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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.
The future of itemization
I've written long, eloquent defenses of reforging. And this week, I finally snapped. The fact that I have to reforge between my arms spec and my fury spec (and not just reforge, but regem) has finally broken me. I now take it all back - reforging sucks. It compensates for things that are flaws in the modern game, but I no longer find that charming. I just find it irritating that those faults exist and that we have a means to wallpaper over them doesn't change the fact that they exist. In a way, my relationship with reforging mirrors my relationship with the old tanking scheme that existed before Mists of Pandaria - I knew there were flaws with threat generation, but I'd grown familiar with them. I understood that they were there and how to circumvent them. In the modern game, there are significant flaws with itemization, and reforging is that means to circumvent them, so I've been a big booster of and supporter of it ever since it was introduced back in Cataclysm. But I was wrong. Using reforging to sandpaper down the jagged edges where gear doesn't meet our needs doesn't change the fact that gear doesn't meet our needs - it merely conceals those edges. We know that we're going to have two new stats - multistrike and readiness - in addition to critical strike, haste and mastery. None of these are caps in the same way that hit or expertise are (soon to be were) - we'll see how they work, but we already know some talents will affect them or be affected by them, like the upcoming Anger Management talent for warriors. So what I'm wondering is, are we finally going to see a situation where there's enough gear with stats individual classes want that we don't need a system to make up for gear's shortcomings? Or are we just going to have to make the best of bad itemization again, like we did back in Wrath?
Tertiary stats and that pesky bag space problem
I think it was really nice of Blizzard to cook up a way to fix our bag space problem with the toy box and primary stat conversion. Recognizing this, I propose a way to make it even worse. I'll start with a story. There was a brief period on the Mists of Pandaria beta where the combination of the feral 4-piece PvP bonus, the Feline Swiftness talent, and a run speed enchant resulted in the glory that was the 132% speed bear. I could run around the first boss' room in Stormstout kiting a howling pack of monkeys before the DPS even made it up the stairs, and zooming around Pandaria's countryside was equally fun. Run speed's value was obvious and it was a bummer when the PvP bonus no longer stacked with Feline Swiftness. So now that run speed, cleave, and "multistrike" are on the table as randomly-generated tertiary stats to be found (if rarely) on gear, I'll be blunt: I want enough cleave while healing that my Rejuvenation will hit, if possible, the people in local hospitals. I want enough cleave while tanking that Thrash will run out of targets in the game, physically reach through the computer and smack the people who don't read raid chat instructions in LFR. I want enough run speed that I can cap the Warsong Gulch flag before the match even starts, triggering a singularity that will cause time to fold in on itself. Here's the rub. Knowing that tertiary stats are going to be completely random and also rare, the only way I can stack any of them to a useful level is to hoard whatever pieces I can find and create specialized sets for them. It'll be great to free up all the bag space currently devoted to our offspec gear, but how long will those bags stay empty with the siren call of a "speed set" or a "cleave set?"
Scattered Shots: Mining Celestalon's tweets for hunter information
Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing new stats and the potential for hunter spec differentiation. We're still patiently waiting for the Warlords of Draenor beta to get some more concrete information on hunters, but in the meantime we've had Celestalon to poke and prod on Twitter. Celestalon is a Technical Game Designer on WoW and has been very forthcoming with technical information regarding classes and the new gearing system in Warlords. We've learned a few new bits of information such as how new secondary stats will work and some vague plans for their intentions with the hunter class. If you missed the BlizzCon hunter recap post, be sure to check it out before we dive into the newer stuff. The replacements for hit and expertise You may have heard how hit and expertise are being removed from the game in Warlords of Draenor. I was very happy when I heard about this, but at the same time wondered if gear was going to get too simple since they're also removing reforging, and having less gems and enchants on gear. The good news is, those two wholly uninteresting stats are being replaced by 3 new ones, and if you've been raiding Siege of Orgrimmar their functionality may already be familiar to you.
Lichborne: Warlords of Draenor Q&A for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. Last week, we covered the basic class changes of Warlords of Draenor. This week, we're taking a few common questions about those changes and combining them with new information. We'll be discussing the new secondary stats and how they affect tanks, examine the possible return of dual wield tanking, and consider death knight lore in the new expansion. Without further ado, let's get started. Q: Could dual wield tanking come back with Warlords of Draenor? After all, your weapons hit more now that hit and expertise are gone. No. Ghostcrawler clarified recently that the miss chance for dual wield weapons isn't going away. You will still miss with "white" hits, it's just that your special hits will never miss (at least, not because of your gear). This will be exacerbated by the fact that blood death knight special attacks will not hit with the off-hand. The reason dual wielding works for frost is that Threat of Thassarian exists. It does not exist for blood death knights, therefore blood death knight dual wielding is still inferior and likely will stay inferior in Warlords of Draenor. The only real advantage dual wield tanking has is that you might get more Bloodworms, but that is not enough to offset the losses.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Amplify, Multistrike, and Readiness
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. You may be asking "What are you talking about with this Amplify, Multistrike and Readiness stuff?" and if you are, it's a fair point. These are the new secondary stats (note that I said secondary, not tertiary) coming with Warlords of Draenor to replace hit, expertise, dodge and parry. And we know this because Celestalon, technical game designer on WoW, explained them on twitter. So, what are these stats? Well, I'll let him explain. X% Amplify means: +X% Crit Damage Multiplier and Multistrike Damage Multiplier, and +X% more Haste/Mastery/Readiness/Spirit/Armor from gear. X% Multistrike means: Each ability has two separate (X/2)% chances to hit each target an additional time for 30% damage. Multistrikes count as hitting the same target twice with one cast, not multiple casts. (i.e. Mind Blast won't generate 2 shadow orbs) Multistrike is split into two (X/2)% chances, so that you can occasionally get a triple-hit (fun!), and the cap is 200%, not 100%. X% Readiness increases the cooldown recovery rate (aka, divides the cooldown by (1+Readiness)) of *some* class abilities. The number of abilities affected by Readiness will vary by spec (will be listed in spellbook, like Mastery). Coefficient likely to vary too. Celestalon via twitter Amplify is basically the ability Thok's Tail Tip currently gives, Multistrike is similar to our arms mastery (or this Agi trinket), and Readiness is basically the Evil Eye of Galakras. Celestalon notes that Readiness won't be linked to the exact same abilities as the trinket, but the basic effect is the same - the more readiness you have, the more some of your cooldowns will be reduced. It's very important to realize these will be secondary stats, on the same statistical tier as Crit, Haste and Mastery are now. These are interesting stats for a couple of reasons. The first is because, like Mastery, they have broader effects than just "hit faster/crit more" - Amplify in particular is a stat that magnifies other stats, so stacking Amplify affects a variety of other stats (the ones listed above that we would care about are Haste, Mastery, Readiness and Armor) as well as the damage of our critical hits and Multistrike extra attacks. This means that if Mastery was a big stat for warriors in Warlords, it might be very worthwhile to stack Amplify/Mastery gear.
Blood Pact: Trinkets for warlocks in patch 5.4
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill spends 50k coins on a trinket for fun because, whatever, she'll be killing things all day on the Timeless Isle anyway. Last week, I couldn't fit trinkets into the article. I couldn't even fit in enough disclaimer and caveat into the article to address the article's problems. Since trinkets aren't as cut and dry as regular passively statted gear, there are more caveats and situational criteria to collect before passing a final judgment.
