Foghorn Deadhorn

First off I'd like to say that I really like the system they came up with in Naxx for loot...but honestly, with as expensive as this place is going to be to get into farm status (and farm even for a good long time I'm sure) they could have done without the expensive combines. Unreasonable? No, I guess not, but we have enough expenses as it is...

Is it a small price to pay to make sure you can get the right gear to the people who need it? Well, it's a benefit. What I'm looking for is, if anyone has made one up, is a comparison spreadsheet. Let's say you have Desecrated Sabatons drop. These are fairly simple, you have warrior vs. rogue. The big questions would be: How do Dreadnaught compare to Wrath? How do Bonescythe compare to Bloodfang or Boots of the Shadow Flame? This is especially important to us as we are an officer loot guild, and while theoretically this sort of loot system is perfect for us, the more factors we can weigh in, the better choices we can make in close call situations.

Certainly the set bonuses, which largely do not suck, are a factor, but I'm just looking for straight stats comparisons.

If anyone has such a thing, or is feeling ambitious enough to make one, post it up ;)

Otherwise, if I had the time (I don't) I'd make one. Just thought I'd throw out the request at Spreadsheet HQ.

 

◊ Praetorian

Here's my entirely non-numerical take on the issue:

1) Rogue/Warrior pieces: Rogues have gotten Deathdealer and nonset drops that fill all of their armor slots very well. Warriors probably still mostly tank in BWL gear. A lot of Naxx fights are very tank-intensive. For optimal progression, gear up your prot tanks in 4/9 Dreadnaught before a rogue touches any of it. You can absolutely beat Patchwerk and Maexxna and so forth with a tier 2 tank (everyone has to at some point!) but for smooth reclearing and farming the zone, giving your tanks Dreadnaught first will make the most noticeable difference. It'll also trivialize fights like Twin Emps, which is nice.

2) Mage/Warlock/Priest: Mages and Warlocks have abundant alternatives both in AQ40 sets and C'Thun loot and Naxx nonset drops (Soul Harvester's, Rime Covered Mantle, Leggings of Polarity, etc.). Priests have jack shit. While normally DPS > healing, in this case Faith is probably optimal.

3) Hunter/Shaman/Druid: None of these classes got tremendous upgrades to their pure raid role (DPS/healing/healing respectively) in AQ40 and all will benefit equally from the sets.

 

Dozer

I'm just a selfish shaman, but I'd make the argument that we really didn't get armor upgrades to our pure healing role in BWL, either, so it would be the biggest upgrade for us. Reasonable? :)

 

◊ Praetorian

And druids or hunters did? Arguably shamans got the biggest upgrade in AQ40. Piece-by-piece, Stormcaller is strictly superior for pure healing to the BWL alternatives. Yes it has str, agi, and spell damage on it, but each piece of Stormcaller is better than its tier 2 counterpart if you're just a healbot. That is not true of Genesis vs. Stormrage, for example.

 

Dozer

I was simply making the point that stormrage is a very sold healing set (and dragonstalker's does its job well too of course) while i could rant for pages and pages on how horrible ten storms is. But fair enough :P

And since I didn't even really comment on the O.P., I would say that the Rogue/Warrior pieces should, no question, go to warriors until you have 4/9 bonuses on your main tanks. Other than that I don't see any other major exception that should be made in loot distribution, regardless of how you handle it now. The Hunter 6-piece looks to be incredible but that's not a reasonable thing to plan around.

 

◊ Praetorian

Ah, I misread your post as talking about upgrades from BWL gear, and not in BWL. Yeah, Ten Storms isn't great, but it is better than Earthfury.

Anyway, the point is that looking at the Naxx sets I can't really make a solid argument for one class putting them to better use than another, within the druid/shaman/hunter trio.

 

Judia

I wonder if I could argue the point about paladins to my raid.
I mean paladins have never had a half decent healing set, tier2 is holy-dps and tier 2.5 is ret DPS.

But I doubt it will wash.

 

Dozer

Does anyone have the stats of Ten storms before it was "adjusted" quite a few patches ago? (Referring to the change where the gloves and helm were given both +healing and +dmg/healing on them, I can't for the life of me remember what the "focus" of the set so to speak was previously). Ive always harbored a suspicion that some time long ago they switched the assignment of item stats to Judgement and Ten Storms. As much as I love spell crit (*cough*) the set as a whole would be better suited on a paladin.

I'm probably just being annoyed/paranoid though.

 

◊ Praetorian

What about the AQ nonset stuff, which is all dam/heal for shamans but pure +heal for paladins?

Anyway, the point is that while yeah, paladins/shamans get a lot out of their t3 sets, so do druids and hunters. All three classes' optimal healing items coming into Naxx are largely ilvl 7X loot, whereas rogues, mages, and warlocks, as noted above, have all sorts of ilvl 8X options aside from the tier 3 sets.

 

Foghorn Deadhorn

Well in general I agree on tanks (as a tank). From my perspective, and I'm sure everyone is going to say "stick with TAQ!" when I say this (we have a plan), we don't have much TAQ loot, in fact none of the set loot, because we really only started getting into the zone when we had to go through a rebuild, and bingo, here is Naxx. Therefore we're looking entirely at BWL gear, which we have plenty of.

