Are We Getting Back Tier Sets in Shadowlands?

[kaminaris]

Tier sets should definitely make a comeback. But they don't don't have to be so overly defining as some of them have been in the past (especially MoP and WoD). It's fine if it's just a small bonus, not something that changes your entire rotation or something that is incredibly powerful. Class design should be stable, and it shouldn't be subject to change with every new tier bonus.

No point in having bland and uninspired set bonuses. That would just lock down these slots again with no option to change it and no excitement to have something that alters your rotation - like we had before for majority of classes

The only reason we don't have tier bonuses is because of this perception that "set bonuses have to redefine my entire rotation and spice things up massively - or at least be really powerful". Well, that and because it requires a lot of development/design time to make new ones every tier (including art for each separate set for each class), and Blizzard is doing everything they can to minimize work on WoW.

The reason we dont have tier bonuses is because they were mandatory to have and only available thru raids while giving no alternatives for people who wants to just play M+.

Mythic+ and raid gear should share the same tier bonus though, in the sense that you can have 2/5 mythic+ pieces and 2/5 raid pieces and you'll get a combined 4/5 granting you the 4/4 set bonus.

That wouldn't solve anything. You would still be locked through entire raid tier for these 4 slots.

Additionally, Mythic+ gear acquistion rate should naturally be decreased massively (to match the acquistion rate of raids) and the ilvl of the acquired gear should match the skill level required to complete the content. Mythic+ cannot continue to give significantly better/faster gear than raiding of the same "difficulty" and vice versa.

Only if M+ would straight up reward mythic level gear at some level, otherwise its not a solution, it's creating a problem. So if 10 rewards heroic level gear, 15 should reward mythic level gear.

Moreover, PvP gear needs to be taken out of the PvE gearing equation by being separated, with their own set bonuses. PvP gear should, baseline, be significantly worse than PvE gear, but it should on the other hand be much faster to acquire and it should be fully targetable (via vendors or equivalent system) - and in PvP it should scale up and be significantly better than all PvE gear.

PvP gear should not be significantly worse than PvE gear, instead it should have 20-30% of secondary stats as pvp resilience.

So if 400 ilvl PVE pants have

100 crit
100 haste

400 pvp equivalent should be

70 crit
70 haste
60 resilience

and have a vendor.

[Cyram]

My last memories of tier sets was "sucks to be you because you're hard stuck with legendary pants and shoulders so whichever piece left you get you need because you also need the 4-piece bonus 'cause it's a HUGE ASS DPS GAIN, even 2 tiers after you've got them."
... so I was stuck with a very limited choice when it came to loot.

What I want is for them to give us more cosmetic variety, and for them to keep expanding on the azerite system. Maybe remove some azerite bonuses and create new ones that could shush things up every tier (hunting for 3xSupreme Commander wasn't really all that fun, either, tbh).
I want them to keep their word on them having more time to create even more sets per patch (like they did during 8.0) - and not just dick us with a faction-recolored version of the set like they did in 8.2 and are doing in 8.3 (hell, even the BoA gear is LFR colored).

[RelaZ]

No point in having bland and uninspired set bonuses. That would just lock down these slots again with no option to change it and no excitement to have something that alters your rotation - like we had before for majority of classes

Strongly disagree. With that mentality there's no point to having anything that isn't rotation / mechanic defining in the game at all. Why even have ilvl upgrades at all? There needs to be fun upgrades to hunt for that are more than just another +30 int/haste/mastery etc while still not being "this is gamebreaking, and if you don't have it you're not viable".

Hunting after set bonuses is fun, and yes it locks you down - just the same as not having set bonuses locks you down. A given piece / gear combination will always be the best and there will always be lock-in situations with your gear with certain stat breakpoints and so on, happens both with and without set bonuses.

The reason we dont have tier bonuses is because they were mandatory to have and only available thru raids while giving no alternatives for people who wants to just play M+.

That wouldn't solve anything.

Yes, yes it would.

My suggestion would solve the bolded part. Nothing preventing you from getting your 4/5 set bonus by gearing 5/5 from Mythic+, or 2/5 raid and 2/5 Mythic+, or any other combination.

Only if M+ would straight up reward mythic level gear at some level, otherwise its not a solution, it's creating a problem. So if 10 rewards heroic level gear, 15 should reward mythic level gear.

Yes. If there is M+ content that is as hard as Mythic raid (or competitive PvP) content it should naturally give the same rewards. The problem is naturally that +15 is not as hard as Mythic Azshara or 2.4k+ arena and that descrepancy needs to be rectified (either a +15 needs to be harder or the max reward has to be given at +18-20).

PvP gear should not be significantly worse than PvE gear, instead it should have 20-30% of secondary stats as pvp resilience.

That's essentially just forcing an, arguably, worse version of versatility (which is basically what pvp resilience is) into the stat budgets of all PvP gear. And as everyone who has played PvP knows, versatility, nor resilience back when it was part of the stat budget, is not a particularly good stat to stack beyond a certain point (for most specs).

This solution would only force PvPers into high end PvE to fill out 30-50% or so of their gear with non-resilience gear to get an edge. Essentially, sacrificing defensive (resilience) stats for offensive ones. And this happened from the inception of pvp resilience (as part of the stat budget) until its end, i.e. throughout TBC, WotLK, Cata & early MoP, and it's happening again in Legion and BfA (although for different reasons).

Your proposal is a horrible solution that would just maintain the status quo of forcing PvPers into PvE content.

[kaminaris]

Strongly disagree. With that mentality there's no point to having anything that isn't rotation / mechanic defining in the game at all. Why even have ilvl upgrades at all? There needs to be fun upgrades to hunt for that are more than just another +30 int/haste/mastery etc while still not being "this is gamebreaking, and if you don't have it you're not viable".

That mentality is completely off. It's just plain wrong, completely opposite, not having set bonuses is just being able to upgrade that slot trough the entire raid tier plus having option to upgrade it from various sources.

To make better example, with tier sets you sort gear by:
1. Potential upgrades
2. Trash that takes up tier slot

Without it, you only have potential upgrades.

