Tehom
09-12-2009, 04:18 PM
<p>Many of us consider the state of some avatar items on tests to be making the items effectively worthless. What I'd like to do here is to give an example, and hopefully suggest some alternative changes that might be acceptable. For comparison purposes, I'll be using the defiler set breastplate from both live/test.</p><p>On live, the Ancient Tunic of the Oracle has +15 base healing, 40 crit mit, and an 825 group ward proc that's 2.4 times per minute, modifiable proc rate. The set breastplate is 5 heal crit, 5 heal crit bonus, +50 heal amount, a focus that adds a heal to ancient shroud that's roughly around the same as the mythical's bonus, and a proc that adds +5% base damage to targets on heals.</p><p>On test copy, Ancient Tunic of the Oracle lost all its base healing, gained +7 heal crit bonus, lost 20 crit mit, lost 50 hp, and the ward proc rate is no longer modifiable.</p><p>Now, on live, I'd like to explain how significant the group ward proc is. On several days of heal parses, it consistently healed about a fourth as much as Hateshield, the proc from Rune Etched Helm, and consequently about a half as much as the 5-set bonus. If I had a faded black hood instead of a rune etched helm, the difference between escape death and ward of the oracle would be even more staggering. The reason I use these procs as illustration is because REH/FBH are ward procs which are considered strong enough to use over equivilent set pieces and break set bonuses for. Currently on live, the heal focus to Ancient Shroud alone from the set breastplate is roughly comparable to ward of the oracle for heal power. This means the only logical reason to wear the ancient tunic of the oracle over the set breastplate is for the base healing and for the additional survivability from crit mit, since the ward proc is roughly a wash when compared with the focus. Arguably, the set breastplate is already better in some circumstances because of the base damage proc, but I prefer to focus on the healing argument alone.</p><p>If the base healing has to go for expansion itemization and the crit mit has to go, then I feel that the ancient tunic of the oracle's ward proc needs to be roughly comparable with other items this tier that people are willing to break their sets for - namely the Faded Black Hood. The proc for Faded Black Hood is roughly 5 to 8 times as strong as the modifiable proc rate ward on live. So if we can't get base heal on the breastplate, I'd recommend that the ward proc be made to around a 5k group ward. At the very least, it'd provide some rational argument to using the rare avatar breastplate over a set breastplate we've given to countless alts and friends.</p><p>I feel alternate, strong effects can be used in place of base modifiers if they're proving to be the largest problem for future itemization. Some items, like the various legs, could have effects attached to their procs that'd further cement their role as situational items, such as anti-status effects or group cures or the like. Something like spirit draining wristguard just needs modifiers that equivilent items from instanced content already have (say, 3 spell crit bonus, 5 reuse), then have the minor proc be just on top of that.</p>