100786-itemization-and-stats-in-wildstar-whats-being-done-about-it

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Has Carbine commented specifically on what they are doing to address serious itemization issues in the game?
 
The heavy weight of assault power for PvE classes unbalances everything. AP is king and undermines all other stats. This is the core of pretty much every other itemization issue in this game.
The quantity and type of rune slots matters more then the rest of the stats on an item for most pieces of gear. If it doesn't have fire/fusion/logic the item is trash, other rune slots do not matter.
PvP to PvE (or vice versa) - one of my most hated things in an MMO. If Wildstar had launched with just PvP servers I would have passed over it right there and not given it another thought. I would not have pre-ordered, I would not have subbed. Another PvP-based MMO - that's fine, just not a game for me. But here we go again - you're making the same mistakes so many other MMO's have made before you. With the weight of AP as a DPS stat in the game item budget points invested in PvP-only stats on arena weapons just don't matter. Several pieces of the best PvE gear (even better than some items found in 20-man raids let alone pre-raid) is obtained via PvP only. PvP arena bags, obtainable even for losing matches drop talent point and AMP point upgrades. Where are these in dungeons? In raids? In world drops? As quest rewards? I haven't ever seen any - only obtainable in PvE via an endless grind of dailies for elder gems. Many PvPers have been able to obtain all obtainable AMP point and abilitiy point increases already. As a PvE player who has played since release, completed nearly all the silver dungeons (save one) and got gold on every adventure many many times I have only been able (thus far) get enough elder gems for two ability points...just two.
 
I have seen some vague posts that the balance of AP is being looked at but nothing specifically addressing PvP to PvE.
 
Thanks	
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This will answer all your questions..as well as create new ones.
 
Enjoy.
 
http://www.twitch.tv/wildstar/c/4676170	
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Yah watch Jeff Tallon as he sits there thinking that all is right with the world, when him and his team have clearly messed up a LOT of stuff.
 
Use more excel sheets mate. Remember: RAND() is your friend. Everyone likes more RAND(). RAND() some stats, RAND() some runes. Awesome!
Also, everyone wants Focus Recovery on Heavy Armor. We want more of that please! While you're at it, make sure you make raid drops with Deflect and Deflect Crit on the Brut/Finesse/Moxie gear. That's always useful!	
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Yah watch Jeff Tallon as he sits there thinking that all is right with the world, when him and his team have clearly messed up a LOT of stuff.
 
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I have to admit, I gave him a massive +10 for that reply.
 
But he's still on about -90 in my books...
 
How do you set world drops for AMP/Ability points at 100 times lower than you wanted to? That's not even... just wow. A factor of 100 out? WTF. If I did that in my job, people would die (literally). I know people wouldn't die in this, but still... that's a colossal mess up. One he acknowledges with a "eh. It happens". Also, it's just one of a huge number of them that seems to come out of the itemization crew. (all except stat weights really, which is class devs problem).	
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Please continue to give us feedback, with slightly less flames. Unless it's directed at me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not a hero. Because I'm the Itemization Lead Wildstar deserves.
 
I'm Batman.
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Alright, let's do this:
 
Assault Power/Support Power:
We're looking at adjusting the way AP/SP scales per budget point, scales from Primary Stat, and is gained from Runes and Imbuements. The most generalized summary of this will be that AP/SP from Primary Stat will go up for some classes and pure AP/SP per budget point and from runes will likely go down, such that Primary Stat will be more valuable in some circumstances and pure AP/SP will be more valuable in other circumstances. We will have more information on this when it is closer to being released (and tested on PTR).
 
Runes and Runecrafting:
I'm not gonna lie. This system needs a lot of rework. We'll be looking into in the next couple of weeks focusing mostly on the following major issues.
1) Random Rune Counts suck. This directly affects the items actual power level. And generally is just a very bad thing balance-wise. We're looking at reeling this in heavily.
2) Random Rune Colors also suck, but less so. We'll probably keep a lot of the random variance in rune colors but are looking at ways to mitigate this as much as possible. We're considering potentially adding ways to reroll colors and/or adding new runes to fill in gaps where certain colors are either extremely valuable or woefully unwanted to some players.
3) Runes are fairly expensive and replaced too quickly in the leveling experience to be worthwhile. One of the ideas we're tossing around is potentially adding a "weakened" version of the basic runes to a vendor. These would add less bonus and be much cheaper, basically be throw-away runes, and would be more of an incentive to participate in the rune system and actually rune your items as you level up. Definitely not a final plan, just letting you know we're actively thinking about it.
4) Rune Sets (and Item Specials, and also Gadgets) can vary from basically the best thing since individually wrapped cheese slices to something closer to a wet paper towel. We're looking at balancing a lot of these out in the next few patches and adding new ones where we feel we are lacking options for certain playstyles.
 
AMP/Ability Points and Trigger Fingers
So, this one I will actually apologize for, again. Yeah, it was a bug and bugs happen. But, it was a pretty impactful bug to a lot of people. I'm sorry it took us as long as it did to find and fix those two.
 
Hmm, what else? There's a lot of other things. We're taking a few weeks now, after we've gotten ahead on new content implementation for future patches, to work exclusively on exactly these types of issues - fixing bugs, auditing our systems, and making QoL improvements. It's ... a very long list.
 
Please continue to give us feedback, with slightly less flames. Unless it's directed at me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not a hero. Because I'm the Itemization Lead Wildstar deserves.
 
I'm Batman.
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3) Runes are fairly expensive and replaced too quickly in the leveling experience to be worthwhile. One of the ideas we're tossing around is potentially adding a "weakened" version of the basic runes to a vendor. These would add less bonus and be much cheaper, basically be throw-away runes, and would be more of an incentive to participate in the rune system and actually rune your items as you level up. Definitely not a final plan, just letting you know we're actively thinking about it.
 
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This will answer all your questions..as well as create new ones.
 
Enjoy.
 
http://www.twitch.tv/wildstar/c/4676170
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The issue is NOT the cost while leveling up. It's that gear is replaced too quickly with higher level quest drops to make it worthwhile to bother putting runes in the first place!  People aren't even bothering to repair their gear because it's cheaper to ignore it due to knowing that it will be replaced quickly. Do you really think under those circumstances that they're going to bother spending money on runes?
 
 
 
Just put TF and several other important runes in a rep vendor somewhere and be done with it. People should not EVER be required to hope for random drops to obtain core mechanics/abilities for their class!
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I like how the main item dude is wearing a RIFT shirt, essentially promoting their competition.
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Ohhh I like the disposable vendor runeset idea.
Gotta disagree with Seraph there. I'm one of the no doubt many people who saw rune prices during leveling, saw the potential benefits, and decided to wait until level cap to bother. Cheap weak versions sounds like an excellent idea. :)
 
Another option might be to rebalance the materials required for crafting? You know: Make level cap rune sets use only high level rune materials but much more of them (e.g. Eldan fragments are almost worthless right now because the market is flooded, while normal fragments still sell for several gold despite the well known vendor-salvage-"trick".
Obviously this would disrupt the rune economy and allow some people to amass vast amounts of platinum, but that's usually what happens with item rebalancing from my experience.	
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			Can we expect these changes for Drop 3 or do we have to wait longer than that?	
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Can we expect these changes for Drop 3 or do we have to wait longer than that?
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Alright, let's do this:
 
Assault Power/Support Power:
We're looking at adjusting the way AP/SP scales per budget point, scales from Primary Stat, and is gained from Runes and Imbuements. The most generalized summary of this will be that AP/SP from Primary Stat will go up for some classes and pure AP/SP per budget point and from runes will likely go down, such that Primary Stat will be more valuable in some circumstances and pure AP/SP will be more valuable in other circumstances. We will have more information on this when it is closer to being released (and tested on PTR).
 
