Vexing Complexity
Choosing equipment in World of Warcraft is ultimately meaningless.
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Choosing equipment in World of Warcraft is ultimately meaningless.
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Vexing Complexity
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
Armour definitely does need to look better. I've only been playing WoW casually for a couple months now and at level 56 I can say I've not once had to think about trading my gear off. I do a quest, get a weapon with all round better stats and equip it. It seems that's how the progress has been so far.
Also I didn't miss anything then... it isn't really explained what the stat boosts on gear actually do... aside from the obvious...
EDIT: To add to the armour thing at the start. Some of it looks awesome, but I can never seem to find anything that goes with it well. It's a petty thing to be complaining about... but it's hard to feel heroic when my Blood Elf looks like he got dressed in the dark...
Also I didn't miss anything then... it isn't really explained what the stat boosts on gear actually do... aside from the obvious...
EDIT: To add to the armour thing at the start. Some of it looks awesome, but I can never seem to find anything that goes with it well. It's a petty thing to be complaining about... but it's hard to feel heroic when my Blood Elf looks like he got dressed in the dark...
Personally when I played - which was up to the time that tournament near Dalaran came out, not too long after Ulduar - I really liked both aspects of optimizing my talents but along with that selecting appropriate gear. I could take some talents that improve hit chance, or screw that - take some more attack power and put +hit enchantments on my gear, or get gear with it... or whatever. I never used those wikis or spreadsheets or elitistjerks. Well, other than to find out what the max hit chance is and that kind of thing but not for picking specific talents or gear. Anyway point is, I just did my own thing and had fun. My Warrior tank was hella fun and so was my dps Death Knight. I was never in a raiding guild so I pugged a LOT. I managed to get bulwark of the ancients for my warrior along with some other sweet raid gear. Took a while since a PUG usually can only kill maybe 4 raid bosses in a night haha. My DK had that Black Ice spear also from Malygos - and interestingly on that one I was on spark duty and still had 2nd highest DPS after a hunter. Frost spec DPS was AWESOME. But you had to build for it, both in terms of talents and gear.
Back in the days when I played a Rogue, (Blood Guard Skeleto
), I used to change specs every week to try different things out. Sometimes it worked better than others, other times completely different specs gave relatively equal results but with completely different implementation. That was before respecs reduced in cost after a while so I paid 50g per respec... for I don't know how many... no wonder I didn't get an epic mount until Burning Crusade. Of course, then in WotLK I went crazy selling my blacksmithed items on my warrior and bought a traveller's mammoth, and two mechano hogs lol. So rich... got boring.
But uh... yeah... haven't talked about WoW in a while. Sorry about that. Good read!
Back in the days when I played a Rogue, (Blood Guard Skeleto
), I used to change specs every week to try different things out. Sometimes it worked better than others, other times completely different specs gave relatively equal results but with completely different implementation. That was before respecs reduced in cost after a while so I paid 50g per respec... for I don't know how many... no wonder I didn't get an epic mount until Burning Crusade. Of course, then in WotLK I went crazy selling my blacksmithed items on my warrior and bought a traveller's mammoth, and two mechano hogs lol. So rich... got boring.But uh... yeah... haven't talked about WoW in a while. Sorry about that. Good read!
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I don't think I agree with your statement that equipment is ultimately meaningless because a tank in dps gear versus and tank in tank gear is such an absurd difference in survivability. Even tanks in full tank gear can differ greatly simply because of how can gem/enchant and or reforge. Do I use enchants to supplement my lack of hit rating so my threat increases as well as increasing my chances of hitting with a crucial ability (ex an interrupt) or do I go full survivability and aim for higher health pools, mitigation and avoidance? For healers it becomes and question about heals per second versus longevity. Do I have enough mana to go the distance and will that matter if I can't heal enough to keep the tank alive?
I've played WoW for many years now and had the privilege of tanking almost every realm first from Vash in burning crusade until the end of WotLK and I've seen first hand exactly the difference between what a well geared and thought out character can do versus a poorly planned one and its quite dramatic (not just talking about playing skill).
