Do you think the probable new patch of T3.5 gears is a wise update?

[Sleeplust]

Don't you think that it's ridiculous to make Turtle WoW more like a Blizz server with inflated damage? I suggest that the old T3 gears had better be nerf a bit rather than bringing even more exaggerated things.

Some added below:

The general average gear level of gears from heroic dungeons in the original TBC is around 105 (epic quality), around 15 gear-levels higher than that of Might of Menethil (89, with 95.3 DPS). If TWOW developers eventually implemented T3.5 at glvl 95 and T4 at glvl 100, the new gears (including 2H melee weapon with over 100 DPS) would make the weaker gears even weaker and more ignorable, which would temporarily increase the number of players, but in the end, the sustainability of the game would be ruined like what happened after the story was over-exploited in expansion sets like Cataclysm and Shadowlands.

People in general, including you I guess, used to feel excited about allowing mounts to fly in old regions years ago. Would you feel the same if TWOW brings permanent flying mounts? Metaphorically, the T4 in TWOW would be just like the flying mounts in Cataclysm.

[Akos1896]

T3,5 and T4 raids will come anyway

[Sylveria]

the only part i think that may be concerned about higher Tiers and therefore better equipment, is the pvp section. I understand this. Maybe there will be an alternate way for PvP-Gearing or additional PvP-Stats on PvP-Equipment that will be able to hold up against PvE-Equipment.
Other than that, i don't see any concern why higher tiers wouldnt be a good thing for all those raiders who have run Naxx for countless times. As long as the new raid-tiers still build on each other like the others, there shouldn't be any concern about "devalueing previous content".
...at least in theory. I've no experience in raiding though.

[Xudo]

Other concern is trivializing existing content. Another grade of power allow 5-manning MC, 10-manning BWL and so on.

[Sylveria]

Other concern is trivializing existing content. Another grade of power allow 5-manning MC, 10-manning BWL and so on.

trivializing content always happens when there's some form of better gear. normal 60 dungeons are getting trivialized by raid gear. Molten Core is getting trivial with naxx gear, and so on. So i don't see as much of a problem there. But maybe i lack the view of a raider. so a further explanation so i understand would be appreciated.

[Zvyrhol]

Gear is one thing, lore is the other. It's weird to me that one tower in forgotten land of Deadwind Pass or Dwarven city of Wildhammers are more difficult raids than Molten Core - lair of powerful elemental who caused giantic explosion which dramatically changed the appearance and climate of the Burning Steppes or Searing Gorge. Harder than AQ which holds an existence of powerful being that once ruled the Azeroth. Even Naxxramas always felt like ultimate and the hardest raid. In my opinion Karazhan and Grim Batol shouldn't be the next tier raids. But some people want to progress infinitely...

[Akos1896]

I think it's fine, each raid is tailored for guilds at a different state of progression.
Tbh some items are problematic -> MC bindings are wanted by each guild, regardless of progression. Naxx speedrun guilds come back to MC to fish for the bindings and maybe for the legendary necklace. MC is a clownfest for them, of course.
BWL is in a similar shoe, specially if T3,5 items actually happen. You want those trinkets, so you farm a raid which is way below the guild's gear level.
If we regard these 20 min MC runs a problem, the only solution is taking away the items for which very geared people farm them, and having other ways to obtain the things like the bindings.
F.ex.: allowing T3,5 raid to be a trinket upgrade over BWL trinkets solves the BWL problem. Relocating the bindings and the legendary necklace to the highest-level raid (whatever it currently is) solves the MC problem. People still can go to MC and smack Ragnaros' splendid rectum but people would stop it since we take out the motivation.
For PVP, yeah. Imo getting max rank at PVP is at least on par with raiding the hardest availablée raid, and should be rewarded at a similar level.

[Akos1896]

Gear is one thing, lore is the other. It's weird to me that one tower in forgotten land of Deadwind Pass or Dwarven city of Wildhammers are more difficult raids than Molten Core - lair of powerful elemental who caused giantic explosion which dramatically changed the appearance and climate of the Burning Steppes or Searing Gorge. Harder than AQ which holds an existence of powerful being that once ruled the Azeroth. Even Naxxramas always felt like ultimate and the hardest raid. In my opinion Karazhan and Grim Batol shouldn't be the next tier raids. But some people want to progress infinitely...

