Get rid of all stats but ItemLevel

Community General Discussion
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I know, I sound crazy here. But think about it for a second, maybe not completely seriously, though. I just want to make a relatively obvious point that many of us already know and have discussed before.

Stats no longer have the flavor they used to have. And as a consequence, items do not have this “epic feeling” when you get that very special and unique item that would suit your gameplay perfectly.

First, Armor, Strength, intellect, agility and stamina.
Basically these stats are inexistent. What I mean, exactly here is that these stats are only dependent on 2 things :

  • item level
  • item slot.

The rarity of the item does not even have an effect on stats. Yes. Look at that:

You can completely predict what armor, strength, intellect, agility and stamina any item will have based on its item slot and item level.
In other words, armor, strength, intellect, agility and stamina are computed stats. It’s useless to store them in a database. They’re not part of the identity of the item. They’re consequences of item slot and item level.
So… They are redundant. Therefore could be removed and it would have no impact on the game.

Now regarding secondary stats: crit, haste, mastery, versatility.
Some specs works better with some stats, while some other specs don’t really care and work well with anything.

For the latter, removing secondary stats wouldn’t make a difference. Or such a slight difference that you’d barely notice anything.

So, what for the specs that require specific secondary stats balance to work properly ? Well, removing all the secondary stats would certainly have an effect: more items would be useful. You remember when you purposedly leave a higher ilvl item in your bags because the lower ilvl item you equipped has better stats ? That would not happen again.

Would this be good or bad for the game ?

  • :+1: Balancing the game would be easier for blizzard.
  • :+1: More useful drops for you.
  • :-1: Less RPG feeling, but that one is long dead, imo.

I’m not saying they should do it, though. I’m just wondering: what if they did ? In all honesty and without any attempt to trolling or shout out of fear “omg no don’t do that <insert a random insult here>”, what would be the pros vs cons of removing ALL stats except item level (o basically, removing secondary stats) ?

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tbh IF, and big IF, you were to just say screw it and remove all secondaries, you might as well just make it so that gear drops without any baseline secondaries but you get to apply stats yourself (kinda like how crafting a legendary works with the missives).

that way you’d satisfy everyone by letting them minmax stats all they want.

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Removing secondary stats would mean redesigning the whole combat system.

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Primary stats are basically just +class power. Str makes warrior do more damage, Int makes mage do more damage, agi makes rogue do more damage. They’re basically interchangeable.
I think all armour should have all stats and we should merge some of them.
Merge Str and Mastery. Merge Agi and Haste. Sta and Vers.

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Oh yeah, let’s remove everything, just leave +armor on items.

Remove the RPG elements piece by piece until it’s just MMO. Well no one would be playing, so not really MMO either.

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The point is that almost everything has already been removed.

Hit, expertise, spell penetration, spirit, spell power, healing, attack power, block, etc., are all gone, and it’s caused the extremely bland gear that we have today.

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I’d beg to differ: how much rage do we see when people complain that their drop is ‘useless’ because it’s got all ‘the wrong stats’.

I’ve agreed with Blizzard’s rationale for removing most things but then you eventually get to the point where you look around and there’s nothing there.

Even Blizzard got to that point and started to ‘unprune’ classes. Most abilties did nothing for the class mechanically but it brought a uniqueness, a flavour to it. Some fun.

Versatility is probably the least exciting stat that ever existed but it does something, and can have a use.

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What RPG element? Copy pasting what top players do is not that much of an immersive experience. And if it’s not from the top players it’s from the 1001 available guides. Does an item drop? Lemme sim it first bro.

All we do is follow the “best in slot”, “best stats” and “best covenants” lists. In that light it really doesn’t matter if gear pieces have secondary stats or not.

Not that I want it gone (apart from versatility), but it’s not like we take advantage of all the options we have.

4 Likes
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Well, if the current loot scarcity remains then it should either go, or we should get reforging back. Having rng on top of no loot is simply not fun.

