Obviously the concept of hybrids/semi hybrid classes getting multiple tier sets is pretty intuitive. They fulfill multiple roles, therefore they get multiple gear sets in order to better fulfill those roles.

I will not contest the needs of these classes to have multiple choices. However, I feel Blizzard has erred in not providing the "pure" classes with at least two choices, if not three. Not all talent trees are created equally...

Take Warlocks for example:

---Affliction---

-Crit Rating is less than ideal for an Affliction Warlock as they largely do DoT damage. Even when Shadowbolting +crit helps very little in the grand scope of Affliction DPS(A case could be made for Improved Shadowbolt, but that a Destruction talent, but even still bang for buck +shadow is best)
-Almost exclusively use Shadow spells, therefore dmg/heal items are far less than ideal. Much like a healer Affliction finds itself wanting a pure stat, +shadow in this case, rather than the more versatile, yet ultimately wasted on this spec's +dmg/heal.

---Demonology---

-Naturally based around being a more stat heavy than the other two. Having more stam/int certainly helps as in addition to their normal effects they increase pet mana/hp, give added damage through Demonic Knowledge, and are increased through passive Demonology talents.
-For Demonology Warlocks the Felguard is a fair portion of his overall damage, therefore equip bonuses or set bonuses buffing pet damage/survivability would be very desirable.
-Since Demonology leans to neither Shadow nor Fire it would keep the standard damage/heal to maintain its versatile nature.

---Destruction---

-Like Affliction, Destruction is more specific in it's damage type. It deals the most in Fire spells, therefore dmg/heal is less than ideal. Pure +Fire would be very benficial...though in the longrun Shadowbolt will scale better so there is a dilemma there.
-While not ideal, Destruction Warlocks are much more likely to be willing to give up stats in favor of more crit, hit, and +fire. Stats could be slightly sacrificed to eek out a little more nuke power.

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I could make cases for the other classes(except maybe Rogues...)

Hunters: Beast gets pet AP equip bonuses. Marks gets AP. Survival gets agility.
Mages: Fire gets +fire. Frost gets +frost. Arcane gets +dmg/heal, extra int and spell haste(to maintain versatility)

While our need of separate sets is not as severe as the hybrid classes I do feel that Blizzard and most players have lumped the DPS classes into a "one size fits all" category, when that simply is not the case. I would truly love to see DPS classes get some semblance of choice in our tier pieces.

Do you really want to loot new gear every time you respec?

I'd hate to see frost/fire/arcane sets. Gem slots allow enough customisation for mages.

It still doesn't make up completely irrelevant set bonuses, wasted +dmg/heal if you only use Fire spells, etc.

It would be no different a situation than that which a healer deals with. Should you find yourself respeccing often then you could have a secondary gear set for your offspec, or go with the more generic Arcane set.

A'lar and Hydross would mean that your Fire gear is only going to get you a raid slot for one zone.

Do we really need Blizzard to do all our min/maxing for us? If tier sets were all scientifically perfectly itemized for your exact talent spec then there'd be even more competition over that 1 token per week per 25 man raid, and they might as well get rid of all non-set loot that fills the same slots.

A large problem exists with the non-set loot.

Namely the lower drop rates, lower ilevel, and lack of options in many slots.

I would be perfectly happy with two Warlock sets with identical stats except each getting an equivalent amount of hit or crit. Crit is a wasted stat as Affliction and many items would be upgrades for me if they had hit instead of crit. Yellow hit gems in 2.10 should help out a lot, I guess.

I beg to differ. When a set token drops I have to fight over every other rogue shaman and paladin in the raid; when an enhancement-designed piece of mail drops I pick it up.

From a player's point of view, it'd be ideal if every boss in the game dropped generic loot tokens which we could trade in for exactly what piece of gear we wanted. Blizzard could just implement an item editor and let us itemize our own gear, even.

But something tells me a game like that would get boring fast. Gear progression and its associated challenges (calculating, identifying, and obtaining ideal equipment) are part of the MMO game. Moreover "poorly itemized" gear is an effective way of Blizzard allowing progression without massive gains in ilevel... by "badly" budgeting entry-level gear such as Kara/T4 and optimizing BT loot to the extreme, we enjoy our upgrades that much more.

They've given the warlocks seperate PvP sets for Affliction and Destro. I don't understand why they haven't done the same for PvE.

I wouldn't take it so far as giving us an item calculator. Even then I wouldn't call something an associated challenge if no such piece exists in which you're looking for. How can I calculate, identify, and obtain a piece which simply doesn't exist. Quick, go find me a pair of non +shadow gloves better than Ebony Flame from Blackwing lair. Oh, wait, they don't exist.

You fail to understand that multiple sets is exactly what they're doing for 5 of the 9 classes. How would this somehow break the fun of the game when these classes are already getting these sets effectively tailor made for seperate playstyles(which do in fact exist beyond the borders of hybrid classes)

I can see the point of differing tier sets for Warlocks. In some minor way, the Arcane Mage's set wouldn't focus on +hit because we're given 10% of it on the first tier of our tree like Warlocks, but it's a fringe spec at the moment, whereas I'd say Destruction Warlocks are a few times more common than Arcane-nuking Mages.

