PVE Gear

03/06/2012 09:26 AMPosted by Freezebag

If they keep comming out with expansions the pve problem will take care of its self.

I feel like I should take some time to better relay the development team's intentions when it comes to how PvP stats will work in Mists.

There are two important changes to PvP itemization coming:

1. We're splitting Resilience into an offensive and defensive component.
2. All players will have at least 30% damage reduction versus other players.

If you want to do more damage to other players in Mists, you have two options. You can get better PvE gear with more offensive stats, or you can get better PvP gear with slightly smaller offensive stats built in(because PvP gear is lower item level), but which will also give you more damage against players specifically. In today's game, stacking PvE gear is really the only way to do more damage to other players in PvP since Resilience only supplies a defensive bonus. These are completely made up numbers, but imagine PvE gear is 100% effective in PvE and 75% effective in PvP. PvP gear is 50% effective in PvE, but 100% effective in PvP -- despite its lower item level, it wins out over PvE gear when used for its intended purpose.

Here are some examples:

Ders the rogue: wears PvE gear.
Jillian the hunter: wears PvP gear.
In Cataclysm PvE, Ders does much better damage than Jillian in PvE, because her PvP gear “wastes” stat budget on Resilience.
In Cataclysm PvP, Ders does better damage than Jillian for the same reason. However, when Jillian hits Ders, he doesn’t mitigate her damage at all. The result is high burst damage on both sides.
In Mists PvE, Ders still does better damage than Jillian, because his higher ilevel PvE gear has more offensive stats. The difference is smaller however because Jillian’s PvP stats aren't part of the item budget.

The item level difference is the main distinction.

In Mists PvP, they both do about the same amount of raw damage to each other, with a slight edge for Jillian. Her power stat offsets Ders's PvE stats. Jillian takes less damage because of her PvP Defense (let’s say it’s 50% damage reduction), but Ders still has 30% damage reduction innately, so he doesn’t blow up either. Again the difference is smaller. If Ders wants to get serious about PvP, he’s eventually going to want PvP gear, and Jillian will want more PvE gear to do PvE.

Another way to think about it is that we are pushing PvP and PvE gear closer together with two changes: A player in PvE gear always has some base PvP defense (it's like a little PvP gear for free). A player in PvP gear can do more damage and healing than today in PvP because of the new Power stat (it's like a little PvE gear for free).

03/06/2012 02:32 PMPosted by Ticatwo

Daxx that makes it seem like your trying to make pvp gear worse for pve while making pve gear similar to how it is now.

Perhaps I didn't explain clearly enough, if that's the impression you're getting.

Right now, if you walk into PvP using PvE gear, odds are there are some dudes that aren't wearing any resilience at all that you can probably blow up. On the same token, even when fighting players that have resilience, your raw output is higher compared to them, because you have more raw dps (or healing) stats on your PvE gear.

In Mists, everyone will be a bit tougher, so even fresh PvPers aren't as likely to get insta-gibbed, making pure PvE gear less useful straight out of the gate. At the higher end, a PvP geared player will both do more damage in PvP and take less damage in PvP than a player in similarly powerful PvE gear.

03/06/2012 03:15 PMPosted by Varya

I think the overall design idea is that the starting points for the two major areas are closer, but they each scale within their area significantly faster. I.e., It's possible to get into PvP without already having PvP gear, but PvP gear is overall just better. The opposite would also be true.

A nice summary!

So, essentially... the changes do nothing to reduce the barrier to entry of PvE->PVP
Instead they only work to make it easier for PvPers to enter PvE.

A not so nice summary! That is not what I wrote.

03/06/2012 03:10 PMPosted by Reygahnci

Ders is in full PvP gear except for one PvE trinket with an extremely overpowered proc in PvP contexts.

So, right now, there isn't an alternative to using awesome PvE gear in PvP. A great PvE trinket beats anything from PvP.

In 5.0 a trinket with PvP stats should beat out a PvE trinket in PvP.

I invite everyone to carefully read the words I posted in this thread. I invite you to read them with an open mind, and without the presuppositions which so often act as an impediment to mutual understanding.

I chose to post here specifically because I know this issue is important to you. Don't waste the opportunity to have a dialogue by willfully misinterpreting or reinterpreting what has been written. If you're confused, or you have a question, then say so or ask it. My intention here is to make the incoming system as clear as possible.

No, those of us who think this is stupid just know better.

When you take a minute and actually think about the logistics behind it, there are HUGE things that don't add up simply because they cannot.

Okay. Like what?

Be specific.

03/06/2012 04:11 PMPosted by Areos

People are concerned over whether powerful PvE weapons and trinkets will continue to dominate the competitive scene, which, considering WoW's past history, is a very legitimate concern.

One I've at least partially already addressed. The goal is to make a PvP item pretty much always the best choice, even in trinket slots.

