Concerns about Mail/Leather/Cloth in Cata

#0 - March 1, 2010, 11:35 p.m.

Okay, I read the post where Ghostcrawler talks about how moonkin and elemental shaman will have a talent to convert spirit to hit so that Leather and Mail which is itemized for healers will be useful to them. This brings up a couple of concerns that I was wondering if I could get answered...

Concern 1: Amount of Spirit on Leather/Mail.

Currently there is spirit on well in excess of 90% of caster leather drops. Now, GC states that we will want as much spirit as a warlock wants hit... but hit has NEVER been a stat that was wanted on 90% of one's gear. This is unlikely to change in Cata, since GC talks about making gear choices, and there's no 'choice' in being forced to have hit in every slot just to connect with spells. However, GC has also stated that they want to move away from healers having 'infinite' mana, which makes regen stats more important for healers and reduces healer demand for non-spirit pieces. Will there be significant amounts of non-spirit leather and mail for moonkin and elemental shaman even though resto druids and shaman will likely want it on every piece? Or will we have to go elsewhere for gear once we're at the hit cap for our tier of raiding?

Concern 2: Reforging Loss

Reforging is what many people are talking about as being the 'solution' to excess spirit for our specs. However, everything said about reforging suggests that it will not be a 1-1 conversion of the unwanted stat for the wanted one. If we are expected to rely upon reforging to customize our gear to our needs, will a reforged piece of leather or mail still be comparable to an untouched cloth drop, or will we be inherently behind the curve on each piece we need to reforge?

Concern 3: Talented Spirit -> Hit

Ultimately, if cloth drops give more options for gear in each slot (both hit and non-hit pieces in a given slot vs spirit(hit) in almost every slot), higher overall combat ratings (due to reforging losses), AND we have to spend talent points for the spirit -> hit conversion compared to cloth drops just giving us our hit straight... is there any real advantages for a serious raider to even consider leather/mail when they can save the talent points for other uses and just use cloth in every slot?

Conclusion:

I'm a Moonkin, and we are a leather-wearing class. I want to be able to use leather, if for no other reason than because it sucks to see leather and mail pieces get DEed regularly while everyone fights over cloth. In every expansion so far, I have been penalized for using leather due to a general lack of it that is itemized as well for me as cloth is, and due to the concerns above, currently Cataclysm seems likely to continue to penalize us out of the gate if we wear our class' armor level. I feel that this imbalance has negatively impacted our specs in much the same way that DPS plate wearers taking agi leather has been a thorn in the side of balancing plate DPS throughout LK, so I would dearly love to be proven wrong about this and be able to wear my armor level without damaging my performace.

Ghostcrawler

#26 - March 2, 2010, 6:26 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Concern 1: Amount of Spirit on Leather/Mail.

Currently there is spirit on well in excess of 90% of caster leather drops. Now, GC states that we will want as much spirit as a warlock wants hit... but hit has NEVER been a stat that was wanted on 90% of one's gear. This is unlikely to change in Cata, since GC talks about making gear choices, and there's no 'choice' in being forced to have hit in every slot just to connect with spells. However, GC has also stated that they want to move away from healers having 'infinite' mana, which makes regen stats more important for healers and reduces healer demand for non-spirit pieces. Will there be significant amounts of non-spirit leather and mail for moonkin and elemental shaman even though resto druids and shaman will likely want it on every piece? Or will we have to go elsewhere for gear once we're at the hit cap for our tier of raiding?

Spirit is currently on a lot of cloth gear because it is considered a healing AND dps stat. We are changing it to just be a healing stat. There will still be a lot of it on leather though, just not every piece. Both Spirit and hit are the kind of thing you want enough of and no more than that. Since there won't be any buffs that boost hit or Spirit, you shouldn't often find yourself in excess.

Q u o t e:
Concern 2: Reforging Loss

Reforging is what many people are talking about as being the 'solution' to excess spirit for our specs. However, everything said about reforging suggests that it will not be a 1-1 conversion of the unwanted stat for the wanted one. If we are expected to rely upon reforging to customize our gear to our needs, will a reforged piece of leather or mail still be comparable to an untouched cloth drop, or will we be inherently behind the curve on each piece we need to reforge?

The article was intended to be on the stats conversion with a blurb that said "Remember we're also doing reforging." Too much of the discussion since then has focused on reforging so I kind of regret including it in the post. Don't worry too much about the details yet. The point is that you can sometimes find a use for gear instead of sharding it. We don't expect it to be the primary way anyone gets gear.

Q u o t e:
Concern 3: Talented Spirit -> Hit

Ultimately, if cloth drops give more options for gear in each slot (both hit and non-hit pieces in a given slot vs spirit(hit) in almost every slot), higher overall combat ratings (due to reforging losses), AND we have to spend talent points for the spirit -> hit conversion compared to cloth drops just giving us our hit straight... is there any real advantages for a serious raider to even consider leather/mail when they can save the talent points for other uses and just use cloth in every slot?

You get a mastery bonus (i.e. free stats) for wearing your gear. If shaman or druids wear cloth, they will do so at a slight stat loss. Sometimes that may still be worth it.

If we solve the Spirit -> hit conversion through a talent, it will be tacked on to an existing talent so that you aren't really paying for it. We like the talent approach more than a passive ability because the talents let you tell the game "I'm trying to be a caster, not a healer now."

I've read several players say that they like to reach their hit cap and then be done with it. But that doesn't really happen because every tier there is more and more hit on gear, forcing you to either swap out some of your excess hit or avoid the new stuff completely. The new model is more that all that extra hit on higher ilevel gear will have a use.