Cataclysm Stat Changes

[kildorn]

I just picked WoW back up and I'm not getting the point of this system, what am I missing?

- It'll be based on the total number of points in your primary tree, so it doesn't seem to be ungimping anything; a gimped spec will remained gimped in relation to a better spec.
- Trees give passive bonuses that are relevant to that tree, so there'll be an additional advantage to speccing deeper into a single tree. This appears to remove customization and deincentivize off-specs, neither of which I can embrace as progress.
- Items will have a stat (+Mastery) that will be very attractive to all classes, which seems crappy because it can and probably will create competition for loot across specs and armour classes (think Clothadins in ye olde days.) If on generic slots, like rings, the problem will be exaggerated. This issue can rather easily be dodged, though, even if that makes it a bit pointless (quest rewards only, enchants, gems and other generally accessible means.)

Seriously, help me here, what is Mastery supposed to be fixing/improving?

It's designed in theory to make talents more "woo, that's neat" and less "5% crit" passives.

We need the new talent trees to know if they succeeded, but one of the examples was more things like Body & Soul that alter a skill to do something neat/situational, and less of the required 5 points in this or that passive stat boost.

edit: fixed that horrible quote job. Wow.

[Tarami]

I see, thanks. I don't know if I can bear 50 active talents though, I have enough bars as it is.

It's funny though, as also a LotRO-player, to see WoW and LotRO shamelessly ripping eachother's ideas. This, for example, will make WoW's talent trees very similar to LotRO's traits.

[Rasix]

I see, thanks. I don't know if I can bear 50 active talents though, I have enough bars as it is.

Uhh, that wouldn't happen.   I imagine most would still be triggered effects/procs or effectiveness increases to abilities. 

[bhodi]

Seriously, help me here, what is Mastery supposed to be fixing/improving?

One thing you may not know is that they are making non-class armor types extremely unattractive. They have not stated how they are doing this, whether it will be a large penalty or just flat out unequippable, but they suggest you won't have to worry about plate stealing cloth/leather.

Basically, it's consolidating stats on gear so that it is attractive to a broader range of specs with the armor type, so that nothing goes to waste because 'oh ew it has X and not Y'. We'll see if that theory is actually borne out as more details emerge.

[Ingmar]

- It'll be based on the total number of points in your primary tree, so it doesn't seem to be ungimping anything; a gimped spec will remained gimped in relation to a better spec.

They're changing the trees extensively as well so there's no way to know what the relative power of anything will be from just looking at this change.

- Trees give passive bonuses that are relevant to that tree, so there'll be an additional advantage to speccing deeper into a single tree. This appears to remove customization and deincentivize off-specs, neither of which I can embrace as progress.

You'll still probably end up with 20ish points in a secondary tree just like now, based on what they've said so far, since you're capped at a certain amount of benefit from the main tree. Nothing has really been de-incentivized that doesn't already suck.

- Items will have a stat (+Mastery) that will be very attractive to all classes, which seems crappy because it can and probably will create competition for loot across specs and armour classes (think Clothadins in ye olde days.) If on generic slots, like rings, the problem will be exaggerated. This issue can rather easily be dodged, though, even if that makes it a bit pointless (quest rewards only, enchants, gems and other generally accessible means.)

Mastery should be no more/less attractive than other stats that everyone wants like crit and haste. They've already said that you won't get as much of a benefit for mastery if you wear the 'wrong' gear (druids in cloth or whatever) and it should be fairly evident which items go to what spec based on the other changes they're making - stuff with spirit will obviously be for healers, stuff with hit for casters, stuff with defensive stats for tanks, etc.

EDIT: Oh hey I missed an entire page.

[Fordel]

Things like say Starlight Wrath (reduces the cast time of wrath and starfire by .5 seconds) would stay. Even though it's really just a DPS increase, it does change the way you use those spells.

