Cataclysm Stat & System Changes!
Written by Wildchild.

Quote from: Eyonix

As many of you know from panels at last year’s BlizzCon and posts here on the forums since then, Cataclysm will bring about major changes to familiar character stats such as Intellect, Armor Penetration, Defense, and others, ultimately designed to make the effects of stats more easily understandable and make gear choices more interesting. As these changes will have a significant impact on how stats work and relate to one another, today we wanted to offer you a closer look at exactly what’s in store and explain some of the rationale before Cataclysm arrives.

The most obvious question these changes raise is “Why are stats being changed, and why now?” As the game has matured, we’ve run into increasingly complex issues with the current stat system. Many stats are inherently confusing, and the way they interrelate can feel convoluted. Attack Power, for example, currently translates to damage, but so does Armor Penetration. Defense provides five different statistical benefits of varying utility. Mana regeneration involves understanding multiple stats and rules and often ends up being irrelevant anyway. In addition, the difference between a “good stat” for a class and a “bad stat” can be extreme. Some casters want Haste but not Crit; hunters want Armor Penetration but not Haste. There are other overarching issues, as well, such as Intellect not being very exciting for casters despite it being a core stat — and these are just a few examples.

Our ultimate goal is make gear a more interesting (and less confusing) choice by making each stat valuable to more players. While the reasoning behind some of the following changes may be clear, we understand that you may have questions about some of the less obvious alterations, and we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have here on the forums.

What You’ll See on Gear

Stamina – Because of the way we will be assigning Strength, Agility, and Intellect, non-plate wearers will end up with more Stamina than before. Health pools will be much closer between plate-wearers and other classes.

Spirit – Come Cataclysm, this stat should only be found on healing gear. Non-healing casters will have other systems in place to regenerate mana, and we are designing special solutions for Elemental shaman and Balance druids who often share gear with healers (more on this below). Raid buffs that currently boost Spirit (such as Blessing of Kings) will only boost the primary stats of Stamina, Strength, Agility, and Intellect. We are also likely changing the five-second rule and other quirks of the current regen system.

Intellect – Intellect will now grant Spell Power (more on this below). Intellect will also provide less mana than it currently does.

Haste – Haste will become more attractive for melee classes by allowing them to recover resources such as energy and runes more quickly. Our intention is for Haste to let you “do stuff” more often.

Block Rating – Block is being redesigned to scale better. Blocked attacks will simply hit for 30% less damage. Block rating will improve your chance to block, though overall block chances will be lower than they are today.

Parry – Parry no longer provides 100% avoidance and no longer speeds up attacks. Instead, when you parry an attack, it and the next attack will each hit for 50% damage (assuming they hit at all). In other words, Dodge is a chance to avoid 100% of the damage from one attack, Parry is a chance to avoid 50% of the damage from two attacks, and Block is a chance to avoid 30% of the damage from one attack.

Mastery – This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It’s directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We’ll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.

Armor – The way Armor mitigates damage is not changing, but the Armor stat has been rebalanced to mirror changes to the armor curve in Cataclysm. As a result, bonus Armor will go down slightly overall. We are also changing the mitigation difference among armor types so that plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth.

Resilience – This will only affect damage done by players and critical damage done by players. It will not impact crit chance, mana drains, or other such effects.

Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating – These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this list, in general these will function similarly to how they do now, though the details — such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) — are likely to change.

Being Removed from Items

Attack Power – This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does.

Spell Power – Spell Power is another stat that you’ll no longer see present on most items. Instead, as mentioned above, Intellect will grant Spell Power. One exception is that caster weapons will still have Spell Power. This allows us to make weapons proportionately more powerful for casters in the same way they are for melee classes.

Armor Penetration – This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.

Shield Block Value – This stat will no longer be present on items, since the amount blocked is always proportional to the amount of damage done. Talents and other effects might still modify the damage-reduction percentage from 30%, however.

Going Away Completely

MP5 – This stat will be removed from the game completely. Holy paladins and Restoration shaman will be redesigned to benefit from Spirit.

Defense – Defense is being removed from the game entirely. Tanking classes should expect to become uncrittable versus creatures just by shifting into Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, or by using Righteous Fury.

Spell Ranks – Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level. The levels at which you can learn certain spells are being changed in order to fill in some of the gaps, and we will be introducing some new spells to learn along the way as well.

Weapon Skill – This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.

What Else You Should Know

Combat ratings – All ratings will be much harder to “cap out” at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.

Reforging – While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don’t want more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.

Gems – We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow. We’ll have more details on this in the future.

Changes to Existing Gear

As with previous expansions, we plan to roll out these changes and modify all existing gear shortly before Cataclysm launches, though it’s still too early to say exactly when. For the most part, the gear you have will still be good for you, though there will be exceptions, such as warriors using leather and mail armor.

If you are a tank (druids excepted), expect to see:

* No more Defense on gear. Existing Defense becomes Dodge, Parry, or Block Rating.
* No more Block Value on gear. Existing Block Value becomes Block Rating.
* You’ll have as much Stamina as you’re used to, though you may notice your tanking plate has a bit less Stamina than a comparable piece of DPS plate, since we tend to take the gem budget out of your most attractive stat.
* Bonus Armor on gear will go down slightly.

If you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:

* A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
* Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
* Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina.Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
* No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.

If you are a DPS caster, expect to see:

* A lot more Stamina.
* All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
* No Spirit. You won’t miss Spirit, though, because you won’t need it for DPS or mana regen.

If you are a healer, expect to see:

* A lot more Stamina.
* All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
* Spirit instead of MP5. You’ll probably be happy with Spirit, though, because mana regen is going to matter more than it does currently. Healing paladins and shaman will benefit more from Spirit than they do currently.

If you are a Balance druid or Elemental shaman:

* You will still share gear with Restoration druids and shaman.
* Your gear will have Spirit on it. It won’t have Hit on it.
* You will have a talent that converts Spirit to Hit. We will adjust talents accordingly so that you want about as much Spirit as, say, a warlock wants Hit.
* Hit on rings and other such gear will still benefit you.
* Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs.

Many lower-level items with nonsensical combinations of stats, such as Agility and Spirit, will be changed. We’re also updating quest rewards, trade skills, and loot drops to support better itemization for class builds that weren’t widely available or used prior to The Burning Crusade (such as Balance druids).

We’re aware this is a lot of information to take in, but this is still only a piece of the larger picture, and many of these changes rely on integration with other systems we haven’t yet discussed in detail. In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll continue to tell you more about these changes, along with all of the new and exciting features we have planned for Cataclysm.

