Reforging might not have been such a bad thing after all

Community General Discussion
1

Cataclysm Classic has an admittedly outdated system:

Maybe we should get away from crests, stones, and catalysts and go back to an easier method. I mean, as a casual, I prefer easier steps, and this one was pretty basic. Take the stat that sucks and swap it for a better stat. It’s a nice stop gap til the piece of gear you actually need drops, and you can even reforge on your BiS items once you have them. Seems like a win - win. Let’s eliminate 4 stage upgrades using 5 different currencies on 14 items and get back to something simpler that worked at the time.

7 Likes
2

Item upgrades and item reforging have two separate purposes. You could have both (though I personally think reforging was terrible). The only reason reforging existed is because hit and expertise had hard caps you had to hit, but added nothing to your DPS above said caps. Current secondaries, even your worst one, still increases your damage to some extent and arent useless.

10 Likes
3

In theory it sounds great.

In practice this was “Convert the lower stat to hit, expertise, penetration, or defense”.

4 Likes
4

The gear upgrading system is phenomenal. Gear lasts longer. I can get a normal trinket on the champion track and when I upgrade it to 8/8 its the same as 4/6 hero gear. It incentivizes me to run normal raids even if I’m only doing Heroic with my guild.

The currencies are pretty simple. You have Valorstones which is needed for all upgrades, Weathered Crests = LFR ilvl upgrades, Carved Crests = Normal ilvl upgrades, Runed = Heroic ilvl upgrades, and Gilded = Mythic ilvl upgrades.

The other thing is Retail WoW is in a different spot from Cata and MoP gearing.

Item Level is king because of how impactful primary stat is. A unoptimized stat item 10 ilvls above a optimized stat item will sim the same or better.

Reforging’s main purpose was to get your Hit/Expertise/etc stat to close as cap as possible because these stats you needed to have at cap and any points over is pointless.

Now I do think reforging could come back in tandem with the gear upgrade system, however it won’t replace the gear upgrade system. That system is here to stay they just need better names for the crests and descriptions.

4 Likes
5

Why.

Call me crazy but this was a positive case for reforging. Letting players prioritize stats on items without requiring a specific 2 stat base item would go a long way, especially when we get further in the expansion and start wrestling (again) with DR breakpoints.

6

Would also love a currency swapper. If you have 50 crests you don’t need, bundle them for a 10:1 trade ratio and get the crests you need. Also, converting other current currency into Valorstones would be nice. I have no need for this much Kej, or those other stones.

7

We do Dracarian. Its 90 crests for 15.

For example when ever piece of your gear on a character is 606 ilvl or better you can convert 90 Carved Crests into 15 Runed Crests.

1 Like
8

Seems a bit low in the exchange rate, even my sample was a bit rough.

9

Please for the love of all that is holy do NOT bring back hit and expertise. Having to account for spell hit as an enhancement shaman is awful

8 Likes
10

Well 15 crests (without discounts on alts to 10 if your main has reach a crest conversion breakpoint) is 1 ilvl bracket upgrade.

2 Likes
11

Hit/Experties and other stats that you need exactly X amount of and no more should never come back.

3 Likes
12

I did prefer MoP when it comes to gearing (and a lot of other things). It had reforging still, but it also had the valor upgrade system, and a chance at titanforged drops for small bonuses on gear.

13

I liked reforging, I remember spending hours at the training dummy with my fellow dk dps in the guild micromanaging our stats by reforging.

It was fun, well for me anyway. Unholy presence and haste dw frost dk was some of the best DK gameplay ever and you can’t change my mind.

2 Likes
14

They had a thing on Icyveins where you could test out your reforging and see what the stats would be after looking up your character.

But yeah, I remember that xpac always having a crowd of folks at the training dummies lol

15

Where did you concoct that?
Nowhere did I even suggest it.

You have soft breakpoints for stat diminishing returns in the current model and flexing around high breakpoints without needing to completely swap out and re-upgrade gear would go a long way.

2 Likes
16

It’s funny, I was the top melee DPS for a heroic progression guild yet I never used icy veins except to double check my rotation.

How the hell was I in the top 15 dks for my server…

2 Likes
17

You responded to someone who said that reforging’s purpose was to manage hit and expertise hard caps with “that’s a good thing”

18

In the case of hit caps sucking, reforging them was absolutely a good thing.

19

At the time, it was super convoluted. You could get a piece with the stats you wanted on them but actually end up with less due to having to reforge around hit and expertise caps. It was very annoying.

But it’s not really interesting to just go to the reforger and have your WA auto-reforge stuff to whatever your best secondary is. People complain about simming as it is, reforging would just add even more gearing complexity that makes knowing if an item is an upgrade even harder.

3 Likes
20

and a better thing is not bringing them back to begin with, thus my response

1 Like