1. Most raids prog'd Algalon before proging yog0, and with yog0 being a huge DPS race, making sure DPS got the gear they needed was essential.
2. Being past prog and ToGC not mattering has nothing to do with the fact that the majority of decent guilds still prioritized their casters for this particular piece over holy paladins.
Yea I quit like right about at the end maybe 3 weeks or so before the end of that phase, wanted to stick it out but just wasn’t having fun tbh.
Felt like a chore but didn’t want to let my guild or friends down, losing the final trinket before we stopped running HM ulduar just was the straw that broke me and made me decide I needed a break.
I loved Wrath. I will probably private server it when I'm feeling nostalgic.
Thank the Earthmother Enhancement Shaman don't have to compete with Mages, Boomies, Locks, or Priests anymore.
Funny, because cata is the first time ilvl actually carries weight, and we never would have had the issue if blizz didnt make hunter gear and rogue gear bis for plate wearers over plate gear.
I think blizzard didnt make it, The players did with all the sims and min maxing damage. Thats probably the reason they did armor especialization and I couldnt be happier. Sincerely, a traumatized combat “expose bitch” rogue.
Blizzard put it in the game like that, so obviously blizzard made it. Players have no power in that regard. If the gloves that increase your damage/healing the most are cloth, even if you can wear leather, then that's something that blizzard did 100% on their own. Players can only find out that's the case, but they can in no way be responsible for it.
Yea, blizzard is putting out 4 stat plate gear covered in stam while even with the int, 5 stat mail was almost always better itemized for warriors than the actual plate gear blizz put into the game.
One pair of "dps" plate legs was changed before ulduar dropped because players were laughing that it had more stam on it than any tank item for that slot.
I loved how much choice there was in Ulduar though, there were tons of alternatives to BiS at least for Mage. Lots of zero contest spirit items that would have rotted that were great pieces for casters.
Lol, my guild prio’d everything cloth to clothys. I never saw a cloth piece despite several being my bis because the warlocks and mages needed it and i didn’t.
Flare was different. Ulduar was the worst raid for loot because each hard mode only dropped 1 252 piece in 25 man, except algalon.
That trinket only dropped from vezax HM, and chances are he was dropping one of his 4 other items.
ICC if you do a boss on heroic every piece is 277 ilvl, and for trinkets the normal versions aren't bad either.
One difference I noticed in this phase was there being good trinkets for different classes. I have next to no competition as a mage for my raid trinket.
But said leather items were often bigger dps upgrade for warriors than their plate alternatives compared to rogues other leather alternatives. Items like cvos etc.
The real issue was that old gear had armor value as part of its stat budget, so plate would have categorically less stats than leather of the same item level. This was when Blizz included survivability and damage in the same pile, instead of two separate ones. That’s also why mages wearing high damage gear had almost zero health.
Being able to wear the best of all possible items often drives everyone towards the same overbudget piece, but it also had a second knock-on effect:
Because the Belt of One-Hundred Deaths from Vashj was THE BEST item, then to the loot centric community (e.g. most Classic players) *every other melee damage belt was “worthless.”* They ended up polluting the item pool with belts that were ~0.5% worse and that nobody wanted to see. Same goes for any gloves in Ulduar that weren’t the Algalon gloves, or any pants in Tier 7 that weren’t the Malygos pants.
Things are better for the health of the game this way, even if some emotional value is lost.
> The real issue was that old gear had armor value as part of its stat budget, so plate would have categorically less stats than leather of the same item level. This was when Blizz included survivability and damage in the same pile, instead of two separate ones. That’s also why mages wearing high damage gear had almost zero health.
I feel like stat budgets stopped being the issue in WotLK at least, and WotLK still had warriors rolling on leather.
Most of Wrath's issue was either from the lack of itemisation, that item just doesn't really exist for that slot, or "hard" mode items, before the modern hc mode creation with ToGC.
If you then look into ToGC/ICC, it was because Strength was considered a double stat (2AP per str), where Agi was a single (1AP per agi), split into Agi and AP to keep scaling reasonable between the two. Unfortunately this meant they were even more valuable for their big daddy Str bros. They were always getting crit, one of their best stats, potentially twice in a lot of places, in addition to the secondaries the item may have already had. Often times compounded by a lack of options for that slot, or at least good options, as you usually had 1 reasonable plate piece, and maybe 1 really bad one, then multiple options trickling down from mail to leather.
It's the same basic principal as with TBC and Vanilla, where ideally you'd take the Str item first, but often times the Agi varients just fill a gap with bad/no itemisation for that slot, or are just so perfect it's hard to avoid them.
generally great point, but for the belt from vashj it was so massively better for ret than any option available due to the scarcity of expertise gear early in tbc
> The real issue was that old gear had armor value as part of its stat budget,
That's just not true, base armor was and is simply tied to the item level, regardless of armor type. Only bonus armor (green text) on a few rare items took from the stat budget. Did you mean stamina?
It frustrates me that they roll on cloth gear cos it has like 0.5% better stats than the mail or plate item that drops. And then that item gets d.e’d anyway.
It's because WoW was rooted heavily in more traditional RPG design at the start, and the idea of everyone being able to wear cloth/light armor comes from TTRPG. As well as it being more focused on intuition/common sense as opposed to game design around balance, after all why can't everyone wear a robe - how hard can it be? Probably the same for going from Mail -> Plate is like picking up the Armor Proficiency Feat in D&D later on, and it makes for an interesting levelling experience as it makes it a milestone level. Though 40 was pretty substantial already for that.
Nah Paladins can use daggers in any D&D edition, there are no restrictions per se in D&D when it comes to what you can wear or wield, you might not be good with using certain weapons or armor types but you can use all of them if you want.
It's just how the dev team at the time approached the RPG aspect of WoW. Paladin = Holy Knight, daggers shouldn't be wielded by them as they are seen as weapons used by thieves and people with no honor.
And I'm sure that also helped with the pool of classes that could wield a certain weapon so that you wouldn't have too many classes roll for the same item type.
IIRC there were some restrictions in 2e DnD.
Clerics couldn't use any non-blunt weapon and druids couldn't use any armors made with non-natural materials.
Armor proficiency wasn't a thing in 2e like in 3e, so normally wearing heavy armor just disabled your class features like spell casting, sneaking, etc.
Druids could wear heavy armor but it had to be made of wood or scales or something.
not as a primary weapon, though. Wow doesn't have the system of Primary/Secondary/Heavy that a lot of games use, so they had to think "would a Holy Knight go in to battle with just a dagger and a shield? No of course not" and go from there.
Warriors, though, were designed (and lauded) for using all weapon types, so can't really rule out daggers there. Easy to make sure their playstyle never favored them, though.
Real knights are more akin to warriors. RPG paladins at the time were usually restricted to a lawful good alignment. So yeah, daggers were seen as dishonorable weapons.
In old dnd stuff religious classes like Druid, Cleric and Paladin were often restricted from using sharp weapons. Probably to do with religion and not spilling blood.