And for the record, Fire and Frost Mages value each of the important stats (+dmg, +crit, +hit) practically equally. I can see no distinct differences, except perhaps a tendency for Frost to want slightly more +crit than +dmg, because Frostbolt scales pretty poorly with +dmg.

Well if they started designing good non-set pieces consistently that might work out. However right now that's not the case. If they specifically design equal iLevel sets for hybrids instead of making them farm/hope for non-set pieces, and even design distinct PvP sets for a DPS class like warlocks, I don't see what the big deal is about doing the same for some other classes. Right now, non-set itemization for MM and BM hunters seems to be "wear leather", while survival hunters it's mostly wear lower DPS tiered pieces, or hope for one of the few non-set pieces that are accidentally itemized with lots of agi.

OK, I'm mixing a general itemization rant into this, I still don't see why they can't do for all classes what they do for some. I mean, honestly, how often do paladin's tank during a raid? Yet there's a whole series of tiered raid sets designed to help them in that role when it's called for, whereas more common roles for other classes are not accomodated as much.

Fixed. Welcome to the world of all hybrid classes for the past very long time. =p Feel free to now "join the bitching masses about WoW's exciting inventory system."

In all seriousness though the answer to that question is yes. Any caster worth their salt is already looting more than just 1 set of gear so that they can retain maximum DPS output on trash (where the hit cap is very very low, depending on talents and mob level) and have the gear to switch in and get hit-capped or close to it for bosses (which is 16% base minus your talents.) Multiple sets of gear really isn't anything new for casters either to be honest.

Yes, and I have all kinds of slightly-varying items as well. But there's a difference between picking up assorted loot that comes your way, which you can find an occasional use for, and having two entirely different tiered armor sets that serve to min/max slightly different setups. I'm guessing most raiders in hybrid classes right now are looting one set, for their main raid role, and picking up miscellaneous windfalls that help bolster the other roles.

Is it really min-maxing? Crit is an expensive stat, and afaik very wasted on affliction warlocks. Wearing only tiered gear is limiting for BM hunters since it doesn't provide the high AP that wearing non-set leather does, wearing tiered gear isn't good for the primary reason for bringing a survival hunter, since it doesn't necessarily buff his Agility and crit - and the only reason he's specced survival is to have lots of agi and crit since his raid utility is based on 25% of his total agi being a high number, not what his DPS is. If they continue to mostly only make good tiered gear then yes, everyone will wear it since the blues they're currently using will fall behind, but it's artificially gimping all specs by trying to cater to all.

Affliction warlocks already have an epic set - it's called Frozen Shadoweave last time I checked.

DPS class do have some variation in what stats their spec aims, but it really doesn't warrant the complete shift in stats that hybrid class gearing requires. Just wear offset gear.

This.

I don't think this is a general "dps caster" problem.

I think it's, specifically, an affliction-warlock problem (and shadowpriest -- I would bet Blizzard is putting the crit on there because they have one "dps" spec (smite) that values crit and one that doesn't.) It's not even a destruction-warlock problem at all -- just affliction.

All the other dps classes in the game (right? am I missing one?) value all the dps stats (crit, hit, damage), just probably with some individual preferences, or influenced somewhat by what, as a warlock, feels like over-the-top talents (+10% hit from talents? whine.....) Warlock and spriest are basically forced into very boring itemization with pretty much no tradeoffs. And no tradeoffs makes for boring, no-choice itemization. No real debates about whether piece A is better than piece B.

(shadow priests, with their high talent-based +hit, are in even worse shape. At least warlocks can debate the value of +hit...)


It seems about time that Blizzard figured out how to make all the dps stats work for all the dps classes unless they're going to split out lock/spriest gear like they do the hybrids.

Otherwise we're like druids: held back ultimately by itemization (luckily not as badly, but looking at the minimal dps increases for the dot-based builds for T6 and it's pretty sad in my mind.)


I think going all the way to school-specific damage is a bad idea though. Honestly I think the whole tailored sets were a very bad idea due mostly to being school-specific damage.

Having a few "flavor" items that were school specific was neat: you could look forward to the kara neck or whatever. Putting them in on the main armor pieces has caused a world of hurt (specifically: I won't really see an upgrade until the next expansion.)

Frozen Shadoweave is great and all but not having a gear upgrade for a while sucks. Unless Warlocks are going to be required to have like 15k raid buffed or something, they simply will not need all the stam (and less spell damage) on the tier 6 set. If that's true, Affliction Warlocks will not be upgrading three pieces of gear for a year at that rate.

Off-set gear is better for destruction warlocks too. My spellstrike pants and hood aren't going to be upgraded any time soon, Handwraps of Flowing Thought give better DPS than Gloves of the Corruptor.

Affliction warlocks not wanting icky crit on their gear and set gear not being best for DPS are two different issues.

I think they could solve both of these problems by having two sets of Warlock gear though, don't you think?