You cannot change gear in a M+ dungeon anymore.

[Leih]

Don't find this change questionable at all. Makes sense really - I don't think swapping items around between AOE sets and single target sets is good gameplay for high end content. This way you're encouraged to make a balanced set & group in the same way as with talents.

Gear-swapping belongs on the banned list in the same way swapping specs and talents does.

Though I do sort of thing they should remove durability damage from M+

[Jester Joe]

Point remains that by no longer having to swap this trinket I highly doubt mythic dungeons are suddenly "much less interesting" for you.

It hurts for classes that need the ability to swap trinkets for competitive aoe.

Don't find this change questionable at all. Makes sense really - I don't think swapping items around between AOE sets and single target sets is good gameplay for high end content. This way you're encouraged to make a balanced set & group in the same way as with talents.

Gear-swapping belongs on the banned list in the same way swapping specs and talents does.

Though I do sort of thing they should remove durability damage from M+

I would disagree on that.

It's high end content, the ability to swap stuff around on the fly to complete it more effectively makes it interesting.

[Nevcairiel]

Yeah I mean I was in this situation multiple times during my wow career, just not in m+, because if go to red there, EVERYTHING is red.

I only ever remember hunters having their bows break back in the day. It was always super hilarious!

[Nnyco]

makes sense in a way though i dont see us switch alot of gear anymore except maybe trinkets since legendaries are gone

[Jyggalag]

It hurts for classes that need the ability to swap trinkets for competitive aoe.

Present your argument for why any class should need to equip a particular item for competitive AoE while others do not. Consider that not all classes have been designed to do competitive AoE and will shine in other areas. Does that restrict their viability in higher end M+ runs considering current design is pull as much as possible, kill it as quick as you can or bust? Absolutely. This only puts more pressure on devs to balance classes properly and revise M+ off of the feedback threads they've made recently and can only be a good thing.

[Leih]

I would disagree on that.

It's high end content, the ability to swap stuff around on the fly to complete it more effectively makes it interesting.

We'll probably have to agree to disagree on this point... but I think awkward meta-play is not exciting or interesting gameplay. Things like swapping specs mid-run, changing groups around (like in TBC when you would swap your shaman into another group to cast Bloodlust, then move them back to a different group to put down totems), keeping different poisons on different weapons and swapping weapons mid-encounter to juggle different debuffs...

All this sort of stuff rightly belongs on the trash heap. The difficulty should come from the game and the intended mechanics and not from weird creative use of meta game mechanics.

It defeats the purpose in choosing your gear for an encounter if you can switch gear on the fly. It defeats the purpose of choosing your talents if you can constantly switch to fit the situation. Choosing between an AOE-heavy setup, a Singletarget-heavy setup or a survival-based setup should be a choice, or a balancing act and not something you get around by swapping stuff with macros and addons mid-run.

[shaunika123]

This is for e-sport reasons aka complete balancing of everything everywhere.

on the "esport" part every gear is accessible for everyone, so why is it a problem?

all this does is remove some of the skillcap from m+

seriously, this change is only put in cos casual pete is too dumb to do it and we have to tune the game to him.

but why are we surprised?

literally every single change in BFA has been to make the game dumber without exception.

[Deleted]

This is really bad news and sad for a lot of classes. For me as a Spriest I absolutely need a high haste crit set for single target to not be completly garbage and another lower haste higher mastery for aoe and trash.

I can understand with the new amour traits playing a part in this design and decision but it's still going to a very negative feeling doing a dungeon in an ST focus build because it's tyrannical and have a 95% negative experience across the dungeon but yay for the 4 bosses I wasn't totally crap

[Tyrean]

I did 22+ keys and I had the following gearsets:

1.) ST High Damage. Legendary swaps mostly. with set bonuses from raiding.
2.) Survival. Few trinket swaps, some legendary swaps and some gear swaps. Mainly to survive big one shot mechanics.
3.) Speed. Go fast to run back. Couple of legendary swaps, but mostly just garbage gear with the speed tertiary.
4.) AoE. Legendary swaps mostly.
5.) Easy sets. Would be legendary swaps mostly the necklace so I could be lazy on lower keys.


