[Blizzcon] Defense is Gone

moduspwnens wrote:I haven't yet decided whether or not I like these changes.

^

Don't know about others but i find it fun to doing the actually juggling with ratings at most times, guess it will however be a blessing to not having to worry about having to little defense for onces though depending on which gear piece you use. Seems like they will take our the fun of having alot of diffrent gear to preform diffrent tasks =/ Maybe i should talk to more bears to see how they feel about it all since they has to be used to it

Digren wrote:Blizzard said that they didn't want to make block into more armor, but that's exactly what "% of damage" is.

Not when block rating is gonna be down too though. It is only like armor if you can block/dodge/parry and miss 100% of the time.

Doxa wrote:

Digren wrote:Blizzard said that they didn't want to make block into more armor, but that's exactly what "% of damage" is.

Not when block rating is gonna be down too though. It is only like armor if you can block/dodge/parry and miss 100% of the time and GC already stated that isn't gonna happen.

I do have the feeling though that in the end, this is gonna suck.

Well, they're removing Block Value, not Block Rating, so there's that.

Only problem with becoming uncrit just on talents is that some people will say they're tanks just because they spent 66 points into the prot tree.

fafhrd wrote:wait, what? they're getting rid of attack power?

As I understand it, there will still be AP, but not as a stat on gear. So, no more leather BiS for plate classes.

sooo now there's gonna be even more reason for people to base tanks on the amount of HP they have....

Oh well...i like the changes.

Flipthebird wrote:sooo now there's gonna be even more reason for people to base tanks on the amount of HP they have....

Oh well...i like the changes.

hey ! its flipthebird, were you been?

mavfin wrote:

fafhrd wrote:wait, what? they're getting rid of attack power?

As I understand it, there will still be AP, but not as a stat on gear. So, no more leather BiS for plate classes.

Kinda true. They technically cited that it won't be on armor-type gear (leather, mail, plate) but could be on non-class specific items (like a ring, for example).

Dane wrote:Soo...with the change to block, does this mean AoE tanking is, while not dead, at least smarting a bit? Blocking 100% of small hits will no longer be possible...or do you think that the damage that gets through will be low enough to be immaterial?

Not necessarily. With such large changes to talents and abilities, there could quite easily be skills that increase the percentage of which you block for. Potentially to 100%, or close enough for it not to matter.

I have been looking for a reason to quit this game, and I think I may have found it.

These changes bring the game down to the lowest common denominator. While I'm sure many people will be happy about that, I liked having to think about things like gear/gems/chants/etc.

Apparently thinking is overrated.

Constantíne wrote:I have been looking for a reason to quit this game, and I think I may have found it.

These changes bring the game down to the lowest common denominator. While I'm sure many people will be happy about that, I liked having to think about things like gear/gems/chants/etc.

Apparently thinking is overrated.

There's thinking involved in the current gearing method?

KysenMurrin wrote:The one thing I'm a little less convinced about is Reforging. Seems to me this is just so that they can reduce the number of boss drops - piece of plate drops, plate wearers roll, tank wins it and swaps dps stat for tank stat, or something along those lines. Makes gearing easier, but kind of removes some of the flavour of having the various items with their stat allocations in the first place. Hopefully they'll not let gear be too customisable, or all that will matter is armor class and ilevel.

They provided some limitations on reforging that alieviate your concerns.
1. You can only drop 50% of ONE stat on the item.
2. You can use the gain iPoints to only add ONE other stat that is not already provided by the item.

That "not already provided" is the key part. With most classes using like 3 stats total, what are the odds that a piece you like will be completely lacking in one of them? I'd assume most non-tanks will be dropping the stamina on the piece, but all they may be getting in return is haste and, err, ?

Flex wrote:

Constantíne wrote:I have been looking for a reason to quit this game, and I think I may have found it.

These changes bring the game down to the lowest common denominator. While I'm sure many people will be happy about that, I liked having to think about things like gear/gems/chants/etc.

Apparently thinking is overrated.

There's thinking involved in the current gearing method?

Of course there is. Go read the Gear Questions and Advice forum sometime.

From the main Cataclysm thread:

Invisusira wrote:It looks to me like they're trying to take a lot of the spreadsheet homework out of the game - which I think is a big step in the right direction. A huge part of why early Classic was massively enjoyable was that there was no homework. You just played.

This. A thousand times this.

I'm happy that tanks will no longer need the Defense minimum. It's a unintuitive mechanic that exists for theorycrafters but is mentioned nowhere in the game itself. Parry, Dodge, Block, Armor, Stamina, these are all things that can be figured out to some degree by playing the game, but working out that you need to reduce a bosses chance to critically hit you by at least 5.6%, where's that written?

At least by putting a talent in the tanking tree that says "reduces your chance to get critically hit by 2/4/6%" you're implying that around 6% crit removal is a useful thing for a tank.

Digren wrote:

Flex wrote:

Constantíne wrote:I have been looking for a reason to quit this game, and I think I may have found it.

These changes bring the game down to the lowest common denominator. While I'm sure many people will be happy about that, I liked having to think about things like gear/gems/chants/etc.

Apparently thinking is overrated.

There's thinking involved in the current gearing method?

Of course there is. Go read the Gear Questions and Advice forum sometime.

Everything comes down to maintain 540 defense and stack as much stamina as possible for progression tanking. That's not thinking.

There are gimmick sets, but that doesn't change with the released details and removing defense as a worry stat may actually open up more gemming options, such as it being okay to gem for Strength in a progression set.