If anything I'd definitely agree with you on the hidden over complexity of WoWs current system. The idea that you need to go out of your way and essentially study long and at times very complicated posts on sources outside of WoW to learn the mechanics of how the game works and why lets say parry is > than dodge for your class is whats really the problem. The idea that the WoW community relies so heavily on sources like Elitist Jerks and the various character simulators that are developed there to help optimize is a bit ridiculous in my opinion.
I know people at my workplace who play WoW and are far more casual or less experienced then me and just think a higher item level automatically means a performance upgrade and I've also seen them suddenly start learning from places like EJ how they should gear and how astronomically their performance has increased because of that. Complexity for the sake of complexity is bad, I realize they don't want everyone to be cookie cutters when it comes to gear and specs but this sort of thing really doesn't do anything but penalize those who don't have the time out there to analyze something like
Trinket Value = (Amount of Passive Stat x Passive Stat's Weight) + ((Amount of Proc/Use Stat x Proc/Use Stat's Weight) x Proc/Use Uptime)
I've played WoW for many years now and had the privilege of tanking almost every realm first from Vash in burning crusade until the end of WotLK and I've seen first hand exactly the difference between what a well geared and thought out character can do versus a poorly planned one and its quite dramatic (not just talking about playing skill).
If anything I'd definitely agree with you on the hidden over complexity of WoWs current system. The idea that you need to go out of your way and essentially study long and at times very complicated posts on sources outside of WoW to learn the mechanics of how the game works and why lets say parry is > than dodge for your class is whats really the problem. The idea that the WoW community relies so heavily on sources like Elitist Jerks and the various character simulators that are developed there to help optimize is a bit ridiculous in my opinion.
I know people at my workplace who play WoW and are far more casual or less experienced then me and just think a higher item level automatically means a performance upgrade and I've also seen them suddenly start learning from places like EJ how they should gear and how astronomically their performance has increased because of that. Complexity for the sake of complexity is bad, I realize they don't want everyone to be cookie cutters when it comes to gear and specs but this sort of thing really doesn't do anything but penalize those who don't have the time out there to analyze something like
Trinket Value = (Amount of Passive Stat x Passive Stat's Weight) + ((Amount of Proc/Use Stat x Proc/Use Stat's Weight) x Proc/Use Uptime)
Thing is, at the raiding level, a lot of these discussions do take place.Shamus Young said:
I'm a holy paladin.
Point for point, Int is the best stat I can use. It gives my spells greater potency, crit chance, increases my mana pool, and gives me Mana regen.
But spr is my base stat for mana regen. do I take the gear with 100 Int and no spirit, or the one with 65 int and 65 spirit? Am I running OOM on fights? Are my heals low?
Haste is my best secondary stat for throughput - it enhances my mana regen, and lets me cast faster, but that faster cast speed also means I blow through mana faster, and Haste comes at the cost of a gear's potential to contain spirit. Haste is going to eat my mana harder.
Maybe crit would be a good choice? Crit intercats with some talents to trigger temporary effects that grant me haste or spirit buffs. It also makes my average heal hit bigger - but it comes at the risk of not getting a big heal when I need it. Leaving my healing efficiency at the mercy of the RNG.
Mastery grants damage absorption to my targets - so they take less damage, mitigating both my need for bigger heals, and my mana usage - but it comes at the cost of mana generation, heal size and cast speed.
These are all considerations to be made when selecting gear - and they happen for every class. A tank can't build threat without enough hit rating, but can't survive big boss abilities if they've not got the damage mitigation via dodge, parry, block, or armour (or some combination) to make themselves essentially unable to be the target of a critical strike. Gear matters, and for many classes, (like paladins) gear and stat priority builds around playstyle. I push INT and Haste, because I like to have the ability to respond quickly, but another paladin could play approximately equally well pushing up INT and crit. There are, of course, points where numbers take over, and there becomes and obvious "this is mathematically better than that", but there is a wide period (basically from hitting 85 to endgame raiding) where gear considerations present choices and tradeoffs to the player - and considering many long-term players spend most of their time filling that gap, I'm not sure I buy the premise of this column.
-m
That said, paladin Tier 11 gear looks absurd.
