Dungeon Sets: A solution to the M+/Raid Gearing issue

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

It’s clear that Blizzard doesn’t want people to be able to gear up too quickly for raiding by way of M+, which is why they’ve reduced the ilvl of M+ gear in Shadowlands. However, this change unnecessarily punishes people who prefer M+ as their primary content – it essentially pushes them into raiding for gear.

My solution is an old one, but it’s one that definitely deserves another look now that dungeon gear scales with difficulty – and that is dungeon sets.

Dungeon sets have been done before, most notably in classic and TBC. The issue with dungeon sets was always how quickly they were replaced by raid or crafted gear (especially in TBC).

But what if that didn’t happen?

What if these dungeon sets scaled at the same level as the other gear that drops in M+, and what if we made sure these dungeon sets were never going to unbalance raid or PvP by enabling their bonuses only in dungeons?

Having these sets be dungeon specific means that the set bonuses can be more interesting than just the pure throughput buffs that we get from the old raid tier gear, because much more of a class’ toolkit is useful in dungeons. It also means that the bonuses that are throughput related can be tied to AOE abilities instead of single target.

My idea is that every end of dungeon boss (8 in total in SL) drops a different armor slot for each class. There are 8 pieces in total, and there is a 2 pc, 4pc and 6pc bonus for each set. The bonuses that affected damage would be % based so mixing and matching the ilvls of the dungeon set gear would not affect the magnitude of the bonus.

Having each end boss drop a piece additionally would have the beneficial effect of encouraging people to tackle all the different dungeons, instead of for example just trying to PUG into a +15 freehold (or whatever the easiest shadowlands dungeon is) each week for your chest, you might want to target the dungeon that you don’t have the dungeon piece from yet.

So here’s an example of what I’m talking about

[BM Hunter Helm]

ilvl 165
46 Agility
72 Stamina

[2 set] reduces the cooldown of counter shot by 4 seconds
[4 set] increases the damage of Beast Cleave by 20%
[6 set] If your Multi-Shot hits 3+ targets in a single shot, you shoot an additional wave of bullets at those targets, and the cooldowns of Aspect of the Wild, Aspect of the Turtle, and Aspect of the Cheetah are reduced by 1 second per target hit.

[these bonuses are only active while inside dungeons]

Obviously the last bonus there is just the azerite trait “Rapid Reload” which was mandatory for hunters in M+, but will no longer exist in Shadowlands. There are probably similar abilities for each class, and I’d love to hear from others some ideas for dungeon set bonuses for other classes and roles.

[Liana-maelstrom]

I think this is generally a good idea, though I don’t know whether it will mollify M+ people who perversely object to improving the M+ weekly chest.

@Aewendil-caelestrasz

However, this change unnecessarily punishes people who prefer M+ as their primary content – it essentially pushes them into raiding for gear.

I don’t agree with this premise, though. They still have their choice of raiding or M+ for gear, and the time they can spend on raiding is limited while M+ still is not. Some people may do more forms of content for marginal gearing speed, but that has always been true.

@Aewendil-caelestrasz

What if these dungeon sets scaled at the same level as the other gear that drops in M+, and what if we made sure these dungeon sets were never going to unbalance raid or PvP by enabling their bonuses only in dungeons?

Having these sets be dungeon specific means that the set bonuses can be more interesting than just the pure throughput buffs that we get from the old raid tier gear, because much more of a class’ toolkit is useful in dungeons. It also means that the bonuses that are throughput related can be tied to AOE abilities instead of single target.

This is a good idea. Raid set bonuses should probably only work in raids, too.

@Aewendil-caelestrasz

My idea is that every end of dungeon boss (8 in total in SL) drops a different armor slot for each class. There are 8 pieces in total, and there is a 2 pc, 4pc and 6pc bonus for each set. The bonuses that affected damage would be % based so mixing and matching the ilvls of the dungeon set gear would not affect the magnitude of the bonus.

Percentage based bonuses are not a good idea with scaling gear, because people will feel forced to keep gear that is low ilvl for them just for the set bonuses. Ideally throughput bonuses would be based on the average ilvl of the qualifying pieces, or something like that.

In addition, the bonuses should be kept small as additional insurance that people don’t feel prevented from using better gear.

@Aewendil-caelestrasz

Having each end boss drop a piece additionally would have the beneficial effect of encouraging people to tackle all the different dungeons, instead of for example just trying to PUG into a +15 freehold (or whatever the easiest shadowlands dungeon is) each week for your chest, you might want to target the dungeon that you don’t have the dungeon piece from yet.

I think this would be a big benefit. It would be especially good if it permitted Blizzard to remove the random nature of dungeon keystones and move to a system that permitted people to do their choice of dungeons.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

@Liana-maelstrom

I don’t agree with this premise, though. They still have their choice of raiding or M+ for gear, and the time they can spend on raiding is limited while M+ still is not. Some people may do more forms of content for marginal gearing speed, but that has always been true.

