Post by Zanny
I was really hoping blizzard would experiment with itemization in icecrown, since this is it before cata, and being the hardest dungeon trying new things would not break the game as easily as making t8 so ridiculously good for rogues.
Looking back, they really did t8 well. Both bonuses were good, but the 4 piece was too good, it really, REALLY should have been a talent at the 11 point slot in ether assassination, combat, or sub, but it was on a tier set.
T9 2 piece is trash. 40 energy once a fight, and sometimes you dont even notice it proccing and use it on a rupture or evenom and waste 15 points of it, is useless. These RNG set bonuses really need to go, they dont provide reliable reason to use the sets. T9 2 piece should have just been rupture ticks generate 2 energy. That would have been extremely useful yet not overpowered but make it worth getting 2 piece instead of using 4 tier 8 until next patch for most people.
And looking at 4 piece t10, they really dont get that those horribly RNG bonuses really downright suck. And 3 combo points? They really, really should have just made it a 100% chance for 1 point. (you know, like how ruthlessness should have been since like patch 2.1 when they nerfed deadly throw). But thats not the only point I want to get at.
Or they could have scrapped that bonus and added something useful, like your envenom and eviscerate refresh rupture on the target.
They seem to be going middle of the road with t10. All pieces have equal agility to stamina, and as usual, attack power is scaling significantly slower than other stats when it shouldnt (
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39564 vs
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/51186/sanctified-shadowblade-legplates/, where 64 item levels difference means the agility doubles but the ap goes up by 20%). They still have the same crappy gemming scheme, and have not added new sockets. They are still only going with 5 stats per piece, where t6 from sunwell had 6 (and considering the importance of so many stats, them not doing so is almost disgraceful).
And I think the greatest insult are to plate dpsers. They still get 150% the stamina over the strength, and have 4 stats on their gear instead of the 5 everyone else currently uses. To think, blizzard could have really did well by this tier, and instead of the Sanctified Shadowblade Legplates being 162 agi / stam, a red / yellow socket for the same 6 agi bonus since t7, 184 ap, 108 crit, and 92 expertise, they could have really outdone themselves.
Think, that an ilevel 264 piece could have been 154 agi, 112 stamina, red / red / red sockets, with a 8 agi bonus, + 256 attack power, +88 crit, +56 expertise, +74 hit, and still have maintained that level, really irks me. They could have done so much better with the finale of lich king itemization than to conform to the painfully common style they have used since t7.
And I'd also mention the PVP gear, since anyone reading this with half a brain would say "oh wait, but if you give rogues 6 attribute tier gear, why would anyone not use it in pvp if its so good?"
Most people I know, including myself, use pve gear in the neck / cloak / rings slots when applicable, because having no agility version really destroys these slots. Id say, this is it for lich king, why not actually go all the way on the itemization, and hold nothing back? Remember s4 gear with its 7 stat setup? It doesn't need to be that extreme : maintain the pve and pvp itemization styles, make it 6. Put a light drizzle of hit on the rogue set, totalling 164 (aka, 36 hit on the 3 primary pieces and 28 on the shoulders / gloves) and get more stamina on this set. Almost all pvp problems right now are simply solved with a significant increase in stamina.
You want people to use 4 piece pvp sets? Make the 4 piece bonus "increases your total stamina by 10%". Bam, theres your SIGNIFICANT motivation for pvp. Or better yet, add agility versons of the off pieces and make it a 10 piece set (8 primary pieces + neck + cloak) that gives the 10% stamina bonus. A massive pvp set. Blizzard added the 5 piece raid sets to allow for diversity in gear choice, but look at TOC or ulduar - in toc, there is a SINGLE PAIR of leather boots, A SINGLE BELT, 1 WEAPON FOR EACH SLOT. Blizzard realeased 16 piece item sets for toc, and didnt even put set bonuses on them.
I really miss 8 piece sets. 3 bonuses, at the 3 / 5 / 7 piece levels, would have sufficed. But thats an opinion, and many people probably dont share that.
Im just wondering what other people think about the itemization approach blizzard is taking in the final raiding zone of Wrath. Considering this whole itemization scheme goes out the window next expansion anyway, why not go out with a bang?