The problem with Arena-gear -> PVE-Gear is that it would pressure the pure-pvers to suffer in arenas for weeks to fill their missing pieces. Set items are something you can't get from badge rewards.
Why it does work the other way around is because resilience is required for PVP. It's only fair if you go throught the hard work in raiding and eventually after everyone else got their gear, you could get your PVP gear.
In PVP there is no blocks like that, you could buy the PVE-gear straight away.
IMO. Resilience should be stat based on tier and should not affect item-level at all. It also should be everwhere or nowhere.
This would change the main difference with PVP and PVE gear on Stamina and DPS/Healing output. You could use your PVE gear to fill missing mp5/healing/dmg at the expense of Stamina (and resilience). Of course PVP gear would have more resilience on average too.
By opening up a gear supermarket in 2.4, Blizzard (a) gives everyone something to do, as 99% of the playerbase have some gear that they wanted on their mains (nevermind alts) but couldn't get before that they can work towards now and (b) can norm the gear and encounter levels around some degree of epic equipment so they won't need to do such a jarring "epics for greens" change in Northrend as they did in Outland to get around the fact that some people were in Tier 3 and most people were at best in MC gear or PvP blues.
I disagree with this line of thinking. Also there weren't that many epics (even MC ones) swapped out instantly in outlands. Instead we saw a lot of sidegrades to existing epics. They will have to put strong early quest rewards in a-la the Helfire quest rewards for people levelling new alts, deathknights and of course people who are new to the game.
If anything this is similar to the spree of easy PvP epics we got shortly before Burning Crusade but considerably earlier relative to the expansion date.
I disagree with this line of thinking. Also there wern't that many epics (even MC ones) swaped out instantly in outlands. Instead we saw a lot of sidegrades to existing epics. They will have to put strong early quest rewards in a-la the Helfire quest rewards for people levelling new alts, deathknights and of course people who are new to the game.
If anything this is similar to the spree of easy PvP epics we got shortly before Burning Crusade but considerably earlier relative to the expansion date.
A good observation--this is very much the 2.0 'Before the Storm' PvP welfare patch.
But...better gear.
Look at that two-hand axe, for example. It's roughly equal to a season three 2h'er (134 dps, 3.5 speed vs. 134.2 dps, 3.6 speed), and significantly better than Soul Cleaver / Torch of the Damned (each at 130 dps). The only two-hander that's better, at the moment, is Cataclysm's Edge. Actually, the badge axe, by virtue of being 55 crit / 53 haste / 108 ap is probably best-in-slot for hunters.
Back when 2.0 came out, the two-hand weapons you could get were still worse than, say, Ashkandi...and significantly worse than Corrupted Ashbringer. The difference between the BT/MH gear and this is *much* smaller.
To respond to rhea: How exactly is it "only fair" for PvE'ers to get arena gear? I worked damn hard to get my arena gear, and do not relish this change at all. The seperation between PvP and PvE gear has been a great boon for WoW. The existence of a fairly-expensive-in-terms-of-item-budget Resilience has been, in my opinion, the best change made to WoW PvP in the history of the game.
It would appear the "t6" badge loot is on the US PVE server at least. The armor appears to all be ilevel 141 and the weapons are ilevel 146.
Check itemids between 34887 and 34953
Here's the first four items, the rest have actual names :p
Edit: went ahead and added the first weapons near the front of the range... there's some more scattered near the end (like 2 more offhand fists and an offhand dagger I think).
Healer ring is pretty garbage. Hyjal exalted and BT/Hyjal trash ring are both better by a long shot.
All the stuff with no source seems to be the new badge stuff, the first link is ilvl 141 armor and the second ilvl 146 weapons. Was looking at the id's on the PTR and they match up.
Healer ring is pretty garbage. Hyjal exalted and BT/Hyjal trash ring are both better by a long shot.
However, if you don't have access to those rings, though the BT trash ring won't be hard after this goes live, it's a good option compared to anything prior to them aside from the one you can get from Mag's head.
