I was actually after a chest with a class focus, and yes i ended up with a rotting crypthunter chest instead. I just wanted to point out that the way they handled tier1 planar group gear, was less than optimal. When almost everyone ends up skipping tier 1 entirely, you now that is not what they intended...(yes that might be an exaggeration, since i don't know how many actually succeeded in getting a suit of planar visibles, im just guessing here...)
Thankfully now it is the case, but before the Heroic = mod2 change patch, if you wanted to max appropriate mod2s for a tank or melee in group gear before that patch you had to raise your faction in Fear and Hate to buy certain type 9s
The whole idea of TBM group gear was stupid. I'm ok with crafting gear like that - niche market to begin with.
Trash mob levels. If the new expansion allows us to level to 110, the trash mobs in the starting zones should not be higher than that. As a cleric this was infuriating not being able to pacify.
Hated TBM group gear augmentation fest. Difficult to compare when something drops. Sellback should have been at full price. Drops on named all felt pretty vanilla because you don't know what you have until it's auged up. Overall just way too complicated. Two tiers of group gear were nearly identical. Go back to old system.
Considering every slot was essentially the same. Once you auged up one piece, you knew exactly what every other slot would also be. The augs were 95% of the stats.
All I know is that as weird as the TBM gear is the way it works with the vendors and tradeable currency let me get my cleric into gear good enough to survive TBM raids and contribute. I remember the days of new apps getting flattened by event aes for weeks/months until getting enough gear to the point that it was very difficult for people not abusing guild hopping to go from the group game to the raid game. In particular I remember being an important umbrella of protection as a bard with area effect resists, and those not very well geared would be absolutely flattened without the protection of bards' resists. The ae changes with maximum resist chances and such would have devastated the mid/low raid tier guilds back then. (Defiant gear at least on Quarm mitigates that heavily by giving resists and stats far more easily than was possible back in the day, if I recall correctly at least.) I don't care about the particulars of what they do as long as they preserve that path to a decent base line of gear like TBM has. It has helped tremendously for alts leveled to fill gaps in the raid roster and for returning players.
I really enjoy having so much choice with TBM gear. I wouldn't want to give that up. I did enjoy SoD gear also, though. Not nearly as much choice as TBM, but still pretty nice.
I hated the group itemisation this expansion, some classes did ok out of it, but many lost mods, and t2 gear had lower ac, hp and/or mana than t1 in some cases. Raiders for some reason weren't subjected to that. I wonder why?
