Mists of Pandaria

[Paelos]

Exactly, it's the perfect system. Drops to cover the lottery need people have, tokens to fill in the gaps.

[Rokal]

MoP talent calculators updated:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator

Only took a look at rogue. So far the changes seem decent (compared to the last talent preview).

New MoP rogue ability is also a group-wide stealth with a 5-min cooldown. Pretty awesome.

[Fordel]

And yet you could buy MH weapons for tokens / valor equivilent off the Sunwell Vendor back at the end of Burning Crusade, so it's not like they are unwilling to go that way.

They cruelly made the Spellpower 1h a dagger, to fuck my Prot Paladin.


The Cunts.

[Wolf]

Exactly, it's the perfect system. Drops to cover the lottery need people have, tokens to fill in the gaps.

So what you're saying is you want a more poorly itemized/lower ilvl items from badges and better itemized/higher ilvl from drop? It's basically the same since harder fights will be balanced around having the loot bits, and the RNG issue in 10m is still not addressed. Just make sure after 15 bale kills one of my tanks is not trying to kill heroic ragnaros in his 359 shield, and I'm happy with the system :)

[Fordel]

I just want to walk up to a vendor and/or the AH and have my ideal suit cheaply and easily available for whatever content I am attempting.


I am in the minority, I know.




I have no idea what they did to my Moonkin in MoP.

[Paelos]

Exactly, it's the perfect system. Drops to cover the lottery need people have, tokens to fill in the gaps.

So what you're saying is you want a more poorly itemized/lower ilvl items from badges and better itemized/higher ilvl from drop? It's basically the same since harder fights will be balanced around having the loot bits, and the RNG issue in 10m is still not addressed. Just make sure after 15 bale kills one of my tanks is not trying to kill heroic ragnaros in his 359 shield, and I'm happy with the system :)

No I'm saying you put everything on a vendor as a badge cost, and the drops just either save you badges or not. Example, you get a drop and 3 badges per boss, except the last boss which drops 10 badges and weapons. Then, you adjust the badge cost of items accordingly.

[Simond]

Is there a reason why all loot can't be handled via badges? Is there even a need for an RNG loot drop system anymore?

Yes, it's called "how the human brain is wired": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Effects_of_different_types_of_simple_schedules

Variable schedules produce higher rates and greater resistance to extinction than most fixed schedules. This is also known as the Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect (PREE). The variable ratio schedule produces both the highest rate of responding and the greatest resistance to extinction (for example, the behavior of gamblers at slot machines)

If you want to reinforce the "ding grats" gameplay (read: keep people playing) then random drops are, by far, the most effective method.

[Paelos]

Yes, but the combo system I'm suggesting provides the random rewards WITH the assurance that they aren't getting screwed in the long run.

[pxib]

When they get exactly the drops they want, most people stop playing.

[Paelos]

When they get exactly the drops they want, most people stop playing.

Not if you introduce new elements like challenge modes and whatnot. You can move the bar without forcing people to farm. We've just been living inside the skinner box too long, and a new generation of gamers is coming along behind us that won't buy into the same bullshit we did 12 years ago.

[FieryBalrog]

Yes, but the combo system I'm suggesting provides the random rewards WITH the assurance that they aren't getting screwed in the long run.

That actually makes the random drop a lot less cool because you know you would easily get it anyway.

[Rokal]

When they get exactly the drops they want, most people stop playing.

Not if you introduce new elements like challenge modes and whatnot. You can move the bar without forcing people to farm. We've just been living inside the skinner box too long, and a new generation of gamers is coming along behind us that won't buy into the same bullshit we did 12 years ago.

What makes you think most players will actually be interested in challenge modes? If Cata is any indication, it will be an extremely unpopular feature. People want the best loot possible for the least effort. I really don't see challenge modes with their ilvl nerfs and no gear upgrades catching on with the majority of players. It's a low-cost solution to entertain nerds like me, but that's about it.

I'm sure the next generation of gamers will be even smarter than the current generation, with higher standards.  That's definitely the impression I get in my limited interactions with them when I make the mistake of playing a console shooter and interrupt their leveling/reward treadmill in games like Call of Duty or Gears of War.

[Wolf]

Exactly, it's the perfect system. Drops to cover the lottery need people have, tokens to fill in the gaps.

So what you're saying is you want a more poorly itemized/lower ilvl items from badges and better itemized/higher ilvl from drop? It's basically the same since harder fights will be balanced around having the loot bits, and the RNG issue in 10m is still not addressed. Just make sure after 15 bale kills one of my tanks is not trying to kill heroic ragnaros in his 359 shield, and I'm happy with the system :)

No I'm saying you put everything on a vendor as a badge cost, and the drops just either save you badges or not. Example, you get a drop and 3 badges per boss, except the last boss which drops 10 badges and weapons. Then, you adjust the badge cost of items accordingly.

