Cataclysm: Official reforging preview
by Mathew McCurley 
Oct 12th 2010 at 3:30PM
Zarhym -- Cataclysm Preview: ReforgingOriginally a magic brought to the citizens of Azeroth by the Highborne, reforging will provide a new means for players to customize their gear in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. NPCs offering reforging services will be located in all major cities, ready to assist in customizing items by altering the stats they provide. Players can use reforging to modify an item's stat values, or to undo any previous changes and allow different customization choices. Check out the preview now!
This is it! Patch 4.0.1 begins the slide into December's upcoming expansion. It's a whole new game from here on out. Get oriented with our roundup of everything there is to know about patch 4.0.1 and how it changes the game until the launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
itsthebrent Oct 12th 2010 3:35PM
Mastery, here I come.
woecip Oct 12th 2010 3:36PM
They talk about "Apocalypse's Advance" but show "The Facelifter" ..Whoops
Firecrow Oct 12th 2010 3:37PM
Why do I sense an increase in the debate over which items go to who? I dread the days when DPS get out rolled on an item with Hit by the healers and the healer's response will be "I can reforge it."
Marqus Oct 12th 2010 3:41PM
They can reforge it but it will not remove all of the hit rating so hopefully this will be less of a problem.
niko Oct 12th 2010 3:41PM
Spirit will be a pretty key stat for healers. Not sure how much it will play into this particular case, but it may be that that hit item doesn't have spirit.
johnthediver Oct 12th 2010 3:42PM
As I understand it you can only reforge 40% of the stat. So if a piece has 100 hit on it, you can only reforge 40 points to say haste. That would still leave 60 points of hit, something that no healer could argue they need more than a DPS.
Adonas Hydraxis Oct 12th 2010 3:43PM
I thought this exact same thing. I'm guessing a bit, but hopefully classes wanting to stick to their appointed "Highest form of gear wearable" sets will fix this a bit. QQ
ewrightsman Oct 12th 2010 3:48PM
It would only make things fair, since dps-ers roll on items without hit.
Besides, some healing specs may want a bit of hit for their spells. For example, as a disc priest, I'll be smiting to get my evangelism effect. It would be nice if they didn't all miss.
Aurilia Oct 12th 2010 3:54PM
And, of note, the opposite is true as well. Unless you're a paladin (still no competition for caster plate), you could potentially have a dps class/spec going after Spirit gear with the intent to reforge 40% of the Spirit into a useful stat.
Aurilia Oct 12th 2010 3:56PM
@ ewrightsman
If you're going for Atonement or Evangelism/Archangel, there's this nice 18% +hit for Smite glyph that would eliminate the worry about +hit
http://cata.wowhead.com/item=45758
Kurt Oct 12th 2010 3:57PM
No, fair is dps prioritizing against mp5 and spirit gear. If gear has neither hit nor spirit/mp5(speaking of before 4.01 obviously), then why would you think it defaults to healers?
Artificial Oct 12th 2010 4:02PM
Bah... in PUGs items should just drop assigned to a particular character already, with the roll behind the scenes. If someone else gets something you'd like, ask them for it or make an offer. The current system only works with a group entirely composed of reasonable adults, which works for guilds (if you're in a worthwhile guild) but is horrid for PUGs. There's always someone who insists they were more entitled to a random drop than someone else despite the fact that they rolled lower, and stubbornly insist that how useful it is to them vs. someone else is in any way relevant to the question. Everyone in the group is fighting on downing things together. Everyone is equally entitled to an equal chance at any piece of loot, period. If someone chooses to yield to someone else, that's a courtesy and you should be thankful. Instead, people just get upset when other people don't just cede their rights to them, and argue about who is more deserving, when the answer is nobody, that's why the dice decide.
If someone wants the loot for reforging, so be it. It's their item if they win the roll, and they can and should be able to do whatever they want with it, and it's really none of your business. They have as much right to it as you do...
Angus Oct 12th 2010 4:38PM
You can't reforge spirit to hit. No primary stats can be reforged. So spirit gear is healer gear unless a shadow priest or elemental shaman.
Since probably little to no mail will have hit instead of spirit that should not be an issue to shaman.
Beli Oct 12th 2010 4:46PM
I don't see the debate getting any worse because of reforging. Casters and healers will each have "their" gear to roll on - +hit vs +spirit - and a common set of gear that has neither of those stats. Anyone picking up a piece of gear that's itemized for a different roll can make it better for themselves, but not great.
Where reforging may increase competition for items is between two people with the same roll (two casters, for example). As it stood yesterday, my mage wouldn't roll on anything with +hit on it - i've been overcapped on hit for months. Now with reforging, I can cut out a lot of that hit. I can enter a raid hit capped, roll on a new item that increases my hit significantly, and after reforging a few pieces come out at the cap again, with other stats higher than they were.
Reforging also increases the likelihood that a piece can be used by someone in the raid. If a +hit caster belt drops, and all the casters in the raid have it, a healer might be able to benefit from it after reforging some of that hit into spirit. At least, this scenario is more likely than it was previously.
Kylenne Oct 12th 2010 6:21PM
@Beli: For the fourteenth time, primary stats can't be altered or gained through reforging. Only rating stats can. It is literally impossible to turn Hit into Spirit, as Spirit is a primary stat, not a rating stat. Hit can be changed into crit, haste, etc.
I am not sure why people are still not grokking this.
Chokaa Oct 12th 2010 7:14PM
@kylenne retest the blue posts and other available info. Spirit can be reforged. It is not considered a 'primary' stat. Str, Agi, Stam, Int are primary. Spirit is not. So for the 'fourteenth' time, you are wrong.
Microtonal Oct 13th 2010 5:08AM
@Kylenne:
I can confirm through first-hand experience that spirit is no longer considered a primary stat and is indeed reforgable.
Chetti Oct 13th 2010 9:43AM
I don't see the debate/arguing (at least amongst randoms through dungeon finder) about why whom rolled on what and 'what are you gonna do with THAT!?' getting any worse than I've seen in among clothies/healers and people who just want whatever to DE or sell. I mean I've seen a hunter need on a staff that my resto would have loved to have and when the group (not me personally because I had already hit greed before the hunter needed, and I don't feel the need to argue) kind of blew up about said hunter needing, the response was 'I'll use it'.. Personally my hunter dual wields swords... but ok then. But yeah, I don't see it getting much, if at all, worse.
I think this may help classes that get a certain armor buff for wearing their intended armor set. I've got 2 druids, a night elf balance and a tauren resto.. being still slightly noobish, I assumed that all druids wear leather. But, I run the resto with a friend who told me that as a healer I should be decked out in cloth for the intel/spirit.. but somewhere along the leveling process the ability to need on cloth goes away. Not that I want to need on all cloth, I always ask the group if anyone minds before I need on anything that would be an upgrade for me.. its just the point that I can't even if I wanted to/no one minded if I did. But, with the ability to need OR greed on a leather item with decent spell power/intel/whatever but with something else like hit or something that I dont need, I can reforge at least a portion into something like haste or spirit.
I can see how it could add more people into the dispute, like hey its only got a small portion of (unneeded stat) that I can reforge for (small portion of better stat), but there are some pieces as someone else mentioned that no one justify taking an item better suited for another person in the group simply by stating they could reforge it.
Vendaal Oct 12th 2010 3:38PM
/agreed
islandstyle Oct 12th 2010 3:38PM
For some reason I thought you lost the stat you wanted to replace completely. Thanks for the photos. Helps a bunch. Don't know why I missed that before.