Is it Time to Bring Back Primary Stats?

[Jonnusthegreat]

Ever since the homogenization that happened over a decade ago, primary stats have disappeared from the game, except as a sub-stat completely defined by itemlevel and slot. Every item of the same itemlevel and slot has exactly the same primary stat. Since this is the case - the primary stat actually serves no purpose in decision making. Players have long equated primary stat with itemlevel.

We used to have exciting interactions where players had to choose for example Strength vs. Agility, in addition to secondary distributions, because each gave a different benefit, of which we knew what they did. Today, itemlevel, erm, a primary stat "Increases the magnitude of your attacks and abilities." This is a boring iteration that has made loot not exciting, and idiot-proof (yes, I am aware idiot-proofing the game is necessary).

We have personal loot now. We no longer need to have the community decide that the cloth pants should go to the Moonkin because they are the flavor of the tier. Each individual player is in charge of what items they receive and use.

[deenman]

it would be a little....awkward with personal loot,in the past warriors wanted a bunch of leather,agility gave crit and other usefull stats,attack power more than str actualy gave atackk power...or armor pen

my holy pala in wrath had less plate than any other armor type lol

personaly i think they should just make primary stats do more...and different things,and have it be differently budgeted like with secondaries

[ellieg]

No. Primary stats are what makes it so ilvl increases are actual upgrades. All the flavor is in the secondary stats. You want agi on your str gear as a dps? Why? You can look for crit secondary.

[Wuusah]

that's what secondary stats are there for. Primary stats are just ilvl power. I'm fine with that.

In the end there isn't really a choice anyway when it can be broken down to raw power. It's not a choice but a math equation. One of the two is stronger than the other.

Much rather than that, I'd like to have tertiary stats more often on gear to have a choice between stats that can't be easily compared with each other.

[Jonnusthegreat]

No. Primary stats are what makes it so ilvl increases are actual upgrades. All the flavor is in the secondary stats. You want agi on your str gear as a dps? Why? You can look for crit secondary.

Is it primary stat that makes itemlevel upgrades or just itemlevel? Was it the chicken or the egg? This is the point - it is simply a copy paste of another formula.

Why would you want crit? Why would you want mastery? Because they do something interesting. Primary stat does not.

[Ogarash]

it would be a little....awkward with personal loot,in the past warriors wanted a bunch of leather,agility gave crit and other usefull stats,attack power more than str actualy gave atackk power...or armor pen

my holy pala in wrath had less plate than any other armor type lol

personaly i think they should just make primary stats do more...and different things,and have it be differently budgeted like with secondaries

Didn't they make the actual armor your class wore give you a bonus in Wrath? I remember distinctly liking that decision because of all the drama leather loot caused to me wanting it as enhance in TBC, since many leather items like Vision of Sargeras were so damn good. But in wrath, you lost flat out 5% of damage or agility or something significant if you didn't wear mail in all armor slots. Didn't you have that as a healer?

[Zig Zug]

Ah yes, the return of Hunter Loot.

[Bigbazz]

I don't have strong feelings either way, it just doesn't matter. In old days (tbc/wrath) agility based items often had 5 stats instead of 4 and due to the way the game distributed ilvl it meant you got a higher stat count on a 5 stat item. With Warriors using leather that simply meant you'd sacrifice some attack power for some crit via the agility, the combination of agi + ap often outweighed the higher attack power on the STR item.

But really I think people were against this, and all it did was create competition for loot that wasn't intended between armour classes while being confusing for those not involved in the theorycrafting community. To players back then it didn't make a lot of sense when they saw a Warrior with a pair of mail boots equipped with intellect either, but those items intended for hunters/enhance would have agility, int, attack power + 2 secondary stats.

I mean it was just kinda janky. I don't see how making some sweeping change back to primary stats functioning different is going to improve the game, it's more likely to cause confusion or frustration I think.

[huth]

Is it primary stat that makes itemlevel upgrades or just itemlevel? Was it the chicken or the egg? This is the point - it is simply a copy paste of another formula.

Both together. Primaries are necessary for the system to actually work.

[mmocfd1b0ab5a3]

I personally have never had any decision making in this game, even during TBC/WotLK when I equipped leather in addition to mail on my hunter. Just sim the best outcome no matter if primary stat gives me crit or not. It's just the same thing: sim the best gear.

