This is probably a hot take but I feel like secondary stats need to be normalized, at least in pvp.
I think pretty much every spec in the game basically stacks Vers + either haste or mastery. I don’t think anyone goes for crit anymore at all in pvp since the stat was nerfed.
The main problem for me is playing alt specs of the same class when the two specs prefer different secondary stats. For example, Disc and Holy priest both stack vers/mastery, but Shadow wants as much haste as possible. Sub and Assa stack mastery, but Outlaw wants haste.
With how gearing works, your alt spec is going to be suboptimal with its stats until end of season when you can farm enough conquest for a whole second set of conquest gear. Either play suboptimally/wait til end of season OR have a second character of the same class to play the alt spec.
I mean its probably not the end of the world, especially in the rat leagues I play at. But playing with suboptimal stats is pretty noticeable and in a competitive environment everything counts. And the RP element of changing around your stats IMO isn’t worth it due to timegating gear and the simple fact all you do is pick one stat and chase it for the most part.
It’d enable offspecs prior to them uncapping conquest as well as experimentation. Right now you can make all crafted pieces with heraldries and constantly recraft them (no public recraft orders yet) but that also messes with tier pieces.
This isn’t a new idea, this existed in Legion pvp and imo was the best balance the game ever had in pvp. Every spec was viable and gear was practically irrelevant even despite a 10% overall difference between max and blue gear. It was all templated. The stats on the gear itself had no effect on the character sheet stats other than the ilvl of the gear itself which added a very small amount of templated power to your character per piece, up to that 10% at max.
Guild wars 1 solved this problem over 20 years ago letting you pick and change your stats while in a city.
WoW fanboys are going to scream anytime you criticize their systems and instead demand you level and gear a second priest up because it’s ‘so easy to gear’.
instead of just yk, let me play a well itemized spec because there’s no reason secondaries should be tied to gear instead of a slider of total points we can pick because of DR’s.
Yeah not necessarily a new idea. I played in Legion as well.
A lot of people hated on templates in Legion which is why they were removed. I think they just did it wrong tbh. They went too 180 on it. Legion is when they had completely removed pvp vendors / made gear not matter basically at all besides the 10% difference between ilvls. People complained because there was zero customization at all.
I think there’s a middle ground where just secondaries are templated in pvp combat. Or maybe they just make versatility a pvp stat again (or work different in pvp combat) where it combines haste/mastery/crit/vers into one stat. Or Kennie’s idea was actually pretty good where you can buy other stat conquest pieces with honor after you actually bought them.
This would be cool but how would it be implemented? As someone who’s never played Guild Wars. You pay a small gold fee to change all your stats? Would that make professions like enchanting and JC redundant?
I like being able to mess around with my stats - and this is especially true given all the different kinds of builds that are possible. I have no interest in being pigeon-holed by the unfortunate Crit/Haste stat template some PVE-playing intern decides will work for me in PVP.
At the end of the day, almost no one customizes anything anyway, its cookie cutter per spec always. Because of this fact templates normalized balancing while the current way of gearing continues the trend of gear meaning too much and balance always being completelty out of whack with very little ever done about it. Then there is the fact that half our gear is trinkets / tier which we always feel forced into.
One fix to the template system or improvement is to just allow there to be some sort of shifting of secondary stats within the template using some sort of preset options, so people can choose say haste over crit or w/e.
If we look at how seasons play out from start to finish, the first few weeks many specs or classes can feel extremly rough to play sometimes out right unplayable feeling. Then weeks later with gear rolling in or even at full gear those same classes / specs feel very good. This type of design is terrible, classes shouldnt just feel terrible for a month or only good the first month.
It’s arguably easier than ever to gear right now… for alts. Different specs on the same class though you are currently SOL and it’s pretty obvious with a lot of high rated players having multiple of the same class to combat this issue.
And tbh idk what you’re playing but most class/specs are pretty cookie cutter in terms of builds/stats and there’s not much deviation if you want to be competitive. That’s how it is in the era of min-maxing.
But even just being able to change your stats on a whim like one of the other posters said, or make buying off-spec conq pieces cheaper/bought with honor would do a lot for this problem without templates as well.
100% this, but something would need to be done about crafted gear. I suppose it could not require the conquest tokens to redraft if you’ve crafted the same slot before. Might be cumbersome to track on the backend.
Not only that, but if you messed up with your stats from the start - i.e.: you picked the wrong items. Feels bad.
Well, first of all, things are only apparently “Cookie cutter” because most people tend to be sheep that follow the trends. The R1 Multi-glad streamer tells people to play X, and people do. Some of us, however, like to make experiments with different stat weights and combinations, and different builds.
Honestly, I always find it somewhat amusing when the big boy R1 Multi-glad streamers suddenly discover combinations and builds that I had been using already sometimes for months. Nobody told me it was good. I figured it out for myself. And I figured it out because I experimented.
Secondly, even the “Cookie cutter” builds can vary wildly. Take MW for instance. In S1, Vers/Mas was the move for pretty much any build. In S2, Haste/Vers is the move for pretty much any build, seeing as our Mas got nerfed heavily due to MWs performance in Raid. Now imagine how much it’d suck to have some templated stats that no longer work.
Oh, I’m totally fine with them adding a way to help people change stats. Personally, I kind of like Kennie’s suggestion - allowing people to easily buy other pieces for the same slot.
It doesn’t require more Conquest tokens to recraft the piece. You can literally just add a new missive to swap stats on a recraft, if that’s what you’re looking to do.
You raise a good point that I think we all just accept because we’re used to it. It really does suck to feel like a character is essentially bricked once you choose the secondary stats for a spec. A lot of people will tell you “just make an alt”, but this should be addressed anyway because it’s 2025 not 2015.
No, your alt spec is rxactly that. An alt spec. You buy gear and stats acordingly. Doesnt have to be bis for all specs. Its not that way in pve neither in pvp
Guild wars does a LOT of things well; they also did dragonriding before wow did, because it’s literally just the skyacale + gryphon. I think how they handle pvp gearing would also do well in wow pvp.
Mm yeah, I love RPG MMOs so let me making 5 power leveled priest toons named xxpriestgodxxx with various accents that I have no emotional connection to in order to get the right stats and game my MMR.
