Should wow go back to a system of having healing, tank and dps gear?

[Dilbon]

Just make mastery and versatility more interesting and there you go.

[FarmerEd]

I find it's annoying enough if you want to play multiple specs as it is, I see no gain from further separation of the specs

[Gourbaak]

it's an horrible idea

[Jonnusthegreat]

A simple yet elegant solution would be to add these flavor stats back as tertiaries. That way all gear is the same, but if a +defense tertiary spawns, it'd be just a tad better at tanking.

[Triden]

I don't know if going back to the exact same stats we had before makes sense, but I do think that having role-specific stats made for more interesting gear. Sure, if a tanking piece drops with tank stats on it and you're a DPS or healer -- that sucks. But the flipside is that right now gear is so homogenized that it literally doesn't matter and is so boring that I can't remember the name of a single piece of gear from the last two expansions.

I've always played a tank and I really liked defensive stats. In my opinion, one of the cooler aspects of being a tank was being able to reduce incoming damage. Having parry, dodge, defense, armor, hit rating, expertise, etc. all added flavor to the game. Now, you get a piece of gear and it's always Stamina + Primary Stat + Versatility/Mastery/Haste/Critical Strike. So gear has devolved into "Pants of Mastery" and "Boots of Critical Strike". There's no nuance involved. Before, you might find one pair of boots that had really high stamina and armor values and another pair of boots with less stamina and armor, but more defense or dodge. And the gear didn't all come from a chest at the end of a dungeon or a roulette wheel in the major city.

So, although reducing the number of stats simplified things and made switching roles easier -- I think it detracted from the game massively.

[Halfaheart]

I miss everything about Wrath gearing honestly. Trying to work in my hit/exp while being able to play with different stat builds. Armor Pen was the only real swing and a miss I believe. Give me back badges, tier sets, and all of the little things that would make gear exciting.

However, not everybody feels this way. Gearing offspecs and other characters has become much easier and I definitely appreciate that. There's just something about the excitement of working towards something missing now that everything is RNG.

[Triden]

So, although reducing the number of stats simplified things and made switching roles easier -- I think it detracted from the game massively.

Also worth pointing out that items are so boring now that they're basically a math formula. I can almost guarantee you they have an "item generator" where you set the ilvl and it spits out an item. The only thought they have to put into it is naming the damn things and maybe if they're feeling creative they come up with some procs they don't test and then have to nerf by 50% after they go out -- but those procs can just get put randomly on any of the pieces of gear.

In earlier expansions -- I think items were actually designed. That is, someone thought "hey, it would be cool if we had some pants that had less secondary stats, but had 3 gem slots" and so they designed an item like that. Now the "wouldn't it be cool if?" bit is gone and it's just a bunch of generated items with names assigned. The soul of these items is gone along with how they're acquired.

[Coolascancer]

Balancing the old stats was a pain and stupid like my shadowpriest in wotlk took forever to drop the hit trinket from naxx. HOWEVER it made the game feel better to me. the current set of stats is boring as fuck, like someone else said the gear is inconsequential now. like its an ilvl upgrade so its probably an upgrade- specifically with how mythic+ works- oooo this belt is the BiS belt for the ENTIRE GODAMN EXPANSION, i just have to come back and get it each patch.. stupid..

I do wish parry/block/dodge were on gear, i wish reforging was still in the game, i wish mana pools werent static(hell maybe they arent anymore, i stopped healing after wrath when they made it not fun) versatility is a trash stat and i can't believe they ever added it and kept it. mastery is really the only interesting stat and that only applies if your spec's mastery is actually good- they could do a lot more with mastery than they do.

The game will never add more stats though, that's just how it is.

[Xires]

First and foremost: i don't want to have gearing like in classic where healers would solo hit like a wet noodle and tanks could tank a lot of mobs and not dying, but couldn't kill anything without taking up way to much time.

But would it maybe be better, if we had gear back that require you to go with your role in the raid/mythic+? So in this case: Tanks getting defensive-rating, DPS needs hit (or something better) rating and Healer need Spirit to heal effectively. And that as a healer you should focus to heal in a raid but not to dps. And adding back choices to customize gear through enchants but also with gem slots like in tbc.

I think that many people disliked it that new gear dropped but you couldn't use it on the spot, because you need to enchant, add gems, reforge it before you could swap it out, but is the alternative right now better when you can put gear on, and totally forget about it; because the ilvl is higher or it has more of the rating you need? (and with more enchants right now you already need to wait to put it on)

And that blizzard should probably care less about borrowed power and go back to make gearing more complex: tinkering with your gear is far more interesting than having a new table where you can customize your borrowed power. (And not in a way where you get azerite bonuses on gear that is so complex that you need to look upon a website what powers are useful or not; because in the end it was the same "table" of borrowed power, just attached to your gear)

And a bit off topic: add more armor slots! The quiver in 9.1 for example: why replace your cloak with it, this is a perfect example what should be an armor slot just for Hunters. At the beginning maybe a class specific slot just for it: Quivers for Hunters, Librams for paladins and so on; this would also make gearing a bit more complex and could add a way for blizzard to add borrowed power in a way it was since classic, through gear.

i'd like for them to bring back fun stats like multistrike and armor pen.

