The Perils of Looting

Our guild stopped using master loot because of a long-standing bug in vanilla WoW, so our raids tend to run with free for all loot up.

This means one person in our 25 man now gets the vaunted job of going around and picking up all the various BoE accoutrement that drop off of trash mobs, along with linking the occasional epic drop and nether vortex for people to roll on.

Now, some people love looting in raids. I'm just not one of them.

I had to be the looter for all of AQ40 back in the day, and I hated it, every scarab and idol-filled minute of it. ("Oh look it's another bug mount. Who wants a bug? Roll for a bug. No, you don't get to pass until a red bug drops, take your damn bug and like it.") Embittered by this experience, I now attempt to get out of looting at every pass.

Tonight in SSC our regular looter was on his tanking paladin instead of his shadow priest, and needed to concentrate, so I got tapped for the job. Serpentshrine isn't quite as bad as AQ40, but it's close. There's marks for flasks, coilfang armaments for rep, and greens to DE, on top of a lot of trash epics, most of which we'd seen five or more times by now. The only thing the mobs stubbornly refuse to part with is [Pattern: Belt of Blasting], which I've mentioned before.

So when I got a tell from my raid leader saying "You have assist and are looting, feel free to crow about it, I sighed, and typed the following:

/rw I am the looter. Some people enjoy this position, and I am not one of them.

Ten seconds later, the [Belt of Blasting] pattern drops.

...I think I'm now the looter indefinitely.

If I Had a Hammer

image by David Blaine










If I had a hammer, I'd enchant it with soulfrost in the morning, and mind flay horde in the evening all over Azeroth.

Unfortunately, Tuesday morning means maintenance time, and the start of Arena Season 3 means extended maintenance for everyone. So my shadow priest will have to wait a bit longer to get her shiny new [Amani Punisher] enchanted.

That's ok though. When I log in, it's straight to the vendor in the Champion's Hall to buy myself some [Veteran's Dreadweave Stalkers] at the new rock-bottom honor prices. Spooky boots are few and far between, and my [Shattrath Jumpers] are looking a little scruffy.

Patch 2.3 Loot Preview, Part 2: Zul'Aman DPS Caster Gear

This weekend's round of troll-killing was cut unexpectedly short by PTR server maintenance, so I spent the rest of my time analyzing DPS caster drops in ZA. Each boss in Zul'Aman drops one item and one badge of justice. Killing an animal boss (Nalorakk, Akil'Zon, Jan'Alai, or Halazzi) within the 20-minute sacrifice timer will reward you with an additional bonus loot chest. (The Amani War Bear mount is one of several items that appear to be part of a shared timed-event loot table.) So, what can DPS casters look forward to in Zul'Aman? Put on your robe and your wizard hat, and let's go down the list:

Weapons
With 217 spell damage on each, all four of the Zul'Aman dps caster weapons fall somewhere between the [Nathrezim Mindblade] from Karazhan and the [Fang of the Leviathan] from SSC. The Merciless Gladiator weapons are still generally better, but if you don't PvP enough to pick one up, it's time to start figuring out which ZA weapon is best for you.

• [Wub's Cursed Hexblade] Jan'alai the dragonhawk drops this dagger, which may be favored by elemental shamans.
• [Amani Punisher] If you're looking to pick up one of these maces, you may have to contend with a tanking pally or two, but solid stats and spell hit make this drop from Akil'zon the eagle boss a decent choice for spooky priests or moonkin.
• [Blade of Twisted Visions] My mage is eying this haste-heavy sword from Zul'jin, the final boss in ZA.
• [Amani Divining Staff] Generally speaking, even when you gem it up this won't put out as much damage as any of the current one-handed weapon + offhand combos, but I know lots of mages who are looking at this as the new +int choice for evocation weapon swaps.

Gear
Zul'Aman gear for dps casters features a lot of spell haste, which is more valuable the longer the length of your average spell cast or channel. While you should never wear a crappy piece of gear just because it has spell haste on it, current theorycrafting suggests that in 2.3, haste may be the next thing to stack once you've reached the hit cap. That is, unless you're a shadow priest, since Blizzard loves you guys, but hates itemizing for you.

