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Q u o t e:


We just don't think that works. If you put very unattractive stats on gear then players just go back the previous tier of gear and complain that we don't know how to itemize. If you put bonus stamina on the tier 10 gear, then that means the next tier of gear better have bonus stamina as well. If it has avoidance instead of that bonus stamina, tanks just shrug and go back to the tier 10 gear.

This is not a tank only problem. Casters won't upgrade to gear that doesn't have more spell power on it, because spell power tends to trump everything else for purposes of their dps or healing.

We put a little bonus armor on non-armor items (necks, rings, trinkets and the occasional cloak). We don't put bonus armor on gloves and chests because that gear would be too good.

It's an item level problem. If we added another raid tier to Lich King, we couldn't just keep avoiding avoidance and avoid it for every tier going forward. We just need a system where you avoid a Naxx boss 30% of the time and an Icecrown boss 30% of the time, the same way the Icecrown bosses have e.g. 30% larger health bars and thus take 30% more damage to kill. Otherwise the stats don't scale and bad thing happen (in this case the boss having to land so much damage to account for the fact that it misses so often).

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No offense, but I'm curious. There was ilvl 200.. then ilvl 213.. if item level is the problem why wasn't non-heroic gear scaled down instead of heroic gear scaled up? The planners had to have seen this coming as soon as it was decided to implement the heroic gear. that's my "shame on you rant".

I personally don't see a problem with this mechanic except for situations like druid tanks. Dodge is all they got and now you're scaling that back. Other tanks (warriors / paladans) can atleast attempt to compensate with other stats. Druids however can only go back to "stacking stam". Which is exactly what I thought blizzard DIDN'T want druids doing. Wouldn't it be better to make the mechanic increase block or something as a side effect? something like "The extreme cold of the throne makes you move slower, reducing your dodge by 20% but strengthens your armor by 15%"? Just simply reducing dodge works well for tanks that have multiple ways to mitigate damage, but don't forget about the tanks that only have 1 or 2 mitigation methods please?

I must say that this change was about as predictable as getting wet from standing in the rain.

They had to do the exact same thing to healers--nerf them because the gear had gotten too good. The only difference is that this nerf seems to scale, whereas the healer nerfs are more to continuously set them back 1-2 tiers of gear, let them catch up through new gear, and then nerf them again.

Anyway, IMO the probalem is really that ilvl 200/213 gear was simply too good as a starting point, and so as the gear scaled up from it's high initial starting point it got way to high to work with the mechanics in the game.

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Q u o t e:
We just don't think that works. If you put very unattractive stats on gear then players just go back the previous tier of gear and complain that we don't know how to itemize. If you put bonus stamina on the tier 10 gear, then that means the next tier of gear better have bonus stamina as well. If it has avoidance instead of that bonus stamina, tanks just shrug and go back to the tier 10 gear.

This is not a tank only problem. Casters won't upgrade to gear that doesn't have more spell power on it, because spell power tends to trump everything else for purposes of their dps or healing.

We put a little bonus armor on non-armor items (necks, rings, trinkets and the occasional cloak). We don't put bonus armor on gloves and chests because that gear would be too good.

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I don't understand your reasoning. Tanks are begging for more armor items. I love my Saronite Plated Legs. I want more of them. Instead, you shower us with avoidance items, then declare that avoidance is too high...

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Q u o t e:
It's an item level problem. If we added another raid tier to Lich King, we couldn't just keep avoiding avoidance and avoid it for every tier going forward. We just need a system where you avoid a Naxx boss 30% of the time and an Icecrown boss 30% of the time, the same way the Icecrown bosses have e.g. 30% larger health bars and thus take 30% more damage to kill. Otherwise the stats don't scale and bad thing happen (in this case the boss having to land so much damage to account for the fact that it misses so often).

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And for the love of all that is holy, I've been describing a system that would do exactly this, while still keeping the feeling of tier advancement...

Itemize mitigation and threat, drop avoidance from itemization, problem solved.

I'm concerned, hopefully over nothing, but other tanks will be able to compensate, at least a little bit, their avoidance numbers by possibly stacking other status such as parry (now that the DR is similar to dodge), and even block. While druids only have their dodge, they will significantly fall behind the average avoidance curve, making them less desirable tanks. I hope I'm wrong when I say this, but could this scenario become the new way for other tanks to look for?

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Q u o t e:
DPS is not an exponential growth, that is the difference.

The table stops at 100%, which makes growth exponential. Making the math behind it very very different.

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Perhaps that's why I noted that "I know there's no good reason to, unlike for tanks"! Possibly. Maybe.

Yes I realize that tanks are being adjusted because the way avoidance mechanics work means they can't just have bosses hit harder to make up for the difference - nonetheless if DPS had to constantly struggle to reach the same plateau for their primary metric, over, and over, and over again at every tier the response would be very interesting to watch.