Legendary items might be an outlier, because legendary items are legendary, and the additional item levels will probably make them competitive with PvP items. On the other hand, we also expect legendary items to be *much* more rare than they are currently, so they'll also be less of a factor.

03/06/2012 04:16 PMPosted by Areos

-- Do you intend for legendary weapons to be best in slot for PvP classes capable of using them? If so, wouldn't this be contradictory to the design philosophy behind this change?

Answered a bit earlier.

03/06/2012 04:16 PMPosted by Areos

-- When you state that PvE gear will have a higher item level than "equivalent" PvP gear, are you referring to normal or heroic raiding gear?

Perhaps I misunderstood the question? I'm referring to gear, in general. If we were to compare introductory PvE gear with introductory PvP gear, the PvP gear would have a lower item level, but would be stacked with lots of 'free' PvP Power and Defense that don't count against that items item budget. In reality, it would be just as, if not more powerful than the equivalent PvE item, but exclusively for the purposes of PvP.

03/06/2012 04:16 PMPosted by Areos

-- What do the developers plan to do with PvP trinkets in order to make them best in slot for PvP again? Insignias and Emblems are underpowered in PvP while proc-based trinkets like Vial of Shadows and especially Cunning of the Cruel are far too powerful.

I know what the design intention is, but I don't have any specific examples to hand. It might even still be a bit too early to have specifics. Still, I'll ask and see if I can't expand on this a bit.

03/06/2012 04:16 PMPosted by Areos

-- Have you ever considered implementing a stat on PvE gear that's reminiscent to PvP Power and Defense, but for PvE scenarios? For example, a stat that increases damage dealt to non-player characters only?

In a way, this is already the case. There are stats that are of great value in PvE that are extremely sparse in PvP items, and also extremely weak in PvP. Hit is a good example.

Daxxari, you asked me about a page and a half ago to state my example.

I stated it, and you haven't responded to it.

I've responded to it at least twice, once before you asked it specifically and failed to address the 'there are HUGE things that don't add up simply because they cannot' that were supposedly at issue with the system. In reality, you were just still worried about PvE trinkets in PvP, not the system we're discussing specifically.

So... you came here bearing elaborations when it was too early to even elaborate..?

>_>

There's a difference between being able to discuss our intentions regarding how PvP stats should work overall, and knowing exactly how individual trinkets are going to perform, complete with stats.

That sounds great, honestly. I just wonder how committed you (Blizzard) is to this concept.

Well, we aren't particularly happy with the way some of these PvE burst trinkets (Cunning and Vial in particular) have worked out in PvP. Future trinkets aren't likely to follow the same model, though we do want to make trinkets powerful and interesting when we can. We can make PvP trinkets compelling by (just for example) doing things like offering proc or on-use effect to provide PvP Power, much as we already have equivalent PvE trinkets that proc strength or spell power.

If we still run into issues with out of control trinkets, then we have levers we can pull, like adjusting the internal cooldown, or reducing the spikiness of their output. Either way, allowing Cunning of the Cruel to be so dominant in PvP qualifies as a misstep.

03/06/2012 07:16 PMPosted by Healsaluja

I'm trying to get my head around it, would you say PVP power in a sense is like +100 damage against undead enchants, or more of a Res pen?

Think +damage, not penetration. Your PvP Power isn't less valuable if your target isn't already stacked with PvP Defense.

03/06/2012 07:52 PMPosted by Shadelan

Wait wait wait...What about healers? How do they fit into this equation? Can healers just wear PvE gear?

PvP Power will increase the healing done to other players in PvP situations, so no worries there.

Should we expect PvP will involve a lot of 10%-->100% healing and 100%-->10% damage then? I'm kinda confused as to why healers need to be able to heal more in pvp than they do healing a tank against a raid boss, unless damage is just going to continue to be ridiculous.

We want healing to scale with PvP Power, but that doesn't mean that bonus healing has to scale at the same rate as bonus damage from PvP Power. Again, we have levers we can adjust to make PvP feel good.

I have a concern that the model you're suggesting won't be able to deliver on the two-fold promise of keeping 'PvE gear out of competitive PvP' and 'reducing the barrier of entry.'

That's an understandable concern, and it's true that as gear gets beefier tier by tier, it gets harder for new players to step into the fray, but even then, the innate defenses coming in Mists should help a lot. We're also aiming for the power curve from un-geared to geared level 90 player to be flatter than it currently is at 85, which should also help.

We want the PvP community to grow, so at least one of the goals here is to let players cross over more easily into PvP than they can today. That said, we're not expecting a just-dinged level 90 player to step into a 5.3 BG and smash face against dudes in stacked PvP gear. I'm pretty sure that's not what you guys want either. We do want someone who's moderately geared to have a much better chance in Mists than he or she does in today's PvP environment, though.