Runes and Runecrafting:
I'm not gonna lie. This system needs a lot of rework. We'll be looking into in the next couple of weeks focusing mostly on the following major issues.
1) Random Rune Counts suck. This directly affects the items actual power level. And generally is just a very bad thing balance-wise. We're looking at reeling this in heavily.
2) Random Rune Colors also suck, but less so. We'll probably keep a lot of the random variance in rune colors but are looking at ways to mitigate this as much as possible. We're considering potentially adding ways to reroll colors and/or adding new runes to fill in gaps where certain colors are either extremely valuable or woefully unwanted to some players.
3) Runes are fairly expensive and replaced too quickly in the leveling experience to be worthwhile. One of the ideas we're tossing around is potentially adding a "weakened" version of the basic runes to a vendor. These would add less bonus and be much cheaper, basically be throw-away runes, and would be more of an incentive to participate in the rune system and actually rune your items as you level up. Definitely not a final plan, just letting you know we're actively thinking about it.
4) Rune Sets (and Item Specials, and also Gadgets) can vary from basically the best thing since individually wrapped cheese slices to something closer to a wet paper towel. We're looking at balancing a lot of these out in the next few patches and adding new ones where we feel we are lacking options for certain playstyles.
 
AMP/Ability Points and Trigger Fingers
So, this one I will actually apologize for, again. Yeah, it was a bug and bugs happen. But, it was a pretty impactful bug to a lot of people. I'm sorry it took us as long as it did to find and fix those two.
 
Hmm, what else? There's a lot of other things. We're taking a few weeks now, after we've gotten ahead on new content implementation for future patches, to work exclusively on exactly these types of issues - fixing bugs, auditing our systems, and making QoL improvements. It's ... a very long list.
 
Please continue to give us feedback, with slightly less flames. Unless it's directed at me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not a hero. Because I'm the Itemization Lead Wildstar deserves.
 
I'm Batman.
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You mean the boom boom pvp lookit at this new battleground drop?
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I like how the main item dude is wearing a RIFT shirt, essentially promoting their competition.
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Well he did work for Trion previously, which is a plus in my opinion.  Rift was a great game until the expansion, at which point it just felt like it lacked something the base game had.
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{| class="blockquote"
Alright, let's do this:
 
Assault Power/Support Power:
We're looking at adjusting the way AP/SP scales per budget point, scales from Primary Stat, and is gained from Runes and Imbuements. The most generalized summary of this will be that AP/SP from Primary Stat will go up for some classes and pure AP/SP per budget point and from runes will likely go down, such that Primary Stat will be more valuable in some circumstances and pure AP/SP will be more valuable in other circumstances. We will have more information on this when it is closer to being released (and tested on PTR).
 
Runes and Runecrafting:
I'm not gonna lie. This system needs a lot of rework. We'll be looking into in the next couple of weeks focusing mostly on the following major issues.
1) Random Rune Counts suck. This directly affects the items actual power level. And generally is just a very bad thing balance-wise. We're looking at reeling this in heavily.
AMP/Ability Points and Trigger Fingers
So, this one I will actually apologize for, again. Yeah, it was a bug and bugs happen. But, it was a pretty impactful bug to a lot of people. I'm sorry it took us as long as it did to find and fix those two.
 
Hmm, what else? There's a lot of other things. We're taking a few weeks now, after we've gotten ahead on new content implementation for future patches, to work exclusively on exactly these types of issues - fixing bugs, auditing our systems, and making QoL improvements. It's ... a very long list.
 
Please continue to give us feedback, with slightly less flames. Unless it's directed at me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not a hero. Because I'm the Itemization Lead Wildstar deserves.
 
I'm Batman.
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The heavy weight of assault power for PvE classes unbalances everything. AP is king and undermines all other stats. This is the core of pretty much every other itemization issue in this game.
The quantity and type of rune slots matters more then the rest of the stats on an item for most pieces of gear. If it doesn't have fire/fusion/logic the item is trash, other rune slots do not matter
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AMP/Ability Points and Trigger Fingers
So, this one I will actually apologize for, again. Yeah, it was a bug and bugs happen. But, it was a pretty impactful bug to a lot of people. I'm sorry it took us as long as it did to find and fix those two.
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J-tal, I promise I'll stop posting that picture if only you read my thread:
 
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/100749-nerfs-are-the-only-solution/
 
 
sorry for the click bait title, but it didn't work anyway because some mod moved the thread into nomans land of "crafting and economy"
 
Thanks for the update	
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sorry for the click bait title, but it didn't work anyway because some mod moved the thread into nomans land of "crafting and economy"
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			I had a huge post which was simply deleted. This forum software has to be kidding me. 	
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			When can we expect this? And will it be done in one go or in waves cause don't think re runing a few times makes anyone fill up with smiles and happiness.	
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much respect J-tal
looks like some good changes coming
 
 
/removes pins from J-tal voodoo doll.
 
 
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Another option might be to rebalance the materials required for crafting? You know: Make level cap rune sets use only high level rune materials but much more of them (e.g. Eldan fragments are almost worthless right now because the market is flooded, while normal fragments still sell for several gold despite the well known vendor-salvage-"trick".
Obviously this would disrupt the rune economy and allow some people to amass vast amounts of platinum, but that's usually what happens with item rebalancing from my experience.
 
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Deja vu.  I had to make sure I wasn't on the D3 forums.  Ya know... DPS stat > all, weapons without a socket being salvage trash, gear rolling with stats that are worthless to the only classes that can use it.
 
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Alright, let's do this:
 
Assault Power/Support Power:
We're looking at adjusting the way AP/SP scales per budget point, scales from Primary Stat, and is gained from Runes and Imbuements. The most generalized summary of this will be that AP/SP from Primary Stat will go up for some classes and pure AP/SP per budget point and from runes will likely go down, such that Primary Stat will be more valuable in some circumstances and pure AP/SP will be more valuable in other circumstances. We will have more information on this when it is closer to being released (and tested on PTR).
 
Runes and Runecrafting:
I'm not gonna lie. This system needs a lot of rework. We'll be looking into in the next couple of weeks focusing mostly on the following major issues.
1) Random Rune Counts suck. This directly affects the items actual power level. And generally is just a very bad thing balance-wise. We're looking at reeling this in heavily.
2) Random Rune Colors also suck, but less so. We'll probably keep a lot of the random variance in rune colors but are looking at ways to mitigate this as much as possible. We're considering potentially adding ways to reroll colors and/or adding new runes to fill in gaps where certain colors are either extremely valuable or woefully unwanted to some players.
3) Runes are fairly expensive and replaced too quickly in the leveling experience to be worthwhile. One of the ideas we're tossing around is potentially adding a "weakened" version of the basic runes to a vendor. These would add less bonus and be much cheaper, basically be throw-away runes, and would be more of an incentive to participate in the rune system and actually rune your items as you level up. Definitely not a final plan, just letting you know we're actively thinking about it.
4) Rune Sets (and Item Specials, and also Gadgets) can vary from basically the best thing since individually wrapped cheese slices to something closer to a wet paper towel. We're looking at balancing a lot of these out in the next few patches and adding new ones where we feel we are lacking options for certain playstyles.
 
