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The latest patch 5.4 newsOffspec gear and Cataclysm raiding
by Allison Robert 
May 9th 2010 at 4:00PM
This is the situation I'm in, and I suspect it's one that a lot of other hybrid players would recognize; I play restoration in most guild 25-man and 10-man raids, but I tank just about everything else. On easier content, or on nights when we have too many healers show up, it's not unusual for a few people to haul out their DPS sets and go DPS for the evening.
As such, hybrid players (and particularly hybrids who have dual-specced into a role requiring a completely different set of gear) have an interest in keeping their offspec set up to date, and the best way to do this has typically been through 10-man raids where there's not much gear competition. I got 3 Sanctified feral pieces from heroic 10-man ICC, and I'm still using a few ToGC-10 pieces to tank as well. When you only have 10 players in a raid, the number of players angling for a given piece is necessarily small, and items go to offspec quickly.
25-man raids couldn't be more different. For a specific example, I'm in line behind our feral, three rogues, fury warrior, two hunters, and possibly even two retribution paladins (!!!) for the Frostbitten Fur Boots off heroic Marrowgar-25 (yes, the number of people salivating over melee leather in Icecrown is amazingly annoying). Realistically, I'm not going to see this piece until the end of the summer or possibly even the beginning of autumn if the boots drop at their usual rate.
The situation's made worse when your guild makes the leap from normal to heroic, because the line just restarts. Anybody who wanted Toskk's Maximized Wristguards, for example, is almost certainly going to want their heroic version. So, rather than being 2nd in line for the next normal drop, I go back to being 6th in line for the heroic one.
As a result, the prospect of losing 10-man raids as an option to gear offspecs is a little scary, and I wonder if the raiding split is going to have an impact on the offspec that hybrids choose to play. Without the ability to build a bear set through 10-man raids, I'm really tempted to axe the resto/bear dual-spec and go bear/cat or resto/moonkin so that both sets share as much gear as possible. I don't think I'm the only hybrid player thinking about this.
An additional point for consideration: Is competition for melee leather finally going to die due to mastery bonuses encouraging mail and plate classes to stick to their armor, or is this just wishful thinking?
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it. Nothing will be the same. In WoW.com's Guide to Cataclysm you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion. From Goblins and Worgens to Mastery and Guild changes, it's all there for your cataclysmic enjoyment.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
iamtehg May 9th 2010 5:41PM
I must say that this will be a huge issue for me, playing a Jack-of-all-Specs shaman in our raids. I'm MS ele but I'm constantly being asked to either heal if we are short on healers or go enh if we are ranged heavy that night. With all the various pieces that going to be up for bid amongst everyone, and seeing as how 10 and 25 are being mashed together, play styles like this will take alot longer to achieve. While it does help that Ele and Resto gear are going to be the same thing, this issue is a bit more evident for people who are in my positions but play a Paladin or maybe a Druid. Things are changing and having the luxary of a hybrid class being able to do anything will take far longer to achieve in the upcoming xpac.
Richard May 9th 2010 5:42PM
as far as armor classes go wouldnt it be a loss in dps for a palte wearing to roll on mail or leather in cata. since plate wears were goin to get ap from str and only crit fom agi. and leather and mail wearers were getting ap and crit but from agi. or did i read that wrong.
rptokonic May 9th 2010 5:48PM
Actually I thought they said they were removing Attack Power from melee leather. Without that attack power honestly a warrior, dk or pally would be a fool to take leather over plate.
Redielin May 9th 2010 5:49PM
A couple of points:
I am hopeful that mastery will be a drastic enough measure to force people to wear their armor set. They are going to have to make it a pretty big difference though, because even after armor talents like Armored to the Teeth, there's still leather on some of those BIS lists.
I think the removal of stats changes will help as well. The removal of AP from gear means that leather (4 stats and attack power) will no longer have an additional advantage over plate (4 stats). Armor pen also often does the same job as attack power and that will be gone too. A lot of the gear on plate BIS lists is there because it stacks these two stats. We will only get those stats now from Strength and Mastery, and if leather can't provide any of either, it won't be worn by us. However, I am hopeful, but not 100% confident that this will work.
Our raid addresses this problem by allowing the "main" armor spec (leather for rogues, plate for warriors, etc) spend DKP first, and only if no one on that armor class wants it can an off-armor class bid for it. If no one still wants it, then the same thing goes for offspec bids. Plate doesn't fall too far behind, because they have plate drops that no one can roll on, and its often not too far behind.
The thing to realize about 10 and 25 man changes is that because you can't run both anymore, emblem (point) costs for gear will reflect that. You will be able to get a piece of "emblem" gear after clearing a few bosses in a 25 or 10 man raid and doing a weeks worth of daily heroics and whatnot. This should also make gearing your offspec with emblem gear much easier.