Things like Moonfury or Wrath of Cenarius (increases the damage of wrath and starfire by X%) would be rolled into the mastery system, so I could spent those points on something like Owlkin Frenzy instead while still keeping the raw damage potential.



The tree's won't be so drastically changed really is my guess, though some specs will require more overhaul then others obviously. I'm fairly confident that most trees will look a lot like the Protection Warrior tree, with talents that add little quirks to baseline abilities, reduce cool-downs and grant proc bonuses.

[Ratman_tf]

Talent fiddling is fucking retarted. They should just let us choose one of our three trees, that's that, and get it over with.

[Typhon]

I like the direction that they are going with the trees, the number of talents makes you that sub-spec, and the nature of the talents give you flavor.  If the concept to allow for a larger number of viable builds within a sub-spec and they manage to meet that goal, I'll be happy.  I'd really like it if there weren't one or two builds per tree that you "had" to take.

I'd always rather take the "move fast" talents than the "survivability" talents, but often you have little choice but to take the dps talents (unless you are rolling a tank) or you can't hold your own with a team.

[Sheepherder]

The move fast talents usually theorycraft as higher DPS than most of the filler DPS talents.

[kildorn]

The move fast talents usually theorycraft as higher DPS than most of the filler DPS talents.

This. +movement speed is a major raid damage boost in most instances, because there's always a "run around" phase, and the faster you're back on the target the more overall damage you'll do. Mostly an issue for melee dps, a lot of casters can bypass is by cheesing blink or lolportal.

[Shrike]

Of course, if they made raid encounters with less moving around, this sort of thing wouldn't be an issue. Also, I wouldn't have to run third party addons like Shock and Awe just to have a clue how to deal with my own attack cycle.

I have high hopes for Cataclysm and the changes. Some stuff does need to be fundamentally revamped. Playing as an enhancement shaman right now is a ticket to a front row seat of how not to itemize equipment and how not to build talent trees.  I still enjoy the class, but, goddam, there's so much just fundamentally broken about it.

[Soulflame]

Healing in the end game as it is now is very boring and very frustrating. It's essentially if you miss a heal or cooldown, its a wipe.

Healing in the end game as it will be in the future is very boring and very frustrating.  It's essentially if you overheal or miss a cooldown, it's a wipe.

That does sound ever so much better.   

[bhodi]

There was a blue post a while back saying that some of the QA people watched a video of an old raid, I think something in TBC, and were astounded at how everyone in the raid was less than full life a majority of the time. They mentioned they would like to shift back to that, a bit.

It was a different environment, more focused on shifting a finite healing capacity to people in the raid that need it, balancing your mana pool and healing while trying to get the most out of the 5 second rule, playing triage while knowing you can't heal everyone but that, done right, everyone will live through it.

Contrast that to today, where everyone sits at 100% life and the healer has between 2 and 3 seconds to heal them to full after they take a hit or they die. For the tank, it's more like under a second. Blink, look away, get distracted, and it's over. You've got enough mana to use every GCD during a battle, so you're always performing at 100%.

[Paelos]

The current tanking/healing situation is unacceptable for anything fun in terms of the mechanics. The tanks can no longer really manage their health through strategy and cooldowns other than a series of "oh shit" buttons that they use at percentages. Essentially, raid boss tanking has become about gear and luck with the skill of the actual tank making very little meaningful difference. In the old raids, having a tank that understood healing, timing, cooldowns, and consumables could buy you extra time on the boss, and that was a valuable thing. Now, I don't think it's really much effort beyond run in there, button mash your threat, and pray. Enrage timers on everything have made this even less important.

For healers, it's even worse. It's a spamfest of everything you can possibly do, with some assignments, and pray for no bad chains.

[kaid]

I would agree on the healing front. Its pretty much all out spray hots fest for druids there is very little in the way of picking what is optimal its throw the fucking sink at the tank and hope they don't go splat on some fights.

