The Weekly Marmot - The Future of Tier Sets

[Lore]

[Suicideking666]

I don't think they should get rid of set bonuses but I do think they should revisit non-tier set bonuses. If there were a few gear sets with minor bonuses I think it would make gearing more interesting. Like a set that was a pair of rings and a neck, or just rings, or any combination really. There were a bunch of sets back in classic and some of them were really cool, some were just goofy but that isn't a bad thing. If they made gear sets that had niche uses, like defense bonus or a small heal, a short dps boost. I'm thinking along the lines of how trinkets have been recently. Tanks especially have to collect several trinkets for different fights and I think this sort of thing could be applied to non-tier set bonuses.
As for the tier set bonuses maybe make it so that if you have your 2 set or 4 set you get a visual indication, like your armor gives off an aura, maybe holy pallies can glow and locks will be shrouded in darkness or leave fire foot prints. That would make the bonuses more interesting, but I guess it would be hard to make new indicators for each tier. I don't, i think it'd be cool.

[The_Pancake]

Another reason for the "numerical" setbonuses at the start of the expansion, not just for the ease of balance, but it's also probably easier to implement as well. They're busy with so many other aspects of the expansion: new talent system, new glyph system, new race, new class, new class mechanics, new zones, new dungeons, new raids, etc. That it's probably just easier and faster to add a "this ability does X% more damage" and "reduce this cooldown by Y seconds" bonuses than it is to implement (and test) new procs or extra effects and things like that. In later tiers when they have a lot less on their plates they'll probably be more likely to add more interesting set bonuses. It's also possibly that they may be planning to start out with the "boring" set bonuses in the first tier, to leave more room to one-up themselves in later tiers. Because it is pretty disappointing if when a new tier set comes out and the bonuses aren't as good as the ones you're already wearing.

Also, I don't think it's really a fair example to compare the set bonuses to the new philosophy on the talent and glyph systems, because they're fundamentally different. Set bonuses, and the gear they come on, are part of a progressive system, they're intended to be acquired, used, then discarded when the next tier comes out. Talents and glyphs are a lot more static in that we (will) have access to all of them right from the get-go (not counting leveling of course) and will choose the best for a given situation or preference, but we won't be getting new ones next tier when our current ones become outdated. Talents and glyphs will be virtually the same from the time MoP launches until the next expansion comes out, but tier sets will come and go.

Set bonuses are an extension of gear, which itself is all about getting bigger numbers. And while it's a lot more interesting when those bigger numbers come in the form of a cool proc, or a new effect of an existing ability, it's still just about the bigger numbers. And I think that's fine (it's basically the foundation of how gear works in WoW).

[Ion]

Is this Idaho? Because I will NOT limbo in Idaho.

(Also, I did tell you they'd make Brewmaster and Guardian sets...)

[Mwawka]

I actually won't be at all surprised if there is some tank specific leather gear. We already have a couple of situations pre-MoP where you only have two specs rolling on certain gear types (caster leather/caster mail) and of course the caster plate being only one spec. Spirit cloth is only used by priests now, agi mail is only hunters and enh and there are only 3 specs for plate tank gear. So being that if they don't separate agi leather into tank/non-tank that 7 specs will share that loot (5 if you lump all rogues specs together), I think it's actually more probable that they split them up and actually have tank leather. I would also expect to it likely we see agi tank weapons as well.

[Defpotec]

If you look at the set bonuses for t11 (start of cata), they're all pretty much the same thing of "increase damage or duration by X."

Ret's actually is almost identical, increasing TV damage by 10%.

[truculent]

They're just lazy.

Is it easier to balance classes with no talent tree/glyphs/set bonuses? sure it is, but for that matter why even have stats at all? Have one resource and like 5 abilities per class. That would make things real easy. That's the direction they are going in.

But wait.... the price is still the same? One thing's for sure, someone's losing ground.