Lore-wise the question is how flexible we want to handle the original content.
F.ex. We can be lazy and rename Ragnaros to the 'Avatar of Ragnaros' in MC and bring him back at T4,5 as real Ragnaros if T4,5 ever happens. Same with Cthun and a theoretic T5 raid where he is chilling with other Old Gods. TWOW has the option to work based on Blizzard's raid schedule from the past but can ásspull a totally new way with a totally new lore if they want to.

A bit unrelated, but I prefer this flexibility. F.ex. Draenei would be a welcome addition for me as long as TWOW Team seriously changes their lore. Or a worgen race, cursed victims of Gilneas, finding consolation in Undercity and joining the Horde, after finding themselves similar to the forsaken in many ways. The possibilities are endless as long as we don't handle the source data as a sacred text.

[Elesion]

Ragnaros has always been a bit of a weird choice for the entry-level raid boss, but I don't think it requires a lot of adjustments to make work. He even says "Too Soon! You have awakened me too soon, Executus! What is the meaning of this intrusion?" basically telling you he's not ready to fight (so probably not fully powered up either).

I believe Karazhan was originally meant to be the post-Naxx raid before Blizzard settled on making an expansion with a higher level cap. That's supposedly why a level 60 item (Atiesh) teleports you to what ended up being a level 70 raid. Karazhan fits the power-level to me. It is a mythical place, tied to one of the most powerful wizards to have ever lived who can be considered the origin of the entire Warcraft series and who by opening the Dark Portal also massively changed the landscape of Azeroth. Lots of people are chasing knowledge and items left behind by Medivh. Kel'Thuzad covets Atiesh even.

Grim Batol is odder and less established than that, but ultimately it will depend on what we'll find and fight in there. Hard to tell how in or out of line the big bad of T4 might be when we don't even know who it is. Lore-wise we have a dragon aspect tied to Grim Batol, seems pretty powerful to me.

[Eversongwoods]

they should do a item lvl squish for gear from aq40 and naxx because there is a pretty big gap after bwl gear

[Burunduk]

Don't worry about T3.5 and T4.
When new patches are released, we will play on another Classic + servers.

[Sleeplust]

Gear is one thing, lore is the other. It's weird to me that one tower in forgotten land of Deadwind Pass or Dwarven city of Wildhammers are more difficult raids than Molten Core - lair of powerful elemental who caused giantic explosion which dramatically changed the appearance and climate of the Burning Steppes or Searing Gorge. Harder than AQ which holds an existence of powerful being that once ruled the Azeroth. Even Naxxramas always felt like ultimate and the hardest raid. In my opinion Karazhan and Grim Batol shouldn't be the next tier raids. But some people want to progress infinitely...

I agree. If the weird system of character levels and item levels applies in a relatively more acceptible way because we, as players, have limited time for gaming, I would suggest an crazier non-level system, or one with only item levels. That'd shatter the basic structure of the game. Must have been taken into account by many, I think.

[Akos1896]

Another option would be sidegrades. Imagine many tier sets and many individual items at T3 which enable very different builds. Balancing them would be a nightmare but instead of the relatively mindless upgrades you could build up very unique characters with unique strengths.

[Sleeplust]

T3,5 and T4 raids will come anyway

But you must have known that Might of Menethil is roughly equal to a blue weapon for physical DPS at around level 70. If they bring even more powerful T4, the avrerage item level would be about 105, the first heroic dungeons' standard in TBC. I don't find it necessary and sensible to make the game's life shorter by recklessly upgrading players armory.

[Akos1896]

It's not reckless upgrading. TWOW is 4 years old and they are considering adding a Naxx+ raid only now, when capitals are half-filled with T3 bis characters and creating a 5th alt is not as exciting. Imo they add new challenges at the right time.

[Akos1896]

I put it another way.
New tiers can be a problem at PVP, yes. But the solution is to balance PVP rewards, it is very long due.
New tiers can trivialize some insdtances, also true. But many are already trivialized. When bored T3 people rush into ZG, I wouldn't really call it raiding, or a 'works as designed' experience.

[Imonobor]

Alright, here is a radical idea that not many might agree with:
___

All level 60 epic gear should have the exact same stat budget. All raids should be tailored towards full epic-geared players. Difficulty should come from complex mechanics, not outgearing (and outconsuming) the content. Different raids could specialize their gear towards certain stats: haste, vampirism, pure ap/sp, etc. PvP epics will focus more on survivability at the expense of other stats, for example.
This is the idea of a "horizontal progression", like Guild Wars 2 has. I think it fits the idea of Vanilla+ very well, even if it would require the rebalancing of the entire endgame, basically.

