Is the current Benthic gear horrible game design?

[Biomega]

I agree with your first paragraph. However your comparison doesn't work. You're using an example of people actively competing against each other, while casual players don't compete with mythic raiders and don't have the intent to do so.

That's even easier then. They don't need gear like that at all if they're not competing, problem solved.

But I think it's not like that. I think they're competing, just at a different level. Are people who run in a marathon all trying to get first place? Not even close. They know they won't. They have different goals even though they're in the same race. But that doesn't mean they deserve the same rewards, or even a chance at the same rewards, as the people who do compete for the top.

[Twdft]

But why should world questers get the best gear in the game anyway if they aren't doing the hardest content? What do they need the gear for?

Why does it matter if they do? Yes, they can run around like braindead chicken and get eight pieces of 425 armor with nice procs. But it takes aeons to do so. I despair at the thought of farming 75 pearls for every Alt to even craft the 410 profession items, I would die of boredom farming up ~1600 pearls to upgrade all armor pieces. If some world quester does so I tip my hat.

Those world questers do not take my raid spot, it is utterly irrelevant what gear they have.

[GreenJesus]

Why does it matter if they do? Yes, they can run around like braindead chicken and get eight pieces of 425 armor with nice procs. But it takes aeons to do so. I despair at the thought of farming 75 pearls for every Alt to even craft the 410 profession items, I would die of boredom farming up ~1600 pearls to upgrade all armor pieces. If some world quester does so I tip my hat.

Those world questers do not take my raid spot, it is utterly irrelevant what gear they have.

Heroic equivalent gear is strong enough reward for doing world content but if it takes ages and ages to farm where your brain explodes. Heroic is easily puggable and I see no reason why world content shouldn't be able to reach around heroic. But why should any gear from braindead activities in the world = gear from the hardest group content in the game that requires a scheduled 20 man group? High rated PVP and mythic raid gear should only be achievable from that content and titanforged world quest gear should be locked below.

[Sandraudiga]

Of course it's an issue. Gear that you can easily farm in the easiest content of the game should never equal, let alone surpass, the gear drops from the very top end of content. Getting max titanforged gear in LFR is also garbage but at least it is so rare that basically no one is going to get it in one slot let alone most slots. Letting this gear go to 425 itself is moronic without adding in the powerful effects and easily farmed sockets.

Just another example of Blizzard failing to see glaringly obvious issues and implementing garbage.

[ChairmanKaga]

People obsessed with their BiS are the scourge of the postgame community.

100% this. It's always been revolting.

[KaPe]

I think quite a few people here are missing the point. This isn't about Benthic gear being ilvl 425. It's about having bonus effects that are worth 20 additional item levels, if not more - rivaling or outclassing raid gear from the highest difficulty content. This is not "LFR player randomly gets +50 Titanforge" one in a million scenario, but easily farmable gear available for everyone.

It's also about specific items being too powerful. Just compare the bonuses - no one really cares about 2% less frost damage, but a free damage proc is much more beneficial. Bonus speed? Helpful, but not overly so. More crit damage? Yes please, there's no other way of getting it. Someone messed up the balance here, these are significant differences in power.

[Barzotti]

I think quite a few people here are missing the point. This isn't about Benthic gear being ilvl 425. It's about having bonus effects that are worth 20 additional item levels, if not more - rivaling or outclassing raid gear from the highest difficulty content. This is not "LFR player randomly gets +50 Titanforge" one in a million scenario, but easily farmable gear available for everyone.

It's also about specific items being too powerful. Just compare the bonuses - no one really cares about 2% less frost damage, but a free damage proc is much more beneficial. Bonus speed? Helpful, but not overly so. More crit damage? Yes please, there's no other way of getting it. Someone messed up the balance here, these are significant differences in power.

I expect these effects to be significantly nerfed (and/or some of them disabled) before Eternal Palace release. It also depends on the proc rate of some of these items inside the raid.

[Bladesyphon]

Progress your character by doing harder content and get accepted into better groups and do bigger numbers. Get a higher rating to get better gear.

So many reasons

Or, and hear me out on this - you can continue to progress your character through other means, and dabble into difficult content because it's, you know, difficult, and you like the challenge of it instead of using it as a way to get better gear, and locking all forms of character progression behind it.

I know, crazy though, the idea of playing a game for the challenge of it, rather than to make your little numbers go up and hold that over others that haven't, but you know, me being an old fart that I am at the grand old age of 32, remembers playing video games on higher difficulties for the challenge (and still do, doing high NG+ runs on Dark Souls is fun because of the challenge, and has nothing to do with progressing my character).

[Big Thanks]

Or, and hear me out on this - you can continue to progress your character through other means, and dabble into difficult content because it's, you know, difficult, and you like the challenge of it instead of using it as a way to get better gear, and locking all forms of character progression behind it.

I know, crazy though, the idea of playing a game for the challenge of it, rather than to make your little numbers go up and hold that over others that haven't, but you know, me being an old fart that I am at the grand old age of 32, remembers playing video games on higher difficulties for the challenge (and still do, doing high NG+ runs on Dark Souls is fun because of the challenge, and has nothing to do with progressing my character).

Someone make a statue of this man in the middle of Nazjatar.
Couldnt have said it any better.

Ive said it several times, in my younger days i used to make threads on MMO-C to remove LFR from the game.
And every single person told me what you just said.

But for some reason, when it comes to benthic gear...everyone suddenly forgets what they "used to say" to the anti-LFR threads.

[MoanaLisa]

But why should world questers get the best gear in the game anyway if they aren't doing the hardest content? What do they need the gear for?