[OldKnight]

In response to the bit about pally healing gear... I'm curious as to why mail caster gear which Shaman's use hasn't been the gear given to pally's. Now i understand paladin's can use plate gear but its not completely out of the realm of possibility that as a healer you would want to be more "maneuverable" (I know gear weight has no effect in wow just a train of thought is all)* and even so the truly only loss would be armor value which there are mechanics in place (Bear tanks with leather gear for example)* to just boost the armor contribution from gear while your in holy spec to be on par with wearing plate to keep the proposed armor but you have a limitation of mail gear... and as far as itemization of gear there are also mechanic's in place to convert one stat to another (Spirit into Hit)*. I mean its different, but do-able and i think it could at least band-aid the issue till a better option presented itself...

*With these examples i mean to say there are mechanics in game that already convert things into other things and boost, etc. So why couldn't this be a potential fix...

As far as the tier sets are concerned i see nothing wrong with straight boosts or cool down reductions in the tier set... yes it is boring ill give you because the theme has been "let's make it fun" but stat or ability boosts or cool down reductions have a place and i feel set bonuses is a good place for them. For example it gives the dev's the ability to easily balance the raid as you said... i walk into t14 as a rogue, you walk in as a pally, you are doing 30k dps im doing 35k dps(for example) at the beginning. we both get our 4 set bonus I'm doing 40k dps now but so are you because they made it boost you as such to balance it along (maybe a stupid example but it works in my head). I give you that it should be balanced to begin with before the sets got involved but i can see it helping in that way.

Another reason it gives the dev's a chance to test things out. Rogue example back in Ulduar set bonus rupture now can crit was AMAZING. After ulduar they just made it so from now on rupture can crit. Pally example ret set bonus judgment now generates a holy power. I believe in MoP they are making that a permanent feature for ret. So having stat bonus or cool down reduction, and even testing out added effects to old abilities have a place on set bonuses at least in my opinion.

[Theotherone]

The set bounus' are in a rut, as someone mentioned above "increase duration of X"; "abillity Y gives this mechanic to the group";or "using this ability makes you use X% less mana."

[mavfin]

The set bounus' are in a rut, as someone mentioned above "increase duration of X"; "abillity Y gives this mechanic to the group";or "using this ability makes you use X% less mana."

They painted themselves into the corner with the really good ones on T13 that caused the hardcores to bitch about 'having to' run LFR for the great set bonuses, especially the raid cooldown ones.

So, if they make lackluster ones, people will bitch about that, and if they make really good ones, hardcores will run LFR for them and bitch about 'having to' do so.

Blizzard can't win.

[Mwawka]

Blizzard can't win.

Truer words have never been written.

[Nagassh]

The set bounus' are in a rut, as someone mentioned above "increase duration of X"; "abillity Y gives this mechanic to the group";or "using this ability makes you use X% less mana."

That's pretty much how lots of the old sets have been, warlock T6 comes to mind. They're easier to balance, often more effective and can easier be applied to pure dps specs without convoluted bonuses, or ones that just don't benefit one spec over the other. They also mess rotations up far less, warlocks in cata are already juggling far more things to track than any other caster dps (and I'd presume melee), adding even more to it with set boni can sometimes be a nice change to the rotation, but they seem to be trying to streamline specs in MOP, so I imagine they wouldn't want to be adding more to the mix until at least the second tier where they've seen how the "rotations" play out.

[Katarn]

We're not getting Tanking Leather. Dodge coeff's have already been nerfed into the ground on both Agility and Dodge in MoP. Even if Dodge leather was created, it'd be avoided like the plague in favour of Hit/Crit/Haste.

And Lore, Expertise is currently mostly worthless for Rage generation. Since autoattacks generate the lion's share of Rage, and you still generate Rage when an autoattack is dodged or parried, Expertise's value is pretty nil. They could change it, but we'll see.

I do agree regarding set bonuses though.

