Will weapon procs be adjusted?

#0 - Jan. 4, 2010, 3:52 p.m.

I'm curious if the +proc weapons will be adjusted if they seem to under or over perform. I think it's an interesting and fun idea to add these procs back on some weapons. It also appears that an honest attempt was made to make the procs scale with raid buffs which is important for PvP balance.

Heartpierce is one that appears to be very disappointing so far. It's a signifcant downgrade from my current dagger and even the heroic version, a 277ilvl weapon, is only looking to be an extremely moderate improvement over my current 258 ilvl dagger. The proc is just that weak.

Now, before you type "Rogues already do too much damage QQ", we have several other daggers that are non-proc based as options. Having heartpierce "close" in damage does not mean we will do more damage. It just means we'll have a fun alternative and one less waisted loot spot in the ICC loot table.

I'm sure other classes would like to see attention payed to their procs as well to keep them inline. Just wondering if this is something that Blizzard plans on looking at shortly.

Bornakk

#3 - Jan. 4, 2010, 6:33 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Will weapon procs be adjusted?

The general answer is "yes" since I already recently mentioned a change we'd like to make on Nibelung. What we won't do is make a lot of really fast changes to procs. Some procs can start out pretty weak, but we are well versed in our players' abilities to find ways to use things and need to be careful on buffing something as tricky as a proc.

Bornakk

#5 - Jan. 4, 2010, 6:46 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Thanks. I missed the other post until after creating this thread, or I wouldn't have doubled up.

It would just be a shame if the majority of proc weapons went unused.

I can say that Heartpierce is being looked at, but we don't have any details to share on changes at the moment.

Bornakk

#13 - Jan. 4, 2010, 7:26 p.m.

As a more detailed explanation, our itemization philosophy has evolved a lot from vanilla where in comparison to today’s gear it almost seemed like random stats were thrown together like everybody's classic favorite Strength and Spirit items. One of the biggest risks we feel like we face currently is itemization becoming too stale and predictable where the only thing you get out of a new tier of content are the current item with a few more stats on it.

Procs are one of the ways we’re trying to address this and we expect you’ll continue to see a lot more of them for the future. With any new feature, though, it’s going to take time to figure out which implementations succeed or fail. Also keep in mind that we know we haven’t always had the best track record with items that give up some of their stat budget for procs which is particularly true of casters.

We aren’t ready to announce any specific changes at this time, but rest assured we do intend to tweak the procs over time. This is a model you’re likely to see a lot more of in future content.

Bornakk

#19 - Jan. 4, 2010, 8:10 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Any plans for more procs on other pieces of gear, such as the current shaman tier shoulder proc and ashen verdict ring procs?

We don't have any specifics to share, but yes, we definitely want to do more of that. Also, small set bonus like Onyxia’s Shard of the Scale / Flame trinkets are things we want to do more of.

Bornakk

#24 - Jan. 4, 2010, 8:23 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I feel that procs weigh too heavily on an items budget. They become too powerful or far, far too weak to be worth while. Has Blizz thought about treating procs as more of a vanity feature to make an item feel different? Looking at items from ICC, the procs virtually remove a third of the weapons stats. Thats a huge penalty from my point of view, even if the overall damage contribution of the item remains acceptable. Losing stats feels like a downgrade, especially when the proc isn't active.

I would be just as happy with the Valkyr weapon for example, if they did virtually no damage and were merely for show. Its something interesting and fun, rather than the next uber-leet weapon. But thats just me, I hate losing stats.

We understand that this is a mentality we have to fight a bit, but we feel that keeping things interesting is worth it. We know for those who want to min/max their stats they want nothing but the best stats, straight up, but we feel we have gotten too far into this and would prefer to mix it up a little more.

Bornakk

#40 - Jan. 4, 2010, 9:52 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Will the issue with the Zod proc be addressed as well? Currently when it procs it's resetting the autoshot timer, which negates a large portion of the damage gain from the proc. It seems like this is a bug in the implementation and not intended but it would be helpful to have a clarification.

We are looking into the proc on this weapon as well.

Bornakk

#47 - Jan. 4, 2010, 11:08 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Was this meant to go in this thread?
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=22048401291&sid=1

/whistles