Dev Watercooler - Secondary Stats

[Darsithis]

I was excited reading about the new stats coming and how they could play into my playstyle but I can't help but be disappointed at the loss of Amplify and Readiness. Those trinkets were the best trinkets I've ever had (I have all of the BiS ones on my dps/tanking specs) and I'll lament their loss.

That versatility stat looks pretty neat, though.

Who else is going to miss Amplify and Readiness?

[Baconeggcheese]

I'm not at all sad about amplify kicking the bucket. I wish they never put crit damage in to D3 or any game where it exists for that matter.

It (as they also saw in their testing) ALWAYS becomes hands down the best stat you have no other options go get a ton of this or be ready to under perform. I hope they *never* make such a stat exist on gear regularly outside of maybe a single trinket or a legendary or something.

There was maybe a way they could have made readiness work out well, but I still think it works out best again in a large amount on a single piece (like a trinket or a legendary) but not so well as a baseline stat that had to be competitive with everything else in a world without reforging.

So heres to me being happy about this! The glass is half full!

edit: versatility seems scary, I know they say they want it to be close but something like that could very easily end up waaaayyyy too good or completely worthless depending on the numbers.

[Jessicka]

Versatility = Tank stat. They benefit more than anyone, reduced damage taken and improved self heals/absorbs? No one else will get a look in for a long time.

[Adramalech]

Not too sad about Amplify. Don't get me wrong, the concept is nice and the effect it would have even better. But ultimately, it'd be just a flat stat increase. I don't see Versatility being much different in that regard, but we'll see how it pans out.

Readiness though, was different. But ultimately I can see the reasoning on why it got axed, and I can't say I didn't see that coming for both it and Amplify.

I'm still ok with the current stat setup they showed us. As long as they don't decide to bring Hit and/or Expertise back, I'm ok with everything.

[Alextros]

Gonna miss Amplify and Readiness, but I can also see the problems about them. Early expansion they are both about the worst stats for everyone, and end expansion people are going to praise them more than anything (except Fire Mage I suppose). Although it does sadden me, that they dont do the same with Amplify as they do with Readiness e.g. not completely shelving it, but let it appear on a few trinkets here and there.

[RippedLife]

versatility will be huge in pvp i guess.

[cFortyfive]

flat damage increase and damage reduction. Wow what interesting gameplay.

[Darsithis]

Versatility = Tank stat. They benefit more than anyone, reduced damage taken and improved self heals/absorbs? No one else will get a look in for a long time.

Meh. It's a tertiary stat that will rarely be cultivated in large quantities on gear

versatility will be huge in pvp i guess.

Same as above - no one is going to get enough of it on gear to be useful for that

flat damage increase and damage reduction. Wow what interesting gameplay.

Yeah at least Readiness changed my rotation slightly - I could weave in more PoF or AoTD in a fight depending on length.

[Adramalech]

Meh. It's a tertiary stat that will rarely be cultivated in large quantities on gear

Versatility is a secondary, like Haste or Multistrike.

[Darsithis]

Versatility is a secondary, like Haste or Multistrike.

Oh yeah, I read that wrong. Still I can't imagine it'll be enough. Plus I can bet Blizzard will make it not function in PvP so true PvP gear isn't discounted in favor of PvE

[Deleted]

Can't say I'm all that surprised to see Readiness go, it had the unfortunate property of having fight dependent break points, eg do you have enough to get an extra cd use during the fight, or will that defensive cd be available every time the boss uses his nasty ability?

[Scufflegrit]

Hmm, Versatility + Disc Priests atonement heals. +1% damage and +1% healingper point of Vers. So 25% gives you +50% to Smite heal effectiveness. I guess it depends on what they do to Disc Priests in WoD, but that could end up being their top stat.

I'm imagining Smite will end up being slowly gutted throughout the expansion and being near useless by the end of WoD when Versatility could be stacked very high.

[Shampro]

Readiness wasn't going to happen. It was going to be one of those stats in which it would be pretty good for some classes, and terrible for another. Versatility is much more broad and open to every class and spec. Amplify was ridiculous though.

