won't get everyone but should account for 80%.
    Is there a way to get different view of the data like total number of mains under 500 etc so we can get percentiles
  1. Khime's Avatar
    How was it determined which characters belonged to a single 'account'? Because if it did so by comparing achievements, I've got all of my characters set to "Display only character achievements to others," so all my 90's are probably showing up as individual mains in this type of data gathering.
  1. Regalbeast's Avatar
    Are there really only 2 million active subs? Or is this talking about active for lvl 90's?
  1. Hairyseaward's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Khime View Post
    How was it determined which characters belonged to a single 'account'? Because if it did so by comparing achievements, I've got all of my characters set to "Display only character achievements to others," so all my 90's are probably showing up as individual mains in this type of data gathering.
    I turned on that option too but wowprogress is still able to detect my alts
  1. Vreivai's Avatar
    Does anyone know whether that's total item level or equipped item level?
  1. chaud's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Khime View Post
    How was it determined which characters belonged to a single 'account'? Because if it did so by comparing achievements, I've got all of my characters set to "Display only character achievements to others," so all my 90's are probably showing up as individual mains in this type of data gathering.
    Then your characters are not included in this sample.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hairyseaward View Post
    I turned on that option too but wowprogress is still able to detect my alts
    Pets can be used to find alts, so there is no point in turning that option on if you want to hide your alts. All it does is remove you from our sample data until I get around to also using pets to match alts.
  1. cerbdog's Avatar
    Yaaaaaay! I can't wait to be able to get all my heirloom gear across the multiple servers its spread across and to my current realm! /doesaflip
  1. Phookah's Avatar
    Why is MMO always a week behind on Dark legacy? They're on #419 now.
  1. Emily314's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Moradim View Post
    reason for ilvls: majority of people are doing 10s, where warforged gear doesnt exist

    also "disc too versatile in 10's"? well its not like we can just have a tank kite adds for 10 garrosh...different formats are different?

    What? I raid 10s and I have seen tons of warforged loot, including the 3 that are currently equipped on myself
  1. Aughyssul's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Emily314 View Post
    What? I raid 10s and I have seen tons of warforged loot, including the 3 that are currently equipped on myself
    Warforged still has a 15% higher chance to drop in 25s.
  1. Emily314's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Aughyssul View Post
    Warforged still has a 15% higher chance to drop in 25s.
    I know but it doesn't mean WF does not exist like the OP said, or my guild was just lucky we have seen quite a few of them

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