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In fact, I think I’d like to see secondary stats replaced by something more meaningful.
That implies a huge rework of the combat system, of course…

But that’s also something that kinda annoys me sometimes. Since vanilla our characters, at best, did not get new competences, and at worst became less competent.
I should clarify with an example. But it’s time to go take my dinner…
Quickly, a mage, since vanilla, is a ranged damage dealer and that’s about it.
A rogue is a melee dps. Doesn’t matter how he deals his damage, it’s just about it. Lockpicking ? Pickpocketing ? Sure. But not much useful since vanilla.
A druid is either tank, ranged, melee or healer. In vanilla it could be at least tank/healer at the same time, so we lost some competency here.

We killed old gods, faced armies of demons, nowadays we’re fighting death itself, basically. And… We’re still the same old archetypes that go nowhere outside of the holy trinity.
It’s kinda baffling that after all these years and adventures, our characters did not learn new stuff outside of how to deal with combat. That’s my point basically.

Yea, professions… Sure. Pet battles… Sure… But what about something that have a real impact on the gameplay loop ?
And in fact that’s for another discussion, I think, because it’s a wide issue.

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TBH i loved the tank secondaries but hit% and such sucked…

It also catered to raid play style with them secondaries, m+ is the end game now, mythic raiding is just not fun at all

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It’s been like that since… WoD I guess.

I feel quite opposite.

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You should all work for blizzard with so many wordefull changes .

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I’m not against the principle of bringing some stats back into the game. But I would not like these two to come back. I’ve levelled a warlock back during MOP and I hated missing chaos bolt because of those particular stats. Moreover, those are just plain stupid stats, ie : You just get that stat up to 7.5% and that’s it. If you don’t manage to get those caps, then you’re basically useless. That’s not fun, whatsoever.

On the other hand, I’m not against bringing back other stats, IF reforging is also being brought back alongside those stats.

On the topic : Songs good, terrible idea.

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Ohh sorry a none curve none ksm has opinions on end game…

M+ has been the end game since legion and will be forever due to it being infinite…

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No thanks.

Remove stats then what? Gear is just visual.

I have a completely different approach on this, i do think that stats are mostly bad, but my idea is to make them better, now remove it, like wtf.

If the idea is to make something better, how do you make it better by removing it? And substitute it with what exactly?

Every game that has power progression has better and worse gear, how exactly are you gonna make things more interesting by making gear basically just visual, and how does it even make sense?

Some stats were removed for good reasons, like hit, penetration i am ambivalent, but honestly, i would just rather have more haste crit or mastery than penetration.

If anything what they need to do is make stats have more interactions in the spec. Crit could give you more resources for example, and this already happens in some specs, like assassination.

Mastery needs to be designed in a way that affects the gameplay of a spec in a more meaningful way, which means no versatility copycats. Iv’e made a proposal about ret pally for example to make ret mastery divine retribution+holy damage, this way.

And i would personally return multistrike, because it looked cool, and could be applied in different ways compared to crit.

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Your mythic progress is on par with your data searching skills :slight_smile:

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Imho mastery should always increase chance of getting spec-specific procs so player will stack mastery till certain point when gameplay will be smooth and then can go for other stats. In current iteration it’s often just +damage/healing.

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My idea is more so the stat has some purpose in terms of actual gameplay, as for balance and how strong each secondary stat is for the specific spec relative to each other, that is a blizzard problem. And they should try to keep them as close as possible.

Anyway, it’s just math, people i think overestimate how difficult it is to balance such things.

Anyway i generally agree with your statement, mastery should provide bonuses like, elemental shaman and enhancement mastery, or the proposal i had for ret pally.

And since we are talking about ret pally, please blizz, make empyrean power proc from holy power spenders, not crusader strike for gods sake.

Imagine if demonic appetite procced from demon bite instead of chaos strike, like come on, that’s basically what it is, although to a lesser degree.

For frost mage for example, mastery could also increase your chance to get procs, or icicles have a % chance to proc fingers of frost or brain freeze, which they did do in bfa.

I’m just throwing out some ideas, i am just one person, and i bet if i really sat down and thought about it i could think of a decent mastery for each dps spec. So there really is no excuse for a team of many people to not have a decent mastery for each spec that isn’t just versa 2.0.

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I think gear should drop once a week from maybe some box or what not - and that’s it. That way we wouldn’t have this convoluted toxic minmax game. Oh wait…

1 Like