Cataclysm - Designed for simpletons?

This blog looks at how Blizzard moved towards main stat priorities, a design choice even more evident in Diablo 3.

Cataclysm - Designed for Simpletons or an Oversight by Blizzard?

Like most people who play this game at a somewhat competitive level, I'm very interested in getting the most bang for my buck when it comes to selecting gear for my character. This includes enchants and gems. With Cataclysm Blizzard appear to have gone down the route of homogenization where choices are a thing of the past.

For a new player starting WOW they're presented with several stats, these can be divided into three tiers of stats.

Main - AGI/STR/INT

Secondary - HASTE/CRIT/EXPERTISE/MASTERY/SPIRIT

Tertiary - HIT/SPELL PEN/RESILIENCE

Now with the current design of the game they're presented with these five secondary stats of which all hold very little value in comparison to the main stats. The tertiary stats are mostly a preference/requirement but in the case of PVE are currently being ignored in favour of the main stats. It's currently the case that when someone isn't gemming every socket with a main stat gem and just reforging the tertiary stats, completely ignoring the secondary stats, you can be sure they're most likely doing the wrong thing. To put this into context; from a DK/Ret POV it's not worth using any other gem than pure red gems because otherwise it's a massive DPS loss making the many many hybrid stat gems completely useless and any socket bonuses that don't come with a red socket also overlooked (unless they have a 20+ strength bonus, which none do).

The hit cap has always been something in the history of WoW that has been valued and later the expertise cap when the stat was implemented. For the first time in WoW the hit cap is actually being ignored in favour of just stacking the primary stat because this leads to a higher total DPS for many classes (expertise has been debatable for some classes/specs for a while now). Lack of choice is not a good thing, not only does it create a very dumbed down game it also feels like there's little point in having the secondary stats. Why not combine all of the secondary stats into Mastery with the current state of the game? The only real fix is lowering the value of the main stats and changing the rating conversions of the secondary stats so there's some viable choice or a secondary stat worth having. The other issue with this is the fact that there's only secondary stat bracer enchant choices which makes LW a far far far superior profession to any other. 130 of your primary stat vs 65 of a secondary stat is never going to be a contest, especially when those 65 secondary stats are equal to around 15 of your primary stat (making the 65 secondary stat enchants very close to TBC enchants in value).

These issues stem out into gear choices with very items actually being a choice and a lot of it going down to just using the highest ilvl piece possible because no matter what the secondary stats are, you can be sure the primary stat upgrade is going to make it worth it. We currently have strength dps users using epic tanking items from the rep vendors because although they have a lot of parry or dodge or whatever on them, you can reforge that and it's still far superior to any similar ilvl blue that's itemised for DPS because of the fact that it has more of the primary stat.

I don't think it's healthy for the game when there's only one clear path to gear yourself up with very few choices along the way where five stats hold very little value to a large amount of classes (bare in mind this is mostly DPS P.O.V, healers always have preferences and different values between them based upon their own playstyles but INT generally wins out there also). You can also see this to a lesser extent in talent trees, the new trees allow for very little variation with the most variation seen being different trash talents between players. With the 71 points available in WOTLK we saw huge variations between what players deemed worth picking up and the ability to branch into multiple or different trees was also seen. An example being Hoodrych running a spec with no Sudden Death and also having a spec subspecced into Prot for Last Stand where as if you compare it to the current version of arms you get piercing howl or you get piercing howl. Variation is set to be a thing of the past.