Update 10 -- Itemization Information

By: Jonathan "RockX" Steady

Hello all, RockX here! Today I’ll be talking about the Itemization changes being introduced with Update 10. There’s two main areas which have seen some major changes for this update – Scaling Instance Loot and Set Bonuses.

All our scaling Classic Instances (aside from Helegrod, which is treated as a skirmish) have seen their loot totally revamped. Each instance cluster now makes use of Remote Looting. Within 3-man and 6-man spaces the final boss chests will have the chance to drop equipment, while the other chests will drop LI related materials. Raids will have equipment hooked up to each boss chest. Any spaces which had a Challenge mode also now have a corresponding Challenge chest.

Classic Instance clusters also have completely new loot, ranging from Rare quality all the way up to Legendary quality. Each instance cluster is now focused on a handful of different gear types, so DPS looking for a necklace would want to run instances and raids from cluster X, while Tanks looking for a necklace would want to run cluster Y. Each instance has its own Rare and Incomparable loot, while raids have only Incomparable loot. The chance to get a piece of gear is increased with running on a higher Tier. Each Instance Cluster shares a Legendary quality drop for each class at a very low drop-rate. The Legendary quality items are evenly split in focus between the roles a class can fill.

In addition to all the changes to the Scaling Instance loot, we’ve also altered how we handle Item Set Bonuses. More recent sets, such as Ost Dunhoth, Orthanc, etc. have handed out both pure stats and skill-altering effects. This leads to a situation where once you get a set, you can only replace it with the next set to avoid losing stats. In addition, each set had to give stronger and stronger doses of stats in order to be an upgrade.

In the end, this isn’t sustainable. In addition, we want to allow players to have and make impactful choices in what they wear. To that end, we’ve made the following changes:

Sets will now give either stats or skill modifying effects as their set bonuses. In addition, skill modifying effects have been standardized to fill the 2 and 4-set bonuses, instead of the 3 and 5-set bonuses. While this results in a slight loss of stats for those who were wearing a set, it opens up substantially more possibilities for how you can equip your character. By moving the skill modifying set bonuses to the 2 and 4 slots, we’ve opened up the ability to do far more “mix and matching” of set bonuses while also giving room to equip other items should you so choose.

In addition to all of this, there’s two new sets of gear to acquire from the new Erebor raids – the lesser and greater Erebor sets. Each class has a lesser and greater Erebor set for all three trait lines. The lesser sets are exchangeable for marks / medallions / seals at the various skirmish vendors, and require having completed Tier 1 of the new raids to unlock each piece. The greater sets require having the corresponding lesser piece, having completed Tier 2 of the appropriate raid, and some of the new gems which drop from the Erebor raids. There are four gems, which can be traded and sold on the AH. In addition to being used on the greater sets, they are also used to upgrade the Rohan Warband rings to their Legendary quality versions, and in a handful of new crafting recipes.