While we had a thread where we discussed the horrible itemization that raid loot got, I want to bring up an opposite problem that instead casters have to face.

For reference, here is the priest T5 armor:

http://www.thottbot.com/i30163
http://www.thottbot.com/i30159

Here are the similar pieces of Frozen Shadoweave:
http://www.thottbot.com/i21869
http://www.thottbot.com/i21871

The Frozen Shadoweave is much much better than T5, what is depressing is seeing how much of the item budget is wasted on crit on what is meant to be priest damage gear. Shadoweave is absolutely perfectly tailored to a priests need.

Next, lets compare the BoE tailored stuff versus T5.
http://www.thottbot.com/i24266
vs
http://www.thottbot.com/i30161

They are pretty even, though IMO spellstrike is still better. It has hit, it has more +damage, and one extra gem slot.

again
http://www.thottbot.com/i24262
vs
http://www.thottbot.com/i30162

Spellstrike are clearly much better. If you favour more stamina, you can take the battlecast set instead, and it will still destroy t5.

The situation is slightly better for healing gear, but the BoE crafted tailoring set and the BoP mooncloth set are both much better than any of the tiered set, though the gap isn't nearly as severe.

What is the result of having such high quality items available too early? First, classes that have t5-like gear available now end up inevitably destroying the damage meters, due to gear disparity, but have very very little ability to 'grow' and get stronger.

This has horrible repercussions for damage, as the classes that dominate damage meters now might get their damage reigned in only because the itemization was causing a huge imbalance.

I pretty much had to give up a tradeskill to take up tailoring, so I don't speak out of jealousy, given that I am nearly finished with crafting my last piece, but how could people think that this set was a good idea? I understand they wanted to encourage crafting on mains, but pretty much all they accomplished is that right now every caster will end up being forced into tailoring.

The downside on the primal mooncloth BoP set is simple: lack of stamina. Glass-cannon healing is preferable on some encounters, but is a problem with encounters like Aran, Illhoof, and Gruul.

Right now my only motivation to get tiered gear is to wear it in town so I don't look like a clown outside raids.

I'd really like to see some upgrades to the tailoring gear. Perhaps BoP patterns could be obtained in SSC and TK that upgrade the current pieces. Then the current pieces could be toned down a bit, and I'd still have a nice carrot to chase while keeping a justification for my professions. Or maybe they could do the same thing, but instead of nerfing tailoring down to tiered gear, buff tiered gear up to tailoring gear. I'd like to smack the guy who decided to put spell penetration on some of the tier 5 pieces.

It seems to me that a lot of this could've been solved by making the BoP item required (Primal Nether in this case, but they could've invented something different) drop from bosses where the gear was comparible.

They sort of did it with the BoP blacksmithing weapons. Getting 12 primal nethers to make the iLvl 115 weapon is no small task and you get a weapon that's moderately better than what an entry-level (supposedly) raid boss drops (Axe of the Gronn Lords).

Basically what Blizzard has done is let crafters get a leg-up on the rest of us, being able to make items slightly better than what's attainable right now. This wouldn't have been a big deal if Gruul wasn't such a roadblock for a huge majority of raiding guilds, because we would be into SSC getting items that are compartively the same as the crafted stuff. But since most of us are stuck farming Karazhan and Maulgar every week, taking up Tailoring just for a few pieces of armor seems like it's "required." when really it should've just been "a nice perk."

In regards to the crafted weapons argument. I know a lot of the people in my guild that want good weapons are simply getting arena ones. In a few weeks of casual PvP you can get an offhand and in a month you can pretty easily get a main hand.

Those that hate PvP or can't get on a good team have taken up blacksmithing.

Yes! I don't understand why priest T5 has a hard-on for crit, and instead of featuring +shadow damage, it has +damage/healing, which is completely wasted for any priest itemization.

I doubt that any priest who is taking the T5 token is playing with a gimmicky smite DPS build, which is what that set is built towards.

I think that was the intention, and it's not a bad one. If not for BoP gear, there's not a lot of use for more than one tailor per guild is there?

Perhaps, but I'm still not convinced that simply by having them your damage output skyrockets. You can get by with normal drops and not be lapped by a player of the same skill, or beaten by a more inattentive and lazy player.

I'm assuming they're splitting the difference between the two DPS specs: smite and shadow. Note that I'm not saying smite is something that should be really supported on a generic priest DPS set, but still.

I understand, but I doubt that a raiding smite DPS priests exists. I mean, smite builds are tipically taken as a healing build that still allows you to have a decent damage output to grind or do some solo PvP. For serious PvE they are completely worthless, I imagine warlocks don't get an item set that caters to the serious hardcore raiding firestone-warlocks.

My only problem with the current tailoring sets, which I love because I want to specialize in glass cannon in Pve, is that it destroys my incentive for some loot in dungeons. I have never been to serpent shrine cavern yet but so far theirs NOTHING I want as a warlock, shadoweave/spellstrike/girdle of ruination are all much better then any raid loot.

What I would personally like is that, like blacksmiths, we could upgrade this gear in heroic instances (primal nethers) or serpent shrine cavern (Nether vortex has been reported off trash so far) to somehow give me a sense of progression still in raiding instances. Though, almost everyone so far barely has upgrades past kharazan/item level 115 blues I suppose right now with the current well known itemization issues.

boP patterns off bosses in SSK/TK that are somewhat upgrades to the current glass cannon tailoring sets would be nice like you suggested, and ya, please remove the dumn spell penetration on T5 pieces . I doubt I'll ever need more then the 20 spell penetration on my cloak enchant

Well. I'd state it more as the hunter gear supporting Beast Mastery or Poisons

Joking.

Be that as it may, do other classes get seperate gear for seperate DPS specs? Aside from a balance Druid versus feral druid and elemental versus enhancement shaman. I mean, there's no real support for fury spec versus MS spec warriors is there? There's just a warrior DPS set and I don't hear much about how important MS dps is in raids.