Gear transition between BC and WoTLK should be smoother, says Bornakk
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Apr 17th 2008 at 11:00AM
We've known for a while that we've been getting a gear reset in WoTLK, and just this morning, we've discussed and speculated on how it will affect people as they transition into the 70-80 game, especially alt-o-holics. Here's some news that should strike a lot of people as good: Bornakk confirmed in a thread yesterday that we really won't be seeing quite as large a gear gap in the jump from Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King as we did in the past: No more doubling of stamina values this time, guys.
This should be good news for raiders who feel like their epics don't mean that much anymore (although to be honest, I was using a few of my BWL and AQ40 drops well into my late 60s, so I don't think the gear reset was that bad after all). If the gear jump isn't that bad, your shiny new epics should still work pretty well. Heck, same goes for badge runners. I've suspected for a while that the new Badge of Justice gear was meant to be a partial preliminary gear rest ahead of time, and I'd bet this more or less confirms it: If there's not going to be as much as a jump, these Tameless Breeches might last my druid longer than one might think.
I think it's definitely a good middle road to take. We'll get a gear reset so alt-o-holics and casuals can jump right into the Howling Fjord, but the gap won't be quite as great, meaning that raiders and badge gear savers won't need to feel like they're watching months of work go down the drain when that first level 71 green drops.
Filed under: News items, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Leveling, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Corey Taylor Apr 17th 2008 11:07AM
Damn....for someone who doesn't raid (too many alts to find time), no stomach for PvP and is suffering through some rep grinding for some nicer gear upgrades....I was hoping for a BC style gear jump again. haha.
Adam Apr 17th 2008 12:41PM
Thats good news.... I just lvl'd my first toon to 60 and made the jump into outland..... and to my surprise the gear I had to work my butt off for in the eastern Plaguelands with 5 man groups were made obsolete on my first kill.... some random green had twice the armor and stats than the blue item it replaced.....
Jason Apr 17th 2008 11:18AM
My precious [The Unstoppable Force] was made obsolete as soon as i stepped into Outland. I worked my butt of to get that epic through the old pre-honor system.. Oh well, at least I still have my pvp rank left :)
Blackhorn Apr 17th 2008 11:24AM
To the Raiders: Congrats! Now WotLK has even less to offer you as your endgame gear will last you until 78. Have fun running all the new content, getting no upgrades, and finding nothing rewarding in WotLK until you step up to Arthas himself :D
It had to happen at some point before we started strapping on epics with an item level of 250.
Salty Apr 17th 2008 12:02PM
Quest rewards and entry-level dungeons are hardly the only rewards to be had in Wrath, of course. It will be just like running magister’s terrace and passing on the rather unimpressive superior items -- the instance will still be a challenge since we aren’t familiar with it yet and we’ll be able to go right into heroic mode once we learn the encounters.
Being geared for wrath just means not being held back finding groups, getting to Naxx faster, etc. From there it just unfolds into more engaging content and faster.
ninjasuperspy Apr 17th 2008 11:38AM
This is a sentiment I hadn't honestly considered. Sure I felt bad dropping my Lightforge for some greens that dropped off of a pig in Hellfire, but keeping the Gilded Crimson Chest from HH until heroics was incredibly boring. I wonder how that will translate into Wrath. Sure the quests and zones were different and interesting compared to the Old World, and enough to keep me moving forward, but the promise of upgrades was a major carrot.
I wonder if Inscription will fill the upgrade void left by no new equipment for the hardcore. Also, if you can go get Honored with a few Outlands factions and purchase the PVP set, how do you think that will measure up with Wrath eq?
my2cents Apr 17th 2008 7:28PM
Man, Blizz take note: you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. There was such an uproar over the gear reset in TBC from the raiding community, and now they try to smooth it out for WOTLK and suddenly an extreme gear reset is preferable... /sigh
As for what Daniel said about the new Badge of Justice gear being a sort of preliminary gear reset, that's exactly what I suspect. Letting more casual players gear up at the last minute will allow Blizz to make the WOTLK gear reset less drastic.
Salty Apr 17th 2008 11:25AM
What scared a lot of the pre-BC raiders from the raiding scene was that their Naxx gear was still functional after the expansion, but hardly competitive with quest rewards from Nagrand and it was those set bonuses and quirky unique effects that kept them viable into Karazhan. Obviously stamina was blown wide open, but that won’t happen again.
