pve-gear
Latest
Wowhead interviews Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas
Warlords of Draenor is bringing some big changes to the table -- and Wowhead recently interviewed Lead Game Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas about many of the changes we'll be seeing in regards to raiding, valor, and more. Item upgrades will be going away entirely, and with them, the valor point system seems to be attracting a shift in purpose, although that shift hasn't quite been decided just yet. However, the incentive mentioned during last year's BlizzCon that rewarded players with extra valor for grouping is undergoing a revamp, as valor currently isn't as useful as it has been in the past. Also interesting to note are the design changes for gear rewards. For the past several expansions, gear obtained from varying levels of difficulty in raids has always been the same model, simply different colors. In Warlords, this will be changed to be similar to what we saw in Burning Crusade -- PvP and PvE gear will share similar models, and the color shift will denote whether the armor was obtained in PvE, or PvP. Raid gear will go back to having different artwork, depending on the difficulty of the content completed -- so players that have defeated the most difficult content will have the snazzy gear to show for it. While Garrisons are going to be a huge piece of playable content, Hazzikostas pointed out that the feature is in no way mandatory -- the feature is not meant to feel like dailies in any way, and there won't be any sense of obligation to work on them on a daily basis. For those that have waded their way through the daily system introduced in Mists, that should be a relief to hear. Check out the full interview above for more from Hazzikostas -- and keep an eye on Wowhead for a full transcript of the interview soon.
How PvP gear works in Warlords
Say you want to PvP in Warlords of Draenor -- how are you going to go about gearing? How is gear going to work? Well, Blizzard's Lore went and put a whole lot of information about that very thing into this huge post, and it's very much worth reading. Because it explains: PvP gear with now scale up in power when you enter a PvP zone (battleground, arena, Ashram) or when you are attacked by another player. This is intended to remove the sometimes confusing extra stats we've seen proliferate since Cataclysm. All gear, even PvE gear, will scale up in designated PvP areas in a similar fashion. It won't eclipse PvP gear or its scaling, but the intent is that PvE players who are poorly geared won't immediately explode in PvP content. The exception is mythic quality PvE gear. It's ilevel is high enough that it will be slightly downscaled in PvP zones in order to keep Conquest gear the best option for PvP. PvP will now reward strongboxes for completing objectives and winning matches, and these strongboxes can contain rewards up to and including actual PvP gear. There will now be three tiers of PvP gear - starting gear, earned via strongboxes, with a fast accumulation rate, veterans gear, from both strongboxes and honor, and finally gladiator's gear from conquest points. For the full details, Lore's post is chock full of information. It also teases an upcoming post about how Ashram is going to be implemented, which I'm interested in reading.
Why do we still have separate PvP and PvE gear?
While seeking out questions to a Queue I wrote, I was asked by a Twitter follower why we had separate PvE and PvP gear in the first place. A question I love, and that I wouldn't be able to respond to briefly enough for The Queue. I'm not going to go into a complete, exhaustive history of PvP gear. For starters, I didn't play in Classic, so I can't really comment on the gear then, but I gather that there was a lot more overlap between the two. Then, with Burning Crusade, back in 2006, the combat rating system and Resilience were both introduced, along with arenas. PvP gear was born. It's been through many different iterations since then -- too easy to get, too hard to get, too bad for PvE, too good for PvE, different effects, stat budgets, you name it. But history, while it merits repetition, shouldn't have too much bearing on this question in today's game.
PvP gear and the barrier to entry
Honesty time: I hate PvP gear. I have good gear for PvP now, and I still hate it. I hate having to collect another set of gear, having to gem and enchant it differently, having to decide between resilience, crit and mastery, and in general having to do even more work to keep yet another set of gear (my third) current in order to participate effectively. On my alts, I especially hate having to go into BGs effectively naked (in PvE gear) and blow up over and over again. I've been considering the changes to PvP coming in Mists of Pandaria intended to address some of this and the conservative design philosophy reflected in this post by Ghostcrawler, and it has me contemplating how much more radical the redesign to PvP could and potentially should be. We know that in Mists of Pandaria, valor points will no longer serve to purchase new gear. Instead, they will be used to upgrade existing gear. You'll get a dungeon drop, then spend valor on it to improve it for purpose of raiding content, making the piece itself better instead of replacing it with a valor purchase. This has me thinking, and thinking hard, about how honor and conquest points should work in Mists of Pandaria and whether or not we should even have separate PvP gear anymore. There are a variety of ways we could alter the existing system.
Daxxarri clarifies PvP and PvE gear changes in Mists of Pandaria
Daxxarri took to the forums to clarify for players that the world will not end when the relative items levels of PvE and PvP gear change in the next expansion. Players have been confused as to what Blizzard meant when it indicated that PvP gear in Mists of Pandaria will be a lower item level than its PvE counterpart but more effective in PvP because of the addition of a free stat to the item's budget that boosts its effectiveness against other players. Blizzard is making this change for many reasons, one of which is to stop player abuse of PvP gear's item level to inflate their scores to enter dungeons via the Dungeon and Raid Finders earlier than they should. Resilience is being changed to a PvP-centric stat that does not cost anything in an item's budget and enhances the item's effectiveness in PvP. The item's effectiveness in PvE, however, would be that of similarly leveled PvE gear. This turns the best PvP gear into relatively decent PvE gear with a lower item level. The highest tier of PvP gear will still be the best gear for fighting other players because of the new stat that the highest tier of PvE gear is lacking, regardless of item level. If you PvP, wear PvP gear. If you PvE, wear PvE gear. Now, however, going between the two won't be as severe as it is right now. Hit the jump for Daxxarri's posts and explanations in full regarding PvP and PvE gear.