• [Footpads of Madness] Dropped by Jan'alai the dragonhawk, these are decent for a caster putting together a haste set, and may be especially valuable to non-tailors who don't have access to [Boots of Blasting].
• [Signet of Ancient Magics] This ring can be socketed with a +dmg gem, and like the Mana-Attuned Band is one of the best rings in the game before BT/Hyjal.
• [Mana Attuned Band] Spell haste is pretty worthless for shadow priests, but for the rest of us, it may well be the next best thing to stack after +hit. This ring has both, plus a ton of +dmg, and seems to be part of the timed loot table.
• [Fury of the Ursine] Better than Veteran PvP gear, but not as good as the [Mindstorm Wristbands] off of A'lar. Depending on your class and spec, you may find these a better or worse choice than the [Runed Spell-cuffs], which will be purchasable with 35 Badges of Justice in 2.3.
• [Hex Shrunken Head] Hex Lord Malacrass drops this trinket, which gives 53 damage on equip and has a two minute cooldown on its +dmg use.
• [Hood of Hexing] As with Tier 5, I'd break a Spellstrike set for this hat. It's lacking a meta slot, which makes it pretty similar to the [Cowl of the Grand Engineer] off Void Reaver.
• [Loop of Cursed Bones] An extremely nice BT/Hyjal level necklace for everyone except shadow priests, this will be a must for any +haste set. It drops off Zul'jin.
• [Mantle of Ill Intent] Another heavy-hitting haste item, but without any sockets, I expect most people will stick with their Tier shoulders instead of these.
• [Moon-walkers] Moonkin gear! Yes, you read that right. Note the two red sockets and spell hit bonus — why are moonkin the only ones who get decently itemized socket bonuses? What's that you say? The [Footpads of Madness] are actually slightly better for an oomkin? Oh. Well. At least they're leather, right?
• [Robe of Departed Spirits] Another unsocketed haste-heavy piece of gear. I'm really looking forward to seeing some more number crunching on the relative value of increasing amounts of haste after capping spell hit, but I don't think this will be a huge upgrade, at least for tailors.
• [Shadowcaster's Drape] Like the Loop of Cursed Bones, the cloak spot's an excellent place to stack some haste if you're hit-capped and of a class and spec that benefits from it. In relation to other gear, this appears to be roughly on par with the [Brute Cloak of the Ogre Magi] off of Maulgar, but there just aren't that many good PvE cloaks in game at the moment, so it's a welcome addition.
• [Tiny Voodoo Mask] The Barov Peasant Caller of TBC, this trinket summons three tiny voodoo gnomes, which bite off the kneecaps — I mean, uh, cast little lightning bolts at your enemy. Sadly, the timer on this is too long for it to be used in arenas.

This concludes part two of Girl Meets WoW's three part series on dps caster loot in patch 2.3. You can read part one on Badge of Justice rewards here (soon to be updated with mouseover tooltips and moonkin gear). For the last post in this series, I'll be analyzing the upgrades to level 10-60 dps caster gear in the patch. Check back later this week to read it!

Is Tailoring Dead?

Since the release of the Burning Crusade, tailoring has widely been considered the most overpowered profession, enough so that many hardcore raiding guilds have required their casters to be tailors. Mages, warlocks and spooky priests with 375 tailoring skill can enjoy the benefits of the Spellfire or Shadoweave sets, which for PvE raiding may be wearable from pre-Karazhan up until Tier 5 or Tier 6. Part of this has been due to some poor itemization on Blizzard's part on the tier pieces (a subject familiar to any shadow priest who's ever looked sadly at the spell crit on her T4 gloves), which has helped reinforce the need for an item to be really good in order for it to be worth breaking the tailoring set bonus.

With the advent of Patch 2.3, however, tailoring's pedestal is starting to look a little shaky. Some of the new gear purchasable with badges of justice is on par with loot from the Black Temple, and at least two pieces of dps cloth overlap with Spellfire and Shadoweave. Could tailors just starting Magtheridon or SSC soon be looking at breaking their sets? Let's run some numbers.

The Spellfire set consists of a robe, gloves, and belt, all with arcane and fire damage, while Shadoweave boasts frost and shadow damage in the form of a robe, gloves, and boots. For the sake of this example, let's look at just these four slots: chest, hands, waist, and feet. If we want to compare the two sets, we can pick out some decent drops a dps caster just starting SSC might have by patch 2.3. I've chosen the Boots of Blasting, a BoP crafted item from Serpentshrine trash that my mage happens to be wearing, and the Voodoo-woven Belt, which can be purchased for 60 badges of justice after the patch.

Of course, if we want to look at replacing Spellfire or Shadoweave entirely, we need a chest and a set of gloves, too. I'm going to assume that our hypothetical dps caster has gotten his T4 chestpiece from Magtheridon, and that he's got the badges to pick up the awesome new Studious Wraps. Any of these chest/hands/waist/feet combinations will result in 6 sockets. Since we usually end up ignoring socket bonuses on our raiding gear, I'm going to go ahead and skip those in my math, along with the set bonuses on the tailoring for now, but we'll want to consider those carefully at the end.