You realize you'd still have to farm the badges, right?

[Azazel]

Isn't this the opposite of homogenization? Now the weapons each class uses will be more distinct. Hunters really only had melee weapons at this point because everyone had something for the primary/secondary weapon slots and that kept classes equal. Every class basically uses one weapon and then has some sort of stat stick, whether it be a wand, a relic, or a throwing weapon. I'll be glad to see these pointless slots go.

Dunno, on my warrior, I actually use the ranged weapon. It gives me an additional pull over taunt and other abilities. It also lets me gun down trash without having to chase it or wait for it to return. And then, yes, stat stick. Similar with my rogue and mage.

I can see it making more differences to classes that had totems and ranged things that actually triggered abilities or special events, like Pallies and Druids, etc.

edit - SurfD pointed some of this out, yes.

[Wolf]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/mists-of-pandaria/feature/talent-calculator#ba! - updated talent trees are up.

[Wolf]

spirit->hit is gone. Yay for the return of two types of int leather and two types of int mail 

[caladein]

spirit->hit is gone. Yay for the return of two types of int leather and two types of int mail 

Are you basing that off of something other than the talent calculator you just linked because I see those two just fine.  Elemental gets Elemental Precision at 10 and Balance gets Balance of Power at 64.

[Wolf]

basing that on the missing twisted faith in shadow, and asking a shaman and a boomkin if they still got theirs and them saying no. So, scratch that :)

[Paelos]

I'm sure the next generation of gamers will be even smarter than the current generation, with higher standards.  That's definitely the impression I get in my limited interactions with them when I make the mistake of playing a console shooter and interrupt their leveling/reward treadmill in games like Call of Duty or Gears of War.

It's got nothing to do with smarts. They are less patient. That's all that matters in a game built on an RNG system.

And no, I don't believe that the larger playerbase would enjoy a straight RNG over a variable version with badge backup.

[Lakov_Sanite]

basing that on the missing twisted faith in shadow, and asking a shaman and a boomkin if they still got theirs and them saying no. So, scratch that :)

I'm gonna assume it's baked into the spec now. Like when you go moonkin/shadow/ele your spirit auto converts to hit.  I just dont see them ever wanting to open up the can of leather/mail that is shaman/druid caster gear.

[Rendakor]

It's just gone from Spriests which is a welcome change. There is hit gear for dps, take that and leave the spirit gear for the healers.

[Merusk]

That is exactly what it is.  Shadow priests will  be sharing gear with mages and locks since both are cloth that requires hit.  The gear already exists and offering the talent didn't remove the need to create it, it only created a competition for gear w/ healers*.

Yes, it sucks to be cloth DPS because you're competing with more people for the same gear now.   Welcome to plate world.

* Now the flip side to the argument is, yes, you're creating a whole set of gear that applies only to 2 specs of priests - spirit cloth.   Druids and pallies don't need spirit cloth because it reduces Plate and Leather specialization.  However for rings, amulets and trinkets it makes a big difference to remove another chunk of players from the competition for the gear.

[Sheepherder]

Or Blizzard could quit fucking around and make Spirit the universal Hit/Mp5 stat because no class has ever needed both.


...Nah.

[Merusk]

Pick one:

Why on earth would they do anything sensible and logical like that at this point? 

Well because Spirit isn't hit, it's willpower and doesn't make sense in the physical laws of the game rules! 

Hey if they don't keep fucking around with this shit how will they justify paying the designers to overhaul everything every expansion? 

[Rokal]

Rename spirit to focus. Now it makes sense as a hit-stat for melee, ranged, and casters while still making sense as a mana regen stat.

[Kail]

Dunno, on my warrior, I actually use the ranged weapon. It gives me an additional pull over taunt and other abilities. It also lets me gun down trash without having to chase it or wait for it to return. And then, yes, stat stick. Similar with my rogue and mage.

I can see it making more differences to classes that had totems and ranged things that actually triggered abilities or special events, like Pallies and Druids, etc.

Are they getting rid of the gun as an equippable item, or the "Shoot" ability?  It seems to me that you could keep Shoot (or Throw) if you wanted to, without making them depend on you having a ranged weapon equipped.  Like the way it functions in WAR, for example, where every melee class gets a ranged plink attack that they can just cast whenever.

[Rokal]

You'll just be able to throw your normal weapon. You won't lose any utility that the secondary weapons gave you really, but you'll lose the slot.

[Simond]

That is exactly what it is.  Shadow priests will  be sharing gear with mages and locks since both are cloth that requires hit.  The gear already exists and offering the talent didn't remove the need to create it, it only created a competition for gear w/ healers*.

