Let’s Talk: Endgame Gearing & Itemization
On Project Epoch we utilize what we refer to as Classic+ itemization, where we have first extensively reverted nearly every item to a 1.12 state including stats, quality, attached spells, procs and so on and from that point we begin the process of truly modding and adding new items.
This includes features such as a TBC like Stamina stat weight adjustment, increased DPS for ranged weapons, by hand reworks of existing dungeon loot and of course plentiful new additions for you to find from quests, dungeons and more.
Items are at the heart of World of Warcraft. To reach ever greater heights you must be equipped with ever greater equipment. Classic has a wide variety of items that range from joke status to being more legendary than real legendaries. This variety is what makes items in Classic so special compared to future expansions.
In this post we want to share our plans regarding what gear will look like when you reach level 60 and begin delving into both Raids and Dungeons, both at launch and over the lifespan of Project Epoch as a live server.
Item Level Squish
Item Level is a number on every item that is used to determine how many stats the item should have. Item level has always existed, but it wasn’t until future expansions that it became a useful way to measure a player’s power.
Over the lifespan of Vanilla, Blizzard introduced iconic additional tiers such as Blackwing Lair, Ahn'Qiraj and Naxxramas, and while we aim to not only replicate those tiers with additional tweaks, we also intend on adding whole new raids and dungeons interwoven between them. In many cases this is an opportunity for side grades, filling in key slots, supporting niche class capabilities, or simply a mechanism for catch up much like Blizzard did with Zul'Gurub.
However, we can not escape from the simple fact that we aim to add outright new tiers with additional item level steps alongside retuning the existing ones. While we are not at this stage willing to publicly state how many new tiers, dungeons or 10 man raids will be available over Project Epoch's own journey, we know it will be plentiful.
With that in mind, we knew that out of the gate we needed to attempt to slow down how quickly players become stronger as we will not have expansions to save us with explicit gear resets. In the context of Tier 1 end game content there was an extremely broad jump in item level during Vanilla ranging from item level 60 at the lowest to 78 at the highest.
| Blizzard | Min | Max |
| Dungeons | ~60 | 63 |
| Tier 1 | 61 | 78 |
| World Bosses | 66 | 71 |
And here it is on Project Epoch:
| Project Epoch | Min | Max |
| Dungeons* | ~60 | 63 |
| Molten Core / Onyxia | 63 | 67 |
| World Bosses | 65 | 65 |
*The Dungeon category is also where most max level quests and profession recipes live. However, item level 63 is rare and mostly used for end bosses such as Baron Rivendare.
Note that the above lists do not include Legendaries. As you can see, the maximum item level has taken a large dive and now rests at item level 67. Future tiers will receive similar item level reductions, however as a whole pretty much every Blizzard tier will end up being in a buffed state even with these changed. However, this means that we can progress through theoretically years worth of content before players reach the high stats they had at the end of Classic before the Burning Crusade's soft reset.
An important aspect of Classic is the wide variety of items available to players. You have some items like Shadowstrike which is commonly referred to as Vendorstrike due to how terrible it is, and you have items like Deathbringer or Onslaught Girdle which are incredibly good items that will last you a long time. We recognize the importance of items like these. If every item is simply "good", then nothing is special. Even with the above changes we believe this will hold true and we will continue to make items of all types. Good, bad, complete jokes, and truly amazing.
We know that with this news you might wonder about one of the most iconic weapons from Tier 1: Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros. This legendary originally sat at item level 80, however we will be reducing that to 74 and further modding its effect to provide a unique Project Epoch specific variant of the fiery mace. While slightly nerfed we estimate this weapon to still receive plentiful usage right up to and including our Tier 3.
Dungeon Sets
There are two Dungeon Sets in Classic, they are commonly referred to as "Tier 0 and Tier 0.5" or "Dungeon Set 1 and Dungeon Set 2". For simplicity let’s refer to them as Tier 0 and 0.5. Tier 0 has been left unchanged for the most part, with all of their items scattered across the dungeons as usual. Tier 0.5 however, has received many changes to allow it to be obtainable at launch and to bring in support for the other roles of a class. For example a Warrior would receive the option between two Tier 0.5 sets: Tank and DPS. A Paladin would receive 3 options: Tank, DPS, and Healer.