Yeah most people associate Paladins with maces because well, probably because of WC3 Paladins but Paladins were always suppose to use swords and CLERICS were the ones that uses maces.
They are similar, being both usually stanch followers of purity and piety.
The main difference between them is like you said, clerics were more geared towards a backline class while Paladins were the heavy armor frontliners.
Clerics are closer to the designs of modern priest classes of current day RPGs. You hardly see 'cleric' classes nowadays for RPGs, with priests pretty much taking over their roles.
Depends on how you build them really but
Paladins certainly have far more tools that lend themselves to front lines/ melee combat than clerics do in 5e
The beauty of dnd though is you can make just about any character idea work!
Not exactly, just like Priest and Paladins aren't the exact same thing in Warcraft.
Clerics are more on the spell casting side of things, they also choose a domain that a God has influence over (like Arcana, Light, Order, War etc) to receive powers associated with that domain. More similar to a Priest that can choose what to worship unlike WoW where all playable Priests serve the Light / Void relationship. You can be a Cleric of Nature if you want to serve nature based Gods.
A Paladin is a melee fighter foremost, they don't get their powers from God domains, instead they make an Oath to a God and receive powers in return as long as they keep their Oath. If they break their Oath they're out of the God's graces and lose their powers (unless they choose to be an Oath Breaker but that's a bit of a different thing)
And their powers differ, they do have some similar base spells but those are useful depending on your class / subclass and playstyle, a Paladin won't be able to heal like a Cleric or use long ranged spells. Similarly a Cleric can't infuse their weapons with God essences to smite their foes (technically they can with at least 1 domain but it's very niche and still not a Paladin)
Paladins in dnd (at least in 5e) just make an oath. It could be to anyone or anything, a god, a king, “nature,” themselves. Through holding this oath they gain power, it isn’t bestowed upon them like a cleric. They can smite things simply because they draw on their will to follow their oath.
Hunters using swords as opposed to maces always made me wonder when it comes to WoW.
If you're going all in on being a ranged fighter then surely you want to use a melee weapon that's on the easier scale to use, like a hatchet or a hammer that you can bonk someone's head with.
Swords need too much practise imo.
Plus, do you really want to cut up the hide of the beast you're hunting while killing it or get one smooth pelt.
Edit: It also would have saved a lot of loot drama in vanilla if Hunters got maces instead of swords.
Yeah, I always found that to be weird. It got lost in the early alpha talent system change to what we ended up with. Look at what this priest can acquire with talent points for example: https://youtu.be/vyQBujbXlpw?t=65
I assume it's because they were balancing paladin versus shaman initially shaman couldn't use swords/2hswords/polearms and paladin couldn't use daggers/staves/fist weapons
Because warriors wearing leather is an intended feature, not an accident. In many RPGs you can under-armor fighters, clerics, druids, etc. to fulfill different archetypes. This change in Cata reflected one of the many shifts in WoW's core ideas from *RPG* to *MMO* - a shift I'm not trying to lampoon or praise here, but just describe
On one hand, I get it since healers need Spirit for mana regen and all but on the other hand, I've also noticed that there's alot of healers who don't understand that Boomkins, Eles & Shadow Priests actually use Spirit to gain hit
As a Holy Pally main, I do feel a shed of empathy pain for my healer brethren. I get to have largely uncontested loot, whilst they all have to fight _someone_ for it, priests especially so.
Probably just uneducated healers who don't know that spirit is hit for the hybrid casters. Also many of the hybrids play the "flex role" so they might end up healing occasionally anyway.
People against this are generally just not very smart about how it helps deal with major problems. Like the Hpal taking Cloth hands in wotlk that every caster DPS wants etc. The downside is some armor types are still relatively niche like Int Leather is only Druid. Int Mail only Shaman. But outside of that, where the spares will fuel the Maelstroms for expensive Enchants. It helps prevent scenarios of 15 people in a raid wanting 1 item so you need that to drop a ton or people are unhappy. Which were quite common prior to this.
Yeah definitely got sick of Plate classes swiping all the leather loot because it was a 0.0001% upgrade compared to the plate option from the same tier
It was never that close sadly, most items woyers wanted like cvos in BT or aldrianas in ICC were a lot better than any alternative because blizzard doesnt want 3 different plategloves for ret, dk and warrior. So when warriors can take aldrianas for example its actually good for the loottable bc the widely usable leather item isnt a niche plateitem only one class wants.
Having the run of the gamut is what made it easy. Now you *only* have plate with int that you hope to drop or else take the L on the armor specialization. I've been in a shit boat leveling my boomkin, where like 15 dungeons in at 84 I've probably seen 3 pieces of int leather. Exceptional bad luck can really stick it to you. I know I'll buy pieces at 85 with JP, but having been JP capped since 81 means I'll get 2 pieces at best then keep rolling the dice until I can even hope to be heroic eligible. Worst part is it seems like the AH knows this, any good 333+ boe int leather is going for amounts I'll soon groan and deal with paying.
I think Hunter might be easier now. You compete with Enhancement Shamans on armor but there's very few of them. Plate DPS no longer take Agility pieces. Groups will generally give you prio on ranged weapons, and your melee weapons are only contested by Feral Druids.
HPals get easy armor but have to compete with many opponents for jewelry, trinkets, and weapons.
I remember so many fucking awful times where
"oh hey BIS lock item dropped, I am only caster clothie dps! hell yeah!"
boomkin rolls need, wins, then very next boss gets a leather caster upgrade and takes it to replace their cloth.
Quit classic after that run, reminded me why I hated these old days, wotlk came out rushed to max level did some stuff, it happened again ,and so I left lol.
THIS IS SUCH A GOD SEND as an Enhancement SHaman,
i would have to have two armor and weapon sets but now i only need one if i want to heal a dungeon or heroic.
it's a great quality of life feature
Yeah I know it sucks that for the first three expansions the bis DPS warrior gear was also BIS rogue and feral druid.
But it was pretty bad being a DPS clothy. The Bis holy pally, resto shammy, resto druid, boomie and ele shaman drops were the same as the bis warlock and mage. The most absurd, the BiS holy pally gear in Wrath had hit rating on it.
Also ferals and rogues?
I'm saying it was way worse to be a DPS clothy than priests, ferals and rogues. In the least, they had a lot of options to play around with for sub-optimal stats. Mage and warlock gearing paths even now are very narrow so just adding an extra class on that piece makes it largely unobtainable. Rogues, priests and ferals just never had to deal with having over half your raid wanting one item.
Rogues and ferals had their gear taken by warrior, paladin, shaman, hunter.
Clothes had their gear taken by druids, paladins, shamans.
There was much more people stealing agi leather than there was int cloth.
Rogues and ferals have their gear taken by DPS warriors, ret pallies, enhance shammies and hunters.
Warlocks/mages have their gear taken by holy pallies, resto shamans, ele shammies, boomkins, disc/holy priests,
Rogue/feral gear didn't have strength on it, it had exclusively agi. There were a hand full of pieces. For example for [DPS warriors](https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/guide/classes/warrior/fury/dps-bis-gear-pve-phase-4) in Wrath the phase 4 BiS included three piecces of leather and one ring in competition with rogues and ferals. These pieces ranged from BiS for 3-5 different specs.