(Source)

89 Comments so far

  1. Dravmal
    March 1st, 2010

    | 3:19 pm

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  2. March 1st, 2010

    | 4:55 pm
    i wonder how the defense to parry/dodge/block will scale seeing how DKs have no block chance to begin with.

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  3. DG
    March 1st, 2010

    | 5:10 pm
    Wow, it looks as if all gearing and stat analysis is going to be “dumbed” down… I personally enjoyed the challenge of piecing together the perfect set of gear. It added another element of challenge to the game. It sounds as if the way different toons are processing stats is going to be made equal pretty much across the board? If this is the case what is the point in different classes of tanks, etc? I know the ultimate goal is to make gearing easier for younger players, but at the same time the more mature audience is going to grow bored. Perhaps it is time to release WoW jr? :)

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  4. Beowin
    March 1st, 2010

    | 5:31 pm
    I agree with DG. Piecing the right gear together, the right gems gave the game a sense of personal preferences andallowed the player to play the way he/she was more comfortable. Dumbing the stats down so that everything is decided for you poses no challenge … making casters have higher stamina is absurd. Most thinking classes, ie mages, priest, have lower constitutions, don’t “work out” or exercise like warriors or paladins. Why should they have higher stamina than a tank? That is why they are casters from a DISTANCE, not close range melee. Leveling the playing field, as you put it, gives casters more advantages over plate wearers. This makes no sense.

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  5. March 1st, 2010

    | 6:06 pm
    As an arcane mage with 414 hit rating, having less stats to need to stack and prioritize will be a blessing. Being able to roll on gear that is your right armor type, with few exceptions will be great. Itemization being what it is, I commonly don’t even roll on 251/264 upgrades because they are worse then what is available in the 245 bracket because of drastic differances in itemization.

    I do admit being able to mix and match stats is fun, but needing to balance SP, Haste, Crit, Hit, Spirit, Sockets, Int, HP, MP5 is alot to keep track of, especially if you are trying to maintain or achieve tier set bonuses.

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  6. Mareth
    March 1st, 2010

    | 6:38 pm
    Well, guess being a Melee DPS is still easy enough. Only major difference i notice for my Plate gear is no more ArP, but that’s not common anyways, at least not from what i see. Glad i already know how to stack Strength Gems!

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  7. Gozerian
    March 1st, 2010

    | 6:46 pm
    I agree with DG. Part of the draw of this game for me is getting my stats just right, and seeing how they are simplifying things makes me sad. I’ll probably quit soon.

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  8. Geezer
    March 1st, 2010

    | 8:02 pm
    Eww holy palas with spirit again =/

    This dumbing down is seriously going quite far and I think will make getting and personalising your gear not as fun anymore..

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  9. Sylvyn
    March 1st, 2010

    | 9:48 pm
    *** We are also changing the mitigation difference among armor types so that plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth. *** That section just doesn’t seem to make sense. Why bother to have plate in the game then? The idea is for plate wearers, tanks or melee dps, to be up close and personal. Traditional RPG has 4 types of armor for 4 different levels or protection for a reason. Different classes have different jobs that require different equipment. Why not have tanks just wear cloth, or better yet, have the cloth casters tank. I don’t agree with that armor change.

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  10. Nik
    March 1st, 2010

    | 10:36 pm
    DG hit the nail on the head… they are essentially taking the unique characteristics of stats out… I also don’t really like the idea of hunters using energy but hey, i guess we have to give and take stuff.

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  11. Bebenodark
    March 1st, 2010

    | 10:56 pm
    As if the game hasn’t been nerfed enough already, they’re taking out the ‘thinking about gear’ component which at the moment differentiates a good player from an bad one. Taking out gems? Why not just send the same set of gear to everyone and be done with it? It’s bad enough that the process of obtaining gear has been simplified so much (keep in mind that it was more simple than TBC to begin with). Having the hero gear and badges and nerfing instances would have been enough, but now we have frost emblems practically in the mail. In my opinion the post Ulduar nerf was the biggest mistake ever made. At present, gear has ceased from being a viable factor in determining people who can actually play the game, but taking out the ability to gem would obstruct its relevance entirely. Next step would be removing enchants! It’s understandable enough that Blizzard is trying to attract even more people but certainly by dumbing the game down it would lose the more mature, experienced players (I’m sure none of the major guilds would be interested in getting a word-first in Tick-Tack-Toe!). Perhaps WoW is indeed starting to look towards the ‘younger’ segment and perhaps it’s time for us to find another MMO that satisfies our needs.

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  12. Nerul
    March 1st, 2010

    | 11:15 pm
    This is Rediculous, as a tank, losing defence and shareing similar HP with other classes is going to Ruin the game for me. the only way to tell if your tank was good, was HP and the ability to know what Def capped and mitigation was good for them. So basically, we should all roll only on pvp gear and anyone can do anything….. Whats next, mage tanks? if this is how the stat changes are goin to work, im no longer playing.

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  13. Din
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 12:16 am
    Just dumb the game down more Blizzard why don’t you. What happened to having to have skill to obtain gear. While obtaining this gear you knew what it was suppose to be for in the first place.

    I agree with DG, I liked the challenge of know what gear fit well with my type of game play. They are just making the game to easy and it will become less fun.

    Why can’t we just go back to vanilla.

    =/

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  14. thewanderinggnome
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 2:04 am
    As a combat rogue with fairly decent gear I have a fear that these changes in stats, in particular AP and armor pen, will remove any sort of difference in the various rogue trees, it almost seems with the removal of these stats we will be typecast into an assassination build (which I don’t enjoy playing as much). I concede that haste sounds to be more useful, but in reality overall I am feeling that rogues are going to be typecast into the inferior agility melee stuck in substandard armor (as far as defense goes) with skyrocketing agi because no one wants it.
    So we are getting more stamina on our gear…so what when too many creatures can one shot me on a crit for 10k or more of my hit points? I’m not a tank, I never intended to be, and with how ICC nerfs dodge (which I might wrongfully conjecture) will continue in the future, extra stam only means that I die just as quickly cause I’m not a plate wearer with any sort of real armor value (hell, I have a level 50 hunter who’s tanking pet has higher armor than I do as a level 80).
    These changes announced do not inspire confidence in my individuality in the upcoming expansion, even though this information is in the earliest stages. This announcement, I believe rightfully so, has struck a nerve in the community which I have conversed and raised fear of wide scale nerfing in the near future. Although I believe the WoW staff thought that this announcement would excite people about the future I think they have misunderstood what this information would do to the community, ie: make them wonder why they should keep playing if their work won’t mean nearly as much anymore.

