Resist gear was good, why did they get rid of it?

[owbu]

It's an rpg element. It doesn't fit into the modern arcade WoW which is ruled by 30 minutes of instant fun loop.

[Katchii]

That is just false. Maaaaybe tanks would equip some of that at the start but later you just slam through it. Look at the damn logs lol.

There was at least one boss in Classic that I remember (Vaelstraz in BWL) that basically required the entire raid to have resist gear because of a raid wide AoE mechanic that would wipe you if you didn't. Tanks obviously needed more, Healers could forego normal gear in favor of it to lessen the need to heal themselves, and because of the buff you get giving you essentially unlimited resources DPS should swap out as much of their gear as necessary for fire resist gear to survive. But at early gear levels everyone in the raid had to have some level of fire resist along with the fire resist potions in order to have a chance at clearing it. Later on, as you said, you could just slam through it, but that certainly wasn't true at the beginning.

From a lore, adventure and roleplaying stand point, needing a specific set of gear to take on a boss makes sense and is pretty cool in concept. In actual execution, it feels bad, IMO. Gating the progression of a raid team because a few people haven't spent the necessary time or haven't been lucky with getting the proper resist gear as drops from dungeons, feels terrible.

[mysticx]

I mean...wearing some armor that is especially resistant against fire when fighting the Firelord itself is actually pretty selfexplanatory to me.

It's logical, but is it fun?

What did it add, except thinly-veiled timegating?

[username993720]

They should bring back Resistance, Dodge, Parry and Block as stats.

[Dawon]

No it wasnt, it was pure dogshit garbage! I remember us farming stupid frost/nature(?) gear for our tanks to handle the first boss in SSC or even all resist gear for that flying bug in AQ40,, jesus the shit that was. Also when said tank(s) decided to leave for another guild, yay we gotta farm same gear for next tank. Also farming that Dark Iron something gear for fire resist in MC/BWL was a fun waste of time, not to mention you had to grab a group and go halfway inside BRD to even craft it at the forge.
Yeah, it had its moments the first time you did it but man it got stale and dull after that.

Now, I dont play Classic so I can only assume it's piss easy with a coordinated group to kill these bosses without resist gear but damn that sucked back in Vanilla.

[wysimdnwyg]

Think back to Vanilla (or Classic, as you're familiar with that, although resist gear wasn't used nearly as much in Classic)...

In Molten Core, Onyxia's Lair, and Blackwing Lair, - mostly just Rags, although I liked to wear mine for the flame packs after Garr - we were tasked with building a fire-resist set to be able to survive. It wasn't strictly necessary, but at the time, it was deemed to be so, so build our sets we did. Then we went to AQ40, and the task was to build nature-resist sets for Huhuran. Again, it wasn't strictly necessary, and my guild was able to take her down with, IIRC, only the two main tanks having even half a set. Still, that was the task. Move on to Naxx, and the task was to now build a frost-resist set. Oh, and while you're at it, see if you can build out a shadow-resist set. The latter was kind of a bonus task, but frost was considered required for a few bosses, esp. Sapphiron.

So we went through Vanilla having to 2-4 different resist sets for a few - or even ONE - fights each, all while trying to build out our tier sets and other assorted pieces. Blizzard realized this was a bit too much, and did away with that requirement in BC (with the exception of Sapphiron in the revised Naxx during Wrath, although the achievement to do it with <100 resist made it clear they didn't want to push it).

[Ielenia]

because blizz is lazy af and got rid of every rpg element to focus on their system crap. and ofc to please the holy player so he is confortable with everything and pay $$$.

im not sarcastic btw

• Blizzard is "lazy af"
• Complains about the overabundance of systems



That doesn't make any sense. It's like complaining your roommate is "lazy af" because he said he'd stop organizing the seasoning shelf in alphabetic order, when he's also the one cooking, cleaning the apartment and doing the laundry.

[Kralljin]

It's logical, but is it fun?

Asking "why" and "is it fun" are two different questions.

If you want argue whether it's fun or not, then that is subjective, i've laid it out in the very first post in this thread.
It's an RPG mechanic, which some people enjoy, but to others, it's just an artificial barrier.

What did it add, except thinly-veiled timegating?

By that logic, virtually anything is timegating by the merit of requiring time.

In my view, something that is not bound to some daily or weekly lockout, isn't timegated, you can get sizeable resistance gear pretty quickly as long as you have the gold.

[Torgent]

because blizz is lazy af and got rid of every rpg element to focus on their system crap. and ofc to please the holy player so he is confortable with everything and pay $$$.

im not sarcastic btw

You may not be sarcastic, but you're wrong. Resistance gear was lazy. It wasn't interesting. Wearing level 48 dungeon gear in a level 60 raid wasn't interesting gameplay, it was boring.

[dayne87]

It wasn't really good, though. It favored those who had the time to dedicate to earning/crafting the resist gear, or those who were extremely rich and could buy it (which also requires a lot of time to do, especially back in Classic).

Now it's shifted to requiring a certain degree of skill to defeat raid bosses (outside of LFR) or M+ dungeons. It still requires time to be a top tier raider/M+ player, but there's no artificial barrier of ALSO needing resist gear on top of the skill.

