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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsTier sets: Who chooses, guilds or players?
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Jan 22nd 2007 at 2:44PM
What classes should have priority on what gear in raiding instances has been a topic of debate for a long time. Tier 4 and 5 -- with their options of tank, DPS and healing sets for hybrid classes -- looked like they might help solve this problem. Feral druids can get their DPS sets, resto shamans can get their healer sets, and protection paladins can get their tank sets, and everyone will finally be happy and stop arguing with the master looter. This looked pretty good until someone on the Raids and Dungeons forum posed a nasty dilemma.
Let's say that you're a paladin officer in a raiding guild at 70 that's hoping to progress through content quickly. You have a couple paladins that are protection specced for tanking, maybe one paladin who's retribution specced because he has the gear for it, and a bunch of pallies who are specced to heal. Paul the paladin heals in raids and seems to enjoy his role.
One day, Paul wins his first Tier 5 token, and goes and gets ... the Crystalforge Battlegear. "What the heck, Paul!" you say when you inspect him. "You're holy specced! I thought you liked healing! This retribution gear won't help you in raids! How are we going to kill Illidan if people don't upgrade their healing gear?" "I do like healing in raids," says Paul, "and I'll keep doing it, but I need to solo too so I chose the DPS set. I know I won't wear it in raids, but in the end, it's my gear, isn't it? I earned it."
This situation is tough. On one hand, the guild helped Paul get that Tier 5 under the expectation that he'd use it to fulfill his primary raiding role, and thus help the guild progress. If everyone picks DPS sets for farming, the guild probably won't be able to handle some fights. On the other hand, it is Paul's gear, and Paul's got to farm sometime. As long as his healing is adequate, shouldn't Paul get to choose which set he wants when it's just him, the token and the gear vendor?
I'm glad that as a rogue, I won't have to face this choice. (Should I take the damage set or ... the damage set?) In theory, it would be nice if everyone took the set that they would use in raids, but that's not necessarily going to happen all the time. For those of you who are officers or hybrid classes, I ask: What should our fictional guild do about Paul the paladin? Should guilds have any influence on which sets their hybrid classes pick?
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Warrior, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Guilds, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Roger Jan 23rd 2007 9:26AM
When Rogues, Mages, 'Locks and Hunters are in the same boat as people who play healers and hybrids, then they can have some input as to what gear the healers and hybrids should take. Until then, the large guild I run will never dictate what people should and shouldn't pick up. The individual players know better what they need than any one else, so they get to pick.
If your guild is having trouble with an encounter, then the problems are very likely not related to gear, and much more likely to be incompetence.
kerni Jan 23rd 2007 11:00AM
It's funny to see the flat out ignorant comments made by some people. Go ahead, quit the game if Pallys/Druids/Fury Wars out DPS you, the game will be better off without the constant QQ anyway.
People need to realize that Druids and Paladins are a HYBRID class. They can serve many roles. I've been running these instances in the expansion and have seen great Paladin tanks, Great Druid tanks and hell, I even DPS myself as a Paladin! I can switch over and heal just as easily.
So to the Rogues, Mages, Warriors etc., the quote on quote "Pure" classes stop your crying. Things change, they evolve as do the roles a class plays in the ever developing game we call World of Warcraft.
Deusirae Jan 23rd 2007 1:16PM
@36.. Chiimera...if you honestly believe that a Paladin can't DPS as good as another class, you've never seen a good Paladin. I can tank with the best of them, DPS in the top of the damage meters, and can certainly heal just fine too. I have a rogue and warlock at end-game levels (60+) and they are great, granted. But, they cannot support a group NEARLY as well as a Paladin. Rogues and Locks do great DPS and can take down mobs, but so can my Pally...and, my Pally will most CERTAINLY outlast either other class and can offer buffs to the entire raid that are 2nd-to-none. A good Pally in PvP cannot be beaten 1v1 by any other class. Again, perhaps you only have very poorly played Paladins on your server, I don't know...and don't care. The point is, you have no idea what you are talking about.
Kaziel Jan 23rd 2007 6:44PM
I have two 60+ characters, a Mage and a Paladin, and I'm leveling a Rogue and a Shaman on the side. So, I've seen both sides of the argument ("Raid loot for the raiders!" and "I want what I want!"), and I can really sympathize with both sides. And for a while I was split, because while I believe that a person should use gear they get in a raid to help them with more raids, I also knew the worthlessness of such gear to a healer specced class outside (my soloing gear as a Paladin is almost completely different than my soloing gear as a healer).
So I've been thinking about this subject and it suddenly hit me why this is a major issue in people's mind: Because it used to be that if you wanted good soloing gear, the only place to get it was raiding. Seriously... think about how much gear with +damage there was outside of raids, prior to tBC, and think about how low quality it was.
But now with the expansion out, and gear quality shooting through the roof, I really doubt it will be such a major issue. Need some good +damage gear as your Priest for soloing? Just hit up a endgame or heroic instance, let folks know beforehand you're gonna roll on +damage gear, and go to town.
So now I really do believe that gear you get in raids should be used to fill the role you fill in a raid.
roger.burgess.iii+wowinsider Jan 31st 2007 12:41AM
@33:
"If you are a raid healer, you upgrade your healing gear first. Go get your solo set from doing 5-man or other instances. Or wait until all others that need the token for their main raiding piece get it, then you can use leftovers for your off-spec gear."
The problem with this lies in the fact that the DPS classes gain utility OUTSIDE raiding with raid gear.
No mob ever died by being healed to death...
Until this imbalance is addressed, it is unfair to force those who have the hardest job in the game to continuously gimp themselves so DPS classes can improve in all areas of the game.
The only reasonable response is to allow hybrids and healers to gain DPS gear. Otherwise, the DPS classes are just riding the backs of the healers/hybrids to get what THEY want, without regard to what the healers/hybrids want.
Cro0ks Feb 2nd 2007 7:28PM
There are two sets of gear here (tier 4 and 5). I noticed the difference in healing bonuses between paladin healing sets is maybe +20 healing. (I don't know if it's as close with Shammy/Druid sets.) It would make sense to me for Paul to get his T4 healing set and then his T5 DPS set later on. This way Paul gets his healing gear to help the Guild run instances and to help himself gain his better DPS set.
Now say Paul was tanking, there is a big difference between paladin tanking sets (T5 having much more armor than T4). It seems to me however that if the T4 tanking armor was good enough to get them the T5 gear, then T5 should be Pauls choice.
To me this seems fair to all parties. The guild gets it's healer/tank and Paul gets his 'fun' gear. This is all counting on players having to gain their T4 before T5...if that's not how it works than scratch all above. :P
Irish Feb 22nd 2007 12:41PM
There are 3 sets of this armour, so now that everyone is level 70 just help him get the healing set. When he raids he wears the healing set.
Its not like you guys dont have time, and VM is going to kill Illidan first anyways.