Yes, it sucks to be cloth DPS because you're competing with more people for the same gear now.   Welcome to plate world.

* Now the flip side to the argument is, yes, you're creating a whole set of gear that applies only to 2 specs of priests - spirit cloth.   Druids and pallies don't need spirit cloth because it reduces Plate and Leather specialization.  However for rings, amulets and trinkets it makes a big difference to remove another chunk of players from the competition for the gear.

Solution: Remove spell plate, give resto paladins a "cloth counts as mail/plate" passive at level 10. Makes spirit cloth more useful and removes an armour/stat types that only one spec uses.

Death to spell plate.

[SurfD]

Im not exactl

That is exactly what it is.  Shadow priests will  be sharing gear with mages and locks since both are cloth that requires hit.  The gear already exists and offering the talent didn't remove the need to create it, it only created a competition for gear w/ healers*.

Yes, it sucks to be cloth DPS because you're competing with more people for the same gear now.   Welcome to plate world.

* Now the flip side to the argument is, yes, you're creating a whole set of gear that applies only to 2 specs of priests - spirit cloth.   Druids and pallies don't need spirit cloth because it reduces Plate and Leather specialization.  However for rings, amulets and trinkets it makes a big difference to remove another chunk of players from the competition for the gear.

Solution: Remove spell plate, give resto paladins a "cloth counts as mail/plate" passive at level 10. Makes spirit cloth more useful and removes an armour/stat types that only one spec uses.

Death to spell plate.

Im not exactly sure that they are not considering doing that (same with Spell Leather).

Holy Paladins / Boomkin / Resto druids all appearently have a new ability in MoP that increases their Mana Pool by 400% over their normal base.  Maybe this is just to adjust for them changing Int so it no longer affects mana or something, but if they are going that way, why not just do away with int alltogether on those classes and give them spellpower modifiers / conversions from agility / strength or something?

[Wolf]

not mana per-se, but mana-regen. The way it works now is some classes/specs (druids/disc) regen based off of max mana, other (shaman, holy priest) use spirit for regen and holy paladins are a mixed bag. The ones with max mana are back to almost wotlk levels of spam right now and they want to remove that - that's why all the healers get 500% mana increase and no mana from int. It's basically their mana pool for the whole of the expansion, and they can balance around that.

To whoever said it's fine they're removing twisted faith. Go away  I like being able to double dip and they'll have to pry that from my cold dead hands. Off to the forums to whine!

[Azazel]

So we can get rid of rings, and trinkets, and separate pieces of armor, and why not just make all your stats based upon the single weapon you can equip?  Sounds like loads of fun in an item-centric game!

Trinkets don't feel like 'stat sticks' because they get flavor through unique procs or effects. BiS trinkets (until this tier and the Deathwing trinkets) varied widely between specs, so they were one of the most interesting gear slots in the game. Armor determines your appearance and also has set bonuses for anyone really playing end-game, so they are also more than just 'stat sticks'. Rings and necklaces aren't particularly interesting, and are probably the least exciting gear slots in the game next to literal stat-sticks at the moment, so I'd be fine seeing them retire in the future.

And so would the jewelcrafters! (Speaking of "stat sticks" - thats all the whole profession is, essentially...)

[luckton]

Because it's another x-pack, we needed another stat revamp.

http://us.battle.net/wow/blog/4544194

Our recent talent calculator changes led to some players asking questions about how character and item stats were changing, because some spell and talent tooltips suggest that changes are coming. We compiled this list to attempt to explain more of what’s coming in Mists of Pandaria. First of all, please note that we actually aren’t making many stat changes compared to the ones we made in Cataclysm (“armor penetration -- gone!”). Second, the stuff below can get a little technical. If you’re not into the subtle nuance of gear itemization, then don’t worry about it -- you don’t need to be to enjoy the expansion -- but we know there are plenty of you who enjoy some nuts and bolts talk, so here we go.

Spell Resistance
Spell resistance is gone. There are no buffs that improve it and there shouldn’t be much, if any, spell resist gear left. We always thought the system was hard to understand and we weren’t getting much gameplay out of it. Now taking a step back, we can imagine how to develop a game where you’d want various forms of resist gear for certain situations and opponents. Resist gear could potentially be interesting, but it isn’t currently in World of Warcraft -- the game has just been moving away from that sort of thing for years.
In the absence of spell resistance, there is no need for spell penetration on gear, so we’ll remove it as well.