[Fenrys]

It was an artefact of the time. It didn't create compelling gearing decisions, and was fairly bland. I see no reason to bring it back.

[Grax]

It's not fun though. Like bosses being immune to certain schools of magic. Lore should never get in the way of gameplay.

That is gameplay. Requiring resistances to minimize damage from a damage type is a design decision. And resistance gear isn't an artificial barrier if the encounter/game requires it. The problem with resistance requirements weren't the resistances themselves, it was the terrible itemization and acquisition time/cost.

[agentsi]

It's not fun though. Like bosses being immune to certain schools of magic. Lore should never get in the way of gameplay.

Bosses made out of fire should be immune to fire damage. It's a standard in almost every RPG ever, and we are playing an RPG after all. But because of casuals and players with a similar mindset to you, that is no longer how this works. And part of this is still in the game. Physical damage is reduced by the amount of armor you have or a boss has. But no other element is treated this way. Why? Because people cry a lot.

Gameplay should never affect the lore is what you meant to say.

[Doffen]

No thanks, the chads are now the players with skill and not the classic and tbc andys that threw in their vacation to neckbeard their epic gear due to no caps and time gates at all.

*mic drop*

[Myradin]

That is gameplay. Requiring resistances to minimize damage from a damage type is a design decision. And resistance gear isn't an artificial barrier if the encounter/game requires it. The problem with resistance requirements weren't the resistances themselves, it was the terrible itemization and acquisition time/cost.

If its easy to acquire and is well itemized then its just a braindead mechanic then.

Bosses made out of fire should be immune to fire damage. It's a standard in almost every RPG ever, and we are playing an RPG after all. But because of casuals and players with a similar mindset to you, that is no longer how this works. And part of this is still in the game. Physical damage is reduced by the amount of armor you have or a boss has. But no other element is treated this way. Why? Because people cry a lot.

Gameplay should never affect the lore is what you meant to say.

The problem is raids are a competitive setting. In an RPG fights are 'casual' enough that you can either sit out the party member, cast something else with little drawback, or deal with having a party member who's not terribly effective.

In WoW telling a fire mage or destro lock they're utterly useless is a surefire way to bench the spec for not just a fight, but the entire tier.

Physical damage isn't quite comparable because physical dps numbers are designed based around armor being always present.

[jellmoo]

I don't really have a dog in the fight here, but I do think it could add more immersion to do the game. Raiding is pretty sterile right now. Group people, enter raid, learn strategy, eventually win, farm it.

Admittedly, this doesn't change a ton with the process, but if the story features quests that basically tell you that you and your friends need special gear to overcome such and such, then you need to collect it, wouldn't that add a little more immersion to the game, even if just for a little bit of time? Couldn't it make the game world feel a little more alive, forcing the players to prepare for the specific encounter they have to face? It has the feel of a classic fantasy style quest.

[Super Dickmann]

Admittedly, this doesn't change a ton with the process, but if the story features quests that basically tell you that you and your friends need special gear to overcome such and such, then you need to collect it, wouldn't that add a little more immersion to the game, even if just for a little bit of time? Couldn't it make the game world feel a little more alive, forcing the players to prepare for the specific encounter they have to face? It has the feel of a classic fantasy style quest.

That's what they did with the cloak in BFA which you needed for N'zoth. We all know how well that went over.

[jellmoo]

That's what they did with the cloak in BFA which you needed for N'zoth. We all know how well that went over.

Very true, but they made that a ridiculously unpleasant grind. There may be a middle ground between the two.

[Dhrizzle]

Started up in Cataclysm and somehow Classic vanilla stole my heart. I do not seem to enjoy TBC as much as I did with Classic. I really liked the idea that you couldn't just equip BiS for everything and go ham at it. Some bosses required you to have a ton of resist gear to counter them for example.

I really liked that idea, and I didn't mind to go back to Maraudon to farm resist gear. I even took my time to farm out Cenarion Hold rep and since I was a Blacksmith in gear specialisation I could make items with resist gear on top.

I really love this idea. Things weren't time-gated either. You could sit in AQ20 for a few weeks to farm reputation in a passive way, or you could do this tedious grind. Me myself, I just completed the quests in Silithus and took my time with AQ20.

Was really a nice pace of change. When I went back to retail it's just gear with stat sticks with not much concept given to them. Just "sim it bro" is often the conclusion. I'm a tank in retail so my gear to equip is "just the highest item level"! Literally that. Nothing much depth to that I'll say.

Did you play on a private server? In Vanilla raids were still timegated and could only be completed once a week.

[Kralljin]

Very true, but they made that a ridiculously unpleasant grind. There may be a middle ground between the two.

2hour questchain = unpleasant grind?
The base level of the cloak was sufficient for N'zoth, the MC protection was the crucial part.

I think the cloak is also a poor comparison because unlike resistance gear, it was a pretty binary thing.

You didn't wear the cloak on N'zoth = dead, no exceptions.
You didn't die on pull in Classic if you didn't wear any resistance in those resistance specific fights.