[Azerate]

That would just punish you and make it even harder to find an upgrade, because you would get a better ilvl piece, but with shitty primary stats...

There's nothing to gain from such a change, but there's much to lose.

[Sunderella]

To be honest, I liked when Agility gave my rogue AP, Crit and Dodge. Now its all boring.

[Jonnusthegreat]

Both together. Primaries are necessary for the system to actually work.

But if the formula is completely related to itemlevel with zero differentiation, is it needed? It's an added redundancy.

- - - Updated - - -

That would just punish you and make it even harder to find an upgrade, because you would get a better ilvl piece, but with shitty primary stats...

There's nothing to gain from such a change, but there's much to lose.

Sounds like an argument to remove all secondaries from the game to me.

[Nemah]

I'd like to see ArP come back, LOL.

[Dartz1979]

They need to bring the reforging feature back it was a good thing this relying on crafting gear isnt working.

[huth]

But if the formula is completely related to itemlevel with zero differentiation, is it needed?

Yes, because otherwise iLvl wouldn't translate to power as directly. You're pretty much describing why it is needed here.

[deenman]

Didn't they make the actual armor your class wore give you a bonus in Wrath? I remember distinctly liking that decision because of all the drama leather loot caused to me wanting it as enhance in TBC, since many leather items like Vision of Sargeras were so damn good. But in wrath, you lost flat out 5% of damage or agility or something significant if you didn't wear mail in all armor slots. Didn't you have that as a healer?

not in wrath,the armor thing came in cata,also it was much worse in wrath than in tbc,even paladins would use agility polearms because it was better than even lk wep,if you didnt have shadowmourn

it may have felt cool for some...but it was an objectively bad situation...knowing that my armor type is my worst item just feels wrong,and having cloth as my bis,it was even better to give holy palas the cloth than giving it to most casters because of the insane benefit they gave to pala

[TEHPALLYTANK]

No, cause that would reintroduce the problem of int plate. Having an entire section of the loot table dedicated to holy paladins was terrible. Changing specs is a thing that is meant to be easy, having to carry around a second full set of gear for your offspec instead of just a weapon/trinkets/legendary and any miscellaneous pieces with better itemization was not fun.

I remember being quite happy when defensive stats were removed and baked into str/stam/crit. No more having one entire bag filled with my ret gear, it went down to only being 3-8 pieces I had to carry around per spec (depending on the expansion, for the most part prot/ret have had the same stat priorities throughout the expansion, so trinkets+weapon were the only major difference between gear for each spec).

[Triceron]

Primary stats make for fickle balancing.

It was great for the type of free-form RPG that Vanilla WoW was developed to be, but that was back when you could absolutely play as a Stam Stacked 'Sponge' Tank and it would be fine because the 40-man raids were more or less balanced around 25 active roles and 15 'flexible' Support/AFK spots. Or you can be that Spirit-stacking downranked 'Heal Spam' healer who just continually spams the tank with heals.

Today, there's no need for that kind of stat-based balance because it's just not very interesting. There is already a bunch of different modifiers in the game, and the primary stat wouldn't be anything except 'Get more of X' depending on what you want. There's no reason why a Rogue would ever want Str, why a Warrior would want Int.

And if we retool primary stats to have some major gameplay changes like 'Strength boosts raw damage of all abilities' and 'Dex improves resource generation' then you might as well make it a separate stat as we have Mastery and Versatility and the like.

[deenman]

Primary stats make for fickle balancing.

It was great for the type of free-form RPG that Vanilla WoW was developed to be, but that was back when you could absolutely play as a Stam Stacked 'Sponge' Tank and it would be fine because the 40-man raids were more or less balanced around 25 active roles and 15 'flexible' Support/AFK spots. Or you can be that Spirit-stacking downranked 'Heal Spam' healer who just continually spams the tank with heals.

Today, there's no need for that kind of stat-based balance because it's just not very interesting. There is already a bunch of different modifiers in the game, and the primary stat wouldn't be anything except 'Get more of X' depending on what you want. There's no reason why a Rogue would ever want Str, why a Warrior would want Int.

And if we retool primary stats to have some major gameplay changes like 'Strength boosts raw damage of all abilities' and 'Dex improves resource generation' then you might as well make it a separate stat as we have Mastery and Versatility and the like.

to be fair the stamina sponge thing was viable all the way until cata,thats when really getting mitigation % became the way to go,in wrath it was mostly stamina stack