[Dren]

I'm typically one of the go-to guys for healing in our guild since I have 3 different characters that can do it even at ICC levels.  However, I've really become burnt out on raid/tank healing and have stepped back from it.  I tend to prefer the reactive healing I get in heroics and certain PvP-like encounters in raids.  I certainly like PvP healing and have been hitting that sector of the game much more recently too.

I agree with some here.  Once they went from raid wide moderate damage over time to spike damage on tanks, the healing jobs have become pretty boring and all about gear rather than player skill.  Yes, raid healing is still important and some fights require good reactive healing, but 80% of the job is to overheal the tank/s to counteract the massive nominal damage and spike damages these bosses do now.

However they design the new content, I'd much rather have combat that requires me to play smart rather than with over-the-top power.  Or at least, allow smart play to have an impact on the results such as a quicker take-down or, at the very least, achievements.

You know, after thinking through the fights I like to heal the most, Marrowgar comes to mind.  If the tanks hop back and forth right, the damage on them is minimal, you have to react quick to those that are spiked, and the chaos during bonestorms is where the random quick response healing and proper positioning is needed the most.  Fights like that keep healing interesting/fun.

[K9]

One way that might improve things would be to make raid encounters larger. As it stands most fights are in fairly small rooms where everyone is always in range of every healer. Forcing raids to be split in some way makes healing more challenging without making it more unforgiving. Fights like Heigan and Thaddius come to mind.

Also, this issue is far more pronounced in 25-man raids than 10-man raids I feel.

[Soulflame]

I certainly agree Wrath healing is shit.  I've pretty much stopped playing WoW because I completely burned out on healing, and have no desire to go back to it at the moment.

Having said that, I don't believe Blizzard can fix it.  The problem is twofold.

1.  TBC healing wasn't the way they described.  It was very much gear dependent, and you sprayed your best heal for the cost, and prayed no one died because you couldn't use your expensive heal very often.  Prince springs immediately to mind, healing that fight was a constant spray of healing, with heartfelt prayers that enough of your DPS wouldn't stand in infernals so you could burn him down before the soft enrage.

2.  Gear scaling will result in the same problem in Cataclysm as happened in TBC and Wrath.  Mana pools, mana regen, spellpower will eventually rise to the point where Blizzard is forced to go back to raidwide damage and insane spikes on the tank to keep the healers "challenged".

I'd also toss in some resentment on my part.  I really do not like being told that mana management will be "fun" for healers, but not required for anyone else.  Healing is a suckass job most of the time, and making it worse in Cataclysm isn't going to improve the number of healers available.

[SurfD]

I'd also toss in some resentment on my part.  I really do not like being told that mana management will be "fun" for healers, but not required for anyone else.  Healing is a suckass job most of the time, and making it worse in Cataclysm isn't going to improve the number of healers available.

A blue quote posted on MMO champ indicates they are looking at everybodies resource management, with intent to tweak so that Management of said resources will be important again.

Classes Resources
Resources for all classes are supposed to matter. If they weren't supposed to matter then we could certainly simplify the game by removing them all. For some classes or specs, the actual resource is GCDs not a bar that fills up.

Rage, energy, runes and soon focus are essentially infinite. You only risk running out for short periods of time, but they'll be back eventually.

For mana-using dps specs, the gameplay is similar but the time slice is broader. A mage isn't going to run out of mana in the first few seconds of a fight. She might run out later, particularly in a longer fight, but she also has ways to get that mana back, and then using those at the right time becomes some of the skill of playing that class.

Healers all use mana, and they are supposed to run out of mana if they make bad decisions. That isn't currently happening, but it will in Cataclysm. Healers feel singled-out by that design, but we believe that when healers have infinite mana that we lose controls in designing an encounter. We have to rely on killing characters faster than healers can respond, punishing players dramatically for doing or failing to do some key event in the fight, or relying on dps checks with berserk timers and the like. Healer mana is a tool we had in BC and lost in LK. When the raid takes too much avoidable damage, then the healers eventually gas out (after using their own tools for mana restoration, like Divine Plea and Innervate) and the group then dies. Put another way, the game is just too easy when healers can just rely on their most powerful spell all of the time (many of us also think the healer gameplay is a little boring when you arne't using all your spells).