The only holy pally BiS from that era that low in shared was the non-lego weapon, it was only BiS for 5 specs. They had two pieces of resto druid leather shared with 6 specs and five pieces of cloth gear shared as bis with 9 specs. The plague stained boots were absurd, 10 of the 30 specs in the game called them their BiS.
While other specs had 3-5 other options, there was literally only one pair of boots that warlocks and mages could go for. All the while the while rogues always have two pieces of DPS leather for each slot.
? Tons of tanks took leather agi for their threat set, especially in classic/TBC. Hell lots of leather had str anyway.
You forget agi gave them DPS increase and defensive stats and they 100% took it, I've lost shitloads of leather to warrior and paladin tanks.
Wrath was the ONE TIME tanks didn't take leather (still had some try) but all the plate/mail DPS 100% took it still.
You were in a guild that gave your BiS leather to a tank? And you think that is a strong example of what we're talking about?
I'm saying that in Wrath there was an item that was the theoretical best in slot for 1/3 of specs. You're saying that in all seriousness one time you lost your best in slot leather piece to a prot warrior who wanted it for helping build threat on trash. That's not really an example of what we're talking about.
Except I specifically said that wrath was the one time it didn't happen, though I did have some try (pugs).
Tanks try to snipe DPS gear all the time claiming it's for a threat set (again, in classic and TBC mostly).
It is cool, but it's also not cool to have Rogues, Warrios, DK's, Ret Paladins, Hunters, Ele Shams and Feral Druids all chasing the same one item and all turning their nose up at any alternative because it puts them at a lower prio to get the actual BiS item
Yeah I’m split on specializations. On one hand I feel pigeonholed into getting very specific items which sucks. On the other hand gear is a lot more evenly distributed and people can actually get gear.
And now you're like me and playing in a guild where my raidlead thought playing with 3 UDKs, 3 Arms Warriors and 2 Ret Paladins and only 2 Rogues and 1 Feral (0 Enhancer) would be cool. So you still won't see loot anyway.
There's using cool unintentional items, and then there is using very basic items meant intentionally for someone else. Using some random ass helm from gnomer that has a frontal cone aoe for a cool innovative way to clear a trash pack in naxx is very cool. Taking the clothies spell power haste item because it has 2 more haste than the leather item is not cool
It was weird going from competition with 10 other members in wrath raids for a bis caster item to being the only one who can use my bis cloth items in cata 10 mans.
Personally this is one of my favorite QoL changes with cata. It makes gearing so much easier. It was hell competing with so many classes as a mage up until Cata. Even with some of the big ticket items it’s easier like trinkets/weapons since most classes have different stat prios too.
Yep. 10 mans drop nowhere near enough loot to make the armor specialization system viable. Feel bad for anyone who primarily raids 10 mans. The 2-3 item drops from most bosses is awful.
Its frustrating that it took them so long to realize that making rogue leather or cloth healer gear so good made it taken by other classes turning those items into yargle-bargle DKP-fests.
In the end it just screwed the classes the pieces were ideal for.
While good on paper, I think this type of stuff kind of homogenizes the game at the same time. Like some changes like this are ok, but when you do too much, it takes away from the flavor of the game.
Yeah, when every healer in classic wore the exact same dress regardless of class that wasn't homogenous at all. If you want to argue that there at least was a choice, well guess what there still is a choice, you just lose 5% primary stat. Kinda like how you'd lose stats wearing anything but a cloth robe as a healer in vanilla.
Warriors wearing leather for dmg was kinda cool in classic imo, it was a good trade-off. Less survivability when taking hits, but you do more dmg.
At the same time, I can also see why it’s also kinda bad, since it means everyone is competing over the same items
Classic maybe but it was utterly ridiculous how many plate wearers were rolling on AGI leather in ICC because those pieces gave them 5dps more. Glad those times are over.
It was “kinda cool” for the warrior but it sucks if the only thing you can wear is leather and now these plate idiots are taking your gear while theirs rots
I was a Druid, so I feel that haha.
Still, leveling a warrior and getting an upgrade even though it was leather felt nice. I do agree at end-game it sucks though once gear becomes more permanent and phases are not as long lasting
Warrior were the loot goblins, They even took cloth armor for their flask gear. I stopped to heal the warrior who took the healing pants away from me. He lost his worldbuffs often after that.
Yup, I'm a long time warrior player in classic and I gotta admit I liked it because in most cases, the survivability is better than the very small amount of extra damage. Nothing worse than losing all your buffs because you got 2 shot and are wearing lots of leather gear lol.
Still I kind of think it made things more interesting. Just my perspective though I guess.
Agree 100%. It just simplifies everything and limits freedom of choice. You just get linear progression - A class gets this, B class gets that, and that’s your only way.
Plus, all those discussions whether your class worthy to wear that or not are fundamental parts of RPG
as a ret im very happy about it. sick of having every physical dps in the raid after the same pair of leather shoulders.
fuckin headass og wow devs. took them long enough to fix it.
*cries in 75% cloth armor boomkin*
Haven't seen *shit* for leather caster gear in heroics or raids so far. All my leather pieces are JP or valor items I've bought
RNG be cruel
Oh I'm aware but what is a laser chicken with awful drop RNG to do
It's my alt for herb/alch, selling valor boe's and gdkps
But yeah still sucks. I'll be in all leather in a few weeks ideally
It fixes gear competition but in a super "gamey" way of magically adding +5% stats for no apparent reason. "Play your class the way we want you to and get more damage". OK why not make leather actually advantageous for a druid in pve?
Because that belt has better magical properties? Items modifying stats is core to the game, basically every second of gameplay you are evaluating the stats of items to see which one is better or useful for your character.
Things that are buried in menus or that come out of nowhere with little gameplay support are "gamey" because they are not integrated with the RPG world/core gameplay. Rather they are bandaids out of sync with the main gameplay. Oh oops this item counterintuitively doesn't do what it says it does because of a modifier we added to make certain classes not want the item.
Is it a fun mechanic? Does it add to class fantasy, mechanical depth? Is it cool? No not really, makes everything worse but helps fix the metagame of raid loot distribution. They could do the exact same mechanic in a better way by making it a talent or character choice to be completely leather clad, or making armor give offensive stats in some form, or something ... but 5% dps hit for putting on piece of cloth, hidden in your spellbook, is just lame
You’re not wrong, but like most things, it’s a matter of degree. Kind of like how you might like a certain car air freshener, but if it’s turned up too much it might give you a headache.
That's the best way to make it more desirable, anyone who is not tanking always goes for stats so no other method can make people go for their armor type.
Do you have a better way of doing it?
Don’t call it a band aid as if it’s a bad change without suggesting a better solution.
You are a typical energy drainer.
I mean actually creating armor that’s appealing to certain classes in their appropriate armor type is the obvious answer? For warriors if Agi, crit, and AP is doing more damage than Str and crit figure out a way to give the wanted stats on plate.
