Reforging gone - what do you think?

[Espiee 161]

I like having reforge around, not only did it allow you to experiment with stats and alter your play style accordingly, it was, and probably still would be needed for caps or if you got a piece of loot with inferior stats.

 

Even with hit, exp, spirit and others gone, there will still be some haste caps floating around, like mastery for DKs since it becomes mostly overheals after a certain point, mastery pulling ahead for disc priests after a certain point, mastery stop having more value for shadow priests after a certain point where crit become more preferable and so on.

 

Even if they were to be removed it doesn't alter the fact that some stats will be more desirable for some than others. Take for example disc priest.

 

At the moment there is no incentive to go for haste one bit. It increases your mana consumption and doesn't interact as well with your spells as do mastery and crit, they have no breakpoints or don't use hots in any way. The only value haste has is to a certain point so you can cast more Prayer of Healings under the effect of Spirit Shell, and that's a minor concern only if you're raiding 25m(and if they don't change the mechanics for WoD it won't be an issue with a 20m raid).

 

All else being equal, haste will still be inferior, but taking a piece with spirit and haste could still be beneficial insofar as it was a marked upgrade in in terms of ilvls because you eg could reforge 40% of the haste to crit while taking out the added spirit on another piece of gear for even more crit, making such a piece a decent upgrade even with suboptimal stats.

 

Further, there are the issues of any potential caps left, for eg a dk for whom mastery will still be worth very little after a certain cap, removing reforge removes their ability to subtract or add mastery to their preferred cap.

 

Now even if they fixed all that I still don't think they should remove it. The solution to remove haste breakpoints is unelegant to say the least and it further reduces the skill cap needed to play some classes well.

 

So no, I don't think it's a good idea.

[CptDan 25]

Right now, we have learned to work with gear that by default isn't "optimal" and through reforging we have been able to roll with gear that is "sub-optimal" but close. More usefully, we've been able to use gear that can grow with us a bit. If the stat balance changes and we can change the numbers to help using said piece than we hold on to it for a while. 

 

Removing this ability is going to massively increase the grind that is our gear treadmill. BIS slot lists will be fixed very early on, and players will all be competing for "that one piece" No other drop will be close as it will probably have the stats all wrong. This one piece may take week (gasp! months) to drop for you and then the other member of your class wins the bid/roll.

 

This is just a bad idea all around. for a game that seems to want to allow freedom of choice this isn't a good way to do it. Before I just sound like wasteful QQing (which,understandably I am a bit) I have considered a few options of how bliz will adjust this.

 

1. BIS lists reign supreme, blizz offers ways for some of these items to be obtained using "certain" methods (A la valor vendors of Wrath)

 

2. The bonus roll system will have to be tweaked to give a slightly higher % change of that item to drop and limit the number of places that it drops to help with this.

 

I'm sure there are other things that they can do. I'm just complaining now, but at some point in the future I might OMG 3> Blizzard for giving us the perfect loot system

[Espiee 161]

Blizzard has several times mentioned their intention to make every secondary stat desirable for all specs so that their isn't a clear choice of one, or two, for every spec.

 

How they want to do it, I have no idea of, nor do I think they can make them absolutely equal, but it will mean that a piece with haste/mastery will still be an upgrade over a crit/mastery of lower item level despite not being optimal.

[Kver 65]

Blizzard has several times mentioned their intention to make every secondary stat desirable for all specs so that their isn't a clear choice of one, or two, for every spec.

 

How they want to do it, I have no idea of, nor do I think they can make them absolutely equal, but it will mean that a piece with haste/mastery will still be an upgrade over a crit/mastery of lower item level despite not being optimal.

The changes to haste actually make it rather easy for them to do so, at least to be able to balance it. As it is now the results of haste are very difficult to map. On the other hand, for most classes, mastery usually turns out to be a flat out, linear damage increase. By removing snapshotting they have already significantly lowered haste's value for DoT classes. If you lower the main stat, the other 2 stats will automatically become relative stronger. If mastery is a class' weakest stat, simply boost its value. 

 

The only reason why I don't think they'll succeed is that critical strike is way too difficult to just stick a value to. I can see that with fire mages currently who still have no idea how much critical strike is actually worth it. I suppose the same goes for procs, but anything which involves chance is incredibly tough to balance.

 

I'm still looking forward to what they come up with, though.

[SparkSovereign 61]

Right now, we have learned to work with gear that by default isn't "optimal" and through reforging we have been able to roll with gear that is "sub-optimal" but close. More usefully, we've been able to use gear that can grow with us a bit. If the stat balance changes and we can change the numbers to help using said piece than we hold on to it for a while. 

