News
Spell Power in Wrath of the Lich King
17th Jul 2008 06:51 PM GMT | Maticus | 6 comments
Community Manager Wryxian has commented on the planned change to +Spell Damage and +Healing in the expansion.
Blizzard have indicated that they intent to remove the two different stats and replace them with a new Stat - Spell Power. This means players who need +Spell Damage on items could make use of items that currently only have +Heal on them, and healers could use +Spell Damage items.
As expected, this has caused a lot of fuss from the community, as it means an item that was previously for healers exclusively, will now be viable for DPS Spell Casters too, and vice versa. This, in turn, means that when loot drops in an instance or raid, many more people will be able to use these items, so more will roll on them.
There is also the issue of the amount of +Heal and +Spell Damage on items. Right now, healers have comparatively more +Heal than DPS Casters have +Spell Damage. If the stats merge, players complain that either healers will have less healing power, or DPS casters will have much more spell damage.
 Blizzard Quote: (Source) |
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| Well as you've probably now gathered, 1 point of spellpower will be equal to a greater amount of the current bonus healing stat. So although healers will have a lower amount of spellpower than the bonus healing they have now, they will still heal for roughly the same amount. Regarding whether more gear will become wanted by more people and whether deciding who gets what will become harder to manage, well yes there might be some of that :-) I can definitely imagine some of my guilds raid loot bidding becoming even more intense than it is currently. In the 5 mans though, I guess it'll come back down to the simple "need and greed" type rules. If the item is a definite improvement on your existing item of that slot, then it's only fair that you roll for it. If you're grouping with friends this'll be more easy to deal with... ;-) Generally if you're grouping with polite and friendly folk, loot distribution should be just as easy to do as it has always been. |
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Tags: blue dragons, spell power
Comments
42 days ago
This has been needed for a long time - a simple readjustment on coefficents will help balance everything. IE, old style, +3 healing and +1 Spell Power.
Old style healing spell had 33% Coeff and old style damage spell had 33% also.
New style, just +1 Spell Power.
New healing spell gets 100% of Spell Power (Still +1 healing, same as old style after Coefficent is figured) and damage spell retains the same. It could be done vice-versa also, just what "feels" best to the developers. Regardless you end up with essentially the same as before, but only have to worry about 1 stat vs. 2 different ones.
Old style healing spell had 33% Coeff and old style damage spell had 33% also.
New style, just +1 Spell Power.
New healing spell gets 100% of Spell Power (Still +1 healing, same as old style after Coefficent is figured) and damage spell retains the same. It could be done vice-versa also, just what "feels" best to the developers. Regardless you end up with essentially the same as before, but only have to worry about 1 stat vs. 2 different ones.
42 days ago
i hate that bliz hates paladins, a tiny bit of improvement for holy shock.
priests druids and shaman will benefit from it, rolling for it will suck.
they should just keep what works.
priests druids and shaman will benefit from it, rolling for it will suck.
they should just keep what works.
42 days ago
People should stop QQ-ing about rolling for items and make some friends... at least online friends. :P
Logically, the merge increaese the chance that people will get gear, not reduce it. If anyone counted how many times you lose a roll versus how many times a blue nobody wants dropped, you would not complain about rolling for it. :P
Logically, the merge increaese the chance that people will get gear, not reduce it. If anyone counted how many times you lose a roll versus how many times a blue nobody wants dropped, you would not complain about rolling for it. :P
42 days ago
ulas if blizz hated paladins then you wouldnt be a class that is in the best type of armor, has tons of buffs and healing, AND the only total immunity shield... sorry but thats op compared to the shoddy defense mechanics of other classes like locks or shammies...
anyways... way to go blizz! homogenize everything why dont you!... even the cm has to acknowledge the contentions this is going to cause everywhere... now stuff that was normall for one type of caster will be for everyone and so were going to have lots of fighting over who gets what and since more people will be rolling on the caster gear since it will only be general caster gear instead of dps or healing, less people will get a chance to get what they should be...
yes it will make it so there will be less instances of stuff dropping that no one can use but groups always have healers and dpsers and most of the time people end up disenchanting stuff not because no one can use it but becuase its not an upgrade for the people who can...
plus just the fact that it ruins all the gear that was orginally designed to be dps or healing... i mean shard of the virtuous is a name that makes you think healing... now its just as much dps so why dont they change all the names as well?... if a priest still had benediction/anathema but they both contributed to damage and healing the same then whats the point of switching back and forth?...
there are also rumors of them making all haste and crit ratings the same which who knows maybe if theyre homogenizing the spell stats maybe theyll go that far as well... just imagine hybrids equally benefiting in spell and melee crit from one item because blizz wanted to make the stat system more dumbed down... and what happens to all those magic school specific damage items? will nature and holy damage items benefit the heals that are nature and holy as well now?...
