Why is blue loot better than purple loot?

#0 - March 9, 2007, 7:34 p.m.

If quest rewards and blues from 5 mans are comparable (and in many cases flat out superior) to epic raid loots, why are we even raiding in the first place?

Lets compare a couple pieces of gear from 5 mans (and a quest) with what we can get in Karazhan.

Exhibit 1: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28530
Stats: 21stam/19int/13 spell hit/ 23 spell damage.

compared to

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29333
Stats: 18 int/ 21 crit rating/19 damage.

The first piece requires a long attunement process for Karazhan, 9 other competent players, a flying mount, and drops off a decently difficult raid boss (moroes).
The second piece is a quest reward for a lvl 67 quest. I had it at level 65, and its arguably better (for pve dps) than a purple raid drop. Took a grand total of 1.5 hours and I had a 100% chance to get it (quest reward)

Lets check out some boots

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28517
Stats: 27stam/ 20 INT / 23 dmg / red and blue socket (+3 int socket bonus)

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27902
Stats: 21 stam/ 22 int/ +14 spir/ 20 crit rating/ 26 dmg.

First item, is an epic drop in Karazhan. Yet, it is in every way inferior to to the blue drop from Shadow Lab. You would have to spend 50G+ on the best gems to bring the epic boots on equal footing with the blue drop.

Lets check out some headgear

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28586
Stats: 31 stam/ 34 int/ 28 crit rating/ 39 DMG

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31104
Stats: 12 stam/15int/8 spirit/ 24 crit rating / 35 damage/ 3 sockets (+5 damage socket bonus)

First helm is an epic drop . Second helm is a 5 man quest reward that takes 2 hrs tops to complete. yet the second helm is significantly better.

I could easily find plenty more example of lackluster (even downgrades) raid drops. But I think I've made the point I want to make. I.e, that blue drops/ qeust rewards as in many cases better than anything you can find in raid zones. Moreover, all of the epic tailoring patterns are head and shoulders above ANY piece of raid loot I have seen so far. Heck Spellfire/Spellstrike is better than tier 5. So I would reiterate my earlier question. Why am I busting my ass farming consumables, doing my attunements, and wiping for hours every night on new content that provides me with no meaningful upgrades? If there a blizzard rep that gets a chance to read this, they should know that I'm not the only one asking this question.

I know that blizzard wants to keep raiders and PVPers on a somewhat even playing field but I think blizzard is making a HUGE mistake with the current raid itemization. I can see it in my guild already, people are sick of repeatedly wiping, farming huge amounts of consumables, and generally spending 3-5 hrs a night for loot that more often than not just gets DE'ed. Raiders are going to loose interest in raiding, and then WoW if things dont change soon.

Nethaera

#9 - March 9, 2007, 7:56 p.m.

We have already started working on balancing the equipment in game a bit more with patch 2.0.10 with the corrections to socketing. There were some items that had to be adjusted to more appropriate values which meant some were adjusted down and others were adjusted up. This is going to be something we plan to continue working on over time in upcoming patches as we evaluate items that may not be living up to what we wanted them to be or are more powerful than originally intended.

Nethaera

#17 - March 9, 2007, 8 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Calrification please. When you say "balance" you really mean nerf the purples and nerf the blues even worse, then DESTROY the greens, don't you? Please, at least if you're going to do it be honest about it.

Do something unique and not B.S. us so we can QQ beforehand.

No. That's not what I said. It's pretty clear that things felt to be too powerful will be readjusted to more appropriate levels. Those that are felt to be too weak, will also be adjusted to a more appropriate level as well , which means some items will go up in power and some will go down in power as we feel they are necessary.

Some items were and are overbudget. Others that are under will be taken a look at as well and given a boost.

Nethaera

#36 - March 9, 2007, 8:09 p.m.

Q u o t e:

I dont think you addressed the issue, OR you are unfamiliar with the changes that happened in the recent patch.

Many socketed, epic items were NOT adjusted. None of the ones I own were.

If you notice, I also say that adjustments will continue to be ongoing over a period of time as they are felt to be necessary. There were many socketed items that just weren't functioning as they should have been so that was corrected however, all itemization continues to be looked at and adjusted. If yours didn't change either it was deemed as working properly and its numbers were right on or is a part of the items still being looked at and considered for more changes. Which it's slated for I couldn't tell you.

Nethaera

#43 - March 9, 2007, 8:13 p.m.

Betas will never cover every possible aspect of a new addition to the game. It gives a good starting picture. A live world however can often show the full story of what is and isn't working.

Nethaera

#56 - March 9, 2007, 8:20 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Did you see they deleted the sticky about Gladiator gear? 8 pages of people asking why they completely forgot to itemize healing cloth and healing weapons. Deleted.

Are you talking about this thread?-

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=79176599&postId=801712379&sid=1#0

I'm not sure if anyone else has answered this or not but we do have it planned to add a healing weapon and shield into the Arena rewards in a future patch. I know many people brought that up as a concern.

Nethaera

#83 - March 9, 2007, 8:38 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Neth, you are usually my favorite CM, but what the dev team is doing and what you have said in the past contradict.

When people were asking why outland greens were better than equal level epics, your answer was that the color of the item was more of an indication of its rarity, rather than its quality.

Now you are saying the design team is going to be adjusting items... and since you wont deny it, likely nerfing all non-raid gear into oblivion, simply because the gear is blue and not purple.

IF Khara loots are buffed, please tell me that the heroic 5 man loots will be too, since they are argueably harder to obtain that most khara loots.

The title of the thread drew me here because there was concern over item balancing. I chose to ignore speaking about it in color terms because that does in fact tend to confuse people.

Yes, color = rarity not value and that is still true, however we also know that generally speaking the more rare an item, sometimes the higher value. That isn't the rule necessarily since I'm sure we've all seen the purple item that no one wants to take.

I chose to address that all loot is being looked at and adjusted and primarily it's about risk vs. reward more than it is color. If the team feels an area has a significant amount of risk, they want to make sure that the reward is commensurate to go with it. Most people just tend to associate a value with color because in general rarer items do in fact tend to have better stats or at least there is an expectation for that to be true.

I'm sure I'm getting to be about as clear as mud right now for some people. ;/

Nethaera

#110 - March 9, 2007, 9:11 p.m.

Q u o t e:

I love this quote! "We've all seen the purple item that no one wants to take".

Obviously that begs the question, why is it there then?

Meaning we've all been in a group (as in players) and had an item come up that wasn't wanted. Does that mean that item isn't worthwhile to someone else? No. It just means different items have different value based on what a particular player wants out of their build. I've gotten many lovely items before because others that could have used it didn't want it and all passed. Meanwhile it was an item that boosted me up and did exactly what I wanted.

Too many people are reading too much into things.

Yes, I understand the concern that people don't want to invest in gear that could change and be less than they wanted. I also understand that people don't want to invest time in a dungeon only to get something that isn't equal to the work that goes into getting it. As I'm aware and the rest of the community team is aware of these issues, so is the development team. There is a lot of care being put into what is changed and how it is changed.

Nethaera

#142 - March 9, 2007, 9:48 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Aside to Nethaera, being helpful for a change:

The song in your sigline was by a musician named Napoleon XIV, aka Jerry Samuels. Dr. Demento just put it on his Greatest Hits CDs.

I changed my sig just for all of you concerned that I wasn't giving proper credit. ;)