AMP/Ability Points and Trigger Fingers
So, this one I will actually apologize for, again. Yeah, it was a bug and bugs happen. But, it was a pretty impactful bug to a lot of people. I'm sorry it took us as long as it did to find and fix those two.
 
Hmm, what else? There's a lot of other things. We're taking a few weeks now, after we've gotten ahead on new content implementation for future patches, to work exclusively on exactly these types of issues - fixing bugs, auditing our systems, and making QoL improvements. It's ... a very long list.
 
Please continue to give us feedback, with slightly less flames. Unless it's directed at me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not a hero. Because I'm the Itemization Lead Wildstar deserves.
 
I'm Batman.
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@J-TAL:
I was the OP in the original dog thread. First I'd like to say that you have convinced me that you at least understand the issues. In the mean time I have another proposed solution to your game issues which i believe would be much easier than a complete stat rework, though it may only be a stop gap when something more would be required. 
 
Step 1, make every kind of rune have every attribute available to it (including AP/SP). Step 2, since this means everyone will fill every slot with AP runes causing an overall increase in AP in the macro sense, it would be fair to slightly reduce the value of each (i.e. drop 2-3 points from each 100% rune depending on quality of item). Step 3, make the set bonuses MUCH more valuable and disassociate them from AP/SP runes.
 
In doing this you alleviate some of the concerns of randomness of rune slots because you can get a great stat (AP/SP) out of every rune even if the slot is not one you would normally like. For example as a DPS warrior I cringe every time I see water runes. However, you can keep some value and RNG into item drops by forcing certain slots be required for certain sets. Further if sets were actually valuable, I might consider dropping the attribute AP rune in order to get the less valuable stat set rune. It provides the player with meaningful choice that is not tied to individual items. For example, if the assassin proc did more than two DPS (yes, two, not a typo) I would consider taking maybe a moxie rune of assassin over a AP rune. Assassin would be just the start too, if you could make other sets give powerful versions of the Rage or Impact specials that would also be great. It would provide some meaningful choice. 
 
Somewhat of a side issue, but sets that alter play styles or rotations are great, but need to be made viable. I'm going to stick with the warrior example because it's what I know. Lingering Charge sucks, but in theory it's interesting. to use properly, as i understand it, a warrior has to take stance danger and cycle back and forth rapidly to drop the proc repeatedly. This has a couple problems 1. Stance dancing involves a lot of extra GCD's which reduce me swinging my sword from 'always" to "some of the time." This is inherently bad because swinging my sword is how I do damage. 2 the damage the proc does doesn't jsutify the time lost nor the additional threat generated by the procs that occur while I'm in tank stance. 
 
In my head, with a system like this a raid drop would go as follows: I have a mix of raid/dungeon items mixed with crafted items. A raid item drops which is an upgrade but the rune slots it has will break a valuable set I have. I then have 2 options, 1, break the set completely and replace all runes with valuable AP runes, or 2. re-craft some of my crafted gear to get different rune slots which support the set and fix it. meanful player choices! 
 
 
 
P.S. I appreciate the time you take to address forum issues. You handle this better than some of the other Devs.
 
P.P.S. I also appreciate that you udnerstand runes are expensive. On my server augmented runes go for 50+g, Shadow blast runes go from 1p+ and intricate runes vary between 10-15g. 	
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AMP/Ability Points and Trigger Fingers
So, this one I will actually apologize for, again. Yeah, it was a bug and bugs happen. But, it was a pretty impactful bug to a lot of people. I'm sorry it took us as long as it did to find and fix those two.
 
I'm Batman.
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@J-Tal Too
 
<3
 
I am so happy right now I may even re-sub. Thank you for understanding !!
I know I "called you out" there, but shiz, I'm glad I did if you respond like that.
THANK YOU.	
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Step 1, make every kind of rune have every attribute available to it (including AP/SP).
Step 2, since this means everyone will fill every slot with AP runes causing an overall increase in AP in the macro sense, it would be fair to slightly reduce the value of each (i.e. drop 2-3 points from each 100% rune depending on quality of item).
Step 3, make the set bonuses MUCH more valuable and disassociate them from AP/SP runes.
 
In doing this you alleviate some of the concerns of randomness of rune slots because you can get a great stat (AP/SP) out of every rune even if the slot is not one you would normally like. For example as a DPS warrior I cringe every time I see water runes. However, you can keep some value and RNG into item drops by forcing certain slots be required for certain sets. Further if sets were actually valuable, I might consider dropping the attribute AP rune in order to get the less valuable stat set rune. It provides the player with meaningful choice that is not tied to individual items. For example, if the assassin proc did more than two DPS (yes, two, not a typo) I would consider taking maybe a moxie rune of assassin over a AP rune. Assassin would be just the start too, if you could make other sets give powerful versions of the Rage or Impact specials that would also be great. It would provide some meaningful choice. 
 
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			Not quite sure what all of this means but if my 1800 DPS Medic set is stuck with Earth Primary then you've inadvertently gimped me even more than Merkal has with his balance attempts. 	
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I have a question about AMP/Ability points. You said in one of the devspeaks on twitch (and I'm paraphrasing) that buying those for elder gems was considered a backup solution for players if they got unlucky with world drops (feel free to clarify if I'm mistaken). The hotfixed droprate was supposed to help putting it in line with that. Do you feel it's at a point where the droprate corresponds to that design philosophy? I'm only asking because it still seems to me that they are way too rare to rare for that purpose.
 
In any case, even if you don't respond to this directly, it would be good to know the general idea behind it at some point.
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Honestly, I don't know but ... OMG why aren't these Auctionable!
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I understand you guys are under pressure to meet your monthly drops, but honestly... no one cares about them if the game is a mess.
Please do this:
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Also running an audit on the entire Rune system and finding some very ... interesting things.
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with the upcoming patch on PVP stats, will it be better off getting PVP runes/runesets and scrap all our assault power runes that cost 20 plat to build? Or wil they still be a very good choice or on par with the PVP runes.
 
 It's great and all but we aren't billionaires especially pvp players.  :(	
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What about adventus crafted items being BiS until almost datascape gear, is that working as intended?
 
Cause the itemization on some of the set pieces that i'm seeing makes them rather well inferior picks, due to how much brutality for example you can stack for pure AP and AP being and remaining our priority stat throughout everything without there seeing to be any diminishing returns on just stacking it.	
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What about adventus crafted items being BiS until almost datascape gear, is that working as intended?
 
Cause the itemization on some of the set pieces that i'm seeing makes them rather well inferior picks, due to how much brutality for example you can stack for pure AP and AP being and remaining our priority stat throughout everything without there seeing to be any diminishing returns on just stacking it.
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So far in my experience, those amp/ability point tokens DO NOT drop for me ever.
 
I don't get them in PvP bags.
Challenges do not drop them.
And most certainly world mobs don't either.
 