I'm not trying to derail the topic from rage, but I did want to explain why we think it's okay for some characters to have infinite resources and some to risk running out. But the resource itself still needs to matter even if it is effectively infinite. (Source)

They have already posted a proposed change to Rage, where they intend to Normalize all Rage generation, so it should be interesting to see what they eventually decide to do with mana for casters.

We are going to take the opportunity in Cataclysm to try and fix some of the problems with the Rage mechanic for both warriors and druids. Some of these problems include:

    * Warriors/druids in the lowest levels of gear can be Rage-starved.
    * Warriors/druids in the highest levels of gear no longer have to manage their Rage when it becomes infinite.
    * Warrior/druid tanks lose Rage income as they improve their gear and take less damage.
    * The gameplay of warrior and druid tanks loses a lot of depth when massive boss hits means never having to manage Rage.
    * Heroic Strike and Maul are effective, but tedious abilities for using up extra Rage.
    * In general, warriors and druids don’t have enough control over their Rage.


To resolve these issues, Rage will be normalized in Cataclysm. This will make the Rage gained by characters more consistent and avoid drastic differences between low-end and high-end gear.

The concept of normalized Rage may leave a negative impression on some veteran players, as we tried it once before in The Burning Crusade and it wasn't successful, resulting in them feeling weakened. However, we think that the concept is still sound -- it was just that the previous implementation didn't balance the values correctly, leading to players being Rage-starved. That is not the goal. As part of the change, we want to give warriors and druids a lot of ways to control their rage, so even in the worst-case scenarios they won’t feel like they lack the resource to do their job.

Here are some of the ways the Rage mechanic will change in Cataclysm:

1) Rage is no longer generated based on damage done by auto-attacks. Instead, each auto-attack provides a set amount of Rage, and off-hand weapons will generate 50% of the Rage main hands do. This amount is based on a constant formula which factors in the base swing speed of the weapon. This means the Rage gained should be averaged out between fast and slow weapons. The constant formula also gives us the ability to easily increase the rage gained if it feels too low (or reduce it if is too high). We are also implementing the following mechanics, which will still allow rage to improve to some extent as you improve gear:

    * If the attack is a critical strike, it will generate 200% Rage.
    * Haste will accelerate swing times to generate Rage faster.


2) Rage from damage taken will no longer be based on a standard creature of the character’s level, but instead will based on the health of the warrior or druid. Again, there is a constant that is multiplied by the rage generated in order to allow for fine-tuning. This calculation ignores all damage reduction from armor, absorption, avoidance, block, or similar mechanics, so improving your gear will not reduce Rage gained.

3) We will provide warriors and druids with more instant sources of rage. For example, the warrior shouts are changing to work more like the death knight ability Horn of Winter. Instead of Battle Shout consuming Rage, it will generate Rage but have a short cooldown. Both classes will have additional methods to generate Rage in an emergency or bleed off Rage when they have too much.

4) All “on next swing” attacks in Cataclysm are being removed. Heroic Strike and Maul will be instant swings that cost a variable amount of Rage. For example, imagine Heroic Strike costs between 10 and 30 Rage. You must have at least 10 Rage to use the attack, but it will consume all available Rage up to a maximum of 30. Any Rage consumed above the minimum will cause the ability to hit harder, and in some cases much harder. We will tune the ability so that it’s generally not a good idea to hit it when you have low Rage (unless everything else is somehow on cooldown) but becomes a more attractive button the higher your Rage.


We understand this change may be scary for many players, but keep in mind that the constants in the formulas for gaining Rage will give us the ability to make quick adjustments if we feel Rage generation is too low. Our goal is for each character's Rage to not be always high or always low, but rather a resource that needs to be managed properly by the player.

