bonus-armor
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Bonus Armor and the Flexibility of Gear Design
One of the things I like to do is read up on how gear will be designed in the future and really consider how it will play out. We know that Warlords of Draenor will be a vastly different game in many respects, including gear design. One of the ways that's showcased for us is in how bonus armor will be applied as a tanking stat. Not only will bonus armor be a stat you only see on certain slots (rings, trinkets, necks and cloaks), not only will the stat itself be greyed out for non-tanks (so a DPS warrior or paladin wouldn't get bonus armor from an item with that state, while a tanking warrior or paladin would), but also, bonus armor items will have both strength and agility on them, and the one you get will be based on class (so a monk with a bonus armor ring would get agility, a death knight would get strength). This isn't just fascinating in and of itself, but in what it reveals about what is possible for gear going forward. If bonus armor items can have strength and agility, then it's feasible that all Warlords weapons could have strength, agility and intellect and only display the one that's useful for the class and spec using it - a 1h mace could have strength for a DK, agility for a shaman, and intellect for a priest. It's the flexibility of the potential design that's the most interesting, and obvious, departure from the original game.
Warlords of Draenor: Itemization changes on the way
According to the latest round of alpha patch notes from patch 6.0, we're in for some major itemization changes in Warlords of Draenor. While we've had bits and pieces of information regarding itemization and stat changes in the upcoming expansion, we didn't really have a lot of clarification or detail on exactly what those changes are going to be. The latest iteration of patch notes has cleared that up considerably, and expanded on what little we knew. Hit and Expertise are both gone, replaced instead with a universally useful secondary stat. Three new secondary stats have been added -- Bonus Armor, which simply increases armor; Multistrike, which grants attacks and abilities a chance to fire an additional time for 30% effectiveness; and Readiness, which reduces the cooldown of several class abilities with long cooldowns. Multistrike works for both damage and healing abilities, making it useful for all classes and specializations. In addition, the amount of role-specific stats is being reduced. Tanks will use Armor, which replaces both Dodge and Parry, and Spirit will be useful only to healers. But it's the changes to items themselves that sound absolutely intriguing.
