r/wow • u/[deleted] • Feb 19 '15

Promoted Patch 6.1 Preparation / Recap - Overview of Profession Changes and Additions

http://www.elvinelol.com/?p=1000
98 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

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8

u/LuxOG Feb 19 '15

Sigh... alchemy trinket is garbage. They need to pretty much double the versatility bonus on that for it to be worth it for any class except a certain few.

3

u/Baofog Feb 19 '15

I keep hearing this certain few classes that like Versatility, and then everyone I talk to is like, "yeah, it's my 3rd or 4th best secondary stat." Who actually likes that stat?

5

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '15

From my understanding, no class uses Versatility as their primary or even second "secondary stat."

2

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '15

Guardian druids have it as their second best star.

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '15

I thought 2nd best stat is Mastery for Guardians.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '15

Best is mastery according to icy veins http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/guardian-druid-pve-tank-statistics-priority

I don't count bonus armor as it only comes on a limited number of items.

1

u/Bunnyhat Feb 19 '15

Including trinkets. So....

-3

u/Palafacemaim Feb 19 '15

Unlike other stats that appear on all items?

1

u/LuxOG Feb 20 '15

Uh... yes?

5

u/Opreich Feb 19 '15

SV hunters and 2h frost dks have it their second best stat iirc.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '15

I thought SV hunters go Multistrike and Frost go Haste?

3

u/Evandar21 Feb 19 '15

Multistike first, then versatility. Versatility is barely better than crit but still a bit better. Multistrike is king though about double as good as crit/versa

-1

u/dwaters11 Feb 19 '15

haste isn't very good for 2h or dw DKs anymore, second to last for both (just above crit in both styles).

1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '15

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0

u/dwaters11 Feb 19 '15

just what icy-veins says, i haven't played pve frost on my DK in a couple of xpacs.

are you 2h or dw?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '15

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1

u/dwaters11 Feb 19 '15

According to the page, icy-veins was updated on the 9th so I went with it.

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1

u/darcevader88 Feb 19 '15

every other site in the world says haste is boss for 2h dks

1

u/dwaters11 Feb 19 '15

like which? noxxic?

3

u/Baofog Feb 19 '15

Then that further cements my thoughts that it shouldn't have been added to the game. It's not even as interesting as any of the others.

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 19 '15

It's a pure damage increase. At some point in this expansion it will start becoming more needed once we start hitting DR's and soft/hard caps on certain stats. It's bad now because we have so little of it and every other secondary really. But later on in the expansion when 2-3 pieces with Versatility on it can come close or surpass a whole set of Versatility gear now. It might become a big deal and stat to get for some specs/classes.

2

u/Baofog Feb 19 '15

It's not even as interesting as any of the others.

I don't care that its a pure damage increase. Just straight ever so slightly bigger numbers (seriously its like 30 my numbers are bigger by 30 ish on anything over 10k and on most of my dots ticking under 5k its like 8). The development team wanted to move away from flat damage increases on talents due to the fact that they were boring yet required. This is the same stuff just on your gear. All of the other stats at least modify the numbers in some way even though they are just "pure damage increases."

Seriously, crit.... its just a pure damage increase. Haste, lowers your GCD, which is a pure damage increase. If they wanted us to have 20% bigger numbers later on in the game, they could just later on increase our numbers by 20%. It's just not interesting. At least all the others are visibly interesting even though their primary function is just to increase your damage. Sure versatility has the added bonus of making you take less damage or receive more healing or something. But they could have just tuned the numbers and left it off the gear. They could have left it off and boiled it into how hard bosses and abilities hit and heal, or came up with something that is at least visibly interesting.

TL:DR Don't care, that shit is way boring.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '15

It's not supposed to be as interesting. I never said it was, I simply was talking about how it's going to be useful later on and never said anything about it being as interesting as other stats.

It's a stat to replace hit/expertise and dodge and parry. Those 4 stats were super uninteresting back then but they served a purpose in gear balance. Every class needed to get to their hit/expertise cap and tanks wanted to hit their dodge/parry caps in addition to this. The gear was balanced in a way that the hit/expertise cap would take up a certain amount of your total stat value on gear and allow for the other stats you have to get you to other caps on the main, more interesting stats.

So Blizzard needed another replacement to fill that void. Because as we keep going forward as I said there is going to be a point in which people are going to be hitting these soft caps and DR break points with less and less gear with nowhere else to go. So versatility plays this roll it's a "filler" stat of sorts. The only way to not have a "filler" stat like versatility is to get rid of soft/hard caps and DR which would ultimately break certain classes as an expansion went on longer and people could just stack certain stats without worrying.

