Mastery stat: Should the "Simpler" ones be Redesigned?

[Sondrelk]

Mastery should most definitely feel like an integrated part of the spec. It doesnt necessarily need to be massively complicated, but something like "X% chance to Y".
The old MM mastery up to WoD was kinda like that. X% chance to fire an extra arrow. You can then make this extra ability do extra stuff that makes the spec feel more alive.

At the very least each mastery should give some unique utility if nothing else. Again with the MM mastery, it isn't particularly exciting as a DPS increase since it just increases damage by a flat%, but at least it gives you more range, allowing some interesting playstyles when or if you build it up high enough.

[Lord Pebbleton]

They've removed armor pen, hit, vers, attack and spell power, spell penetration, resists, defense, parry, dodge, block and probably more I can't recall. What else is there? Is it going to end up being D3 with practically nothing but toughness and power?

Having 2 and 1000 stat values both represent the two extremes and are both rather unenjoyable imo. Not having variation is super boring, but also having too much is weird and often confusing.

I still remember my first higher quality sword in Age of Conan. It gave +0.75 hate decrease rating. I never want to see anything like that again.

[klaps_05]

Mastery is a boring stat. I play mage/dh/ele/rogue and they are all boring stuff that just happens in the background. I would personally prefer if Mastery had a bonus effect on top of the regular dmg amp - let it amp up your spells visuals. Like Fire mage mastery can make your Pyroblasts bigger, or make the Elemental overload procs more flashy. That is pretty much the only way mastery will actually be observed.

[Loveliest]

If we're talking about boring stats, do away with versa. On my char both mastery and versa do about the same thing anyway... (yes, the defensive component included).

[Kalisandra]

Nope thanks. Simple masteries are usually very good like the ret one. When the most "advanced" are bad like eleshaman or survival hunter.

That's usually a matter of tuning, and sometimes simple masteries have been bad (Frost DK's was bad for a long time because it did nothing for their main attack).

I think there is room for both simple masteries and more complex ones. Even the simple ones can do things like change stat priorities and talent choices or even rotations over the course of an expansion. For example, with low levels of mastery Rets and Frost DKs care less about things that boost attacks that do Holy or Frost, but as the level of gear (and thus mastery) rises they start looking to stack mastery and things that boost their Holy/Frost damage and they prioritise physical attacks less.

Now, over time Blizzard has made this sort of effect weaker by doing things like making damage from trinkets, even if it's got the right type (e.g. Holy for Ret) not be buffed by things like mastery.

Also, before messing with masteries that fundamentally work, if not in exciting ways, I think Blizzard needs to take a long look at how rotations work these days. There's not a huge range, though it's not as bad as Legion where almost everyone was just 'build and spend' (some Affliction builds being the obvious exception). Maybe introduce more "when X procs, Y comes off CD" effects, and so on. Currently most of the things that do that are "a chance when X hits that Y comes off CD", with no interaction with gear stats. This is much easier to balance and doesn't change in effect over the course of an expansion, but it's why characters don't seem to feel as cool at high gear levels (for a given expansion) without extra stuff like corruptions. Yes, this meant things got a bit degenerate in the final tier of an expansion after everyone had the cool gear, but so what? Progression is done by then and there's nothing to do but push PvP ratings and sit out the long wait to the next expansion. Besides, final-tier trinkets, tier set bonuses, and such (and in BfA corruptions) made things mental anyway.

[Xorzor]

If we're talking about boring stats, do away with versa. On my char both mastery and versa do about the same thing anyway... (yes, the defensive component included).

I would have Versatility changed depending on the role you play. The primary function would be at 1% whilst the secondary functions would be at 0.5%. So a tank with 8% Versatility would take 8% less damage, while also doing 4% more damage and healing.

For Mastery, the basic ones could use some spicing-up. Retribution Paladins could be changed to have a chance (per % of Mastery) to fire a Divine Tempest (like the Legion artifact trait) whenever they use a Holy Power spender. That's just off of the top of my head.

[Blackmist]

WoW stats are all boring. I don't see why Mastery should be the exception, nor how your suggestion would magically make them "interesting" again.

They're points and if you have more of them you do more damage. There's no breakpoints, hardcaps or softcaps. They can't be interesting. This is by design.

[Skorpionss]

But no one pays attention to them because they all contribute to our overall power and toughness and that's in the end what matters. They could've mixed spell/attack power, hit, expertise, crit, and offensive masteries into an overall power stat and defense/parry/block/dodge/etc into an overall toughness stat like D3 did and it would've make a difference.

You obviously don't know what the fuck you're talking about in regards to D3 so maybe don't talk about it.

[Exkrementor]

Mastery should be an interesting stat. It should provide choice and gameplay. For example: Shadowpriest mastery in WoD increased the damage of single target spells. It was a useless stat multitarget but pretty good singletarget. You could build a haste/crit set for multitarget and a mastery set for singletarget. That was nice.

Masteries like "all your spells do 2% more damage" are fucking boring. Crit and Vers already do that.

I think the elemental mastery is alright, if it was good numerically. Fire mage is ok, balance is ok and the windwalker mastery is also pretty good. Its a flat damage bonus but it alters your gameplay.

[whyabadi]

Maybe a second type of mastery (called Expertise maybe? :>) that affects a different part of your class rotation/mechanics. Simple or complex depending on the spec. Examples:

• Discipline Priest: Atonement healing increased.
• Fire Mage: Fireblast and Combustion cooldown reduced.
• Subtly Rogue: Damage from stealth/while in stealth increased.
• Restoration Druid: Periodic effects stronger.
• Restoration Shaman: Healing from totems increased.
• Vengeance Demon Hunter: Heal for a percentage of all fire damage done.
• Survival Hunter: Increase all physical damage done.
• Fury Warrior: Attack speed increased.

