Blizzard Unveils Cataclysm Stat and System Changes

Details regarding the changes players will see after Cataclysm's release are outlined by the Blizzard developers in an info-laden forum post.

Although Cataclysm may still be months away, the developers at Blizzard aren't about to let us simply forget about their world-changing upcoming expansion. In a tightly crafted forum post by Eyonix, the Blizzard development team outlined the major gear and stat changes that are on their way with Deathwing's return. Some of the highlights include the complete abandonment of Defence and Weapon Skill, along with major changes to Stamina, Spirit, and Intellect.

Keep reading to find out more!

 


The original post can be found here. The following is the list of stat changes as told by Blizzard Poster Eyonix. Please read the original post for all of the new information.

 

What You’ll See on Gear

Stamina - Because of the way we will be assigning Strength, Agility, and Intellect, non-plate wearers will end up with more Stamina than before. Health pools will be much closer between plate-wearers and other classes.

Spirit - Come Cataclysm, this stat should only be found on healing gear. Non-healing casters will have other systems in place to regenerate mana, and we are designing special solutions for Elemental shaman and Balance druids who often share gear with healers (more on this below). Raid buffs that currently boost Spirit (such as Blessing of Kings) will only boost the primary stats of Stamina, Strength, Agility, and Intellect. We are also likely changing the five-second rule and other quirks of the current regen system.

Intellect - Intellect will now grant Spell Power (more on this below). Intellect will also provide less mana than it currently does.

Haste - Haste will become more attractive for melee classes by allowing them to recover resources such as energy and runes more quickly. Our intention is for Haste to let you "do stuff" more often.

Block Rating - Block is being redesigned to scale better. Blocked attacks will simply hit for 30% less damage. Block rating will improve your chance to block, though overall block chances will be lower than they are today.

Parry - Parry no longer provides 100% avoidance and no longer speeds up attacks. Instead, when you parry an attack, it and the next attack will each hit for 50% damage (assuming they hit at all). In other words, Dodge is a chance to avoid 100% of the damage from one attack, Parry is a chance to avoid 50% of the damage from two attacks, and Block is a chance to avoid 30% of the damage from one attack.

Mastery - This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It's directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We’ll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.

Armor - The way Armor mitigates damage is not changing, but the Armor stat has been rebalanced to mirror changes to the armor curve in Cataclysm. As a result, bonus Armor will go down slightly overall. We are also changing the mitigation difference among armor types so that plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth.

Resilience - This will only affect damage done by players and critical damage done by players. It will not impact crit chance, mana drains, or other such effects.

Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating - These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this list, in general these will function similarly to how they do now, though the details -- such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) -- are likely to change.

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.

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.

What Else You Should Know

Combat ratings - All ratings will be much harder to "cap out" at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.

Reforging - While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don’t want more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.

Gems - We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow. We'll have more details on this in the future.

Comments

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Yay spirit
# Mar 04 2010 at 7:55 AM Rating: Decent
Not being sarcastic, though it may seem that way. Why have spirit if only a couple classes use it? And from what I heard from priests, spirits isn't that high up on their list anyways (my priest isn't max level, so I can't say for sure). Spirit for mana regen. just makes sense. This change has been needed for a long time. As for the 5 second rule, I'm guessing there will be a flat regen rate. We will see.

Someone mentioned this could cause the problem of any plate wearer thinking they can tank, and I agree. They'll think they can pop into def. stance, frost presence etc with their dps gear and tank heroics. Though they do this now, so it won't be anything new. At least they will be uncrittable. I've tried to heal these guys before, it wasn't pretty. I'll probably still run into warriors trying to dual wield tank. Sigh.

Seems to me most of these changes are to make itemization easier. I can't blame blizz for this. It will make creating boss drops easier, and there will be less complaining about boss drops. But it also seems like they are making the game easier so people who are math deficient can play it. If they can't do math, do you really want them in high end raids? But I won't complain, the effect of these changes has yet to be seen. It's far too soon to judge.