There is only one single way I can get these and that is for 320-400 elder gems per off a vendor. Gee, 54 odd weeks from now I might catch up to the arena/architect exploiters who will never be punished. WOO!
 
I have played a metric ton of this game since launch btw but still these do not drop. Am I bugged? Or is it simply what ever they did to increase the drop rates was so miniscule it did absoulutely nothing?
 
#frustratedwithWS	
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3) Runes are fairly expensive and replaced too quickly in the leveling experience to be worthwhile. One of the ideas we're tossing around is potentially adding a "weakened" version of the basic runes to a vendor. These would add less bonus and be much cheaper, basically be throw-away runes, and would be more of an incentive to participate in the rune system and actually rune your items as you level up. Definitely not a final plan, just letting you know we're actively thinking about it.
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Just an FYI:
The issue with AP being too strong for every dps class is not JTal's job.
That's the class / mechanics devs who screwed up the formulas by making the other things (Crit, etc) too weak until you stack mountains and mountains of them.
Jeff would do the items, so he would have made the raid drops that have all that crit on them, but he would not have had (any?) input on how useful crit is to each class.
 
There is a problem with crit hit / crit sev, where you have two stats which multiply together to form the one actual-dps-increasing thing. Thus, as one goes up, the value of the other increases, and vice-versa. If you had Enough points to allocate (Eventually - but it would need to be A LOT), then assuming current linear scaling, they will both end up being so strong you would end up stacking CHit to 100%, and CSev indefinitely, and ignore AP.
 
Obviously this is pretty tough to balance for, as AP affects each ability you have uniformly, but CHit/CSev depend on the level of each other as to how useful they are.
The only way is to have some kind of diminishing returns on them (logarithmic ratings), and a higher initial RoI for the other ratings (or lower for AP).
 
I'm sure it's something they will eventually fix, because they have to!, but why they didn't see this coming and fix it before they released the game really boggles my mind. This is the sort of stuff alpha testing will tell you, let alone beta testing.	
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Shhhh. Stacking main stat rares isn't the best option until loot 2.0 comes out.
 
I mean wait... deja vu. Whats happening? Legendaries (or epics in this case) aren't worth a poop?
 
Did I time travel (and switch games?)
 
This seems all to familiar with an action-rpg type multiplayer game.
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Just an FYI:
The issue with AP being too strong for every dps class is not JTal's job.
That's the class / mechanics devs who screwed up the formulas by making the other things (Crit, etc) too weak until you stack mountains and mountains of them.
Jeff would do the items, so he would have made the raid drops that have all that crit on them, but he would not have had (any?) input on how useful crit is to each class.
 
There is a problem with crit hit / crit sev, where you have two stats which multiply together to form the one actual-dps-increasing thing. Thus, as one goes up, the value of the other increases, and vice-versa. If you had Enough points to allocate (Eventually - but it would need to be A LOT), then assuming current linear scaling, they will both end up being so strong you would end up stacking CHit to 100%, and CSev indefinitely, and ignore AP.
 
Obviously this is pretty tough to balance for, as AP affects each ability you have uniformly, but CHit/CSev depend on the level of each other as to how useful they are.
The only way is to have some kind of diminishing returns on them (logarithmic ratings), and a higher initial RoI for the other ratings (or lower for AP).
 
I'm sure it's something they will eventually fix, because they have to!, but why they didn't see this coming and fix it before they released the game really boggles my mind. This is the sort of stuff alpha testing will tell you, let alone beta testing.
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			Please put a fixed amount of omni slots on raidgear. 4 for epic, 5 for legendary and 6 for artifact	
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I get your point, but I still disagree.
It's simple mechanics. X times Y plus Z divided by A and B equals DPS. In this day and age, where every MMO on the planet has theorycrafters figuring out how to min/max everything, I can't possibly believe no-one at Carbine looked at stat weights at any point in time and realized things were messed up.
Even in Beta, I'm sure players looked at trying to max their damage output and would have gone through AMPs, Abilities, Builds, etc and come to Runes and Gear and then realized AP beat everything else, all the time.
 
 
I'm more inclined to believe they decided to weight these things appropriately for some given condition set...
but then during Beta testing or whatever, they changed so many things (mechanics-wise) that the effect of which was a complete messup of the stat conversion ratings, and they hadn't the time to run through it all again and fix it. Then they bandaid fixed things over the top of it to try to balance each of the dps specs so they were moderately in-line with eachother again, and it just threw things out more.
 
At least that would be a plausible situation.	
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Please continue to give us feedback, with slightly less flames. Unless it's directed at me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not a hero. Because I'm the Itemization Lead Wildstar deserves.
 
I'm Batman.
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			Also you need to fix the item levels of artifact weapons. The artifact weapons have about 300 less item lvl than the best legendary weapon.	
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Just a qn: How much is 1x "item level" ? I believe that's a very arbitrary term...
I'm sure they use something similar when they build items, but JTal has explicitly stated the addons that we players use to gauge item levels are not entirely accurate.. and regardless how you do it, the number of item levels is completely arbitrary, so saying something is 300 item levels less than something else means nothing.	
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item level decides how strong the runes on the item are and the total item budget for stats
 
so if the artifact weapon have about lvl 3000 and the best legendary weapons have about lvl 3300 thats a difference of 10%	
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That's better.. see? Now you have context to your "300". You're saying they're 10% below.
 
I still don't think you understood my point about item level being an arbitrary number, but nevermind... at least I can understand your post now.	
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{| class="blockquote"
What about adventus crafted items being BiS until almost datascape gear, is that working as intended?
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			The change sound good to me	
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{| class="blockquote"
Also you need to fix the item levels of artifact weapons. The artifact weapons have about 300 less item lvl than the best legendary weapon.
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J-tal delivers.
 
 
Please don't say drop 4.	
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{| class="blockquote"
2) Random Rune Colors also suck, but less so. We'll probably keep a lot of the random variance in rune colors but are looking at ways to mitigate this as much as possible. We're considering potentially adding ways to reroll colors and/or adding new runes to fill in gaps where certain colors are either extremely valuable or woefully unwanted to some players.
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			This is the topic to follow!	
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			These proposed changes and this increased level of developer communication on the official forums renew some of the hopes I once held	
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{| class="blockquote"
Hmm, probably won't do #1. Might expand a few more stats and options into more Rune elements but likely not all stats to all elements.
Definitely looking at doing the second part of #2. (Should note that Grit/Health also has this issue. Health is always better than Grit and it shouldn't be.)
Definitely looking at doing #3. (I'm actually putting together some new Rune Sets for a future patch right now, and we're taking a much harder look at their benefits and power.)
 
Also running an audit on the entire Rune system and finding some very ... interesting things.
1) There are not enough options for Air, Earth and Water runes. Will have to look at Fire after the AP/SP changes, I think the AP runes might be carrying Fire a little bit.
2) There are not enough options for Brutality, Finesse, Moxie, Deflect, Deflect Critical, Health, Armor, and Shield Capacity runes.
3) Resist runes make me sad.
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Hey J-Tal,
 
One of the things that concerns me is the primary stat is always a much better investment for PVE DPS than any other stat.  I play a DPS engineer and Finesse is easily 3 - 4 times a better choice than either Brutality or Moxie even when you might get a milestone from the others.  This makes staking one stat a lot more important on crafted gear rather than trying to balance stats.
 
