I find it a bit backwards that Raid Charms/Weapons do not have more CC on them or even MINOR upgrades to CB/PoT. This way players decide, do I want stats or do I want that juicy proc on the slightly worse statt-ed item? It was very disappointing when Sontalak and Jalhkir's charms have no more CC than Heroic which still led to most players wearing 4-10 CC Adornments, which means that everything comes back to procs, it's a proc-mix not a stat-mix. The best Itemizations I have studied in the game so far everyone talks about (TSO most commonly 1st with RoK or KoS secondly with Sentinels Fate coming in 3rd along with Echoes of Faydwer). Usually had to deal with usually rare or rare-spawns having items, usually in total about 1/4th of a full set of gear (4 to 6) coming from various Heroic Content being better than Raid Content. The big difference is that some zones have rare-BiS's for say a Wizard, while another zone has them for Templars. This led people to run all sorts of zones farming an item, just like Najeena's Ring of Readyness or say tanks wanting to collect all three Undeniable Malice procs in SF.
While I do not think Raid gear should blow everything else out of the water like it has at times in the past..........they went too far i think this time. We kill Matri Marn for the first time the other night and the loot we got was disappointing when compared to their "heroic" counterpart....better? yes but not by enough considering the effort involved. IMHO for most guilds a first kill on something like that fight should lead to some "oooh shiny" when the box is clicked. We have not had a "oooh shiny" on any raid drop we have seen thus far in ToV. Energized items since we know it will be LONG time before we get sufficient red gems become "meh".
I don't have an informed opinion on non armor drops yet, but I understand that the boss of AS only drops 2 red gems. Potent armor with 2 gems is better than Energized with no gems and the drop rate of red gems effectively makes Energized armor something to use in the slots you weren't able to get the right potent drop for. Up to Energized, I like the armor progression. but that's where the system changes too much. 4 Gem cryptic us better than no gem arcane, same with arcane vs potent. But now green gems rather than 3 is better than energized without a reasonable way to get red gems. Essentially, you can only expect a weekly clearing of the zone and with only two red gems a clearing you are looking at a year and a half (assuming no population changes in your raid) to gem the Energized armor. By that point we will be in the next expansion, or just not using energized armors. It's kind of a lost armor tier. It will not replace Potent armor for most people and become mostly alt gear. I would recommend a couple of changes. First, Increase the base stats of the Energized to be slightly better than 2 gem Potent. This will maintain the progression level of earlier armor tiers. Second, Increase the drop rate of red gems to about 6 per clearing. It will still take months to gem your raids armor and in many cases raids will have moved past energized armor anyway. This way Potent Armor is still worth getting and upgrading and Energized doesn't become instant Alt Gear to those that have Upgraded Potent. Neither does it nerf lower armors and boost gemmed raid armors. Another thing that would be nice is to reduce the lockout timer on AS. Currently 5 days. I LOVE the fact that the zone stays available for 2 weeks. I belong to two raid forces. One that works on progression 3 nights a week and one that is comprised mostly of Alts and part time raiders for a weekly raid. The two week duration means I can finally see the weekly raid have a better shot at progressing since we don't have to re-clear the zone every week, but the 5 day minimum is a bit long for the other raid. I'd love to see a 14 day zone with a 3 day min.
What should really boggle yours and everyone else's is a system that as it stands now will take all non avatar killing guilds 3.23 Years to gem out a 24 man raid with purple gems. Average of 3 reds a week = 1 purple per week * 7 armor slots (assuming there will be better then hydra hats out there) * 24 raiders = 168 weeks of raiding to gem out. Provided zero turn over and some how making it work with a flat 24 raiders. That is insanity. Someone mentioned it just seems bad because with double currency it's so easy to gem out potent gear. I disagree, the heroic gear and time to gem it is fine with or without the double cash. Sure it's much faster with it but even with out it's not an unreasonable thing to do. With double currency if you work at it you can earn enough for a green gem a day (only takes 90 if crafted) and with out it it'd take two days per gem. Three gems per slot * seven armor slots = your done in 21 days currently or 42 days when it goes away. Even less time if your a crafter and doing the crafting weekly quests. The gemming of raid armor is a disaster plain and simple.
they need to just remove all red gems from raids and include them into heroic tables, that way. raiders get to do heroics, too, .