But then what would be the point of raiding other tiers of raids once you're fully epic-geared? I'm glad you asked! A lot of the current epics from later (eg more difficult mechanically-wise) raids could be converted to legendaries, with special effects that alter a core class ability. These will be hard to get, and you would only be able to equip up to 3 legendaries at once (even if there will be legenaries of almost every slot available).

Epics should also be harder to get. A lot of the current (weaker) epics should be converted to rares. This way being full-epic geared will actually mean something and be something you must work towards.
Class sets will be geared towards different specs, but T3 will not be stronger (not have more stat budget) than T1 for example.
So when introducing new class sets (T3.5 and T4), they could give each class new specs or make new hybrid builds possible/viable. So the endgame now becomes trying out new specs and builds and collecting gear for them, instead of staying one spec the entire time.
For all the apparent drawbacks and huge development time needed for this horizontal progression, it does have its merits, namely that everyone will now be on roughly equal footing and the PvP scene will be more fair. Also, content will no longer be trivialized by having better gear. It will surely help if your entire raid is epic-geared, but people in rares can use consumables to catch up instead, and epic-geared people can use consumes to play on easy mode (git gud lol).
___

ANYWAY, end of rant, this will never be implemented, but it was nice to dream for a while :)

[Zvyrhol]

All level 60 epic gear should have the exact same stat budget.

This is impossible to introduce for some classes because not all items in vanilla are all about raw stats. For example there are active trinkets which give Stun removal or temporary Spell Damage increase but they don't give any passive stats. Nobody knows how much valuable is active effect on item-level scale.

[Imonobor]

All level 60 epic gear should have the exact same stat budget.

This is impossible to introduce for some classes because not all items in vanilla are all about raw stats. For example there are active trinkets which give Stun removal or temporary Spell Damage increase but they don't give any passive stats. Nobody knows how much valuable is active effect on item-level scale.

Trinkets that offer on-demand utility instead of being raw stat-sticks are awesome though. Stun removal is valuable in pvp, but worthless in pve situations, in which mobs don't stun. So there is always a trade-off, do you use these for their active effects or just throw down a stat-stick and forget about it? They don't have to be so strictly synthesized down to stat budget.
And active trinkets that give Spell damage for a duration can actually be roughly calculated by using their duration and cooldown. For example a trinket that gives 100 SP for 10 seconds every minute, actually gives 100 SP one sixth of the time, so 100/6 = 16.66 "passive" spell power.

[Tanasa]

Alright, here is a radical idea that not many might agree with:
___

All level 60 epic gear should have the exact same stat budget. All raids should be tailored towards full epic-geared players. Difficulty should come from complex mechanics, not outgearing (and outconsuming) the content. Different raids could specialize their gear towards certain stats: haste, vampirism, pure ap/sp, etc. PvP epics will focus more on survivability at the expense of other stats, for example.
This is the idea of a "horizontal progression", like Guild Wars 2 has. I think it fits the idea of Vanilla+ very well, even if it would require the rebalancing of the entire endgame, basically.

But then what would be the point of raiding other tiers of raids once you're fully epic-geared? I'm glad you asked! A lot of the current epics from later (eg more difficult mechanically-wise) raids could be converted to legendaries, with special effects that alter a core class ability. These will be hard to get, and you would only be able to equip up to 3 legendaries at once (even if there will be legenaries of almost every slot available).

Epics should also be harder to get. A lot of the current (weaker) epics should be converted to rares. This way being full-epic geared will actually mean something and be something you must work towards.
Class sets will be geared towards different specs, but T3 will not be stronger (not have more stat budget) than T1 for example.
So when introducing new class sets (T3.5 and T4), they could give each class new specs or make new hybrid builds possible/viable. So the endgame now becomes trying out new specs and builds and collecting gear for them, instead of staying one spec the entire time.
For all the apparent drawbacks and huge development time needed for this horizontal progression, it does have its merits, namely that everyone will now be on roughly equal footing and the PvP scene will be more fair. Also, content will no longer be trivialized by having better gear. It will surely help if your entire raid is epic-geared, but people in rares can use consumables to catch up instead, and epic-geared people can use consumes to play on easy mode (git gud lol).
___

ANYWAY, end of rant, this will never be implemented, but it was nice to dream for a while :)

Can't speak specifically to some of your suggestions (my endgame experience with Vanilla wow is pitiful) but I think you've hit on something here which is that they are going to have to start having some exotic ideas if they intend to have a 5 year plan for this server.