Have you considered changing milestone bonuses around so that some (or all) milestones for Finesse for Engineers give crit severity/strikethrough and Crit Hit while keeping AP being the stat that is gained from the raw stat?  At the same time you would add AP milestones to brutality/moxie.  
 
Additionally, is Grit being looked at?  It is strictly worse in every way than raw bonus health.  Perhaps if Grit milestones gave other bonuses like increases in resistances or dash regeneration or something other than bonus health.  At the moment there is no reason to want to desire Grit which is a sad place for a primary stat to be in.  Maybe buff the bonus health raw Grit provides slightly to compensate.	
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I absolutely hate the fact that how many rune slots on items are somewhat random. I don't really want to deal with the fact that I can finally get that item that i want but then turn it away because it doesn't have the maximum amount of rune slots so is therefore not best in slot for me. Complicates things too much. I care about the randomness of the element less then that but it still bothers me. Especially since you can't reroll your rune elements right now. That would fix the option. Although the ability to reroll how many rune slots it has too would be a quick fix to problem number one too at least until you work everything out for a proper fix.
 
Protostar re-roll vendor as soon as possible please!	
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What bugs me the most about stats is my Esper has 3000 AP. Yet alot of engineers only have 1500AP. Obviously they do more damage with that than I can.
 
But the fact the numbers AP gives on Runes and Items are 2x as vaulable for them since their abilities scale much better with AP.
 
Is there going to be any AP normalization to try and get people closer together so AP/SP is as valuable to all classes?	
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{| class="blockquote"
What bugs me the most about stats is my Esper has 3000 AP. Yet alot of engineers only have 1500AP. Obviously they do more damage with that than I can.
 
But the fact the numbers AP gives on Runes and Items are 2x as vaulable for them since their abilities scale much better with AP.
 
Is there going to be any AP normalization to try and get people closer together so AP/SP is as valuable to all classes?
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{| class="blockquote"
 
The bad news is, this actually nerfs quite a bit of items IF we go forward with it (it won't actually affect your existing items; so if you have, say, a blue item with 4 Runes, congrats, your item is OP!). The good news is, itemization balance will be much cleaner and there will be much less RNG and many more meaningful options and choice. We're still working out the details on exactly what changes are coming to Runecrafting and I'll be sure to have a thorough write up and explanation when we lock everything down.
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J-Tal,
 
Could you please tell us about the current state of Esper Healer items ? Most of our items, including the new ones, such as Northern Wastes reputation epics, are loaded with Brutality. It seems it was Esper healer's main stat a while back in beta, however it has been changed months ago and does nothing for us now (piercing chance for a healer...).
 
Meanwhile, most of our items have never been updated and new ones are still loaded with brutality as secondary or even primary stat. That contributes a lot to crafting being waaaay better than any drop, as pretty much all epics/dropped blues lose 30% to 50% of their stats dumped into the useless brutality. At least on a crafted item i can have some meaningful stat.
 
I'm sure we're not the only class having such issues as i always see peoples complaining about useless stats on items, but it's probably one of the most common issues for cloth gear right now, so any word on this would be cool. Right now it just looks like nobody on Carbine side thought about updating your item rules and nobody is playing an Esper Healer either, as we're completely missing items in some areas. There is simply no support esper items in the new rep vendor for exemple, while there is clearly one for all classes with their best stats. Then ours comes with an infamous amount of brutality and is a complete waste. :(	
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Two suggestions that will both kill two birds with one stone and I don't think anyone will reject. 
 
1) Make dungeons give you tokens at the end of each run depending on your medal. Add a daily quest that gives bonus tokens to motivate people to get into your dungeons. Make those tokens be used(say enough of them to take 15-20 runs to get one, or 10 daily quest runs) to reroll item slots. You've suddenly helped people customize non-optimal runed gear and motivated them to keep doing your content. This is good. 
 
2) Make amps and ability points much, much more common off of the end boss loot tables of dungeons. I don't know if they can even drop there now, but currently the optimal way to get them is either so grind pvp or grind solo mobs for money(to buy them) or them to drop themselves. In my guild of 35+ players who play a LOT we have yet to see a single amp or ability point drop. Due to itemization problems people are losing interest in running dungeons, and adding the daily above and a chance at amp and ability points would kick that interest back up until you get itemization dealt with. 
 
Anyway, I love your dungeons. They are a ton of fun. The problem is I have done about 15 of them silver or better in the last few days and as far as character progression goes none of us got anything to show for it. I got some epic legs off Selene that were worse than the adventure ones I've had for a month. Hooray. 
 
Anyway, the highlight of someone's day should not be getting an augmented rune from R-12(which we do for no apparent reason, that faction stuff is junk too) after they run a half dozen dungeons. Dungeons(and raids, but we'll get to that I'm sure) need to be rewarding. My group should not enjoy the content while we're doing it then get to the end of the night, think about the six dungeons we just ran at a high level,only to come to the realization we probably would have been better off in Grimvault solo grinding mobs. 	
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These kind of changes need to go in ASAP to the PTR, to be honest. Like, yesterday.
 
They change the core of the game, they change balance, and they change secondary activities like crafting and trading. Many of which are very weird (some would say broken) right now.
 
And please, we don't care what it does to the economy, please put these on the PTR a few weeks before pushing them to Live and note down ALL the changes you *think* u made. We don't want another "Veteran Medal drop changes" incident.	
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{| class="blockquote"
These kind of changes need to go in ASAP to the PTR, to be honest. Like, yesterday.
 
They change the core of the game, they change balance, and they change secondary activities like crafting and trading. Many of which are very weird (some would say broken) right now.
 
And please, we don't care what it does to the economy, please put these on the PTR a few weeks before pushing them to Live and note down ALL the changes you *think* u made. We don't want another "Veteran Medal drop changes" incident.
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			Very interested in if the AMP/Ability point drop rate is what you intend it to be. These specifically make for more interesting skill and amp choices. Please let us know the thoughts behind the drop rates.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Assault Power/Support Power:
We're looking at adjusting the way AP/SP scales per budget point, scales from Primary Stat, and is gained from Runes and Imbuements. The most generalized summary of this will be that AP/SP from Primary Stat will go up for some classes and pure AP/SP per budget point and from runes will likely go down, such that Primary Stat will be more valuable in some circumstances and pure AP/SP will be more valuable in other circumstances. We will have more information on this when it is closer to being released (and tested on PTR).
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{| class="blockquote"
 
 
The bad news is, this actually nerfs quite a bit of items IF we go forward with it (it won't actually affect your existing items; so if you have, say, a blue item with 4 Runes, congrats, your item is OP!). The good news is, itemization balance will be much cleaner and there will be much less RNG and many more meaningful options and choice. We're still working out the details on exactly what changes are coming to Runecrafting and I'll be sure to have a thorough write up and explanation when we lock everything down.
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{| class="blockquote"
It is not. Our goal with crafting is that it should be very good, potentially (with overcharge) the BIS for that tier and that tier only. It should not be better than items a tier above it. There are two issues causing this that we are looking to address.
 
First is that crafted items have no minimum threshold for turning down stats you don't want so you can turn up stats you do. Non-crafted items do have a threshold. It's about 10% of the total budget (usually between 12-20%). So you can dump a ton of budget into the 'better' stats and make the crafted item better than intended.
 
