8-Piece Sets Return With Patch 2.4 (kind of...)
by Zach Yonzon 
Feb 10th 2008 at 1:30PM
The frantic folk at MMO Champion are digging up major loot finds in the upcoming Patch 2.4, including what appears to be new Tier 6 pieces -- boots, bracers, and belts. These pieces can be obtained by exchanging tokens that likely drop from Sunwell Plateau. This marks an unexpected return to eight-piece sets hearkening back to the days of Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and even Naxxramas (although Tier 3 was officially 9 pieces). Despite the additions, however, the item previews don't appear to show any new bonuses beyond the existing 4-piece bonuses for Tier 6. This comes as a moderate surprise considering Blizzard has said in the past that they liked the 5-piece set format. On the other hand, it's probably a good thing considering there is no official Tier 7, and these pieces cater to set completists as well as giving more flexibility in obtaining (or keeping) the set bonuses.On an interesting note, the Tier 6 Lightbringer's Battlegear or the Paladin Retribution boots, bracers, and belt show hints of what the patch notes state as "Items intended for Retribution Paladins have had their stats adjusted. Retribution Paladins should see an increase in dps as a result." We can see from MMO Champion's screenshot that the raid set has scrapped Spell Damage -- similar to the Vengeful Gladiator's Vindication of Arena Season 3 -- in favor of Haste rating. If all other Tier 6 Retribution pieces -- or even better, all other Burning Crusade Tier set pieces -- will be retroactively changed to remove Spell Damage and add Haste rating, it means a massive DPS upgrade for Retribution Paladins as promised. After all, Retribution Paladin DPS is basically auto-attack plus.
Filed under: Paladin, Items, Blizzard, News items, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Charlie Taylor Feb 10th 2008 1:43PM
I like this, this means that you can mix and match gear from other tiers without losing the set bonuses!
PoorPally. Feb 10th 2008 2:04PM
These change is not as great as it sounds(for ret pallys)
Haste being one of the less desired stats,as it doesnt work correctly with Seal of Command(the paladin dps seal and alliance only dps seal).
SoCom is based on a PPM of7 not a chance so more hits do not mean more procs,just weaker procs.
Crusader strike also,gains nothing from haste.
Could it be worse?
Yeah it is worse,the PVP S1 and S2 that werent given resil because" with SP the stat budget couldnt afford it" ,now that SPl was removed,instead finaly getting the Resil they needed(like S3 has) they just gained more STR.
Now more STR is not a bad thing,but its now what a PVP set needed.
On top of that the new Ret sets got little to no INT,something that makes no sense for a pally gear and looks more like just mediocre Warrior gear.
It got bad stats like Haste,and Armor pen.(why get armor penetration when lot of your damage is holy and already ignores all armor?).
That SP gets removed,and many paladin offensive skills are still based around SP(SoCom 30% scale,JoCom 100% sp scaling,HoW 100% SP scaling dmg).These is not important for BE horde pallys thanks to seal of blood that does scale of meelee stats,but when we want to PVP we gota choose between the atacks whose recoil damage can kill us or the atack that deal non-scaling damage.
Resumed,Haste on ret gear not as good as STR/Crit.
It still needs Int.
Many pally skills STILL SCALE of SP,the SP that got removed.
Aerei Feb 10th 2008 2:09PM
As a blood elf paladin who is sometimes Ret, I have this to say: NYAH NYAH ALLIANCE! I HAS SEAL OF BLOOD! :D
However, yeah, it's still not a fantastic change. :\ I guess it's just another baby step towards an eventual good place for us to be.
Balasan Feb 10th 2008 2:15PM
As a blood elf paladin:
Ha Ha!
(Nelson style)
Zach Feb 10th 2008 3:04PM
Armor Pen is great because NOT most of Ret damage is Holy. That's a misconception. Ret's bread and butter strike is Crusader Strike, which is Physical. While Seal damage is Holy, you'll get the most bang for your buck with consistently high white damage.
Furthermore, your coefficients seem to be incorrect. Judgement of Command gets 42.86%, not 100%. Same with Hammer of Wrath. Seal of Command gets 20%, not 30%. Spell Damage is nowhere near as important as STR to a Ret Pally.
You are right in that more +Int is greatly needed, though.
Argent Feb 10th 2008 3:31PM
eh. i could care less about SoB vs SoC these days. what's really kinda sad is there's no int whatsoever on the ret gear now. sucks for raiding rets, really.
JALbert Feb 10th 2008 5:04PM
The obvious benefit here is that you should be able to get 2/4 piece T5 bonus AND 4 piece T6 bonus simultaneously, should you choose.
Bootsanator Feb 11th 2008 10:23AM
Exactly. I don't even have my 2/4 T5, let alone 4/4, but I have aspirations to do so, and well, aspirations to get T6, but I don't want to lose my T5 set bonuses, so, this's promising. :)
Good_Idea Feb 11th 2008 12:14PM
Almost no one will be seeing these new additions to T6 gear, unless you are doing Sunwell and have finished BT already, no sense in arguing about stats etc.
One option is to mix and match and get both the four-piece bonus of T5+T6, although I'm not sure if losing stats would be worth the set bonuses.