Cataclysm Stat & System Changes

Being many of you know from panels on very last year’s BlizzCon and posts at this juncture on the forums since at that moment, Cataclysm will bring on the order of major changes to familiar character stats such as Intellect, Armor Penetration, Defense, and others, ultimately designed to bake the personal property of stats more by far understandable and bake gear choices more out of the ordinary. Being these changes will bear a sizeable collision on how stats opus and relate to individual an added, at present we wanted to offer you a closer look on exactly what’s in supply and explain about of the rationale sooner than Cataclysm arrives.

Being many of you know from panels on very last year’s BlizzCon and posts at this juncture on the forums since at that moment, Cataclysm will bring on the order of major changes to familiar character stats such as Intellect, Armor Penetration, Defense, and others, ultimately designed to bake the personal property of stats more by far understandable and bake gear choices more out of the ordinary. Being these changes will bear a sizeable collision on how stats opus and relate to individual an added, at present we wanted to offer you a closer look on exactly what’s in supply and explain about of the rationale sooner than Cataclysm arrives.

The largely obvious question these changes raise is “Why are stats being tainted, and why nowadays?” being the game has developed, we’ve run into increasingly center issues with the current stat practice. Many stats are inherently confusing, and the way they connect can feel tortuous. Attack Power, in lieu of pattern, presently translates to hurt, but so does Armor Penetration. Defense provides five atypical arithmetical payback of not to be trusted efficacy. Mana restoration involves understanding multiple stats and rules and often locks of hair up being irrelevant anyway. Hip addition, the difference connecting a “good stat” in lieu of a genre and a “bad stat” can be extreme. Some casters famine Haste but not Crit; hunters famine Armor Penetration but not Haste. There are other overarching issues, as well, such as Intellect not being very exciting in lieu of casters despite it being a essence stat — and these are very soon a only some examples.

Our ultimate goal is bake gear a more out of the ordinary (and minus confusing) span by making all stat valuable to more players. While the reasoning behind about of the following changes might be tidy up, we understand to facilitate you might bear questions on the order of about of the minus obvious alterations, and we’ll make sure of our most excellent to answer some questions you might bear at this juncture on the forums.

What You’ll See on Gear

Stamina – Because of the way we will be assigning Strength, Agility, and Intellect, non-plate wearers will close up with more Stamina than sooner than. Health pools will be much closer connecting plate-wearers and other classes.

Spirit – Come Cataclysm, this stat must individual be found on therapeutic gear. Non-healing casters will bear other systems in place to stimulate mana, and we are wily special solutions in lieu of Elemental spiritualist and Balance druids who often share gear with healers (more on this below). Raid buffs to facilitate presently boost Spirit (such as Blessing of Kings) will individual boost the primary stats of Stamina, Strength, Agility, and Intellect. We are moreover likely changing the five-second control and other quirks of the current regen practice.

Intellect – Intellect will nowadays grant Spell Power (more on this below). Intellect will moreover provide minus mana than it presently does.

Haste – Haste will befit more pleasant in lieu of melee classes by allowing them to recover possessions such as energy and runes more quickly. Our target is in lieu of Haste to allow you “do stuff” more often.

Block Rating – Block is being redesigned to level better. Blocked attacks will simply whack in lieu of 30% minus hurt. Block rating will recover your fortuitous to slab, though overall slab probability will be junior than they are at present.

Parry – Parry rejection longer provides 100% avoidance and rejection longer speeds up attacks. Instead, after you parry an attack, it and the then attack will all whack in lieu of 50% hurt (assuming they whack on all). Hip other terminology, avoid is a fortuitous to forestall 100% of the hurt from individual attack, Parry is a fortuitous to forestall 50% of the hurt from two attacks, and Block is a fortuitous to forestall 30% of the hurt from individual attack.

Mastery – This is a spanking stat to facilitate will allow players to befit better on whatever makes their selected talent tree cool or unique. It’s truthfully fixed to talents, so I beg your pardon? You advantage from civilizing this stat is entirely dependent winning your genre and the talent field you pick. We’ll speech more on the order of particular Mastery payback in the outlook.

Armor – The way Armor mitigates hurt is not changing, but the Armor stat has been rebalanced to mirror changes to the armor curve in Cataclysm. Being a findings, bonus Armor will go off down faintly overall. We are moreover changing the easing difference in the company of armor types so to facilitate plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth.

Resilience – This will individual affect hurt completed by players and grave hurt completed by players. It will not collision crit fortuitous, mana drains, or other such personal property.

Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating – These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this slope, in common these will function similarly to how they make sure of nowadays, though the details — such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) — are likely to replace.