Older emblem gear (current triumph gear) won't be as far behind as it is now. Imagine if we could only do 10s or 25s in Wrath. Instead of triumph gear being only 232 with a few 245s, it will all be 245s, which means you can use old gear and emblem gear from the last tier for your offspec. If people really do have trouble with gearing offspecs, then they can run the 10 man (or 25) version of the last tier to gear up.
Stilhelm May 9th 2010 7:39PM
Once patch 4.0 drops (even before Cataclysm is officially released) leather will be almost completely worthless for plate wearers. They will get no attack power, maybe a little crit from the agility, the armor pen they're after will be gone, replaced with probably haste or crit. If the leather-wearing warriors/DKs/pallies don't already have plate items for their leather slots in the bank, they'll be scrambling for them then.
I will be very surprised if any leather or mail items make it into plate-wearers BIS lists in Cataclysm.
KoreanBBQ May 10th 2010 12:30PM
Good thing BIS will be changing, if not almost completely gone...
Instead of how BIS is determined now, pretty much a single stat (armor pen). The BIS for a specific player will be determined by highest armor type you can wear, your spec, and stats, like haste or crit. Got to love that Mastery stat...
And with both 10- and 25-man dropping the same loot, the BIS item will pretty much be the same for that armor type/role, maybe your spec needs more haste than crit. 10- and 25-man = ilvl 264, 10- and 25-man Heroic = ilvl 277. So BIS is one item and its heroic counterpart.
Well maybe I shouldn't say completely gone...Trinkets and the other items from previous tiers might be BIS over the higher ilvl ones, like Death's Choice. But I don't think you will want to roll out in your T9 when T10 is so much better.
Tigron May 9th 2010 6:16PM
This post brings up a serious problem I've seen since we got the details on stat changes. Since Elemental Shaman will use the same gear as their Restoration specs, why would anyone spec Enhancement? I really hope Blizzard has something in mind to let more specs share gear, or we are going to see the extinction of certain specs this way.
Stilhelm May 9th 2010 7:43PM
Elemental and Resto can already share some pieces of gear. There will still probably be trinkets intended for caster dps or heals. I think it's great that caster dps and healing druid and shaman specs can share almost a complete gearset. People will still play enhancement because they like it, and Blizzard will be making enhancement gear because hunters also wear mail.
Redielin May 9th 2010 6:29PM
@Tigron:
You aren't looking at the whole picture.
Enhancement and Hunters are going to be wearing the same gear - Mail with melee stats. Enhancement will get all the mana they need from talents and abilities (similar to how ret does now currently). They certainly aren't removing Hunters, and they aren't removing Rogues (who use the same/similar weapons as Enhancement). Enhancement will be fine. There will be plenty of Enh Mail with hit on it, because Hunters will need hit as well.
thebl4ckd0g May 9th 2010 6:32PM
I thought in addition to not being able to roll on it, I thought they were making it so you really don't want to wear armor that isn't for your class. i.e. non-leather wearers shouldn't be rolling on leather at all starting in cataclysm.
Helloimbob May 9th 2010 6:42PM
I thought they were adding reforging or something?
Redielin May 9th 2010 6:49PM
@Bob
Yes, they're adding reforging, however that doesn't address Allison's concerns. It does't allow a 1-1 transfer of stats. In other words, if you have a piece with +spirit on it and you convert it into, say, Agility, it will still be worse than a piece of gear that just had Agility on it already. You lose some stats in the transfer. Plus, the problem Allison is pointing out is that offspecs will be so far down the priority list that they won't get gear at all, let alone gear they can reforge.
nieboh May 9th 2010 7:29PM
I sometimes wish that with the introduction of dual specs we could have two lock outs per week, one per spec. That way it wouldn't be as much of a headache to gear for two different specs. And with the emblem cap coming, if you bought dual specs, they could let you have twice as many emblems per week. I've never quite understood the point of a raid lock out to begin with.
comedown May 9th 2010 10:12PM
God forbid the players that helped you get all of YOUR main-spec gear get first crack at improvements for theirs.
You've already recieved 3 tokens for your offspec, and you are complaining about a set of boots? Sounds like a bit of loot whore QQ to me.
sprats May 9th 2010 7:50PM
This is something a lot of pure classes overlook. Most hybrids use their off specs much more frequently than pure DPS classes use theirs. That's the reason they have to pay a "hybrid tax" when DPSing. For example, a serious raiding hunter right now is probably Marksman all the time. A druid, however, could just as likely come as resto, boomkin, bear or cat. In order for them to perform those different roles, they need each spec to be appropriately geared. Even if the hunter did rotate specs each raid, they could use the same set of gear and only see a minor loss of DPS (if any) while a cat druid isn't going to be doing any DPS at all in a resto set.
