WoD Gear

So since hit/expertise and dodge/parry are being removed and cleave, speed, and whatever the other one is are going to be bonus stats, does that mean all our gear will be haste/mastery assuming crit is still not great for us and the bonus armor being on tank gear isn't in place of a secondary stat?

My understanding of itemization is:

Primary stat will change depending on spec; prot/ret->str, holy->int

So you've got
500 Stam
500 (Str/Int)

The secondary stats will still vary: haste, mastery, crit, spirit? What the secondary stats will be hasn't been explicitly stated yet either, as far as I've seen.

500 Stam
500 Str
250 Haste
250 Mastery

The tertiary stats are random and don't count towards item budget: these are the "fun" things.

500 Stam
500 Str
250 Haste
250 Mastery
3% Life Steal

Then gem sockets are random and also don't count towards item budget, nor are there socket bonuses.

500 Stam
500 Str
250 Haste
250 Mastery
3% Life Steal
[ ] Socket

We don't know if something can have a tertiary bonus AND a gem slot.

What we're going to *want* is going to depend on mechanics changes -- with the removal of Dodge and Parry, I assume they're going to just bake it into the new combat algorithms -- one of the Devs made an off-hand comment about "after X happens you have a Y% increased chance to dodge" or something along those lines. I don't think we have enough information right now to draw any conclusions.

Is it just primary stats that are affected by spec? I guess that would make more sense so there can still be more than one piece of gear for each slot

Edit,

"The stats on armor will now change based on your spec. Plate drops and it will have whatever stats your class needs, no more Intellect plate! No more PvP Priest Healing set and PvP Priest DPS set, just a Priest set."

It doesn't say one way or another so it could go either way

"Tertiary stats are bonus stats that can appear on gear that don't count towards the item level budget. Lifesteal, avoidance, sturdiness, movement speed (stacks with other bonuses), cleave, and more."

Didn't notice avoidance on there when I first read it, so dodge and parry are still gonna be on gear somewhat

If they don't make sure that all specs have a use for crit, haste AND mastery I'll be very surprised. As far as I understand the system armor items (the 8 armor type items) will only have those three for secondary stats (with the possibility of gems and tertiary stats), while other items (jewelry, weapons and cloaks) can also have spirit. Not sure if they're going to add a fifth secondary stat, I doubt it.

edit: I wonder if we'll get tertiary stat gems?

Soloz wrote:Is it just primary stats that are affected by spec? I guess that would make more sense so there can still be more than one piece of gear for each slot

I don't know if it's been explicitly stated yet; I may be reading too much into what they've said -- otherwise if both primary and secondary stats changed based on spec, it wouldn't matter what we *want* on gear -- we'd just get what they *gave* us. It would also mean you would have, like, one plate boot per tier if there was no secondary stat variation.

This strikes me as being bad game design.

Primary stats will change, but secondaries definitely shouldn't. I'm pretty sure Blizzard isn't shortsighted enough to just limit each spec to two secondary stats because that would take a lot of the fun out of theorycrafting plus it would mean there's no point in having more than one item per slot since things would just change over unless they want a different visual. Having two secondary stats on each item means they can do three combinations of the three secondaries, and thus have at least three different items. I say at least because there's also potential for having more of one secondary stat than another in case people really wanted to optimize.

Unless they can make spirit useful for all specs, there's no way they can have it be a secondary stat on regular armor that can change its primary stat. For non-armor stuff like cloaks, rings, and trinkets, spirit could definitely be a stat.

I dont know. Overall, I think it is a great idea to get rid of these hit/expertise stats that you always have to cap, resulting in crazy reforging once a new piece drops. Just be able to equip something once its drops, like in the past, is great.

But there should still be some variance in the gear, making it more suited to say avoiding attacks, living through them, making more DPS at the cost of some survivability etc. I always enjoyed mixing in some Ret gear (or in the old WoW, spellpower gear) to somewhat balance PS vs survivability, and I also liked the old block rating giving you a choice to optimize on bosses vs. adds.

So with Tank and DPS gear even getting more similar (stats switching on respec) I fear that there is just the item level of any relevance, and then some random "third tier stats". I have been playing Diablo III for a short while and was really frustrated how even a legendary can be crap compared to a green with good rolls on the tertiary stats. In fact, there is a factor of 5 or more in DPS between otherwise identical pieces if just the tertiary stats multiply up best.

So one hope (getting rid of this reforging drama) and two fears (items that are too similar but get insanely powerful on random stats combinations). Looking forward to the PTR

Extermi

If I understand correctly, we have four primary stats:
- Stamina
- Strength
- Agility
- Intellect
And something that I’ll dub “Stragint” for the sake of convenience, which automatically converts to Strength, Agility or Intellect based on your class and spec, and convert whenever you change specs.

We’ll have 6 general secondary stats, that are useful to all classes and specs, though different specs might favor different stats:
- Mastery
- Critical Strike
- Haste
- Readyness
- Amplify
- Multistrike

And another 4 role specific secondary stats, that are only useful to certain roles:
- Bonus Armor
- Spirit
- Attack Power
- Spell Power



Armor pieces will have:
- Armor
- Stamina
- Stragint
- Any 2 general secondary stats
- Set bonuses if it’s a set piece, which will automatically adept to your spec.

In addition, items that drop from raid bosses can have one or more of the following, which is added on top rather than replacing some of the base stats. Since set pieces are bought, I do not expect them to have any of the following:
- A bonus to item levels. (Warforged)
- A gem socket.
- A tertiary stat.

Other pieces won’t have Stragint.

Cloaks, necklaces and rings likely will not have Strength, Agility or Intellect either, though it will probably still be present on weapons, shields and offhands. It’s quite possible that cloaks, necklaces and rings won’t have Stamina either, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Most of these pieces will have one role specific secondary stat, and one general secondary stat, but some of these pieces will simply have two general secondary stats. Due to the lack of primary stats on cloaks, necklaces and rings, they might very well have a third secondary stat as well.

Like armor pieces, other pieces that drop from raid bosses can also have a bonus to item levels, a gem socket, a tertiary stat or several of the above.