Breakfast Topic: Are Cataclysm gear ilevels too big a jump from Wrath?
by Jake Evers 
Mar 2nd 2011 at 8:00AM
Throughout Wrath, I spent the vast majority of my time in game on my max-level main character, with just a few hours /played on alts at various stages along the road to being forgotten. With the onset of Cataclysm, however, I found myself motivated to level an alt to the level cap for the first time. After a few days questing, I succeeded in bringing my up-and-coming alt from Un'Goro Crater to the quest leading into Hyjal.
Thanks to the time spent on my main, my fresh lvl 80 alt was well-resourced. In addition to carrying pots and foods, I stormed into Hyjal wearing heirloom chest, shoulders, weapon, trinkets, and even a spiffy new heirloom cloak. I was ready to rock, and having come straight from Icecrown, I expected to be able to pull two to three mobs at a time without exerting much effort.
As it turns out, Hyjal is not Icecrown. I soon found out through a process of trial and error -- well, mostly error -- that I could barely survive one mob without popping cooldowns and potions. My response? "But Cataclysm content wasn't this hard on my main!"
Once I completed a few quests and received my first upgrade as a reward, I realized what the problem was: My gear was 100 item levels too low. Aside from my heirlooms, my alt was wearing blues and greens from questing in Icecrown -- ilvl 174 gear, at best. The mobs were much more difficult on my alt because he wasn't wearing anything remotely close to the ilvl 264 gear my main had brought!
What gear were you wearing when you took the plunge into the new Cataclysm content, and how did you fare? Do you feel the new zones are well-tuned for characters coming straight from leveling in Northrend? Is the ilvl jump from 174 to 272 too drastic or a necessity?
| Yes | |
|---|---|
| No | |
| Only for non-raiding characters |
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Ad134 Mar 2nd 2011 8:04AM
While it is hard for non-raiders, I think that it's a good "okay, this is where it gets real" moment, and reinforces the upped difficulty of cataclysm. Also, it feels more rewarding when you get a piece of loot.
Lheim Mar 2nd 2011 9:37AM
The ilevel of items received in Hyja/Vashj'ir should've been at most equivalent to Icecrown gear. At most - I'll argue it should've been worse. The gear-flation is getting really gross; the way that blues have posted in the past leads me to believe they don't even consider it an issue.
Raid-geared mains shouldn't be turning in items for green quest rewards till near the end of the next expansion's leveling content. The time and effort spent to get those items shouldn't feel like time wasted in the excitement of new flashy gear with a gazillion stamina and three trillion agility.
I've been a great fan of RPG games in past, but something about how a higher level character can experience power-increases that mean they can thoughtlessly blow away armies-worth of lower level characters has always rubbed me wrong.
Aedilhild Mar 2nd 2011 10:01AM
In fact, Lheim, almost all gear trades were a wash (or worse) until I hit Uldum — at which point I felt as if the challenges of the past alone weren't enough to keep my character alive.
Puntable Mar 2nd 2011 10:22AM
None of my alts replaced more than a few items until Uldum. Your old 264 epics are equivalent to 306 greens, once you figure the gems and set bonuses. You have to look at the stats and not just the item levels.
Rob Mar 2nd 2011 10:55AM
It's no worse than the first time I stepped into Outland or Northrend on a non-raid toon. In both cases, the first level in those new lands had me getting the crap beat out of me, until I got a level and some new quest gear on me. Those damn spiders in Borean Tundra at the horde zeppelin spot killed me so many times...
thebitterfig Mar 2nd 2011 11:52AM
I'd say it's less about being raid-geared than about being heroic-geared. If you had a toon which you ran through a bunch of heroics, got full t9 from points and weapons out of the ICC 5's, something average ilvl 235, then the Wrath-to-Cata transition seems about right. Most pieces are upgrades, but just barely.
Those toons who are loaded up in ICC 25 or HM gear definitely find weaker stuff until deepholm/uldum, and I haven't taken any green-covered toons into cata, but I'd imagine that it could be a little rough for the first few quests. The heroic geared toons in the middle? It's just about right. Like Baby Bear's stuff in Goldielocks.
SamLowry Mar 2nd 2011 12:45PM
We established well over a month ago that Vash in particular was a gankfest for a fresh 80 wearing quest greens and maybe a few i187 blues. And who would those noobs be? How about worgen and goblins who, because of the 90% xp cut for continuing in Wrath content once you've reached 80, had no reason to even try a Wrath heroic.
Adding insult to corpse run was the sheer number of quests you have to grind out in Vash before they even begin to offer you any gear upgrades.
All of that is why we asserted that nobody at any point during the beta took a fresh 80 into the "noob" zones--everyone went in covered in purple and hey, no problem. Blizzard's argument for excluding 78s and 79s from these zones was that they would be too undergeared, and yet fresh 80s would be wearing the exact same gear.