Bring back the Tier 2 styling, please.
Shamus, you REALLY need to give Dungeons and Dragons Online a try. The game is RIDDLED with these kinds of decisions to the point where there is flat-out no such thing as a "best in slot" item in the game. (Some people try to tell you there is, but there isn't. What they have is "best in slot" stuff for how THEY like to play. But more conservative players may, in fact, get much better results from completely different gear.)
Adding an additional level of depth (and, admittedly, some complexity) is the fact that you aren't just stuck playing ONE class--you can multi-class up to 3. But choosing to multi-class right off the bat means you can't get the "capstone" enhancement for any class, and those are some of the best enhancements in the game. So you want a combo that gives you some good stuff to make up for that. But multi-class combos are often a lot stronger in other ways that makes up for losing the cap.
Best of all, the mechanics are idiot-simple, since it's all d20 based. I've looked at the numbers they show you in WoW (my housemate plays WoW), and I'm baffled. He uses a gear planner (RAWR) just to figure out what is going to help him and what isn't.
DDO isn't balanced for PvP in any way, but it's really well balanced for PVE. Once you get a feel for how the game works (and it's not like pen and paper so you can fool yourself if you come in thinking it is), you can solo on any class, and be a real asset in a party with any class.
I really like it, and I hope you'll give it a look. You can start playing for free, after all.
P.S. I'm on the Thelanis server.
Adding an additional level of depth (and, admittedly, some complexity) is the fact that you aren't just stuck playing ONE class--you can multi-class up to 3. But choosing to multi-class right off the bat means you can't get the "capstone" enhancement for any class, and those are some of the best enhancements in the game. So you want a combo that gives you some good stuff to make up for that. But multi-class combos are often a lot stronger in other ways that makes up for losing the cap.
Best of all, the mechanics are idiot-simple, since it's all d20 based. I've looked at the numbers they show you in WoW (my housemate plays WoW), and I'm baffled. He uses a gear planner (RAWR) just to figure out what is going to help him and what isn't.
DDO isn't balanced for PvP in any way, but it's really well balanced for PVE. Once you get a feel for how the game works (and it's not like pen and paper so you can fool yourself if you come in thinking it is), you can solo on any class, and be a real asset in a party with any class.
I really like it, and I hope you'll give it a look. You can start playing for free, after all.
P.S. I'm on the Thelanis server.
You're article made me miss the gear customization of the old days. Sure there were balance issues, but at least you had much more freedom to build the character you wanted to build instead of just following a standard set of gear upgrades.
All your suggestions exist in PNP D&D, and you can find tons of people on variosu websites who can definitely answer which piece is better (Including the charop board on Wizards). I'm not sure what this would actually change, because the choices still seem to be shallow and don't really open things up much.
I did like the look into things. I'm just not sure the solutions given are, tangible.
Short of the "reset button," which I think everyone can agree won't happen.
I did like the look into things. I'm just not sure the solutions given are, tangible.
Short of the "reset button," which I think everyone can agree won't happen.
I have to agree with matt. A lot of the choices you claim aren't being made actually are a huge deal in upper levels of raiding. Since I'm a healer, I'll give a few examples.
As a healer, I have two primary stats, stamina and intellect. Since every item with the same item level has about the same amount of these, I won't be focusing on them. What I'll be looking at instead are secondary stats.
Each piece of equipment will have exactly two secondary stats on it to begin with. For a healer, you'll have a choice of:
crit
haste
spirit
mastery
What mastery does is different for every healer, so lets just focus on the other three.
As a healer, your job is to keep everyone alive. There are a number of ways people can die. You can run out of mana and be unable to heal them. You can simply not do enough healing to keep up with the damage they are being delt. Your casts can be too slow to hit them before they die.
Each of these three secondary stats deals with exactly one, and only one, of these issues directly. Spirit will make you regenerate your mana, so you'll be less likely to run out of it. Crit can sometimes heal for twice as much as usual, making it easier to keep people alive in high-damage situations over a long period. Haste makes you heal faster, making it easier to keep people alive when damage is being delt quickly.
