Depending on itemization values, they could also make boomkin and resto (and ele and resto) gear overlap a bit for non-set pieces, which was another option mentioned at blizzcon, by putting extra damage on gear beyond the free damage from healing (and making the two specs prefer secondary stats similarly). This does run into the problem that the pieces are slightly under-itemized for either of their main uses, but that's basically analogous to enh shammy and druid loot being mis-itemized because it's really hunter/rogue loot.
There's definitely a move towards slimming down the loot tables by making convergent itemization desires, but they seem to have painted themselves in a corner with boomkin and ele shammies, and there's no visible way out of it, like there was for retadins.

Also, in the states, it's "Murphy's Law." According to a science poster I saw, it was discovered in 1947 when somebody strapped accelerometers to the controls on a rocket sled facing the wrong direction.

I don't really buy Blizz's reasoning here. Make it a trash drop. Or do like they did in 2.4. A pure spell damage weapon drops and you can turn it in for a better pally tank weapon.

There is mail gear with spell damage that drops off bosses. Most raids are only going to have 1 elemental shaman in the raid. Does that mean they should not get any gear besides their set pieces? What other classes are interested in mail spell damage gear? I'm fine if it's badge loot. Just add SOME mitigation and spell damage on the same weapon.

Even as recently as the last Blizcast Tom Chilton repeated this idea of making hybrids want to use the same gear as more "pure" classes. It makes itemization easier and it leads to less "ZOMG more boomkin boots and still no Torch" frustration over the RNG system. I still have problems with them throwing in a dagger for every single build possible off raid bosses when only rogues use them (and few will), but at least they're trying to make the system less cumbersome.

They're working on solutions. The Sunmote gear is a good step, essentially doubling the size of loot tables on some bosses, going back to 8 piece sets is a great step, token drops making up half of my gear is fine with me, and allows them to fully customize anything that says "Mail" on it. All thats left is the non-armor gear. Rings, Necks, Trinkets, Cloaks, and the weapon slots.

This change seems very strange to me - it has serious potential to reduce competitiveness in Arena, while also potentially removing a gearing option (S3 weapons) for alts/raiders who don't farm T6 yet and aren't especially good at PvP.

If this goes through, the only path to better weapons is looking like Badges of Justice unless the ratings requirements are really low. Additionally, the SSO-vendor doesn't currently feature every weapon type (no swords being the big missing item). It's a change with only negatives, directly contradicting previous policy.

Oh come now. I play a mage, druid, priest and rogue and can't imagine not being able to get any player in my guild to 1650 in 2s either partner with them or playing their toon. This doesn't hurt alts/raiders much at all.

It really "hurts" the ultra-casual who has very few social connections in game. These people might instead have to pay to get their 1650, but that's about it. In reality though, what this does is give them something to strive for. 1850 may be unachievable, but 1650 is always just 10 wins away.

This really does seem like the logical thing to do. Spell damage leather isn't ever going to be optimal for anyone except 1 spec out of 27 (30 with the expansion release), so tokenize all armor drops and make rings, necks, trinkets, cloaks, and weapons and ranged weapons the only non-tokenized drops. Tokenize relics as well, so that you get either a paladin, druid, or shaman relic which can be turned in for something good for the proper spec. (Alternately, make relics useful for more than one spec like the [Ashtongue Talisman of Vision] tries to be.)

The only potential downside to all of this is that Blizzard seems to continue to struggle with correctly itemizing hybrid class gear. Ret paladins and enhancement shamans know that having +spell damage and mana/5 on our tier gear severely gimps us compared to other classes with proper itemization. Even some primary classes have legitimate complaints (shadow priests and affliction locks with spell crit and hit, mages with excessive spirit, etc.) Blizzard would need to commit to properly itemizing the gear -- let us socket and enchant for MP5 if we want it, don't force it upon us.