I understand people are opposed to raising the level cap but further development of relevant content is going to require solutions to this scaling problem sooner rather than later.

[Kalocsa]

Keep making better and better set, with bigger stats past Naxxramas could be a huge mistake since t2,5 is already overpowering a lot of classes in pve and pvp.

The optimization of the gear dragunovi is intending to do is also not great at a certain point in my advice.

Spirit has been erased from many items. And this is one of the most tragic re-itemization made for dps optimization (t1 for paladins for example?) So then what's the point of optimizing more and more items and erazing spirit?

I'm also the kind of guy that play rogue in pvp with a full spirit gear, and all this new itemization destroyed my optimized spirit gear because of the changes. (yep, this is a very op thing in pvp)

Considering how spells work in vanilla like Evocate for mage and Innervate for druids, the lack of spirit makes these spells weak, the T3 mage set have not much spirit and then, evocate is nerfed.

In other terms, they implemented a lot of nice features like -1% crit res, vampirism and other very nice features that could be implemented for some various aspects of the gameplay, and the horizontal progress that Imonobor is talking about, should be THE most interesting way to keep implementing new items.

[Akos1896]

That's a very good point.
But in case of horizontal loot progression people would be less motivated to raid. They usually go for upgrades.
Curious how the team will tackle this.

[Xudo]

I recently posted a proposal regarding gear tiers:
How to make new gear tier without OP items
In short - devs can play with +spell/attack power against undead/giants/beasts/dragonkin to make multiple different items tailored against specific dungeon.
Final boss reward from every dungeon can grant you strong item with general-purpose stats. Different dungeons provide item for different slots. So you can gather super gear, but need to complete every raid/dungeon in game.

[Erousagi]

C'Thun and Naxx gears have a 10+ ilvl gap from BWL, big enough to make T3 still relevant at fresh 70 till you get heroic dungeon gears in vanilla tbc, so designing T3.5 and T4 is indeed need to be very cautious if they want to follow the same ilvl gap betwen each tier, especially so far twow custom items are mostly have better stats optimization over vanilla items.

Also with 2 more raids into schedule, it will tear many semi-casual guilds up, ppl who are going to do T3+ contents will inevitable drop lower tier contents which many guilds social activities are built on.

If I had a choice I'd make Upper Kara a 20man catchup raid like ZG/AQ20 but T2.5 level range since Lower Kara is pretty much a T1.5 level catchup raid; and Grim Batol a T3.25 ish 40man raid with small upgrade from Naxx

[Atreidon]

Its very dangerous to powercreep T3 items - The custom tank rogue spell had already to be nerfed substantially because rogues in bis gear could become melee immune.

But also other specs could become quite ridiculous if the items from naxx get powercrept. A Paladin healer needs a lot less mana the more his critchance climbs. And in similar ways Seal Fate rogue, Firemage and Boomkins performance varies wildly with how much crit they have. Fury warrior is another example of a class that just scales insanely well with gear and will only cement his positions in the meters if the gear can become better.

For those reasons i am intimidated by their intent to full on powercreep T3 pieces. Having minor upgrades due to slight stat optimisations will probably not be all too gamebreaking, but if we have as big of a powerdifference between the previous tiers, its no doubt gonna be a massive impact on the metagame.
That doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing, but i really think the potential T3.5 & T4 sets should be made public & be open to feedback before they are being introduced as obtainable items. As it will undoubtably have knock on effects on many other aspects of the game than just raiding

[Sleeplust]

That's a very good point.
But in case of horizontal loot progression people would be less motivated to raid. They usually go for upgrades.
Curious how the team will tackle this.

If the ladder of difficulty is organised as it was initially designed in Turtle system, theoretically we shouldn't worry about the lack of players' motivation for raids, because they can build more linking dungeons or lesser raids between T1 and T3 levels. If they break the barrier of T3 as a top standard of gears, they will eventually have to bring item-level 125 to 141 gears to satiate old players, rather than attracting more player with sustainable and extant contents.
After all, we can now (March, 2024) find people organising raids like "17-man MC". To me, the better choice is correcting the stats of T3 gears that have already been OP for years by nerfing them. Turtle WoW players would be understanding to the solution. I would feel it seems like a Blizz's original Cataclysm server when the damage is ill-inflated.

