Monday, March 1, 2010

Cataclysm Itemization

As I'm sure you're aware, Blizzard wrote a bit of a dissertation on how stats will work in Cataclysm.

Spellpower is not *quite* gone - caster weapons will still have spellpower not derived from intellect. Presumably this will be a holdover from right now - caster weapons trade itemization from their physical DPS to elevated spellpower. Doing the same with intellect would have secondary effects, as intellect isn't just spellpower. Non weapon gear will only have intellect. Also, while it's not specifically stated for spellpower, attack power will remain on some procs. I suspect spellpower procs like most of our good trinkets will remain spellpower.

Mastery is still a big vague nothing - it'll be a while before we see any specifics.

Gem stat colors are being shifted around, perhaps there will finally be good blue stats. Hit is a likely blue stat as stated. I'd personally like to see either crit or hate moved to blue, or preferably mastery made a blue stat. Without spirit, our only blue DPS stat would be hit.

Finally, the specifics of reforging have been revealed. When you convert a stat with reforging, you only get half as much of the new stat back. So while it can make a bad item mediocre or a mediocre one ok, it lowers the overall itemization of the item, meaning ideally you'll still want unmodified gear. Some conversions aren't allowed, as well - you can't just strip all the stamina off your gear for more int. Not revealed is if reforging will be a level 80 option or limited to at or near 85. If the former, the best use the ability will ever see is to burn allt he remaining spirit off your gear the day 4.0 hits and stack up some haste or mastery.

4 comments:

  1. I second that, pure hate stat like Abnot said would be great for a lock.

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  2. A lot will depend on what the actual level 85 scale is, as well as the int:spellpower conversion (I assume 1:2, but that remains to be seen), but I think int will likely be the standard gem like spellpower is now.

    The full post says combat ratings, including haste, crit, etc will have higher rating/% relative to what they are now, meaning the per-point benefit will go down relative to int... Still, a lot depends on the conversion scales, straight haste gemming is certainly a possibility. Demo and affliction are damn close to that as it is.

    Mastery's going to be a huge wildcard for a long time yet - the previews at Blizzcon had several blanks and only covered a couple classes, but things like crit bonus, cooldown reduction, and double dipping for crit or hit in some trees could make it the mega stat for some specs or reforge fodder for others pretty easily.

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  3. I think you missed the intentional misspelling of haste, it was more of a light-hearted way to point out that you did it in your post rather then a serious 'pure haste' gemming example.

    However reforging could may useful when trying to maintain the hit cap, depending on if you can unforge something afterwards

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