And they never said plate wouldn't give the most mitigation, they just said they are narrowing the gap. The main reason I see for this was to reduce inflation of boss damage and subsequent inflation of gear scores. It got to the point bosses had to do ridiculous damage and spike damage just to test the healers. The inflation was starting to get out of control (again).
I think they are going to make a mess
# Mar 02 2010 at 4:32 PM Rating: Default
All this time now folks have been putting major time and effort into getting their gear - def/dodge/parry/block for tanks, hit/attack power/crit/haste for rogues, spellpower/mp5/spell pen/hit for casters...

Are they going to modify each and every piece of gear in the game? How many is that anyway?

I am fully expecting my mage and priest will no longer be able to do their jobs because they are always going to be OOM (out of mana) and my tank will become a paper doll for any mob from a level 1 kobold on up since he is mostly plate, shield/block, defense (from equipment and enchants and gems) etc.

I have put a lot of time and effort into getting my toons geared properly and it offends me that this was apparently all time, effort and gold wasted.

What kind of game survives making wholesale changes to the game rules? Why would anyone get any items with the soon to be deleted stats?

Any change made will **** off someone. Making this many wholesale and capricious changes is guaranteed to **** off everyone.

Great move Blizzard.

Ugh.

If we do not buy Cataclysm can we play like we currently do? If they allowed that I doubt Cataclysm would sell 100 copies so it is unlikely.

Ah well...
I think they are going to make a mess
# Mar 02 2010 at 4:59 PM Rating: Good
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77 posts
i think for all the people saying its going to ruin the game or its going to make all the gear gathering useles...wait and see
as long as you are actually using hunter stat gear for hunters and warrior stat gear for warriors etc you should be fine
plus for the person that was saying they are expecting their casters to go oom constantly and their tank to die easily...
do you REALLY think blizzard would take away things like mp5 and NOT replace them?
of course they wont if you read it properly you would see that you are going to get mana regen in other ways
just as tanks are going to be uncrittable through frost presence/bear form/defensive stance/righteous fury
dont make assumptions about it just wait and see exactly what happens but i beat you the main change will be simply that it is much less hassle choosing gear (ie no more "do i want armor pen or haste...") and also a LOT easier for blizz to itemize gear without people going 'why did you put haste on the hunter tier'
and i think you are totally wrong about not many copies being sold of cataclysm if you can keep it how it is now...the redesign of azeroth and goblins/worgen are enough to drag almost everyone in

and wait so you think that because sometime within this year they are changing stats so that your gear will still be good just have diff stats on...means that you have been wasting time getting gear?
so you dont think that the fact you are going to replace it all within the first level of cataclysm means its a 'waste' anyway?
and i beat you were one of those people that when they brought in the mount discounts complained because you worked so hard to get the money for it and it was a 'waste' too?
I think they are going to make a mess
# Mar 03 2010 at 7:31 PM Rating: Decent
If they are just going to replace it then why remove it in the first place?

As for the cheaper mounts I did not complain though I do feel Blizz should refund the difference to those who ended up overpaying... It would be fair but doubt they would do that.

Ah well...
Question about weapon skill
# Mar 02 2010 at 12:26 PM Rating: Default
43 posts
Quote:
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.


what will that do
a. with the achivements for skills
b. are we going to have limited weapons given to us.
c. weapon differensation if skill is taken out of the mix

it does cause me to worry because I rether have more variable combat where knives, axes, maces, and swords have penitration, damage, power, and speed enhancements so to have the variaty in weapons you have to do the time to train the skill than a base here is your skill and thats it.

if they had laguages skills like they had weapons skills languages would be more fun :)
Wow, just, wow
# Mar 02 2010 at 9:51 AM Rating: Default
Blizzard you have really done it this time you idiots, what I am hearing is, good news everyone! From now on, Cloth through Mail may now tank, and tanks will be like they are wearing cloth, and if they do where cloth, they will get reduced stats and die. I am a tank, our armor should be higher than anyones in the game, if I wanted to be a cloth wearer I would have rolled one.....
Wow, just, wow
# Mar 02 2010 at 4:08 PM Rating: Good
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710 posts
having better mitigation values =/= ability to tank. based on some other notes in there, it is likely that talents will be restructured in a way that tanks will further increase their mitigation.

