If they insist on keeping the current stats i wish mastery was distinctively different from Versatility.
What i mean is - Vers increase damage/healing and reduces damage taken. Theres quite a few classes mastery that does something similar. Say youre a Ret paladin. all your mastery does is increase your holy damage done so why (other that stat ratings) wouldnt you just take Vers as it gives 3 benefits rather than one.
I really wish they would make mastery give an effect or give you a reason to mix and match it with vers.
I.e. Holy priest - mastery gives a percentage of healing base don your mastery value as a hot on your target. In a way you can stack vers and mastery for an effect.
I hope that makes sense. I guess i think the current stat combos are boring.
Mastery is one of those subtle things that I actually check specifically for when deciding if a class sounds fun to play.
I love stacking mastery over any other stat in the game.
With that said, any stat needs to have a direct involvement in the calculation of your performance. In the terms of DPS that needs to equate to damage.
So even a fun mastery (fun to me anyway) such as Elemental Shaman, Frost Mage and Shadow Priest still boil down to “X% extra damage”.
Personally I don’t see an issue with stats overlapping functionality.
I loved multi-strike even though it was essentially crit. I’d love to see it returned.
For some specs its interesting for others other than stat scaling they both do the same thing. Its just boring.
You get a piece of gear with mast/vers and its meh.
Maybe i just miss the days of interesting stats, gem choices, enchants, reforging and targeting gear to meet certain caps.
I mean if you are a class that sticks to one meta talent choice and the only thing that matters is Ilvl it doesnt really feel like youre building your character or able to try alternative builds.
It’s NOT fun. What it IS instead is a massive damage dependency that leaves you at mercy of RNG. Too low chance, too high damage. Should be more predictable and less damaging - stable increase, not DPS suddenly spiking when you get it to proc and flatlining at tanks’ level when you don’t.
And it doesn’t even affect any of 2 spenders. So all it does is affecting generation of Maelstrom and amount of wet noodles you’re throwing at enemies…
Fun is subjective, I even clarified that.
I find RNG fun, I enjoy the RNG surprise visuals of a multi-strike.
If you want fully predictable performance then you have haste, int and versatility. That’s kind of the point of this thread, Shaman has those options.
Some classes don’t.
I just find such massive RNG dependencies impossible to like, too much variance, how can you possibly deal like 1/3 of your dmg by something you cannot control? Like Corruptions but you’re stuck with this thing and cannot cleanse it. Pressing X to doubt!
It’s even “preferred” option because of how much Elemental mastery sucks. No synergy with both spenders is killing its value and it’s too RNGey in any case to seriously invest in it unless it’s massively buffed and even then it will be a gamble: win big or lose big.
I guess that’s the problem with versa and why it’s bad for most specs, it has to be worse than other stats because it also grants a defensive buff.
Probably will play out differently with the secondary stat DRs in shadowlands though.
One thing i want to mention about mastery, i think it works best when it affects only part of your toolkit, if it buffs all your damage is rather boring.
If we take ret as example, you have abilities that deal holy damage and abilities that deal physical damage, mastery only buffs holy and that’s great. This means you could make different builds, focusing either on the physical or holy abilities and this translates into what talents, legendaries, traits, conduits, etc you choose.
I don’t think the concept of mastery is really an issue. We just need more interesting than “Deal +X% dmg for Y school of magic cuz spec fantasy bruh”.
Havoc Mastery feels terrible (already barebone toolkit and yet half of your abilities don’t interact with the stat, such fun !)
On the other hand stuff like the WW, Fire or Ele are much more interesting. Hell even enh is cool as it increased the proc chance of WF, which means more hits, more resource and interactions with some builds.
I just want the stat to be part of the builds, not just a background noise in your priorities
Mastery is such a weird one for ele. When you think about it, it makes no sense.
As you mentioned, it generates more maelstrom but does nothing for your spenders. The more mastery (aka more maelstrom generation) the more weak spenders you cast, which in turn means you’re casting less fillers which are the only spells that benefit from mastery in the first place. It loses so much value.
I just wished vers was pvp SPECIFIC. Or if it was heal more, be healed more and take less damage, so it would end up being a tank/healer specific thing.
For most healers it’s bad because of its mechanics. Except for holy priests, it’s always bound to a requirement (buff/HoTs on a target, or %lost HP/closeness to the target), so it’s not reliable in many situations like the other 3 stats. Mastery most of the time would be better as a passive in a weaker form.
For tanks I think the dmg value is too weak. So with higher gear, or for higher keys the stat’s value drops pretty fast.
And for dps it’s either the strongest because of the scaling (or because other stats aren’t really useful like crit for fire mage), or one of the worst. Rarely it’s somewhere in the middle. But for most specs it doesn’t change anything.
While it would probably be enough to increase the atk power scaling of Mastery for Tanks to make it more interesting as a stat, for dps it would require something extra (like for example higher proc chances, or maybe less energy needed for skills). And for healers most Masteries would need a complete rework to be overall more useful.
Through whole BfA the only class I remember where I was happy about Mastery was my frost mage, and that’s mostly because of an Azerite trait. For my other charas getting a high ilvl piece of armour often felt kinda bad with Mastery on it.