[guru-gamer]

I miss everything about Wrath gearing honestly. Trying to work in my hit/exp while being able to play with different stat builds. Armor Pen was the only real swing and a miss I believe. Give me back badges, tier sets, and all of the little things that would make gear exciting.

However, not everybody feels this way. Gearing offspecs and other characters has become much easier and I definitely appreciate that. There's just something about the excitement of working towards something missing now that everything is RNG.

As someone who remembers simming every drop b/c of haste / armor pen / hit / etc, I enjoy the simplified stat system. I also enjoy the flexibility in gearing more than one spec. I still find gearing for the optimal stat balance in PvE challenging since I don't PvP. My OS is weaker, but I'm not totally gimped having to farm a totally different set of gear either.

I miss set bonuses, BUT I also enjoy that less gear is wasted. Nothing felt worse than disenchanting drops b/c x or y class / spec wasn't in the raid. As much as I enjoyed collecting a tier for the look and bonuses, not all sets were created equal either. There are a lot of pros / cons to gear then, TBC / WotlK, and now. What I miss most is class specific gear cosmetically. I had full T5 Rift Stalker, and there was no mistaking that I was a Hunter. It meant something during TBC to have a full tier set which kind of gets into another can of worms regarding raid structure / difficulty. I wish Blizzard would spend the resources on class specific themes for Raid gear though.

[Kumorii]

hmm... I already have multiple sets for my characters that have multiple roles. Changing the name of stats won't make that better or worse just "more" of managing it.

- - - Updated - - -

A simple yet elegant solution would be to add these flavor stats back as tertiaries. That way all gear is the same, but if a +defense tertiary spawns, it'd be just a tad better at tanking.

not sure how that is elegant since we know if there are a way for minimal stat gains players will claim you require the tertiary stats....thus you have to grind for those RNG. If we make it through purchase it will require players to grind to make new gear viable etc etc...

It's weird players haven't learned this yet that as soon as you give some optional gain, but gain non-theless, it sort of become mandatory in the eyes of the players.

We saw this with TF/WF that people claimed they were forced to play the RNG lottery for those ilvl gains even though it's hardly required for anyone. And now we have it when it comes to conduits... people claim they are forced to grind stygia to buy and upgrade conduits to max ilvl. Same with legendaries...
For me when I checked upgrading from 225 to 235 or whatever the next highest ilvl was, I would gain 20dps, which is close to margin of error. Yet people are claiming they have to get it to max or they aren't viable....

No solution that provides any miniscule gain in power will ever be "elegant" in my opinion.

[Gestopft]

Or if blizz actually bothered either using Mastery like a knob to balance relative DPS like it was designed to do

I think it's much to Blizz's credit that they quickly realized that using mastery as a 'tuning knob' was not going to work like they originally thought it might.

[Jonnusthegreat]

not sure how that is elegant since we know if there are a way for minimal stat gains players will claim you require the tertiary stats....thus you have to grind for those RNG. If we make it through purchase it will require players to grind to make new gear viable etc etc...

It's weird players haven't learned this yet that as soon as you give some optional gain, but gain non-theless, it sort of become mandatory in the eyes of the players.

We saw this with TF/WF that people claimed they were forced to play the RNG lottery for those ilvl gains even though it's hardly required for anyone.

There are 0 guilds in the world that expect healers to have +Leech gear because it's a tertiary. Many of the top players in the world rerun heroic fights every week for a chance at the same trinket with a tertiary bonus. Last expansion, there were literally hundreds of razor coral farm groups because everyone wanted the trinket with a socket.

People farm for the tertiaries because they are powerful. It hasn't destroyed the game yet. Adding more tertiaries would have an essentially zero impact on guild recruitment and farming requirements of world top players. It's already there.

[Belloc]

ITT: "No, we need less barriers to entry, not more" and "Yes, I like tedious, uninteresting checklist stats."

One of those is a self-serving response and the other is the way the game needs to be. I'll let you guys figure out which is which.

[Kumorii]

There are 0 guilds in the world that expect healers to have +Leech gear because it's a tertiary. Many of the top players in the world rerun heroic fights every week for a chance at the same trinket with a tertiary bonus. Last expansion, there were literally hundreds of razor coral farm groups because everyone wanted the trinket with a socket.

People farm for the tertiaries because they are powerful. It hasn't destroyed the game yet. Adding more tertiaries would have an essentially zero impact on guild recruitment and farming requirements of world top players. It's already there.