Most of my gear swaps were switching around legendaries for trash and bosses. The ones that are going to suck are going to be the oneshot mechanics. As a frost DK I had to keep a set with double tank trinket/necklace/high ilvl so I could just survive some mechanics on some bosses. This obviously gutted my dps so if I had to choose between doing crap DPS the whole dungeon but being alive or doing hot dps until I die on the boss then I guess I would not be taken on anything high. Same reason why most healers were paladins and rdruids, they could survive the oneshots.

On the whole I like the idea of not having to keep up with all that gear and all that crap. I do hate that I will have a natural cap based on my class that I cannot overcome with gear. Currently it is not such a bad thing that I do less dps on a boss because I am wrecking the rest of the dungeon, so having to switch stuff to stay alive keeps me relevant. New meta I might just not be taken, will have to see how it shakes out with the other classes.

[Jester Joe]

Present your argument for why any class should need to equip a particular item for competitive AoE while others do not. Consider that not all classes have been designed to do competitive AoE and will shine in other areas. Does that restrict their viability in higher end M+ runs considering current design is pull as much as possible, kill it as quick as you can or bust? Absolutely. This only puts more pressure on devs to balance classes properly and revise M+ off of the feedback threads they've made recently and can only be a good thing.

I would have to ask you to present your argument as to why you feel anything you've been saying then also.

But just look at Gorshalach's alone, and compare its aoe damage to any other trinket.
And then look and compare Rets aoe to WW aoe.

It's quite clear there's a huge gap between certain classes and certain trinkets.

And WoW has ALWAYS had an issue with certain classes just being the best at everything, so why bring anything else. It's not going to suddenly change because of this.

We'll probably have to agree to disagree on this point... but I think awkward meta-play is not exciting or interesting gameplay. Things like swapping specs mid-run, changing groups around (like in TBC when you would swap your shaman into another group to cast Bloodlust, then move them back to a different group to put down totems), keeping different poisons on different weapons and swapping weapons mid-encounter to juggle different debuffs...

All this sort of stuff rightly belongs on the trash heap. The difficulty should come from the game and the intended mechanics and not from weird creative use of meta game mechanics.

It defeats the purpose in choosing your gear for an encounter if you can switch gear on the fly. It defeats the purpose of choosing your talents if you can constantly switch to fit the situation. Choosing between an AOE-heavy setup, a Singletarget-heavy setup or a survival-based setup should be a choice, or a balancing act and not something you get around by swapping stuff with macros and addons mid-run.

I'm not quite sure how it defeats your purpose for choosing gear for an encounter if you can swap gear on the fly.
That's literally what swapping gear on the fly is, choosing gear for an encounter.

It's far more sucky to get into an instance and be like "Well, we need aoe for half, and single target for the other half, so which do I really want to pick" when you're pugging and you have no idea what half the group is going to struggle with the most

[Leih]

It's far more sucky to get into an instance and be like "Well, we need aoe for half, and single target for the other half, so which do I really want to pick" when you're pugging and you have no idea what half the group is going to struggle with the most

I feel like that's kind of the point, with gear. You try to build a set of gear to cover situations. You are going to have to make some decisions based on what you know and, if there are unknowns, potentially take some risks with your choice. Do you look at the group and the affixes and decide that AOE damage is going to help a lot, and thus go full out on AOE gear and talents? Or do you hedge your bets and go for a balanced set of equipment to cover all eventualities?

The problem with allowing you to change things on the fly at any time is that any concept of "balancing" is completely lost. You either go 100% one way or 100% the other.

What does my group need? Do I go maximum single target to help on the bosses? Do I prioritise AOE? Or do I go for something somewhere in between and not take the chance of maxing just one aspect? When you can change gear to suit any situation, that last option doesn't exist, why would you need to make such a decision when you can just macro a swap between each boss and trash pack?

[Jyggalag]

I would have to ask you to present your argument as to why you feel anything you've been saying then also.

But just look at Gorshalach's alone, and compare its aoe damage to any other trinket.
And then look and compare Rets aoe to WW aoe.

It's quite clear there's a huge gap between certain classes and certain trinkets.