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  15. JackNapier
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 5:55 am
    It’s to bad that blizzard doesnt think that they are making enough money yet out of the 15 million people that play it as of now, so they have to dumb it down for the illiterate hillbillies, so blizzard can collect their 15 dollars a month. Greed. Oh well, ladies and gentlemen prepare for more hunters in the game, by the name of billybob, jimbob, joebob..etc.. Sadly that blizzard thinks that their intelligence surpasses everyone else that plays. Here’s an idea, if people dont understand their character re-roll, or erase the game from your computer go outside and look at the sun and enjoy life, cause the game isnt made for everyone, that was once the joy of the game. now its slowly been made easier and easier, and now their is nothing but a bunch of people with high gearscores that dont know how to play their class, dont know what a rotation is let alone fallow one, but blizzard couldnt be more happy..As long as they get that 15 dollars a month..Ah well

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  16. Zed
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 8:26 am

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  17. Terask
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 8:48 am
    I agree with Dg as many others do.. simplifying gear to where everyone is cookie cutter is lame. but then again there is a BIS for every class at current time.. but making gear simpler is not gonna attract your high end raiders anymore.. lot of them like the number crunching and gear theorycrafting.

    good thing ffxiv is just down the road eh.

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  18. Beerend
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 9:09 am
    Balancing gear is an exiting part of the game, and personally from this post I don’t get the idea that blizzard is going to completely ruin that. Rather I’m getting the impression (not just from this particular post but the cataclysm info in general) that the point they’re trying to make, is to differentiate the gear of one tank and another.

    In other words, right now a paladin tank can really only do so much as gem stamina, enchant stamina/defense, roll on stamina/defense gear and thats it. I’m currently under the impression that maybe there will be more possibilitys and not so much a consensus among all players of what gear/spec/gem or enchant set is best.

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  19. Dave
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 9:18 am
    Gosh you people can whine…

    They’re not going to suddenly give clothies 50,000 HP, and we’re not going to see mage tanks. But think about it like this. I have a B-Elf Mage, 80, with reasonable gear and 18k HP. There’s bosses that do randomly-targeted one shot damage of 15k or more! And thats in Lich King … so the Cataclysm bosses are gonna be tougher, and meaner, and do much more damage. clothies are not going to stand a chance. So all that they’re doing is saying ‘okay lets lessen the chances of some classes dying significantly more often in a raid / dungeon environment than other classes’

    In theory, what i’m saying shouldn’t matter, because (in theory) the tank is supposed to absorb ALL the damage, the DPS is supposed to deal damage, and the healer is supposed to keep the tank alive. The reality of it is that healers and other clothies tend to get killed too quickly if they are randomly targetted, or are victim of even a slight tank mistake or threat pull.

    I don’t claim to be a great player, but this has happened to me many times, where I’ve wished that I could last just a couple of seconds when things go wrong.

    Having said that, i’m not hugely in favour of the ‘dumbing down’ of stats but I do like the ability to turn excess hit into haste. However, as I was levelling up I always never knew quite what I was doing, why did i need Stat X, is it more important than Stat Y, and what’s the difference between Stat Y and Stat Z? They’re not taking away your precious ability to balance the perfect gear, nor gem properly. They are removing the redundancy in statistics which is now becoming more and more out of control every time they introduce new content.

    A tank gets gear with lots of stamina on it. So there’s no defense, but there’s more stamina. Plate items, oddly enough, happen to be the only type of gear with this much stamina. Some cloth/leather/mail items have stamina too, but it’s significantly less. Tanky items (read: plate) will also have additional block rating on it. A healer item (read: also plate) will have … oh wait … less Stamina and more Spirit!

    On the other hand, mages and warlocks will wear cloth items that don’t actually HAVE stamina on them, or have just a little bit, but have lots of intellect. But because of the new HP Stamina curves, a clothies ability to get a bit more HP with relatively low stamina stats is made better. But a clothie will never be able to tank a boss. In fact, just like now, a clothie will still not be able to solo even a simple instance 5-10 levels below us like plate wearers can.

    Once again, I hope they don’t take it too far. We don’t want to end up in a situation where classes are pretty much all the same. But really people, wait to actually SEE how it’ll work before whining about how crap it’s going to be. You might actually find it more rewarding that way.

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  20. Damnslin
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 9:50 am

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  21. Damnslin
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 9:51 am

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  22. Damnslin
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 9:55 am

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  23. GS
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 10:03 am
    So it sounds like it would be a good idea for hunters to start ignoring the intellect stat when choosing gear so that when the gear “converts” for Cataclysm, they will be better off in the exchange.

    Hot debate. What do you think? Thumb up 20 Thumb down 21

  24. Obtimist
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 11:00 am
    The game is enought fun right now. BUT it might be much more fun than wotlk. Lets just wait and we will see what it would become!

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  25. deruibard
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 12:37 pm
    So far everything they have proposed sounds pretty good to me. converting hunters to energy im not too sure about since i dont play a hunter but i think it might make it easier in the end. For the one sayin that they are dropping gems you are wrong sir they said they are going to be changing the colors of some gems like hit being blue instead of yellow. The change in haste will be very nice making energy or runes recharge faster. and the reforging gear by changing one stat you dont want to 50% of a stat you like or want more is just another way of everyone having there own customized gear for how they want to play instead of the stale “this spec and gear is what you have to have in order to perform as best as possible.”

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  26. Wildchild
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 12:39 pm
    It was like this when TBC changes were announced. People (including yours truly) were very disappointed, if not annoyed. Then when wotlk changes were announced, people were vary. People are always vary when there are changes about. My playing experience from vanilla wow is the best time i had with the game, but if i were to be honest with myself and you guys, wow is at least 10 times better game then it was back then.

    From my experience, Blizzard has come a long way since vanilla. Yes, they did dumb down the game, but most of the changes were good.

    As for the gear, let me quote one line from the post:

    Reforging – While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don’t want more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.”

    This will let us customize the gear more then we can min max it now with the stats available. There is always a fear that blizzard will “brake” the game we love, but i don’t think that’s going to happen. Time will tell i guess.

