Comments on: The Philosophy of Upgrades

By: Illysandre

Illysandre — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:28:18 +0000

Like many of you guys, I came to Northrend in all T5-equiv and badge purples and find myself replacing many of them with blues (and a couple of greens *cringe*)… just to get some spirit and more mana. I was a Shadow Priest for most of BC, so I had NO spirit. Now that the guild wants me to go holy, I have to rethink my gearing strategy, and realize that mana regen might be better than worrying only about spellpower. I have increased my mana pool by 4k so far and finally have over 10k health. My mana regen while casting is still low, but hopefully it will come up in time. What is nice, however, is that much of my dps gear translates into holy gear now, so it was not a total waste.

By: The Philosophy of Sidegrades and Cow-Punching Noobtards « Ten Days in Azeroth

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:37:07 +0000

[...] A few days ago, Vonya over at The Egotistical Priest wrote an interesting post about the idea of upgrades in Northrend. As a relatively seasoned raider, her PvE purples outshined [...]

By: Devv

Devv — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:31:13 +0000

After reading this post and commenting on it, I wound up liking the topic enough to write a post on the subject myself. Fear not. I gave you credit for the term “sidegrades.” Check it out if you have a moment. =)

By: Devv

Devv — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:39:39 +0000

Damnit, you’re right! I’ve had about five or six pieces of Northrend “sidegrade” gear sitting in my bags for a week now. I just can’t pull the trigger. Part of it is the mathematical reasoning of giving up one stat for another. But I think another subconscious piece of the puzzle is my own struggle with the stigma of wearing greens again.

By: Vendric

Vendric — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:34:51 +0000

I am passing on the sidegrades.

My gear is Kara & badge level, with mucho pvp items. So far, I’ve not found any replacements. I know the old stuff, it fits my style. My little fingers are used to the special procs that pop.

I have 2 problems.

1) All the haste. There is much haste on the new gear and I fear haste. I sucked at things like Starcraft because I am not a lightning fast clicker / typer geek. I like my GCD. I like your GCD in PVP so my fingers don’t have to beat your fingers.

2) I need some sexy leggings. I’ve been in a skirt so long I’m feeling chaste.

By: julanna

julanna — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:48:32 +0000

A good thing to keep in mind, I have found, is that very few quest rewards are useful to someone with any type of epics on before about level 75. But, the dungeon blues, can be very good sidegrades if you are interested in changing the balance of your stats. For me, I had 0 crit on my gear (holy priest) pre-wotlk. I have new talents that proc off crits, so I have been trading some of my other stats for crit, and I end up with better mana management. As my hp increase, I trade some stam for int, crit, spirit. It once again is about balance, and for classes whose mechanics changed, you may very well be changing gear before other classes. I have a little haste, but I haven’t been to excited about haste, not like I have been about crit. =). I have also noticed, that casters seem to be getting better “sidegrades/upgrades” before other classes, perhaps because so many of them had changes (including the big one, spellpower).

By: C. Jones

C. Jones — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:52:37 +0000

I have two characters that I’ve brought to Northrend: one was a druid, who, like you, was in mostly badge gear and ZA stuff. The other (a lock) had just dinged 68 and was in Outlands quest gear.

Of course, the lock was easy. Everything was an upgrade! Huzzah!

My druid, on the other hand, was often seen doing the sidegrade shuffle. I almost got smacked a few times by my boyfriend for making him watch me swap gear on and off for minutes on end and asking his opinion of what was better. I actually resorted to a calculator on a few pieces: “Okay, so this has x +int and this has y +crit, so if so much int equals 1% crit, the new piece is better, but I’ll lose 12 mp5 but gain 150 hp…”

Plus there’s SO much emphasis on haste rating for casters, I can only assume I should be taking it, but watching my crit rate and +spell power slowly dwindle has been a little painful. What I’ve had to do as compensation for my growing fear that I’m nerfing myself is keep all my old gear safely stored in the bank in case I suddenly change my mind and want my Staff of Infinite Mysteries back. (It’s so weird using a dagger and an offhand!)

From what I’ve heard, people in mid-range raid gear (badge and kara and ZA) should expect for real upgrades around level 74-75. I’m looking forward to that part because putting together new gear is one of my favourite parts about leveling!

By: Kitts

Kitts — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:42:24 +0000

When I approached Northrend, I had been wearing a majority of T5 equivalent gear and some pieces of T6 equivalent.

I didn’t upgrade a lot of my gear for DPS/solo or healing until I reached around 75. Most of the gear that got changed was jewelery, weapons, trinkets, and my wand. I didn’t get significant clothing upgrades until I started doing level 80 instances.

Most of the haste I saw was “meh”. I appreciate the stat, but I’m not aiming for that. There’s a lot of crit, but, also not a huge fan…

(My favorite trinket is a MP5 + chance on spell hit = 222 spirit in combination with my Sapphire Owl).

I think some of the best upgrades comes from heroic 5-mans… plus, bronze drake!

By: Misamane

Misamane — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:47:09 +0000

Update!

At 73 now, finally found a party to go back and run Nexus (I skipped it cuz I only wanted to go in to do the quests and finally had some 77+ guildies go with me). So far I’ve replaced my shoulders (PvP gear), boots (Kara), gloves (some random crappy epix), cape (AH epic), both rings (the Kara rep ring and the Horseman’s Signet both got tossed), and my wand (Kara Crone wand).

All in all, I’ve done fairly well I think. Losing spellpower like crazy, but gaining +Int/Stam/Spi like crazy. First time i’ve ever been over 10k health without a druid around. 10.2k health, 12.4k mana all by my lonesome

Gotta work on A) making some cash–sharding every green and blue I don’t wear makes getting money a pain, but people have been really, really kind (some random dude gave me 30g for +85 ap to 2h wep, and it was just mats I had on me from random DEs) and B) leveling my tailoring. I hate it, hahaha. But I wants a carpet and I want to actually be able to use the awesome stuff I know I’ll be able to make later on.

Also…this is the first time I’ve had hit rating and haste! For some reason, I went thru all of TBC with 0 hit rating. Guess when you only run T4 content it’s not that big a deal.

By: Weta

Weta — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:11:34 +0000

I rolled into 80 a couple of days ago, darn server maintenance set me back a day

My hunter was geared well, not great but well with badge/za/kara with a few stubborn blues. The first two things to go where my trinkets around 74-75 along with my boots.

I pretty much made it to 80 with replacing my boots (from chess), my trinkets (badge) and kara (poison vial) and both rings (kara and a blue), these where quest reward placements. I replaced my sonic spear with daggers (dungeon loot from early instances) and my cloak and pants with lw stuff.

Once at 80 I have started the mass migration for the final TBC epics to profession made blues.

I think Vonya has it right… If you have to think about it then take it and use it otherwise grab the plate or the weapon and sell it. Between selling 95% of my quest rewards and the gold from those I cleared about 3.5k gold. Just keep in mind that you need 1k gold at 77 for your cold weather flying.

The lesson to take to heart is that you can get to 80 in T4/T5/ZA gear but once you hit around 78ish the profession blues will start being no-brainer upgrades. Those blues may even be in the top 10 for that particular slot.