Second is that crafted items are currently rolling way more Runes than intended. We are looking at adjusting these to something closer to:
Greens: 0-1
Blues: 2
Purples: 3
Legendary: 4-5
Artifact: 6
 
This is not definite, yet. But you will notice two big things:
1) There is almost no variance in Rune Count. (Rune elements are still mostly random, but each item's total power is static)
2) There is no overlap between quality tiers. (A purple is always better than blue is always better than green)
 
The bad news is, this actually nerfs quite a bit of items IF we go forward with it (it won't actually affect your existing items; so if you have, say, a blue item with 4 Runes, congrats, your item is OP!). The good news is, itemization balance will be much cleaner and there will be much less RNG and many more meaningful options and choice. We're still working out the details on exactly what changes are coming to Runecrafting and I'll be sure to have a thorough write up and explanation when we lock everything down.
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{| class="blockquote"
Yah watch Jeff Tallon as he sits there thinking that all is right with the world, when him and his team have clearly messed up a LOT of stuff.
 
Use more excel sheets mate. Remember: RAND() is your friend. Everyone likes more RAND(). RAND() some stats, RAND() some runes. Awesome!
Also, everyone wants Focus Recovery on Heavy Armor. We want more of that please! While you're at it, make sure you make raid drops with Deflect and Deflect Crit on the Brut/Finesse/Moxie gear. That's always useful!
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{| class="blockquote"
it's fun when players who think they understand something, but clearly don't.
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			j-tal is such a boss! no politically correct horse-crap but clear and honest answers. i love this guy.	
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{| class="blockquote"
j-tal is such a boss! no politically correct horse-crap but clear and honest answers. i love this guy.
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{| class="blockquote"
They actually aren't. I'm not sure why the item level addons say they are. We are looking at a change to tooltips to display the true effective level without the need for an addon.
 
You can actually verify this yourself by adding the inherent AP/SP values together on each item and comparing. The highest tier Legendary sword is 1200, I believe, while the Artifact ones are 1244. Also, the Artifact weapons get all their stat contribution from Imbuements which are always slightly overbudget. So they are both higher effective level and overbudget for their level. Plus 6 Omni slots.
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{| class="blockquote"
j-tal is such a boss! no politically correct horse-crap but clear and honest answers. i love this guy.
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{| class="blockquote"
I'm Batman.
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{| class="blockquote"
Has Carbine commented specifically on what they are doing to address serious itemization issues in the game?
 
The heavy weight of assault power for PvE classes unbalances everything. AP is king and undermines all other stats. This is the core of pretty much every other itemization issue in this game.
The quantity and type of rune slots matters more then the rest of the stats on an item for most pieces of gear. If it doesn't have fire/fusion/logic the item is trash, other rune slots do not matter.
PvP to PvE (or vice versa) - one of my most hated things in an MMO. If Wildstar had launched with just PvP servers I would have passed over it right there and not given it another thought. I would not have pre-ordered, I would not have subbed. Another PvP-based MMO - that's fine, just not a game for me. But here we go again - you're making the same mistakes so many other MMO's have made before you. With the weight of AP as a DPS stat in the game item budget points invested in PvP-only stats on arena weapons just don't matter. Several pieces of the best PvE gear (even better than some items found in 20-man raids let alone pre-raid) is obtained via PvP only. PvP arena bags, obtainable even for losing matches drop talent point and AMP point upgrades. Where are these in dungeons? In raids? In world drops? As quest rewards? I haven't ever seen any - only obtainable in PvE via an endless grind of dailies for elder gems. Many PvPers have been able to obtain all obtainable AMP point and abilitiy point increases already. As a PvE player who has played since release, completed nearly all the silver dungeons (save one) and got gold on every adventure many many times I have only been able (thus far) get enough elder gems for two ability points...just two.
 
I have seen some vague posts that the balance of AP is being looked at but nothing specifically addressing PvP to PvE.
 
Thanks
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{| class="blockquote"
SO umm, what the hell was the trigger finger fix?
 
Cause you know, farming skullcano till my eyes bleed, doing dailies for satchels, farming challenges for satchels and you know here I am three weeks after hitting 50 and I have no TF.
 
While we're at it, Nobody in my guild/on my server seems to have found any of those lovely amp points or ability points outside of PvP and elder gems.
 
So is this something thats "Coming soon" like technologists being useful?
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{| class="blockquote"
Honestly, I don't know but ... OMG why aren't these Auctionable!
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So we're getting screwed if we didn't craft pre-nerf, is that it?
 
Or is this nerf gonna be retroactive to already created items?	
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{| class="blockquote"
So we're getting screwed if we didn't craft pre-nerf, is that it?
 
Or is this nerf gonna be retroactive to already created items?
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{| class="blockquote"
It is not. Our goal with crafting is that it should be very good, potentially (with overcharge) the BIS for that tier and that tier only. It should not be better than items a tier above it. There are two issues causing this that we are looking to address.
 
First is that crafted items have no minimum threshold for turning down stats you don't want so you can turn up stats you do. Non-crafted items do have a threshold. It's about 10% of the total budget (usually between 12-20%). So you can dump a ton of budget into the 'better' stats and make the crafted item better than intended.
 
Second is that crafted items are currently rolling way more Runes than intended. We are looking at adjusting these to something closer to:
Greens: 0-1
Blues: 2
Purples: 3
Legendary: 4-5
Artifact: 6
 
This is not definite, yet. But you will notice two big things:
1) There is almost no variance in Rune Count. (Rune elements are still mostly random, but each item's total power is static)
2) There is no overlap between quality tiers. (A purple is always better than blue is always better than green)
 
The bad news is, this actually nerfs quite a bit of items IF we go forward with it (it won't actually affect your existing items; so if you have, say, a blue item with 4 Runes, congrats, your item is OP!). The good news is, itemization balance will be much cleaner and there will be much less RNG and many more meaningful options and choice. We're still working out the details on exactly what changes are coming to Runecrafting and I'll be sure to have a thorough write up and explanation when we lock everything down.
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{| class="blockquote"
Here is the problem. There are no crafted Purple or Legendaries in the game. Doesn't this effectively make crafting professions worthless like in most games again? 
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{| class="blockquote"
Chua think RNG decide that.
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{| class="blockquote"
what are you talking about? the devs decided to nerf rune slots, not RNG.
 
You can craft as many times as you have money for, so it's possible to reroll the armor as many times as you need, to get max rune slots and good rune slots. you played the RNG for the best gear.
 
but post nerf, even if you reroll, you won't get more than X rune slots, while buddy here who crafted it last month has X+2 rune slots. his armor is a lot better than yours, even those it has the same base stats
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{| class="blockquote"
but post nerf, even if you reroll, you won't get more than X rune slots, while buddy here who crafted it last month has X+2 rune slots. his armor is a lot better than yours, even those it has the same base stats
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The problem is for the future.
 
We thought that superbs were the best thing for pre-raid, but people said no! it's crafted.
 