Without tier sets you have 15/16 gear slots.
With tier sets you have 11/12 gear slots and 4 big sockets.

Exactly like in this comic: https://www.darklegacycomics.com/612

Hunting after set bonuses is fun, and yes it locks you down - just the same as not having set bonuses locks you down. A given piece / gear combination will always be the best and there will always be lock-in situations with your gear with certain stat breakpoints and so on, happens both with and without set bonuses.

How is it fun to farm for a gear that drops in 3-6 weeks? I don't get it. I've been in more than 12 raid tiers and I just felt obligation, not fun.
Its like countdown to locking slots.

Yes, yes it would.

My suggestion would solve the bolded part. Nothing preventing you from getting your 4/5 set bonus by gearing 5/5 from Mythic+, or 2/5 raid and 2/5 Mythic+, or any other combination.

Yes. If there is M+ content that is as hard as Mythic raid (or competitive PvP) content it should naturally give the same rewards. The problem is naturally that +15 is not as hard as Mythic Azshara or 2.4k+ arena and that descrepancy needs to be rectified (either a +15 needs to be harder or the max reward has to be given at +18-20).

Well, first bosses are certainly easier than 18s. And who is going to measure difficulty? You will have a bunch of people screaming M+ is easy and rewards easy mythic level gear, and then you will have a bunch of people saying it is too hard. Can guarantee it.

That's essentially just forcing an, arguably, worse version of versatility (which is basically what pvp resilience is) into the stat budgets of all PvP gear. And as everyone who has played PvP knows, versatility, nor resilience back when it was part of the stat budget, is not a particularly good stat to stack beyond a certain point (for most specs).

This solution would only force PvPers into high end PvE to fill out 30-50% or so of their gear with non-resilience gear to get an edge. Essentially, sacrificing defensive (resilience) stats for offensive ones. And this happened from the inception of pvp resilience (as part of the stat budget) until its end, i.e. throughout TBC, WotLK, Cata & early MoP, and it's happening again in Legion and BfA (although for different reasons).

Your proposal is a horrible solution that would just maintain the status quo of forcing PvPers into PvE content.

Not if you also add pvp power back, with ability to buy either resilience or power.
Obvious thing is, merged gear will not ever work. And making pvp gear total garbage for pve will create huge entry gate for people.
As well as making pve gear total garbage for pvp will do the same.

PvP gear needs to be slightly worse than PvE gear for PvE
and PvE gear should be slightly worse than PvP for PvP

trinkets included as blizzard never learned from mistakes in the past such as rune of reorigination or assurance of consuequence.
PvE trinkets should suck in pvp and vice versa.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Glad to see people in this thread realizing the difference of the issues here.
A lot of people don't seem to care at all about what a tier set actually is. They just want the class-themed transmog.
There is no reason they can't do that, and if you want that please be specific.

Four items that are actually mandatory for the class coming exclusively from raids ON TOP of all the other special gear slots in the game atm can not return.
It makes no sense at all really.
So you'd have what, 6 items that you can combine into a four set like the old days?
Then the neck, shoulders, chest and helm already are occupied.

So that means you'd have what, 4ish slots of gear to make any actual choices on?
No thanks.

Unless they completely go away from extreme-power items in Shadowlands, there is no reason for tier sets to return.
Give us more gear based customization for our characters.
Not single-option mandatory slots that make it mandatory to raid if you want to compete in the game.

Especially not if they are getting rid of titanforging.

You have a better version of tier sets now between essences and azerite armor, yet everyone still complains.
What's there to possibly like over the new concepts - other than transmog?

[Lollis]

Honestly I like not being forced to raid so I can do Mythics at higher levels... Tier sets help a lot.. I'm not saying the current system is working well because it isn't essences sucks.

Essences are great and give a little extra flavour to builds and playstyles, it's the getting hold of them that is shit.

[RelaZ]

That mentality is completely off. It's just plain wrong, completely opposite, not having set bonuses is just being able to upgrade that slot trough the entire raid tier plus having option to upgrade it from various sources.

To make better example, with tier sets you sort gear by:
1. Potential upgrades
2. Trash that takes up tier slot

Without it, you only have potential upgrades.

Without tier sets you have 15/16 gear slots.
With tier sets you have 11/12 gear slots and 4 big sockets.

Exactly like in this comic: https://www.darklegacycomics.com/612

That's just rubbish. With that logic everything that isn't part of your BiS list is just trash. There are always BiS items, what does it matter to you if they're from a set or not? It's just slightly more fun to build towards a set bonus than to build towards a simple BiS list with nothing exciting at the end.

PS: You can still use other non-set items until you manage to fill in your set bonuses, just like you can use non-BiS items until you get BiS for any given slot.

How is it fun to farm for a gear that drops in 3-6 weeks? I don't get it. I've been in more than 12 raid tiers and I just felt obligation, not fun.
Its like countdown to locking slots.

In that case everything is "just a countdown to locking slots", for every single piece (all 16) until you get BiS.
Getting fun and cool items with more than just +30 int is really nice to most people. Completionists playing an RPG.

However, as I mentioned before, the upgrade(s) shouldn't be gamechangingly powerful, just something extra.

Well, first bosses are certainly easier than 18s. And who is going to measure difficulty? You will have a bunch of people screaming M+ is easy and rewards easy mythic level gear, and then you will have a bunch of people saying it is too hard. Can guarantee it.

Certainly. There's no way to get a perfect distribution on gear power and acquisition rate. But perfect is not what I'm requesting, I'm just requesting something that's OK and not obviously horrible - which is what it's been for the last 2 expansions between M+ and raiding (and PvP).

Not if you also add pvp power back, with ability to buy either resilience or power.

Then why didn't you say so immediately? That might actually be a good idea. Would just have create a shit ton of PvP items for players to buy (all possible item stat combinations of PvP resi/power + regular secondary stats), otherwise some specs would be forced into PvE to get the best stat allocations. Probably better to just create a "PvP Versatility" stat that includes both what we previously knew as PvP Resilience and PvP Power (in PvP only of course, and it would only appear on PvP gear).