As you progress through the quest chain you will be given a choice between what role you would like to receive an item for if your class has multiple roles. Afterwards, the main questgiver (Mokvar for the Horde and Deliana for the Alliance) will now offer all of the items you have been able to obtain so far, with a cost. Players that want to obtain more than one Tier 0.5 for their class will be able to do so, as long as you obtain another Tier 0 and spend a decent amount of gold. You do not have to do the entire questline again.
Raiding & Tier Sets
A classes Tier set is one of the more memorable and impactful item sets that they can attain in World of Warcraft, impacting their class in a core way and providing a unique level of visual cohesion. For these reasons they have typically been sought after heavily by the player base. The Vanilla world however has a unique issue in this regard, Tier Sets were extremely clearly only designed to benefit the spec that class most commonly used and anything off-meta such as a Feral Tank or DPS Priest were simply not tailored to.
Due to our utilization of Burning Crusade based classes, we knew that every class and role will see more active usage than they did in Vanilla and much like our Tier 0.5 changes we wanted to tailor these options with a role based focus. This by proxy meant that more Tier Set pieces would be needed which has a huge drawback; a boss can only drop so much and only so many bosses in a Tier can drop a piece. We'd like to avoid a ballooning of loot tables which simply makes each piece more and more unlikely to attain, which lead us to the same basic premise as Blizzard once did with Naxxramas onwards; Tier Set Tokens. A simple way to loot an item and later redeem it for the item that you actually want for that slot.
However, we had some fundamental issues with that as a general idea, and decided that with some extra effort this concept can be expanded to fill them. Our concerns were primarily focused around visibility and information available to a player in the moment of looting an item and being able to utilize the result as quickly as possible.
The original flow of acquiring a loot token during Naxxramas, The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King is as follows:
- A Tier Set Token drops.
- Whoever is dishing out loot must do one of the following:
- Blindly dish it out to whichever class can use it not really knowing the result.
- Have prior knowledge via a website or previously visiting the vendor pre-raid and noting down items.
- After the above give the loot to a recipient.
- The recipient then has the choice to do the following:
- Leave the raid to locate a vendor, decide on an item, return to the raid.
- Remain in the raid and not utilize their hard earned item until after it ends.
We strongly dislike pretty much every choice that exists in those options. Which brings us to...
Reforging
On Project Epoch we have added a very simple system that aims to solve the above issues by both increasing visibility of what a Token may become, as well as increasing the speed at which you can convert your item.
When a Tier Token drops, whomever is looting that token can inspect it with CTRL + Click same as any other armor piece to open our new Reforging window. From here anyone may view what that Token can become, link the resulting items in chat, preview them on your character model, and all around interact in the same way as normal armor. To Reforge a Token to an actual Item you must of course have the Token itself in your inventory, but we have also added an additional step providing a slightly more flavourful RP aspect that requires you to go to specific locations within a raid to perform your Reforging.
In the below example your Shoulder slot token may be acquired within Molten Core, and as such requires the usage of a Rune of Warding. Your Helm slot token however may come from Onyxia herself, and as such requires you to be standing where she was slain to perform the Reforging.
While these initial examples are simple, if players enjoy it we aim to expand to more complex and meaningful requirements for future content additions.
As you can see in the above example and earlier sections, how you acquire your Tier Set is not the only thing that has changed but also the raw stats to fit your role, quantity of items in a set and breakpoints for set bonuses.
We settled on 6 available slots, which cover the majority of the visual cohesion of a set while also allowing you a certain amount of freedom to pick and choose which slots you utilize. Set bonus breakpoints are at 2 and 5 pieces, allowing the sixth to be flexible.
Of course many tier sets have a visual set that includes your belt and bracers, which are no longer mandatory for your set. To ensure that you can create a full visual we are utilising these models and textures for other new drops within Tier 1 so that you can match them all and flex on a mailbox to your hearts content.
The keen eyed among you will also have noticed that we have taken clear inspiration from the Burning Crusade's Tier 4 set pieces, both in stat distribution (tailored to a Vanilla world with the removal of ratings) as well as re-using those set bonuses. While we acknowledge this isn't the most imaginitive path to walk, it allows a certain amount of consistency that is greatly helpful for developers, designers and you the players during an initial tier where so much has already changed. We endeavour to produce unique set bonuses as time progresses and you move into Tier 2.
Conclusion
We hope that this post has made it much more clear how we intend your first dungeon dives and raid adventures to function, and how we are structuring items as a whole. While we have not given details on every new item or every reworked case, we look forward to seeing who among you can manage to achieve 3/3 bosses cleared in Onyxia's Lair and 11/11 bosses cleared in the Molten Core.