[Imonobor]

Another option would be to stat squish current t3, to lessen the difference between 60 blues and t3, then build the stats for t3.5 and t4 back to where t3 was.
If they go down that route though they'd have to be prepared for a ton of whining due to the gear nerfs.

[Sleeplust]

Another option would be to stat squish current t3, to lessen the difference between 60 blues and t3, then build the stats for t3.5 and t4 back to where t3 was.
If they go down that route though they'd have to be prepared for a ton of whining due to the gear nerfs.

As I mentioned, the whining would eventually be diminished by the voice of understanding. As we know, the mass public can be short-sighted, only focusing on visible merits, just like in the history when we felt excited about mount flying in old regions.

[Reploidrocsa]

They'll probably add standarized geared bg's once alternative tier sets are implemented so everyone can pvp in a similar level

[Invokersama]

honestly no, i wish we stay with T3 as top roof gear because of gap between end game and fresh game content, also pvp :P

T3 is already strong, i think T3.5 and T4 will be too strong to the game, i wish the new raids was alternative raids (T3,T2,T1 raids) with alternative loot that give something different than original raids do, like items with fun effect or procs or gear for different spec ( i guess Legacy sets fix that issue ) or different road to gear over all, rather then (naxx <---BWL <---MC) like lower kara and AQ20 or ZG for example. like if Upper Kara was T3 and Grim Batol as T2, welp that my opinion any way XD


but based on my experience with turtle wow, i turst turtle wow dev , i guess we have to wait until update come out and see if it's good or bad idea

not like we gonna stop them they already working in it :P

(sorry for bad english)

[Turtlenitis]

Why everyone afraid of the change? because of pvp on pve server? All arguments I see are T4 will be better thn T3 (duh) and some analysis of what will happen but fail to see the problem. Who cares about MC beeing 10 man if guild progressing through T4 content, I don't even get why woud people go to MC/BWL atall (aside the fact of slaving to officers to get them TF drops and couple of nostalgic trinks but thats their personal issues).
And yeah, rogue as a tank with over 100% avoidense is stupid and needs to be removed.

[Sleeplust]

honestly no, i wish we stay with T3 as top roof gear because of gap between end game and fresh game content, also pvp :P

T3 is already strong, i think T3.5 and T4 will be too strong to the game, i wish the new raids was alternative raids (T3,T2,T1 raids) with alternative loot that give something different than original raids do, like items with fun effect or procs or gear for different spec ( i guess Legacy sets fix that issue ) or different road to gear over all, rather then (naxx <---BWL <---MC) like lower kara and AQ20 or ZG for example. like if Upper Kara was T3 and Grim Batol as T2, welp that my opinion any way XD


but based on my experience with turtle wow, i turst turtle wow dev , i guess we have to wait until update come out and see if it's good or bad idea

not like we gonna stop them they already working in it :P

(sorry for bad english)

If it is unwise to squish current T3 gears, I still hold a generally same idea like yours. The new T4, if they were eventually online in TWOW, would be at around the same gear-level of loots in TBC's first heroic dungeons, making the old contents even more negligible to players. Now we have already witnessed "17-man RAQ" or "20-man MC" in world channels, which isn't a good phenomenon.

[Turtlenitis]

20man MC is basicly the same as 40 man due to flexraid thingy, mobs become weaker as mancount drops upto 20 people.

[Akos1896]

Number-wise yes but downscaling raids is a huge nerf to raid difficulty.
Vanilla raids have some gear requirement of course but their main difficulty is finding enough people and making sure noone makes anything really stupid. Making raids much smaller increased raid consistency by a lot.

[Elleshar]

Some good points in this thread about that pvp gear needs updating too and lore reason as well, aside from that I don't see that much problem tbh. The items from future raids maybe doesn't always need to be just straight up stat upgrades compared to everything found in naxx but can instead offer different itemization alternatives in some cases, like more for niche builds etc.

Also think it would be cool with heroic 5 man dungeons or harder vanilla dungeons with some better loots too, adding optional sections/bosses for exisiting dungeons or new ones.