Suggestion: Improving secondary stat choice on Tier sets via the Expansion Catalyst

Community General Discussion
1

TL;DR: Basically this ( https://imgur.com/a/fNsbcjy ) for Tier Sets at the Catalyst

What is the issue?

The Tier set itself is the biggest buff on its own for each Season… But forcing people to play secondary stats they dislike? That’s a bit annoying and lame, especially with todays standards for (MMO)RPG games.

I, for example, never will see myself run a lot (if at all) versatility and haste in combination on a Tier set (like S3s Paladin set of DF). I rather not use the Tier set then (like this season) and play no higher endgame content at all.

I like the stats critical strike and mastery on my gear. With some haste in addition for a faster attack speed. Feeling/Being forced to use gear with stats a player doesn’t like is not really a great experience. It hurts the idea of playing your characters how you imagine they would fight.

Why should it be changed? And what is the Solution?

The Tier set itself provides the most power gain from wearing it, making them mandatory for higher endgame content in both PvE and PvP. That’s a fact without question.

But having as player the option to select/change the initial secondary stats to ones that fit more with the own preferences… That would be a big step forward to better player choices in the game and not break the game.

It would allow more freedom for different play styles in the game, giving people the room to experiment more around with combinations of item buffs and skills.

To better picture this while reading, imagine 2 children playing with toys. One child is playing with Playmobil, the other with Lego. Each of them has a (tier) set with limited amount of items (stats).

The Playmobil child can only do so much with its toy set, due to it being very linear in design. With not any meaningful options to change certain items like Buildings and Figures or make own things from the items itself by design.

The Lego child on the other hand can exchange arms, heads, legs and torsos of Figures. It can build whatever it wants with the bricks. From a cool building to a statue to a bridge, plane, etc. All intended with its base design of being brick-based.

You get the idea. One child has strict limitations, the other has creative freedom.

Implementing a better System

It would be neat if we could have secondaries of choice too in WoW with at least the Tier sets, considering the Tier sets are pre-determined in functionality. It should be a tool of choice. Not a tool of necessity.

An implementation of secondaries of choice for the sets on the other hand is not so easy to achieve.

Crafting already allows that for regular gear. Of course making Tier sets craftable would be a game breaking issue (like Legendaries were in Shadowlands). But the Catalyst on the other hand offers a good solution to this due to the weekly charges. Let me explain.

Since we need charges to convert items to set items, it could be implemented into the Catalyst that we players can select secondary stats how we wish to have them. For each stat we need to spend another charge. So, picture following situation.

I have currently 8/8 Catalyst charges (due to not converting a single item since S3 start).

Now, let’s say I want to convert an item to a Set item. I put it into the Catalyst slot and the UI of the Catalyst allows me not only preview the item on the other box field but below both slots I can click other UI elements to select the secondary stats I want. An UI Tooltip informs me about the following:

“Changing a specific Secondary Stat slot to a preferred Secondary Stat increases the Conversion costs by 1 Charge.”

That means in following (as examples of concept):

  • (Originally Haste/Mastery - Not converted yet) → No stat change → 1 Charge = (Example Haste/Mastery)
  • (Originally Haste/Mastery - Converted) → Change 1 Stat → 1 Charge = (Example Haste/Versatility)
  • (Originally Haste/Mastery) → Change 1 Stat → 2 Charges = (Example Haste/Versatility)
  • (Originally Haste/Mastery) → Change 2 Stats → 3 Charges = (Example Crit/Versatility)

So, if have already a Tier set item from the Catalyst, you can change it for 1 charge without additionally cost. For unconverted Items it still requires 1 charge for the initial conversion.

Would it ruin the grind?

The System could work on Paper. Why? Because charges are, depending on Blizzards planned decisions, either granted weekly or bi-weekly this Season. If we assume that the charges would behave like this in the future all the time, it merely affects how often you can change secondary stats on your items per season.

Aside of that, the proposed system also allows you to change the secondary stats of a Tier set from other sources, like Vault und Raid drops. Like mentioned, for already-Set items it would not require the conversion fee of 1 charge.

2

Seems like a lot of effort for less than a 0.5% gain.

4 Likes
3

That takes the fun out of even collecting the tier set… it’s always the game of “which item of the five major slots has the worst stat comp and which boss drops that slot item with the best stats”, if you can just switch all stats, the whole fun of the set’s gone. :frowning:

(yeah, yeah I’m only semi-serious with this…still, just bring back reforging in an improved way; being able to freely - for some pocket gold - switch one of the two sec stats at the “barber” would really be nice)

PS: aren’t haste+vs the BIS stats for Retri currently?

4

You underestimate the contribution of the stats on 4 pieces alone. Taking my current Helmet, Chest, Gauntlets and Legs slots values:

  • Helmet - 640 Crit / 344 Mastery
  • Chest - 467 Crit / 467 Mastery
  • Gauntlets - 287 Haste / 443 Mastery
  • Legs - 527 Crit / 407 Haste

In summary equals (on lvl 70 S3):

  • Crit = 1.634 Crit (7.526 ~ 40,45% my overall) = (if correct) 8% buff of Critical Strike
  • Mastery = 1.254 Mastery (5.276 ~ 29,31% my overall) = (if correct) 5-6% buff of Mastery
  • Haste = 694 Haste (892 ~ 5,25% my overall) = (if correct) 4,4% buff of Haste

That’s still more than a “0.5% gain”. :slight_smile:

Sorry, but I don’t see how that’s even fun to begin with. Having pre-determined “bad combos” that screw people over due to them aiming for different stats is a bad idea in itself, especially considering that, for example, Mythic+ doesn’t cover every slot each Season with a stat combination you might prefer over another. Which would then theoretically force you to either Raid or play rated PvP to fill that slot, if there is an option in those activities.

