When it comes to melee based attacks, yes they are.

Enhancement shamans - Too fast for both MH and OH.
Fury warriors - Too fast for MH and usually too poor stats for OH. Unless you prefer using the slow/slow combination, where the dagger is useless.
Rogues - If you like being 3-5% behind a combat rogue, then go nuts. Just remember that people bring you for dps and dps only. So going with a suboptimal spec isn't that cool for a rogue.
Hunters - If you can get two daggers with a proper combination of agi/crit and hit, then yes. The main benefit is dual perm/temp enchants, so this is probably the only class where daggers are a Good Thing(tm).

I think it's safe to say that the Sunwell weapon itemizer plays a mutilate rogue.

If it's the same guy who's been doing all the itemizations in other raid instances as well, I think he's playing combat daggers.

This might be a bit offtopic, but how people think about itemization in general during this expansion? From rogue's viewpoint there wasn't any offhand upgrades from PvE content between Latro's offhand from normal Black Morass and Blade of Savagery in Black Temple before ZA was implemented. Can't say I'm too happy about that, but would like to hear other people's opinions about this.

Regarding daggers:
No it has nothing to do with stats. It's the AP modifier. Daggers gain far too little from AP making daggers completely useless for a Fury Warrior.


Back on topic:
As an Orc, i'm pretty pissed about Blizzard total neglect to Orcs recently. Best 2h in T4 was an axe, Best 2h in T5 is a Sword, best 2h in T6 is a sword, best 2h in Sunwell seems to be a sword.

some bosses may not have all loot descovered yet, but they are not going to have a 2h sword AND a 2h axe (or any other 2h melee wep) drop from the same boss (kil'jaedan).

To kick us while we're down, they also decide to put no one-hand axes in the Sunwell...



gif legendary axe plz

I feel sorry for orcs wanting axes, my dwarf hunter is in the same boat. Speaking of that, why is it that every PVE "end game" ranged weapon for hunters in BC has to be a bow?


T4: Sunfury Bow (Prince M), nothing from Magtheridon or Gruul. Granted, the BBW drops a gun that is incredibly good because of BM shot rotations. So this point isn't as strong.

T5: Serpentspine (Vashj), nothing from KT

T6: Bristleblitz Longbow (Archimonde), Black Bow (Illidan)

Sunwell: Golden Bow, Legendary Bow

Badge Reward: Crossbow with 2.80 speed, very nice

Gun options: tuskbreaker (ZA), arcanite steam-pistol (al'ar)


There's no gun for raiding hunters past the fucking arcanite steam pistol. Why is this? Why is everything a 2.9 or 3.0 speed bow (horrible hunter shot rotation mechanics aside)? I was sure that Sunwell would have a gun of some sort in it for my dwarven hunter, but all we are given is yet another uninspired bow and a legendary that I doubt I will ever see. I really hope that in WotLK there is some creative itemization that allows us to take advantage of racial bonuses.

Easiest way to balance the game around itemization based racial bonuses: don't give the players any opportunity to use them.

The problem of course is that other people get to use their bonuses. Orc warriors and human warriors / rogues anyways. Doubly-so for a human since when it comes time to spam execute I can switch to a sword + mace for double-expertise bonus.

Personally I thought back when they added the hunter epic bow that they should've gotten the option to choose gun or bow or even throwing weapon (something with unlimited durability or something so it never runs out of charges). Same deal with the legendary weapon they added in Sunwell.

You clearly didn't read the post past that point.

You are right, selective reading

Just in regards to some of the Druid itemisation discussion;

Is Armor Penetration really a favourable stat in terms of threat generation for a Druid? Would you not prefer Agility/Attack Power; as Armor Penetration yields no benefit for Lacerate?

Forgive me if I'm oblivious.

TERRIBLE for warriors due to ap normalization. Being 2-4% behind is enough to not be brought to a raid, why enchant/gem your gear if 2-4% doesn't matter? Yay for hunters being the only ones who can use the daggers that drop all over the god damn place.