this was a bad move imo... the issue wasnt bad enough to warrant this big of a change... keeping damage and healing gear seperated was a way of keeping gear roles clear... so will all casters have more healing than damage now? or will blizz have some way of distinguishing between who gets more benefit from which part of spell power?
it seems to me that by trying to simplify things that blizz are going to complicate them way more...
anyways... way to go blizz! homogenize everything why dont you!... even the cm has to acknowledge the contentions this is going to cause everywhere... now stuff that was normall for one type of caster will be for everyone and so were going to have lots of fighting over who gets what and since more people will be rolling on the caster gear since it will only be general caster gear instead of dps or healing, less people will get a chance to get what they should be...
yes it will make it so there will be less instances of stuff dropping that no one can use but groups always have healers and dpsers and most of the time people end up disenchanting stuff not because no one can use it but becuase its not an upgrade for the people who can...
plus just the fact that it ruins all the gear that was orginally designed to be dps or healing... i mean shard of the virtuous is a name that makes you think healing... now its just as much dps so why dont they change all the names as well?... if a priest still had benediction/anathema but they both contributed to damage and healing the same then whats the point of switching back and forth?...
there are also rumors of them making all haste and crit ratings the same which who knows maybe if theyre homogenizing the spell stats maybe theyll go that far as well... just imagine hybrids equally benefiting in spell and melee crit from one item because blizz wanted to make the stat system more dumbed down... and what happens to all those magic school specific damage items? will nature and holy damage items benefit the heals that are nature and holy as well now?...
this was a bad move imo... the issue wasnt bad enough to warrant this big of a change... keeping damage and healing gear seperated was a way of keeping gear roles clear... so will all casters have more healing than damage now? or will blizz have some way of distinguishing between who gets more benefit from which part of spell power?
it seems to me that by trying to simplify things that blizz are going to complicate them way more...
42 days ago
One thing you're overlooking Scorchy and that it'll also mean less gear to lug around. A mostly Holy priest who would normally heal during his/her raids, could also do some solo grinding in the exact same gear.
A lot of the healing gear I've seen say something like: +180 to healing and +18 to damage. So now as opposed to having a bonus 18 to his/her SW:P, they might end up with say +60 to damage, while still healing for essentially +180 due to the co-efficient used in the Spell Power stat.
Yes, there will be more fighting over gear, but if that means that it can decrease the inventory loss caused by having to carry around multiple gear sets, then it might just be worth it.
A lot of the healing gear I've seen say something like: +180 to healing and +18 to damage. So now as opposed to having a bonus 18 to his/her SW:P, they might end up with say +60 to damage, while still healing for essentially +180 due to the co-efficient used in the Spell Power stat.
Yes, there will be more fighting over gear, but if that means that it can decrease the inventory loss caused by having to carry around multiple gear sets, then it might just be worth it.
42 days ago
That and honestly, it often pains me when some item drops and nobody has any use for it -- not because it's a shoddy piece of gear, but simply because "that's the Healer one" or "I don't PvP so meh." I expect to see casters "fighting" over drops more at the beginning but that will improve once the "rush" to 80 has subsided a bit.
The other thing I have yet to hear mentioned is that itemization of this nature will simplify the Loot tables since "damage" and "healing" items will be combined. Since the table gets smaller, Blizz *can* theoretically raise the percentage chance of any particular item dropping since the overall number of items *should* decrease for every armor type and for weapons as well.
What I am curious about is whether the old items and enchants will be "grandfathered" in and continue to work but be unavailable. Or -- more likely -- they will be re-written. So when LK goes live and my enchanter opens her profession window ... What is going to happen to the currently separate +40 damage and +81 healing enchants? Will they be merged together into a new enchant that I will already have access to?
Overall, with a priest and a mage at end-game now, I'm looking forward to the change. Splitting Healing off as a separate stat way-back-when was an effective solution but far too complicated when compared to "healing spell coefficients are just bigger now". lol
Peace.
Hoji.
The other thing I have yet to hear mentioned is that itemization of this nature will simplify the Loot tables since "damage" and "healing" items will be combined. Since the table gets smaller, Blizz *can* theoretically raise the percentage chance of any particular item dropping since the overall number of items *should* decrease for every armor type and for weapons as well.
What I am curious about is whether the old items and enchants will be "grandfathered" in and continue to work but be unavailable. Or -- more likely -- they will be re-written. So when LK goes live and my enchanter opens her profession window ... What is going to happen to the currently separate +40 damage and +81 healing enchants? Will they be merged together into a new enchant that I will already have access to?
Overall, with a priest and a mage at end-game now, I'm looking forward to the change. Splitting Healing off as a separate stat way-back-when was an effective solution but far too complicated when compared to "healing spell coefficients are just bigger now". lol
Peace.
Hoji.