Ok, this probably needs to be repeated.

Warriors and Paladins and DKs will NOT stack parry to compensate. We all naturally (i.e. sans gems/enchants) are already past the 20% dodge point. The DR on Parry is such that it STILL makes sense to continue stacking Dodge or Agi.

P.S. That is if you're stacking an avoidance at all. Of course the obvious response will be "But we only stack STA". Fine. I mean for those talking about if we'll avoid gear pieces with dodge in favor of parry.

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Q u o t e:
I'm concerned, hopefully over nothing, but other tanks will be able to compensate, at least a little bit, their avoidance numbers by possibly stacking other status such as parry (now that the DR is similar to dodge), and even block. While druids only have their dodge, they will significantly fall behind the average avoidance curve, making them less desirable tanks. I hope I'm wrong when I say this, but could this scenario become the new way for other tanks to look for?

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That wouldn't work unless they could somehow get their "natural" dodge to below 20%; otherwise it'll still have the best diminishing returns for avoidance.

Now would be a remarkable time to explain why you're still giving the paladin t10 set bonus avoidance instead of some form of damage reduction like everyone else. And having it maintain on the worst ability that we never want to keep casting in fear of it dropping off.

To top it off, why is it still the only ability restrained by a GCD?

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Q u o t e:
I love the term Icewell.

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I love the map "dust".

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Q u o t e:


You are making the common mistake in thinking that our goal for itemization is to give you the best possible gear that we can. Itemizing your character is supposed to be a choice. There will be better pieces and worse pieces. There will be pieces that combine stats your really want with stats you don't really need. Wearing the best gear for their character (which is not the same as wearing the best gear) is one way players have to demonstrate mastery of the game.

This is also why I always preach to take BiS lists with a grain of salt. Merely reaching for the item declared to be BiS by a spreadsheet or system you might not even understand could lead you to making bad gear choices, often of the variety of passing over the good upgrade because it's not the best possible upgrade.

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the main problem with this is how common gear score is becoming to determine how advanced a character is in the game.

if you wear what you consider is going to provide you with the best dps, but its lower item level than another piece, you are ranked as a worse player by those who use these scores.

its becoming so common place and so defended by such a large section of the playerbase that either the design is flawed, or gearscore needs to be phased out.


as always, i suggest removing the ilvl number on the items so that using a gearscore system is extrmely difficult for someone, almost impossible unless they want to spend countless hours personally assigning every piece of gear in the game with a score.

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Q u o t e:



the main problem with this is how common gear score is becoming to determine how advanced a character is in the game.

if you wear what you consider is going to provide you with the best dps, but its lower item level than another piece, you are ranked as a worse player by those who use these scores.

its becoming so common place and so defended by such a large section of the playerbase that either the design is flawed, or gearscore needs to be phased out.


as always, i suggest removing the ilvl number on the items so that using a gearscore system is extrmely difficult for someone, almost impossible unless they want to spend countless hours personally assigning every piece of gear in the game with a score.

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Damn gear score away man.

Can Icecrown Radiance reduce Dodge below 0%?

GC,

DK threat takes a pretty major hit as a side-effect of this avoidance nerf. Do you have any plans to counter the threat drop DKs will take from this? It just can't be pushed aside and ignored. There is already a substantial discrepancy between the other tanks threat capabilities and DKs. Rune strike is just too large a percentage of threat to not be compensated somehow, right?

Can it be assumed this change was made in order to prepare players for Cataclysm Avoidance nerf across the board in order to have monsters that don't 2 shot you in raids?

Because if that's it, I'm looking forward to it (I might not make it into Icecrown since I suck that bad and my internet doesnt let me, but at least next expan things will be nice).

Weird reaction from the tanking community. This is a good change, they can stop designing bosses around every increasing damage done sometimes approaching 1 shot territory as with gormok. This change coupled with "sane" boss damage will make raids more interesting for tanks and healers, will also allow for more interesting raid mechanics to be implemented that isn't only balanced around how much your healers can spam and tanks can use their cooldowns

Well, all I'll say is that I really hope the damage will be smoother, and tanks won't be getting 2 shot without a significant heal in between. Because in sunwell avoidance was reduced AND each boss hit was really hard.

I've always thought the "tanks have too much avoidance" problem was an easy fix. Make the amount of dodge/parry/block rating you need to get 1% of said stat be 150-200% of what it is now.

Right now I have 540 dodge rating which is giving me just under 12% extra dodge. Why not change it so that the 540 rating I have only gives me around 6-9% extra dodge. Then tanks go from 40-50% dodge/parry to 30-40% dodge/parry.

Obviously you would have to lower the dodge given by agility. Then you can lower the amount bosses hit for slightly since tanks are taking a few more hits and suddenly its not such a terrible idea to grab that wonderful dodge trinket from 10m ToC that every tank loves.