To respond to rhea: How exactly is it "only fair" for PvE'ers to get arena gear? I worked damn hard to get my arena gear, and do not relish this change at all. The seperation between PvP and PvE gear has been a great boon for WoW. The existence of a fairly-expensive-in-terms-of-item-budget Resilience has been, in my opinion, the best change made to WoW PvP in the history of the game.
As it is, it's S2, not the newest and greatest. It's fair because it's the "throw-away gear", guilds won't give tokens for pvp-gear first hand. It's fair because there is no resilience in PVE-gear, that sets PVE-gear in major disadvantage in PVP. PVP-gear does not give that bad disadvantage in PVE, infact the weapons are often even better.
But if those items actually require Sunwell drops to purchase them, they are severely under powered and should NOT be ilvl 141. If they're heroic badges, well grats rest of the world on free BT level gear.
I'm confused about why there's no spell damage sword or mace option on the vendor. I know that Protection Paladins aren't all that common, and they're the only spec that can't use daggers or staves, but there are three melee daggers on that vendor and there wasn't room for a second spell damage 1h'er?
I'm confused about why there's no spell damage sword or mace option on the vendor. I know that Protection Paladins aren't all that common, and they're the only spec that can't use daggers or staves, but there are three melee daggers on that vendor and there wasn't room for a second spell damage 1h'er?
It's probably worth noting these are data mined... there's quite possibly more stuff (like maybe trinkets and necklaces) buried elsewhere. And there were gaps in the id range too, so maybe there's stuff there that just hadn't been loaded by a GM or whatever loaded these items into the server cache.
The best gear in the world only gets you so far in arena PVP.
We're not talking about the best gear either. This is last season's slop for T5/T6 tokens. I don't really see a reason why this change was necessary. Blizzard seems like they are really trying to encourage a larger portion of it's raiding community to PVP. Maybe this is some kind of big push toward e-sport acceptance. Creating a more substantial playerbase. But the people who were already interested in arena PVP are in S3, and farming holiday BGs right now. So all they're doing is hopefully getting Joe the raider (who logs on/off to PVE) to participate in arena PVP. I see that as the wrong approach entirely. Gear isn't going to make someone interested in raiding suddenly get excited about arenas.
Blizzard already posted that Northrend will almost certainly be a gear reset like Outland, didn't they?
A couple of things:
1. The definition of gear reset can vary rather widely. Outland quested greens blew Azeroth junk out of the water because they were actually itemized well. Instead of +INT and +SPI and nothing else, you actually had spell damage and spell crit. Smart itemization was as much part of the gear as item levels.
2. STA became cheaper. You could fit a lot more stats because STA wasn't taking up as much of the budget. Unless WOTLK has some similarly large change in itemization mechanics, I don't expect the Northrend gear reset to be as dire as we've first experienced with TBC.
3. If Northrend is in fact being groomed as another gear reset, then 2.4 makes perfect sense.
Let all the casuals have a gear fiesta, because it's only going to last for another couple months.
Let guilds have full raid access (and a gear fiesta), so they can have a shot at Brutallus and not let SW become another Naxx.
3. If Northrend is in fact being groomed as another gear reset, then 2.4 makes perfect sense.
Let all the casuals have a gear fiesta, because it's only going to last for another couple months.
Let guilds have full raid access (and a gear fiesta), so they can have a shot at Brutallus and not let SW become another Naxx.
That's what doesn't make sense. By that logic, 2.4 isn't going to be through testing until fall of this year, or, WotLK will be released by spring.
I'm confused about why there's no spell damage sword or mace option on the vendor. I know that Protection Paladins aren't all that common, and they're the only spec that can't use daggers or staves, but there are three melee daggers on that vendor and there wasn't room for a second spell damage 1h'er?
ffs you're looking at a list of a handful of datamined weapons with no evidence whatsoever that it is an exhaustive list. Have some patience before you start whining.
I think that was honestly predictable. After all the weapon itemization improvement promises, you shouldn't really expect anything. Out of pure PvE there's very few swords available from raid content (out of which, only one really screams 'off-hand for rogues', which would be Blade of Savagery).
Here, I'll count them for you.
Spiteblade, the one from Kazzak, Talon of Azshara, Blade of Infamy (sidegrade to the Talon, I might add), Blade of Savagery and the Warglaives.
