Mastery stat: Should the "Simpler" ones be Redesigned?

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Pretty straight forward question. Mastery for certain specializations are very simple, like Frost Death Knights "increase Frost damage done" and Retribution Paladin "increase Holy damage done". Boring. Not much thought into it other than flat damage increase, being that they are DPS roles.


Even Holy Priest's Mastery is a HoT on top of your heal. Also boring, and redundant.


Demonology Warlock and Beast Mastery Hunters have quite literally the same Mastery, just different names.


Now I know these examples fit the theme/kit of the specialization, but then you have interesting and unique Mastery for Windwalker Monk (deal more damage when your abilities are not a repeat of the previous ability) effects your play style and even MM Hunter (casting range increased) and Frost Mage (creating of icicles to use Ice Lance at certain opportune times) where your Mastery can effect your play style.


As a concept, I like the Mastery stat. I also personally feel like the Mastery mechanics for Frost Death Knight, Unholy Death Knight, Retribution Paladin, Demo Warlock, BM Hunter, Havoc Demon Hunter, Holy Priest, pretty much all Rogue specs... should be redesigned.


What do you think? Leave all of them the way they are? Make others more interesting?

[Razion]

Simple Mastery stat for simpler specs, and more complicated Mastery stat for more complicated specs.

[Crimson Spears]

Real talk... I know most mythic raider have only the barest of understanding on what stats directly do most just sim for what ones give the most value. Given the ignorance shown by even the best players we might honestly be better off making them even more simple.

[arkanon]

Real talk... I know most mythic raider have only the barest of understanding on what stats directly do most just sim for what ones give the most value. Given the ignorance shown by even the best players we might honestly be better off making them even more simple.

Yeah I'm totally ok with simple stats and gearing, so long as the gameplay and core gameplay loop is enjoyable, challenging, and scalable. What I mean by scalable is I would prefer even the most "advanced" specs to have a much simpler iteration with a lot of passives etc, so long as the output reflects it's simpler play style.

[cparle87]

Real talk... I know most mythic raider have only the barest of understanding on what stats directly do most just sim for what ones give the most value. Given the ignorance shown by even the best players we might honestly be better off making them even more simple.

They've removed armor pen, hit, vers, attack and spell power, spell penetration, resists, defense, parry, dodge, block and probably more I can't recall. What else is there? Is it going to end up being D3 with practically nothing but toughness and power?

[Crimson Spears]

They've removed armor pen, hit, vers, attack and spell power, spell penetration, resists, defense, parry, dodge, block and probably more I can't recall. What else is there? Is it going to end up being D3 with practically nothing but toughness and power?

Do you even understand what most of those stats do...? Not just the basic definitions but why you want X amount vs another stat and why?

Also vers hasn't been removed.

[Ealyssa]

Nope thanks. Simple masteries are usually very good like the ret one. When the most "advanced" are bad like eleshaman or survival hunter.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Nope thanks. Simple masteries are usually very good like the ret one. When the most "advanced" are bad like eleshaman or survival hunter.

Damn, I've always loved Elemental Overload as a concept. Was devastated when they changed it in WoD and absolutely ecstatic when it was brought back.


If you had the power to change some of those "advanced" masteries to simpler ones, which ones would you change and change them to what?

[Nurmat]

VDH Mastery should be changed

[BlackGoldShooter]

Damn, I've always loved Elemental Overload as a concept. Was devastated when they changed it in WoD and absolutely ecstatic when it was brought back.


If you had the power to change some of those "advanced" masteries to simpler ones, which ones would you change and change them to what?

Lava Surge with a scaling proc rate (10%[base]+ X%) and a small increase, probably 25% of the scaling value of the aforementioned value, to lava burst damage.

[Stardrift]

There's quite literally no reason to have mastery and versatility in the game. Just basic damage % increases.

Honestly? Surprised they don't have a homogenous system similar to Destiny's.

Ideally, they'd go for something that makes sense like a elemental/physical/Holy/void/fel/etc type system. You can wear shit like elemental damage as a priest, but you'd probably be better off with something with holy damage or whatever.

[TheLucky1]

Mastery should have an impact on how the spec plays.

Outlaw and arcane mastery for example aren't too complicated either but both have an effect on your resource and with that how your character plays with increasing stats, great design.

But most mastery passives don't, they are boring xy% increases.
Of the secondary stats only haste will make a tangible difference and for some specs crit (but crit is just the classic/cool big numbers stat so that will always be nice).

So yeah, if those dumb mastery passives would get reworked into something that makes a tangible difference in how your spec plays with stat progression i'm all for it.

[Kilpi]

They've removed armor pen, hit, vers, attack and spell power, spell penetration, resists, defense, parry, dodge, block and probably more I can't recall. What else is there? Is it going to end up being D3 with practically nothing but toughness and power?

But D3 toughness and power aren't stats. They are just estimates of your character DPS and how much damage you can take. D3 has lots of stats...