I guess this leads to less problems with wPvE and exploits/abuse by getting yourself into PvP combat to trigger ilvl scaling. I guess I could get behind it. However, you might as well just make PvP gear lower ilvl and put the PvP stat(s) outside of the stat budget which would truly make this the cheap carbon copy of the MoP system that it is, haha.

PvP Power/Versatility (whichever way) has to be so powerful (in PvP) that it significantly outshines just going with regular secondary stats (PvE gear). Otherwise PvPers will just feel forced into PvE to circumvent the PvP gear acquistion path entirely (in order to succeed). Again, see MoP for reference where PvE gear had to be scaled down in competitive arena (even 5 ilvls) because it was simply too close in power, and even then people figured out that wearing some PvE gear was BiS in PvP (on private servers, long after the expansion was over though).

Obvious thing is, merged gear will not ever work. And making pvp gear total garbage for pve will create huge entry gate for people.
As well as making pve gear total garbage for pvp will do the same.

PvP gear needs to be slightly worse than PvE gear for PvE
and PvE gear should be slightly worse than PvP for PvP

Again, given that you have full separation of PvP and PvE gear via special "PvP stats": Not just slightly, PvP gear has to be significantly worse than PvE gear at all levels. Otherwise you end up with the TBC/WoD problem of entry level PvP gear being OK in PvE content and much easier to acquire than entry level PvE gear, thus forcing PvErs into PvP to get entry level gear.

That difference in gear acquistion rate between PvP and PvE is based in a fundamental difference in what the importance of gear is to the players of those respective game modes, so it's not something that should be changed.

Since the "goal" in PvP and PvE is different (generalizing, but in general its: PvE = get loot and kill bosses, PvP = progress ladder), this leads to gear having different meaning. In PvP gear is mostly just a means to an end and something to get over with. Whereas in PvE getting new loot is an integral part of the and the goal, and can and probably should be somewhat drawn out experience (at least compared to PvP gearing). Of course, it's satisfying to get better gear in PvP too - but it's also not satisfying being killed by someone with much better gear than you. Therefore the PvP gear acquistion has to be faster than what is necessary (and probably wanted) in PvE.

So, given that you have separated PvP and PvE gear (via different stats / scaling etc) you cannot have a situation where PvP gear is just "slightly" worse than PvE gear, because if so it will automatically force PvErs into PvP to improve their gear due to how much faster the acquistion rate for PvP gear should be / is. It will either occur at the entry level or higher up (depending on whether PvP gear should even be "tiered" at all based on skill and content difficulty, but that's a completely different matter).

A Mythic raiding PvE set will of course still be at an entry level performance wise. It will not be completely useless, but LFR, normal and heroic gear will (of course, to a lesser degree with increasing ilvl). That means that yes, it will be harder to swap from PvE -> PvP, but it also means that it's very fast to farm a new PvP gear set.

It's a hit you have to take in order to stop people from feeling like they're forced into the other content to stay competitive / path of least resistance.

trinkets included as blizzard never learned from mistakes in the past such as rune of reorigination or assurance of consuequence.
PvE trinkets should suck in pvp and vice versa.

Agreed. Blizzard have never been able to police these things, and personally I think it's actually a bad idea to even try. I understand if every once in a while they want to make a really powerful item in PvE with a cool effect, often trinkets, and I don't think that they should stop. There however needs to be a solution to nerf those items to the ground in PvP (because such a proc/on use effect can often have the power of +100 ilvls, a minor baseline nerf is not enough).

The solution has to be automatic though, because Blizzard has shown time and time again that they are not capable of nerfing each individual item as needed. Mostly by not doing it well enough, fast enough or even at all, with them often just giving up midway through expansions and letting hell break loose.

Imo they should just be permanently disabled in instanced PvP and they should not be able to proc/be activated while in combat with a player in wPvP (although that second one might not be a perfect solution).

[kaminaris]

That's just rubbish. With that logic everything that isn't part of your BiS list is just trash. There are always BiS items, what does it matter to you if they're from a set or not? It's just slightly more fun to build towards a set bonus than to build towards a simple BiS list with nothing exciting at the end.

PS: You can still use other non-set items until you manage to fill in your set bonuses, just like you can use non-BiS items until you get BiS for any given slot.

You don't get it do you, the part after "with that logic" is actually illogical. It is completely opposite of "logic".

Now running dungeons can give you upgrade over items you had from raid. But with tier sets this simply cannot happen for these 4 slots, literally almost everything from dungeons (excluding trinkets) can be better than raid gear if it procs.
445 (raid) -> 450(dung proc) -> 455 (raid proc) -> 455(dung proc with better stats)

with tier set:
445 (raid tier set) -> nothing unless it is proc from raid of THE SAME item.

In that case everything is "just a countdown to locking slots", for every single piece (all 16) until you get BiS.
Getting fun and cool items with more than just +30 int is really nice to most people. Completionists playing an RPG.

However, as I mentioned before, the upgrade(s) shouldn't be gamechangingly powerful, just something extra.

no matter how little that extra will be, it will still automatically turn all other gear in that slot into garbage. We had weak tier sets before, it didn't work because even 2% is still absurdly strong compared to other gear. Look at benthic gear.

Average difference in power between 5 ilvls is like 0.2-0.3%, so if you put 2-3% on bonus gear it will automatically become a unmatched bis.

Azerite resolved this pretty simple = no other gear drops in these slots, always azerite gear as chest/head/shoulders. And we have a lots of them, with lots of options and bonuses. Numerical balance could be better but blizzard always sucked in numerical balance.

Certainly. There's no way to get a perfect distribution on gear power and acquisition rate. But perfect is not what I'm requesting, I'm just requesting something that's OK and not obviously horrible - which is what it's been for the last 2 expansions between M+ and raiding (and PvP).

IF blizzard would match M+ gear to mythic level gear, sure, but I really doubt they have idea how to handle that. Even if you round rewards of M+ to just a single item per run, it would still be really strong and raiders would be crying they have to farm M+ now. Average mythic raider can handle 18s.