So post craft nerf, superbs will again be the best pre-raid items you can get
 
So now you'll have to grind adventures for (now very rare) superbs with your sub par crafted armor, because now your crafted armor isn't good enough for genetic archives
 
we're just back to having to grind for everything	
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{| class="blockquote"
It is not. Our goal with crafting is that it should be very good, potentially (with overcharge) the BIS for that tier and that tier only. It should not be better than items a tier above it. There are two issues causing this that we are looking to address.
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{| class="blockquote"
The problem is for the future.
 
We thought that superbs were the best thing for pre-raid, but people said no! it's crafted.
 
So post craft nerf, superbs will again be the best pre-raid items you can get
 
So now you'll have to grind adventures for (now very rare) superbs with your sub par crafted armor, because now your crafted armor isn't good enough for genetic archives
 
we're just back to having to grind for everything
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{| class="blockquote"
2) Random Rune Colors also suck, but less so. We'll probably keep a lot of the random variance in rune colors but are looking at ways to mitigate this as much as possible. We're considering potentially adding ways to reroll colors and/or adding new runes to fill in gaps where certain colors are either extremely valuable or woefully unwanted to some players.
3) Runes are fairly expensive and replaced too quickly in the leveling experience to be worthwhile. One of the ideas we're tossing around is potentially adding a "weakened" version of the basic runes to a vendor. These would add less bonus and be much cheaper, basically be throw-away runes, and would be more of an incentive to participate in the rune system and actually rune your items as you level up. Definitely not a final plan, just letting you know we're actively thinking about it.
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{| class="blockquote"
 
The bad news is, this actually nerfs quite a bit of items IF we go forward with it (it won't actually affect your existing items; so if you have, say, a blue item with 4 Runes, congrats, your item is OP!).
----
			OMG!!!!!!!! Is this your serious? You say Craft gear is op? WHAT ABOUT VERDAMMTEM PVP GEAR? the ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to search IN PVE! but no crafted gear should be op .. people you are destroying the game from patch to patch .. I do not understand why you do it so broken .. PVP weapon? you know? should have nothing to do with PVE .. the weapon .. is comparable to the Omna weapon so please .... Adv are still total scrap PUTS *cupcake*ING PRIORITIES! the game has soooo much potential .. and you throw it away .. more and more incomprehensible ............	
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I have this huge feeling crafting will end up wasted and useless if they continue down this road.
 
What I would like to see in our Expert Research trees is tier 3-4 Adventus be changed to make better gear since the time sink is huge, it is very sad looking at the 1,2,3,4 adventus progression and not seeing much of improvements in many of the lines. Also it is very sad how they are broken up: Example it should have a line for each type of armor and flow
 
Adv 1 Legs - Decent blue (1 rune slot) Random stat
Adv 2 Legs -  Better blue with (1-2 Runes) set stats
Adv 3 Legs -  Best blue with 2-3 Runes and increase in base armor or a cool proc etc.
Adv 4 legs - Purple with 2-4 runes and random imbuement/set bonus, something (also cost crafting mats from raid drops)	
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{| class="blockquote"
OMG!!!!!!!! Is this your serious? You say Craft gear is op? WHAT ABOUT VERDAMMTEM PVP GEAR? the ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to search IN PVE! but no crafted gear should be op .. people you are destroying the game from patch to patch .. I do not understand why you do it so broken .. PVP weapon? you know? should have nothing to do with PVE .. the weapon .. is comparable to the Omna weapon so please .... Adv are still total scrap PUTS *cupcake*ING PRIORITIES! the game has soooo much potential .. and you throw it away .. more and more incomprehensible ............
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{| class="blockquote"
Here is the problem. There are no crafted Purple or Legendaries in the game. Doesn't this effectively make crafting professions worthless like in most games again? 
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J-Tal, are there any plans to retroactively nerf already crafted gear, or will it remain that the early bird were able to craft gear that is stronger than GA drops?
 
I mean look at this... 
 
 
it's obsene	
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{| class="blockquote"
J-Tal, are there any plans to retroactively nerf already crafted gear, or will it remain that the early bird were able to craft gear that is stronger than GA drops?
 
I mean look at this... 
it's obsene
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{| class="blockquote"
 
Alright, let's do this:
 
Assault Power/Support Power:
We're looking at adjusting the way AP/SP scales per budget point, scales from Primary Stat, and is gained from Runes and Imbuements. The most generalized summary of this will be that AP/SP from Primary Stat will go up for some classes and pure AP/SP per budget point and from runes will likely go down, such that Primary Stat will be more valuable in some circumstances and pure AP/SP will be more valuable in other circumstances. We will have more information on this when it is closer to being released (and tested on PTR).
 
Runes and Runecrafting:
I'm not gonna lie. This system needs a lot of rework. We'll be looking into in the next couple of weeks focusing mostly on the following major issues.
1) Random Rune Counts suck. This directly affects the items actual power level. And generally is just a very bad thing balance-wise. We're looking at reeling this in heavily.
2) Random Rune Colors also suck, but less so. We'll probably keep a lot of the random variance in rune colors but are looking at ways to mitigate this as much as possible. We're considering potentially adding ways to reroll colors and/or adding new runes to fill in gaps where certain colors are either extremely valuable or woefully unwanted to some players.
3) Runes are fairly expensive and replaced too quickly in the leveling experience to be worthwhile. One of the ideas we're tossing around is potentially adding a "weakened" version of the basic runes to a vendor. These would add less bonus and be much cheaper, basically be throw-away runes, and would be more of an incentive to participate in the rune system and actually rune your items as you level up. Definitely not a final plan, just letting you know we're actively thinking about it.
4) Rune Sets (and Item Specials, and also Gadgets) can vary from basically the best thing since individually wrapped cheese slices to something closer to a wet paper towel. We're looking at balancing a lot of these out in the next few patches and adding new ones where we feel we are lacking options for certain playstyles.
 
AMP/Ability Points and Trigger Fingers
So, this one I will actually apologize for, again. Yeah, it was a bug and bugs happen. But, it was a pretty impactful bug to a lot of people. I'm sorry it took us as long as it did to find and fix those two.
 
Hmm, what else? There's a lot of other things. We're taking a few weeks now, after we've gotten ahead on new content implementation for future patches, to work exclusively on exactly these types of issues - fixing bugs, auditing our systems, and making QoL improvements. It's ... a very long list.
 
Please continue to give us feedback, with slightly less flames. Unless it's directed at me. Because I can take it. Because I'm not a hero. Because I'm the Itemization Lead Wildstar deserves.
 
I'm Batman.
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{| class="blockquote"
J-Tal, are there any plans to retroactively nerf already crafted gear, or will it remain that the early bird were able to craft gear that is stronger than GA drops?
 
I mean look at this... 
 
 
it's obsene
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{| class="blockquote"
But that's also the reason I don't see the need for the nerf to crafted items. I think WildStar got it right here - crafters can make good gear, but better crafters can make REALLY good gear especially if they invest the mats and money. I think that perfectly balances things out.
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As this thread is about itemizations and stats on gear I guess I will throw this here as well.  Is there a plan in the future to better address stuff like this?
 
http://www.jabbithole.com/items/ashen-flamespitters-43027-2tqx2q
http://www.jabbithole.com/items/genetic-redundancy-revolvers-39678-1cihzp
 
These are just about the only Healing Guns that come from high end tiers that a Spellslinger can get that has over 1000SP outside of crafting which you said yourself is being nerfed. Is there any form or plan that will eliminate the possibility of items coming out of your "archives" like this.  It's basically you sacrifice all the insight to get the higher amount of Sp that come from these.  Or pray to the Item *Cupcakes* that you get the BoE Epic or have a lot of money to buy them.
 