Allison Robert May 9th 2010 10:20PM
I'm sorry you see it that way, comedown. As I wrote in an earlier reply, the commentary concerning the Frostbitten piece was aimed more at the utterly absurd situation we've got on our hands right now re: armor penetration and how any piece with gobs of it is automatically BiS for just about every physical DPS class. That this impacts a tank (the bear) is equally absurd. I'm not annoyed at the players in question because BiS is BiS. Armor penetration's impact on physical DPS isn't something they asked for. It's just an ugly and frustrating situation for DPS who are confined to leather.
The problem for dual-specced hybrids who want to stay relatively current with both sets (no one realistically expects parity; one set will always be better than the other) is that in Wrath you've got another shot at offspec gear if you raid 10-mans (or 25-mans, as the case may be). In Cataclysm, obviously this will not be possible, and that's problematic for people who jump specs a lot for their guilds and friends.
It's expensive and time-consuming for me to obtain, gem, and enchant an entirely different set of gear for tanking (my in-game life would be much cheaper as a DPS), but I try to keep it current in the event that I'm asked to tank for the guild (and this has happened). It's one of the reasons I *do* 10-man ICCH in the first place; it's another 4-hour time investment for me every week. I am VERY happy to be able to shave that off my schedule in Cataclysm, but I'm not blind to what happens when your tank set can't keep up with the content you're doing. Any raid worth its salt can carry an undergeared DPS, but the same is not necessarily true of an undergeared tank, at which point I ask: "Is it worth it for me to carry a tanking offspec that is of increasingly little use to the guild?"
I can't imagine I'm the only hybrid asking that question, in which case the typical DPS wait for a tank in the Dungeon Finder is only going to get longer. Idle philosophizing, to be sure, but all of this stuff does have a social impact on the game.
Redielin May 9th 2010 7:43PM
I agree, stilhelm I will be very suprised if leather still is being worn by plate DPS in Cataclysm.
However, if there's one thing I've learned from going from BC to Wrath, its to expect the unexpected. I expected that Resto Druids and Warriors would be nerfed, but still be okay for arena in season 5. Woops! I thought the level 80 hunter ability to target Ice Traps was going to be nice in PVE. Woops! I also thought talents like Armored to the Teeth would fix the leather/plate deal.
I think they've got it right this time. But I'll wait to count my chickens until after they've hatched.
Soll May 9th 2010 7:50PM
as a paladin i keep an up to date set of tanking, healing and DPSing gear..... means you can switch it around and have fun.... slightly offtopic..
gief triple spec !!!
Ger May 9th 2010 9:10PM
I think a major bit missing from this article is that there will not be a normal and a heroic piece of gear. "Boots of Leather Awesome" that drop off "First boss of First Raid" will be the same in 10 and 25 man mode. There won't be "Well I got the 10 man version and now need the 25 man version". Which cuts down on ilevel que.
Further, disincentivizing leather for other melee seems like a goal of Blizzards in Cata. Whether or not they hit that goal initially we can expect them to make changes to reach that goal. It's fairly plausible that those 2hunters, 1 warrior, and the 2 paladins won't want leather anymore in Cata.
It's really difficult to compare current raid social dynamics to Cata's considering the level of some of the changes going down. I'm not saying we wait and see without discussing it. Just that many examples of current dynamics, such as the article's authors, will be moot.
StoNe May 9th 2010 10:00PM
I don't know what the OP is stressing about, players and guilds will adapt to the expansion as they have over the last two Expac changes.
For starters I am estatic about the 10 and 25 man split. I will no longer fell like a secondhand raider with the pugs and alts I get to go with.
But next major point to think of is the break up of the raids, no more 12 bosses. I'm sick of pugging ICC25, clearing up to 4/12 and having the loot leader ninja all the stuff, hearth and log off. Happened last two ICC25's I've been in.
Now they ninja and screw up your raid experience, but at least you're not locked out of 8 other bosses for the rest of the week.
Actually, another thing I'd like to see is the removal of lockouts all together. You should be able to go in to a raid and do the same boss twice...but maybe locked out of the loot or something.
eg: So if you were around for a loot kill on gunship battle. You pass because it's all junk and the rogue ninja'd the trinket. Raid falls apart...
I should be able to, on the same week go to another mates raid where they've cleared 10/12 but need a new tank for Sin and LK. I should also be able to get the loot if it drops from these bosses...BUT...if they hadn't cleared the first 4 bosses and had yet to do gunship...I should also be able to help out, but not be able to recieve any loot or badges from the kill