[Raugnaut]

So, a number of the more "complex" masteries, such as Elemental's Elemental Overload, or Arm's Deep Wounds, aren't complex - Sure, they may seem more "complex" then Frosts' Frozen Heart, but at the end of the day they are just a flat damage boost with little to no change on rotation - Elemental Overload will, at best, make you cast a few extra Earthshocks/Earthquakes if you stacked it.

On the other hand, Frost's Frozen Heart has implications with both burst and rotation - It's why Frost is significantly better then Unholy. Unholy's mastery doesn't increase their burst all that much, whereas Frost's mastery directly increases their burst with both Breath of Sindragosa and Sindragosa's Wrath.

Frost's mastery can even affect talent decisions if you get enough of it. Hell, it can entirely change your rotation in Torghast if you get a couple of large Mastery boosts, in which your entire rotation consists of nothing but Howling Blasts and Frost Strikes, removing Obliterate from the equation entirely.

It's a similar case with most other "simple" masteries mentioned here. Those masteries affect a very specific portion of a characters kit. You can thus emphasize that portion of the kit via mastery - Frost, stacking Mastery affects their Burst, AoE, and rotation in extreme examples. Ret - Again affects Burst and AoE entirely.

On the other hand, let's take a look at other masteries yes?

WW Monk - In theory, it should add complexity to the kit in order to absolutely maximize damage. In practice, it really only affects the usage of Tiger Palm and Blackout Kick - All other Monk abilities are not spammed and thus always benefit from maximum mastery. Boring.

MM Hunter - In PvP, the mastery isn't just strong, it's incredibly overpowered, allowing MM hunters to kill pretty much anyone outside of Fire Mage, who gets a higher range increase. In PvE? The range increase is normally unnoticeable - The only time you do notice is is when you want to throw down a trap and you have to move closer to the target because it's too far away. The damage increase from the mastery is exactly equivalent to that of Haste or Crit, meaning that it doesn't emphasize any portion of MM's kit.

Mages do have a more interesting mastery system though, all 3 specs.

TL;DR - OP only sees the surfaces of the mastery, but not the depths. A few of the listed "complex" masteries are actually just an overall raw damage increases, whereas a number of the so-called simple masteries affect specific portions of a spec's kit such as burst or AoE more then crit/haste/versa does.

[Malania]

Simple Mastery stat for simpler specs, and more complicated Mastery stat for more complicated specs.

Specs change all the time, you'd forever switching and trying to rebalance it again.

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Real talk... I know most mythic raider have only the barest of understanding on what stats directly do most just sim for what ones give the most value. Given the ignorance shown by even the best players we might honestly be better off making them even more simple.

BRING BACK HIT AND DEFENSE!

[cparle87]

Do you even understand what most of those stats do...? Not just the basic definitions but why you want X amount vs another stat and why?

Also vers hasn't been removed.

Yeah, typo there. Vers I meant to say expertise to match it with hit. And yes, I remember fully well what all of those stats did. I thought their idea to have 7.5% hit and 7.5% expertise equal the 15% spell hit the hybrid casters like ret and enhancement needed that they did in Cata was an inspired idea.

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But D3 toughness and power aren't stats. They are just estimates of your character DPS and how much damage you can take. D3 has lots of stats...

But no one pays attention to them because they all contribute to our overall power and toughness and that's in the end what matters. They could've mixed spell/attack power, hit, expertise, crit, and offensive masteries into an overall power stat and defense/parry/block/dodge/etc into an overall toughness stat like D3 did and it would've make a difference.

[Sunderella]

IIRC mastery for outlaw rogue has been a dead stat since like forever. Some changes to make it more interesting would be appreciated. Make outlaw mastery work like ArPen, or make it further increase efefectiveness of Restless Blades. I don't know, anything would sound better than main gauche

[TheWorkingTitle]

Catacylsm-era Frost Mage's Mastery was perfect. "Increases damage done to Frozen targets by XX%" It's never been as thematic and eloquently simple since then, to the detriment of the spec.


OT: Voted indifferent because I only play Mage and thus have no idea whether other class' mastery is the right one for them. As for Mage though, Frost would benefit greatly from a revert to that former Mastery design.

[Sanguinerd]

I'd say arms warrior could also use a mastery redesign because right now it's ridiculously boring.

Why not something like the old sword specialization "Gives you a X% chance to get an extra attack on the same target." or anything more interesting than putting a bleed on your target and do more damage to it which is basically another version of colossus smash which we already have ;/

[Kilpi]

But no one pays attention to them because they all contribute to our overall power and toughness and that's in the end what matters. They could've mixed spell/attack power, hit, expertise, crit, and offensive masteries into an overall power stat and defense/parry/block/dodge/etc into an overall toughness stat like D3 did and it would've make a difference.

But different stats increase power/toughness different amounts, so at least I'm interested which ones items have? But has nothing to do with this discussion so doesn't matter ¯\_(ツ)_/¯