WoW Cataclysm Stat Changes In-Depth

Stats remaining, but not on items

Next up for discussion are several stats that are going to remain in the game but will no longer be found on items. Some of these will be granted through talents or by conversion factors from other stats. Most of them have been critical stats for many classes in the past.

 Eyonix Cataclysm Stat & System Changes

Being Removed from Items

Attack Power - This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does.

Spell Power - Spell Power is another stat that you'll no longer see present on most items. Instead, as mentioned above, Intellect will grant Spell Power. One exception is that caster weapons will still have Spell Power. This allows us to make weapons proportionately more powerful for casters in the same way they are for melee classes.

Armor Penetration - This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.

Shield Block Value - This stat will no longer be present on items, since the amount blocked is always proportional to the amount of damage done. Talents and other effects might still modify the damage-reduction percentage from 30%, however.

Attack power has always been a slightly weird bonus on items, since it is generally found on items with either strength or agility anyway. This meant the item was providing a double boost to attack power, one direct and one indirect, and it confused some players. It also factored in differently for different classes where some attack power was better than agility or strength and other classes liked agility or strength better than attack power. Worse yet, you can find many items that while they had agility, also had enough attack power so that players that should be focusing on strength still found the item to be an upgrade. Cleaning this up means less confusion on gear.

Spell power will also be gone from pretty much everything other than weapons. To me this will make caster gear feel kind of hollow as so much will be based on Intellect the stats display could look pretty bare. However leaving it on weapons allows some pretty big bonuses if they choose on one of the most important slots for a caster.

Armor penetration was always a strange beast, as many people never figured it out, and those that did stacked it like crazy. Worse yet, it was only ok in low values, but insanely good in high amounts. It got to be the stat for physical DPS and has already gone through several changes to tone it down. I always liked the complexity though of figuring out when in your gearing stage you should really focus on it, and how much you needed to get to make it worth while. I can see the issues it created though, all I can say is at least it will stick around in a reduced capacity to keep some interesting effects.

The block value change has been a long time coming, since two block stats confused many beginning tanks anyway. Also when tanks with shields stacked block value for trivial content like instances and heroics they could essentially run the instance without taking any damage other than on bosses. On the flip side on hard hitting raid bosses, a few thousand damage less meant next to nothing compared to higher dodge or parry values. Now that block will always mitigate 30% damage, there really is no need for block value.

Stats leaving the game

Now we get down to the stats that are leaving the game forever, those that are going to the proverbial bit bucket in the sky. All of these stats have been around since the beginning of the game, and may or may not be missed depending on your opinion of them.

Eyonix Cataclysm Stat & System Changes

Going Away Completely

MP5 - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Holy paladins and Restoration shaman will be redesigned to benefit from Spirit.

Defense - Defense is being removed from the game entirely. Tanking classes should expect to become uncrittable versus creatures just by shifting into Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, or by using Righteous Fury.

Spell Ranks - Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level. The levels at which you can learn certain spells are being changed in order to fill in some of the gaps, and we will be introducing some new spells to learn along the way as well.

Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them

Personally, I always liked MP5 and the fact that it broke the 5 second rule. Managing the juggle between MP5's flat return rate and spirit's 5 second rule always seemed interesting to me. I will miss it.

Defense is a stat near and dear to my heart since I have long played a Paladin tank. While I will miss it as well, I can understand getting rid of it as it really was only an issue capping it for the first few hours after you reached level cap. After running a few instances and getting a few pieces of gear it was rarely an issue to reach the cap. In fact in current endgame gear it is more of an issue trying to get down to the cap so that you are not wasting itemization points on it when they could be better spent elsewhere. Also to further confuse players the cap wasn't really a cap, but the point that you could no longer be critically hit and where other tanking stats became better point for point.

I can almost see the spell ranks disappearing as they have very little meaning now that all ranks cost the same mana, energy or rage. The only issue I have with this is that it just won't feel the same not having to run to a trainer to learn the next rank of an ability when leveling up. I'll miss it.

Weapon skill leaving the game is a mixed blessing too. Sure, it's not really a useful stat since everyone maxes it pretty quickly anyway, and it only really comes into play when you get a new weapon and try to use it in a fight, then realize you don't know how. It was still nice to have to actually learn something though, and see points being learned in it. Again though, it's not a really useful stat and I can see why its leaving the game.

Messiah's take on the pending changes

As you can see by my comments I tend to agree with most of the changes that are pending to the character stats. Looking back at the individual comments above you may even think I advocate the whole stat simplification plan. In fact quite the opposite is true. While I can see logic and some benefit to most of the changes, I can't agree with them as a whole. Maybe I'm just stuck in grouchy old man mode, which if you ask my wife is probably the case, but it feels like too much is leaving the game.

The stat system in World of Warcraft is already a very simple one. While some stats interact in some pretty fun ways, the math behind them is all relatively simple to figure out and deal with. In fact almost to the point of being too simple already. This new simplification seems to me to be too much, but then again I always like math.

I worry that gear will become a simple a-b-c progression scheme, compared to the myriad of side grades and hidden downgrades that exist now. Those side and hidden downgrades that exist really help to distinguish good players from bad at a quick glance. You can look at someone and see that they grabbed gear simply based on item level rather than actual utility. I worry that with the new system that will be gone and there will be one less thing separating the smart player from the masses.

On the flip side, if you are one of the masses, this is a great change for you. In fact if I ever was going to just play for fun and not be my normal egotistical competitive self, I could potentially be for these changes. As it stands though, sorry my ego and competitive steak wins out.