Raiders already are doing heroics, a lot of them. Some only take Energized and those with more time are running them. The flaw really lies in that 2/3 Potent = 0/1 Energized when it should be 3/3 Potent is equatable to 0/1 which would make the upgrade more noticeable. The next issue is how scarce Red Gems are even to Avatar killing guilds.
One would think putting the red gems on all raid names but in an ascending increase in drop chance the father a guild progresses into a zone say Accursed Sanctum. So the first named in Accursed Sanctum would be pretty much piss poor drop % say 5 - 10% where as the last named would have 50%+ (% amounts just for an example). And I agree with Estred the comparison on stats from 2/3 potent that = 0/1 raid drops is off base and should be 3/3 potent = 0/1 raid unless of course that upgrade from the red gem is increased to make the raid gear upgrades people notice instead of slight adjustments on blue stats and minor bumps in hp/str/wis/int/agl.
If you think the red gems really make the loot better... you are going to be sad when you loot one. Prepare to be disappointed.
He is right though, there should be some conversions between Heroic and Accursed items, maybe even Wing 1 ToV where your mix-matching both Raid and Heroic. You should need Raid though or very rare drop Heroic to be in Wing 2, something I don't think is going on. Oh I know, the STA difference for a tank between 3/3 Potent and 1/1 Energized is like 50, it's pretty small.
50? Not bad. It's about the same b/w fully upgraded cryptic and fully upgraded arcane or potent (could be even smaller). Didn't dev say from the beginning way before beta and during that with new itemization the difference in stats b/w heroic and raid gear or solo and heroic won't be big. If you give bigger difference in stats to different tiers forget about grouping. Raiding would become an obsession once again b/c of gear rather than b/c of progression.
At the rate the red gems are dropping I should be able to upgrade my raid gear in 5 yrs or so, we only raid 3 times a week, 3 red gems drop off the last boss and we have 24 people in the raid with 7 pieces of raid gear eac to gem. I have to keep the 3 gemmed heroic gear on or put on the raid gear which is inferior w/o the red gem. My bags are running out of inventory fast this expac between holding raid gear in them and all the junk from the heroic zones for tokens.
Red gems should be added to Vullarek's dominion zone quest with about 5% chance to drop imho. So raiders - who actually farm that zone every day - could get extra 1-2 gems per month at average... Or better add it in the chest with 30% chance to drop - but make it nontradeble to those who didn't kill the named.
There's a fine line between making raid gear an attractive upgrade over heroic, and making it crazy powerful. Unfortunately, they are on the wrong side of the line this time around. I'm sorry, but the no-gem raid gear should be better than 3 gem heroic, or at least identical. There has to be incentive to raid, and when you put better gear across the board in heroic zones, then people get frustrated and annoyed that their work in raids are rewarding them with gear that makes them worse.
I understand your point. I am a raider too. And remembering what devs said no matter how unfair it was I resigned to keep my potent gear and gem it up for now. I am a chanter and at the bottom of a gearing mages list anyway so I set up to wait. It's true that fully gemmed potent gear now is better than ungemmed EM raid gear. I just try to make the best out of a new expac and not take unfairness in some situations too close to heart.
Speaking from a bard's perspective quoting one of the best Troubador's in the game here, the gap between min/maxing for personal vs. raid has grown even greater when you factor in RO/VC. It's even to the extent where most bards are swapping out the tank +100 weapon dmg charm pre-pull at the risk of pulling agro to get higher VC's which is working the exact opposite of what you're intending.. If you're doing a blanket "spec for the raid" itemization change you will never see a bard wear any of the <insert token raid buff here> items until you make the increase equivalent to the loss of a group wide 1mil-2mil VC And even if you were able to, it wouldn't show up on the parse so the bards that utilized it would get kicked to the curb real quick.
What I want are more options from the armor patterns from raid, it is sad when I'm forced to get the potent pieces as a tank if I want to use mitigation increase on shoulders/pants/bracers since raid items only give you block option.
Also: if they want to be "old" mythical stuff worthwile and best in slot like they said it will be for a bit longer, then give us a questline where we can upgrade class myth cloaks from PoW and maybe myth neck / shield from Drinal. Itemization is bad deluxe for those two slots.
