2fps

New Rule – We’re here too

Remember when the blue posts were flying on MMOChampion about how exciting the loot was going to be from the Ruby Sanctum with particular emphasis on trinkets?

Turns out that was a bunch of crap that only applied to fake 25man raiders. The 10man loot table is just beyond atrocious so far. As far as we know at the moment, only one tank item drops in 10man mode and it covers the boot slot of all places. There are no trinkets listed as dropping in 10man mode.

There had damn well better be some stuff we don’t know about yet because despite what anyone else thinks, strict 10man raiders are here too.

New Rule – Go Holy or GTFO

Way back in BC when my guild was faltering on Gurtogg Bloodboil I talked to the healing lead about possibly speccing into a deep Disc build for Pain Suppressioning our clothies on the Fel Rage. I campaigned hard for the viability, if only situational, of a full Disc healer. Of course, nothing came of it because Holy was such a powerhouse by comparison.

Wrath launched and it seemed like Blizzard was listening to my stump speeches because Disc suddenly blossomed into a real true healing spec competitive not just with its Holy counterpart, but with any other healing spec from any other class as well.

The unfortunate fallout of this otherwise awesome turn of events is that so many priests have completely forsaken Holy altogether. To paraphrase one of my Nocturne guildies, it seems as if the Holy spec molested every priest in BC so people have sworn to never have anything to do with it again.

Here’s the thing: despite your objections and your hot displeasure, Holy actually is a great healing spec with a ton of awesome tools to bring to the table and you’re only gimping yourself and possibly your raid by sticking with vehement denials.

I campaigned for Disc back when nobody would touch it with a ten foot pole, I’ll do it again for Holy now!

New Rule – We’re smelting all other armor pieces to make new shields

When WotLK launched, warrior and paladin tanks were given a healthy variety of shields to choose from. There were no less than three item level 200 shields outside of raids with more shields coming from Naxx and Malygos. Awesome. One might even say it was a bit overkill.

As far as healer shields went things weren’t quite as rosy but were still pretty ok. There was one available with badges and at the time, we hadn’t figured out that mp5 was complete shit so we didn’t quite so much mind that the shield had that stat. There was also one off of Maexxna which was a reasonably killable boss.

Ulduar introduced two more tank shield and two more caster shields, one of each from hard mode Hodir. ToC gave us one more tank shield from a hard mode and one more caster shield. Now Icecrown offers one more tank shield and one more caster shield. The caster shield drops off of Sindragosa, not exactly one of the most accessible bosses in the zone.

Note that almost all the caster shields listed have mp5, by and large a completely wasted stat. The itemization seems to tell elemental shaman in particular to bugger off.

Yet two more shields were added in the Icecrown 5mans but these are both on the item level 219 scale and again the caster shield has mp5.

This sounds like a lot of variety on paper but really your options are pretty limited. You get the shield out of the 5mans on your own or you try and form a group for ToC. Its still too early for most people to start counting on getting a shield off Sindy if you’re a caster.

So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take the glut of item level 200 shields and all dps mail because I’m sick of seeing it and we’re smelting it all down to make new, better, more accessible shields. Pare down the unnecessary options for entry level tanks and throw us a bone at the higher end of the spectrum. I’m sure this is something that the elemental shammies will back me up on at least.