Then why didn't you say so immediately? That might actually be a good idea. Would just have create a shit ton of PvP items for players to buy (all possible item stat combinations of PvP resi/power + regular secondary stats), otherwise some specs would be forced into PvE to get the best stat allocations. Probably better to just create a "PvP Versatility" stat that includes both what we previously knew as PvP Resilience and PvP Power (in PvP only of course, and it would only appear on PvP gear).

I guess this leads to less problems with wPvE and exploits/abuse by getting yourself into PvP combat to trigger ilvl scaling. I guess I could get behind it. However, you might as well just make PvP gear lower ilvl and put the PvP stat(s) outside of the stat budget which would truly make this the cheap carbon copy of the MoP system that it is, haha.

PvP Power/Versatility (whichever way) has to be so powerful (in PvP) that it significantly outshines just going with regular secondary stats (PvE gear). Otherwise PvPers will just feel forced into PvE to circumvent the PvP gear acquistion path entirely (in order to succeed). Again, see MoP for reference where PvE gear had to be scaled down in competitive arena (even 5 ilvls) because it was simply too close in power, and even then people figured out that wearing some PvE gear was BiS in PvP (on private servers, long after the expansion was over though).

PvP power/resi should be about 20-30% more powerful than other stats in PvP situations, not too much because again, you create high entry barrier for people who just started playing. In MoP you were literally unkillable if you had PvP set for people who had PvE gear. That was too much, skill HAS TO play a big part of PvP.

You also cannot make easily buyable pvp gear with any combo of stats you choose, it has to take at least a 20-30% more effort than gearing up thru M+.

Why is that? Because we would be back in WoD problem = people who had no clue, nor desire to play PvP were infesting battlegrounds/arenas/ashran because it was fastest way to gear up fresh alts. Back then nobody even considered going to normal/heroic dungeons because it was waste of time.

Again, given that you have full separation of PvP and PvE gear via special "PvP stats": Not just slightly, PvP gear has to be significantly worse than PvE gear at all levels. Otherwise you end up with the TBC/WoD problem of entry level PvP gear being OK in PvE content and much easier to acquire than entry level PvE gear, thus forcing PvErs into PvP to get entry level gear.

With a difference that M+ is now. So that solution would work IF you had to put 20-30% more effort to get gear thru pvp than thru M+.
Then you can have only slightly worse PvP gear for PvE without forcing people to PvP, we didn't have spammable way to acquire gear before for PvE.
Now we do.

That difference in gear acquistion rate between PvP and PvE is based in a fundamental difference in what the importance of gear is to the players of those respective game modes, so it's not something that should be changed.

Since the "goal" in PvP and PvE is different (generalizing, but in general its: PvE = get loot and kill bosses, PvP = progress ladder), this leads to gear having different meaning. In PvP gear is mostly just a means to an end and something to get over with. Whereas in PvE getting new loot is an integral part of the and the goal, and can and probably should be somewhat drawn out experience (at least compared to PvP gearing). Of course, it's satisfying to get better gear in PvP too - but it's also not satisfying being killed by someone with much better gear than you. Therefore the PvP gear acquistion has to be faster than what is necessary (and probably wanted) in PvE.

I really wish people who think that gear is a part of a goal in PvE would just leave the game. It takes exactly one raid tier to figure out that every piece you acquired is going to be garbage next tier, so gear in PvE is also temporary and simply a means to an end. So I don't agree. As long as boss dies I couldn't care less about my gear.

So, given that you have separated PvP and PvE gear (via different stats / scaling etc) you cannot have a situation where PvP gear is just "slightly" worse than PvE gear, because if so it will automatically force PvErs into PvP to improve their gear due to how much faster the acquistion rate for PvP gear should be / is. It will either occur at the entry level or higher up (depending on whether PvP gear should even be "tiered" at all based on skill and content difficulty, but that's a completely different matter).

A Mythic raiding PvE set will of course still be at an entry level performance wise. It will not be completely useless, but LFR, normal and heroic gear will (of course, to a lesser degree with increasing ilvl). That means that yes, it will be harder to swap from PvE -> PvP, but it also means that it's very fast to farm a new PvP gear set.

It's a hit you have to take in order to stop people from feeling like they're forced into the other content to stay competitive / path of least resistance.

And again I don't agree, PvP gear should be slightly (20-30%) harder to acquire than PvE gear, then you can have it slightly worse.
What matters is to not create artificial barriers.

So right now you spend 40 minutes to get 1-2 piece of PvE gear PvE.
You can spend 1 hour to get 1-2 pieces of PvP gear that is 20-30% worse in PvE but 20-30% better in PvP than PvE equivalent.

Simple solution that doesn't create entry barriers and allows both sides to gear up pretty fast. If you want better gear you need to go higher, simple as that.
Vendor ilvl scales with arena/bg rating and M+ level.

Agreed. Blizzard have never been able to police these things, and personally I think it's actually a bad idea to even try. I understand if every once in a while they want to make a really powerful item in PvE with a cool effect, often trinkets, and I don't think that they should stop. There however needs to be a solution to nerf those items to the ground in PvP (because such a proc/on use effect can often have the power of +100 ilvls, a minor baseline nerf is not enough).

The solution has to be automatic though, because Blizzard has shown time and time again that they are not capable of nerfing each individual item as needed. Mostly by not doing it well enough, fast enough or even at all, with them often just giving up midway through expansions and letting hell break loose.

Imo they should just be permanently disabled in instanced PvP and they should not be able to proc/be activated while in combat with a player in wPvP (although that second one might not be a perfect solution).

This is not only a problem for PvP but also PvE as well, creating trinkets that are UNMATCHED through entire expansion is just braindead design = Unstable Arcanocrystal.
Same goes for overpowered raid trinkets who left people not doing raids in the dust.

This shit trinket was drop from world boss, people farmed nethershards and then veiled argunite in order to buy trinkets for catchup gear because even +60 trinkets could not match its power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OriGglOongY

[RelaZ]

You don't get it do you, the part after "with that logic" is actually illogical. It is completely opposite of "logic".