So, choosing exactly how much of what stats you want is very, very important. Futhermore, by choosing one, you are essentially forsaking the other. In fact, two of these stats, haste and sprit, work against each other, in that the faster you cast, the more quickly you will run out of mana. So there definitely are double-edged swords in gearing decisions.
All of this doesn't look into particular classes or talent trees, but what I've typed here is essentially true for every healer. And, while I don't know about the other classes, exactly what stats are the 'best' at least for shaman healers is very hotly contested right now.
As a healer, I have two primary stats, stamina and intellect. Since every item with the same item level has about the same amount of these, I won't be focusing on them. What I'll be looking at instead are secondary stats.
Each piece of equipment will have exactly two secondary stats on it to begin with. For a healer, you'll have a choice of:
crit
haste
spirit
mastery
What mastery does is different for every healer, so lets just focus on the other three.
As a healer, your job is to keep everyone alive. There are a number of ways people can die. You can run out of mana and be unable to heal them. You can simply not do enough healing to keep up with the damage they are being delt. Your casts can be too slow to hit them before they die.
Each of these three secondary stats deals with exactly one, and only one, of these issues directly. Spirit will make you regenerate your mana, so you'll be less likely to run out of it. Crit can sometimes heal for twice as much as usual, making it easier to keep people alive in high-damage situations over a long period. Haste makes you heal faster, making it easier to keep people alive when damage is being delt quickly.
So, choosing exactly how much of what stats you want is very, very important. Futhermore, by choosing one, you are essentially forsaking the other. In fact, two of these stats, haste and sprit, work against each other, in that the faster you cast, the more quickly you will run out of mana. So there definitely are double-edged swords in gearing decisions.
All of this doesn't look into particular classes or talent trees, but what I've typed here is essentially true for every healer. And, while I don't know about the other classes, exactly what stats are the 'best' at least for shaman healers is very hotly contested right now.
I choose different ends of the spectrum to simply point out an extreme. Exactly why I said
right after. I could explain at great length the decisions that existed in the past and exist now and all the potential outcomes but the post was already reaching what I would consider wall of text or bloated proportions.
While I generally agree that WoW gearing is not particularly interesting, in the sense that typically there's a formula that tells you "x gear is objectively better than y", I feel the need to point out that:
"Melee weapons that deliver better damage per second but cause fewer (or less severe) critical," is the trade off between strength and crit rating (for warriors, paladins, and death knights) or agility and crit rating (for rogues/feral druids/enhancement shaman). This type of trade off already exists in the game. Also...
"Armor that reduces incoming damage but slows your own attack speed." Would be a trade-off between armor and haste. This type of trade off also already exists.
"Items that will boost your magic potency but reduce your mana pool." This used to exist, but not so much post-Cataclysm. Pre 4.0, intellect did not increase spell power, so casters had to choose between intellect and spell power on gear. I would say that now the trade-off is between intellect and haste or crit or hit.
In theory, I think WoW does have some interesting choices to be made. "Do I gem for Agility for an increase in attack power and crit, or do I choose haste for an increase in energy regeneration, or do I gem for pure crit for more bursty DPS?" The issue is, for me, that the players have gone to the trouble of creating spreadsheet to figure out EXACTLY which is better, 1 point of agility, haste, or crit.
Your overall point is spot on, thought. For a rogue doing raid DPS, or a Death Knight tanking, or a druid healing, there is really only one choice to make: what gear gives me the highest overall damage output/damage mitigation/healing numbers? Plug numbers into equations, and you can figure out exactly what stats, and how many of each, are the best. I would argue that this is the nature of the game. So long as you only have one job in a raid, there's really only one choice for gear.
"Melee weapons that deliver better damage per second but cause fewer (or less severe) critical," is the trade off between strength and crit rating (for warriors, paladins, and death knights) or agility and crit rating (for rogues/feral druids/enhancement shaman). This type of trade off already exists in the game. Also...
"Armor that reduces incoming damage but slows your own attack speed." Would be a trade-off between armor and haste. This type of trade off also already exists.
