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by Matthew Rossi 
Jan 31st 2012 at 1:00PM
That last one may just be me.
Reforging gear has become a huge part of optimization. It is at least as important as gemming and enchanting. Sites like WoW Reforge and Ask Mr. Robot (to name just two) are heavily consulted by players looking to squeeze every last erg of performance out of their gear. Is it too much? Has the minigame of stat tetris gotten out of hand?
There's no denying that reforging is complex. Go ahead and try to eyeball your reforging to get to your stat caps and you'll see what I mean. It's possible to do this, but often you'll find yourself looking at ratings and doing calculator math to get there, and it's often just plain easier to go to a site or use a program like Rawr.
I actually quite love reforging. I love sitting down and tinkering with my stats, playing with higher or lower hit builds (since you can't cap hit anyway for a fury warrior), seeing if I can block cap in my current tank set-up. I find it actually provides me with the ability to set my gear to work the way I want it to rather than in a preordained fashion. It means Blizzard is free to design its gear with that less optimal spread of stats it likes for lower raid tiers, for instance, while letting me say "Well, since I'm already capped on exp, I can reforge some of it off and still use this higher strength piece with gobs of expertise" -- and I like that.
That being said, in the past Blizzard has said it wants the game to require less out-of-game resources to play successfully -- and reforging? Holy cats, does reforging fly in the face of that. In addition to often being expensive, proper use of reforging often requires an addon, a program or an external gear optimization site to really get the best use of the feature.
Since we have those obnoxious ethereals anyway, why can't they provide a similar service? Tell the reforger what stats you want to cap at what levels, and have him do the work of suggesting at least basic reforging to get there. Something as simple as "I want 8% hit," and the reforger tells you exactly how to get as close to that as possible in the gear you have on.
Reforging has really evolved very quickly in the year since its arrival. It's not "Hey, tank pants dropped; I'll reforge away some of the dodge and use them in my DPS set" any more. It's "I want precisely this much of these stats, and I'll reforge until I get there," and I think that use of the service must be taken into account and addressed with new iterations of the game. WoW has always been good at learning from features the players create via sites and addons, and this is another case of that need being addressed.
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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Ilmyrn Jan 31st 2012 1:46PM
Does anyone else have issues with AskMrRobot totally crapping out on certain stats? It used to not recognize Ret's unique Exp cap, consistently trying to get me to actually reforge up to 26 Exp, and now when I use it it's telling me to reforge to 8.6% hit. I can get a LOT closer than that by eyeballing it.
Somewhat more on topic, while reforging can be a pain, especially when you get a new piece that affects your hard cap stats, anymore it and gems are about the only thing my main, a raider, spends gold on. With a guild paying for repairs and the guild tax ensuring that any reasonably active guild has fat enough coffers to not go empty from repairs, I usually make quite a bit of gold from each night of raiding.
Magma Jan 31st 2012 1:46PM
I don't reforge according to any addon or site. I make sure I am hit capped as dps, and make sure everything else is "around" where it should be, and at most I end up reforging 2-3 pieces to make that happen. I honestly think it's unnecessary to do otherwise unless you are the hardcore of the hardcorest. So I think reforging itself is fine, other people are making it complicated.
frdmg Jan 31st 2012 1:51PM
While i believe that the reforging idea had promise, it has become to cumbersome every single time I recieve an upgrade. As someone currently 3/8 HM i do my best to min/max everything, and reforging makes this an even more complex issue.
I think that reforging has allowed blizzard item designers to do less in terms of design. Let me try to explain why I think this.
Back in ICC we had different items for 10/25 man and 10HM/25HM. Each and every piece required multiple stat changes to feel like an upgrade. Now with reforging, they slap one stat on the piece (normal or heroic) and let you customize it. Has even gone as far as gem slots at this point, last couple of tiers we have had different color sockets to play with stats, now it seems "let's slap a red socket on everything" =/
Sure this makes it feel more like you are in control of your gear and stats, but it has gotten way out of hand on the amount of time needed to get things just right, not to mention expensive.
I hope they keep reforging, but it certainly needs some looking into to make it a viable long term addition.