I'm kinda wondering why people are hot on the four-piece on Dreadnaught. While, as a warrior, I see it as being very strong, is there something specific in Naxx that screams "highly reliable taunts!" It's the second time I've heard it being referred to as the target for all your tanks (6 piece, in general usage, seems much more useful).

Like I said, obviously set bonuses, and class priorities, are a factor, I'm just looking for this element to do good piece-by-piece comparisons. Determining which pieces are superior upgrades to their available counterparts, which pieces are the stronger upgrades in a given set, etc.

 

• CSM-EH

I'd argue that for the horde, warlocks would trump the other two classes in terms of set priority simply because of their 5 piece bonus.

GO HABS GO!!

 

Tzeni

Dragonstalker's isn't that great =(

Cryptstalker's is the first hunter set that really improves the areas that most raiding hunters wanted imporvement, that is, mana regen and mana efficiency.

 

Malan

I don't know, the only pieces that really stood out to me were the helm and shoulders. The other 3 items from the set are nice to be sure, but because so many of the item points were allocated to the hybrid stats of agility and strength I really thought it was lacking for a raid healbot role (which is all my shaman was spec'd for). I was wearing 2 stormcaller and 6 ten storms.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

• frmorrison

If you compare each Stormcaller side by side with Ten Storms, each item is a clear upgrade for "healbotting", even with extra points (which really don't affect the budget that much) in non healing stats.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

oldmandennis

8/8 EF is better on any fight with splash damage, which is most of them. /points to post about 8/8 procing 5/8

 

Corkscrew

Sort of a derail here, but I can't really figure why Ten Storms is better than Earthfury from a healbotting standpoint. You're losing the 5/8 and 8/8-proccing-5/8 bonuses from Earthfury for, what, crit and a lightning shield? Am I seriously undervaluing some extra Ancestral Fortitude procs at the cost of a lot of mana regen here?

I ask because I'm currenly sitting and 8/8 EF and 7/8 TS (next TS breastplate is mine) as our guild works our way through AQ40, and with rare exceptions, my healing set is always TS Bracers/Gauntlets/Legs, EF everything else.

 

Malan

You're being overly relient on that proc rate. Stack up with some more +healing and a little bit of mana/5 gear on rings/neck and start using lower ranked heals, you'll do better overall then with the 5/8 EF.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

oldmandennis

With 8/8, you can rely on the proc. That's the point.

 

Pyros

For the 4/9dreadnought bonus, I think it's more along the lines of 4pieces being easily accessible(bracers belt gloves and erm, boots is it?or shoulders, whatever). The set bonus itself is nice, but not something that's really necessary unless you're considering a fight like the 4deathknights(or so I heard, I have to admit we're not up there yet, but from the various info on the fight it seems you'll need heavy tank rotations with taunts). 6/8 is where it's at when it comes to set bonuses, however getting 6pieces of the set means you're really far in the instance.
Aside from that I agree with the rest of the discussion, 2-3prot warriors first, then rogues/more warriors depending on your tank attendance, for the caster gear, it depends on pieces, since priests tend to still use 3t1 and 5t2 in my guild, so some will break t1 first, while others like to break t2 first. Overall it seems pretty much every class is equal, and even tho I'm usually a dps > all type too, I'd say I'd rather have t3 on shamans/druids than on hunters, because of the proc bonuses(rage/energy/mana regeneration on rejuv and the thing that increases hps on tanks).

 

Decker

As a hunter with a shitload of DKP (we use the nurfed system, so technically I can get all my items before any of the Shamans/Druids/etc) I will be passing to the druids/shaman for the reasons mentioned above. Also I can do sufficiently well with 5/5 strikers and 3/8 DS (for the set bonus). Having the initial bonus' from the CS set aren't going to make or break my guild, but the set bonus' for the healers is very interesting...

http://www.paradosi.net

 

Gozul

My current profile : http://ctprofiles.net/82004
Same profile but with 5/5 stormcaller, 3 Ten storms, same rings, necks, trinkets : http://ctprofiles.net/25735

+heal netgain : +58
mana/5 : -9
hp : +116
mana : -175
spirit : -27
spell crit : +5%

From a pure healing pov, i don't see a clear upgrade from 5T1+3T2 to 5Stormcaller+3T2 ( especially losing the 2 earthfury bonuses for the "meh" stormcaller's ones ) . The fancy agi et str stats don't make up for it ( except grinding or getting better dps on naxx's gargoyles ... ).

Mages and warlocks gets a better benefit from their aq sets.

 

Steelfleece

Aren't you selling yourself a bit short here? With all the timered/add intensive fights in Naxx, I'd have to say DPS is still king, and by a wide margin.

affect –verb (used with object) 1. to act on; produce an effect or change in
effect –noun 1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence
Know the difference.

 

Malan

No, the point was that too many shaman buy into this "omg I can't live without the EF bonuses because of the inherent weaknesses built into my class" drama that is perpetuated by the idiots over on the official boards. Instead of learning to heal effectively and manage their mana pools they rely on the proc to keep them up through fights.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Gozul

5/8 Earthfury is still 8% mana benefit on all your heals, relying on the proc or not.

 

Grimmarg

Some of the druid pieces truely suck compared to some other gear. Bracers, gloves and helmet are worse than stormrage. As a hunter I'd be very dissapointed to see druids bid on those pieces. This is when considering Stormrage setbonus.