Yes, a solution like mini-tokens would be great. Make the Elemental Shaman and the Moonkin druid share the same piece of +SpellDmg/+SpellCrit chest that you simply 'turn in' to make it mail or leather. You could have Enhancement Shaman share gear with DPS Warriors or Retribution Paladins by this method, too. Even Restoration Shaman and Holy Paladins, or Holy Priests and Restoration Druids, would be able to share loot drops. All these class-specs would use very similar gear *if only* the armor class wasn't an issue (Mail vs. Plate vs. Leather vs. Cloth). The fact that specs that gear similarly can't share loot drops without changing armor class is what makes this an issue.

As for the rings and idols and such? The 'End Boss Head' quests could function quite well. Have a 30% chance for a boss to drop something like 'Relic of Mother Shahraz' which clearly can only be turned in for Idol/Relic/Totem.

Totally agree on the tokenization point. I've been a proponent of it for some time. Moreover, I think they need to build tokenization right into the loot system, i.e. the interface displays to you what a token can potentially transmute into, and you transmute it at loot-time into the item you want.

It may not make sense for 5-man loot (although I still feel that the dungeon set should be tokenized), but it definitely makes sense for raids.

Is this REALLY what we want to see??? How un-rewarding is it to kill a boss and have to hand out the equivalent of epic food stamps to people. Why do we want to see everything broken down to the most basic level. Not only does this go against the basics of RPG's (bosses drop LOOT... not Chuck E Cheese tickets), but it will only lead to more uniformity between players and faster abandonment of instances. Teir tokens is enough.

The only reason I'd disagree with this is I haven't felt satisfaction in a loot drop since EQ1. That "epic" feel. WoW has pretty much always been a numbers game, its itemized that way. Items aren't really cool as much as degrees of effective. Considering that isn't really there, the random number generator screwing you is beyond old at this point and is quite antiquated.

I mean I raided for years in EQ, I've killed tons of bosses and the RNG has screwed me and others many times, but itemization just felt different. When something really cool dropped it really did feel pretty awesome. Now its just numbers. Granted, I personally enjoy mixing and matching gear to optimize for different settings, but when you're on kill 30+ of a boss and really only looking for 1 specific drop, pair 10 of Moonkin boots is just old.

There are no cool items in WoW, that's what vanity pets and tcg codes are for :P

I think that EQ 1 nostalgia probably comes from the complete lack of a gear reset after the third expansion. Last time I checked in with my old EQ guild it's pretty stupid. People hit all mod caps expansions ago and now the only things that change are the +hp totals and damage on weapons. Plus the "new" player models and armor dyes mean that your armor is another featureless breastplate of boring they expect you to dye black or hot pink and ignore. I don't EQ has had a new armor texture since 2002.

WoW is not nearly that bad yet :P EQ has had 1 stat anyone gave a shit about for what? a decade? At least WoW makes you do some basic math.

On the tokenization subject.

If you over do the tokens and quests drops for the right item in raids AND in instances how would Enchanting survive?

I'll admit that it would be better to have all the loot distributed and not sharded, but you will have to revamp enchanting with that in mind.

Lets not forget that a whole profession is dependant on the fact that some loot is less desirable.

You handle this the exact same way that you handle T4/5/6 tokens nobody needs anymore: you get an item with the unwanted token and DE that item.

So if you search on me here, you'll find a series of arguments as to why I think the arena requirements were a pretty bad idea to begin with. I don't really get any justification for maintaining them on last season's gear. I suspect someone actually did some encounter math and decided that the small-but-real raid buffs obtained by putting the typical guilds rogues and warriors in S3 weapons would further trivialize Black Temple and this would somehow be bad since as thing stand said guilds' rogues, at least, don't get weapon upgrades there outside of offhands unless they get glaives. Really though, that fails the "blizzlogic" test. Perhaps it's some internal Blizzard elitism. And if so, as the above poster says, it runs counter to the democratic approach that arena gear was supposed to bring to PVP.

Last time we discussed this, I suggested it would be very hard to to overcome the "barrier" of facing a season 3 weapon with a season 2 weapon in melee on melee matchups and that relatively few people would cross over once the ratings were set. I'm not entirely sure how true that is overall, but anecdotally, it's quite true. Virtually no one I've come across on Stormrage "gets to 1850" eventually.