Being Removed from Items

Attack Power – This stat will rejection longer be contemporary on largely items as a lifeless estimate, though it will still demonstrate up on about process. Strength and Agility, which will be contemporary on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power for every purpose of Strength or Agility) depending winning which stat a specific genre positive discrimination. Agility might provide minus Crit than it presently does.

Spell Power – Spell Power is an added stat to facilitate you’ll rejection longer think about it contemporary on largely items. Instead, as mentioned higher than, Intellect will grant Spell Power. One exception is to facilitate caster weapons will still bear Spell Power. This allows us to bake weapons proportionately more powerful in lieu of casters in the same way they are in lieu of melee classes.

Armor Penetration – This stat will rejection longer be contemporary on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.

Shield Block Value – This stat will rejection longer be contemporary on items, since the amount blocked is continually proportional to the amount of hurt completed. Talents and other personal property might still mutate the damage-reduction percentage from 30%, however.

Going Away Completely

MP5 – This stat will be impassive from the game completely. Holy paladins and Restoration spiritualist will be redesigned to benefit from Spirit.

Defense – Defense is being impassive from the game entirely. Tanking classes must expect to befit uncrittable versus creatures very soon by shifting into Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, or by using Righteous Fury.

Spell Ranks – Spell ranks will die down to exist. All spells will bear individual rank and will level appropriately with level. The levels on which you can be trained clear spells are being tainted in order to fill in about of the gaps, and we will be introducing about spanking spells to be trained along the way as well.

Weapon Skill – This stat will be impassive from the game completely. Classes will start with all the bat skills they need to know and will not need to recover them.

What Else You Should Know

Combat ratings – All ratings will be much harder to “cap out” on ceiling gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in anon tiers of content will be harder to whack or crit, related to how level-83 mobs are harder to whack or crit than level-80 mobs.

Reforging – While these changes will go off a long way to making a wider variety of stats more pleasant, we understand to facilitate occasionally you simply don’t famine more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d somewhat bear more Haste than more Crit. Hip Cataclysm, we are obtainable to give out players a way to put back stats on gear as part of the existing profession practice. Being a common control of thumb, you’ll be able to convert individual stat to 50% of an added stat. While about conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to allow you make specially your gear more.

Gems – We are changing the gem insignia of a only some stats as a findings of these adjustments. For pattern, Hit is likely to be blue in its place of yellow. We’ll bear more details on this in the outlook.

Changes to Existing Gear

Being with earlier expansions, we strategy to roll absent these changes and mutate all existing gear shortly sooner than Cataclysm launches, though it’s still too experimental to say exactly after. For the largely part, the gear you bear will still be accomplished in lieu of you, though at hand will be exceptions, such as warriors using leather and mail armor.

If you are a tank (druids excepted), expect to think about it:

* No more Defense on gear. Existing Defense becomes avoid, Parry, or Block Rating.
* No more Block Value on gear. Existing Block Value becomes Block Rating.
* You’ll bear as much Stamina as you’re used to, though you might notice your tanking plate has a speck minus Stamina than a comparable example of DPS plate, since we take care of to take the gem finances absent of your largely pleasant stat.
* Bonus Armor on gear will go off down faintly.

If you are a melee DPS genre, druid tank, or hunter, expect to think about it:

* A allocation more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a findings.
* Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
* Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina.Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
* No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will rejection longer habit mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will understand mana and spell hurt in other ways.

If you are a DPS caster, expect to think about it:

* A allocation more Stamina.
* All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
* No Spirit. You won’t wish for Spirit, though, since you won’t need it in lieu of DPS or mana regen.

If you are a healer, expect to think about it:

* A allocation more Stamina.
* All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
* Spirit in its place of MP5. You’ll probably be blissful with Spirit, though, since mana regen is obtainable to count more than it does presently. Healing paladins and spiritualist will benefit more from Spirit than they make sure of presently.

If you are a Balance druid or Elemental spiritualist:

* You will still share gear with Restoration druids and spiritualist.
* Your gear will bear Spirit on it. It won’t bear Hit on it.
* You will bear a talent to facilitate converts Spirit to Hit. We will adjust talents accordingly so to facilitate you famine on the order of as much Spirit as, say, a warlock wants Hit.
* Hit on rings and other such gear will still benefit you.
* Raid buffs will rejection longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t observe physically unexpectedly more than the Hit cap since of buffs.

Many lower-level items with nonsensical combinations of stats, such as Agility and Spirit, will be tainted. We’re moreover updating quest rewards, trade skills, and loot drops to support better itemization in lieu of genre builds to facilitate weren’t widely free or used earlier to The Burning Crusade (such as Balance druids).

Resources:

http:///2010/07/14/cataclysm-stat-system-2/