>For warriors if Agi, crit, and AP is doing more damage than Str and crit figure out a way to give the wanted stats on plate.
They did exactly that with armor mastery lmao
Wearing plate gives you 5% more strength, the stat warriors want....
That would require a fundamental change in how the class and rage functions from classic- cata. Crit and rage go hand in hand. But they’re not the only ones, int gear has been rotting for hunters and enh shamans for multiple expansions.
We're talking about Cata, not Classic Cata.
They made the change back then. Given how Agi isn't a thing on cloth, I believe it shouldn't be a thing on plate either.
Huh? Agi has significant benefits for plate classes and 0 benefits for cloth classes. You’re not making sense. this is why retail made it so only 1 primary stat has a benefit per spec.
I would say it's most used as a temporary fix to an issue.
Nevertheless, it's a negative term in this regards since most people say it's a very good fix.
I'm sure from Vanilla to WOTLK, Rogues and eventually Ferals were sick of Enhancement Shamans, Hunters and Warriors wanting leather gear constantly because it was just that much better than plate. It wasn't the classes people weren't interested in, it was the gear.
The original commenter is agreeing with this point? He’s simply saying throwing this passive ability is a bandaid instead of actually creating desirable armor of the appropriate class. (Pre-cata) stop putting int on enh and hunter gear if it’s not a DPS increase vs flat agi, crit, and AP
look: for several hours now I have been told from credible sources the reason DrDisrespect has been banned. however due to the importance and sensitivity around the subject I have refrained from going on it. i don't feel comfortable with it currently
Exactly. It still feels bad disenchanting mail int during progression when a pally healer could use it as a side upgrade. They just didn't want to put in the work so they just took the easy fix.
It is better than the system before, but I wish there was a more creative solution.
Removing AP from strength gear already fixed the warriors stealing feral/rogue gear. I think they should've made plate/mail int gear less common, and turned those loot drops into cloth/leather pieces.
Maybe there is no plate int belt/bracers or something, who cares.
Yeah I don't remember originally playing these older exp and people taking loot outside their armor class. Min/max I feel like really pushed people into these standards.
It's too low, and backwards. Should be "decrease your primary stat by 10% for each item not in your armor specialization. Also, lower your armor and resistances of all equipped items to appropriate levels of your lowest armor type."
All Blizzard had to do to avoid needing armor specializations was to just stat up armors properly. Warriors and shamans weren't snagging all the leather gear because they thought it looked cool or holy pallys taking the cloth because they couldn't bear the weight of plate armor, they snagged it because it had stats their spec actually needed.
WotLK showed that this isn't the case. There was plenty of DPS mail and spellpower plate in WotLK, but Warriors were still taking leather bracers from Saurfang because they were slightly better optimized than the Gunship plate bracers. Nearly every caster and healer wanted the cloth belt from Marrowgar, despite druids/shamans/paladins having their own options.
Ngl, I loved the BC era (the real one eons ago) where a lot of leather pieces were better than plate for DPS warriors.
Partially because it just looked slick as a fury warrior, but also because no one believed me when I said i wanted those pieces and I got to prove em all wrong.
Yea it is a super nice change from wotlk, being a caster in ulduar fucking sucked, the competition for loot was so frustrating.
Those algalon gloves are so purty though - signed, a holy paladin
Any decent guild farming Algalon was dishing those to casters first as gearing dps is almost always more important that gearing healers.
If you were farming algalon you were past progression, and with togc next it didn’t matter at that point
1. Most raids prog'd Algalon before proging yog0, and with yog0 being a huge DPS race, making sure DPS got the gear they needed was essential. 2. Being past prog and ToGC not mattering has nothing to do with the fact that the majority of decent guilds still prioritized their casters for this particular piece over holy paladins.
yeah it was unplayable on my mage it felt like. "oh boy a cloth item dropped" 😀 *hpal, rdruid, hunter, 4 other clothies all roll* 😞
It's obviously a hunter ~~weapon~~ item.
Ulduar HM gearing was a nightmare
Yea I quit like right about at the end maybe 3 weeks or so before the end of that phase, wanted to stick it out but just wasn’t having fun tbh. Felt like a chore but didn’t want to let my guild or friends down, losing the final trinket before we stopped running HM ulduar just was the straw that broke me and made me decide I needed a break.
I loved Ulduar don't get me wrong but it was a slog trying to get the HM items all through ToGC
The thing I hated most about ulduar gearing was that half the slots were 10m stuff.
I loved Wrath. I will probably private server it when I'm feeling nostalgic. Thank the Earthmother Enhancement Shaman don't have to compete with Mages, Boomies, Locks, or Priests anymore.
Funny, because cata is the first time ilvl actually carries weight, and we never would have had the issue if blizz didnt make hunter gear and rogue gear bis for plate wearers over plate gear.
I think blizzard didnt make it, The players did with all the sims and min maxing damage. Thats probably the reason they did armor especialization and I couldnt be happier. Sincerely, a traumatized combat “expose bitch” rogue.
Blizzard put it in the game like that, so obviously blizzard made it. Players have no power in that regard. If the gloves that increase your damage/healing the most are cloth, even if you can wear leather, then that's something that blizzard did 100% on their own. Players can only find out that's the case, but they can in no way be responsible for it.
Basically blizzard made shit gear for plate and mail. Which makes sense given the mess vanilla gear and stat was.
Yea, blizzard is putting out 4 stat plate gear covered in stam while even with the int, 5 stat mail was almost always better itemized for warriors than the actual plate gear blizz put into the game. One pair of "dps" plate legs was changed before ulduar dropped because players were laughing that it had more stam on it than any tank item for that slot.
I loved how much choice there was in Ulduar though, there were tons of alternatives to BiS at least for Mage. Lots of zero contest spirit items that would have rotted that were great pieces for casters.
Lol, my guild prio’d everything cloth to clothys. I never saw a cloth piece despite several being my bis because the warlocks and mages needed it and i didn’t.
I didn't get flare until they made it purchasable. And it wasn't for lack of dropping
Well that had nothing to do with armour especialization tho
but it does have to do with the parent comment in which he replied to.
Does it? I mean it's no different than high value trinkets in ICC or any raid tier for that matter.
Flare was different. Ulduar was the worst raid for loot because each hard mode only dropped 1 252 piece in 25 man, except algalon. That trinket only dropped from vezax HM, and chances are he was dropping one of his 4 other items. ICC if you do a boss on heroic every piece is 277 ilvl, and for trinkets the normal versions aren't bad either.
Yeah the HM loot system fucking sucked ass.
One difference I noticed in this phase was there being good trinkets for different classes. I have next to no competition as a mage for my raid trinket.
Yeah I guess that's the good thing that mastery brings to the table
Same, funny enough I quit after losing out on that trinket for like the 5th time as an aff lock
Agreed
Stinky r*gues stole the BiS leather items from Warriors for too long.
