Mage Gear Itemization Failure. Anything new?

[Nyancat]

I have not been on the PTS, please consider.

Was there any changes to the now shitty itemization of mage gear? I see this issue hasn't even peaked any interest on the PTS forums and this needs to be addressed immediately. It is appalling to see GSB/RoS and T2 items scaling above HK gear sets (let alone crystal). This comes on top of progression issues by merging T1/T2 dungeons where people can radically geared just by completing these or running GSB/RoS/DH/GP a lot. I hope certainly other bright mages share my opinion on the matter. Maybe I am not seeing this in a clear manner also and someone please explain further.

Windstorm, Bluedot, and Hadezz - I was hoping you guys might have more information regarding this since I know Hadezz at least has been on the PTS and also Windstorm has obviously noticed the issue with his updated gear list.

Thanks for your time.

[Windstorm]

News as of now is that raid-level Mage gear is getting another pass with changes being pushed to PTS as part of the prelude to 1.8 patch (posted by Josh York)

No news other than that so far, but as soon as details pop I'll be adding an old/new PTS comparison sheet to the gear list

[kickn4fun]

Anyone else think its a fail that the legendary HK shoulders for mages are +4.5 SP and -21 crit versus the shoulders that drop off the first boss in RotP?

[Cipherzx]

I think that it is odd also. I am hoping they'll look at the Legendary pieces before the new 20 man but haven't seen much news about them doing that. I'm hoping what windstorm said includes those pieces.

[bluedot]

Anyone else think its a fail that the legendary HK shoulders for mages are +4.5 SP and -21 crit versus the shoulders that drop off the first boss in RotP?

If you are in full HK level gear 4.5 Spell power is significantly better then 21 crit.
They have made it pretty clear they are aware of the itemization issue. No reason to get worked up until we see the final changes coming in 1.8.

[Primal]

To be honest I hope they don't change anything now.

It's too close to Infernal Dawn release to farm enough Maddening Flames/Hexed Boots/Amulet of Unnamed Horrors for all the Mages in my raid.

[Calmethar]

It would be the same for everyone though, Primal.

I never agreed with the argument of leaving something 'broken' due to being afraid of upsetting x amount of people.

But yea, there's only 3-4 weeks until 1.8 anyway, and we most likely wont see anything until then. It'll be a welcome change though :)

[Primal]

True it would be the same for everyone, everyone would be annoyed they'd runebroken/vendored otherwise useful drops.

In my opinion too much notice is not enough for any itemisation changes.

[Pimmpy]

Isn't there something to be said about leaving 1 top-notch item in these dungeons? To add yet another place to go to be in full BIS and not just be running the same dungeon for every item you need?

I think it give a little more depth to have a reason to still join into a pug ROS for a skull, or shoulders in RotP, and I'm sure on a med or low pop server it helps when trying to get the required numbers to run one of these if people who have progressed on to HK are still willing to join a lesser raid in hopes of said item..

[Primal]

On Seastone everyone joins GDKPs to carry and get their 30-70p depending on drops as well as weekly done.
Not many people join in hopes of getting upgrades since the good ones go for a lot, saw a Darkling Skull go for 3400p one time, I definitely don't have that much money to spend on upgrades.

[CericX]

On Seastone everyone joins GDKPs to carry and get their 30-70p depending on drops as well as weekly done.
Not many people join in hopes of getting upgrades since the good ones go for a lot, saw a Darkling Skull go for 3400p one time, I definitely don't have that much money to spend on upgrades.

Wait what...they PAY to take drops?!? Hell we've been running people through every week gratis....

[EternalBrown]

On Seastone everyone joins GDKPs to carry and get their 30-70p depending on drops as well as weekly done.
Not many people join in hopes of getting upgrades since the good ones go for a lot, saw a Darkling Skull go for 3400p one time, I definitely don't have that much money to spend on upgrades.

I join GDKP/PDKP runs of RoS praying for Darkling to drop so I can disregard females and acquire currency.

[Primal]

Wait what...they PAY to take drops?!? Hell we've been running people through every week gratis....They aren't usually guild runs, at most it's normally only a few members from a guild and everyone else is genuine PuGs.
I really like them because everybody wins, you ether get loot or money, sometimes both.

Seastone has a lot of decent players around to carry everything, we have about 10 11/11 guilds so there's lots of alts in every raid.

[Nyancat]

I join GDKP/PDKP runs of RoS praying for Darkling to drop so I can disregard females and acquire currency.

Joseph Ducreux approves of this message.

[EternalBrown]

Gear is up on the PTS, someone grabbed some screenshots of some of the gear (http://nexilis.shivtr.com/gallery_categories/22759).

Looks like they are trying to make it so only archons benefit from the "Darkling Skull Killer," though this only means I will now be getting used to spam toggling Power Drain as archon....

Then again, work in progress, mebbe it will change.

[Primal]

You should be spamming Power Drain regardless.

Given that Pillaging Stone procs Burning Purpose you could keep the buff up easily just by spamming your macro anyway.