What I want to know is whether level 80 quest gear will be on the level with Sunwell and >T6 loot or will some of us be able to ding 80 and walk right into Naxx and be ‘ready’ (as in, not cripplingly undergeared) for some of those encounters wearing mostly BT/Hyjal quality pieces?
It would be a nice reward for progressing far into the game if that quality of gear would enable us to largely skip the obligatory 5-man dungeon crawl everybody faced gearing up for Karazhan to gear up for Gruul/Mag to gear up for SSC/TK, etc. I’m not saying I don’t want to replace my epics or experience the new 5-man content, or silly enough to believe they’ll last far into 80… I’m just saying it would be nice to dampen the magnitude of downtime in raiding between level 80 and Naxx as bad as Kara had it for guilds that weren’t racing for first kills. The best thing is that there won’t be the horrid 20-to-10-man, 40-to-25-man transition that killed so many guilds and caused so much drama.
Cyrus Apr 17th 2008 11:31AM
I actually think the level 60 endgame content is problematic in lots of ways that have nothing to do with gear quality, and the transition is BC is a bit overstated. Yeah, comparing level 58-60 quest blues to level 62 BC greens is a big jump, but in a lot of cases you'd see a pretty similar difference between level 50 quest blues and level 55 greens.
My feral druid and my rogue were both in gear from MC and the first few bosses in BWL when I went through the dark portal. My druid got a lot of green items in Hellfire Peninsula right away, but then again, feral itemization was pretty bad before the expansion. My rogue was still wearing some BWL epics until Blade's Edge and Netherstorm.
Liel Apr 17th 2008 11:36AM
I am not scared to "lose" anything because I don't consider the time I spend online "Work" its a game. I really find it annoying that people are more worried about their loot than seeing new content. My old raiding guild all grouped and skipped content and powered their way to 70 to hurry up and hit end game content as soon as possible. Only a handful of them are even still playing anymore.
Heilig Apr 17th 2008 11:37AM
Here's my question:
ilvl of items dropped by Kel'Thuzad: 92
ilvl of items dropped by Kil'Jaeden: 164
A top-end 60 before BC was wearing gear that was effectively 30 levels higher than him. Those items were replaced in Kara, generally, by items with an ilvl of 115.
A top-end 70 is wearing gear thta is effectively 90 levels higher than him. When is he going to replace his gear? Heck, the new badge loot is 148. Even a relatively casual raider who just does kara weekly and maybe takes a shot at ZA occasionally will be in gear 60-70 levels higher. There was no massive ilvl inflation in early BC, everyone just replaced their gear because the item budgets changed. Stamina exploded, attack power and agility appeared on the same random greens, etc. If this doesn't happen in WotLK, I don't expect to replace my gear, which has an average ilvl of 145 overall, until well into the new 25 man dungeons.
So what is my reward going to be for buying the expansion? I love new content, don't get me wrong, but I like new shinies, too.
Arya Apr 17th 2008 11:42AM
Honestly, how much time do you spend levelling? One, two, maybe three weeks?
The majority of your time is spent at the level cap.
Honestly, I would hope we wouldn't be replacing T6 until 10 man raids at 80.
infection Apr 17th 2008 12:11PM
Thats good for you. You must not have a job, wife, kids, or a life. Hopefully you are the 4% in this game that raids non stop. Because I know as a casual, it did not take me 1 to 2 weeks to get from 60 to 70. Now think about from 70 to 80. We will be spending a huge amount of time grinding those levels (again... not referring to those that are currently T6 maxed and quit the game because they cant have new content every day that rolls to meet their 20 hour play days)
Aichon Apr 17th 2008 11:38AM
When I read that post, I didn't get the impression that Bornakk was saying that your currently gear wouldn't be obsolete within a few levels, as it seems some others read it. What it sounded like to me was confirmation that they weren't planning to change the iLevel values of various stats like they did with TBC.
Stamina in particular was a massive change with TBC, where its iLevel value dropped dramatically, leading to a large increase in the relative amount of stamina on each item. His comments about the stats being more "consistent" seems to fall in line with the idea that stats should work the same way they do now, though there will obviously be more of each stat on items.
I imagine that the change won't be as jarring as it was with TBC, but I don't see anything in his post that outright says that 70 epics will last to 80 any better than 60 epics lasted to 70. Seems to me he just says that they'll work the same way and have a smoother rate of obsolescence.