That's it. You got King's Defender for a possible off-hand but for anything else, go do Arenas.
Anyway, these badge loots seem what I was kind of expecting, mediocre, with 141 budgets but not really amazingly well budgeted stats on them. You can tell the melee MH weapons are faster on purpose, just to not make them so powerful as they could be at i146.
That melee ring is an exception though. It's better than the ZA ring by one entire agility and that particular ring is pretty solid. Gimme.
We'll see though. These are mines, we don't even have badge counts yet.
Speaking in terms of the caster loot and eyeballing the other stuff that's been found so far, it's about what I would have hoped for. Most likely upgrades for people at the sub-T6 level, but not really better than current T6 pieces. A couple of the weapons might interest people, but to be honest I'm quite glad I don't have the make the choice to replace my T6 with badge items. So far, anyway.
Edit: the melee ring is nice though. We've cleared ZA almost every reset since it's been released and never seen a single Primal Wrath (only 1 Mana Attuned Band). I'm glad our physical DPS will finally be able to at least get a duplicate of it.
Speaking in terms of the caster loot and eyeballing the other stuff that's been found so far, it's about what I would have hoped for. Most likely upgrades for people at the sub-T6 level, but not really better than current T6 pieces. A couple of the weapons might interest people, but to be honest I'm quite glad I don't have the make the choice to replace my T6 with badge items. So far, anyway.
Edit: the melee ring is nice though. We've cleared ZA almost every reset since it's been released and never seen a single Primal Wrath (only 1 Mana Attuned Band). I'm glad our physical DPS will finally be able to at least get a duplicate of it.
The weapons are looking similar to the S3 ones, statwise. Even down to the healing mace having no regen on it.
For what its worth, the feral staff is excellently itemized for DPS. The only odd thing is that its another DPS staff when the one from the Sunwell pic is also a DPS one. Now I suppose there may be a second feral AP staff (tank one) in the badge loot list and/or Sunwell drops but that seems a bit unlikely.
Im curious as to if there'll be other armor pieces as well. Just giving a ring and weapon at T6 level gear doesn't seem as "bad". Something doesn't sit right with me though if you can make a nearly full set of T6 level gear off of heroic badge vendors...unless the cost is so rediculously high per piece that its more used as a "fill in what I can't get in raids with the extra badges we get" kinda thing.
As far as those "badge" items, mmo-champion are listing them along with a lot of new items which have been added to the PTR. There's no way to know what will be actual badge loot tho.
For what its worth, the feral staff is excellently itemized for DPS. The only odd thing is that its another DPS staff when the one from the Sunwell pic is also a DPS one. Now I suppose there may be a second feral AP staff (tank one) in the badge loot list and/or Sunwell drops but that seems a bit unlikely.
Im curious as to if there'll be other armor pieces as well. Just giving a ring and weapon at T6 level gear doesn't seem as "bad". Something doesn't sit right with me though if you can make a nearly full set of T6 level gear off of heroic badge vendors...unless the cost is so rediculously high per piece that its more used as a "fill in what I can't get in raids with the extra badges we get" kinda thing.
From using Sniff on the PTR I found 3 pieces of gear per armor type/spec. There are 2 cloth damage sets, one with hit and one with crit. Some of it is already on wowhead, linked above though I noticed they are missing some pieces. Also the pieces seem to be chest/legs/feet/hands in all sets, I don't recall seeing anything else (besides the weapons and rings, obviously).
For what its worth, the feral staff is excellently itemized for DPS. The only odd thing is that its another DPS staff when the one from the Sunwell pic is also a DPS one. Now I suppose there may be a second feral AP staff (tank one) in the badge loot list and/or Sunwell drops but that seems a bit unlikely.
Im curious as to if there'll be other armor pieces as well. Just giving a ring and weapon at T6 level gear doesn't seem as "bad". Something doesn't sit right with me though if you can make a nearly full set of T6 level gear off of heroic badge vendors...unless the cost is so rediculously high per piece that its more used as a "fill in what I can't get in raids with the extra badges we get" kinda thing.
Why would that be odd? The badge weapons are ilvl 146 while sunwell loot is at least 159, that's a sizable difference.