Dev Watercooler - Itemization in 6.2

[Difuid]

One of the largest problems with this post starts well after the personal loot sections, as I don't have a problem with that in particular, and infact think those changes (despite being a nerf to the possibility of everyone getting a drop in a 10-30 man environment off a single boss, even though the rarity of that event is dubious) will be well received.

The problems start when the developers start comparing the game as it is now to the game as it was in Molten Core. One will remember as we all did with the 10 year anniversary that not only is the game drastically different now than it was then, gearing and how gear worked was as well. They admit to reducing bad itemizing and overall eliminating forced single drops (I.E. their example given with the hunter/shaman belt) despite these problems being glaringly obvious and should barely be recognized as achievements and more fixing the game. Giving them credit for atleast trying, moving on to making secondary stats competitive seems like a no-brainer to anyone now, and then felt really stupid for a stat to be completely useless for a class despite it being on their armor.

So far, we've get net nothing but an explanation on why they are attempting to add this new sense of excitement. How might you ask? By fluxing the secondary stats of items to prefer one or the other. In the article it plainly states they are wanting to move away from "equip the highest item level" gameplay. That's... News to me considering the next bit... The paragraph below it... Talking about -item level ramp up-.

This fancy new system has bosses farther in the raid drop better loot than the previous bosses, culminating in the final boss dropping the best loot! It sounds like a great idea, just like the previous idea, but when combined you get this mixed message of "We don't want you to equip the highest item level equipment, however the perfectly itemized Rune Infused Spear for feral/ww just dropped from Kormrok, but it's replaced by the vastly inferior Xu'tenash, Glaive of Ruin of Mannoroth."

What is the message Blizzard is trying to send here? Is that Ilvl doesn't matter? That secondary stats should be a deciding factor, but only when the ilvls are equal, yet they deliberately make the ilvls scale recklessly within a difficulty without equality, especially regarding weapons? This change makes no sense. Nothing about the last two additions in this watercooler would end up being good down the road. One, or the other maybe, but both at the same time? That's begging for raiders to get fed up with replacing items in the same difficulty. I for one am already tired of replacing it through 2-4 difficulties. This is just ridiculous.

That system can work IF a boss only drops loot for one or two fixed slots. Like Archimonde only drops weapons/trinkets, Gorefiend only drops belts/bracers and so on. That way everybody has access to the same quality of loot for every slot.

[Tharkkun]

Improving the personal loot is bad, this is a terrible system that should be used only for automated PuG.

The ilvl ramp across the instance is great, though.

As for the secondary stats... If they hadn't gutted stat to begin with at the beginning of the expansion, it would probably haven't been necessary...

So guaranteed loot for raids on personal loot is bad? The primary reason no one uses it is because there's no guarantee you will see more than 1 drop even with 30 people.

[saucywench]

Solution: if you're going to do this, make Archimonde strictly weapons and trinkets. That way nobody has to worry about their BiS weapon being 10ilvl's lower than one for a different class for no discernible reason

I just finished a 45min argument with my friend and guild tank about weapon ilvl discrepancies in 6.2. He seems to feel its no big deal because ultimately the ilvl of the entire raid group will even out by the last boss. I feel that weapons and trinkets are the true generators of dps especially since weapons can be enchanted and trinkets have additional procs. I really don't care if i get a 730 pair of boots or gloves. I do care about getting shafted on a weapon because blizzard put it on early boss loot table. Maybe I'm just pissy because I had to wait 6 months for a hunter weapon drop in H HM/ H BRF and everyone else had their weapons drop early on. It just feels punitive.

[Tharkkun]

So many lfr scrubs in here liking the ilevel ramp up because they're clueless and have no idea how real raiding works. It's an awful idea and will make certain classes who need certain stats screwed when their best stats are on the shit gear. Blizzard has their heads up their asses and the tourist mode plebs are clapping them on.

That 150 dps from an improperly itemized item will really trash your dps.

[Morssoe]

Gear shouldn't have secondary stats. It should have 1-2 sockets so you can itemize it yourself.

Oh right, does Archimonde yell "Tremble, mortals, and despair! Doom has come to this world!" ?

[Deleted]

That 150 dps from an improperly itemized item will really trash your dps.

1. learn game mechanics
2. post on forums about it

In this order.

[Aqua]

I actually can't get my head around the pros and cons of this so I'm just going to see how this shit pans out. It sounds convoluted and solving a problem that isn't there...

There are some good things but the ilevel ramp up...Erm...Egugh...I don't see how this is going to work well.

[Ghostmage]

First issue I have that I am sure someone commented on here already but with the way the loot is set up right now there are a lot of classes that will get screwed over because their weapon like say for example a Hunter has only one drop in Hellfire Citadel. Its off of the first boss I believe? Which puts that particular item 10 levels behind a weapon that drops off of Archi.

[MatadorMedia]

. . . there are a lot of classes that will get screwed over because their weapon like say for example a Hunter has only one drop in Hellfire Citadel. Its off of the first boss I believe? Which puts that particular item 10 levels behind a weapon that drops off of Archi.

Blizzard also mentioned that higher lvl raids are a guild / group environment and that the DPS of the group overall is intended to be more important than the DPS of one individual. They highlighted how this existed at level 60 but the addition of third-party DPS calculators has devolved group achievement into individual DPS comparisons. They don't want every class to do the exact same damage on every single boss.

[BrionyEddon]

Solution: if you're going to do this, make Archimonde strictly weapons and trinkets. That way nobody has to worry about their BiS weapon being 10ilvl's lower than one for a different class for no discernible reason

Yes, please.

[Spotnick]

What doesn't work in Blizzard's logic is that there is already a reward for harder bosses.. it's called tier tokens.

