The Druid and Paladin sets have an amazingly diverse set of stats and it looks like Blizzard is gradually moving away from pure raiding stats to more balanced stats (for both PvE and PvP).
Edit- I find the Shaman and Priest sets to be fairly lack-luster, but I was a hardcore Elemental Shaman myself (I have this deep down hate for Enhancement Shaman :ph34r: ).
I like them all. They all have a lot of PvE utility except perhaps for the priest set, but that has some fun bonuses too.
And I don't think it's remotely fair to call Stormcaller an Enhancement set. Elemental shamans should be excited over it too.
The rogue, hunter, and warlock sets are all strictly superior to their t2 counterparts in every way. The mage set is very good, but if you have 8-piece Netherwind I'm not sure Enigma justifies breaking that up just yet.
Personally, 5x Stormcaller + 3x Ten Storms is what I see myself wearing on raids this spring.
I dunno, the stormcaller set just doesnt excite me much, the footpads are really nice though. With me being totaly resto specced and with no intentions of switching out of that I dont see it being beneficial to me but 3 TS and 5 storm will really make chain heal quite nice. You can tell that blizzard worked hard to make a well balanced set for shamans though. You could wear it no matter the spec even resto and be happy.
Well, for me personally, I was a strict +damage / +spell crit% whore on my Shaman. The +spell damage on Stormcaller is very nice, but I was never one to shy away from caster cloth either. But I think we can both agree that Enhancement Shaman definitely needed some itemization help and I think the set (all sets, really) does a good job on covering a lot of areas. Like I said, seeing Agi and Str on Mail makes me wince a little, but that's just habit and instinct. :)
And the armor bit on the Priest set is interesting. If Inner Fire and other damage mitigation tools actually scaled worth a damn, then the Priests' set's armor bonus might actually be useful. But, when faced (and outpaced) by the damage scale, it really just becomes a nifty little mod to point out rather than something that'd be useful in my opinion.
Originally Posted by subscience,January 26th, 2006 @ 4:57PM
(I have this deep down hate for Enhancement Shaman :ph34r: )
You can fucking die in a gutter.
Sadly we enhancement shaman are a dying breed in EJ now as many are being seduced away by the cruel mistress known as the Elemental tree. The shaman set is basically perfect though. It gives an unbelievable base to tweak your character around due to it well roundedness and ridiculous ilvl.
Want to heal a little better? Slap some TS on so you get the chain heal bonuses stacking.
Want to hit a little harder? Put on your Therazane's, Seafury, and uhhhh Lordly Armguards.
Need bigger shock crits and sweet lightning bolts? Primalist's waistguard, Zandalar bracers, and EF gaunts are your answer.
The set is amazing to me because I think that it lets shaman play to all of our strengths at one time. It allows us to heal, nuke when needed, and throw in extra melee DPS during heal rotations/between heals without being a complete gimp in any category. It does encourage a much faster play style in which you have to concentrate about twice as much as any other class as you're trying to maximize DPS and healing maybe with some tanking thrown in. All in all, it's a play style that I feel the class needs to see more of and something I'm still working on myself, but this set makes dreams like mine come true~~~~~
Originally Posted by Wodin,January 26th, 2006 @ 5:09PM
Deathdealer pieces are all strict upgrades to Bloodfang. Bring them on.
5 pieces: 15% increased damage to your Eviscerate ability.
Seems like another one of Blizzard's temporary solutions to a permanent problem (the lack of Eviscerate scaling).
Ugh. I hate when Blizzard does stuff like that. [By "that" I mean placing temporary scaling or itemization fixes through set bonuses or whacky mods instead of addressing the issue itself.]
so do you think it is a benchmark to seeing instances that require us DPSing as much as healing? Or do you think our primary skill will still always be healing?
Originally Posted by hamlet,January 26th, 2006 @ 5:15PM
so do you think it is a benchmark to seeing instances that require us DPSing as much as healing? Or do you think our primary skill will still always be healing?