[SamuraiJakkass86]

I don't think vers is a very interesting stat. At least not compared to Leech and Multistrike. I would rather them come up with something more interesting. That being said, I see it as more of a tank secondary stat. DPS and Healers will likely go for Leech/MS gears since it improves their role, whereas vers seems more PvP/Tank oriented..

[Kraineth]

I don't think vers is a very interesting stat. At least not compared to Leech and Multistrike. I would rather them come up with something more interesting. That being said, I see it as more of a tank secondary stat. DPS and Healers will likely go for Leech/MS gears since it improves their role, whereas vers seems more PvP/Tank oriented..

Leech is a minor stat, so. comparing it to Multistrike and Versatility is flawed.

On topic: I am not the least bit surprised, or sad, to see Readiness and Amp removed, readiness was way too hard to make good for certain classes, and Amp was boring. At least Versatility adds to offhealing/survivability, which means ot is more than just a mindless throughput stat.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmm, Versatility + Disc Priests atonement heals. +1% damage and +1% healingper point of Vers. So 25% gives you +50% to Smite heal effectiveness. I guess it depends on what they do to Disc Priests in WoD, but that could end up being their top stat.

I'm imagining Smite will end up being slowly gutted throughout the expansion and being near useless by the end of WoD when Versatility could be stacked very high.

Easy, atonement healing is made to calculate the base heal before the damage Increase from Versatility, that amount is then increased by the healing increase.

You can bet that Blizzard is aware of when things will double dip.

[Shamanberry]

Readiness was going to be a big problem, so I'm glad it's gone. They didn't really touch on the main reason - that it was a heavy breakpoint stat, and that breakpoint would vary based on fight length. Even if some of its effects were more frequent, it usually included reduction in major (3min+) cooldowns, and those are basically all or nothing - you either have time to use it an extra time because of your readiness, or you don't and that part is worth effectively zero. When things were balanced out, it would almost always be best to go for the "safe" DPS increases from other stats like crit or mastery rather than going for the hope of the fight length working out exactly correct - moreso wehn you don't have reforging to tweak that.

For tanks and healers it's even worse, since the majority of its benefit comes in reduction of "big" cooldowns, and those are again all or nothing. If you need Zen Meditation every 2:45, you need 15 seconds worth of reduction from Readiness, or nothing.

It was basically a stat that anyone who did the math was planning on avoiding entirely.


As for Amplify... I believe them when they said it quickly just became the best stat for everyone. Even if it was just crit damage, it would be something of a multiplier on your crit stat for anyone that had a heavy crit build, but it was actually amplifying all other stats - so it would have been a heavily mathy stat. You get some baseline of stats, and then figure out the breakpoints where a multiplier would start giving you more stat points than adding more stats directly. If they balanced it to be worthwhile early on, then close to the end of expansions when stat points are given out more freely, it would be a case of "everyone wants amplify on everything". If they balanced it the other way, then it would be 100% useless until later in the expansion. Neither way makes it a good stat.


Both of those stats seem like appropriate trinket bonuses, since they can control the amount you get to be a fixed value. Using them as secondary stats, however, is a bad idea, so I see why they went that way with them.

[Armourboy]

I think both stats could have eventually lead to some pretty bad balancing nightmares as well. Kind of like the old Armor Pen stat ended up being at times.

[Jessicka]

Having had some thought and discussion about it, they should just ditch Armour, it's boring, and go with Versatility as the tanking stat. Come up with something else for DPS.

[Rioo]

I'm kinda tired of Blizzard always picking the easiest route. Sure it would be harder to balance readiness, but it's such a fun stat since you actually see the difference clearly.

[SlippyCheeze]

I'm kinda tired of Blizzard always picking the easiest route. Sure it would be harder to balance readiness, but it's such a fun stat since you actually see the difference clearly.

If they always picked the easiest route, WoD would have shipped without any new stats at all, just the ones they had previously. What you are seeing is that they actually set fairly ambitious goals, experiment with them, try very hard to fix the issues that arise, and then eventually back off if they can't resolve them.