Is PvP gear good enough for heroics?
I don't really PvP these days. In vanilla, I had plenty of fun with my priest, running around and healing people who were on the mad dash for High Warlord. Back then, there wasn't really much in the way of PvP-appropriate gear -- in fact, when the honor system began, the most effective and deadly people you ran across in Battlegrounds were those who were raiding and collecting tier gear. I remember that fact particularly infuriated a friend of mine, who over the course of vanilla did nothing but PvP, although at the time that meant basically running around Southshore and Tarren Mill. When the honor system was introduced, there was a contest held by Blizzard for those who engaged in PvP, and the top characters on the realm who got the most amount of honorable kills were rewarded with a special tabard. My friend spent weeks in Tarren Mill, happily murdering Alliance until his fingers bled, and he won his tabard handily -- after all, nobody really did as much PvP as he did. Then the Battlegrounds came out. When he stepped into Battlegrounds, he discovered that despite the fact that he did nothing but PvP, he couldn't hold a candle against those people who engaged in raiding. The gear and weapons that they got from raiding were too powerful. And that's when he threw up his hands, said he didn't want to have to raid to be good at PvP, and promptly stopped playing the game.
Breakfast Topic: Should PVP and PVE gear be so different from each other?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. What is the purpose for PVP and PVE gear being mostly useless in the opposite grouping? At one time, raiders would own the Battlegrounds having the top gear in the game. In The Burning Crusade, subtlety rogues did the same in Arena with the tier 6 set bonus combined with Illidan's blades. But that was then, this is now. Currently, I hate the fact that I have to grind two separate sets of gear to do the same exact role. My paladin is holy. Whether I PVP or PVE, I heal with her. The problem is that my resilience healing gear hinders me while running heroics, and my ilevel 346 gear hinders me in Arena and Battlegrounds. Some of those in my guild do not mind dying a few more times because my gear is not optimal, but let's face it, they would rather not die because of my gear. I do remember how tough the grind for gear used to be. I do know that it is easier than ever to grind out two separate sets of gear. At the same time, I would like it to be more effective to wear a full 359 PVE set than 358 PVP set of gear. What do you think? Should PVE and PVP gear be that so different from each other?
Blood Sport: PvE gear in arena
Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? You'd better come back next week then, since this week Blood Sport has been hijacked. While Blood Sport's usual writer, C. Christian Moore, completes his 12 labors, a plebeian priest by the name of Dawn Moore has stepped up to the helm. Try to ignore the sounds of crashing objects, shattering glass and screeching cats. Mr. Moore is out this week, performing heroic deeds, winning the hearts of women, and living up to the descriptor "a gentleman and a scholar." For this reason I, Miss Moore, have been assigned to fill in for him. The reason for this has nothing to do with the following conversation. Alex Ziebart: Whoa, I just realized you and Colby have the same last name. Mind = Blown. Dawn Moore: *facepalm* Michael Sacco: Whoa, I never noticed that either. I am certain Mr. Moore's readers are filled with dread that an ill-qualified priestess hailing from the PvE side of the WoW.com has come to play checkers on their chessboard, so to soothe your minds I have provided ... Listening music: Find Yourself by John O'Callaghan and featuring Sarah Howells. The full version is better, but the music video is far too amusing and weird not to link. Last week: You had the reflections and speculations of a gladiator on the future of PvP in Cataclysm. This week: You may well die a little inside, as a lowly challenger tries to tell you something you don't already know about PvE gear in arena. Chance of failure: 85%.
Return of the weasel: Guild selection, Part 1
It has been brought to my attention that the quality of my writing improves enormously after humiliating BG defeats, so on your behalf, dear readers, I went out and lost three Alterac Valleys in a row. My future on this website may very well depend on my battlegroup's Horde PuG's continuing to suck. Lifetime employment isn't only for the Japanese, it would seem./frownToday we will discuss a matter of more general concern -- namely, making sure you are invited to a decent guild. Here at WoW Insider we run a question and tip line that is deluged with queries from readers hopeful that we can restore their lost accounts or change their passwords. After explaining to them that we don't actually have anything to do with how the game is run, they leave in a snit over Blizzard's poor customer service and write annoyed threads on the forums, which we then link to in order to have something to write about on slow news days ("Breakfast Topic: Does Blizzard's customer service blow or what?"). This is an excellent system and we are happy with it, but on occasion, actual questions sneak through:Dear Weasel Girl,I read your article on PvP and decided to put your ideas to the test. Boy, was I surprised! Not only did my arena rating drop by less than ever, but I also got two more pieces of Season 1 by making myself a barnacle on the arse of a S3 hunter! Also my postnasal drip went away!But all is not well! I have been kicked out of nine guilds and am trying to find another one. I was wondering if you had any tips on finding a good guild. Especially one with lots of girls or a casual attitude to withdrawals from the guild bank.Yr. most obedient and humble servant,PwnsyooWell, sir, this is a serious question -- and not just for you, but for the rest of us as well.
