wow Patch 7.1.5: Secondary Stats Tweaks

[Stan 5,020]

Patch 7.1.5 brings tweaks to secondary stats as mentioned in the post-BlizzCon Q/A. The developers shared their insight how they are fixing the issue and highlighted several goals.

• Players are currently passing up +15 item levels in favor of secondary stats. This issue is fixed by increasing the amount of rating you need per percentage of a secondary stat.
• To improve rings and necks by only having secondary stats means that your choices of secondary stats in Legion are impactful, however, secondary stat distribution still dominates the choice of which items to equip. In 7.1.5, they increased how item level affects the amount of stats on Legion rings and necks. Significant item level jumps will be a clearer indicator of an upgrade. There are still situations where secondary stats are still a prevailing indicator to item level on Legion rings and necks.
• The last goal is not to lower player power. While in the latest build, player power is down a few percent compared to live. To make up for this As a compensation, a future build will increase the amount of stats granted by all items above item level 800 to account for this gap, such that the overall power of equipped items is the same if not slightly higher than it is now in 7.1.
• Additional tuning on a spec-by-spec basis will be done, because this will affect all classes differently.

TL;DR

• Item level will become a more impactful indicator related to upgrades in Patch 7.1.5.
• The amount of rating required per percentage of a secondary stat has been increased.
• These changes will impact classes differently and more tuning will come on a spec-by-spec basis.

Here's a blue post by Josh Alen.

Lore

The changes to secondary stat ratings in 7.1.5 have a few goals, and certain pieces are not yet in the current build.

Goal 1: Increase the importance of item level as a guideline for upgrading items. Moreso than in the past, large item level increases are not a reliable indicator of an upgrade due to the variance in power of secondary stats on an item. Increasing the amount of rating that you need per percentage of a secondary stat tips the balance of an item’s power more heavily toward primary stat. We’re okay with very small item level upgrades being a tougher choice, but some specs are currently passing up 15+ item levels in favor of secondary stats. That shouldn’t be something players are encouraged to do – with the occasional exception on rings and necks, which brings us to our second goal.

Goal 2: Improve rings and necks. The removal of primary stats from those slots on Legion gear means that your choices of secondary stats there are impactful, which we like. However, they still suffer from the problem of secondary stat distribution dominating the choice of which item to equip. We’ve increased how heavily item level affects the amount of stats on Legion rings and necks in 7.1.5, which will make significant item level jumps a clearer indicator of an upgrade on these slots. You’ll still find situations in which secondary stat choice is more important than item level for rings and necks, which is intentional; we’re just dialing it back a bit.

Goal 3: Don’t lower player power. This is a key part of the overall strategy that isn’t yet complete. Right now, on the PTR, player power is definitely down a few percent compared to live. The next build will have changes that increase the total amount of stats given by all items above level 800 to account for this gap, such that the overall power of your equipped items should be about the same (if not slightly higher) than it is currently in 7.1. 

As you might expect, these changes will affect some classes more strongly than others. More overall character power will come from your primary stats than it did before, so all of your abilities will hit harder, even if they crit less or happen less frequently. Additionally, as we continue tuning for Patch 7.1.5, we’ll make adjustments as necessary on a spec-by-spec basis.

Apologies if I'm reading this wrong. But it sounds like the plan is to make us require more of a secondary stat, then provide us a higher value of secondary stats on existing gear. Isn't this counterproductive or am I just derp?
It's a tough bit of mathematical gymnastics that's tough to explain succinctly, but the long and the short of it is that the way that the item's primary stat (or sheer amount of secondary stats, in the case of rings and necks) make the higher-ilevel piece an upgrade more often.

I think they need to look into specs that rely on extreme cases of secondary dependence and adjust those specs accordingly. This blanket nerf is going to cause more problems.
That's what I was getting at in the last paragraph.

(Source)

[Orthios 271]

From what I know, some classes are looking at 20-30% nerfs just from this alone, while others are down closer to 10%.

[Valks 2,373]

3 hours ago, Orthios said:

From what I know, some classes are looking at 20-30% nerfs just from this alone, while others are down closer to 10%.

Hopefully with enough testing and feedback from the community, they can properly adjust the stat amounts then to account for this.

[Ulathar 1]

Increasing primary Stats might be okay for dd and heal classes, but is there even a single tank class that actually benefites from primary stats in terms of survivability?

Especially looking at prot pala and blood dk i just don't see how they could compensate for the massiv nerf to secondary stats (loosing almost 5% haste, 3,3% crit und 2% versa with my blood dk on ptr right now).

 

[Valks 2,373]

15 hours ago, Ulathar said:

Increasing primary Stats might be okay for dd and heal classes, but is there even a single tank class that actually benefites from primary stats in terms of survivability?

Especially looking at prot pala and blood dk i just don't see how they could compensate for the massiv nerf to secondary stats (loosing almost 5% haste, 3,3% crit und 2% versa with my blood dk on ptr right now).

Strength at least gives Blood DK a chance to parry. It's not much, but it's something.

[Ulathar 1]

yes but at a very VERY tiny scale... Almost not noticeable :).

also don't forget, that - in case of blood dks - they also nerf some of the rune/ressource generating talents pretty hard which alongside those haste nerfs is a serious hit to survivability and "flow" of the spec in general...

 

€dit: just read the new PTR changelogs from today, looks like they increased the base stats by only 5%.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Ulathar

[Valks 2,373]

19 hours ago, Ulathar said:

yes but at a very VERY tiny scale... Almost not noticeable :).

Yeah, I meant it more as a "it's not much, but it's something!" - for Paladins, I believe it does nothing.

[TBozz 0]

I know its still technically early days as nothing has hit live yet but is there any indication of how these changes affects us in terms of gearing? There's only a week till Nighthold and I see a potential mad scrabble to ensure we're all geared correctly! Personally I am playing Prot Paladin at the moment, having moved away from Blood DK. Unfortunately I chose to be lazy and have not looked on the ptr at all.... Any help would be greatly appreciated ;)

[Valks 2,373]

On 1/9/2017 at 10:55 AM, TBozz said:

I know its still technically early days as nothing has hit live yet but is there any indication of how these changes affects us in terms of gearing?

Basically, it doesn't.