Now running dungeons can give you upgrade over items you had from raid. But with tier sets this simply cannot happen for these 4 slots, literally almost everything from dungeons (excluding trinkets) can be better than raid gear if it procs.
445 (raid) -> 450(dung proc) -> 455 (raid proc) -> 455(dung proc with better stats)
with tier set:
445 (raid tier set) -> nothing unless it is proc from raid of THE SAME item.

Again,

I just want to remind you I literally told you that it should be possible to get this set bonus by mixing and matching dungeon gear and raid gear. E.g. 2 dungeon shoulders and 1 raid shoulder should all count towards the same set bonus. So it doesn't matter if you're doing M+ or raids, you can still get the set bonus. You're not forced into raids, you should be able to get the set bonus from multiple items (for the same slot) available from multiple sources.

PS: Titan- and Warforging is being removed, so "procs" are a no-no (and I'm certain Corruption will not continue into the next expansion, nor will a similar system).

no matter how little that extra will be, it will still automatically turn all other gear in that slot into garbage. We had weak tier sets before, it didn't work because even 2% is still absurdly strong compared to other gear. Look at benthic gear.

Average difference in power between 5 ilvls is like 0.2-0.3%, so if you put 2-3% on bonus gear it will automatically become a unmatched bis.

There is nothing wrong with having a few items of a given slot (for a few slots) that are significantly better than other items for a slot. That's the way it's always been (well, until WoD or so at least). To a geared player for any given slot a few items are just really trash and might as well be vendored immediately, and a few items are really good. Poorer item options act as bridges (for alts and newcomers/returning players).

And, for the last time: I'm not saying set bonuses should only be available from 1 item per slot and be available in raids only. There should be multiple items per slot counting towards the set bonus and they should be available from multiple sources (M+ and raids).

Azerite resolved this pretty simple = no other gear drops in these slots, always azerite gear as chest/head/shoulders. And we have a lots of them, with lots of options and bonuses. Numerical balance could be better but blizzard always sucked in numerical balance.

Azerite trait "sets" are far too powerful and gameplay defining. Additionally the customizability of them makes really OP and ridiculous combinations inevitable. See Pack Spirit, Flashpoint, Enduring Luminescence (etc) for examples. A 2-3% power increase is not even close (think more like a 100% power increase for some of them). Additionally many of them are exactly what I said I didn't want - gameplay defining, i.e. they change entirely how you play your class/spec.

PvP power/resi should be about 20-30% more powerful than other stats in PvP situations, not too much because again, you create high entry barrier for people who just started playing. In MoP you were literally unkillable if you had PvP set for people who had PvE gear. That was too much, skill HAS TO play a big part of PvP.

Entry barriers you solve by making entry level PvP gear easy and fast to acquire (like in WoD).

This way you don't have to get slaughtered for more than a couple of hours (getting slaughtered less as you gear up). Additionally, if you have really good PvE gear it's not completely useless, it's just significantly worse than rated PvP gear. If you have a combination of bad PvE gear then yes, you have to get stomped by someone with rated PvP gear, otherwise PvPers would just go and do LFR/normal&hc&mythic raids/M+15 to get their gear, circumventing the entire PvP gear acquisition path (all of which is to most people much easier than progressing in a highly competitive PvP ladder).

You also cannot make easily buyable pvp gear with any combo of stats you choose, it has to take at least a 20-30% more effort than gearing up thru M+.

Why is that? Because we would be back in WoD problem = people who had no clue, nor desire to play PvP were infesting battlegrounds/arenas/ashran because it was fastest way to gear up fresh alts.

It had nothing to do with the PvP gear being buyable with any combination of stats (which it wasn't btw).

Back then nobody even considered going to normal/heroic dungeons because it was waste of time.

True. And you can look at that in two ways. Either:

A) The relative power of entry level PvP gear was actually so high that it outmatched or was the same as a lot of the entry level PvE gear.
B) Where the PvP and PvE gear had relatively the same power, PvP gear had a faster acquistion rate.

So, why would you solve this issue by punishing PvPers by giving them an incredibly long gear acquistion path (relative to PvE) just because PvEers shouldn't feel forced into PvP and have the ability to swap to PvPing without investing any time farming whatsoever (content which they do very little of by the way - because most PvErs dislike PvP)?

The best solution is of course to fix (A) by making PvP gear significantly worse than PvE gear in PvE content, and also making PvP gear acquistion fast so that PvErs can get into PvP at a base level very quickly with minimal farming involved (which is also good for other reasons, as I mentioned before with the different goals w.r.t. gearing).

With a difference that M+ is now. So that solution would work IF you had to put 20-30% more effort to get gear thru pvp than thru M+.
Then you can have only slightly worse PvP gear for PvE without forcing people to PvP.

Wrong. This would force PvPers into high end PvE to circumvent the PvP gear acquistion path completely. Essentially what we have today.

The natural solution is of course to make PvP gearing really fast (at least up to a certain level), but also make PvP gear incredibly bad in PvE (and incredibly good in PvP, compared to PvE gear).

I really wish people who think that gear is a part of a goal in PvE would just leave the game. It takes exactly one raid tier to figure out that every piece you acquired is going to be garbage next tier, so gear in PvE is also temporary and simply a means to an end. So I don't agree. As long as boss dies I couldn't care less about my gear.

You are in the minority. Get over it. A large part of why people play PvE in RPGs is for the excitement of getting an extra cool upgrade.

Doesn't really work the same way in PvP though, as I explained before.

And again I don't agree, PvP gear should be slightly (20-30%) harder to acquire than PvE gear, then you can have it slightly worse.
What matters is to not create artificial barriers.

So right now you spend 40 minutes to get 1-2 piece of PvE gear PvE.
You can spend 1 hour to get 1-2 pieces of PvP gear that is 20-30% worse in PvE but 20-30% better in PvP than PvE equivalent.