[dope_danny]

Mastery has always felt like a band aid fix they never got around to solving. Its either "this outright makes the spec better and you NEED it" or its just there. Say what you want about complexity of itemisation but at least in WoW classic you mouse over something and it just says "this makes you dodge better" or "this makes you do more damage with X" and its not perfect but no matter your class you know what the stat does and if you want it or not based on class. Mastery on the other hand isn't even a per class issue its a per spec issue. They tried to roll stats, passive and in a few cases scrapped talent tree elements into a dump stat and even when it works its so boring.

Part of me thinks used to think it just stuck around so they had to make less gear to lighten the workload. But now you can have a piece that gives you different stats based on spec that itself seems like a redundant thought.

I guess in general it feels on the wrong side of simplicity where it veers into simply "not interesting" when your option is top or bottom stat weight and the choices is made for you rather than "man thats a nice new helm, but i am giving up some crit for some haste, do the other stats offset that?" where you feel like the stats matter more than just "number go bigger brrrr"

[Razion]

Specs change all the time, you'd forever switching and trying to rebalance it again.

I think difficulty identity is something that's a bit more rigid. It's safer to base the mastery around the general vibe of difficulty of a spec because this perspective is generally set in stone when a spec gets a hard revmp rather than small tweaks or changes some talent prefs. Even if a spec normally easy becomes temporarily difficult, it still can carry an identity of being easy. That sort of identity carries over perpetually over time.

When I say the mastery should reflect the difficulty of the spec, I'm being general to the expectation of the spec as a whole, not in regards to how it is at any given second. That'd be absurd.

[bledgor]

I would have Versatility changed depending on the role you play. The primary function would be at 1% whilst the secondary functions would be at 0.5%. So a tank with 8% Versatility would take 8% less damage, while also doing 4% more damage and healing.

For Mastery, the basic ones could use some spicing-up. Retribution Paladins could be changed to have a chance (per % of Mastery) to fire a Divine Tempest (like the Legion artifact trait) whenever they use a Holy Power spender. That's just off of the top of my head.

As someone who plays warlock, and did so when destro had the full 0-X% chance to proc, a proc based mastery feels fucking awful and unless super OP will be avoided. Just the unreliable nature makes it so you dont want to have a chance of doing 10%+ less damage based on procs pull to pull, and if they normalize the proc rate you either get destro with guaranteed half affect or ele.

I do think that mastery could be done better, I always envisioned demonology having a mastery that you get Y% chance to summon a demon, with it stacking per a soul shard spent, so that as you get more mastery you get a guaranteed demon on hand of guldan cast, and maybe the final tier you enter the territory of having a small chance to summon 2 demons, that way it is somewhat controlled/easier to balance, and while it doesn't change the rotation of demonology it fits the flavor and has a visual effect to it.

Affliction is a bit harder, though a boring one would be the longer your dots are on the target than more damage they do, but with pandemic it feels a bit bad. Could make it like while your dots are on 1 target, do more damage, while your dots are on 2+ targets, they tick faster.

For destro honestly I think they should have made the talent soul conduit the mastery, a chance to refund a soul shard fits right into the destro play style/chaotic feel they want while making it affect the rotation a bit.

[Jujudrood]

Mastery should mean "how good you are at your given craft", right?
If you have more mastery, it is assumed you are better than someone else with less, you tend to be more efficient/effective, which in turn usually means a better overall output.
Flat damage increases are just that; an overall better performance (given static conditions otherwise, ofc).
I don't hate them, but some flavor wouldn't be terrible.

Like, for frost DK, it's just "do more frost damage", which is fine but as a proc-based class, what if mastery increased the odds of a proc?
Maybe something like "swirling winds" where it rotates between then so it starts with boosting the chance of howling winds, then once a howling winds proc happens, it increases the chance of obliterate until that happens then goes back.
It adds an RNG element to your play that would give you more procs, which in turn change what button you press.
It's a rather simple change and concept, and with proper balance (lol) it could be an interesting change and make gameplay a little more interesting.

[Alroxas]

What do you think? Leave all of them the way they are? Make others more interesting?

Mastery is pretty much just another knob (like Versatility) that allows for the game devs to tune classes power progression. The linear effect of Mastery is actually a good thing compared to the power curve of critical strike or haste.

Especially now with DR for secondaries this helps the game keep in check instead of having more broken classes which stacked secondaries. Case in point: Corruptions in BFA towards the end of BFA.

[thesmall001]

Some of the biggest mistakes that lead us to the watered down class/stat homogeny we see today was the desire for stats to be balanced per spec. Snapshotting, Expertise soft-capping and the brief foray into Multistrike as a stat-driven way to increase certain on-hit proc chances, Armour Penetration caps (arguably, this has been replaced by Versatility and DR soft-caps) and, most importantly imo, allowing Mastery to be better or worse value based on how effectively you play your spec.

There's definitely value in the consideration some of us make today about what stats are better for what content. PvP has gone overboard with the value of Versa, to the point of it not being a choice, but some classes favour Haste or Crit for MT whilst favouring another stat for ST or Burst/Sustain. This is a good place to be but it does still feel like you're checking a list to see how your class fits into a standard template rather than learning the specific strengths and weaknesses of your class.

I actually think understanding that classes have strengths and weaknesses and don't need to be balanced in every scenario is healthier for the game, as it removes false expectation from the players, and baking that into the game mechanically is a good idea. Though providing this information in-game would be much better than leaving it up to guide writers to math out and disseminate. There's always been an illusion of choice, better to accept that and steer into classes being fun and accessible (not easy, but accessible) despite them being largely on rails.