Idk, since I am not a fan of the idea that Versatility as Stat exists in the first place (PvP is unplayable without Versatility…), I don’t know that. Either way, I wouldn’t care anyways due to prefering Crit/Mastery.

5

Kind of reforging 2.0, the 2 problems I see:

  1. Following spec rework/ nerfs, your catalysts changes might become useless, best way to get hell on earth
  2. Reforging was deemed too complicated for lambda players by Blizzard, this seems even more complicated than what we had :sweat_smile:
6

Not really, since you can just change your stats 1-2 weeks later. They could even make it similar like the mid-season limitations, that it only requires charges to change stats at the start of a season and no charges after the mid-season patch.

Only because I suck at explaining in this limited forum format. If I could implement images (which I can’t due to trust levels here), I could explain it visually more compelling (considering people prefer visual info over written one in general).

7

A week ago i did a sim for all my crafted gear (neck/ring/belt/boots) on my paladin with every stat combo and the best combo I got to was a 1200 dps upgrade on a 274000 dps sim.

2 Likes
8

I think you misunderstand how I meant the example.

In my situation, I have to sacrifice using the tier set for my preferred secondary stats. Imagine I could have both instead.

That’s what I meant.

I would have to use different stats that reduce the stats I actually want to have (like having Versatility instead of Mastery).

9

hahaha so you play retri and want crit and mastery because you like them…

10

for no reason on the earth you sacrifice tier set… no reason

11

If you’re giving up your tier set then I think being able to choose stats would be wasted on you.

1 Like
12

The tier set bonus is what you want. I don’t think the stats have that big an impact in comparison. It’s just four items out of all the rest that may be sub optimal stat wise.

13

It may not be a good reason for you but it is for me.

No, why? Imagine playing a game but the game devs force you to use specific gear and ruin your build stats. That’s exactly what this situation is.

All I am asking for is the ability to chose secondary stats on the single set we all are intended to use. That’s no downside at all to the sets to be able to optimize them how you want. We aren’t talking about a full set of armor but only 5 slots in total.

Puny, its about the principle. As someone who played several RPG games for years it is just strange that WoW still insists on pre-determined stats from devs to players on item sets they expect us to use.

That’s like giving us Ice Cream to make us happy but with specific flavor and telling us “sorry if you don’t like the taste, we only have flavors we like as creators”. You then either eat the Ice Cream or not. And I personally don’t eat Ice Cream I dislike (so to speak).

Blizzard isn’t meant to develop the game for themselves, they are meant to develop it for us, the players. And having for years very limited choices is one of the reasons why WoW has become so boring in general. And also the reason why people are so easily annoyed with complexity that even reading the broken down words of my explanation is for one or another person “too much”.

Once again pulling Baldur’s Gate 3 (the new RPG industry standard for many players) as example here… Many players don’t even finish their playthrough before making new characters to test out different classes and abilities in combination. And that’s great, because it makes people experiment and actually engage with the systems of the game.

WoW on the other hand is so simplified it is boring. And all of that because some minority is afraid of pushing numbers in their brain or the PCs integrated calculator.

I could go on about this issue but I won’t because it would take too long and I would repeat myself a lot about it. I hope you get the point tho.

14

then why would we should get this feature…

if you feel forced do whatever you like instead of this, if you want to be top dps you need to follow what should be done, if you don’t care go and play how you like… makes really no sense you say yourself you should pick up tiers then why if you feel forced: being forced to use tier set is ok but being forced to use its stats it’s no? make up your mind XD

15

The game shouldn’t come down to 1 single viable way to play in Endgame activities per class. That’s just indication for bad, lazy design. And considering people pay a lot of money with sub and DLC to play WoW, I think it is only fair to expect a certain level of quality in both casual and endgame content. Both in gameplay and system design.

I can pay 70€ and 12,99€ each month for WoW and get a somewhat “ok-ish” experience in game design… Or I can pay 60€ at maximum for a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 and get a much better gameplay experience in game design and execution of a game.

My point is, for the money we spend, we deserve a better game. And it’s not like the VERY SAME SYSTEM for selectable stats is already in place with crafting and stat missives… All they have to do is basically copy-paste it into the Catalyst. It is hardly any effort, needs only a few adjustments and is a QoL update for basically everyone, even for those that don’t need it.

Why would you want to argue against something that only benefits you as a player without a single downside? Just saying.

1 Like
16

You are right s3 tier is terrible in pvp fr paladin this season but atleast if the secondary stats could be the ones i wanted to use. i would have a tier set the tier should copy the secondary stats of the piece you put in the catalyst to upgrade

17

why don’t you just play that game if it’s superior? WoW is perfectly fine as it is from that point of view

18

tier set in pvp is already nerfed u know

19

For the same reason you play WoW. May it be the universe, the IP, the gameplay, your friends, etc.

BG3 is in design the better game, doesn’t mean that I enjoy re-running the same story campaign over and over again instead of playing with Strangers some M+ dungeons.

If it were perfectly fine, we would have higher player count than what Wrath of the Lich King peaked at. But we don’t. There are many issues with the game that needs addressing before it is anywhere as good as it once was as golden example in 2010.

20

catalyst has charges so you can’t put it in the same system, changing stats once per week (or two) for just a small gain? which gain is it if you don’t care of actual gains as you want to play what you want? it all makes no sense to me.
btw theorycrafting is being a thing since it came out and it show how complex WoW can be: if you can do whatever and be top dps it means there’s no depth in the game… and tbh unless you want to be that top dps you can wear whatever stats you want no need to add weird stuff and more systems some ppl don’t even know of missive or of the catalyst itself…