Thandorin Apr 17th 2008 12:06PM
That is A+ for reading comprehension to Aichon. Class dismissed...
Badger Apr 17th 2008 12:37PM
Well said, Aichon. Thanks for the summary.
Personally, I simply took the article as an indicator that Blizzard is slowly but surely learning from the mistakes of past content patches and expansion(s). They're applying what they've learned to smooth out any future game balance issues well in advance.
Jaynitan Apr 17th 2008 11:57AM
I believe that Blizz should incorporate upgradeable items in WOTLK. Not quite like the one peice ata time upgrades for the tier.05 stuff. More like do a 5 man in WOTLK and get a token that increases all attributes of a set of pants by 10%.
Kill another boss and get a head +10% to all the stats. Make only one token usable on one piece. SO say the loot from Unamed Vampire Viking BOSS in a 5-Man would be dungeon blue + dungeon blue + random upgrade token worht +10% to all stats on an item sockets and enchants would not be calculated in that.)
And the tokens value would increase for higher lvl dungeons.
SO a 70-73 dungeon might be 10%
A lvl 75-78 dungeon might be 30%.
And a 80 Heroic might be 50%
SO you could in essence maybe never change your gear if you have raiding gear or badge loots.
Or another idea might be to have a daily quest to exchange your old gear for badges equal the item lvl of the item.
SO you cash in your lvl 70 badge loot or raid loot and get say 500 Badges of 'we hate the lich king and want him to die'
TO buy a full set of lvl 80 WOTLK badge loot would cost like 1000 of those new badges. THe other badges are obtain in a similar fashion to the existing badge system. AND there will be normal gear from rads etc with a progression similar to normal.
It would probalbly have to be set up so you can only cash in one item of each slot that way. . . . .so you don't cash in endless supplies of lvl 70 gear that you farm @ lvl 80 for the purpose of cashing in.
SO best case you cash in what epics you have and keep rolling with dungeon blues some epics etc while gearing up, but the better the items the bigger a jump you get on lvl 80 gear.
Worst case you lvl to 80 and run sunwell 25 man a lot in order to stack up the maxxed gear for cashing in.
Stormscape Apr 17th 2008 12:03PM
All "teh blue" seems to be saying is that no stats are having their distribution value changed. With BC, stamina took up a lot less "item points" or whatever you'd call it, so items in BC had so much more stamina old-world items became laughable if you cared about that stat (and really, who doesn't?)
In WotLK, your epics without a dobut, will still be obsoleted, I just expect it will take a few more levels; IE you'll be replacing T6 at say 77 instead of 73. T5 at 75 instead of 72. Something like that, but by level 80, we're exactly where we were with TBC, a bare handful who are clinging to their Kil'Jaden epics, but everybody else in quest greens.
I think this is really a good thing, its the same gear reset, but spread out over more levels, which is good for both the Hardcore AND the casuals; a nice compromise we don't see to often.
Another bonus goes with the notion that Northrend gear will look northrendy, instead of just recolored low-level gear and then floating crystals of doom (which I personally love, don't hate progress)
It would be cool to be able to tell someone's level at a glance just by the proportion of outland-to-northrend gear, if they were 70 pre-WotLK, if blizzard means it when they say Northrend gear will have its own unique look.
Saryel Apr 17th 2008 12:02PM
People need to get over this "gear reset" crap. Expansions come out, you move your character up and start the gear acquisition over again, it's the nature of the game. If you're raiding just so you can have the best gear there's bigger issues. Yes gear is certainly part of it but you shouldn't be upset because you get to move up to bigger and better gear. If people can't get used to this idea that gear will always be made obselete by something they need to stop playing MMOs.
infection Apr 17th 2008 12:03PM
I agree that WotlK is a completely different purchase and therefore should be bigger and better.
You raided and spent a lot of time in BC... woohoo. You are running around the top dog right NOW.
But when WotlK comes out, I really don't see all the fuss in wanting the items to not be A LOT better till you get to 80?
I liked the change from pre BC to BC. I had full pvp epics and they lasted me till 65, even though we had a big jump in items. Now its not even going to be a big jump?
Great... like another poster stated, I'll be rolling around on my gear till 80, same look.
Hopefully the game will start at 20 bucks instead of 40, since i'm only going to be getting half the reason for playing out of it. To see new content, but no rewards.