Another rating going away in Cataclysm
Warning: This is a Cataclysm spoiler.
Back in May I asked a simple question: if our Mastery is increased block chance, then wouldn’t Mastery rating be the exact same thing as block rating? At the time it seemed like the answer was indeed yes, and that we’d have a horrendously redundant Mastery.
Of course, like I said at the time, things could very well change–and now it seems like they have.
According to a Ghostcrawler post from the Alpha forums leaked onto a site that promulgates Cataclysm leaks, there will be no block rating in the next expansion pack. As he says,
You may notice there are no items with block rating. If we want shield-using tanks to get block, we add mastery to the item.
Well, that settles that, eh?
Armory Feed
… yay?
One more stat on gear to not worry about and good news for tank loot distribution and those silly DKs.
The number of secondary stats disappearing from gear could make for some very bland pieces. It could also make Reforging useless from an optimization perspective, instead turning into a “D/E avoidance” mechanism where DPS stats become Tank (or SP Plate?!?) or Spirit can be traded with Hit.
In general, though, I’m curious to see how gear looks as it goes from green to blue to purple. Will all epic tank plate be Parry & Dodge? Will all SP Plate be Haste & Crit? Then we’ll just see wild variations in those two stats as you compare two pieces of the same ilvl?
@Rhidach
11 June 2010 at 2:23 pm #
It logically follows, since they’ve been leaving block rating off tank gear since ToC, just to make it so the gear isn’t segregated into block/no block pieces.
I’m curious to see what affect Reforging and iLevels have on the gear as well.
Tank plate will have str/stam with a choice of dodge, parry, mastery, armor, hit, exp
Spp plate will have int/stam with a choice of haste, crit, spirit, mastery.
Whether they go with 2 extra stats or 3 will determine how much varience there exists on gear.
One thing that i find odd with the change in block is that str will no longer give pally/wars any survivability but druid/dks will still benifit from it.
*ahem* I beileve if you go back to the 14th of may and check the last comment you may see that a certain paladin tank that called this.
@Rhidach
11 June 2010 at 9:15 pm #
Nice call! :)
I may be wrong but wasn’t that announced a long long while ago by gc? That they want to make Blockchance a fixed value thus removing it from all items?
It was at least the starting point of that topic here:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19377976301
can’t find the gc quote right now.
@Rhidach
14 June 2010 at 8:50 am #
Well, they were talking about block value going away and there just being one Block stat that governed block chance, resulting in a static block damage reduction percent. This is news because we’re not even getting that one Block stat on gear, it’s just our third mastery bonus giving us blocks.
Of course, the great irony is that they are removing block at the exact same time that all for of the tanks are getting a “block” mechanic.
Both pallies and warriors were born with them, and druids got theirs with savage defense, and now getting the healing absorption.
“Healing Absorption: When you heal yourself, you’ll receive an additional effect that absorbs incoming damage.”
From the looks of it, they can deathstrike and heal themselves which will then create a block for the next attack that lands.
So mastery is the new block gear for all of the tanks. Pretty interesting way to address the “diversity” in tanks, huh?
@Rhidach
14 June 2010 at 9:09 am #
It’s just about what I’ve come to expect.
Nice interviews at Game Planet, but there’s a bit on Reforging on page 3:
http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/159702.World-of-Warcraft-Cataclysm/features/135036.20100613.Blizzards-Greg-Street-on-new-systems-in-Cataclysm/page3/
@Rhidach
14 June 2010 at 1:46 pm #
Aww, there goes my hopes of having some kind of additional use for Engineering. So many retreats from what was promised at Blizzcon.