And WoW has ALWAYS had an issue with certain classes just being the best at everything, so why bring anything else. It's not going to suddenly change because of this

Because it's not fun, and it's not a measure of skill. It's a testament to bad game design when players need to hold on to different items to be competitive when the fault lies at the developers for not making all classes/spec competitive in a 5 man setting without it.

If Blizzard didn't feel there was reason for this change they wouldn't have made it. There's never been an emphasis on 5 man content being an alternative to end game raiding content as much in WoW's history, and with the push on M+ and invitationals driving the eSports scene going forward, it's in Blizzard's interest to balance classes, so we're not seeing the same 2-3 fotm comps every season, and so that players looking to push high-end keys on retail aren't at a disadvantage for missing out on a particular item, some of which are only available from raids.

If anything, it should change, precisely because of this.

[Oneru]

Since switching talents isn't allowed and BfA will add talent choices via azerite gear pieces, this makes senss.

[Deleted]

removes thinking inside the dungeon
adds thinking beforehand how to set up your comb and what you want to prio in the dungeon youre doing

good change.

only bad thing is that you will have to teabag your ilvl for avoidance in some cases - should remove avoidance to make it even better.

[Jyggalag]

It's far more sucky to get into an instance and be like "Well, we need aoe for half, and single target for the other half, so which do I really want to pick" when you're pugging and you have no idea what half the group is going to struggle with the most

It's also sucky when you don't get invited to an instance because your class doesn't shine in AoE, or you don't have the trinket that makes your class shine in AoE. If you've got 1 half of an instance ST and the other half AoE, you'll want to build your group with a balance of classes/specs where you've one spec covering high ST, one covering the AoE, and one that's in the middle in terms of both. Suddenly, a much wider range of comps are viable.

[Pigglix]

Depending on the affixes you couldnt change the gear already anyway. Worst case scenario you can always step out of the dungeon real quick and change talents/gear.

For arcway people did step out after they killed the oozes at the entrance of the dungeon, so they could cheese their explosions.

[Jester Joe]

Because it's not fun, and it's not a measure of skill. It's a testament to bad game design when players need to hold on to different items to be competitive when the fault lies at the developers for not making all classes/spec competitive in a 5 man setting without it.

Except the whole point of trinkets have always been situational. Certain ones are always better in aoe situations, while others are better in single target.

This isn't going to change, and it shouldn't restrict the player if they want to swap middungeon for a fight after getting a good feeling for how the group is going.

If Blizzard didn't feel there was reason for this change they wouldn't have made it. There's never been an emphasis on 5 man content being an alternative to end game raiding content as much in WoW's history, and with the push on M+ and invitationals driving the eSports scene going forward, it's in Blizzard's interest to balance classes, so we're not seeing the same 2-3 fotm comps every season, and so that players looking to push high-end keys on retail aren't at a disadvantage for missing out on a particular item, some of which are only available from raids.

If anything, it should change, precisely because of this.

I don't think "Blizzard chose to do so" is a great way to prove something honestly. It's one thing when it comes to statistics we don't have access to, like participation and what not, but it's another when it comes to what feels better and what's fun. That's why they ask for feedback after all.

And you're going to see that regardless. They tried pushing arenas as a big esports scene too, yet there were still imbalances between specs.

Hell, Overwatch is pretty successful at being an esports, and it still has balancing issues, like some characters requiring multiple reworks because they're never used competitively (I'm looking at you, Symmetra).

I mean, it's not like it affects those who are trying to gear up from M+ anyway really, since you don't need to min/max to get a +15 done, which is where gear caps.

- - - Updated - - -

It's also sucky when you don't get invited to an instance because your class doesn't shine in AoE, or you don't have the trinket that makes your class shine in AoE. If you've got 1 half of an instance ST and the other half AoE, you'll want to build your group with a balance of classes/specs where you've one spec covering high ST, one covering the AoE, and one that's in the middle in terms of both. Suddenly, a much wider range of comps are viable.

You're being a bit too idealistic if you think this is going to make blizzard balance things.