Way to think things through, Blizz!
slythwolf Mar 2nd 2011 2:39PM
The fact that the gear itself was not as good as what I had from ICC in the early zones is the *reason* I think the ilevel jump was too high. In order to queue into randoms, I had to take stat cuts.
Carson Mar 2nd 2011 3:22PM
@Puntable, you're wrong. Obviously set bonuses are often hard to quantify, but any non-set-piece 264 epic will be outclassed - not just matched - well before that. Go to wowhead and compare a 264 epic (remembering that a socket is only good for 20 stat points on a pre-Cata item) to a 289 green, you'll see the green has clearly higher stats.
Twill Mar 2nd 2011 4:20PM
@ Sam
WTH?
I leveled a Death Knight and a Warlock who were in quest greens from Grizzly Hills through Vasj'ir and had zero problems.
I do agree that I would prefer to get all the gear upgrades earlier in the questing flow than later.
You sound like you're the type of person who can't play in 3D. (Vertical Plane, in addition to normal)
SamLowry Mar 2nd 2011 10:43PM
3D wasn't the issue--it's the fact that there are always 3 hostile critters within 15 feet of you. Hyjal was much easier because that wasn't the case, and I've avoided Vash while leveling the rest of my alts.
It's the same with Deephell, but then maybe I avoid it because there's so much wasted space there, giving the impression that a lot of content had been planned during the design and layout phase but cut later when the decision was made to have only 5 levels rather than 10 in the expansion.
Evelinda Mar 3rd 2011 6:47PM
i'm kind of inclined to agree with sam here; i found jumping into vash'jir on a toon with no (or little) raid/herioc gear MUCH harder than hyjal. You pull one mob for your quest, doing the sensible thing, and then you get charged by a naga who was patrolling 15ft above you. or an eel. or some other swimming jerk. Hyjal was MUCH easier, which is probably why i'm levelling most of my alts through Hyjal instead of Vash'jir.
Having said that though, going into Vash'jir with a char who was in nothing but ilvl232+ gear was no problem at all.
I DO think that the ilvl jump may be a little large, but like AD134 says, it really clues you in to the fact that you can't play like you did in wrath anymore; you can't pull everything you can see and expect to come through alright. And it does feel reeeeal good when you get a giant upgrade from a quest; it also really makes you want to keep questing. Whereas i always feel a little pang when i have to give up an awesome wrath epic, especially a weapon or shoulder slot.
Angrycelt Mar 4th 2011 11:39PM
My extra-altish death knight just went into Hyjal with nothing but quest reward gear in lovely shades of green and blue. Never set foot in a dungeon. And while it got really tough really quickly, between drops, crafting, and quest rewards, its already brought me almost up to appropriate gear. It'll definitely be tougher than it was for my kingslaying main, but its very doable with a splash of caution.
krko Mar 2nd 2011 8:09AM
A side-effect of this ilevel jump is that the few cataclysm greens that require less than level 10 become absolute gamebreakers. The level 75-79 bg bracket is dominated by people who bought cata greens from the AH
krko Mar 2nd 2011 10:23AM
Level 80 not level 10, wtb edit button
lilrabbit129 Mar 2nd 2011 6:16PM
Just the latest form of twinking. Same troubles, bigger numbers.
thebuzzard Mar 2nd 2011 8:11AM
I just leveled a Hunter from 1-85 and found Hyjal very easy with heirlooms and gear from Storm peaks quests. You just need to replace your heirloom weapons ASAP.
gwiz2008 Mar 2nd 2011 8:14AM
On my alt, same as w yours. I was not in nothing more than questing/ reg dungeon gear. I just went to the ah and spent about $300.00 gold or so and bought a set of green and low cost blues to get myself into an easied situation. Also this put my ilevel high enough to queue up for Tot and Brc.
Wolfshanze Mar 2nd 2011 11:57AM
To me, buying Cat greens on the AH (I think BoE Cat greens are available from 77 or 78 on up) before hitting Hyjal/Vashj'r seems the most logical way to go, and they're not too expensive either.
For a small handfull of gold your lvling experience can be made much smoother... especially buying some of those cat green boe weapons.
Paulio Mar 2nd 2011 2:12PM
Wolfshanze has it right.
For an outlay of maybe 150 gold, my DK gatherer alt grabbed an ilvl-278 weapon, some "of the bear" or "of the soldier" gear like plate armor and rings, and then marched into Hyjal at 80 with no problem at all. It only got challenging if I pulled 3 or 4 mobs at once, and even then I could survive using cooldowns and/or a healing pot. I suppose it might be a bit different for squishier classes, but single mob pulls should be trivial for any class after equipping some AH gear.