Ninja Edit : Just realize I was beaten to the punch.

Agility is what druids always want. But of course itemization teams can't overdue it, because then you have too much dodge, and Raid designers put in the Sunwell avoidance buff/debuff.

Then, you get ArP vs AP/Str. Yes, AP/Str would be a little better. But then again Mangle/Maul/Initial Lacerate strike still benefit from ArP. Only the dot is not affected by ArP. So.. stack enough of it, makes a decent difference (just like any other Melee)

KJ loot now *mostly* known;
Fist Wep MH
Another Healing Mace
Thori'dal goes up to 162.8 DPS and 2.7 speed...

WTB identical offhand or that fist to be made one hand instead of just MH

Daaayum, that fist MH is amazing. It blows the closest available weapons for Enh Shaman (S4 weapons) out of the water. It might even be better than MH glaive if you don't include the set haste proc.

To be fair, we'd want to use things like the Shivs even if they were swords or axes - in cases like that I'd like to think blizzard just made them daggers since they wanted to itemize them for hunters.

Now, why all the other daggers are in there that even hunters don't want, your point stands.

[Mounting Vengeance] isn't close enough?

I'm more confused by the fact the Kil'jeaden healing mace isn't even a crit heal mace, it's another mp/5 mace, which already dropped off Eredar Twins. Also mildly annoyed by the fact Apolyon is 3.4 speed now.

Mildly annoying is a lot nicer than I have put it.

The only 2 hander worth using in SWP is not only extremely fast but additionally is stacked with even more haste. For alliance retribution paladins its only a couple DPS higher than a Season 4 sword, which is a good 8 and a half DPS lower. The only possible reason I can think of is that they wanted to topend to be roughly equal to the S4 weapons, which is not a satisfactory reason to me. I would kill for a nice slow 2-handed mace to be put in, even if it was a lower ilevel off a different boss.

They don't want it to be too good. The DPS and stats are an upgrade, but the damage range isn't. It's a shame they have to speed up every upgrade for two-handers... 3.7, 3.6, 3.5 and even 3.4 now. Can only guess why, but I suppose they don't want any more QQ about godly PvE weapons in PvP.

Myself, I'm also peeved about there apparently not being any tanking weapons. [Dragonscale-Encrusted Longblade]is a very nice threat sword, but there's nothing defensive to replace [The Unbreakable Will].

Hmm I guess I can post this question here as it's pertaining to SW loot.

Funny thought just crossed my mind regarding the [Hand of the Deceiver].

Weren't all main hand weapons purposefully changed to one handers in 2.4.2? If this is just an oversight, as no one has actually seen KJ loot on live servers until now, wouldn't this item be exceptionally good for enhancement shamans and fury warriors as an offhand weapon?

Fist Weapons weren't changed, e.g. [Claw of Molten Fury].

edit:
It's ok, our best defensive tanking weapon comes from SSC trash =p

It is obvious to me that concerns about a "Cataclysm Edge" effect went into the design of the current implementation of Apolyon.

Assuming Season 4 starts July 1st-15th ( just a guess ) how many people truly have a shot at obtaining this weapon to 'imbalance' season 3, 50-100? It was apparent from the mistaken change to Windfury that caused Slam to no longer proc an extra windfury attack(it is an on next swing yellow, however fast it is), and then the subsequent editing of the patch notes\change that they worry about this balance. I don't have to like it given thats my general raid role but the annoyance of those 50-100 people is better than any imbalance, real or perceived.

As for tanking weapon, that 25 expertise seems to be far more valuable than the 21 defense on UBW. -1.5% chance to parry to me seems more beneficial given boss swing mechanics ( except on the notable exceptions like mother ) than a combined personal .64% mitigation and .32% to miss and thats only half of it.

It seems in the greater balance of things, you could easily apply +240 armor to your gloves now, and use the new sword, and you would come out remarkably farther ahead.