What do the stats look like for each combination? The chart below compares all five options, with separate columns players wearing Spellfire + Boots of Blasting, Shadoweave + Voodoo-woven Belt, and (Studious Wraps, Voodoo-woven Belt, Boots of Blasting) + the mage, shadow priest, or warlock Tier 4 chestpiece.


So, is breaking your tailoring set worth it? The average tailor will lose about 50 points of damage by swapping in the pieces I've suggested. On the other hand, you can pick up quite a bit in the way of stats and hit. For a mage, I'd still have a hard time dropping 36 crit and 43 damage if I was already hit-capped, but if you're not quite there or struggling with low HP, 2.3 could be the time to take the plunge. And for those of you soldiering on without, it looks like this patch is going to make the difference between tailors and non-tailors a little less severe.

Patch 2.3 Brings New Badge of Justice Rewards

Those guys at MMO-Champion just keep churning out the patch data. The latest updates include some screenshots from Zul'Aman as well as a long list of new heroic rewards available from badge of justice turn-ins. We've heard talk of of Karazhan and Zul'Aman dropping badges in 2.3, but unless I'm mistaken, it didn't show up in the official patch notes. Hopefully it's still true though, because most of us are going to be wanting a lot more badges soon.

Dps caster items of note:

• Audacity & Depravity - Two of several PvP-focused trinkets with a Lifegiving Gem type use; +47dmg or +40 spell crit is nothing to sneeze at.
• Fetish of the Primal Gods - A pretty nice stat-heavy off-hand, with spell haste rating and 37 damage. This is probably an across-the-board upgrade from the spell school specific badge of justice rewards currently in game.
• Cloak of Subjugated Power - An excellent purchasable PvP cloak, and a possible PvE upgrade from the Shawl of Shifting Probabilities. It has less crit, but more damage, some resilience, and a lot more stamina. For shadow priests, the Cloak of the Black Void will still win out when stacking straight spell damage, but if you're a dps caster who's been PvPing in your Sergeant's Heavy Cape, you're going to want one of these.
• Runed Spell-cuffs - The Bracers of Nimble Thought are BoE crafted cloth wrists that can be made from a pattern which drops in Black Temple, and uses BT mats. Some guilds have been selling BoE crafted gear from BT, but it looks like they'll be less in demand now, since the cuffs are basically a slightly tuned-down version of them.
• Studious Wraps - Imagine if your Tier 5 gloves had sockets on them. Good lord, these are going to be nice.
• Voodoo-woven Belt - It's a nice belt, but it's not socketable like my Spellfire Belt is. It does have spell hit on it, and a lot of crit, but if I went back to fire I'd probably use Fire-Cord of the Magus, a trash drop in The Eye. The Belt of Divine Inspiration off of Maulgar also remains a good option for people not looking for more crit or hit, and is socketable.
  
• Carved Witch Doctor's Stick - This is another real winner. It'll be the second socketable wand in the game (along with this quest item), and it's got 18 damage plus stats. Shadow priests will be able to socket it up to 27 dmg, making it better than a Black Temple drop. For my mage, I'd be torn between this and the Wand of the Forgotten Seer (which has no stats), but since Solarian hasn't dropped one of those for me yet, I'll be getting my badges ready anyway.
  

What does this mean for you, your guild, or the game in general? To start with, people may finally be breaking their tailoring sets without touching Tier 5 or Tier 6. Also, a lot of raiders are now going to be trying to pack in 25-man raiding, Zul'Aman, and heroics for a while, which may stretch us a little thin, but will probably be a good thing for more casual PvE players who've been having trouble finding crafters with primal nethers or people to run heroics with them. Really, I can't scoff at unexpected purchasable upgrades at all, but I'm going to have to find some time to fit in more five mans again.

What's that, you still require more patch loots to drool over? Very well. Have some Zul'Aman weapons.

Leggings of Tirisfal: World's Most Expensive Pants

This past weekend my raid took down Karathress for the first time, and I walked away with my tier 5 pants token. After a few days of putting my gear, gems, and talents in order, I've decided that moving to 2/5 Tirisfal Regalia (which pretty much demands an arcane spec, in my mind) makes this the most expensive epic I've ever looted. Here's how it all broke down:

Unlearning talents: 15g
Relearning talents: 5g
Ten primal manas for a Runic Spellthread: 94g
Gems for the new pants: 95g
Mystical Skyfire Diamond for T4 helm I pulled out of the bank since the pants broke my Spellstrike set: 160g
Additional gems to satisfy meta requirement & drop my +hit down to 16% again: 144g
Glyph of Power: 90g
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Total cost: 603 gold

Oh, and having POM-pyro again? Priceless.