[Gilian]

I actually can't get my head around the pros and cons of this so I'm just going to see how this shit pans out. It sounds convoluted and solving a problem that isn't there...

There are some good things but the ilevel ramp up...Erm...Egugh...I don't see how this is going to work well.

Indeed. They are solving a problem that isn't even there and will probably just create new problems with these changes.
And how is itemization important anyway? 3 million people quit playing, there are tons of complaints and they are talking about itemization no one should care about.

[Kymei]

Nerfing Stone Bulwark Totem Talent, just shows you guys realy have no idea what you're doing or check on statistics.

Thank you for your feedback.


Well.... he's not wrong...

[Mrbleedinggums]

Only loot lockout for mythic dungeons? Time to sell my druid's soul to heal/tank/dps a run with eventual mythic gear 500g a pop.

[Ghostmage]

Blizzard also mentioned that higher lvl raids are a guild / group environment and that the DPS of the group overall is intended to be more important than the DPS of one individual. They highlighted how this existed at level 60 but the addition of third-party DPS calculators has devolved group achievement into individual DPS comparisons. They don't want every class to do the exact same damage on every single boss.

I started raiding hardcore in Wotlk so I was not apart of the whole overall group dps part of this game. Do you or anyone else here think that if they are indeed going back to this style of raiding in the higher level raids will they add more utility for the lower DPS classes and things of that nature to avoid the stacking of higher dps classes at that point?

- - - Updated - - -

Only loot lockout for mythic dungeons? Time to sell my druid's soul to heal/tank/dps a run with eventual mythic gear 500g a pop.

Making all the money. Buying all the WoW tokens. Seems good!

[Lative]

I started raiding hardcore in Wotlk so I was not apart of the whole overall group dps part of this game. Do you or anyone else here think that if they are indeed going back to this style of raiding in the higher level raids will they add more utility for the lower DPS classes and things of that nature to avoid the stacking of higher dps classes at that point?

- - - Updated - - -



Making all the money. Buying all the WoW tokens. Seems good!

The Chostest with the mostest strikes once more.

[Emageht Tsoluoy]

Solution: if you're going to do this, make Archimonde strictly weapons and trinkets. That way nobody has to worry about their BiS weapon being 10ilvl's lower than one for a different class for no discernible reason

Ugh... Everones weapons better drop off the same guy then.

If my weapon were 10+ ilvlv than others for no reason except this, I would be kinda pissed.

[Hatorri]

Item Level Ramp
As this expansion has progressed, it’s become increasingly apparent that there is a mismatch between challenge and reward for guilds that delve deep into large Raid zones. When the Item Level for rewards across a given difficulty of a zone is flat, a caster staff from Heroic Imperator Mar’gok is largely equal in power to one from Heroic Tectus, despite Mar’gok being the far more challenging boss. We often see and hear about guilds killing a late-zone boss like Blast Furnace for the first time, only to disenchant most of the drops because everyone already has loot from earlier bosses in those slots. On top of that, many guilds move on to higher difficulties before they fully complete a difficulty, because Heroic Darmac loot is stronger than Normal Blackhand loot—and you can get it for much less effort.

To address this, we are structuring Hellfire Citadel so that the Item Level of the loot awarded by bosses increases as players proceed deeper into the zone, culminating in Archimonde—providing both the ultimate challenge and the ultimate reward.

We’re doing this for a few reasons. First, it feels good to get higher-level items as you progress through a zone. One of the more prominent pieces of feedback we got about Blackrock Foundry was that it felt unrewarding for challenging bosses like Iron Maidens to drop loot that was just as good as—or possibly worse than—Gruul’s.

This also breaks up where your best items are in a good way. The power of the items that you can get in a particular slot will differ based on how far through the zone you are. The best boots for you will likely be different if you are on Normal Gorefiend than they would be if you’re on Heroic Mannoroth, which would be different than if you’re on Mythic Iron Reaver, and so on.

We can’t overstate how much we appreciate your feedback on topics like this, especially when you’ve taken the time to join us on the Patch 6.2 PTR and experienced the changes for yourself. As always, everyone’s encouraged to join us and other testers in the PTR Discussion forums as we prepare to unleash Hellfire.

That could be really nice IF ppl was running normal/heroic or mythic only with them guilds, atm everyone using LFG and open pugs that is not an improvement or a reward to guilds, ppl will goes to harder bosses with pugs and they can get easy the item they want, and again when them guild (if they are in one) reach the specific boss they will disenchant again the item because they will already looted in a pug..

I wonder when you will realized that LFG and open pugs have destroyed the game and the guilds, special those are not hard core or pop up every new tier and disbanded on next one.. All those years after Wotlk the only think you do is to make things worst instead of better, i understand that the only think you care is the subscribes but that won’t work for long with this way.

This also breaks up where your best items are in a good way. The power of the items that you can get in a particular slot will differ based on how far through the zone you are. The best boots for you will likely be different if you are on Normal Gorefiend than they would be if you’re on Heroic Mannoroth, which would be different than if you’re on Mythic Iron Reaver, and so on.

HAIL PUGS MORTALS SALUTE YOU

- - - Updated - - -

This item level progression is a bad idea. They've essentially made the items that drop off early bosses useless. Heroic gear that drops off Archimonde is better than most Mythic gear until you get to Archiomonde again. You're bis offset piece is determined by ilevel instead of stats. Some specs have available weapons that are 5 ilevel higher than others.

I don't understand this. They are fixing a problem that didn't exist.

I agree with you, this idea sux, soon we will face ppl who will ask for joining specific bosses and dont even care for guild progress which including wipes and not boost run to harder bosses.