20-30% doesn't matter. When I say "significant" I mean: BiS PvE (M+/Mythic) gear should not be better than baseline rated PvP gear, i.e "Conquest" gear (usually acquired from doing rated PvP at the lowest bracket). BiS PvP gear should on the other hand not be better than heroic dungeon gear (or whatever is the PvE gearing entry point for the given season). What that means in terms of exact ilvls and percentages obviously depends on how much power Blizzard decides to put into each ilvl going forward and also how many ilvls they will jump inside a tier (normal dungeons -> heroic dungeons -> M0 -> M+ etc, also including raid gear of course).

This proposal would just mean top PvErs will steamroll low rated PvPers and force low rated PvPers into PvE to circumvent the PvP gear acquistion path entirely (because A) it's faster and B) better at their skill level).

Simple solution that doesn't create entry barriers and allows both sides to gear up pretty fast. If you want better gear you need to go higher, simple as that.
Vendor ilvl scales with arena/bg rating and M+ level.

And what about your raid level?

Horrible solution. This would allow PvE heroes to get the best possible PvP gear and stomp low rated PvP players. This would force said low rated players into PvE to try to circumvent the hard(er) PvP gear acquistion path (climbing the ladder) even harder than your other proposal. Path of least resistance.

This is not only a problem for PvP but also PvE as well, creating trinkets that are UNMATCHED through entire expansion is just braindead design = Unstable Arcanocrystal.
Same goes for overpowered raid trinkets who left people not doing raids in the dust.

This shit trinket was drop from world boss, people farmed nethershards and then veiled argunite in order to buy trinkets for catchup gear because even +60 trinkets could not match its power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OriGglOongY

I don't see a problem with PvE having powerful items lasting more than one season. That's actually pretty charming and is again one of those things that let's you feel like you finally got that sick item. Just look at all of loot design up until MoP. Again, I think you are in the minority. I do of course think that such items should be available from both M+ and raids though, not exclusively from either one and I don't think they should be so overwhelmingly powerful as they are today (many of them).

And, I will agree with you that Arcanocrystal was an abomination. And the reason for that is it was such a rare item to get, essentially impossible, (especially with the TF and sockets) and that it lasted for so incredibly long (throughout the entire expansion). Had it just lasted for two tiers and it'd been reasonable to acquire there wouldn't have been a problem.

[Protean]

Hopefully not. Visual class sets ok, tier sets nope. It's garbage.

Lets discern difference between tier set and visual set.

With tier sets we got significant mechanical changes to our rotation every tier for all specs.

With azerite many specs has seen no changes at all in all of BFA. It's a garbage system. Whatever people may think about tier sets, they're at least superior to azerite and the lesser evil.

[Shakana]

As opposed to slapping on whatever drops because it has a higher iLevel? Yuk. No thanks... having a piece of tier in my bank/bags waiting on the next one to drop to make it "official"? Sweetness. It's part of progression... Just because I got one piece and can't wear it yet... doesn't make it bad... It just means I was one step closer to getting my reward. So much better than getting some crappy rng drop, but wear it because it was .001% better.

No... having a set to go after... set goals, certain bosses I know had the potential to make my week? Loved it.

Gear now is absolutely boring.

- - - Updated - - -



without having to run raids....
an entire raid tier...
customizable...
boring...

Very telling. Antisocial, impatient, unable to focus, entitled.

The game has changed to appeal to people like you... which is why people like me don't play it any more. It's not an MMO any more... it's just a first person ARPG.

And that;s cool for those who want that... it's just not a rich, engaging MMORPG like it used to be.

Yes! This!

- - - Updated - - -

With tier sets we got significant mechanical changes to our rotation every tier for all specs.

With azerite many specs has seen no changes at all in all of BFA. It's a garbage system. Whatever people may think about tier sets, they're at least superior to azerite and the lesser evil.

Tier sets engage with your class, which engages you to play, which engages you to every new tier set engage with your character's playstyle, which makes you more entertained, which makes you want to log in more, which makes you want to do everything to obtain it, which makes you get more social in your guild and a better player and valuable to them. Which makes you happy that you're conquering something and the best part is that those tier sets, will always be transmogable forever, and ever, and ever, even if you don't use those bonus anymore.

[Oneirophobia]

No need to debate. You are wrong. Learn from it and move on.

You're not providing anything to learn from. Forums are for discussion. Provide whys and hows.

[kaminaris]

With tier sets we got significant mechanical changes to our rotation every tier for all specs.

With azerite many specs has seen no changes at all in all of BFA. It's a garbage system. Whatever people may think about tier sets, they're at least superior to azerite and the lesser evil.

No, tier sets were in 90-95% flat damage upgrades, only like 1-3 specs per raid tier got small change in rotation. Azerite changes 90-95% of all specs.

- - - Updated - - -

Again,

I just want to remind you I literally told you that it should be possible to get this set bonus by mixing and matching dungeon gear and raid gear. E.g. 2 dungeon shoulders and 1 raid shoulder should all count towards the same set bonus. So it doesn't matter if you're doing M+ or raids, you can still get the set bonus. You're not forced into raids, you should be able to get the set bonus from multiple items (for the same slot) available from multiple sources.

PS: Titan- and Warforging is being removed, so "procs" are a no-no (and I'm certain Corruption will not continue into the next expansion, nor will a similar system).

Then it makes even less sense since everyone will be locked in these pieces pretty soon. It is literally like having 4 gear slots less after 3-6 weeks.

There is nothing wrong with having a few items of a given slot (for a few slots) that are significantly better than other items for a slot. That's the way it's always been (well, until WoD or so at least). To a geared player for any given slot a few items are just really trash and might as well be vendored immediately, and a few items are really good. Poorer item options act as bridges (for alts and newcomers/returning players).

And, for the last time: I'm not saying set bonuses should only be available from 1 item per slot and be available in raids only. There should be multiple items per slot counting towards the set bonus and they should be available from multiple sources (M+ and raids).

Everything is wrong in having locked gear slots. If in your vision tier sets wouldn't alter rotation (like it did before for majority of classes) and were available from any source. Then it is pointless system that just locks you away from potential upgrades.