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  27. I Are Play WoW
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 1:40 pm

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  28. Lolivertwist
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 4:11 pm

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  29. Lolivertwist
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 4:29 pm
    Ooops, sorry, as i was about too say. I am very devided when it comes too if i like the ideas of the up-coming expansion. Lets start with the Likes:Haste is getting better. as an 80 enhance shaman i love haste and if it means i can click my rotation quicker then thats great! This would also show skill as you would need too be quicker with re-action times. 2. Thank god wep skills are going! There is nothing more anoying than getting my lovely new 1 handed axe from ICC then having too waste 1 hour of my time leveling it up so i can use it. 3. The mastery stat does look nice, it brings somthing unique, it does not “dumb” the game down, As you need too know what your doing too pick the talents in the first place! Also as a non-plate wearing meele dps i always end up gettiny beaten up by crazy aoe, while those smug plate wearers take much less damage than me :P . And i guess it must be worse for rogues. Ok the bad stuff: Yes there is a dumbing down of stats. Its good too know that you have a tank that know defence caps. It does provide a little confidence in the tank. I feel it will be too easy too get gear as a tank and may spur on mindless stam stacking. As a meele dps i love my Attack power and Armor pen :( OI like the complexitys it brings too the game and the drive you get from it. I think the simple way too explain this is i feel that it will be too easy too be good at the game.

    Lets be honest, Gear is not everything, skill is shown when you raid and arena you will always be able too see the ones that shine and know there stuff. As they are the ones that are not dieng in lava waves and green circles on the floor, theyw ill be the ones with the high dps, as they know there rotation and class. And im sure as the expansion comes out. Things will smooth out and and you wont just be stacking 1 stat! Anyway good old expertise and hit is still there too muddle you guys up :P

    reply asap! :)

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  30. Exesum
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 5:00 pm
    Relax guys. We’ll see how it turnes out.If we don’t like it,we’ll march outside SW Keep until they hotfix it back,but I doubt we’ll have to.

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  31. Elanthos
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 8:40 pm

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  32. Elanthos
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 9:52 pm
    Also, speaking as a caster dps, I don’t really want a lot more Stamina. I’ve got quite enough thanks, to survive Koralon and Marrowgar… always assuming I don’t do something stupid like stand in red shit, and assuming the raid healers top me up when needed. This really is a nonsense. There *should* be a significant difference between classes that can tank and classes that are only going to cast.

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  33. warmunger
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 11:26 pm

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  34. jon
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 11:28 pm
    i have been raiding and always will be raiding i know my class i play a mage i have to agree that the stamina being equal too a plate wear dosnt make any sens. i will miss that fact of knowing what iteam you need and trying to get that iteam from a boss becuase u need the hit or something ext.. yes the gear is nice but in the end to me its not about the gear its about raiding and downing boss’s makeing progression staying up late with your guild wipeing on a boss over and over agin and then when you finaly down him getting that feeling in side like holy **** we downed him.
    but i do understand peoples points in the stats change and the armour/stamina

    dont mind the bad spelling <3

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  35. Elanthos
    March 2nd, 2010

    | 11:39 pm
    I also agree that there is an inherent problem with how easy it has become to get high-end gear. 1) It means that people are tending to skip content such as Naxx and Ulduar, which seems a waste of that content; 2) It means that the people I’m raiding with in ICC are comparatively inexperienced, and it’s proving hard work; 3) The Heroic dungeons are being farmed at a breakneck speed by overgeared players over and over again until they’re no longer any fun to do; and 4) The pace of the game has become frenetic. People level up to 80 in 2-3 weeks, gear up to ToC level in 1-2 weeks, and start hitting the high-end raids. The game needs to be slowed down a little. Smell the roses. Explore. Do stuff. Have fun.

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  36. Common Sense
    March 3rd, 2010

    | 1:05 am
    QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
    You’re crying about the ’simplification’ when they’re introducing reforging. You can change the stats on a piece of gear. If that’s not customization of stats, I don’t know what is. Quit the QQing and get to adapting. Deviate from what you’ve become used to the past two years. You did it from Vanilla, you did it from BC, and I’ll bet 5000 DKP you’ll do it for Cata.

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  37. Wulfgarr
    March 3rd, 2010

    | 2:32 am

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  38. Taurentom
    March 3rd, 2010

    | 12:11 pm
    In theory… well lets just say it rounds out to screwing up everything known about the game to date, and requires a full revamp of all utilities, DK’s will become an entirely useless tank class as far as avoidances are now concerned, and warriors/pallies will still hold their place. Druids are just druids no changes to them… I wouldn’t be surprised to see one hell of a lot of pissed off “Elitists” who had gotten the “best in slot” gear now to be told “Hey, you tried and did well, but now we’re just giving you a big finger and handing everything to the newbies”

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  39. Druid Heals
    March 3rd, 2010

    | 12:13 pm
    As others have said, we must wait. There are simply too many unforeseen circumstances to make a call as to whether these changes are “good” or “bad”. My guess is that some of the differences will be positive and add greater enjoyment to the game, others will be Fail(Rank 7). Some who are grumbly now will quit, others will be mollified. Regardless, things will change again… and again. Here we say of the weather, “Don’t like it? Wait 10 minutes it’ll change.” WoW, I think, is much the same.

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  40. Phil
    March 3rd, 2010

    | 2:19 pm
    Anyone complaining about tank changes should consider the way that blizzard has already said they’re changing the way tanking bosses works. Right now in the game, stamina stacking is a good, dumb way to keep yourself alive, because more hp results in greater chance to survive huge hits, and healers have plenty of mana to spam you through a lot of incoming damage. In cataclysm, Blizz has already said that bosses are going to hit for a smaller percentage of tank hp totals, and the purpose of the tank is going to shift from surviving huge hits that would massively overkill a non-tank to avoiding a maximum amount of damage over time so that healers can conserve mana (for those of you who aren’t familiar with mana, it’s a stat that blizz has decided to re-implement for healers in cataclysm. joke.). These stat changes are NOT going to mean that tanks are going to dumbly stack stamina (as they currently do); if things work the way that blizz has stated, avoidance is going to start mattering in a less trivial way.

    Also, clothies are NOT going to have the same stamina as tanks. You’re misreading the post. And learn to spell, please.

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  41. John
    March 3rd, 2010

    | 4:57 pm
    I have been playing WOW for over 2 years now (although only really got serious in the last 9 months or so).

    One of the main reasons for it’s addictiveness, in my opinion, is that there is something for everyone in it. Be it that your into graphics, game play, gear, tactics, problem solving, leading or following. Even within the differant quests there is something for everyone. I doubt if anyone can honestly say that they are a master of all aspects of WOW.

    This is why, certainly for me and im sure for many others this is also true, I’m returning month after month renewing my subscription. For the challenge of being able to change my emphasis, be it role playing, changing gear around to see what suites, raids or simply just socialising with other players.

    If you remove or over-simplify an aspect of it, e.g. stats or gems, you lose part of the challenge. So WOW listen up and smell the coffee! You may get lots more passing trade, but your profit (as with any buisiness) is in “Regulars”.

    Without the challenge this will be just another video game, hmm, where did I put my X-Box?

