Strength, Agility and you!

[SpiritWalker]

I just posted this on the official Blizzard Suggestion forums, but I doubt it get a lot of attention and/or constructive replies. So wanted to know what some people here think.


Lately I've had the feeling that Strength compared to Agility is somewhat of an inferior attribute. This made me look in to how important both stats are for what classes and how logical some bonusses from the stats are.

Strength does the following:
- Increases your attack power with melee weapons.
- Increases the amount of damage you can block with a shield.

And Agility:
- Increases your attack power with ranged weapons.
- Increases your armor.
- Increases your chance to score a critical hit with a weapon.
- Increases your chance to dodge attacks.
- Rogues gain a much stronger bonus to dodge from agility than other classes.
- Hunter & Rogue: Increases your attack power with melee weapons.
(http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...haracters.html)

Now Strength is obviously made for Warriors and Paladins (maybe Shamans too somewhat) and Agility for Rogues and Hunters (seeing as how the last two gain extra out of Agi over other classes).

I could argue that Rogues and Hunters have an unfair advantage, because they get everything damage-wise out of 1 attribute, but I am not going to do that, what I want to point out is that Agility already gives enough bonusses as it is (6bonusses). What I suggest is that 1 of those bonusses gets transferred to Strength.

The bonus I am talking about is the increasement of armor. To me it doesn't sound logical for an attribute that identifies itself with the Rogue and Hunter class to give armor value. Armor value is something that is important to the Warrior and the Paladin (and some degree a Shaman), so why isn't this bonus on the Strength attribute?

Another thing is when you look at what Agility and Strength stand for it doesn't really make sense either that Agility would give armor value over Strength.
- a·gil·i·ty - The state or quality of being agile; nimbleness.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=agility)
- strength - (2)The power to resist attack; impregnability.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=strength)
Agility has nothing to do with damage reduction, whereas you can clearly see from the meaning of Strength that it is about resisting attacks/damage.

So my suggestion is change the armor bonus from Agility to Strength, because it more useful for the classes that rely on Strength as their main attribute. It makes more sense to the actual meaning of the words. And last it evens out the bonusses among these 2 main attributes more.

I hope you, Blizzard, are able to see the logic and are able to work with it.

~Feaxhar, Ronin.

Edit: don't move this topic to the suggestions forum as I posted it here for discussion, not for suggestion.

[Nork]

agreed totally and 100% of the way. It does not make any sense to have armour rating put into agility, considering that how strong someone is would determine how much armour they could throw on and carry. But at the same time. The more armour you do where, the greater it affects your ability to move. Unless the person is, somewhat, agile. determined by agility and so that would explain why AC is determined by agility.

[SpiritWalker]

Originally Posted by Nork

The more armour you do where, the greater it affects your ability to move. Unless the person is, somewhat, agile. determined by agility and so that would explain why AC is determined by agility.

I would say this would lean towards the bonus of dodging, the more you can move in your armor, because of your agility, the more attacks you can dodge.

[snowieken]

And on top of that, Nork, AC bonus from strength shouldn't necessarily be related to the amount of armour you wear. A strong person could resist blows a lot better than a fragile one, even if they are wearing the same amount of armour or nothing at all.

Yeah, it's a good point, Spiritwalker, and I agree. The chance to dodge or avoid being hit should indeed be determined by Agility, but when you do get hit, Strength should kick in.

[Nork]

hmmmmm, yes. i think that we have reached an even of two odds. if there was a way to split AC with both aspects, that it would even things out abit. But it would seem that AC is judged by a persons nimbleness rather than there strength. It does not take some one like Conan to jump around in cloth or leather armour. Nor does a Cat have much chance of jumping around in its usual feline-eskness when it it wearing a tonne of plate armour. But a delicate balance of the 2 would have Conan jumping around like a Cat with plate armour, cloath cloke, leather booties and mail in the post box.

[Cadineal]

Plus someone needs to explain to me plate or mail armor that gives you more agility than say cloth or leather.

[Algamonn]

Because:

1. Whether you dodge a blow or deflect it you are basically avoiding the blow, so it both can be seen as armour, from a certain point of view.

2. Rogues can only wear leather...they have to be able to deflect blows at higher levels or they will be killed with one hit.

The only other way to do it would be to make the rogue with a high agility rating dodge almost everything. Problem is, would you want to roll a character who can be killed with one hit due to poor armour? Even if they have high strength, they are not going to be able to deflect high level blows only by strength. If you were level 60, would you go into a high level instance with no armour hoping you can stay alive through strength alone?

[SpiritWalker]

Originally Posted by Algamonn

1. Whether you dodge a blow or deflect it you are basically avoiding the blow, so it both can be seen as armour, from a certain point of view.

Yeah, but deflecting, or resisting, is not an agility attribute, it is one of strength, as the dictionary says.

2. Rogues can only wear leather...they have to be able to deflect blows at higher levels or they will be killed with one hit.

Rogues dodge, they aren't meant to be able to take damage. That's why it is silly to give a armor bonus to a stat which is used a lot by classes that don't need armor.

The only other way to do it would be to make the rogue with a high agility rating dodge almost everything. Problem is, would you want to roll a character who can be killed with one hit due to poor armour? Even if they have high strength, they are not going to be able to deflect high level blows only by strength. If you were level 60, would you go into a high level instance with no armour hoping you can stay alive through strength alone?

Rogues gain extra dodge out of agility over other classes, you average rogue dodges 3 to 4 times as much as a normal other class. Dodge is a logical bonus for the attribute agility and it fits the classes that need agility.

What's wrong is that classes who focus on Agility also gain armor, now I am not saying they don't need armor, but they depend a lot less on it than forsay a warrior or paladin does. So why put a bonus they, a rogue and hunter, don't really need on their main attribute? Whereas warriors and paladins who depend on armor, get nothing added to their armor with their main attribute.

When you look at a lot of tanking gear and plate drops from MC, BWL, AQ etc you will find they always have more strength on them than agility.

[Algamonn]

So in your view its ok for a top-level rogue to walk into an instance, and just by pure mathematics and bad luck, not dodge the first blow and get killed instantly. Doesnt sound like much fun to me. For it to be playable, you would have rogues with jedi-like agility. Just as unrealistic as agility adding armour.

It works the way it does because Blizzard have to balance realism with playability. For example, how can one sword do 1 damage per second, but another do 100 just because its got a fancy name? They are both made from metal! I am not including enchanted items in that statement.

I think we need to suspend our disbelief a bit, and realise it is a game that isnt going to make total sense when you dissect it - but it works as a whole.

[Gaelan]

From a Warrior perspective, Strength is still more desireable than Agility. Strength offers a higher DPS per point than Agility does for us, generally in a 2 to 1 ratio in overall effectiveness (remember also Warriors get 2 attack power points per strength point).

Every 20 Strength (or 15, I'm not exactly sure) adds 1 block point, which although is small, when you are getting MC gear you'll be in the 300s for Strength, which is a decent amount when you realize you block often with Shield Spec + 1 point in Improved Shield Block. Against a boss you generally can block about half the time if you are using Improved Shield Block every time its up. Blocking is underrated, in my opinion.

The other half of tanking of course is aggro, and although abilities like Sunder Armor and Revenge are where much of your aggro is generated from, your white DPS also contributes much, which again, for a Warrior our highest source of DPS comes from Strength.

Agility is nice, it'll add a bit of Armor and some Dodge for tanking, a bit of Critical hit for DPS and holding aggro, but Strength point for point for us is more important between the two.


Edit: Also, plate itself provides so much armor, the armor bonus from Agility is negligible.