Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Fantasy News and Views 6

World of Warcraft     So this past week Blizzard released further details on thier Item Changes. I want to look over that post and the changes presented.
     So the first thing to remember is that reforging is gone. With that gone, what you get on your gear is what you have to deal with. There is no way to customize anything about the gear to optimize it or finesse it to your needs.
     Hit, Expertise, Dodge and Parry are being removed from the game.Hit and Expertise are being baked into the combat system and Armor Value will take the place of Parry and Dodge. Simplifying combat may have taken a step to far here.
     Gear will be broken into two broad catagories, Armor Pieces and Non-Armor Peices.
     Armor Peices are Head, Shoulders, Chest, Legs, Gloves, Belt, Boots and Bracers. Armor Peices will get Primary Stats, Secondary Stats, Stamina, Armor Value and a chance at getting Warforged, Gem Slot and Tertiary Stat.
     Primary Stats will be either Strength, Intelligence and Agility and changes based on Spec. So Hunters always get Agility but Holy Pally will have Int while a Ret Pally will get Strength. The same peice of gear will work for either spec because as you change your spec so changes the the primary stat on the gear. This is a nice change, keeps every peice relavent, if not optimal, no matter what you do.
   Stamina and Armour Value will be on every peice too. Not unexpected as that is how it is now. So no real change here.
    Secondary Stats will be on every peice of gear too. But the Secondary Stat will be randomized from Haste, Crit, Mastery, Readiness, Amplify, and/or Multistrike. The new ones are still under development so may or may not make the cut. This means that you can get a stat on a peice of gear that will not make it useful or desirable, even though it has your primary stat. In the end, it just means that you will get a suboptimal peice of gear. Loot not only get dropped by RNG but it's usefulness will be detirmined by RNG. This is quite possibly the worst decision they have ever made. All of this RNG and loss of reforging means you can't plan out your gear progression at all. And if you get a new peice of gear, if it's not giving you the right secondary stats, even though it's it's a higher iLevel, it's not an upgrade but a downgrade on your abilities. RNG is determining if you will ever get to be good. I hate this.
    There is now a chance to get additional properties. you have 10% chance per property to have it. There are three property types: Warforged, Gem Slot and Tertiary Stat. So on very rare occasions you could have all three of these things. RNG decides this. Again nothing you can plan for.
     Warforging is a straight iLevel increase, which means your Primary and Secondary Stats, Stamina and Armor Valau all increase. Straight forward effect and good in general. And like Warforged now, I am ok with it being hard to get.
     Gem Slots will be color based but have no slot bonus. There will only be one slot per peice of gear. Gems will only have secondary stats. And will be the only way to get extra Armor Value or Spirit onto Armor Peices. This will suck for Healers and Tanks as thier Armor Peices will never be strictly for thier use. All plate wearers will be competing for the same gear. Same goes for Mail, Leather and Cloth. This also means that every Healer and Tank will compete for any gear with a Gem Slot. Especially Plate wearing Tanks and Healers as well as Leather wearing Tank and Healer's. Cloth Healers will have less competition because their are no Cloth Tanks that I know of. And the same goes for Mail Healers. RNG contoller how good a tank or healer you can be again is taking control of the character from the player. Another bad move in my book.
     Tertiary Abilities will be things like Movement Speed, Sturdiness, Life Steal, Avoidance, and Cleave. These abilities will stack. These are nice things to have, but if you are not a person who does multi-target attacks will not want Cleave. So these tertiary abilities may be useless or make you feel like you have to play a certain way because you want to maximize your capabilities you are given by RNG. These tertiary abilities will be randomized as to what you get so planing again is tossed out the window.
     An additional Note about Set Bonus' on tier gear. It will change to fit your Spec. So you will not have to get a tanking set and then a dps set, for example. One set works for both specs. This si a good change as, like Primary Stats, always keeps your gear relavent, if not optimal.
    Non-Armor Peices are Weapons, Rings, Cloaks, Necklaces and Trinkets. These thngs will get all of the same things as the above gear with some notable differences.
    Primary Stats will not change with Spec. Primary Stats will NOT be Strength, Stamina and Intellect. Instead it will be either Attack Power or Spell Power. Most will have Stamina too. Weapons are the exception here in that they will have Primary Stats like Armor Peices. Whether they will change primary stats with Spec has not been said one way or the other. While the Attack/Spell Power will make these peices more 'universal', I don't think that it will make people feel happier about getting the gear. The customization of peices will not be present so the lack of ways to differentiate your character will be reduced. And with RNG still in control, you will never now if you will get anything of value.
   Secondary Stats will get to include Spirit and Armor Value to the above list as to what you will get. Spirit will get your healers fighting over peices, and Armor will get all the tanks fighting over the gear. And since this will be a rare stat to appear it's going to hurt progression raiding to a great deal.
   Additional Properties will be limited to only one of them. So Gem Slots will be highly fought over because it gives the best route for customizations, no matter your role. The least sought out will be the tertiary stats. But again, with RNG deciding if your even going to get this property and which one, you will never be able to plan out your progression gearing with any feeling of accomplishment.
    What all of this boils down to me is that with RNG having an increased say in what loot, and quality of loot, you will never be able to say that skill will be what limits you from being good in PVE. Gearing, controled by RNG, means that only the lucky will get the best gear at a reasonable rate and become top of the charts for progression raiding and gearing. For casual players, it means that you will only get into raiding because you know someone. Since all Hardcore, and Serious raiders look at your gear for determining your worthyness to join the raid, you will be looked down upon because RNG says your bad, regardless of how good you truley are. If they stick with this model of loot creation, I am going to start sucking in Raids, and I only do LFR, because I can't make my character the best that I can be. I can only be the best that RNG wants me to be. And that is not fun.
     So I think that is enough for now. If you have any comments for me on this, or other, subjects then please leave them. I want to hear them. Until next time, Enjoy!    

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