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  42. Belurhawk
    March 3rd, 2010

    | 7:06 pm
    I agree with Dave. Wait until it comes out. There are too many variables, and I’m sure WOW is planning on scaling stats and other things like they have done in the past. It’s only been improved over time, like wine. Gotta remember, that alot of the WOW employees are gamers too. Who do you think made it. I’ve heard people grumble with info like this out early on, but then the beta testers come out and they’re amazed to the changes. Come on guys, give it a chance and have an open mind. I’m the many changes WOW made over the years have been from many of us gamers.

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  43. D
    March 3rd, 2010

    | 10:52 pm
    First of all, I was on board with the QQ going on about how easy it was to get gear. Then, I realized I was being stupid. You guys are crying that people are getting gear too easy and they’re inexperienced and they’re raiding but don’t know what they’re doing, blah blah blah. Anybody who’s in an actual raiding guild understands fully that, if they’re good, they’ve carried a ton of people through content. I’ve carried people through Naxx, OS, and ToC. That’s easy gear that people have gotten who aren’t good, just fortunate to be grouped with myself and other good raiders.

    Second, as far as the gear thing goes, the “dumbing down” of gear just makes it easier for you to be able to roll on pieces dropped by bosses. On my mage, I pass on alot of stuff because it’s got hit on it, or I’d be losing haste for crit. I could go through an entire 10 or 25 man and not see a single upgrade. This way, most of the gear will be an upgrade. And if it’s not, maybe I can reforge it into something I can use. And, let’s face it, how much gear balancing do most people do? “Um, I don’t need hit, so I pass.” “Um, that has haste, so I want it.” “Um, that has crit but no armor pen, so I pass.” Please. Here’s what mages do, use 2 SP/spirit gems for meta, then stack SP gems. Assas. rogues stack AP. Combat rogues stack Agility. If you think that getting the right gear and balancing it is complicated, you probably are one of those people getting carried.

    And, finally, as far as the stamina thing goes, I’m sure it has to do more with dps classes. Why does a pally, DK, or warrior dps need more stamina than a rogue or enh. shammy? All five of them are melee classes, but in the same level gear, a rogue will have 3-4k less health. Why does that make sense? Why does a hunter have 2-4k more health than any other casting class? Why does any of that make sense to anybody? Tanks will still have more life. I doubt that tanks and casters will be sporting 50k health.

    P.S. to the guy who thinks they should get rid of resilience, you must not pvp. Oh, and defense isn’t complicated. 540 and bosses don’t crit on you. Under 540 and bosses can crit on you. Pretty simple.

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  44. The Napster
    March 4th, 2010

    | 2:07 am
    This is dumb, They are trying to equal out the classes of armor to be more equal, but isnt the point of a tank to be able to take more damage and have higher health? Isn’t a healer valuable because they are really easy to kill and need to be protected more? Also with the removal of defence rating and having no stat to cap in order to be “uncrittable” then any joe blow will be able to be a tank whenever they feel like it, no skill required. Apparently what bliz is trying to do is to take all the thinking out of wow, which i beleive is what is making it interesting. It is not meant to be a pick up and go win-fest. I miss the days when hitting the level cap “Meant something”.

    Also removing the weapon skill is dumb, anyone can switch any weapons whenever they want. That is about like saying someone who is great at baseball, but has never played basketball before can pick up a basketball and instantly be pro at that also. Takes a bit of meaning out. Self scaling spells also takes the thinking out of going to train because they are always what they should be.

    I dont like the direction this game has taken at all. Patch 3.2 started uber nerfing and removed all aspects of difficulty about the game. Very soon it will come down to 3 buttons and a red line to guild you directly to 80.

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  45. Elanthos
    March 4th, 2010

    | 5:13 am
    No, I don’t pvp a whole lot, but I understand the advantage of resilience-stacking to pvp-ers in the current game system. I’m merely advocating the removal of a complex stat that affects a whole lot of different things all at once, as a way of simplifying things. I don’t think it would affect balance a lot, since everyone would be in the same boat. And I’m not talking about the simple removal of a stat from the existing game system — I’m talking about it being part of a complete restructuring of the stats system (as Blizzard are suggesting Cataclysm will be). Any imbalances could be worked through in testing.

    As to your comments about defense being simple, you obviously don’t fully understand the defense stat then. It does lots more than simply make you uncrittable — it affects dodge, parry, block, and the chance to be missed. My point is that if your character has a Dodge stat, a Parry stat and a Block stat, these conceptually represent all the actions a character can take in order to avoid being hit, and to have additional stats is just an overcomplication.

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  46. Exesum
    March 4th, 2010

    | 10:50 am

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  47. Exesum
    March 4th, 2010

    | 10:53 am
    As for weapon skill, I think unarmed should stay even if the rest have to go.Makes disarm much more interesting.

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  48. n0s
    March 4th, 2010

    | 11:57 am
    Making everything easier, more “accessible” and more kiddie friendly… sigh.

    Every tom, dick and harry with a tanking weapon is gonna believe he can tank, no more skill required, no more stats needed… Theyre reducing tanks to dps with shields and healers to range dps with healing spells… :(

    I certainly hope not, but tbh cata already feels like a gigantic fail, theyre taking everything in wow in the wrong direction, instead of making progressively harder and harder content as you gain experience, they are lowering the boom on absolutely everything in the game just to please the children whining about having to actually use their brains in a bossfight.

    Blizzard, WoW jr. is a brilliant idea, you are making more money off adults than kiddies anyway.

    Meh enuff QQ, but seriously blizz, you are forgetting that your customer base averages 32 years old.

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  49. March 4th, 2010

    | 1:59 pm
    Based on the posts complaining about WoW being dumbed down more and more, I can only assume that most servers are fullclearing ICC in pugs, and running TOGC to farm Abyss Crystals, and do “Earth, Wind and Fire” weekly just to keep things interesting.

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  50. Tommy D
    March 4th, 2010

    | 2:47 pm

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  51. Pallyzion
    March 4th, 2010

    | 4:40 pm

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  52. Elanthos
    March 4th, 2010

    | 6:47 pm
    Again, I’m surprised at the comment from the person that said that Resilience stat is simple — it actually has a number of different effects. It reduces the chance of receiving a crit, it reduces crit damage, it reduces non-crit damage, and it reduces the effect of mana drains.