"Hardest" is relative to the skill of the player. If some player who plays a three or four days a month manages to take down difficult content relative to the skill of that player they should be rewarded. I've felt for some time that an equitable solution for this is gear for world content and separate gear for raid content.

The question "what do they need the gear for" is obviously answered by the simple fact that skill is not a level playing field and that everyone likes rewards and a feeling of progression. Some players start off in the new zones and have problems until they can get a couple of pieces of Benthic gear.

It's such an obvious answer I can't even start to understand why it's being asked. "Get better" is a totally irrelevant and condescending response as many never will but happily continue to pay Blizzard so they can develop content for ALL ranges of skill and difficulty.

[Redroniksre]

But why should world questers get the best gear in the game anyway if they aren't doing the hardest content? What do they need the gear for?

I actually agree with this, though i am pro diversifying all gearing methods. Gear is the only real way to progress character power, nothing else in the game affects it. As soon as you stop progressing, you usually quit (well, most do at least, cyclical and all that). That said, currently there is no reason because Blizzard has no inclination to make more difficult solo content. This is something i want changed, i want more Mage Tower difficulty, i want players to be given the option to challenge themselves to progress on their own merits.

If they can do challenging solo content, then i see no reason why to disallow them from getting good gear.

[MoanaLisa]

I actually agree with this, though i am pro diversifying all gearing methods. Gear is the only real way to progress character power, nothing else in the game affects it. As soon as you stop progressing, you usually quit (well, most do at least, cyclical and all that). That said, currently there is no reason because Blizzard has no inclination to make more difficult solo content. This is something i want changed, i want more Mage Tower difficulty, i want players to be given the option to challenge themselves to progress on their own merits.

If they can do challenging solo content, then i see no reason why to disallow them from getting good gear.

For what it's worth I agree that more challenging solo content should be in the game. That, of course, runs into many of the same people who tell you that "Wow is not a solo game, go play something else" which belies the evidence that WoW is very much a game that has a lot of stuff in it that can be played solo and that it's very likely--based on surveys of other MMO's--that many players actually don't engage much in social play.

[Ange]

Just a small reminder to vanillas pre-naxx event.

The GREEN SET with +bonus-damage-to-UD was in a similar position and it was used for the raid. The classic community tells us how the game was perfect back than, so please take a step back and enjoy BfA, because its item design is still similar to 15 years ago.

[Soxoffender]

I think removing the effect from raid is absolutely the best option here.

Or simply halving the effect of the items. I wouldn't call giving world questers heroic raiding gear equivalent items being "bent over", I just don't see a reason for it to be BETTER than mythic raiding gear.

I think if anything, what I would like to happen the most, is the benthic gear be allowed to work in Naz and Mechagon only, but the effects to be made even stronger. So you can feel super strong out in the world, but 0 effect in raid.

This makes sense to me. It benefits the user more in the content it was earned in, so it makes the WQ/LFR/Low Key player powerful in the content they play and doesn't have much of an effect on Heroic/Mythic raiding.

[Mamut]

lets compare my 425 benthic boots with a socket to the 445 boots from mythic azshara

[IMGhttps://i.imgur.com/Z0qWyMn.png[/IMG]
oh look the mythic boots are abit better, but what is this they have a special effect not counted in the DPS!
[IMGhttps://i.imgur.com/08kQz69.png[/IMG]

Oh, good to know. Im gonna skip the benthic gear and will just kill mythic azshara for the boots. When will he open? I hope I can zerg her at first week!

[Redroniksre]

For what it's worth I agree that more challenging solo content should be in the game. That, of course, runs into many of the same people who tell you that "Wow is not a solo game, go play something else" which belies the evidence that WoW is very much a game that has a lot of stuff in it that can be played solo and that it's very likely--based on surveys of other MMO's--that many players actually don't engage much in social play.

Yeah, many have evolved now. MMO's used to only compete with other MMO's, because most games were one and done. Now these days every game is trying to demand the attention of the player, so WoW competes with everything else on the market. They need to give players reason to play it over any other RPG, even the single player ones. Not to mention the complaints about a lackluster world, but then complaining when anything remotely rewarding is added to the world.

[Video Games]

I'm a little confused, because I was under the impression you were a decent raider. But saying this now i'm not so sure.

Benthic pieces are BiS. As in fully upgrade to 425 with a socket, they are better than base mythic raiding gear (445ilvl gear) by a notable amount.

For BM, Mythic bracers with a socket don't beat 425 socketed benthic bracers. Same with the gloves. A mythic raid socketed belt and boots make it equal to the benthic gear.

I'd suggest doing a bit more research into the benthic pieces and their bis for every dps spec in the game who have 1-4 pieces as bis.

No he isnt a decent raider. Hes said mages are better to bring to raids than locks.

[Uselessrouge]

gear has been terrible since they added procs and sockets .

[MoanaLisa]

That's the problem. For many dps specs it is THE best gear basically making any form of challenging content like mythic+ or mythic raiding obsolete. But hey, at least casuals are happy.

We look forward with anticipation to the best guilds in the world getting through the mythic versions of the new raid first day.

[GreenJesus]

Yeah, many have evolved now. MMO's used to only compete with other MMO's, because most games were one and done. Now these days every game is trying to demand the attention of the player, so WoW competes with everything else on the market. They need to give players reason to play it over any other RPG, even the single player ones. Not to mention the complaints about a lackluster world, but then complaining when anything remotely rewarding is added to the world.

Since mythic is only done by less than 1% of the population, it seems that heroic/slightly below gear IS rewarding for 99% of the playerbase. Mythic and high rated PVP should be in a league of its own for those that choose to aim towards it and schedule their lives around it. Why is heroic raid gear not enough for casuals killing trash in timeless isle?