Feb. 12, 2010

BrynTROLL?

An interesting statement made by Ghostcrawler about weapon procs (Zod’s is talked about, making this worth mentioning):

I wouldn’t worry so much about how much percentage of your damage the proc is doing. I mentioned that once when comparing various proc weapons and it became adopted as the design goal for all proc weapons. It isn’t.

The only real salient comparison is Bryntroll to other two handed dps weapons of the same ilevel (or Zod’s to other bows or Trauma to other healing weapons, etc.) Procs are always going to be more random than pure stats, and we can live with that. If you’re very intolerant of RNG mechanics, then proc weapons probably aren’t for you. If swapping from Bryntroll to another item on the same tier of content is a significant dps increase (taking class, spec and other gear considerations in mind of course), then there is a problem with the weapon. It’s as simple as that.

Feb. 9, 2010

Lich King Weapon Changes

After reviewing several items available from the Lich King encounter, we’ve decided to re-optimize certain weapons that didn’t meet with our expectations and the quality that the Lich King expects. The weapons listed below, both their normal and Heroic versions, will now better represent their respective roles and present more intriguing options to players.

• Royal Scepter of Terenas II: mp5 replaced with haste rating
• Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas: critical strike replaced with haste rating
• Heaven’s Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies: armor penetration replaced with haste rating
• Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer: armor penetration replaced with expertise rating
• Fal’inrush, Defender of Quel’thalas: haste rating replaced with armor penetration

I’m still gonna take two of those Kryss, once our rogues have them. I don’t even care. They are too excellent to become shards and I miss my BC daggers. More about the Cataclysm gear changes (some of this is starting to seem pretty familiar)...

Actually, we aren’t trying to make gear choices easier. We like when it’s a hard call on whether to upgrade vs. stick with what you have, etc. In designer parlance terms, that is an “interesting decision.” Non-interesting decisions are typically no-brainers.

We want to remove some of the confusion over a complicated stat system, which we think we can do without reducing the system’s depth. In fact, the other motivation for the stats overhaul was to solve some of the problems where a certain stat trumps all or a certain stat is always junk. If we nail that, then gear choices will actually be harder in Cataclysm, not easier.

As an example, when you aren’t close to a crit cap and when buffs don’t provide so much crit and talents don’t provide so much crit, then haste vs. crit can be a pretty interesting choice. Haste lets you cast spells faster, but crit makes those spells you cast hit harder. At a very basic level you are choosing more spells vs. bigger spells, but because of a number of other factors, it’s not that cut and dried. Haste may provide a dps increase for a caster according to a spreadsheet, but it depends and it might cause you to change your rotation. If you have spell A that hits so hard that you need to use it on cooldown, and spell B gets boosted by haste, then you can run into the situation where more haste on B isn’t an improvement because you can’t squeeze in another B before it’s time to use A again. If you aren’t able to capitalize on the extra haste, then more isn’t always good for you. (That’s in an ideal world. The way stats work in Icecrown, if you like haste, it’s nearly always a no-brainer stat for you.)

Comparing armor pen vs. say attack power is much mathier, because they really just both buff melee damage in pretty much the same way. The only time it matters is when you’re near a cap or if you’re a spec that does a lot of spell damage. But you learn pretty quickly for your spec whether armor pen is an awesome stat for you or just an okay stat.

Many of your gear choices in Cataclysm should come down to haste vs. crit vs. mastery. You may still have one of those you like the most, but it shouldn’t be double the value of the other stats, so you may have to look at the total package of stats on that item (Do I need more hit? If I take that hit, can I swap it out somewhere else?) Add in set bonuses and procs, and I’m not sure the gear choice will be all that easy, but it should be easier to understand.

Last bit of (shocking) news for the day (yes, I was completely shocked).

After each region’s maintenance this week, raids will no longer lose attempts on wipes in Normal mode for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. There will still be limited attempts in Heroic mode.

We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids.

Q: If you extend your raid lockout this week, will you still lose attempts on Normal after the hotfix?
A: No.

Q: If you run completely out of attempts on Heroic, will the wing bosses and Lich King no longer respawn, even if the difficulty is switched to Normal?
A: YES. So leave an attempt left if you wish to kill them on Normal. I’ll try and correct this in a future update.