The difference this time around is that Raid rewards are strictly better than M+ rewards are (the final 2 raid bosses will drop higher ilvl gear than even the weekly M+ chest reward). So people pushing the highest level of M+ will essentially be forced to join mythic raiding guilds if they want to be competitive.

[Liana-maelstrom]

@Aewendil-caelestrasz

@Liana-maelstrom

I don’t agree with this premise, though. They still have their choice of raiding or M+ for gear, and the time they can spend on raiding is limited while M+ still is not. Some people may do more forms of content for marginal gearing speed, but that has always been true.

The difference this time around is that Raid rewards are specifically better than M+ rewards are.

They aren’t, though. The end of dungeon rewards are being nerfed to below Heroic Raiding, but the M+ chest rewards are being buffed substantially to permit faster gearing at Mythic raid ilvl. Heroic raiders would be thrilled to get a Mythic ilvl chest in return for a 3 ilvl nerf to their drops. M+ rewards are way better than Heroic raid rewards.

The change also reduces the need for people pushing +32s to raid Mythic for gear. That’s because the M+ chest rewards have been buffed substantially, and because M+ and raids are substitutes for chest rewards: if you do a lot of M+, raiding won’t further improve your chest rewards, and if you do a lot of Mythic raiding, M+ won’t further improve your chest rewards. In fact, both gearing paths are being made more independent of each other.

In the meantime, Mythic raiding drops are being reduced substantially, so it’s going to benefit M+ pushers more to spend their time doing more M+ instead of Mythic raiding.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

@Liana-maelstrom

They aren’t, though. The end of dungeon rewards are being nerfed to below Heroic Raiding, but the M+ chest rewards are being buffed substantially to permit faster gearing at Mythic raid ilvl. Heroic raiders would be thrilled to get a Mythic ilvl chest in return for a 3 ilvl nerf to their drops. M+ rewards are way better than Heroic raid rewards.

M+ weekly chest always contained mythic raid level items. (if you do the max level)

The difference is now that there are 2 different ilvls of gear in Mythic raids. The first x bosses drop 226 gear, but the final 2-3 bosses drop gear that is 7 ilvls higher.

M+ players can never attain ilvl 233 gear. 226 is the limit from weekly chests. Mythic raiding will be the only source of ilvl 233 gear in the game.

[Liana-maelstrom]

@Aewendil-caelestrasz

M+ players can never attain ilvl 233 gear. 226 is the limit from weekly chests. Mythic raiding will be the only source of ilvl 233 gear in the game.

That’s no different from now where Mythic raiding is the only source of 485 gear. Nobody has complained about that for 8.3.

[Aewendil-caelestrasz (Aewendil)]

@Liana-maelstrom

That’s no different from now where Mythic raiding is the only source of 485 gear. Nobody has complained about that for 8.3.

1. that’s not true, people have definitely complained
2. corruption is a much bigger factor than ilvl currently

[Crossbless-malganis]

“a solution to the M+/raid gearing issue”

remove raiding

[Zothlar-argent-dawn (Zothlar)]

@Aewendil-caelestrasz

My solution is an old one, but it’s one that definitely deserves another look now that dungeon gear scales with difficulty – and that is dungeon sets.

I know we don’t see eye to eye on many issues, but I like this idea in principle. I don’t think Blizzard will go for it, because I think they have tried to minimize people needing multiple gear sets, but people still do that anyway, so I don’t think that’s necessarily a good argument against it.

I would propose one alteration, that instead of bonuses only working in dungeons, just have them turned off in other types of instances. This could work for other types of end game options also. PvP sets that don’t work in dungeons or raids, and Raid sets that don’t work in Dungeons, BGs, or Arenas. That way everyone’s chosen progression path provides gear they can use out in the world, but provides no advantage in another path.

Again, I don’t see this happening, but I like the idea.

[Liana-maelstrom]

@Zothlar-argent-dawn

I would propose one alteration, that instead of bonuses only working in dungeons, just have them turned off in other types of instances. This could work for other types of end game options also. PvP sets that don’t work in dungeons or raids, and Raid sets that don’t work in Dungeons, BGs, or Arenas. That way everyone’s chosen progression path provides gear they can use out in the world, but provides no advantage in another path.

This wouldn’t work well for those of us whose favorite form of content is world PVP, especially given how things that Blizzard balances for the form of content they’re intended for often become grossly unbalanced in world PVP. Set bonuses and other content specific bonuses should either work everywhere, requiring careful balancing everywhere, or they should work only in the content they are dropped in.

[Darièlle-proudmoore]

@Liana-maelstrom

This wouldn’t work well for those of us whose favorite form of content is world PVP, especially given how things that Blizzard balances for the form of content they’re intended for often become grossly unbalanced in world PVP. Set bonuses and other content specific bonuses should either work everywhere, requiring careful balancing everywhere, or they should work only in the content they are dropped in.

PvP still has an easy flag to disable effects on - War Mode.