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  53. Sifu
    March 4th, 2010

    | 8:40 pm
    Ooooh, so many people who act elitist in these comments and in the same paragraph PROVE they don’t know what they are doing. Bads will be bads regardless. Just look how many DKs you see in SP plate. Stam stacking, ArP stacking, Agil, SP all of it is stacked by classes so don’t act like it is “dumbing down” anything. You all go read the forum stickies or elitistjerks and follow the step by step so don’t act like this is really going to affect you like you say it will. In addition, there is a very real possibility that this will make things MORE complex due to reforging and finding an exact balance between two stats such as haste or crit that was not possible with the “pre-defined” gear. The difference will be that the stats are Obvious WHAT they do for people new to the game. The actual numbers and balances are still in question and more movable than ever.

    I also get SICK of hearing “welfare epics”. Have I seen bads in disgustingly good gear? You bet! And at least half were guilded and raiding. Don’t act like this is a problem with noobs messing up your PuGs just because they suddenly have access to gear they didn’t before. This makes it easier for good guilds to develop alts to get the balances they want or replace members who leave. This also is the only reason that actual new players don’t HAVE to do five years of progression just to see current (anything less than three or so years old) content. It is stupid to think that people act like there are enough new players to make guilds and be at the same level to progress through all the previous raids to “catch up”. The real problem is that most of you think they should never be able to catch up and that is ELITIST and wrong.

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  54. warmunger
    March 4th, 2010

    | 9:58 pm

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  55. Bandera - Terokkar (EU)
    March 5th, 2010

    | 5:21 am

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  56. brolyxl
    March 5th, 2010

    | 8:01 am

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  57. Mir
    March 5th, 2010

    | 8:06 am
    As a raiding healer, I am really conserned about all this stamina buffing they are talking about. While I am sure that they will modify healing spells appropriatly, but still the idea of healing a dps as much as I heal a tank after one of the massive aoe damage fights, this is going to put even more pressure on healers (a group that is already pressured as it is). The idea of quickly hitting a dps with a fast heal, then go back to heal the tank will be gone, since the huge increase in HP. And that isn’t even thinking about warlocks how crazy warlocks will go lifetapping if they have incrediblly high lives (where as we pop a HoT). Overall, very alarming from a healers perspective.

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  58. Exesum
    March 5th, 2010

    | 11:27 am
    Mir’s got a point,but I guess current wow is proof enough Blizzard aint a group of idiots.If the didn’t think of something already, I am sure they will on time, especially with this thread here. Grats Mir,you got the first logical complain.

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  59. Exesum
    March 5th, 2010

    | 11:29 am
    As for Hp, all blizz said is that a tank won’t have 2x the Hp of a plate dps, just 1.5x (as I get it).

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  60. Exesum
    March 5th, 2010

    | 11:32 am
    And dodge-parry-block are getting more complex,not dumped down; it was dodge+parry+block=no hit (roughly). Now,each of them is special.

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  61. AP
    March 5th, 2010

    | 1:16 pm
    There is always gonna be changes, there is nothing anyone can do about this. Unfortunately, there is no way to please everyone. I see some good things coming out of this, and I see some that I find somwhat stupid. I’m not gonna name them, it’s already been done. But personally, Blizzard can do whatever they like, there is no way I’m getting out of this game. this is IT for me. I get to play with and against real people instead of a computer or play station. I get to play with friends, we have lots and lots of fun, I get to socialize with new people. This is the most fun I ever had in a game and unless they take away the ability to play online with other people, I will always play no matter what.

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  62. Sadisticmw
    March 5th, 2010

    | 5:11 pm
    Alot of people are saying that taking out defense will make anyone joeblow think they can tank…. Well, just because they arent defense capped, doesnt mean that they are going to be able to hold aggro, are be able to actually “tank” a fight. It may make it easier to be CAPABLE of tanking, but it wont make tanking any easier, they are still going to know how to tank and hold aggro.

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  63. Pirateer
    March 5th, 2010

    | 6:59 pm
    For all of you that are upset, keep in mind that the game even as it is today has been continuously tweaked over the years based on user feedback. The changes they are making now are most likely not “blizzard” changes per se but changes based on even more feedback. And if those changes don’t work out the way the paying customers want I have no doubt that more adjustments will be made to give the game balance once again. That’s one of the things I like most about this type of game is that it is never the same. It is dynamic, unpredictable, and always-changing. And for all of you that you’re ultra-uber “now” but not when the changes come out just remember everybody else will be in the same boat. This gives you a chance to out-think the next guy and be *way* on top due to your cleverness instead of “sort of” on top due to you reading up on some forum.

    That’s what I think anyway…

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  64. Jakie
    March 5th, 2010

    | 9:49 pm

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  65. Adam
    March 5th, 2010

    | 10:52 pm
    I just hope Blizzard doesn’t mess up with putting out the expansion I love playing the game and all but Blizz is just making it easier and easier which leaves players with not much a challenge but hopefully they don’t mess up and we’ll find a suprise in the expansion that makes us realize why they made so many changes to the game.

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  66. Exesum
    March 6th, 2010

    | 3:02 am
    Besides, ret palas and fury warriors won’t tank due to a new factor: mastery. Stat bonuses for these specs will be incompatible with tanking. Tank specs will keep ruling tanking.

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  67. Coriso
    March 6th, 2010

    | 3:20 am
    I gotta say there is only one thing I am going to be hating. That is Spirit for holy paladins. I play one and I have tried to keep a tank up without healing for 5 seconds… now 2 seconds or something is different but that is horrible.

    Why the hell are you guys whining? This is not gonna kill how you play your class or when you can tell if people know how to play. The only thing this is going to change is make it so you don’t get those idiots in heroics that can only pull 500-1000. So stop qqing and figure it out. The energy for hunters is an amazing thing to. The more haste you have the faster it regens and last I checked alot of hunters get a bit of haste so if they had it right now they would kick alot more ass if you ask me.

    Next is that I have played since vannilla and I know that they have dumbed the game down considerably but they have also increased the depth of the game. Almost no fights are as tough as icc 10/25 except maybe illidan and kil’jaedan were.

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  68. nuss
    March 6th, 2010

    | 3:58 am
    I read this to my guild the day it came out. We all were NOT impressed nor uplifted by the news.

    The tanks (including myself) are concerned with losing talents that gave us our own style of tanking, in order to be “defensed cap”

    The rogue’s are concerned that they will be locked into one talent tree(honestly everyone feels this will result in 3 very strict talent tree’s of leveling pvp and pve/raids)

    the druid casters have no idea what to think other than they aren’t going to be as necessary and are already re-rolling several alts to prepare.

    In other word’s, nobody liked this stat idea. It’s hard enough to weed out the non-raider’s with emblem gear being handed out like soup to hobo’s. Now the only way to tell is to get in there and watch them kill us all in horror.

    This is a mistake and already SW:Kotor is looking like a new home for us.