I can tell you, as a Well Geared boomkin right now, It is practically impossible for me to go oom on single target boss fights.  I mean, hell, as long as I dont need to spam AoE for an extended period of time, I usually end a fight with full mana.

[Ingmar]

Having played both, elemental shamans are even more silly mana-wise. Unless you're tossing chain lightning every cooldown you may as well not even have a mana bar.

I expect the warrior forums have exploded with rage normalization rage by now. Man, did they hate it last time. (I never noticed it affecting me, so meh.)

[ajax34i]

Classes Resources
Healers all use mana, and they are supposed to run out of mana if they make bad decisions.

It also sucks when you can't "make decisions" because the tank can die at any moment if it's not topped to 100% immediately.

[Fordel]

They used my idea! It's Runic power that's generated off auto-attacks instead of Rune abilities.


I'm a genius  



-edit- Of course, that's also just the "Adrenaline" system from Guildwars.

[Ratman_tf]

Healers all use mana, and they are supposed to run out of mana if they make bad decisions. That isn't currently happening, but it will in Cataclysm. Healers feel singled-out by that design, but we believe that when healers have infinite mana that we lose controls in designing an encounter. We have to rely on killing characters faster than healers can respond, punishing players dramatically for doing or failing to do some key event in the fight, or relying on dps checks with berserk timers and the like. Healer mana is a tool we had in BC and lost in LK. When the raid takes too much avoidable damage, then the healers eventually gas out (after using their own tools for mana restoration, like Divine Plea and Innervate) and the group then dies. Put another way, the game is just too easy when healers can just rely on their most powerful spell all of the time (many of us also think the healer gameplay is a little boring when you arne't using all your spells).

I feel better now. I gas out on wipes all the time, and from what everyone has said, (Healers can spam their bestest heal and never run out of mana!) I figured I was "doin it wrong", when I run out of mana in a raid.

[K9]

They seem to have missed the point that for most of TBC mana was genuinely finite for most healers, and that's why we used downranking and various other tricks. They nerfed that, and now wonder why they have to break content to make it challenging.

[Malakili]

They seem to have missed the point that for most of TBC mana was genuinely finite for most healers, and that's why we used downranking and various other tricks. They nerfed that, and now wonder why they have to break content to make it challenging.

Yeah, taking out downranking was stupid in my opinion, I thought the scaling +spellpower was a good enough fix in vanilla to be honest. 

[Ingmar]

Noooo, WoW-style downranking is awful from a design perspective. It creates a barrier to entry into higher level play for new players, because it isn't transparent enough in-game to explain what it does for you, that's why it had to go.

And yes, they have a long way to go in terms of knocking down all those walls but ideally you should never have to rely on outside documentation (forums, EJ, wahtever) to understand the core mechanics of your class.

[Fordel]

I'm looking at you, defense and hit caps.



One of the other problems with TBC healing that down ranking masked, was that max rank heals were just over heal city.

They just need to make it so it's a proper choice between Flash Heal and Greater Heal, instead of a choice between Greater Heal rank 4 and Greater Heal rank 8.

[Tarami]

Agreed, ranks are very unintuitive. Ideally it should be rolled into the casting mechanism, so you can cancel a casting heal after a set threshold (say, 1.5 secs for 2.5 sec heals and 0.5 for 1.5 sec heals) and receive a fraction of the healing for a fraction of the cost. That also saves a lot of hotbar space.

Another thing I'd like them see do now that spells will scale is to remove +power and replace it with spell rating, then convert that rating into spell levels. For example, 180 rating at level 80 might mean your heals heal as if you were level 83 (60 rating per level at 80.) Naturally there's a direct correlation to +power, but it's much more intuitive, especially while levelling to know "oh, now I cast spells like I was 42, eventhough I am level 39" than "how much is 12 spell power going to add to my HoT again?"

[Malakili]

Noooo, WoW-style downranking is awful from a design perspective. It creates a barrier to entry into higher level play for new players, because it isn't transparent enough in-game to explain what it does for you, that's why it had to go.

