Has relative power between Fully Geared vs Ungeared been higher than this before?

[MMKing]

TBC
Epic gear 105 to 164 Ilvl

MOP
Epic gear 476 to 580 Ilvl (with upgrades) Yes 104 item levels difference + the small amount the cloak 608 cloak provides.

The way stats add up on top of each other ensures that the next point of intellect, haste, crit and mastery is worth more than the last one. The difference between two points of spell power also increases as your stats increases. At one point, the addition of a single spell power will be worth more than all previous points of spell power combined although this number is unreachable even with 10 times more stats.

Simple example: for frost Mage bellow.
Frost bolt
1 second cast
100k damage
mastery 25% (sends an ''icicle'' for 25% of frost bolt damage)
Crit chance 20%. 100% crit damage

The average damage of 1 second casting frost bolt.
1 * 100k * 1.25 = 125k * 1.20 = 150k

+ 5% crit
1 * 100k * 1.25 * 1.25 = 156.25k = 6.25k increased dps

+ 5% mastery
1 * 100k * 1.30 * 1.20 = 156k = 6k increased dps.

+5% more casts per second.
1.05 * 100k * 1.25* 1.20 = 157.5k = 7.5k increased dps.

+5% damage
1 * 105k * 1.25 * 1.2 = 157.5k = 7.5k increased dps.

Combining all = 6.25 + 6 + 7.5 + 7.5 = 27.25k + 150k = 177.25k dps

Doing the math, a different result appears.
1.05 * 105 * 1.3 * 1.25 = 179.15625k dps. = 1.90625 higher DPS than above.

With 8 raid buffs, flask, food, potion and all raid debuffs it's easy to believe that a 476 player won't even do 1/5 of what a heroic SOO raider does. Even if their characters moves are mirrored. This difference is further emphasized when the 476 player has to reforge towards hit, whereas the 580 player may have to reforge away from it.

[Manhands]

I had a 562? 565? ilvl warlock do 30% of the damage on a single-target boss in LFR.

One person among sixteen dps. 30% of the damage. !!!.

[Larynx]

The difference between a fresh 90 (30k-40k DPS) and a heroic geared 90 (350-450k DPS) is definitely the highest its ever been. A fresh 80 during WOTLK might pull 3-4k DPS, and in ICC you'd see about 15k DPS.

Terrible game design, all for the sake of a sense of "progression"? We don't need to literally do TEN TIMES as much healing/damage in order to get a sense of progression. I think in vanilla the difference between Naxx and a fresh 60 were something like 200-300 DPS vs 600-700 DPS. The game did fine then, just like it did in TBC, and WotLK, and Cata. Why is MoP a special snowflake?

It honestly ruins the game for me. When my main healer can do more DPS than a 500-520 alt DPS what reason do I have to play the alt? It kills all motivation, especially when soloing content.

[Nefarious Tea]

Just to add a little footnote: The Devs have made no secret of this and have said it will continue, and will likely be seen at this level again next expansion as they've letting 85+ be the starting point instead of 70+ this time, and it is intentional. The explaination as to why it was made this was summed up as simply "100 to 110 is something people can feel happen. It's 10%. 500 to 510 isn't. It's only 2%. When the numbers get this high, larger gaps are required to keep gear progression being something you can sense while in combat."

Translation: Most of our player base is retarded and can't handle math.

Which is why they're doing the squish, NOT because of the power creep (although the power creep causes this). They're squishing because they flat out said in Cata when it first became an idea that hp/dps/crits/heals were starting to get to the point where they thought most players couldn't mentally process the numbers.

Even blizzard thinks their playerbase are all dumbshits.

[nekobaka]

No, never. The gap in MoP is much larger than ever before. Even in Cataclysm, new 85s didn't deal 1/5th the DPS of fully T13-equipped characters. A new 90 might deal 80k at best, while T16H-equipped players can top 450k.

From a personal experience of Cata I did do over five fold the dps of a charter in starter gear while not even full T13 geared. I do agree there is an added gap in MoP especially with LFR and Flex further separating the gap between non-raiders and raiders. With Flex difficulty becoming the new normal will reduce the normal mode gap and hopefully LFR being "tourist" mode means the gap between non-raiders and normal mode raiders will be lessened again. Although there is mythic and which doesnt help much. Blizzards attempts to further segment the community with different difficulties while trying to keep each one feeling progressed might be causing more issues than its worth.

Not sure what Blizzard is really going to do about this in WoD, but in MoP at least towards the end the developers seemed to have been trying to just throw ilvls to keep players feeling like they are progressing with the mentality that it will get fixed in the next expansion. But as we have seen with prior expansions it might just further muddy the issue of players being unable to adapt. Maybe this was just Blizzards evil plan to get more players to mentally jump for the squash.

[Bullettime]

One of the reasons for the stat squish. It makes it very frustrating to play alts. Between the sheer power gap from ilvl inflation and the legendary quest, it's pretty jarring going from my Hunter putting up 320k to 380k down to my Rogue who in ilvl 500 only puts out in the neighborhood of 100k.

[walexia]

It's crazy, heroic geared players can prob solo current 5 man heroics due to the dps they pull.

Another downside to this is that any player joinign now has almost no hope of getting into a normal raiding guild, let alone heroic progression ones.The gear climb...then the epic cloak quests ...all the chapters.

It's like BC all over again with the attunements

[Deleted]

How exactly do you people come to the conclusion that a stat squish for old content will solve it?

