Confusing Stat Removal didn’t fix anythingFollow

My experience is specific to Fire-Mage, but my question is generally based.

Blizzard removed several stats from the game at the launch of Cata in an effort to make gearing easier (or at least more clearly defined). Things like Armor Penetration confused people ~ so Blizzard removed them.

The problem, as I see it, is that this hasn’t really solved anything. If you read Alla, MMO, or the new O-Boards – no one can really clearly tell you want stats you need as a fire spec. Everyone is in agreement that INT and Hit are at the top. Spell Power is now, effectively a dead stat (as it can only be found on weapons).

Then, there is this huge debate over Crit vs Haste. No one can clearly tell you what stat you need. There are incremental points where one is better than another, but no CLEAR winner and the only way to actually find out which stat you should be stacking is to do advanced theory crafting…

Are any other classes in this sort of a bind?

EJ has made some statements about stat weighting, but the two main stats we are juggling here are crit and haste – and no definitive answer has been provided. (Back at the beginning of Wrath, we had similar issues, but it was related to Spec. You started as FFB, then went Arcane, and only at the highest level of ICC could you go back to fire (Though many didn’t)….

I hear fire mages are pretty crit dependent. Now where that leads to priority of stats I don't know.

Using the spreadsheet for hunters this expansion so far has been very confusing. There is a point in haste at which it drops from increasing dps substantially to actually losing dps, in just a matter of a few haste points.

It's like he said, there are points where the stats you want change.

I kinda like it that way, tbh. It works out well enough that if you're keeping even on the more important stats, you'll be doing fine.

I'm not saying that there should be an ‘instructions manual’, but if you read the Fire thread on EJ, you'll see that there is real disagreement.

The way it used to work was a DPS Paly said no thanks to Armor Pen, because it was really not a Pally stat. If you had to take it, you took it, but generally that item would go to a Warrior.

Now, there are hidden break points within my gearing. As Hyolith said, there are points in your gearing where haste will stop increasing your DPS and actually be an issue.

How is that not Convoluted?

The old system: (Mage): Spirit & MP5 Bad. Other stats Priority > Priority > Priority, etc….

The new system: (Mage): Haste is good up to 1250, but at 1251, you lose DPS until you have your crit >35% with raid buffs, then stacking haste is Ok. At a certain gear level Mastery will go from completely worthless to being a valued stat. And all of this is gear/racial/raid-comp specific.

I’m not asking for them to hand it to me on a plate, but if the guys at EJ can’t come up with a definitive answer… I think that, like Blizzard’s goal of Triage Healing… Simplifying stats isn’t really occurring here in Cata.

When it gets to that point why not just get rid of stats all together and just say item lvl 346 gear increases dps by x amount? At what point does making the game "more simple and easier to understand" turn into lazy?

I understand how confusing balancing stats can be. As Hyolith said hunter numbers can vary drastically by just a few points. I was on the spreadsheet for mine one day and watched as my haste value went from being almost equal to agility in value to a third of the the value of my second lowest stat.

Yes it can be confusing, but to simple just makes the game feel dumb. A little challenge and number crunching shouldn't be the end of you, and if it is, just say ***** it and do it your own way.

I was under the impression that fire mages only wanted to stack crit and no haste, but I also don't actively play my mage so there you go...

I'm pretty pleased with the removal of certain stats, especially for leveling up alts. Granted I didn't have it overly hard with an arcane mage in Wrath. Get hit capped, then stack haste and spirit for the extra crit with molten armor. Although from what I've heard, stat preference for arcane mages is actually more complicated than that now, which is kind of odd.

Mages aren't the only ones with weird priority stat stacking though. Boomkins have some discussion going too, with haste vs. mastery once you reach a certain break point with haste. From what I understand, once you reach about 1930 haste you aren't going to reach anymore DoT ticks this tier level. Whether you continue to stack haste or start stacking mastery depends on whether you're doing a single target or multi target fight. I do consider myself a min/maxer, but not that much of one. I'm not going to go back and forth to town between fights to reforge my gear for a few extra dps. Don't think my raid leader would let me either lol. Now if I could get my hands on an extra set of gear that was reforged for mastery, and then switch sets that would be a different story. Don't think that's going to happen though.

I find Mastery makes gearing up more complex than armor pen ever did.

Blood DK and Rogues not specced Mut found great success with ArP, and Arms warriors stacked it to cap before anything else. That said, out of 30 specs, 4-6 used it seriously (Fury and Marks were starting to stack it before 4.0 as well, but not as seriously).

Getting that first extra DoT tick is huge, so initial stacking is a big deal.

Yeah, exactly. They don't need to change talents or how mastery scales for everyone, they just change the mastery for a certain spec; it's much more manageable than ArP was.

Granted some masteries kind of suck (Assassination for rogues), but it's still better than ArP, and it adds some flavor to each spec.

Perhaps the removal of certain stats made it easier on Blizzard for creating gear and balancing classes?

Right now it feels rather simple for my class (enhance Shaman) because there aren't a lot of gear choices available out there. There is the tier gear and pretty much one 'set' of non-tier mail agility pieces. We don't have many weapon options either so it's not a matter of choosing which gear is best but a matter of deciding how to best gem and reforge it. Last I read, the stat weights for my spec are pretty straightforward with spell hit and expertise being stacked to their caps, followed by agility, followed by mastery. Crit and haste are well behind with crit being slightly ahead of haste.

Of course everything might change with the next tier with stats on gear being bigger (making higher amounts of a single stat possible) and new set bonuses to figure in.

Personally, I'm glad that they removed some of the stats. I especially hated seeing mail with armor penetration because it was an almost useless stat for me and it seemed to show up on half of the non-tier agility mail available.

There cannot be 1 stat to rule them all because they are all reliant on eachother.

For Fire Mage, Crit progs Ignite. But Ignite is made more powerful by Mastery, and is allowed an extra tick at different levels of Haste. They're all intertwined. Not only are they intertwined, and not only do most of these stats have literal caps and diminishing returns, but also as you raise one stat, the potency of all other stats goes up naturally to match it.

If you boost your Crit up to a reliable level, then that haste to make Ignite tick one more time, and that Mastery to make it tick for more, all go up in value - completely naturally independent of any diminishing return values. As others have said, the game isn't a puzzle still, but the fact is that stat-stacking just isn't what it used to be. That's why there are Primary stats, like Int, that you'll always know are the safest bet. Past that, all the stats balance out at certain levels.

As for you, You only need 4.2% haste base for 25 man raids. The next level is something ridiculous like 17.5%. After you get the 4.2% haste, Crit is your best friend regardless of what the theory-crafting tells you. Unbuffed, your crit has to be nearly 30% before any other stat matches it (other than Int and Hit). This is possible with BiS gear, which is why EJ and the likes proceed to tell you that Crit's value isn't that high, because again, once you reach a certain point in Crit you'll start getting Ignite munching.