 

Removing this ability is going to massively increase the grind that is our gear treadmill. BIS slot lists will be fixed very early on, and players will all be competing for "that one piece" No other drop will be close as it will probably have the stats all wrong. This one piece may take week (gasp! months) to drop for you and then the other member of your class wins the bid/roll.

 

This is just a bad idea all around. for a game that seems to want to allow freedom of choice this isn't a good way to do it. Before I just sound like wasteful QQing (which,understandably I am a bit) I have considered a few options of how bliz will adjust this.

 

1. BIS lists reign supreme, blizz offers ways for some of these items to be obtained using "certain" methods (A la valor vendors of Wrath)

 

2. The bonus roll system will have to be tweaked to give a slightly higher % change of that item to drop and limit the number of places that it drops to help with this.

 

I'm sure there are other things that they can do. I'm just complaining now, but at some point in the future I might OMG 3> Blizzard for giving us the perfect loot system

 

See, here's the thing.  I play an elemental shaman.  There is, quite literally, TWO (I counted) pieces of mail that do not have Spirit on them this tier, not counting my tier pieces.  A huge number of the available pieces are spirit-crit, which is spectacularly awful amongst awful pieces.  For most people, their worst stat is ~80% value (or better) of their best stat; for elemental, it's zero (because you are hit-capped) and was about half at the start of the tier; subsequent hotfixes brought it up to a whopping 2/3.  I actually shot up 20k dps with a sidegrade once, that's how bad it is.

 

And yet, I also play enhancement; I'm the only mail-wearer in my raid, why not.  All those pieces are basically Haste-Mastery, with a handful of crit pieces here and there.  It's actually quite lovely, since the stat priority for elemental is about the same as it is for enhancement.  I know there's only so much room for drops in the loot tables, but wouldn't it just be great if my ele spec could use that haste-mastery gear?

 

Oh, wait, that's how it works in Warlords.

 

Essentially, while removing reforging now would cripple people, it won't be as much of an issue later because replacing primary stats with "Primary Stat" that changes on spec means that every possible itemization can show up on all slots, without screwing up loot tables (trying to cover all niches in the current system would make every piece about as rare as the Tusks of Mannoroth).  They could not pull it off without all of these interconnected changes, absolutely; but together, I think I'll like this new system.

 

You optimize your gear by picking the gear that's best for you, but if they succeed in balancing stats better (not perfectly, just less bad) it won't be as huge of a hit if you get a piece that's not quite perfect.  I'll probably discuss with my competition what the pecking order for gear is before it drops; I've done this before in previous tiers, make deals re: if this drops you get it, if this drops I get it and so forth, and it works pretty well, at least in 10-man.  Not having any gear be "wasted" is also nice.  Smaller groups certainly benefit more from this change, since not everyone has a Holy Paladin (for the most blatant example).  You might have more competition, but you'll be able to use more drops in the first place, and unless they make another Throne of Haste or something the fact that people prefer different stats means there's a good chance you'll end up with gear you like, rather than gear you hate but can make suck less with reforging.

 

Actually, that's the note I want to end on.

 

Rather than making your gear suck less with reforging, gear you like will exist in the first place.

[IceyRose 0]

My fear is that gear will end up being like it was in Diablo III - if it doesn't roll with exactly the right stats out of XXXXXXX possibilities,

 

 

My thinking as I was reading this.  Seems that is what Blizzard is using as their guide for WoW these days.  :-(

[Espiee 161]

Rather than making your gear suck less with reforging, gear you like will exist in the first place.

A much simpler solution to this would simply be to make mail available that had your preferred stats.  An even better alternative would be simply to create some alignment between the stats ele and resto want so you don't have as many wasteful items. With hit, and spirit gone, if stats were better aligned there is no useless pieces. Some might be suboptimal, but you'd be able to reforge it to make it more attractice.

[SparkSovereign 61]

A much simpler solution to this would simply be to make mail available that had your preferred stats.  An even better alternative would be simply to create some alignment between the stats ele and resto want so you don't have as many wasteful items. With hit, and spirit gone, if stats were better aligned there is no useless pieces. Some might be suboptimal, but you'd be able to reforge it to make it more attractice.

They are actually doing both of these, which makes reforging unnecessary.  The first one is accomplished extremely easily by the move to "primary stat" instead of "int" or what have you.  Across the whole pool of mail (int + agi) there is everything you could ever want; now, you won't be locked away from half of the stat combinations on any given piece of gear.  If we took Siege and simply moved to the "primary stat" setup, I would be able to get haste-mastery on all of my gear (cept trinks, weapons, and 1/2 rings), and thus have zero need for reforging.