All this is doing is adding survivability for the times you lose aggro - either through your fault or the fault of the other players.
Armor
# Mar 01 2010 at 7:19 PM Rating: Decent
"We are also changing the mitigation difference among armor types so that plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth".

I could be wrong, but I thought that plate was suppose to offer you much more protection than leather or cloth. I could be reading that wrong though.
Armor
# Mar 02 2010 at 12:38 PM Rating: Decent
the way i was reading it is the difference from cloth to leather will be less than from leather to mail will be less than from mail to plate will be less so an overall reduction from cloth to plate but still big
Armor
# Mar 02 2010 at 9:44 AM Rating: Good
45 posts
Quote:
I could be wrong, but I thought that plate was suppose to offer you much more protection than leather or cloth.


From how I understand it, they feel that it's gotten too deep into the spiky damage, which kills any non-tank, and sometimes even the tank. I suspect they're planning to change tanking to require Block / Parry more than Stamina / Armor, and to use talents and cooldowns for the necessary survivability.

Should mean both that the other classes will be more survivable (able to take a couple of blows instead of constantly one-shot), but that tanking will be more than "aim away from raid, taunt-strike-taunt-strike-taunt".

It could mean that mail classes and some others with good defensive skills could off-tank, but I suspect they'll be lacking in the threat-management department and have to depend on CC and high DPS.
Armor
# Mar 02 2010 at 9:07 AM Rating: Decent
SO..... My Mage and Rogue can now Tank!!! YES!!! :)
Priests should be happy...
# Mar 01 2010 at 6:00 PM Rating: Good
45 posts
I'm also quite pleased. MP5 going away and Spirit becoming the "healing mark", it'll now be Hit gear, Spirit gear, and generic (no Hit or Spirit) gear. Sounds like they're trying to simplify who-gets-what and let us focus on our playstyle instead of number-crunching.

I'm curious what they mean with "changing the five-second rule"... Any ideas? My hope would be proactive regeneration (like a channeled skill), where you choose between casting and regen at each moment in the fight. But I guess they could be planning a lot of things, such as scaling regen (the longer out of combat, the faster it restores), flat regen (in combat this, out of combat this), or even more mana drains (suck it in bursts out of enemies.)

Also, speaking as a healer... Levelling out the Armor / Stamina curve means less risk of instant kills of other classes, and should help us balance group healing a lot more effectively... Hope that turns out well.
#REDACTED, Posted: Mar 01 2010 at 6:00 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) So pretty much now you won't need any hit raiting to DPS a Raid and Def raiting to Tank a raid.. bring out the noobs!!!
not happy
# Mar 01 2010 at 8:35 PM Rating: Good
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77 posts
who said anything about losing hit rating? and sure you wont need def rating on your gear...they are aiming to make you more focussed on talents to give you survivability and there is still such a thing as skill...you will just need to actually judge people on skill instead of pointless gs
not happy
# Mar 03 2010 at 7:04 PM Rating: Default
LOL gearscore isn't 100% pointless...

You have a guy in 2200GS and a guy in 2700 looking for TOC 25

You haven't played personally with either one of them. Naturally your going to pick the guy with 2700 cause his gear is more up to par for that place compared to the 2200.

Its not a REQUIREMENT but a guideline.

You can be the most skilled player in the game but in fights like Malygos if your under 18k hp your going to get rocked 100% of the time in his AOE attack.

Gear does come into play. Without a certain gear score you won't be able to push the 6k DPS needed in some fights.

Look at Festergut 25 man ICC. Mostly a tank and spank, BUT with his enrage timer he is very unforgiving. If everyone in the raid can't push 6K its a fail.
Now skill comes into play in nearly every fight.

And yes you can have a well geared player with 0 skill. But when you look at the GS of 2700+ that chance is HIGHLY unlikely!

To the people who are going to post. " BUT I can boost my gear score with PVP gear/NON-SPECED GEAR"

Yes you can but your HP/MANA will reflect as much and anyone leading a raid "SHOULD" be able to pick up on that and boot you, but if they are checking gearscore to begin with they all ready should be looking at your gear and see if its Properly enchanted and for your spec.