With azerite nothing is locked. You still swap pieces for different situations, different specs. You can still get upgrade and what is best - it is configurable, if you don't like certain perk you can choose something else.

Azerite trait "sets" are far too powerful and gameplay defining. Additionally the customizability of them makes really OP and ridiculous combinations inevitable. See Pack Spirit, Flashpoint, Enduring Luminescence (etc) for examples. A 2-3% power increase is not even close (think more like a 100% power increase for some of them). Additionally many of them are exactly what I said I didn't want - gameplay defining, i.e. they change entirely how you play your class/spec.

There is nothing wrong is game defining traits, because they do change your gameplay. However there is everything wrong with having tier sets that do nothing and locking your gear away simply because they have theoretically higher stats than any other gear in these slots. That is the essence of flat damage buffs on gear, it just boosts theoretical ilvl.

Difference is that everyone can get these traits pretty easily and they are not so OP in ALL situations - take a note, this is important. Like flashpoint isn't best (or even close) on single target.

Entry barriers you solve by making entry level PvP gear easy and fast to acquire (like in WoD).

This way you don't have to get slaughtered for more than a couple of hours (getting slaughtered less as you gear up). Additionally, if you have really good PvE gear it's not completely useless, it's just significantly worse than rated PvP gear. If you have a combination of bad PvE gear then yes, you have to get stomped by someone with rated PvP gear, otherwise PvPers would just go and do LFR/normal&hc&mythic raids/M+15 to get their gear, circumventing the entire PvP gear acquisition path (all of which is to most people much easier than progressing in a highly competitive PvP ladder).

You don't solve it, you make the same problem we had in WoD if entry gear is easier to acquire than PvE gear.
For example if you finish leveling now, you have ~290 ilvl when done, entry PvP gear would be ~350 and even if its significantly weaker but easier to aqcuire, people will swarm BGs. Because it opens up new possibilites, boots WQ ilvl rewards, allows you to attend higher level LFRs and still is better than leveling gear.

True. And you can look at that in two ways. Either:

A) The relative power of entry level PvP gear was actually so high that it outmatched or was the same as a lot of the entry level PvE gear.
B) Where the PvP and PvE gear had relatively the same power, PvP gear had a faster acquistion rate.

So, why would you solve this issue by punishing PvPers by giving them an incredibly long gear acquistion path (relative to PvE) just because PvEers shouldn't feel forced into PvP and have the ability to swap to PvPing without investing any time farming whatsoever (content which they do very little of by the way - because most PvErs dislike PvP)?

The best solution is of course to fix (A) by making PvP gear significantly worse than PvE gear in PvE content, and also making PvP gear acquistion fast so that PvErs can get into PvP at a base level very quickly with minimal farming involved (which is also good for other reasons, as I mentioned before with the different goals w.r.t. gearing).

You can't make PvP gear significantly worse in PvE, that is not a solution. It is going back to being stomped right after leveling until you farmed that honor.
Simplest way to fix this is to drop entry level pvp gear from BGs and after 1-3 arenas. So it almost matches PvE gear acquisition rate.

Getting a vendor for entry pvp gear is still going to be favorable way simply because you are not at mercy of RNG. Vendor should be only available thru currency with some minimal rating.

Wrong. This would force PvPers into high end PvE to circumvent the PvP gear acquistion path completely. Essentially what we have today.

The natural solution is of course to make PvP gearing really fast (at least up to a certain level), but also make PvP gear incredibly bad in PvE (and incredibly good in PvP, compared to PvE gear).

Wrong, we don't have that today since PvE is the same gear as PvP. And gearing thru PvP is not a solution it is creating another problem we had in past.
No PvPer would even consider going M+ if winning couple of arenas would reward them one heroic level piece of gear of their choice.

You need to understand one thing, being able to pick any gear you like has already significant advantage over hoping for a specific piece to drop from M+.

You are in the minority. Get over it. A large part of why people play PvE in RPGs is for the excitement of getting an extra cool upgrade.

Doesn't really work the same way in PvP though, as I explained before.

I don't think so. Of all people I played with this couple of expansions vast majority didn't care about gear. So judging by this I am in majority, vast majority.

It is pretty easy to prove, how many people like clearing Ethernal palace mythic after last boss died like 1-3 times? The answer is, almost none (because there is no mount).

People don't raid for gear. If anything they play for ranks, but not for gear itself.

20-30% doesn't matter. When I say "significant" I mean: BiS PvE (M+/Mythic) gear should not be better than baseline rated PvP gear, i.e "Conquest" gear (usually acquired from doing rated PvP at the lowest bracket). BiS PvP gear should on the other hand not be better than heroic dungeon gear (or whatever is the PvE gearing entry point for the given season). What that means in terms of exact ilvls and percentages obviously depends on how much power Blizzard decides to put into each ilvl going forward and also how many ilvls they will jump inside a tier (normal dungeons -> heroic dungeons -> M0 -> M+ etc, also including raid gear of course).

This proposal would just mean top PvErs will steamroll low rated PvPers and force low rated PvPers into PvE to circumvent the PvP gear acquistion path entirely (because A) it's faster and B) better at their skill level).

And what about your raid level?

No, no no no no no. This is not how math works. 20-30% is about like
entry level pvp gear == normal raid level gear in terms of power
Average gear >> heroic level raid gear
High pvp Gear >>>>>>>>> mythic level raid gear
in PvP situations.

And it is perfectly fine for high level PvErs to stomp entry level guys.

Lets do some math.

normal = ~20k dps
heroic = 30-40k dps
mythic = 50-60k dps

Now comparing only power with just 20% more power

entry level pvp = 24k dps
mid level pvp = 36-48k dps (almost matching mythic level)
high level pvp = 60-72k dps (rolfstomping mythic level)

with JUST 20% power, now if you add some resiliance to this, it becomes clear mythic raider could not match average ilvl pvp player.
BUT high level PvE could stomp entry level PvP player and this is fine because since you have vendor, you could upgrade your gear to average level in 1-2 week.
Which seems perfect amount of time.