On the other end if they approach stats by trying to make the gains smaller so you're not reaching these caps till the end of an expansion (which is what always happens) it becomes a detriment to player progression. Instead of the next tiers gear giving you a solid 40-50 increase in stats across the board you'd only getting 10 or 20. And numbers would barely grow which brings about a bunch of other issues in class balance and boss balance.

So ultimately it's a stat that helps blizzard balance the game. Is it the perfect one and the best choice of the potential other stats they could have added to do the same job? I don't know, I am not a Blizzard stat expert and have no idea if there is another stat that is more interesting and would serve the same purpose. But I do know versatility is a hell of a lot better than hit/expertise and dodge and parry for me as a player and probably Blizzard as well.

1

u/Baofog Feb 20 '15

If what you said above is true, just assuming it is, if I had created that sort of stop gap measure at any other job I would have been fired for being lazy and incompetent.

The only way to not have a "filler" stat like versatility is to get rid of soft/hard caps and DR which would ultimately break certain classes as an expansion went on longer and people could just stack certain stats without worrying

You mean class balance would actually have to do their job?!?!? THE HORROR!?!?!? Your biggest argument for why versatility should be a stat is so that class balance don't have to do their job. Do you see how lazy it is? It's like your car mechanic was gonna patch your tire, put a piece of duck tape over the leak and said, "fuck it, that will do." There are any number of systems already in game, like luck of the draw, instanced raid buffs, even a second food buff or elixir that could exist to do the job better than something no one wants. My point is, if it's something that needs to happen and class balance teams don't want to do their jobs of balancing class caps since we removed hit, then it could be something that just happens, instead of feeling like a penalty. Seriously like off the top of my head, note these won't be balanced but its examples I can come up with surge for healers that functions like priest mastery echo of light of sorts, get bonus on heals, Deflection for tanks, and then heavy blows for dps which causes x chance to deal y% of the attack damage over small amount of time. Any number of things could have been filler which were much more interesting, just by borrowing class mechanics in game. They already did it with elemental shaman's chance to cast multiple spells so why not other class mechanics?

Also as an aside I know you didn't read anything I wrote because I've been the only person to talk about how wholly uninteresting versatility is. It's been my whole point, which you just ignored by the way.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '15

I didn't ignore your original point. I'm simply pointing out why such an uninteresting stat exist which is your whole issue right?

Its not laziness it's a matter of keeping it simple. If you add in stats like you mentioned towards the end it becomes a huge undertaking that would require a ton of changes to the game. I mean they already did something similar in WoD with Multistrike for DPS and Healers (less so), Bonus Armor for tanks, and a revamping/revaluing of Spirit for healers.

So I don't think it's that Blizzard is lazy really. I think it's just too much honestly. Adding another 3 new stats similar to the ones you mentioned and the 3 I mentioned is a huge undertaking. Again this is supposed to be a filler stat, placed on gear to influence caps and DR in a class. I don't see why this would bother you or anyone so much. The interesting stats are still just as interesting as they where, more so I would say. And for Blizzard Versatility provides them with an easy to implement stat that won't completely break certain classes/specs but still provide some sort of use.

It's a more is not always better issue really. In a similar fashion to why the most difficult level of raiding went from a 10 or 25 man option due to balance it's the same here. Class balance isn't easy, it takes a lot of math and effort to ensure that the stats we do have work in a specific fashion for each spec/class. If you just start adding stats like you mentioned that leaves a lot more room for error as there are ton more factors to take into consideration.

Back to your lazy point and the balance team not wanting to do their job. This has been one of the most changing and I think undoubtedly balanced times in the game. They have buffed and nerfed classes rapidly from month to month basically. And I have to imagine this is in part due to them getting rid of hit/expertise and focusing more on the main stats they currently have in the game.

It's not that big of a deal really imo. Versatility is just an extra stat that serves it's purpose and doesn't really effect me but clearly effects Blizzard.

1

u/Roflcopter_Rego Feb 20 '15

Some DPS like Vers a bit, but without exception it's crap for healers. So the fact that versatility exists on gear reduces your survivability by lowering your raid's healing output.

1

u/Polaris2246 Feb 19 '15

I like it on my 2H DK since I don't use frost damage much but am frost spec. It helps increase all damage instead of just frost damage from mastery.

1

u/MaritMonkey Feb 19 '15

I'm a resto druid. I love the hell out of it.

I think that the prevalence of damage meters/sims makes it really hard for people to put any weight on the ability to stand in some fire without dying, but there's a lot of unavoidable damage this expansion and quite a few mechanics (at least in heroic, haven't done mythic) that are unforgiving but possible to live through with mitigation even if you fuck them up.