[Polinda 0]

I was honestly disappointed to hear this. There have been negative changes for my personal play style in the past but I have always adapted or moved onto a new class.

 

Typically, I reforge gear depending on the situation and how my play style evolves, for example, in a rated battleground where everyone is moving as a large unit, mastery serves me little use as a mistweaver, nor does spirit, so all my gear is weighed more toward crit, this works well as my typical game, once I've been clocked as a healer, consists of being spell locked and crowd controlled almost out of the game, but with critical heals, HoTs and their companion spells become very effective and castable between stuns, on the flip side, if I am in a situation where critical heals aren't so needed, such as a random or a defensive battleground or raid, longevity is key.

 

I've personally never had any issue reforging my gear, once I hit max level, i found myself always with a plentiful supply of money. 

 

At the very least if this does go away, I hope there will be more gear choices so I could weigh on crit or spirit depending on my game plan and environment, otherwise it'll be hopping to a class that thrives best on the default stats, I don't really want to stop mistweaving, it's addictive!

[SparkSovereign 61]

At the very least if this does go away, I hope there will be more gear choices so I could weigh on crit or spirit depending on my game plan and environment, otherwise it'll be hopping to a class that thrives best on the default stats, I don't really want to stop mistweaving, it's addictive!

That is exactly what is happening, yes.  If there is agi leather now with stats you want, in WoD you'll have access to it.  Currently the problem is that (5 choose 2) = 10, and 10 is too many pieces of gear to see for "agi leather" or "int mail" and definitely "int plate".  However, 10 is probably just fine for "plate" or "leather", so we might actually see all stat combinations existing on all slots of gear, especially since they seem to be keeping with the MoP model of having lots of bosses.  (Kinda hard to fit 10 anything in, I dunno, Firelands.)  You will certainly be able to avoid a stat (and probably even two) existing on any of your gear, if that's what you want.

 

Also; reforging isn't much of a big deal for most healers (some have haste caps to worry about, but overshooting isn't bad), you just go for feel.  Even for caster dps, it's not too bad because you just have the one hit cap, and maybe a haste cap to make sure you get, but you can optimize one hard cap in your head without much issue and again, overshooting haste caps isn't a big deal.  Both groups can do even do some fun things with reforging, particularly in the early part of a tier where you haven't seen enough gear to have spares.  A new piece of gear for a caster usually means fiddling with one or two reforges to get back to hit cap (either up or down).  No big deal.

 

In contrast, attempting to figure out your reforging without external assistance on a melee is an absolute nightmare, and I very much look forward to never having to do it ever again.  Even with external assistance, properly optimizing often means switching out literally all of my gems if I get two new pieces of gear.  That is what Blizzard is talking about when they say they don't want getting new gear to make you groan.

[SoulLord 0]

So look at this scenario 2 people identical ilvl one with the best stats for their class and the other not using optimal gear

 

we have a few scenarios considering equal skill level 

 

1.- damage is very similar 5% difference

      * secondary stats difference doesn't matter anyone with similar ilvl is welcome to the raids

 

2.- damage is noticeably different between having best gear for class 

     * ilvl becomes irrelevant meters are now the norm for inviting to raid

     * people farm bosses for their BIS gear with their ideal secondary stats

 

Compare it with todays scenario where even if you don't have your BIS gear reforging makes your current gear

a bit closer to the ideal one.

[Berlinia 168]

At least now people are going to think of the gear they loot. Getting an higher ilevel with bad itemization is going to fuck their dps and as such.... yaaaay better gear distribution. No more hunters needing on spirit rings (<3)
Cheers
Berlinia

Edited June 6, 2014 by Berlinia

[Lockybalboa 618]

No more hunters needing on spirit rings (<3)

 

 

For a funny read: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/72314

 

[Espiee 161]

Given current trends of giving every spec an affinity for a certain secondary stat, I think it's safe to save, for now at least, that they have thrown the intention of leveling the benefit of every secondary stat out the window, keeping the situation much like it is today where different classes desire different stats.

 

With that in mind, with reforging gone, there is a greater penalty than before of taking an item with wrong itemisation. If a piece dropped with one great and one not-so-great stat on it, keeping in mind you could convert 40% of the not-so-great stat to a great stat, it might still've been an upgrade. With reforging gone that is no longer possible and consequently the incremential upgrades to people are limited to fewer items than before.

 

Hopefully they are still keen on balancing secondary stats to some degree or they should reconsider the removal of reforging.