I'm willing to sacrifice 10% of my healing ability in exchange for dozens and dozens of stat points in other areas. DPS as much as healing? No. But there's certainly the potential for it in many situations. This gear opens up more options.
To use a familiar example, on the Phase 1 Nefarian zerg these days, I do as much DPS as many rogues, and more than any nonrogue in a given corner, consistently, week after week. Useless? Hardly. Of course I'm a pure healbot on Nef phase 2, but that's the essence of being a hybrid right there.
Individually, the Striker's set pieces are slightly better than their Dragonstalker counterparts.
With that said, for hunters such as myself who have 8/8 Dragonstalker, it's going to take quite a few pieces to justify giving up a single piece of Dragonstalker gear for the new stuff, given we're talking a gain of 1-5 agility per piece, and, let's face it, they didn't add any crit% chance when converting from Dragonstalker's.
Even hunters without the full DS set have options to consider. Most of these hunters will be under or near the %hit cap, and every hunter wants to never miss, so giving up a piece of DS/GS with %hit for a Striker's piece may not be the best move if it puts you under the cap.
Striker's is most optimal for Survival hunters who have %hit gear in other areas that Striker's gear does not cover for the immediate time, though obviously even hunters with 8/8 DS will want to wear 5/5 Striker's most of the time.
I should note that I consider the +damage/healing 99% irrelevant.
In summary, I like Striker's, but it will be some time before you see many of the thinking hunters wearing too many pieces of it.
If you aren't a goblin, why not?
If you are a goblin you rule
How much extra damage does 42 +damage work out to on arcane shot anyway Steel? Not that I really catch any of our hunters with a crossbow every hitting arcane instead of aimed, but still, just curious.
As a Mage that doesn't have Netherwind, I'd say the set looks pretty solid. I'd take most of those pieces, slot-for-slot (except maybe for Mish'undare-->Enigma Circlet). Hard to say about upgrading from NW. The dmg increases are small (although 4 of the 5 pieces have crit/hit, which is nice). The set bonuses are weak. And ultimately, as much as I think most people overvalue NW focus a bit, it might be hard to give up for a few extra stats in most situations.
Anyone who's not a pure tank should go to Conqueror's (and as a leader of guild without a Thunderfury, the bonus makes me happy).
Eviscerate bonus will make Rogues loot their set without trouble.
Paladin set is interesting. The focus on spelldmg is even greater than on Judgement (why can't Mages have a 5-piece like that :-P ). I'm guessing they'll like it.
Originally Posted by Relwin,January 26th, 2006 @ 5:37PM
How much extra damage does 42 +damage work out to on arcane shot anyway Steel? Not that I really catch any of our hunters with a crossbow every hitting arcane instead of aimed, but still, just curious.
Isn't it just 18? They get the 1.5/3.5 instant-speed multiplier on Arcane Shot.
The druid set is strictly worse for flat-out healing.
However, it's a hell of a utility set, and is exactly what you'd want to wear when you have the bosses down and are going to be healing when needed and pumping out good DPS when needed. Wearing it and the 3 piece Symbold of Unending Life and the 3 piece bonus from Gloves, Bracers, Belt for Stormrage would give you a druid who can heal very well, spot nuke for around 200DPS, and do feral DPS somewhere in the 250-275ish range, all as needed.
It's not, of course, as good as an eqic quality tanking or nuking or healing or cat DPS set, but it does do a pretty good job at all of the above, which will let druids pretend to be hybrids instead of specialists. Which should be fun.
I'm kinda wondering about the warlock set. The 8-piece Nemesis set bonus is very nice and I think we might have trouble convincing our warlocks to drop it for this new armor. My understanding is that the main restriction on warlock damage output would be aggro, but I guess that probably depends on the fight.
yeah aggro is a nasty thing, typically our warlocks can pull aggro any time they want. We tried an 8/8 might warrior with defiance and tranquil air and one warlock still can pull aggro if he really wanted to on certain fights.
You know for a second I was going to bitch about the Paladin set having twice as many stats as the Shaman one then I realised Allakazam is missing two of the Shaman set pieces.
01/26/06, 5:01 PM
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