Recently, several members of the World of Warcraft development team took time to elaborate on itemization changes coming to the MMO’s next expansion, Cataclysm.
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.
We aren’t trying to kill spreadsheets or simulators, and I’m not even sure we could. The situations where two pieces have different stats but provide an equal dps increase are always going to be rare.
The problem we’re actually trying to solve is where one stat is so far superior to other stats that the rest of the item is irrelevant. Currently, most casters prefer haste over crit to the extent where they might use an item from a previous tier. That’s not ideal (though obviously something else could be going on with their decision, like they are passing to someone else to be nice or they have a better upgrade in mind on the next boss or whatever). In Cataclysm, given an item with haste versus one with crit your spreadsheet might still tell you the haste item will provide more of an upgrade. But hopefully it won’t be such an upgrade that the decision becomes a no-brainer. Hopefully the other stats on the item will come into play more. It’s too easy currently to focus on The Best Stat to the exclusion of all else. (I’m not talking about stats such as spell power, attack power or Strength, because for most of your pieces, those just scale with item level. I’m talking about the secondary stats where the real gearing decisions come from.)
Many players in the “spreadsheet” community have complained or, at the very least, expressed concern for the upcoming stat changes in Cataclysm. For those that are unaware, Blizzard plans to drop some of the currently combat ratings in favor of a new stat called “Mastery”. Mastery will be different for every class and talent tree, and will fundamentally change certain abilities and talents to create differentiation between players at a very core level.
What do you think about the upcoming stat changes? Is Blizzard making the game too simple? Or will this truly add more depth to a player’s gear choices? Let us know by registering or posting below.
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