[yeezy]

i would rather they just get rid of tier gear or make the bonuses purely cosmetic. Already 80% of the non tier armour is pretty much just used a place holders till you get your tier piece and then sharded after. the bonuses are such that you might keep lfr tier gear over a heroic nontier piece which is kinda stupid. .

[Valaras]

T13 set bonuses were awesome and interesting (for the most part). In some cases they changed the way you use certain abilities to your class (see tanks), in others they sort of changed your stat priority (see elemental shaman). In any case, let's not presume set-bonuses are going to be uninteresting and sucky from now on simply because of some data mined beta files that might be reworked completely...

[Rawer]

Originally Posted by mavfin Blizzard can't win.

Truer words have never been written.

The house always wins.

[Katarn]

T13 set bonuses were awesome and interesting (for the most part). In some cases they changed the way you use certain abilities to your class (see tanks)

The 2t13 bonus was pretty cool, the 4pc bonuses were lame and required to prevent pallies from being the only tank brought. The 4pc bonuses were not interesting in the slightest.

[Bigbad]

Not all the T14 setbonuses are boring some do effect gameplay. Warrior 4piece allows for recklessness every avatar cd or makes it possible to have 100% shieldblock uptime as prot, 20 seconds of vampiric blood cd is also pretty powerful. It doesn't look that terrible to me.

Blue post on it: http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2...4-set-bonuses/
There are a lot of class changes for players to get used to in a new expansion. Immediately jumping into set bonus that make rotations more interesting is sort of wasted design space because players often aren't even used to their normal rotations yet. We typically start an expansion with pretty simple set bonuses and work our way up to more elaborate ones.

[Trydan]

Im not sure I like set bonuses so OP I feel locked into them, or feeling underpowered if I dont have them. Id rather those type of abilities be built into my class already really. Id be fine if they turned set bonuses into cosmetic, minor glyph type bonuses instead.

[Boekster]

As a Shadowpriest, the upcoming 2-piece isn't bad. It's a DPS improvement in 2 ways, seeing Mind Flay is your main nuke, and it lowers the cooldown of your Shadow Fiend if it crits. It's still a bit boring. Agreeing with most people here though, that it's nice and easy to start with.
The 4-piece is good on one end, bad on the other. Giving more time on Vampiric Touch is good. It gives you room for an additional Mind Flay before refreshing. With the 2-piece, that's a bit extra again. The increase in duration of Shadow Word: Pain works contradictory. SW:P gives you orbs nowadays. Casting it LESS means... yes, less orbs. It's not a gain, even if the Shadowy Apparition mechanic is horrible as it is.

Blizzard has done wonderful setbonusses in the past. I, personally, LOVED the 4-piece on T12. IT means you need to play it well to get the bonus even. For those that have no clue what I'm talking about:
If all three dots were on a target (SW:P, VT and DP), you got a buff that increased your Mind Blast damage by 25%. I feel that's compelling gameplay, as you needed to be on top of your game, always, to make sure you had the bonus. If you stopped paying attention, it was gone. In the end, it still looks like a flat bonus, but the additional work was fun. Mind Blast was also affected by how many orbs you had. The more, the more damage it would do. And the better the setbonus would be. It also synergized with mastery, seeing that increases damage done by both orbs and Empowered Shadows. The bonus was changing your choices a bit.

The 4-piece T12 for a Shadowpriest was a fantastic example how they could alter gameplay AND itemization choices as well. I loved it, give me more of those!

I think Lore touched on this some time ago, but I'd like to have the option to have more setpieces in a set, say, eight, like the days of yore (does Lore-old-man-impression from PST). If these sets only had a 2-piece and a 4-piece, it would be easy to get them. They could, however, restrict it so you can only wear 4 (make it unique (4), just like JC gems or what they did with the T12 valor rings). This way, you need to chose between the items you're wearing anyway, but there's a lot more choices. Then again, people will only aim for BiS pieces nowadays. I've seen upgrades being passed over because it wasn't as good as something else that might drop and wasting it.