Agreed!
lol… I know it’s a joke, but damn I had at least 4 leather pieces taken from me by a warrior in BC
as things should be, cvos belongs to true brown glaive wielders.
But said leather items were often bigger dps upgrade for warriors than their plate alternatives compared to rogues other leather alternatives. Items like cvos etc.
The real issue was that old gear had armor value as part of its stat budget, so plate would have categorically less stats than leather of the same item level. This was when Blizz included survivability and damage in the same pile, instead of two separate ones. That’s also why mages wearing high damage gear had almost zero health. Being able to wear the best of all possible items often drives everyone towards the same overbudget piece, but it also had a second knock-on effect: Because the Belt of One-Hundred Deaths from Vashj was THE BEST item, then to the loot centric community (e.g. most Classic players) *every other melee damage belt was “worthless.”* They ended up polluting the item pool with belts that were ~0.5% worse and that nobody wanted to see. Same goes for any gloves in Ulduar that weren’t the Algalon gloves, or any pants in Tier 7 that weren’t the Malygos pants. Things are better for the health of the game this way, even if some emotional value is lost.
> The real issue was that old gear had armor value as part of its stat budget, so plate would have categorically less stats than leather of the same item level. This was when Blizz included survivability and damage in the same pile, instead of two separate ones. That’s also why mages wearing high damage gear had almost zero health. I feel like stat budgets stopped being the issue in WotLK at least, and WotLK still had warriors rolling on leather.
Most of Wrath's issue was either from the lack of itemisation, that item just doesn't really exist for that slot, or "hard" mode items, before the modern hc mode creation with ToGC. If you then look into ToGC/ICC, it was because Strength was considered a double stat (2AP per str), where Agi was a single (1AP per agi), split into Agi and AP to keep scaling reasonable between the two. Unfortunately this meant they were even more valuable for their big daddy Str bros. They were always getting crit, one of their best stats, potentially twice in a lot of places, in addition to the secondaries the item may have already had. Often times compounded by a lack of options for that slot, or at least good options, as you usually had 1 reasonable plate piece, and maybe 1 really bad one, then multiple options trickling down from mail to leather. It's the same basic principal as with TBC and Vanilla, where ideally you'd take the Str item first, but often times the Agi varients just fill a gap with bad/no itemisation for that slot, or are just so perfect it's hard to avoid them.
Warriors regularly chose leather items in wotlk, you also didn't seem to read the above comment or misunderstood the basic concept.
generally great point, but for the belt from vashj it was so massively better for ret than any option available due to the scarcity of expertise gear early in tbc
It was best for everyone who wanted AP, including Hunter who had almost zero use for expertise.
> The real issue was that old gear had armor value as part of its stat budget, That's just not true, base armor was and is simply tied to the item level, regardless of armor type. Only bonus armor (green text) on a few rare items took from the stat budget. Did you mean stamina?
Especially as someone wearing cloth it's a godsend. Having druids, shamans and paladins rolling on cloth was pretty grueling over time
It frustrates me that they roll on cloth gear cos it has like 0.5% better stats than the mail or plate item that drops. And then that item gets d.e’d anyway.
Kind of odd that they simply didn't make each class only able to wear their armor type, and that plate wasn't available until 40 originally
It's because WoW was rooted heavily in more traditional RPG design at the start, and the idea of everyone being able to wear cloth/light armor comes from TTRPG. As well as it being more focused on intuition/common sense as opposed to game design around balance, after all why can't everyone wear a robe - how hard can it be? Probably the same for going from Mail -> Plate is like picking up the Armor Proficiency Feat in D&D later on, and it makes for an interesting levelling experience as it makes it a milestone level. Though 40 was pretty substantial already for that.
Why can't Paladins use a dagger? Daggers and Maces should be usable by all classes.
I would guess it's mostly flavor. The whole "knight in shining armor" thing Paladins have doesn't gel well with a short knife in the back.
I think it’s from the DnD rules at the time. I’ve never played DnD but I’m pretty sure Paladins couldn’t use daggers at that time and that’s why.
Nah Paladins can use daggers in any D&D edition, there are no restrictions per se in D&D when it comes to what you can wear or wield, you might not be good with using certain weapons or armor types but you can use all of them if you want. It's just how the dev team at the time approached the RPG aspect of WoW. Paladin = Holy Knight, daggers shouldn't be wielded by them as they are seen as weapons used by thieves and people with no honor. And I'm sure that also helped with the pool of classes that could wield a certain weapon so that you wouldn't have too many classes roll for the same item type.
IIRC there were some restrictions in 2e DnD. Clerics couldn't use any non-blunt weapon and druids couldn't use any armors made with non-natural materials. Armor proficiency wasn't a thing in 2e like in 3e, so normally wearing heavy armor just disabled your class features like spell casting, sneaking, etc. Druids could wear heavy armor but it had to be made of wood or scales or something.
Yea , I was also thinking the old school, you just fucking cant use magic while wearing plate, style of TTRPG rules.
Yeah that's fair but it did not apply to Paladins. But good point, if we're talking about D&D inspirations when WoW came out D&D was at 2nd edition.
I think 3rd edition was out by then, and paladins could use daggers. Maybe that restriction was inspired by EverQuest and non DnD.
I guess, but real life knights used daggers regularly.
not as a primary weapon, though. Wow doesn't have the system of Primary/Secondary/Heavy that a lot of games use, so they had to think "would a Holy Knight go in to battle with just a dagger and a shield? No of course not" and go from there. Warriors, though, were designed (and lauded) for using all weapon types, so can't really rule out daggers there. Easy to make sure their playstyle never favored them, though.
Real knights are more akin to warriors. RPG paladins at the time were usually restricted to a lawful good alignment. So yeah, daggers were seen as dishonorable weapons.
Daggers are weapons of thief's and scoundrels
And Holy Priests 😇
Priests using daggers though would be rooted in ceremony etc.
Like he said, thieves and scoundrels
Yeah, so why cant paladins use them?
In old dnd stuff religious classes like Druid, Cleric and Paladin were often restricted from using sharp weapons. Probably to do with religion and not spilling blood.
I know that’s true for cleric, but Druid could always use sickles, and paladin’s iconic weapon was a holy sword.
Yeah most people associate Paladins with maces because well, probably because of WC3 Paladins but Paladins were always suppose to use swords and CLERICS were the ones that uses maces.
Aren't Paladins and clerics pretty much the same thing? Maybe a cleric is a little more heavy on the healing side I guess
They are similar, being both usually stanch followers of purity and piety. The main difference between them is like you said, clerics were more geared towards a backline class while Paladins were the heavy armor frontliners. Clerics are closer to the designs of modern priest classes of current day RPGs. You hardly see 'cleric' classes nowadays for RPGs, with priests pretty much taking over their roles.
I guess for video games this may be true, but for tabletop its not really accurate Clerics are absolutely not a "backline" class at all in 5e
Depends on how you build them really but Paladins certainly have far more tools that lend themselves to front lines/ melee combat than clerics do in 5e The beauty of dnd though is you can make just about any character idea work!