Horrible solution. This would allow PvE heroes to get the best possible PvP gear and stomp low rated PvP players. This would force said low rated players into PvE to try to circumvent the hard(er) PvP gear acquistion path (climbing the ladder) even harder than your other proposal. Path of least resistance.

No lol, dude, think harder. People playing one week of PvP could match PvE mythic gear in one damn week. It wouldn't force low rated players into PvE. In fact nobody in their right mind would ever consider going dungeons if wanting to play PvP. You can get 1200 arena rating in one day, while acquiring entry level pvp gear.
On this point you are about the same power as normal level raid, in ONE day.
After that one day you could buy like 3-4 pieces of mid tier equipment, and if you spam hard enough arenas, you could buy entire mid tier gear in 2 days.
So after 2 days you would almost match mythic level gear.
After a weak you would have enough power to destroy weak PvE mythic raiders (ones that don't know how to play PvP) and match the power of knowledeable PvE players with mythic gear.

I don't see a problem with PvE having powerful items lasting more than one season. That's actually pretty charming and is again one of those things that let's you feel like you finally got that sick item. Just look at all of loot design up until MoP. Again, I think you are in the minority. I do of course think that such items should be available from both M+ and raids though, not exclusively from either one and I don't think they should be so overwhelmingly powerful as they are today (many of them).

And, I will agree with you that Arcanocrystal was an abomination. And the reason for that is it was such a rare item to get, essentially impossible, (especially with the TF and sockets) and that it lasted for so incredibly long (throughout the entire expansion). Had it just lasted for two tiers and it'd been reasonable to acquire there wouldn't have been a problem.

And I do. Farming old content when nobody needs it except for 2-3 classes is definitely not fun. Like ferals had with rune of reorigination in siege of orgrimmar.

[Jasperboy]

No, tier sets were in 90-95% flat damage upgrades, only like 1-3 specs per raid tier got small change in rotation. Azerite changes 90-95% of all specs.

What about the 2x azerite vendor gear which has been BIS for BM Hunter's since late Uldir / early BoD?
I have not personally checked for other classes, but having azerite head and shoulders from a vendor as BIS for a year, why even bother, right?
The Azerite system is far from perfect. Heck, I even liked the broken ass RNG legendary system in Legion better than this.

Tier sets > Azerite gear. Atleast I knew what I got and what to look forward to.


Also, I dno where you got the "90-95%" statistics from, I would love to read it.

[kaminaris]

What about the 2x azerite vendor gear which has been BIS for BM Hunter's since late Uldir / early BoD?
I have not personally checked for other classes, but having azerite head and shoulders from a vendor as BIS for a year, why even bother, right?
The Azerite system is far from perfect. Heck, I even liked the broken ass RNG legendary system in Legion better than this.

Tier sets > Azerite gear. Atleast I knew what I got and what to look forward to.


Also, I dno where you got the "90-95%" statistics from, I would love to read it.

Well if you havent checked other classes then its about time you check.
Azerite GEAR is far from perfect but legiondaries were total garbage as well as tier sets.
Azerite itself is garbage.

Where do I get statistics? Cause I worked on rotation addon for past couple of expansions, I know when I had to implement check if user has 2/4set enabled.
You can check how often it was by two ways:
1. Reading manually all class bonuses
2. Reading archive simcraft APLs.

Azerite gear >>> Tier sets >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> shit >>>>> legiondaries.

[Protean]

No, tier sets were in 90-95% flat damage upgrades, only like 1-3 specs per raid tier got small change in rotation. Azerite changes 90-95% of all specs.

Not if there are no changes to azerite powers. My bis has stayed static so far and there are no changes in 8.3 that'll change what I want.

My rotation has been completely unaltered for all of BFA.

I don't believe your claim that 90-95% of all tier sets were flat damage upgrades. You're pulling that number out of your ass, same as with your azerite numbers.

- - - Updated - - -

Tier sets engage with your class, which engages you to play, which engages you to every new tier set engage with your character's playstyle, which makes you more entertained, which makes you want to log in more, which makes you want to do everything to obtain it, which makes you get more social in your guild and a better player and valuable to them. Which makes you happy that you're conquering something and the best part is that those tier sets, will always be transmogable forever, and ever, and ever, even if you don't use those bonus anymore.

This explains it very well. I especially loved the feral bonuses in firelands. It was so exciting when I finally got it and I mourned it when I lost it.

[kaminaris]

Not if there are no changes to azerite powers. My bis has stayed static so far and there are no changes in 8.3 that'll change what I want.

My rotation has been completely unaltered for all of BFA.

I don't believe your claim that 90-95% of all tier sets were flat damage upgrades. You're pulling that number out of your ass, same as with your azerite numbers.

I implemented rotations since pandaria and know which tier set truly altered rotations.

You don't need to believe my claim you can check yourself in simcraft APLs:
https://github.com/simulationcraft/s...a-dev/profiles
then check how much it changed in legion by switching to another branch ex legion-dev

One of examples was hunter MM T20. But that was the only one in legion. Only one game changing set in entire legion for all hunter specializations. So out of 3 specializations and 3 raid tier only once hunter had altered rotation. 1 out of 9.

Other classes have it similar, sometimes 2 out of 9, sometimes zero out of 9 which equals to 90% of flat damage upgrades.

Biggest complaints about tier sets that it was rollercoaster bingo card. One time you got amazing tier set like hunter T18 and next time you got garbage.
This is why blizzard prefers to play it safe now. And I don't blame them.

[Dekkers]

I won't buy Shadowlands if there is no Tier sets.
one of the laziest things they have ever done.

[SoulSoBreezy]

I don't miss tier sets, in fact it made me stop caring to "look" like any sort of paladin anymore.
As for set bonuses, synergies > set bonuses 110% of the time.

[Beet]

Hopefully not. Visual class sets ok, tier sets nope. It's garbage.

Lets discern difference between tier set and visual set.

Or we can just get both back. Tiers were good. Felt amazing to complete one, and we need to stop taking the RPG out of the MMORPG. Why they keep trying to recreate the wheel is beyond me.