I guess it's time

[Istaru]

-snip-
Question, what -exactly- about unique stats makes the content you are fighting better? If you say options, I mind you that people will always go for what is best, no matter how you make the system.

I have given this some thought as it is a very good question and deserves an answer.

I will preface this by saying that I am mainly looking at it from my own perspective. A semi-hardcore player that enjoys midcore to hardcore content. I think that for the most part, people who get slapped with the "casual" title do not worry too much about the exact stats on gear or try to work out gearsets across ilvls and melding schemes and all of that. It isn't their thing and you know what? It's ok that it isn't. I can admit that most likely they are the majority of the playerbase and the devs should keep them in mind.

Right now there are 4 options for gear, 220 crafted, 230/240 tomestone, 230 wiping city and 240 raid. We have 4 sub stats that matter for raiding, accuracy, critical hit, determination and skill speed/spell speed. Non-raiding? It is usually stack up as much of your main substat as you can get for that their only considering its balance against the main stay for your class. Raiders have to consider an accuracy cap as well. So, with this system your want list from the items is either 1 level, non-raiding only looking at highest combination from main stat and secondaries or 2 levels, meeting an accuracy requirement then the same as level 1.

What could unique stats do about that?

What if the calculations were situational??? What if for some fights, other things were important? What if item X was OMGAWESOME!1! for one fight but not for another one? What if some characteristic of a certain raid tier fight used the item with a unique stat like "ballad +3" for BRD instead of the item that had more DEX which was better for another raid tier since it could be hard on healers or whatever reason. I will stop the train here for a moment. I do want to say that I am not advocating gear swapping during battles, I think that idea was put to bed some time ago. I am saying that different gear being BiS for different fights might be something good.

This does require other things to change. Why are all the endgame items U/U? That would allow people to use more than one to outfit their character. Why is every endgame item behind a lockout, with many of them locked out for 1, 2 or more weeks?

I know the answer that is given is usually that people will blow through the content and whine a week later of nothing to do. Is that really any different than today where people cap out in a day and complain that they have nothing to do until next week. Obviously, they could do GS or whatever, but if endgame progression is their thing, then those activities are worthless to them.

Still with me? Good, and if not, don't worry, I lost myself while writing this.

I guess my point is that, despite how much I would like to see them return, unique stats on their own will not do much for fixing endgame gearing. Yes, I just said that. /cry

However, as part of a larger change, perhaps including removal of daily/weekly caps, unique stats meant to fit nicely into certain situations could add a new level of gearing. Even more so if we toss unpredictable mechanics into the mix.