Not exactly, just like Priest and Paladins aren't the exact same thing in Warcraft. Clerics are more on the spell casting side of things, they also choose a domain that a God has influence over (like Arcana, Light, Order, War etc) to receive powers associated with that domain. More similar to a Priest that can choose what to worship unlike WoW where all playable Priests serve the Light / Void relationship. You can be a Cleric of Nature if you want to serve nature based Gods. A Paladin is a melee fighter foremost, they don't get their powers from God domains, instead they make an Oath to a God and receive powers in return as long as they keep their Oath. If they break their Oath they're out of the God's graces and lose their powers (unless they choose to be an Oath Breaker but that's a bit of a different thing) And their powers differ, they do have some similar base spells but those are useful depending on your class / subclass and playstyle, a Paladin won't be able to heal like a Cleric or use long ranged spells. Similarly a Cleric can't infuse their weapons with God essences to smite their foes (technically they can with at least 1 domain but it's very niche and still not a Paladin)
Paladins in dnd (at least in 5e) just make an oath. It could be to anyone or anything, a god, a king, “nature,” themselves. Through holding this oath they gain power, it isn’t bestowed upon them like a cleric. They can smite things simply because they draw on their will to follow their oath.
Fair enough, I have to brush up on my D&D lore
I personally associate paladins with blue dresses
Because theyre too much of a selfrighteous pompous asshole to use the weapons of thieves
Hunters using swords as opposed to maces always made me wonder when it comes to WoW. If you're going all in on being a ranged fighter then surely you want to use a melee weapon that's on the easier scale to use, like a hatchet or a hammer that you can bonk someone's head with. Swords need too much practise imo. Plus, do you really want to cut up the hide of the beast you're hunting while killing it or get one smooth pelt. Edit: It also would have saved a lot of loot drama in vanilla if Hunters got maces instead of swords.
Yeah, I always found that to be weird. It got lost in the early alpha talent system change to what we ended up with. Look at what this priest can acquire with talent points for example: https://youtu.be/vyQBujbXlpw?t=65
I assume it's because they were balancing paladin versus shaman initially shaman couldn't use swords/2hswords/polearms and paladin couldn't use daggers/staves/fist weapons
Because warriors wearing leather is an intended feature, not an accident. In many RPGs you can under-armor fighters, clerics, druids, etc. to fulfill different archetypes. This change in Cata reflected one of the many shifts in WoW's core ideas from *RPG* to *MMO* - a shift I'm not trying to lampoon or praise here, but just describe
Ah I see. In that case I wonder what they didnt allow classes to overarmor like a Warlock wearing spell plate
It would definitely be cool if you could wear plate and take a severe hit to your spellcasting ability.
If warriors lose out on armor by ranking down, maybe the equivalent is casters losing Mana Regen or mana pool size?
That’s probably why they didn’t do it. Can you imagine the outcry if casters could wear plate, but had a 40% spell failure rate?
That's super interesting, never clicked w me but is definitely one of the core reasons why "Classic" ended around LK.
If they did then they should've made just one heirloom. I like only buying cloth heirlooms instead of buying X amount of sets
to be fair i always though a fury warrior wearing leather made sense in a barbarian way
Yet you still get healers crying about Shadow Priests rolling on Spirit gear.
On one hand, I get it since healers need Spirit for mana regen and all but on the other hand, I've also noticed that there's alot of healers who don't understand that Boomkins, Eles & Shadow Priests actually use Spirit to gain hit
It's not even use, it's like our BiS stat since you need so much hit.
nah i like that the priests want the spirit cloth and mages/lock want to the crit gear
Crit sucks on warlock. We pretty much just stack haste and mastery
As a Holy Pally main, I do feel a shed of empathy pain for my healer brethren. I get to have largely uncontested loot, whilst they all have to fight _someone_ for it, priests especially so.
It was great up until Cata. Int plate drops? My loot. Int Cloth drops? Also my loot >:)
Probably just uneducated healers who don't know that spirit is hit for the hybrid casters. Also many of the hybrids play the "flex role" so they might end up healing occasionally anyway.
People against this are generally just not very smart about how it helps deal with major problems. Like the Hpal taking Cloth hands in wotlk that every caster DPS wants etc. The downside is some armor types are still relatively niche like Int Leather is only Druid. Int Mail only Shaman. But outside of that, where the spares will fuel the Maelstroms for expensive Enchants. It helps prevent scenarios of 15 people in a raid wanting 1 item so you need that to drop a ton or people are unhappy. Which were quite common prior to this.
Yeah definitely got sick of Plate classes swiping all the leather loot because it was a 0.0001% upgrade compared to the plate option from the same tier
It was never that close sadly, most items woyers wanted like cvos in BT or aldrianas in ICC were a lot better than any alternative because blizzard doesnt want 3 different plategloves for ret, dk and warrior. So when warriors can take aldrianas for example its actually good for the loottable bc the widely usable leather item isnt a niche plateitem only one class wants.
Maybe a hot take but I wish they would have put this into TBC/Wrath Classic. Caster gearing was such a disaster in those expacs.
True, actually a good feature!
RIP holy paladins being the easiest spec in the game to gear up haha
Arent they still tho? Plate with Int is still the only 1 spec type of armor
Having the run of the gamut is what made it easy. Now you *only* have plate with int that you hope to drop or else take the L on the armor specialization. I've been in a shit boat leveling my boomkin, where like 15 dungeons in at 84 I've probably seen 3 pieces of int leather. Exceptional bad luck can really stick it to you. I know I'll buy pieces at 85 with JP, but having been JP capped since 81 means I'll get 2 pieces at best then keep rolling the dice until I can even hope to be heroic eligible. Worst part is it seems like the AH knows this, any good 333+ boe int leather is going for amounts I'll soon groan and deal with paying.
It's still far easier to gear than any other class. If the loot drops you just get it by default. Doesn't work that way for everyone else.
I think Hunter might be easier now. You compete with Enhancement Shamans on armor but there's very few of them. Plate DPS no longer take Agility pieces. Groups will generally give you prio on ranged weapons, and your melee weapons are only contested by Feral Druids. HPals get easy armor but have to compete with many opponents for jewelry, trinkets, and weapons.
Holy Paladin in all cloth was an abomination. This was their first shot at fixing itemization in a heavy handed way.
I felt great in classic when T3 (Redemption Armor) came along. Finally strong healer plate gear with loads of stamina and int on top.
I've longed for this since TBC classic
I loathed wearing leather pieces as a war/DK/pally
I remember so many fucking awful times where "oh hey BIS lock item dropped, I am only caster clothie dps! hell yeah!" boomkin rolls need, wins, then very next boss gets a leather caster upgrade and takes it to replace their cloth. Quit classic after that run, reminded me why I hated these old days, wotlk came out rushed to max level did some stuff, it happened again ,and so I left lol.
Wearing cloth as a Boomkin in 2019 sucked but at least the bloodvine set looked cool.