Hit and Expertise
We still think having stats that can be capped is a good game design. Rather than focusing solely on stacking your best stat, you have to decide how valuable it is to hit your target before you go back to stacking your best stat. However, we are making some changes.
Hit and spell hit will no longer be separate stats. The hit stat negates melee miss and spell miss.
Expertise will negate dodge and spell miss, then parry.
Expertise will be listed as a percentage, just like hit, instead of having an intermediary stat.
We are normalizing hit with expertise, so that 1% of each stat will require the same amount of rating.
We are normalizing melee and spell hit, so that spell hit is equal to miss plus dodge.
Against an equal level creature: 6% spell miss, 3% melee miss, 3% dodge, 3% parry (from the front only), 3% block (from the front only).
Against a +1 level creature: 9% spell miss, 4.5% melee miss, 4.5% dodge, 4.5% parry (from the front only), 4.5% Block (from the front only).
Against a +2 level creature: 12% spell miss, 6% melee miss, 6% dodge, 6% parry (from the front only), 6% Block (from the front only).
Against a +3/boss level creature: 15% spell miss, 7.5% melee miss, 7.5% dodge, 7.5% parry (from the front only), 7.5% block (from the front only).
Ranged attacks will be able to be dodged. Hunters will benefit from expertise and will have it on their gear, which will also allow hunters and Enhancement shaman to share gear more easily.

Block
The chance to block will be handled by a separate combat roll for each attack that is not avoided. In other words, we first determine if an attack misses, or is dodged or parried. If it is not, then the attack has a chance to be blocked.
This gives block a consistent value, regardless of avoidance. Currently block becomes more valuable the more you have.
Block will also have diminishing returns, much like dodge and parry. This doesn’t mean that the value of block will go down as you get more block. It means that it won’t go up by as much when you get more block.
We don’t expect Protection warriors or paladins to get “block capped” other than during temporary effects, such as mastery procs on trinkets. Block tanks will be balanced around this change. Our intent is to make playing block tanks more fun, not to nerf them.
Also notice how Shield Block and Shield of the Righteous have changed in Mists.

Criticals
All spells and abilities will crit for double damage, baseline. There are a few exceptions where crits can get larger, but the default is x 2.0 for everyone.
This means that Enhancement shaman spells and rogue poisons will crit for double damage. Rogue poisons will also use the melee hit chance.

Resilience
We are renaming this stat to “Defense (PvP)” or possibly “PvP Defense.” All players will have 30% base Defense, the same way all characters have some base Stamina.
PvP gear will have Defense on it, as well as a new stat, “Power (PvP).” Power increases the damage you do to other players as well as the healing you do to other players in PvP situations.
If you have a lot of Power, you’ll do more damage to other players, but they likely have Defense as well. If you fight players in lots of PvE gear, they’ll take more damage. Likewise, a player in PvE gear won’t have enough Power to effectively penetrate your Defense.
The names PvP Power and PvP Defense may not be final, but we’re leaning towards going with stat names that are obviously PvP-related, rather than “fluffier” names that might not be as easy to grasp. We want it to be clear to players that neither Power nor Defense have any relevance when fighting creatures, such as in dungeons or raids.
PvP gear will be lower in item level than PvE gear of an equivalent tier, however the Power and Defense stats will make sure that PvP gear is more powerful in PvP (both offensively and defensively) than PvE gear. In our budgeting system, the PvP stats will be free rather than causing other stats, such as Strength or haste, to be smaller as a result of including Power or Defense.
The goal of this change is to make it easier for a PvP player to participate in PvE, or for a PvE player to get started in PvP. Currently, we feel it is too large a barrier to go from one to the other, and the result has been that we see more and more players choosing to focus exclusively on only PvP or PvE. In earlier expansions, it was more feasible to use PvE gear in Arenas or Battlegrounds until you acquired the more useful PvP gear. The same was true of being able to use your PvP gear in a dungeon or raid until you acquired something better. In Cataclysm, stepping into PvP with no PvP gear would result in a player being so ineffective that it was difficult to even make progress towards acquiring PvP gear.
For the higher-end of PvP or PvE (say Gladiators or heroic raiders), we believe those players will still gravitate towards the dedicated PvP or PvE gear. It is the players who are working towards those two end games that will benefit more from some cross over.

That’s a lot of information, and it probably sounds more set-in-stone than it really is. We’ll continue to iterate as players poke holes in our ideas, tell us what is working out and what isn’t, and finally get to experience it first hand in beta.

Can't say I'll miss spell resist, although I wonder if they'll be going back to revamp all of the encounters that relied on the players having spell resist to overcome them.  Everything else seemed like it was inevitable. 

[Sjofn]

Rogue poisons will also use the melee hit chance.

Woo!

[Rasix]

 

Still not going to come back!

There is a chance I will eat those words.

[Paelos]

Block tanks will be balanced around this change. Our intent is to make playing block tanks more fun, not to nerf them.