Q: Why is the counter still visible in Normal?
A: The hotfix being applied just stops the counter decrementing, and nothing more.

Feb. 2, 2010

Hmm. I could use a new weapon, here

Who doesn’t love the new Armory? Lich King loot revealed! 25 man:

Fal’inrush, Defender of Quel’thalas
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Crossbow Ranged
782-1071 Dmg Speed 3.00
(308.9 damage per second)
+62 Agility
+62 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 90 / 90
Requires Level 80
Item Level 284
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 41
Equip: Improves haste rating by 33
Equip: Increases your attack power by 66
“Thalas’din belore.”

Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Polearm Two Hand
991-1487 Dmg Speed 3.60
(344.2 damage per second)
+179 Agility
+195 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 284
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 114
Equip: Increases your attack power by 228
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 122
“A grotesque skull now rests atop the blade. Etched in blood across the axe head is one word repeated ten times: SUFFER.”

Heaven’s Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Dagger One-Hand
381-572 Dmg Speed 1.80
(264.7 damage per second)
+76 Agility
+84 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 75 / 75
Requires Level 80
Item Level 284
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 48
Equip: Increases your attack power by 111
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 56
“A lying tongue hates those it crushes, but a flattering mouth works ruin.”

Havoc’s Call, Blade of Lordaeron Kings
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Axe One-Hand
481-895 Dmg Speed 2.60
(264.6 damage per second)
+84 Agility
+84 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 105 / 105
Requires Level 80
Item Level 284
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 56
Equip: Improves haste rating by 48
Equip: Increases your attack power by 95
“Let our enemies know that havoc calls and that with its song comes their end.”

10 man:

Pugius, Fist of Defiance
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Fist Weapon Main Hand
497-746 Dmg Speed 2.60
(239.0 damage per second)
+66 Agility
+56 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 75 / 75
Requires Level 80
Item Level 271
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 51
Equip: Improves haste rating by 39
Equip: Increases your attack power by 113

Tainted Twig of Nordrassil
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Staff Two Hand
597-896 Dmg Speed 2.40
(311.0 damage per second)
+149 Agility
+156 Stamina
Red Socket
Red Socket
Red Socket
Durability: 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 271
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 109
Equip: Increases your attack power by 244
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 97

Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Dagger One-Hand
301-560 Dmg Speed 1.80
(239.2 damage per second)
+74 Agility
+44 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 75 / 75
Requires Level 80
Item Level 271
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 49
Equip: Increases your attack power by 97
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 49

Windrunner’s Heartseeker
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Crossbow Ranged
682-943 Dmg Speed 3.00
(270.8 damage per second)
+54 Agility
+48 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 90 / 90
Requires Level 80
Item Level 271
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 28
Equip: Increases your attack power by 61
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 36

How I hate crossbows though. Really, really.

Feb. 1, 2010

Er... weapon not working!

Lack of hunter 2h’ers and 1h’ers? Of course there is.

I think the melee weapon for hunters isn’t that important and is more of a stat stick, which is why something like Zod’s was put on the second boss in 25 player mode and that other bone bow in 10 player mode so there are upgrades a lot of raiders have a shot at each week.

Druids may have a bigger reason to complain but as the Plagueworks and Crimson Halls become easier over time they will have several options each week.

Yes, but stats are stats. I can’t slap on Zod’s Repeating Crossbow and then wear full T7 and expect to put out ICC DPS.

And it’s a bit of an off-handed gesture to say “well, all your melee DPS will have their full weapon loadout upgraded to 264 pugging the first 4 bosses of the instance – but you hunters have to wait for your stat sticks until we implement the “welfare” buff.”

There are several one handers with agility that come from the first four bosses and I’ve seen several hunters dual wielding them now.

And I never said you’d have to wait for the welfare buff, that is up to you and your guild/raiding group’s progression, but there are a lot of people who are defeating at least the initial bosses in the new wings now.

Jan. 29, 2010

Trinket Itemization and Philosophy and...

Moar trinkets!

Our raid item philosophy has evolved a lot since vanilla. The tier sets were once considered a badge of honor. Someone stalking around (or mailbox afking) with their full set bonus might as well have been sporting a legendary item. These days, we virtually guarantee that any player with an interest in raiding is going to be able to complete at least the lowest level version of their set with just a minimal level of persistence. This ultimately serves as a powerful reward mechanism and is in line with our philosophy of letting more players actually see the content.