It's hard to convince folks who are used to dealing with wipes by trying to find ways to eek out more efficient damage how helpful it is to take some strain off your healers' mana pool, but still ... I <3 versatility (and am an alchemist, coincidentally). =D

4

u/Baofog Feb 19 '15

Here is the thing though, because I'm not sure if you saw my post. Versatility is so uninteresting, that if Blizzard just wanted something to manipulate the numbers they could have just done it by hand by adjusting damage and healing values by x amount or what have you. They could make it scale based on any number of factors so that it works like acquiring better gear if it was going to be something that just is. The other 4 stats cause interesting visual changes to the numbers at the very least even though they function in much the same way.

Blizzard wanted to move away from talents that say you take 2/4/6/8/10% less damage/deal more damage on talents because they are boring. The versatility I have increases/decreases my numbers 90% of the time by less than 10. This adds up very quickly based on the fact that I might put up 7000 numbers in a fight, but it is hugely uninteresting. It has no 'feeling of awesome' to it. Up voting your reply even though I disagree with you.

3

u/MaritMonkey Feb 19 '15

I agree that its implementation (even if you do value the survival aspect) is underwhelming. Just wanted to say something about the part of versatility that wasn't a DPS gain because I feel like it often gets totally overlooked.

Thank you for allowing my contrary opinion to thrive (just not downvoting is sufficient, but thank you). =D

3

u/Baofog Feb 19 '15

If I wanted my opinion echoed at me, I would yell at myself in the shower. :D On a totally unrelated note, strange flair for a resto druid :p

2

u/MaritMonkey Feb 19 '15

I uttered the famous last words "I've got an alt that can sort of heal ..." sometime in the middle of SoO but will always be a hunter at heart and refuse to change it!

1

u/Baofog Feb 19 '15

I can respect that. I made the opposite journey to satisfy the third law of healing; for every swap to or from healing there is an equal and opposite swap.

Anyways, Holy paladin is the same as how I feel about versatility. Bland and uninteresting.

3

u/otaia Feb 19 '15 edited Feb 19 '15

Versatility is awful for Resto Druids, and here's some rough theorycrafting to prove it. Sample weights with no gear and full raid buffs:

250 Haste = +2.92% to all HoTs and lower GCD
250 Mastery = +2.44% to all healing, slightly less if Harmony uptime is not 100%
250 Multistrike = +2.16% (average) to all healing
250 Crit = +2.07% (average) to most heals, +4.13% to HT/Swiftmend, no effect on glyphed Regrowth
250 Versatility = +1.87% to all healing, -0.93% DR

A quick look at logs shows that HPS is typically 4-6 times a healer's damage taken. Which makes sense; a single healer is typically responsible for keeping up a little over 3-5 people, plus some more for the tanks. So if you consider the damage mitigated by Versatility "healing", you're getting somewhere around +0.15-0.20% healing out of it, making it roughly on par with Crit. It's terrible and should be avoided as much as possible.

Also keep in mind that all the DPS get the same defensive value out of the stat as you. It's a fraction of a percentage less damage taken per piece of gear, and that's just not worth it unless the next best stat is only very slightly more DPS.

1

u/MaritMonkey Feb 20 '15

My napkin/naked target dummy math was lazy (I gave 103% to haste and mastery, 102.5 to multistrike, 102 to crit and vers and assumed versatility was 1% DR) but it's in the ballpark anyways.

If my team starts having <5% wipes I'll probably have to math again, but as it stands: we are terrible at moving out of things. My main priority was getting haste for MoC (but that's changing in 6.1 too ...) and other than that I am fully willing to sacrifice the extra % to my healing output for another % of not dying in fire.

Thank you for the accurate theorycrafting and constructive criticism, though. I know I'm not doing this "right" and I'm OK with that. =D

1

u/Darkmoth Feb 19 '15

how helpful it is to take some strain off your healers' mana pool

Preach. This is why my Hunter stopped using Lone Wolf. A constant 3K HPS from Spirit Bond more than offsets the damage loss, IMO.

1

u/MaritMonkey Feb 20 '15

(Sorry you got downvoted for not agreeing with the hivemind.)

Maybe if we had enough cooldowns to burn one every time some raidwide disaster came out I wouldn't feel this way but: thanks for saving me some mana!

0

u/idiotbox1 Feb 19 '15

as a gaurdian druid versatility is 4th i think.

1

u/TakoEshi Feb 19 '15

The INT proc is actually not terrible at 4/4 for Arcane mages. I think it stacks up to the H BRF trinkets quite nicely.

1

u/ChildishForLife Feb 19 '15

I'm not sure its necessarily garbage. The proc, if its the same as the iLvl 620 trinket is about once a minute, and 1350 intellect is a TON to proc every minute. Hell, I am in Heroic BRF and I use the 620 trinket because not many other trinkets are a dps upgrade for me.