The core of the problem is that blizz doesnt want blue geared players to clear the latest hc raid in a week. Gear serves as a gate to progress to keep people longer in the raid. As long as it has this purpose there must be significant increases, the "problem" is desired and nothing will remove it unless they change their gating mechanism

[Darsithis]

Is blizzard just afraid of whining players who complain about tier difference? I mean, is it too much to ask that each power tier (lfr/flex/normal/heroic/warforged) be like 10% and not 40%? Would we then run into the issue of extremely skilled LFR geared players clearing heroic raids? And is that REALLY an issue? Is blizzard too afraid of content being cleared that fast? Would the best pve players get bored an leave? Do you think more people leave due to the frustration of world PVP?

The other posts in the thread illustrated the issue. The upgrades are not linear. In order to feel like you're gaining power the item's stats have to continue to increase in ever-increasing gains. It's not as simple as what you're describing.

[Sting]

It's crazy, heroic geared players can prob solo current 5 man heroics due to the dps they pull.

Another downside to this is that any player joinign now has almost no hope of getting into a normal raiding guild, let alone heroic progression ones.The gear climb...then the epic cloak quests ...all the chapters.

It's like BC all over again with the attunements

You could already solo 5 man heroics in tier 14 LFR gear. Most good guilds don't recruit based off ilvl alone, and the cloak takes only 2-3 months at most these days. What exactly is your point?

[Deleted]

If I did my math right, my warlock's Immolate does about 60k dps on its own if cast in the opener (lust + LMG + raid buffs + potion + trinkets), and that is BEFORE crit is factored in (and at 70-ish% it will mean a ton of extra dmg). So that fully buffed Immolate can out-dps a fresh character while it's up. I don't recall that being possible in the past, especially with a spell that is a small chunk of my overall dmg.

[walexia]

You could already solo 5 man heroics in tier 14 LFR gear. Most good guilds don't recruit based off ilvl alone, and the cloak takes only 2-3 months at most these days. What exactly is your point?

My point is the same as the OP's.He was asking about the gear diferrences for new 90's versus established lvl 90 players in heroic-raid gear ,and if it has ever been this wide.You have actually added some interesting info. If at tier 14 alone,people are soloing content that should normally be considered lvl 90 content, that already shows how wide the gap is from my reference point(lvl 90 in heroic 5 man gear.)

Basically what I am saying is comparing a 90 in heroic-5 man gear versus heroic-raid and warforged... they look like gods on the meters .

Am i complaining? nope! just marveling at the dps these players can do.I had tier 10 gear when wotlk ended and remember both healing and dpsing in a 5 man heroic,but i don't think it was this wide a gap in dmg from normal 80's.Also most guilds I have seen advertising on my server don't look twice at you if you don't have the cape and their ilevel requirement.

[Emek]

Never, it's the highest it's at now. It feels like gear is mandatory to perform well and it's really lame. I remember bringing my friend who just hit 70 into SSC and he was able to contribute to the raid, That COULD NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! have happened in t15, which is really lame.

[Deleted]

5 times higher hmm?

In WotLK, when a character of mine hit 80, they usually did around 2000 dps, while ICC raiders did around 10000-16000 dps.

[Sixteen18]

How exactly do you people come to the conclusion that a stat squish for old content will solve it?

The core of the problem is that blizz doesnt want blue geared players to clear the latest hc raid in a week. Gear serves as a gate to progress to keep people longer in the raid. As long as it has this purpose there must be significant increases, the "problem" is desired and nothing will remove it unless they change their gating mechanism

It isn't going to solve it, the gap in Wod is actually likely to become even bigger. The cause of this is that they decided to make 4 tiers out of each raid, which require a significant increase in gear between each one not to make any of them pointless. This is the results of Blizzard being lazy with their bullshit LFR/Flex/Heroic all in one design instead of making separate instances to give easier access to "Catch up" gear as it was with AQ20, ZA and Wrath 10 mans.

[Trubo]

It's crazy, heroic geared players can prob solo current 5 man heroics due to the dps they pull.

Another downside to this is that any player joinign now has almost no hope of getting into a normal raiding guild, let alone heroic progression ones.The gear climb...then the epic cloak quests ...all the chapters.

It's like BC all over again with the attunements

That's not really an accomplishment with MoP heroics considering DKs were soloing them week 1 in quest greens.

[Deleted]

90k is reasonable if they enchant, reforge, and find a weapon.

50k is what 463 gear gets you. 50k in Timeless is simply being bad.

Depends on the class & spec. You tried a Shadow Priest Single-Target recently?!

[Ariluz]

Depends on the class & spec. You tried a Shadow Priest Single-Target recently?!

I did close to 100k in full timeless on my shadow priest - not that hard to accomplish with any spec/class.

[Giscoicus]

It's crazy, heroic geared players can prob solo current 5 man heroics due to the dps they pull.

Another downside to this is that any player joinign now has almost no hope of getting into a normal raiding guild, let alone heroic progression ones.The gear climb...then the epic cloak quests ...all the chapters.

It's like BC all over again with the attunements

I solod 5man heroics back in normal tier 14 gear on my hunter. They really are that easy. Plus a warrior has managed to solo some Challenge Modes, albeit without high times.

[Bullettime]

5 times higher hmm?

In WotLK, when a character of mine hit 80, they usually did around 2000 dps, while ICC raiders did around 10000-16000 dps.

To be fair, there was also a 30% damage buff for the bulk of ICC that heavily inflated the numbers there. 16k wasn't a regular sight except on gimmick encounters like Blood Queen or until the 4.0 patch where some specs like Arcane were just ridiculous.