This design though also has its risks. One of the big ones is that item progression becomes very predictable and deterministic. Imagine (just as an example) a model where all bosses drop emblems and every item you want is for sale. That may sound cool for a few weeks, until you hit the point that without any kind of random element to progression that you can calculate to the day/week at which you will finish gearing up your character. The excitement of what the boss drops would be gone and we feel this would end up making the purpose of clearing new content very underwhelming.

Trinkets are really the one item (weapons are to a lesser extent) that we use to try and capture that old slot machine feel from the classic Molten Core days. Yes, completely random loot with huge loot tables can be frustrating but we are pretty far from being completely random these days. Trinkets however are still somewhat random, they can be hard to acquire, and there is often a lot of competition for them.

Trinkets are also tricky to design because we don’t want them to be just a pile of stats like other items. We generally want them to be unique by having a random proc or an on-use ability or something similar. These types of things are always trickier to balance, but this is also what makes them interesting. We also don’t necessarily want every trinket to be a guaranteed upgrade just because the item level is higher. Knowing what works or doesn’t work for your particular character and play style is one of the ways players have to demonstrate their mastery of the game.

There are some aspects of trinkets for which we think we can do better. For example, it’s annoying when a superior item is on a lower tier of content to where you feel like you have to argue with your guild to go back and farm easy bosses or run a 10 player version when everyone else wants to do 25. Many of the trinkets probably represent too big a dps (or equivalent) jump given how difficult it can be to acquire them. It’s also easy for us to fall into a rut of offering basically the same one every time (often because we know players like it) rather than experimenting with different things. We like to try new things to keep gear interesting for players as we know some have been evaluating trinkets for over five years now.

We also probably just need to drop more of them. That doesn’t mean they should be trivial to acquire, but when say a caster only has 2 good options in Ulduar and 1 requires a hard mode, then there is going to be ton of competition when they do drop. We know it’s rough when the trinket you have been wanting finally drops and you have to roll against 10 other people for it. Having more trinkets would mean more variety, which means players may want different ones and ultimately will be a little more different from their friends/guildmates.

A reminder about the upcoming gear changes in Cataclysm (hands off our mail, plate wearers!)

The original post was directed at the plate wearers because a mail-based class who is wearing leather going into Cataclysm won’t be at the same disadvantage as a plate-based class who is wearing leather or mail will be.

For an enhancement shaman or hunter, the mail will lose its Intellect, but the physical dps mail and leather will both have Agility that enhancement shaman and hunters want. However, we are also going to offer a small additional incentive for characters to wear “their” armor so it will encourage shaman and hunters to wear mail over leather, balance druids to want leather over cloth, holy paladins to prefer plate, etc.

We realize everyone will have lots of questions about what will happen to their gear, and we will eventually share all of that with you. We just wanted to post this reminder for plate wearers who are currently after leather and/or mail items to let them they will really not want it when we convert to the next expansion.

Part of the Cataclysm re-itemization will be to change all of the old (pre-Wrath of the Lich King) items, which will include doing things like actually having low level balance druid leather or holy paladin plate.

Venom compiled a list of player talent specs represented in the top Putricide kills. 0 BM hunters wut! Unpossible.

I think one of the most interesting aspects is to look at those classes where one spec is generally perceived to be “the best.”

For rogues, locks and hunters there are some players who choose the “second” spec even at a presumed dps loss. For mages, nearly all go Arcane even though Fire’s damage really isn’t that bad. (What I mean is that I don’t think you can argue Combat, Survival and Destruction all trump Fire to explain why there are more of those specs on this fight). In all four cases, the third spec is pretty dead. (We’ll assume the Demo locks are mostly there for DP, which as I’ve said before is not ideal).

Keep the encounter in mind, too. Putricide is a fight where standing still is heavily penalized, yet healing is also not as much of a bottleneck as is damage. We see a lot of groups have a healer go dps for example, which might boost e.g. the Elemental and Shadow numbers just for this fight.

Hopefully I won’t derail this thread by posting, because I find these discussions fascinating.

Most of the thread consists of mage derailment though.

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