For those that don't want to click on the Link
 
Ashen Flamespitters
511 AS
1068 SP
+57 Finesse
+68 Moxie
+29 Strikethrough
Unleashed Anger
 
Genetic Redundancy Revolvers
487 AS
1137 SP
+78 Tech
+24 Grit
+74 Deflect Critical Hit Raiting	
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{| class="blockquote"
These are just about the only Healing Guns that come from high end tiers that a Spellslinger can get that has over 1000SP outside of crafting which you said yourself is being nerfed.
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Considering how long it takes to get the Data Fragments for the final Adventus crafts, I think they should be on par with the BiS pre-raiding. The mats needed could do with some tweaking but lets not make crafting worthless (maybe make it so things crafted using the T7 talent becomes BoP? It would reward people for taking a crafting skill to the max craft while keeping the cost from sinking too low on the AH).
 
A bigger issue than crafting though is that the 1800 pvp weapons are BiS for pve. Given how often Carbine have said that the best gear for a specific activity should come from doing that activity and that pve gear is no longer optimal in pvp after Drop 2, it's really weird that the arena weapons remain as good for pve as they are.	
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Wow, this thread has answered my questions and addressed my concerns and then some. When I posted it I figured it would just drop off the radar fairly quickly. The input from the community and the devs and the details/information posted here is fantastic. I very much appreciate the dev response(s) and discussion surrounding these issues.
 
As many people have stated a lot of these items are, at this point flat-out broken. I think there should be some value in crafted items however I have always considered crafted blues as being "pre-raid" on par with dungeon drops. Raiding should be the next step up. Some of the crafted blues shown here in comparison to GA drops are just sickening and highlights how broken itemization is right now. I'll admit to having very little incentive from a gear perspective to run dungeons and even less to run adventures since the gear changes.
 
I don't really like the fact that these changes you are planning on making won't impact items already in game. This just creates a rush to get/make broken items (4-slot crafted blues for example) before the changes go in which are likely to make things even worse. I'd personally accept changes to active items in game to bring everything back to some semblance of sanity even if it nerfs my stats substantially. If done right the short-term pain would be worth the long-term gain IMHO.
 
I'm also not certain if the AP changes you plan to make will address the 1800 arena weapons issue. I think more detail is needed to know if it will or will not and I hope this is a consideration as you plan these changes.	
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OMG!!!!!!!! Is this your serious? You say Craft gear is op? WHAT ABOUT VERDAMMTEM PVP GEAR? the ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to search IN PVE! but no crafted gear should be op .. people you are destroying the game from patch to patch .. I do not understand why you do it so broken .. PVP weapon? you know? should have nothing to do with PVE .. the weapon .. is comparable to the Omna weapon so please .... Adv are still total scrap PUTS *cupcake*ING PRIORITIES! the game has soooo much potential .. and you throw it away .. more and more incomprehensible ............
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			I can't imagine the storm that would occur if they took away stats from existing gear. It would be a technical challenge and alienate a huge portion of the user base. Can you imagine the "fun" of having a boss on farm and then having to re-gear in order to make a decent attempt again? You think the QQ was heavy with the last loot change? That would be nothing compared to what would happen if they nerfed existing gear.	
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I'm glad this is being looked at, even if it isn't going all the way with getting rid of RNG.  Hopefully the changes will lessen the frustration while still giving people something to strive for.
 
Also, please keep up this level of openness and transparency even though the playerbase may give you hell for it.  It's so much better knowing what the devs are thinking than not, even if I don't agree with it.	
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I can't imagine the storm that would occur if they took away stats from existing gear. It would be a technical challenge and alienate a huge portion of the user base. Can you imagine the "fun" of having a boss on farm and then having to re-gear in order to make a decent attempt again? You think the QQ was heavy with the last loot change? That would be nothing compared to what would happen if they nerfed existing gear.
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Awesome that something is being done about the rune slots!
 
Also wanted to share an idea I had, not sure if it has been mentioned before but I guess I might as well metntion it.
 
Diablo 3 had this Mystic that got added in the Reaper of Souls expansion. What if Wildstar had something like the Mystic of Diablo 3 where instead of changing a stats you could reroll 1 and only 1 runeslot for a fee. It takes some of the RNG out of the game, add a money sink and everyone wins. Giving the option to reroll all rune slots might be a bit OP, but choosing ONE rune slot to reroll can make a gigantic difference.
 
Anyways, if you like this idea feel free to "upvote" it or create a topic about it.
 
-Tixo	
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I don't think it needs to be as extreme as you make it out to be. Adding 10-20sec to a boss kill because of a loss of a couple hundred DPS group-wide is not gamebreaking and is not likely to result in you no longer being able to kill a boss you could previously. I could be totally off on the scale of the impact it might have to individual DPS but I don't see it as being the difference between a kill and a failure.
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what are you talking about? sometimes I get the feeling you're commenting just for the same of reading yourself type when you add absolutely nothing to the conversation
 
the devs decided to nerf rune slots, not RNG.
 
You can craft as many times as you have money for, so it's possible to reroll the armor as many times as you need, to get max rune slots and good rune slots. you played the RNG for the best gear.
 
but post nerf, even if you reroll, you won't get more than X rune slots, while buddy here who crafted it last month has X+2 rune slots. his armor is a lot better than yours, even those it has the same base stats
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I don't think it needs to be as extreme as you make it out to be. Adding 10-20sec to a boss kill because of a loss of a couple hundred DPS group-wide is not gamebreaking and is not likely to result in you no longer being able to kill a boss you could previously. I could be totally off on the scale of the impact it might have to individual DPS but I don't see it as being the difference between a kill and a failure.
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It would be a great change if runes will be specific to a certain class and roll, so basically as a dps you want mostly fire and fusion slots and not water or life.
 
RNG in my opinion is a rather risky thing it can be good or bad, the less RNG in the game the better.	
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			So those people were lucky that they did it before items were fixed. No issue to see.	
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J-Tal, are there any plans to retroactively nerf already crafted gear, or will it remain that the early bird were able to craft gear that is stronger than GA drops?
 
I mean look at this... 
 
 
it's obsene
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			All this will do is nerf people who were not on the crafting bandwagon beforehand, since you can not nerf gear after its already been invested in and sold.  	
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			they'll be adding spirit to everything.	
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All I know is I've been 50 for a month. I still don't have trigger fingers. I've never gotten or known anyone that's gotten an amp point or ability point drop either. 
 
Is this intended? 	
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You don't get to be Batman with a post like that. You can be Squirrel Girl.
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WAT? WAT is going on?!
 
Perhaps we should to move RNG forums as well?
 
There will be a 1 in 10,000,000 chance that we'll get something to read that has a point or actual fix?
 
 
..oh and WTB Trigger Fingers.. Still...2 months later. Thx.	
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Lets just hope they re itemize GA drops to have every piece be over 125 main stat when needed. Problem fixed better then crafted. That chest is just broke the resistance is way lower then anything in the Advance Reasearch tree combine that with the crafted refine = higher stats then advent. 
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