Is it a change? Yes.
Did it come out in Cata? Yes.
Would it be better for the health of the game? Yes.
We’ve clearly sailed away from the #nochanges mindset, so here is my proposition.
Introduce Armor specialization bonuses with either ToC or ICC to discourage downgrading and to encourage them to wear armor of the highest armor class possible.
Would it change up the meta for gearing? Yeah, maybe. However, I think it’s a decent enough change to warrant the shift.
Just gonna ask
Why though? Why do we need it? Why do you want it? Did somebody “steal” your item? Are you some loot council member, tired of rogues complaining that warriors, hunters, paladins want leather gear?
Seems like an incredibly pointless change lol. Cata is going to come out eventually, don’t worry. Wrath gear wasn’t designed with this in mind so you’d probably just screw some builds up
No, nothing recently. However, I have been apart of many many many groups where there’s this nice piece of gear that gets yoinked by someone who can wear a higher tier of armor.
I genuinely just believe it might be better for the health of gearing. Is it an absolute necessity? No, however I feel like it’s a change that is minimal but can make a positive impact.
Why is it a problem? Armor as a stat is only useful if you’re tanking so for DPS and casters it is meaningless.
It is to discourage loot fighting from, example: a plate wearer yoinking a leather bracer piece from a rogue.
While yeah, the armor is hardly a factor the loot fighting can be curbed with this addition.
Why does it need to be curbed? That is handled by the loot system.
Loot competition is a design feature. Armor specialization increases the rate that someone reaches full BiS, and therefore reduces the longevity of a raid tier.
What OP means is that if you’re wearing your highest proficiency armor class in all slots, you gain an overall % stat increase, to encourage plate wearers to wear all plate, and mail wearers to wear all mail, instead of wearing leather.
Which imo, smart idea. If plate is a couple % behind leather then a couple % increase should entice plate wearers to wear nothing but plate, but, I don’t know how needed it is for LKC. I know warriors want a leather belt as their bis but off the dome I can’t remember anymore pieces that overlap. This is really a change that would be cool to see in a classic+, to avoid every non caster dps from wanting the same thing outside of tier.
Meanwhile…I’ve been wearing Plate since lvl 40. Meta be damned.
But if it’s really an issue. Then ‘PRIVATE Personal Loot’ would be a much better choice.
cata > wotlk
How do you measure this? And, where is the data that shows it?
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Personally, I find the ability to equip various types of armor and not be pigeon-holed into one type, depending on class of course, to be some very nice flavor.
i hate warriors
A benefit of rolling a class that can wear multiple armor classes is that you have those lower tier armor options available to you. This is part of their design, and was only changed in CATA as their design philosophy changed at that point. To add it now in a world where gear was not designed with this in mind would be a disservice to the game, not to mention a waste of time since cata is on the horizon (maybe)
Wrath isn’t as bad as vanilla or TBC for sure as most the plate offerings are decent.
I wouldn’t call it bad. There are trade-offs to be made, where if you value some stats over armor, then it’s worth it, and if not, then it’s not.
Of course obviously some people dislike this and it’s subjective, but imo this is a really cool part of the game’s design, and part of the flavor that is lacking from Retail.
Was using “bad” in the context of the OP. In this context it was meaning “prevalent”.
Welcome to classic and the crappy itemization where DPS classes often get better DPS from lower grade armor types.
No, there has been enough pointless changes already that have already degraded the experience from what it was back in 2009.
They replaced hunters as loot goblins.
There are already armor/shield talents and set bonuses. If a player wants to use lower armor, that is their own choice. It is also your choice to use the highest armor.