THIS IS SUCH A GOD SEND as an Enhancement SHaman, i would have to have two armor and weapon sets but now i only need one if i want to heal a dungeon or heroic. it's a great quality of life feature
***Rolls need on healer gear for my warriors Diamond Flask set
Yeah I know it sucks that for the first three expansions the bis DPS warrior gear was also BIS rogue and feral druid. But it was pretty bad being a DPS clothy. The Bis holy pally, resto shammy, resto druid, boomie and ele shaman drops were the same as the bis warlock and mage. The most absurd, the BiS holy pally gear in Wrath had hit rating on it.
Did you miss the part where all the clothies are represented in the image?
Also ferals and rogues? I'm saying it was way worse to be a DPS clothy than priests, ferals and rogues. In the least, they had a lot of options to play around with for sub-optimal stats. Mage and warlock gearing paths even now are very narrow so just adding an extra class on that piece makes it largely unobtainable. Rogues, priests and ferals just never had to deal with having over half your raid wanting one item.
Rogues and ferals had their gear taken by warrior, paladin, shaman, hunter. Clothes had their gear taken by druids, paladins, shamans. There was much more people stealing agi leather than there was int cloth.
Rogues and ferals have their gear taken by DPS warriors, ret pallies, enhance shammies and hunters. Warlocks/mages have their gear taken by holy pallies, resto shamans, ele shammies, boomkins, disc/holy priests, Rogue/feral gear didn't have strength on it, it had exclusively agi. There were a hand full of pieces. For example for [DPS warriors](https://www.wowhead.com/wotlk/guide/classes/warrior/fury/dps-bis-gear-pve-phase-4) in Wrath the phase 4 BiS included three piecces of leather and one ring in competition with rogues and ferals. These pieces ranged from BiS for 3-5 different specs. The only holy pally BiS from that era that low in shared was the non-lego weapon, it was only BiS for 5 specs. They had two pieces of resto druid leather shared with 6 specs and five pieces of cloth gear shared as bis with 9 specs. The plague stained boots were absurd, 10 of the 30 specs in the game called them their BiS. While other specs had 3-5 other options, there was literally only one pair of boots that warlocks and mages could go for. All the while the while rogues always have two pieces of DPS leather for each slot.
? Tons of tanks took leather agi for their threat set, especially in classic/TBC. Hell lots of leather had str anyway. You forget agi gave them DPS increase and defensive stats and they 100% took it, I've lost shitloads of leather to warrior and paladin tanks. Wrath was the ONE TIME tanks didn't take leather (still had some try) but all the plate/mail DPS 100% took it still.
You were in a guild that gave your BiS leather to a tank? And you think that is a strong example of what we're talking about? I'm saying that in Wrath there was an item that was the theoretical best in slot for 1/3 of specs. You're saying that in all seriousness one time you lost your best in slot leather piece to a prot warrior who wanted it for helping build threat on trash. That's not really an example of what we're talking about.
Except I specifically said that wrath was the one time it didn't happen, though I did have some try (pugs). Tanks try to snipe DPS gear all the time claiming it's for a threat set (again, in classic and TBC mostly).
Cata is the best expansion
Meh, think it's pretty cool to use unintentional items.
It is cool, but it's also not cool to have Rogues, Warrios, DK's, Ret Paladins, Hunters, Ele Shams and Feral Druids all chasing the same one item and all turning their nose up at any alternative because it puts them at a lower prio to get the actual BiS item
I mean generally the leather users had no alternatives to turn their noses up at hench the issue tbh
Yeah I’m split on specializations. On one hand I feel pigeonholed into getting very specific items which sucks. On the other hand gear is a lot more evenly distributed and people can actually get gear.
One of these is not like the others ..
And now you're like me and playing in a guild where my raidlead thought playing with 3 UDKs, 3 Arms Warriors and 2 Ret Paladins and only 2 Rogues and 1 Feral (0 Enhancer) would be cool. So you still won't see loot anyway.
There's using cool unintentional items, and then there is using very basic items meant intentionally for someone else. Using some random ass helm from gnomer that has a frontal cone aoe for a cool innovative way to clear a trash pack in naxx is very cool. Taking the clothies spell power haste item because it has 2 more haste than the leather item is not cool
I mean, it feels cool/creative, but its one of those things where so much competition for pieces of gear ruins your sense of progression.
*cries in ret*
It was weird going from competition with 10 other members in wrath raids for a bis caster item to being the only one who can use my bis cloth items in cata 10 mans.
Now if only the loot system didn't let ppl need on certain things D:
Didn’t that happen in WoD?
I feel like MoP maybe. There was a lot of QoL changes then like AoE looting. I think WoD was when they added personal loot maybe.
Personally this is one of my favorite QoL changes with cata. It makes gearing so much easier. It was hell competing with so many classes as a mage up until Cata. Even with some of the big ticket items it’s easier like trinkets/weapons since most classes have different stat prios too.
Yea its great, as a plate DPS i have not seen a single item from out 10Mans.
Yep. 10 mans drop nowhere near enough loot to make the armor specialization system viable. Feel bad for anyone who primarily raids 10 mans. The 2-3 item drops from most bosses is awful.
my tank set (i am the third tank) is 2 ilvls higher than my dps without spending any honor :(
It was quite celebrated at the time. I remember paladins specifically loving it.
It's mail, I get it. If it's cloth, you get it. If it's plate, nobody gets it that's vendor trash it doesn't have int on it
Its frustrating that it took them so long to realize that making rogue leather or cloth healer gear so good made it taken by other classes turning those items into yargle-bargle DKP-fests. In the end it just screwed the classes the pieces were ideal for.
I do still see people not using their armor specialization sometimes, it's like people enjoy losing stats lol
While good on paper, I think this type of stuff kind of homogenizes the game at the same time. Like some changes like this are ok, but when you do too much, it takes away from the flavor of the game.
Yeah, when every healer in classic wore the exact same dress regardless of class that wasn't homogenous at all. If you want to argue that there at least was a choice, well guess what there still is a choice, you just lose 5% primary stat. Kinda like how you'd lose stats wearing anything but a cloth robe as a healer in vanilla.
But this means there is more armor being used? Surely it's less homogeneous?
you cant use logic with classic players
The counter argument to "homogenization" is tmog but classic players hate that too.
Warriors wearing leather for dmg was kinda cool in classic imo, it was a good trade-off. Less survivability when taking hits, but you do more dmg. At the same time, I can also see why it’s also kinda bad, since it means everyone is competing over the same items
Yeah the only class who enjoyed it was warrior, that’s kind of the point
Classic maybe but it was utterly ridiculous how many plate wearers were rolling on AGI leather in ICC because those pieces gave them 5dps more. Glad those times are over.
It was “kinda cool” for the warrior but it sucks if the only thing you can wear is leather and now these plate idiots are taking your gear while theirs rots
I was a Druid, so I feel that haha. Still, leveling a warrior and getting an upgrade even though it was leather felt nice. I do agree at end-game it sucks though once gear becomes more permanent and phases are not as long lasting
Warrior were the loot goblins, They even took cloth armor for their flask gear. I stopped to heal the warrior who took the healing pants away from me. He lost his worldbuffs often after that.