[Puri]

Well, considering there are no legendaries anymore the impact will be rather low, the only meaningful slot might be the trinkets. And there we already have the 30s delay for procs after switching.
Sure some diehard m+ people might have also have different gearsets, with stats like avoidance. But that would just be a minor part of the players, and it also does not really matter since the competition also cannot do that anymore.

[Onikaroshi]

Actually, you can. Only your weapon and almost nobody ever does ist, but in theory you could ;-)

I recall this being a needed thing once and only once, for hunters, on nef, so they didn't break their bow (or a backup if they did l.o.l.)

[Kasharan]

I believe majority of the player base that is ok with this potential change don't regularly change sets anyway or do any form of strategy to maximize their classes use from pull to pull in a dungeon. The reality of it is, you can still do your weekly +15 without swapping gearsets whatsoever, so for those players it won't effect them anyway. However for the player pool that actually does enjoy the level of competition and strategy M+ offers it is a huge blow to class diversity and itemization.


This isn't a raid encounter, you can swap gear from boss to boss in a raid. Would you run the same trinket/gear pieces on Garothi that you would High Command? Probably not. You're thinking of just 1 boss, so if you can swap gear from each boss in a raid, you should be able to do so in a dungeon. The reality is talents are already locked in, which is what changes how your class is played the most anyway, and that makes sense. But handicapping a strong ST class that has weak AoE from itemizing to not be completely useless on AoE or vice versa is a huge blow to what classes you'd seek to bring to a M+, pigeonholing your group into only specific classes that excel in all situations and not just bringing a good player.

A couple of examples:
- You enter a dungeon that has Hyrja/Xavius (1 shot) like mechanics, well if your class doesn't have a strong defensive kit or have immunities then you have to run gear with defensive azurite traits and/or defensive trinkets the entire run just for that 1 pull or 1 boss to keep from wiping. This is highly inefficient as why would I take your class for that dungeon if you don't have a defensive kit already built in allowing you to run full-fledged offensive trinkets and azurite gear?
- You have traits similar to Luffa's for feral/guardian druid or an AoE trinket that is your BIS dps wise but you're playing in a dungeon with a few congested packs? Anyone that's ran with a druid with Luffa's knows the dangers of pulling mobs through walls or mass pulling a room in general. Who's to say that traits/trinkets similar to this that make that class excel in AoE wouldn't completely harm the group in a dungeon like that? You'd either have to not dps entirely or not itemize into what gives you competitive AoE dps, in which case I'd just bring a different class.
- Blood Dk's mobility is all baked into their talent tree now, with azurite traits having potential speed bonuses, there will be no speed sets for moving in-between packs to help make up for their weaknesses. They'll have to take all combat enhancement traits from the get-go. Once again being the lowest mobility tank without any way to lessen their weakness, so why would I take any blood DK over something like a Vengeance DH?
- Healers that have little to no defensives wouldn't be valued over something like Resto druid that could just go into bear form to avoid certain 1 shot mechanics. So why would we take a healer that had to take defensive (non-healing) trinkets and defensive (non-healing) traits? All for the sake of just 1 pull/boss that could make or break the value of your class.
- Certain trinkets that give niche bonuses that you obtain from a raid or dungeon that will be used far less and possibly almost never because you can't optimize them with this restriction. Means there will be far less diversity for those slots.

Overall this drastically lowers the skill ceiling for any form of M+ competition as it handicaps the creativity and strategy that makes different classes shine and shows the skill of those individual players. And in my opinion it kills the enjoyment of how you approach each pull. In order to "tune" classes for dungeons now if this indeed is the avenue they decide to go, they have to make classes closer to one another in terms of identity (every class has X defensives/Y offensive CD's) and that defeats the purpose of diversity. Pigeonholing groups at a higher level to take certain classes more so than they already do is not healthy for competition. And if you think this mindset won't trickle down into casual play because its only done at a higher level of play then you're wrong, when's the last time you looked at warcraftlogs and copied a build done by an average joe? Probably never, you're going to mimic what's best and take what the pro's use outside of situations where you're just casually playing with your group of friends.


I know I'm not alone here, there have been quite a few posts by people who are competing in the MDI that have shared similar concerns in other forums. Please Blizzard don't dumb down the game any further.