With having to grind to some arbitrary level just to get a season 3 weapon, well, I dunno, I'm struggling to understand what purpose this serves other than allowing a larger number of people to run around with "I'm better than you" gear. Apparently the bears, Sunwell gear and S4 stuff isn't enough for that.

Jury is out until the requirement appears, but a case needs to be made that a 5 month old item has a requirement higher than "2625 arena points", let alone any rating.

I don't know, people seemed to like Naxx even though it dropped [Desecrated Spaulders], etc.
In theory, I agree with you. In practice, with a few exceptions, WoW bosses have never really dropped "appropriate" loot that keeps some sense of "immersion" in an RPG. I mean, Rage Winterchill wears nothing but 10 different pairs of bracers? Mmmkay. If you really want a sense of "immersion", make bosses randomly drop magical essences like say "Essence of Assassination (Classes: Rogue, Druid, Warrior)" that you take to NPC smiths to imbue a leather or plate set with. It would also be fine to have certain non-set armor items drop provided they fulfill two criteria: (1) obviously useful to multiple classes, (2) clearly lore-related to the boss in question. [Cursed Vision of Sargeras] is a great example of "offset" armor that you're not going to be sharding for a long time... but can you instantly name another similar piece of armor?

To address your other point, uniformity between players is going to naturally occur as a result of (1) "tiered" gear progression, (2) gear sets with useful set bonuses, and (3) the min-max attitude that most raiders (myself included) have. If Blizzard is against uniformity, that's fine, but their first act should then be to abolish the set bonus and their second act should be to introduce armor dyes (which other lesser games have had implemented for a long time).

I wonder if this might just have to do with the fact that things tend to be very incremental upgrades from tier to tier? I could pick up a piece of gear and say, "well, this has 15 more RAP and 10 more hit, but I lose .1% crit."

Unless a piece has gem slots, it's almost kind of tough to find gear that is an upgrade in every DPS-important stat. If Blizz would jack up the iLevel between tiers they could go ahead and be sloppy on itemization

Make items disenchantable through the trade window, increase the number of enchanting materials that come from a single disenchantment, or decrease the number of enchanting materials required for enchantments. Fairly trivial.

That makes zero sense. How is perfect itemization going to remove the motivation to make that item even better?

The problem to me in WoW is you leveled from 60-70....to get the same ratings (basically). I mean, granted I have a lot more AP than I used to in DPS gear, my crit/hit etc are about the same as they were for same level targets as I had pre tbc. Granted they've slapped in armor penetration for example. Of course come WOTLK and level 80 and the new level cap, then you are getting your ratings back where they were pre expansion, and it'll be the same for my tanking stats - percentage wise I have basically identical avoidance to what I had pre TBC, barring expertise (and for whatever reason a lot less hit). Not sure the point I'm getting at makes sense, I don't deny there is a substantial increase in player power, but to me at least this contributes to the feeling of gear just being about numbers and nothing else. I don't miss EQ, but I did enjoy the cool clickies. I had tons of clickies that was useful for various things, and to me thats part of what is missing, of course completely different systems and all that would render some EQ clickies redundant/pointless, and vice versa. It is just one of the tradeoffs we make for combat locked equipment for all but 3 slots of gear.

It won't, the issue then would be that nothing gets disenchanted so where do your enchanting mats come from?

Regardless, I don't think anyone is literally asking for perfect itemization with 0 items being sharded. It just won't ever happen. What we ARE looking for are ways to counteract the mediocre RNG. To this end, being able to trade items + Sunmotes for a different item is an encouraging start. What would be even better is getting to the point where instead of "great, Moonkin boots again, shard time" it's "Moonkin boots, grats Moonkin/Ret Pally/Ele shammy, how many Sunmotes do we have again?" from the raid leader.

Eventually, non-token gear WILL get sharded, because everyone whom it applies to either has the item or doesn't want it. I would even be in favor of an option to trade in [unwanted item drop]x3 plus 30 Sunmotes for the non-token drop off the same loot table; basically a way to counter the RNG if you get a long streak of crap drops.

The annoying part about Moonkin boots is that we really don't need them on the loot table. We can use cloth gear just fine in PvE, as we share the same stats as Mages.