Snuzzle Jan 31st 2012 2:21PM
They always do this with gem slots though. In the earlier tiers you get more varied colors with oddball bonuses, but in the last tier of the expansion you get great socket bonuses with perfect colors. It helps make you feel progressed, like you're going from more imperfect itemization to more ideal itemization. Or so Blizz once sad.
trefpoid Jan 31st 2012 1:51PM
Everytime I get a new gear peace, I run rawr and get everything perfect. I'm pretty bad at math and rawr always manages to get my spellhit to 17% and leave everything else to increase dps.. there's is a strange beauty in this, when you are done and look at your new stats and feel the POWAH, as Benedictus would say. I really love reforging, it really helped us get to those caps, like said hit cap, which was so hard to get before, and you never managed to get it just right, without wasting points. Blizzard really did great with it.
Keldion Jan 31st 2012 1:55PM
Stat tetris was neither created nor destroyed when reforging was introduced to the game. You simply did it with different pieces of loot when the drop tables were larger.
noodles Jan 31st 2012 1:57PM
I personally would rather get rid of mastery as a stat than reforging. What kills me if that my h.priests mastery only goes up in increments of .8 starting at 8, so every time I get a new piece, I I have to sit there and reforge everything to work it so that I am not getting 90% close to my mastery point going up and wasting that whole chunk of stats that aren't actually benefitting. At least with haste/hit/crit if you are at odd numbers that arent breakpoints, you still benefit just maybe not as much, but mastery, if its not at the breakpoints is like useless. And it always seems like the most work for the least effective stat-- a lot of classes/specs on elitist jerks list it as least priority >.< Keep reforging, ditch mastery.
Peter Jan 31st 2012 2:01PM
AskMrRobot is a bad choice for some roles/classes. The site condenses everything down to a couple of fixed stats weights and rules.
Its calculator assumes linear valuation. This is harmful for some classes.. eg: adding a few more points of haste to reach a haste plateau might be priceless, but adding a few more after that is a waste and they could be better spent elsewhere.
I've heard speculation that MrRobot is behind the resurgence in stam stacking tanks in LFD at the expense of mitigation/avoidance.
MrRobot is no substitute for knowing how to configure your class.
(cutaia) Jan 31st 2012 3:57PM
"I've heard speculation that MrRobot is behind the resurgence in stam stacking tanks in LFD at the expense of mitigation/avoidance.
MrRobot is no substitute for knowing how to configure your class."
Mr. Robot going with Stam past combat table coverage is actually the direct result of people who "know how to configure their class." A long time ago, Mr. Robot did not do that, so I asked them about their thoughts on CTC since folks like Matt Walsh -- who runs Righteous Defense and writes WoW Insider's prot pally column -- were so insistent on it. At the time, Mr. Robot said they "weren't convinced" about CTC and were still doing more research on it. Since then, they've come to the conclusion that the experts do indeed have the right idea on CTC, so that's why you now see that coming into play for tanks that can cap CTC.
If you're seeing a tank stacking stam without first hitting CTC, then they didn't get that advice from Mr. Robot. If you're upset about tanks who use Stam past the cap, however, then you might be the one who could use a little more research on the class.
Stray Jan 31st 2012 2:12PM
Reforging has the opportunity to be fun and engaging, but I think it only is after you're done balancing (and re-balancing and re-balancing and re-balancing...) the mandatory, boring, uninteresting stats like hit and expertise. Tinkering with secondary stats like crit, haste and mastery is fun--especially when you play different classes and specs where these things interact differently. For instance, with my subtlety rogue, I already get so much crit naturally and it only goes so far to help me (HaT has its internal CDs), so maximizing my haste to be able to have extra energy to USE all those free combo points before more are added = fun.
But every time I get a new upgrade it's not "Oooh, this has the perfect statline for me" or "Oooh, I can increase x stat with this!" it's "I'm going to have to wait for my boyfriend to get on and beg him to help me reach my hit and expertise cap before I can play with the fun stuff" (he's very good with doing the math just eyeing it over, I'm more likely to forge and reforge several times to try and hit a sweet spot with guesswork).
Most of my characters I don't stress too hard over, but with my rogue as my main raider I strive for perfection. And c'mon. I'm a big damn hero fighting a dragon that requires zooming out and panning my camera up to see in its entirety. HOW CAN I MISS THAT?!
I'm not sure what the original aim of stats like hit and expertise was (or spell penetration, which is a PvP-only stat), but in an environment where even healers cast offensive spells (CCs, things like Smite for priests, to name a paltry few), and hit is beneficial for everyone, I just wish it'd become a baseline stat or be scrapped for passive proper hit rating. It makes sense when you're below level cap to prevent players killing mobs they're not intended to, but at level cap it's a chore. If it's mandatory, just give it to us, and let us play with the creative, fun stuff, like haste plateaus.
