Monday, April 13, 2009

Druids, Don't Delete that Tier 7!

Seriously, just don't do it.

Why?

Well, besides it's nostalgic value (el-oh-el), coming 3.1 you're going to want to have two sets of gear. This isn't about the high iLevel thing for the vehicles; obviously retaining your Tier 7 over your Tier 7.5 won't really help much there. Rather, this gear set will be your mana-hound set, one for ten-mans and heroics.

With the advent of 3.1 drawing nigh, the mana changes will be going through. While it has been reported that those in raid groups of 25 will see little difference due to massive buffs, ten- and five-mans will be a little more limited based upon group composition. So, you see those gem slots on your gear that you've inserted spell power or spell power plus spirit into? Go ahead and replace those with mp5 or spell power plus mp5 gems (depending upon your needs). Ta da! You have your mp5 set.

Hopefully, Blizzard has learned their lesson from Sartharion 3D and ten man Ulduar will be attuned so that it is, in fact, easier than 25, so the slight dip in spell power will not be such a problem. And the boost in mp5 will make it so you do not need to rely upon group composition to make it work. This will also give you a healthy mix of gear to choose from should you come across mana issues or spellpower needs. And you'll already be one step ahead of other Druids, who may only do this when they have their whacked out terrarium-shoulder tier 8.


The above is wrong, and due to my own misconceptions. I admit its fallacies. However, holding onto your T7(.5) is still a good idea, as stated in the comments, due to having a Nourish bonus set. It's also good to have a set which has a lower repair bill for five mans and older raids.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you clarify for me why Mp5 will be better for mana regen than spirit?

From what I understand of the coming 3.1 changes:
1)'while casting' spirit based mana regen will be about the same because of the buff to your spirit regen talent ability (i forget the name of it)

2) 'while not casting' spirit based mana regen will be nerfed (but still better than while casting)

Bell said...

@anonymous - Straight mp5 will be able to beat spirit in those areas due to gemming. Your gear will have enough spirit to cover for your spirit needs; in this other set, the straight mp5 will give a "boost" to in and out of combat regen. It's not stripping your gear of spirit (both impossible and not reccommended), it's balancing out the stats since you may not have the composition to give you straight mp5 (such as wisdom from paladins or a mana spring totem). Since it's only gem slots and/or a few enchants, it's also not drastically cutting into your spirit pool.

Kayeri said...

"Whacked-out Terrarium"... that's also kind of my impression of the T8 shoulders...

The whole thing is kinda overblown... Druids are not really complicated beings... we are close to nature and it would be nice if our gear was nice-looking, yet simple enough to reflect that. That's probably why I prefer the pants-showing versions to the full robe, too.

Nice tips, though, Bell... just gotta clean out the bank to make room for it all...

::rethinking maybe getting a bank toon::

lissanna said...

I have also recommending keeping T7.5 for a "tank" healing set for when you want to use more nourish... With how small the item level difference is, I think we'll end up needing the different set bonuses to fill different roles in some content.

Anonymous said...

This is just wrong, mp5 is still not going to be better than Spirit for resto druids. The actual mana regen differences are going to be tiny, but you also get the spellpower bonus from spirit, making it superior.

Spirit is still better in 3.1.