As stated in previous post we’re doing a stat squish on all items. The main reason for a stat squish is because bosses have reached their limits in terms of Health and Armor. It has gotten so bad that on live(Unlimited) that bosses have crazy high amounts of armor and resist, health pool cap, and auras added to them to reduce damage from players. Not to mention the zone wide nerf spells to players. There is no way around a stat squish if we ever want to introduce new content for Unlimited.
We wanted to show case all the stat changes for every class this weekend but due delays we cannot provide caster, melee, or healer screenshots. We can however showcase the tanks for now. The tanks we’ll be showing off are Paladin, Death Knight, and Warriors. Druid tanks cannot be shown at this time as they require hard core side changes.
As you can see from the screenshot above we’re changing what stats get placed on gear and for some stats we’re converting them to % over base value. This is much easier for us, the devs, to manage and for players to determine what they need at a glance.
Stats we’re wanting to change to 1% are as follows.
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- Haste(All Types): Waiting on updates and testing
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- Dodge
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- Parry
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- Block
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- Crit
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- Armor Pen: Waiting on updates and testing
You will notice that Hit and Expertise are pretty low. These stats are considered “minor” stats. They do not require much to cap out. These stats will most likely never increase and if they do only very slightly. To reach Hit/Exp caps you will be encouraged to gem or enchant it.
With the overhaul we’ll be adding more variety to gearing. No longer will you obtain every item for your class and have it fully optimized. How are we going to do this? Well, we’re removing class only items such as Rings, Necklace, & Cloaks. These items will join Weapons and Trinkets in how they’re handled. They’ll be generalized and locked to roles instead of classes; a agility ring will only be usable by druids, shaman, hunter, and rogues for example.
When it comes to earning this gear you will have to RAID for them, unless provided in different methods; Questing, Loot bags, etc. You will earn your eight piece armor sets by collecting currencies from bosses and buying them from a vendor. Weapons, Trinkets, Cloaks, Necklaces, and Rings will all be obtained from bosses. Bosses will drop multiple version of items as well. For example; killing one boss could give you a necklace that gives you crit. Killing another boss could give you a necklace giving haste. This will allow you to prioritize what stat you need most. Maybe you need more crit. Maybe you need more haste. The point is you will have options to pick from.
This also allows us to have rare loot drop from bosses. For example a boss can drop a BoE item thats higher than normal stats for that instance. Now you can equip this for a good upgrade but you can also sell/trade it. We feel that our server doesn’t have much of a economy anymore and we want to improve on that.
Most gear will be generalized no matter their class. What this means is that for the most part every stat on every item will be equal. There are some cases that some classes need different stats than their counter-parts. Generalization of gear makes gameplay more fair for everyone and makes it so the only advantage you have over someone is your class’s ability/talents or level of gear. This being said, some classes will always just be better. There is no way around that. It is the reason you play wotlk, where classes are different. A Death Knight tank will always be the best tank in WOTLK. Why? Just look at each of it’s talent trees and abilities. If you want balanced classes then you should play else where. This will never be a thing in WOTLK and we will no longer focus on changing things so all classes are even. Some classes will always be better than others. Most classes always have another class that can counter them easy. This is how WOTLK is. We will not go beyond stat generalization for balance sake.
Now how about a preview of the 3 different tanks? Allow you to see how much they different from each other, even with their stats generalized.
Paladin
As you can see paladins are a overall good balanced tank when it comes to defense. Other than druids, they’re the second highest crit tank. The gear in this screenshot is not prioritized. I just equiped random tank gear for it. Paladins have never been the best tanks. They’re one of the best off-tanks though and THE BEST aoe tank class. They also have the best survivability for tanks.
Warrior
In this screenshot I prioritized block on the weapons and off-pieces. I’m sure you can notice the difference already with a warrior and paladin. Warriors have always been the best single target tank class. They benefit from dodge, parry, and block. Good CD to counter bosses. Their talents alone are just amazing for single target tanking. Solid defense, Nice HP pool and good cooldowns. Can’t go wrong with a warrior tank.
Death Knight
Death Knights… what is there to say? Just overall the best tank class. Compare their stats. All the screenshots are ungemmed and unenchanted btw. Death knights are your overlords and you shall worship them as such! Amazing AoE tanks, highest threat based tanks, almost rival druid in armor. Amazing Damage as a tank. The MVP of WOTLK.
We do apologize we cannot show case every class and changes for it. We’re still waiting on some updates before those classes are ready to be shown. Different time zones and personal lives really work against us on big group projects like this as we’re all in different places. I hope this will do for now. As soon as those updates are pushed we will post a new post showcasing the rest of the stuff.
This is really a time consuming project for us, I cannot stress this enough. As we suffer from delays for above mentioned reasons and just the shear amount of work its going to take us do this for all items. We want to correct all the issues with items we can now so we don’t have to go back and do it in the future, focus on new content and not fixing old content. There are a LOT of issues with items on Unlimited. But I am sure I don’t have to tell you guys that.