And yes, they have a long way to go in terms of knocking down all those walls but ideally you should never have to rely on outside documentation (forums, EJ, wahtever) to understand the core mechanics of your class.

Is it really that unintuitive to use a spell that costs less but heals less in order to conserve mana and reduce overheal?  Hell I figured out I couldn't spam my max rank heal my very first raid ever.

[Fordel]

It is when the mechanic even allowing those lesser rank heals to compete is a hidden coefficient value that bears no reflection to the heals listed base value.

[Ingmar]

Noooo, WoW-style downranking is awful from a design perspective. It creates a barrier to entry into higher level play for new players, because it isn't transparent enough in-game to explain what it does for you, that's why it had to go.

And yes, they have a long way to go in terms of knocking down all those walls but ideally you should never have to rely on outside documentation (forums, EJ, wahtever) to understand the core mechanics of your class.

Is it really that unintuitive to use a spell that costs less but heals less in order to conserve mana and reduce overheal?  Hell I figured out I couldn't spam my max rank heal my very first raid ever.

Once you factor in all the math and testing that goes into determining which rank is the optimal one to use, factoring in all the hidden stuff like spellpower coefficients, the original downranking penalty, and the fact that the spell tooltips at the time only told you the base value of the heals? Yes, far too fiddly for the average user.

EDIT: DAMN YOU FORDEL

[Malakili]

Noooo, WoW-style downranking is awful from a design perspective. It creates a barrier to entry into higher level play for new players, because it isn't transparent enough in-game to explain what it does for you, that's why it had to go.

And yes, they have a long way to go in terms of knocking down all those walls but ideally you should never have to rely on outside documentation (forums, EJ, wahtever) to understand the core mechanics of your class.

Is it really that unintuitive to use a spell that costs less but heals less in order to conserve mana and reduce overheal?  Hell I figured out I couldn't spam my max rank heal my very first raid ever.

Once you factor in all the math and testing that goes into determining which rank is the optimal one to use, factoring in all the hidden stuff like spellpower coefficients, the original downranking penalty, and the fact that the spell tooltips at the time only told you the base value of the heals? Yes, far too fiddly for the average user.

EDIT: DAMN YOU FORDEL

Theres a difference between downranking in general, and doing all the maths to figure out the absolute most efficient rank.  You're right that its probably too fiddly, but then, the "average" user probably still complains healing is too hard even in its current state.

[Ingmar]

Well point being, though, if you just picked some random lower rank because the cost looked good in TBC, you were very possibly hurting yourself more than you were helping. There was a certain break point below which the downranking was just flat out terrible to use - you had to pick the lowest optimal rank for it to be a positive. And without all that math and testing, it would be very easy for someone to pick the wrong rank and not realize what they were doing to their overall efficiency.

EDIT: It's much more intuitive, in other words, for a user to compare spells that are obviously different (say flash heal, gheal, and renew) and pick the right tool for the situation, than it is for them to compare multiple ranks of the same heal, that only differ in value and mana cost, and try to guess which one is the 'right' one to use on the fly.

[ajax34i]

I'd rather they give healers spell combos like mages have, so that in order to deliver some huge heal you have to prep it up through a combo, and then make mana dependent on how many ohshit spells the healer uses out-of-rotation.

Of course, in order to do that, they'd have to use a system of buff stacks on the tank, and tanks always run out of buff stack room, so it's probably impossible to implement.

[kildorn]

Giving healers a constant cast rotation would be atrocious. Sure, healing can be either DON'T MISS A CAST or ungodly boring right now, but turning it into a "you fuck up this rotation or stop casting for a second and the group wipes" is a terrible replacement.

edit: not to mention healers have decent combos as is. Holy Priests get to play with Serendipity, Shaman get to play with riptide, disc priests get Borrowed Time. Paladins get lots of stupid things that don't make them holy light bomb less.