Eh, Not sure why you focus on top players.... I spoke about players in general. I see most complaints about farming for X or Y from HC / Mythic prog players and others who rather blame their gear rather than their own skill no matter what skill bracket they are in.

But you are right... the current tertiary are a "nice" bonus, mostly because it's hardly noticeable. So I guess that's no harm, but I don't see how it adds much value either.

[Marxman]

A simple yet elegant solution would be to add these flavor stats back as tertiaries. That way all gear is the same, but if a +defense tertiary spawns, it'd be just a tad better at tanking.

The whole point of tertiary stats is that they don't make a big difference. Leech and Avoidance are already borderline too strong.

[Jonnusthegreat]

The whole point of tertiary stats is that they don't make a big difference. Leech and Avoidance are already borderline too strong.

But they're so rare that players can't expect to have them, but when it drops, feel real excited. That excitement is what makes the game fun for some.

[Gestopft]

I've always played a tank and I really liked defensive stats. In my opinion, one of the cooler aspects of being a tank was being able to reduce incoming damage. Having parry, dodge, defense, armor, hit rating, expertise, etc. all added flavor to the game. Now, you get a piece of gear and it's always Stamina + Primary Stat + Versatility/Mastery/Haste/Critical Strike.

A few things:

1) Tanks DO gain defensive benefit from traditionally 'offensive' stats. DK/Warr/Pal/DH all gain parry from crit, Druid gets dodge, and Monk gets extra healing. Haste adds defensive value through reduced CDs/increased resource generation, etc. Gear still makes tanks more tank-y- just in more roundabout ways that ALSO have offensive bonuses (more on that later)

2) You have to keep in mind that there were more reasons than "simplicity" or "ease of switching roles" that led to the removal of defensive stats. Remember "Chill of the Throne" or "Radiance of the Sunwell?" Throughout an expansion, as defensive stats got higher and higher, bosses had to hit harder and harder to actually be dangerous (making tank survival much more RNG based), and by the end of both BC and Wrath it got so out of hand that they had to institute zone-wide debuffs in raids that reduced dodge chance.

3) Another reason for the removal of defensive stats also pertained to scaling throughout the expansions. As tanks focused on getting tank-ier, DPS kept focusing on straight damage, meaning that tank damage (and thus threat) fell farther and farther behind DPS as the expansion progressed. They attempted to solve this in MoP with Vengeance, but that had its own set of issues, so the solution that they have settled on since WoD is basically what we have today: tanks use "DPS" stats so that their damage scales accordingly throughout the expansion, and on top of that, tanks get defensive benefits from DPS stats- while also keeping avoidance levels under control.

[Utrrabbit]

Defense and Hit were the least fun stats in the game, no one liked them. They sucked. People hated them. They were reviled. Livid that they existed. They were the bane of everyone - no one liked them. Ever. Not at all. Not even a little bit. It was universally one of the most despised aspects of the gearing system that wound players up to demanding these stats be done away with so that gear could be opened up and people could go for raw power on gear without having to worry about these arbitrary stat goals which, let's be real, were all automated with addons eventually anyway.

People will not ever actively engage with so much crunching of numbers with gear - they'll just get an addon to tell them what pieces of gear they own are optimal to equip, and then whatever interaction you have with the gear gets thrown out the window.

And hell, even if you forced addons to not mess with calculating stats on gear, people would just throw character info into sites. So okay, maybe you shut down those sites, then people with better math or more patience to do all the math manually suddenly get an edge in damage-wise. Guilds with those who calculate, what, are they expected to do it for the whole guild now? This kind of angle on Defense and Hit Caps is absurd. There's no good reality that comes around as a result of this. People WILL find a way to game the system and make it unfun for everyone, putting aside that Defense and Hit are insanely unfun just by themselves. But even for people who would normally find any kind of enjoyment in Def/Hit/Exp, others will ruin it for those people as well.

But, to directly answer the question.
With Personal Loot in the game, gear can be as specific as it needs to be, when it works (and lord I can't stress that enough).

That said, for ease of comprehension and simplicity it's probably best there aren't too many different stats to learn.

The essential secondary stats that are in the game cover nearly all essential ground that is needed as they are.

Any other class specific interaction can be baked into passives that interact with established stats, so there's no real need to reintroduce other misc stats when a conversion stat passive can do the job.

There's a reason the Defense and Hit/Exp and Res and Pen and Regen stats and all that went out the window -- they were inferior design, they were automated and not interacted with anyway, they weren't fun, they were a waste of dev/balance time, so they were axed.

I liked them so you are 100% wrong, and I knoe am entire section of the playerbase that really enjoyed them.

[Marxman]

But they're so rare that players can't expect to have them, but when it drops, feel real excited. That excitement is what makes the game fun for some.

If that's what excites you, play the lottery. Go to Vegas. Play literally any EA game.

Loot in WoW shouldn't be a lottery. It should be a merit-based system.