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  69. Brutalsmerte
    March 7th, 2010

    | 9:55 pm
    Sifu is absolutely right in his comment, but I am also in a split on this. Not that having def.rating every was a difficult balance and when changing gear, the only struggle was to get enough gold to replace a gem or two, to get the balance straight.

    If I were to vote on one or two things, it would be Wow Jr or something even better. Certificates =)
    Like having some sort of trainingcamp, x-amount of runs as healer/tank/dps in different surrounding, testing instances, raids or whatever…and get ratings from it. It might have been a player rating, but since so many youngsters tend to write things like “STFU U n00b” and similar, even if you just kindly greet them in random dungeon finder, I would guess that most would get inaccurate ratings very fast.

    There’s really no easy solution, but there are a few that has some good points here. Sifu says that the good thing about getting good gear fast, is that new players and ALT’s can fill a role and get access to late content in a shorter time than forever. That is a good point, but still…gear was a easy way to tell the difference between ppl. It’s not a static fact, it can fail, but you get a rough hunch.

    Now ppl are topgeared all over, without knowing anything about what they should do to ease everyone elses job in a raid.

    With something close to a rating system, it would be possible to filter out some, so that people that actually make an effort to do good, wont have to wipe around with the failers.
    This ruins the gaming experience for the serious players.

    Anyways. Many interesting things and looking forward to more updates. Especially looking forward to try out haste vs energy regen on my rogue =)

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  70. ectos
    March 8th, 2010

    | 5:14 am
    i am so glad Blizzard is finally doing something for the lowbies. i’ve felt that the last 4 or 5 years i’ve been playing WoW i have to rush to max level to be able to do anything. new low level content? awesome! simplifying gear stats? thank you! seriously, armor/spell pen? never even looked at it. i believe that once everyone cools down from furiously calculating their gear stats and just enjoy themselves, WoW and the players will benefit enormously. thank you Blizzard, this was long over-due.

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  71. Ralith_Darrowmere
    March 8th, 2010

    | 10:11 am
    Brutalsmerte …. has an idea… some form of achievement for your account that lets you list your successful vs. failed number of runs/attempts for each instance/raid would be nice, and even nicer if they could divid it by roles. So your good at tanking but horrible at dps? .. ok… stick with tanking..

    course … baddies could still get carried… but not as much so as a single achievement now gets them carried….

    I don’t believe achievements are required to be successful.. but if we had a statistic counter such as this we could see if some one has repeatedly tried and failed. Maybe cancel out one fail from the record every month to ensure the good ppl dont get counted off from grouping with the fails..

    Just a thought…

    Also.. I am upset with Blizz about all this crap… Melee DPS gear with higher stam than tank gear cause they know we’re gonna gem stam ? … thats not right… should be higher anyways…

    Defense cap just by being in tank form ? … LOTS OF FAIL TANKS INCOMING!!
    Same possibly for other classes… I am leveling a druid now .. and i would want to have to learn the hard way how to heal correctly… if your gonna spoon feed healing to me WHY AM I PAYING 15 a month to just click a button or 2 and win ?

    I do think that having gear vendors and increasing the armor at certain points is smart… Conquest emblems allowed new 80s to get ahead of a bout 6 months of gear that they were behind on … BUT DONT DO IT EVERY TIME A NEW RAID COMES OUT !! then your just screwing over the ppl who worked on the previous one… new 80s could of worked on TOC then went on to ICC… wouldn’t of hurt them none…

    And the game is rated Teen… anyone 13+ should be able to deal with not having their way… if not … they can learn it the hard way… grow up. So don’t dumb it down for the 10 year olds who shouldn’t be playing… imo

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  72. imalevolent
    March 8th, 2010

    | 6:25 pm

    As a warlock there are some things iam very excited about and some things iam very concerned about. Im very excited about the reforging i can finely get rid of the hit i dont need but iam very concerned about not having spirit on my gear since my fel armor converts 30% of spirit to SP iam concerned about how this will affect my build and what the are going to do to balance it out.

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  73. Greystrike
    March 8th, 2010

    | 11:54 pm
    As a one year plus newcomer to WoW I’ve invested a fair amount of time into understanding the game parameters. I see though in just this past year a slide towards the ‘lowest common denominator’ with each new nerf. I understand the ‘need’ to make money….but…

    Market forces being what they are I doubt enough people will drop WoW as a result, without being replaced by an equal number of 10 year olds, to get Blizz’s investor’s attention. Shame that they can’t maintain a ‘purist’ level where the art and theory remain the key to long-term success. I have small disagreements with some of their implementations in specific scenarios…but I think Cataclysm will dumb down to a cookie cutter level and those of us who relish a well thought-out character and raid dynamics will move on…

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  74. March 9th, 2010

    | 5:24 pm

    As someone who enjoys raiding, teamwork, and long term goals, I think WoW is making things too simple too fast. It is too easy to get gear, copy a spec and then blend in with the people that actually learned how to play the game. Trade chat is already an unmoderated x-rated mess, solo-play has limits, particularly if you enjoy soloing on your 80 you invested so much time on. Heroics and farming do have thier place, but I personally don’t consider those enough of a reason to log on alone. Raiding becomes less and less attractive as every raid every week is another round of babysitting half the raid to try to get past a boss. 25 man raids shouldnt be easier when you kick a few people that are geared, and have achievements, but are just so oblivious to game mechanics you do better without them with just a smaller group.

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  75. Exesum
    March 11th, 2010

    | 10:39 am

    Hey, check this out: mastery system details have been revealed. The article is on this forum somewhere, not sure about the URL though.

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  76. Therogueisdeadagain
    March 15th, 2010

    | 11:51 pm

    There really isn’t a lot of personalization you can do with the gear and stats right now as it is. If you want to be top of your role, you stack the stats you are forced to stack. Combat rogues, after hitting the hit cap, stack Armor Pen, ignoring socket bonuses. All gems Armor Pen. If you hit the crit cap, you add a little more hit then go back to ArP. Not a lot of fun, but taking any other stat, while feeling better to you, only nerfs you in your role as DPS.
    Pally tanks have to do the same with stam gems. I’m sure the same failing applies to a number of other classes too. Unfortunately, with the stats as they are now a ‘completely original build and gem set’ more often than not equals a ‘wholly fail toon’

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 3 Thumb down 0

  77. way to easy
    March 16th, 2010

    | 12:08 am

    this game is getting way to easy..these new notes in the xpac..as of right now shown here..are going to make the game even easier, and more boring then it already has become in wotlk..theres very little challenge to this game anymore..i mean u use to have to form solid raiding guilds to do upper teir content..now u can pug ICC the first week it came out and clear half of the place the first night. Cataclysm(as of right now) will probly lessen or destroy the already started process wotlk has become of the love so many people have for this game, and that i and many people i know over a dozen servers have already began to feel or been feeling for months now. i may only be speaking for the harder raider pve types out there, but come on.. i miss the challenge.