What is going to bother me is that your going to have people in plate think they can tank just because they are in plate. We all ready have that problem now in heroics!

So here is the guidelines I go off of...

If your all in item level 200 items NAX till you get to item level 213-226
From 213-226 you run Ulduar 10-25
From 226-245 you run TOC 10-25
From 232-245 you run ICC 10-25

Now all the new heroics drop item level 232 gear. So you can skip NAX and Ulduar for the most part. The exception being warrior/pally tanks. You can get the 219 shield off of normal HOR and run TOC 10, but running nax 25 and getting WALL OF TERROR off KT will be a better option.

_________________________________________________________________

Now onto the main topic.

So I wonder what they are going to do with the current gear on adjusting stats.


Making Def rating into Agility?
Block % into Strength?

I'm just saying the system we have now has worked since BC. Why change something that works?

How about getting rid of Diminishing returns for mitigation.

you would figure the more someone swings at me the slower they are going to get and the more chance I'm going to have to react.

Just saying other things should be changed before what we have now!
asdf
# Mar 01 2010 at 5:55 PM Rating: Decent
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111 posts
Stats revamps happen in wow way to often...seems like every major expansion they are doing some major stat reworkings in some form or another...not really complaining, just seems interesting that major systems like this are revamped almost yearly in the game.
asdf
# Mar 01 2010 at 10:15 PM Rating: Decent
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1,882 posts
They have not had that many revamps. They've slightly adjusted a few stats but they've never really redone them. Haste and Armor Penetration...then there was the spirit change...but those were altogether minor adjustments. The idea of these changes in Cata is to make stats more understandable. Now instead of having umpteen million stats that completely vary depending on class and spec things will be a bit less daunting.

I think it was at least suggested that these stat changes are meant to reduce the need in the future for further changes.
asdf
# Mar 02 2010 at 10:30 AM Rating: Good
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111 posts
Perhaps revamp was a poor word choice. And perhaps we differ in what is considered major or minor. Either way, there have been way more than "a few" stat adjustments in wows history, and my comment was focused on that. There are things like spell hit % that never even existed when wow came out Nov. 2004. That stat was introduced at some point early on and then even it's original implementation changed. That stat is now measured in spell hit rating. I never played melee in wow but i beleive there was a similar change done for melee hit % as well. In fact all percentage based items were changed to a rating system when the first expansion came out. Also, the Spell Power and Healing Power change like the other guy said. Spirit changes. Stamina changes. Resilience. Haste. etc. Many mechanics dealing with stats have been introduced and modified throughout wow's history.
asdf
# Mar 02 2010 at 4:56 PM Rating: Good
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77 posts
i for one consider this a good thing...it means that blizzard are constantly looking at their game and constantly reevaluting what they think is good and bad
for example armor pen is finally being taken away
this has been one of the biggest failures of a stat ever
because it is so random
i mean you need to know how much armour something has to know even vaguely how good it is
and then it can be amazing for one boss and totally useless for others
to the point people have armor pen sets for specific bosses
so it shows blizzard actually have noticed this stat has become confusing and unwieldy
asdf
# Mar 01 2010 at 6:02 PM Rating: Good
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77 posts
there havent really been many total revamps...they have changed things around (ie spell damage and spell healing becoming spell power) but this is the first MAJOR revamp that will affect everyone no matter what class or spec you are
Interesting!
# Mar 01 2010 at 5:15 PM Rating: Default
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1,882 posts
Overall looks good to me. It looks like they are a removing a lot of the stupid and awkward setups right now. Maybe its simplifying the game...but this setup seems far more fun and interesting than the random hodge podge we have now. Gear will clearly belong to one spec or another. No more playing the balance defense game. No more hours grind leveling weapon skills. Looks like they are making gear more of an improvement rather than a balancing act. I'm pleased overall.

Curious to see what they do for elemental shamans and how spirit is going to work for resto shamans and holy paladins.
Interesting!
# Mar 03 2010 at 10:24 PM Rating: Good
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1,882 posts
When mercilessly down rating someone it'd be nice to see a counter argument as to why you disagree with what I had to say.
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