"Items that will boost your magic potency but reduce your mana pool." This used to exist, but not so much post-Cataclysm. Pre 4.0, intellect did not increase spell power, so casters had to choose between intellect and spell power on gear. I would say that now the trade-off is between intellect and haste or crit or hit.
In theory, I think WoW does have some interesting choices to be made. "Do I gem for Agility for an increase in attack power and crit, or do I choose haste for an increase in energy regeneration, or do I gem for pure crit for more bursty DPS?" The issue is, for me, that the players have gone to the trouble of creating spreadsheet to figure out EXACTLY which is better, 1 point of agility, haste, or crit.
Your overall point is spot on, thought. For a rogue doing raid DPS, or a Death Knight tanking, or a druid healing, there is really only one choice to make: what gear gives me the highest overall damage output/damage mitigation/healing numbers? Plug numbers into equations, and you can figure out exactly what stats, and how many of each, are the best. I would argue that this is the nature of the game. So long as you only have one job in a raid, there's really only one choice for gear.
I should have made clear: I was talking about the leveling aspect of the game. Yeah, once you're raiding, equipment is EVERYTHING. (So I'm told.) It's just odd that the first 80 levels don't work that way and don't prepare you for it.Matt_LRR said:
"Mathcrafted". Heh. Hadn't heard that one before. I'll have to remember that.
Spot on. It's never clear what new equipment is going to do in WoW, so I don't bother. I basically pick a few stats that should be good for my current class and concentrate on those. Another 5 dps on a weapon while keeping crit chance up? Sure. Double the armor value on leggings with about the same stat boosts? Can't lose there. If I'm not dying or having serious troubles then it's working well enough. It's certainly not worth the time to go spreadsheet it. That's for serious raiders, who like turning a game into a job.
That's fair, but as you're levelling, you're gaining levels faster than you're getting gear - you replace your full set of equipment approximately once every 10 levels. That levelling period is designed to get you familiar with all your skills and abilities, and how to play your class. But your character sees more change and progression from your development and talent selection than from gear selection, and at sub 80 levels talent selection is a choice (you get one talent point, do you want to add 2% to your damage output or give yourself another 10% chance to avoid stuns so you can retreat in a pinch? you're going to respec to your best class-spec at 85, but on the way up, what you choose can have a significant effect on your levelling, and there aren't necessarily "best" talents to take during levelling).Shamus Young said:
Virtually everyone levels on their DPS spec though, so offering variety and gearing options there serves little in-game utility. I guess it's not unfair to make the argument that when you get dumped into the world of gear progression at 85 that the game hasn't done a great deal to prepare you for it, but you should, at that point, have at least a pretty good idea of what you need based on what you've learned so far, and are now in a position to start experimenting, trying different gear configurations, and trying new talent builds, if you don't want to start reading. The game also then takes you through dungeon progression at 85, from dungeons to heroics to raids, which (now)include gear priority restrictions on rolls and is built around teachign you to select gear that enhances your performance in your class. By the time you're in heroics, the game has nudged you in the direction of gear that works for your class.
The old adage of wow is that "the game starts at 60(70[80{85}])". In a very real sense, 1-85 is just tutorial and character building.
-m
I agree entirely, I've come into this problem since returning to my Warrior to actually attempt some raiding. It seems that Blizzard just change up the way that stats work once in awhile to give the theorycrafters something to do, everyone just looks at the iLevel and grabs the best set for their role/class anyway.
By the way, I wouldn't have linked to EVE Online as the "worst" offender. It may seem like it, what with the pages of scary numbers on each ship or module's info window, but it actually has a ton of depth. I don't know of any two EVE players who can agree on the "best" fit for a given ship; everything is a tradeoff for something else.
NOTE: This post was in no way a flame, troll or anything that could spark an EVE vs WoW debate. I love both games! Honest!
By the way, I wouldn't have linked to EVE Online as the "worst" offender. It may seem like it, what with the pages of scary numbers on each ship or module's info window, but it actually has a ton of depth. I don't know of any two EVE players who can agree on the "best" fit for a given ship; everything is a tradeoff for something else.
NOTE: This post was in no way a flame, troll or anything that could spark an EVE vs WoW debate. I love both games! Honest!