Reforging was supposed to help with getting upgrades without perfect statlines (say I prefer haste and mastery but a haste and crit piece drops, I reforge crit into mastery). In my reality, it's trying to fit my least-favored stats into hit or expertise and IF there's surplus to play with I get to experiment with other stats.
xenothaulus Jan 31st 2012 2:13PM
Optimizing stats *is* my game, and combined with power escalation/progression, is exactly what I love about {MMO}RPGing. "Beating the system" is what keeps me playing; if they dumb the numbers down (or worse, never have them to begin with), I lose interest Fast.
VioletArrows Jan 31st 2012 2:13PM
I like reforging more than I like pain in the butt expensive gems, enchants, and glyphs, which I think are all redundant as hell. One day of dailies and a quick trip to the Ethereals versus weeks of farming dailies AND dungeons for money, JP, and/or mats per item replaced.
Mahram Jan 31st 2012 2:55PM
These days I simultaneously *DREAD* and *LOVE* getting new pieces of gear for this exact reason, along with the necessity of gemming and enchanting. I haven't been doing dailies and this stuff gets expensive!
andrews Jan 31st 2012 2:58PM
AskMrRobot and the Reforgenator addon give different reforging suggestions. I just want to play the game, not spend lots of time with a spreadsheet. I don't care if I am perfect, just that I am fairly good so I don't get laughed/booted out of PUGs. (They are bad enough as it is.)
Justin Jan 31st 2012 3:14PM
You can totally hit the hit cap as a Fury Warrior. I did it on my Frost DK just for lulz (I've got an entire second set that I've gemmed, 'chanted, and reforged just for hit cap, haste to GCD cap, and then crit after that).... I wouldn't necessarily say it's worth it, but I will say that my DPS is incredibly even. It's great for boss fights, not so much for trash mobs. It's a full HoT Heroic set, and I can get a VERY steady 13k. Not the best (I can burst up to 15k-16k with my "optimal" version of the same set), but it's worth the reliability.
Abs294 Jan 31st 2012 3:15PM
I have a shadow/holy priest and I do not share any gear between specs because I hate having to regem and reforge gear shared constantly. I'd much rather have entirely separate gear that I can set up properly and leave it alone, even if that means I have to take turns buying (often duplicate) gear for each spec or choose which spec gets the really nice upgrade. And no, I don't even raid on my priest - but I'm so used to doing this stuff for my main who I raid on that I don't like to be sub-optimal on my alt (plus I really like beating out higher-geared shadow priests on the dps charts in LFR because mr robot helped me eke out a little more dps).
Amaxe Jan 31st 2012 3:18PM
I would get some pretty contradictory info from Mr. Robot with suggestions that seemed to run contradictory to the EJ info. Sometimes it was a case of being told to reforge A-->B and then after doing so to reforge B-->A.
Eventually, I decided if I could meet the hit cap and go 26/26 on my shaman I wasn't going to care about the rest regardless of what it said.
Gnomedeplume Jan 31st 2012 3:41PM
^ this x 1000:
It becomes an issue of which outside web site you decide to trust. My hunter main gains new gear and off I go to Ask Mr. Robot where I am told to reforge A-->B (haste to crit). Once I complete that and update my changes, that crazy Robot wants me to reforge all of that stuff back to haste! I started to plug my numbers into Female Dwarf based on what AMR says and usually she gives me the bad news that those changes will result in a dps loss. I put more effort into my main but when I need to upgrade an alt I am okay with just taking AMR's word for it.
Shane Jan 31st 2012 3:44PM
This why I like being a Blood DK. Does it have mastery on it? No? Reforge to mastery! Rinse, repeat!
GhostWhoWalks Jan 31st 2012 4:35PM
I dunno, I briefly had a bit of a stress-out over reforging when I was upgrading some slots but hesitating because swapping out X item for Y would bring me below the Hit/Expertise cap, but then I stopped and said to myself "Hold on, this doesn't need to be THAT complex."
I went through and reset the stats on all of my reforged gear and kept my character window while (re?)reforging my new gear set. Ended up being a smooth and easy process, costing me a decent amount of gold but by no means breaking my bank.