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  78. Jjj
    March 16th, 2010

    | 4:15 pm

    Just done quick calculation, i dont understand why BLIZZ want more money about 11,000,000+ have active accounts on WoW, that is £9 x 11,000,000 a mounth! That is nearly (Give or take a few 2million ^^) 1 billion pounds a mounth! Take a out how much they pay they’re workers their still earning atleast 500 million+! Why they need to get more money, im happy with the game, if kids cant play then to bad, why ruin it or the rest of the 18+ players (Most on the WoW population). I think WoW jr would be a great idea! Trade chat might be used for trading!

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  79. March 18th, 2010

    | 10:23 am

    You make the game simpler and easier and you make the game more boring, lose some of the depth and make it less likely that people will continue to play.

    Some players never understand how all the stats work but others investigate them in great depth and become expert. These people are much sought out ingame.

    To me these moves seem more about making life easier for Bliz rather than trying to make the game better for players.

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  80. Tim
    March 18th, 2010

    | 3:44 pm

    I think a new talent system would add something fresh to the game.
    To everyone who feels like they’re taking away from customization, you should consider that they are adding the reforging system, allowing you to change %50 of one stat to another.

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  81. Randkin of Scarlet Crusade
    March 25th, 2010

    | 8:13 pm

    Good lord, grab your torch and pitchfork. Frankly, I understand exactly why they’re changing stats– because it’s more like a micromanagement game than it is an MMORPG. If you like managing Hp, Mana, MP5, Int, Crit, Haste, Spellpower, Spirit, and all that bloody mess then why don’t you go be an accountant, eh? Because that’s what some people feel like playing this game and that’s why they’re making the intertwining stats be “Dumbed down” a little. I for one don’t pay 15 bucks a month to play a Troll Accountant.

    You all haven’t even seen the talent tree changes and how talents will tie into your stats yet like they’ve said it’s going to, not to mention this Path of the Titans thing, nor have you SEEN how the gems are going to affect stats with the changes. And as Tim mentioned, Reforging is going in as well. Stat changes may very well be a way to make things “Too easy” just as well as the various emblem changes–but it may also be a blessing in disguise for you to not have to fret so goddamn much over what stat you HAVE to stack before you can go out and raid again. I’m not afraid of change if it has a promise of being good and it’s silly for the lot of you to be.

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  82. zuese
    March 27th, 2010

    | 12:31 am

    ok, so i get the whole armor thing as far as pvp. as a geared prot warrior, i tend to get the upper hand in a 1v1 situation in pvp. however, the new reform to armor may make the job of a healer a bit difficult in raids. my suggestion would be to make pvp gear… pvp gear, and pve gear… pve gear. example: lets take a mage vs. prot war> between spell reflect, heroic through, intercept, charge, and shield bash(not to mention stuns)… well prot wins. however, if the mage had 2-3 times the armor as they do now, and more stam on the pvp cloth set, it would balance out. there needs to be 2 different stat builds for 2 different aspects of the game. trying to balance them as a whole will never work.

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  83. BobSaget
    March 28th, 2010

    | 11:16 am

    As a warlock with decent gear, I have mixed emotions about the changes. I love the boost in stamina for locks only because we have Life tap which converts stamina to mana so we are running on a never ending mana as long as we have health. I agree with several posts here about the increase being for the boss randoms. I cant tell you how many times I have been doing raids and have been nearly wiped by a boss when he charges or shoots a random flame.
    What I am disappointed about is that I spend several frost and triumph emblems on gear for its bonuses such as spell power as well as gems. To see them wiped away…Now I have to put more gold in for new gems.
    Before I judge too much on Blizzard, I have no choice but to play it out and see exactly how this will work. Might be great, might not.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 2 Thumb down 0

  84. bullits
    March 30th, 2010

    | 8:22 am

    lol

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  85. antsy
    March 31st, 2010

    | 12:18 am

    1 word for it all, absurd, 99% of it makes no sense, your taking the most vital major parts of the game out for a level 80, because of a few kids crying “boohoo i cant figure this out” KIDS, web your toon, know your role, or dont play, either way blizz, youll either lose me, or lose the next guy who cant “figure it out” because you cant PLEASE EVERYONE LIKE YOUR TRYING TO DO WITH THIS CRAP, but personally, it will probaly be me once you unload this crap onto the game and finish ruining it the way you have been slowly the past year, i think youll lose alot more GOOD players this way, way to ruin the game BLIZZ, keep up the bad work !!!

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  86. vixenn
    March 31st, 2010

    | 7:09 am

    did Blizzard do any research into how players would react to the new changes, i only see players annoyed, angry and disappointed, me included, i will quit wow at expansion release, are there any players who are really happy with the new changes? or has Blizzard screwed up wow so much that the number of players will drop loads when people quit and move to other games like Starwars, to me dumbing the game down has killed wow and its a dying game now.

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  87. yr mom
    March 31st, 2010

    | 9:33 am

    so about the gems, i know a few ppl who only gem in armor pennetration, but now it goes away and the gems will become worthless. would suck if we have to gem all the sockets again from new honor or money to replace the old gems or are the gems gonna be converted to stones again so we can make other gems from em?

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  88. quit player
    April 1st, 2010

    | 4:39 am

    Blizzard! you are fools, made this game easier so KIDS can play, congrats you get more kids addicted to a soul sucking life destroying game when they should be studying for a future and at the same time you lose all the imba players who spent time and effort into becoming unique and far superior then other noobs who cant be arsed to learn there class, your taking all the skill out of the game that separates the good from the bad, I loved balancing my stats working out how to improve with little adjustments here and there, I out healed everyone and people couldn’t understand how I managed to be such an imba healer, your taking away the skill and your killing WOW, bet the numbers of players falls quickly with expansion due to more kids playing badly causing more wipes which will just make more adults leave, instead of ruining WOW why didn’t you just release a WOW KIDS version so all us imba players can carry on enjoying WOW. I quit and I was number 1 on server for my class on wow-heroes, Star Wars here I come.

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  89. meeee
    April 27th, 2010

    | 2:58 am

    Thx Blizzard, I used to love this game but making it simple to play for retards has ruined WoW, which made me quit, I sold my account for £236 this allowed me to get my life back and will never look back. Real life is way to precious to wipe, every second counts.

    Anyone thinking of quitting should do! Go get your real friends and family back, real life is amazing :)

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