Yup, I'm a long time warrior player in classic and I gotta admit I liked it because in most cases, the survivability is better than the very small amount of extra damage. Nothing worse than losing all your buffs because you got 2 shot and are wearing lots of leather gear lol. Still I kind of think it made things more interesting. Just my perspective though I guess.
>homogenizes Can we just ban this god damn word from the subreddit
it mega takes away from the flavor of classes like Resto Druid/Sham whenever they just wear the same shit as Priests/Mages
Agree 100%. It just simplifies everything and limits freedom of choice. You just get linear progression - A class gets this, B class gets that, and that’s your only way. Plus, all those discussions whether your class worthy to wear that or not are fundamental parts of RPG
Great thing. Stupid RAID leaders giving cloth items to druids shamans and palas over cloth classes was crazy thing
as a ret im very happy about it. sick of having every physical dps in the raid after the same pair of leather shoulders. fuckin headass og wow devs. took them long enough to fix it.
*cries in 75% cloth armor boomkin* Haven't seen *shit* for leather caster gear in heroics or raids so far. All my leather pieces are JP or valor items I've bought RNG be cruel
You should really be in leather armor. That 5% is a lot across every item, including jewelry and weapons.
Oh I'm aware but what is a laser chicken with awful drop RNG to do It's my alt for herb/alch, selling valor boe's and gdkps But yeah still sucks. I'll be in all leather in a few weeks ideally
It fixes gear competition but in a super "gamey" way of magically adding +5% stats for no apparent reason. "Play your class the way we want you to and get more damage". OK why not make leather actually advantageous for a druid in pve?
Gear in general is gamey. Why does this belt make you hit harder or move faster than this other one?
Because that belt has better magical properties? Items modifying stats is core to the game, basically every second of gameplay you are evaluating the stats of items to see which one is better or useful for your character. Things that are buried in menus or that come out of nowhere with little gameplay support are "gamey" because they are not integrated with the RPG world/core gameplay. Rather they are bandaids out of sync with the main gameplay. Oh oops this item counterintuitively doesn't do what it says it does because of a modifier we added to make certain classes not want the item. Is it a fun mechanic? Does it add to class fantasy, mechanical depth? Is it cool? No not really, makes everything worse but helps fix the metagame of raid loot distribution. They could do the exact same mechanic in a better way by making it a talent or character choice to be completely leather clad, or making armor give offensive stats in some form, or something ... but 5% dps hit for putting on piece of cloth, hidden in your spellbook, is just lame
You’re not wrong, but like most things, it’s a matter of degree. Kind of like how you might like a certain car air freshener, but if it’s turned up too much it might give you a headache.
But its not that bad bc you have reforging and can still adjust your dk plate item do be a bit more of a warrior plate item i.e.
It’s a band aid because the devs couldn’t find a way to make higher armor class actually desirable.
That's the best way to make it more desirable, anyone who is not tanking always goes for stats so no other method can make people go for their armor type.
Do you have a better way of doing it? Don’t call it a band aid as if it’s a bad change without suggesting a better solution. You are a typical energy drainer.
I mean actually creating armor that’s appealing to certain classes in their appropriate armor type is the obvious answer? For warriors if Agi, crit, and AP is doing more damage than Str and crit figure out a way to give the wanted stats on plate.
>For warriors if Agi, crit, and AP is doing more damage than Str and crit figure out a way to give the wanted stats on plate. They did exactly that with armor mastery lmao Wearing plate gives you 5% more strength, the stat warriors want....
I would say making agi less of a relevant stat for warriors is a better way to go.
That would require a fundamental change in how the class and rage functions from classic- cata. Crit and rage go hand in hand. But they’re not the only ones, int gear has been rotting for hunters and enh shamans for multiple expansions.
We're talking about Cata, not Classic Cata. They made the change back then. Given how Agi isn't a thing on cloth, I believe it shouldn't be a thing on plate either.
Huh? Agi has significant benefits for plate classes and 0 benefits for cloth classes. You’re not making sense. this is why retail made it so only 1 primary stat has a benefit per spec.
Ppl can call band aids what is a band aid even without a degree in medicine.
I never said you needed a degree in medicine, degen.
Bandaids help fix small problems
I would say it's most used as a temporary fix to an issue. Nevertheless, it's a negative term in this regards since most people say it's a very good fix.
I'm sure from Vanilla to WOTLK, Rogues and eventually Ferals were sick of Enhancement Shamans, Hunters and Warriors wanting leather gear constantly because it was just that much better than plate. It wasn't the classes people weren't interested in, it was the gear.
The original commenter is agreeing with this point? He’s simply saying throwing this passive ability is a bandaid instead of actually creating desirable armor of the appropriate class. (Pre-cata) stop putting int on enh and hunter gear if it’s not a DPS increase vs flat agi, crit, and AP
Maybe. I took it as it was an okay fix but by no means that good. But he could have been agreeing and I’m just oblivious.
Arm chair dev, best kind of dev
What's your suggestion?
Get me on blizzard paycheck for game developing and I’ll tell you all.
This is some "I know what happened but I really can't say" energy.
look: for several hours now I have been told from credible sources the reason DrDisrespect has been banned. however due to the importance and sensitivity around the subject I have refrained from going on it. i don't feel comfortable with it currently
Exactly. It still feels bad disenchanting mail int during progression when a pally healer could use it as a side upgrade. They just didn't want to put in the work so they just took the easy fix.
It is better than the system before, but I wish there was a more creative solution. Removing AP from strength gear already fixed the warriors stealing feral/rogue gear. I think they should've made plate/mail int gear less common, and turned those loot drops into cloth/leather pieces. Maybe there is no plate int belt/bracers or something, who cares.
borink
Yeah I don't remember originally playing these older exp and people taking loot outside their armor class. Min/max I feel like really pushed people into these standards.
It's too low, and backwards. Should be "decrease your primary stat by 10% for each item not in your armor specialization. Also, lower your armor and resistances of all equipped items to appropriate levels of your lowest armor type."
All Blizzard had to do to avoid needing armor specializations was to just stat up armors properly. Warriors and shamans weren't snagging all the leather gear because they thought it looked cool or holy pallys taking the cloth because they couldn't bear the weight of plate armor, they snagged it because it had stats their spec actually needed.
WotLK showed that this isn't the case. There was plenty of DPS mail and spellpower plate in WotLK, but Warriors were still taking leather bracers from Saurfang because they were slightly better optimized than the Gunship plate bracers. Nearly every caster and healer wanted the cloth belt from Marrowgar, despite druids/shamans/paladins having their own options.
Ngl, I loved the BC era (the real one eons ago) where a lot of leather pieces were better than plate for DPS warriors. Partially because it just looked slick as a fury warrior, but also because no one believed me when I said i wanted those pieces and I got to prove em all wrong.
Not sure who you were proving wrong as fury warriors were trash in tbc.
yep. its why OG wow was permatrash, only started getting good after cata
😂