Wow, so level 95 epics have a 650 ilvl. That's way higher than I was expecting. I thought we'd only be replacing our legendary cloaks when we hit 100, not at level 92 or something. Heroic Dragonsoul stuff was 416 ilvl which wasn't really surparsed until level 87 so nearly halfway through the expansion. As such I expected gear at level 95 to be about 570 ilvl, i.e. a little better than un-upgraded heroic SoO gear with level 100 gear coming in at just over 600 and first tier raid stuff to be about 630.The fact that they're making 'good' level 95 gear 650 is a little frustrating. Work for months to get a legendary cape and it'll be useless after about 10-20% of the new expansion. Get carried through a Garrosh flex or normal run though and you'll get a guaranteed heirloom that will definitely be useable all the way through the levelling part of the next expansion (when 6.0 drops ofc).
"Each expansion has new goggles--there are three versions of each pair of Warlords goggles, at levels 625, 650, and 675."The problem I had with the current engineering goggles was that by the time I could gather the materials required to make them I no longer needed them. They need to make sure that we can actually build these goggles and start using them right away.
...and the dumbing down of WoW continues. you don't need skill to harvest anything, you don't need ammo or arrows for ranged weapons, no wood and flint to make a fire. oh and now you can't miss anything in your immediate level range. they should make a classic version which puts all that stuff back in. who remmebers mid level content? i still have my mallet of zul'farak, i cry everytime i look at it in my bank. pretty soon you just hit a single button and you do it all :(
Typo for Walter; 'who might help out for up to 10 min. Jeeves can grant bank access to his creator. For everyone else, he sells some fairly terrible food. (1 Hour Cooldown)'Any word on a system similar to the 'Reborn' Crafted weapons for Blacksmiths?
"Goblin Engineers get World Enlarger, so it makes sense Gnomish Engineers now get World Shrinker."Actually the current World Enlarger is a Gnomish engineering device on live (see the flavor text). Since it seems to have switched to Goblin and been kicked up to 600 engineering, while the new World Shrinker is showing Gnomish and 250, my guess is that they accidentally swapped the specs of the two--World Enlarger will probably stay Gnomish and craftable at 250, World Shrinker will probably be Goblin and craftable at a higher level.
OK but nobody actually treats gems or enchants as optional on Live either.
From what I recall reading, gem slots are going to be more rare... and much more powerful. I did the calculations once (awhile ago, so this may be remembered wrong), and one gem slot was roughly equal in power to enchantments on the neck, cloak, and rings. Combined. (Weapon enchants seem to be of the "proccing" nature...)Which means that getting a second gem slot will be equal to getting a THIRD chance at enchanting all available items (i.e., enchantments + first gem slot), a roughly 50% increase in enhanced power.And so on...From what I understand, the chance of getting a gem slot on an item (probably from dungeons and raids--I highly doubt they'll be catering to us questers) is roughly 10%. Just like there's a 10% chance of getting a "warforged" bonus to iLvl, and a 10% chance of getting a tertiary stat (which stat, seems to be based on item slot; lifesteal, bracers; cleave, gloves, if they make it to live; sturdiness, belt; speed, boots/chest; avoidance, unknown). Which means that to get the BiS gear, you've got to sacrifice your Beanie Babies to the RNG gods, or just accept that you'll have to run the same group PvE content endlessly for the entire expansion, and probably won't get the gear you need...
I will wait to see how it develops, but the crafting professions will not be much use if we can't actually make the best gear without needing items that only drop from disenchanting raid level items. By the time we have enough of that component, we've generally already received raid drop gear. In that case, crafting is not a source of gear, it is a fallback if you happen to get unlucky with drops. This is further limited by the availability of recipes for useful items. In the current tier, recipes for blacksmithing are discovered by creating Balanced Trillium Ingots using a daily cooldown. Of the 41 potential recipes, only 6 are for PvE items — 3 each for pants or belts. It takes 41 days to learn these recipes, requiring a trillium bar for each. I stopped throwing gold into that particular money pit after learning about 25 recipes for PvP gear I will never use, and have resigned myself to making an occasional belt buckle and using my extra sockets.Also why can't jewelcrafters make decent jewelry? I am still stuck with a necklace from ToT because none have dropped in SoO, and half my raid team are still missing rings from SoO. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to craft something, even if it did require raid materials or was BoP? Anything? No? Maybe I will throw it all away for a mining pick and herb bag in WoD. Along with everyone else, thus ensuring that no profession will be particularly useful or profitable. Yay, parity has been achieved! All professions are equally useless! Still waiting to see how this develops.
As they are now, 99.99..% of profession items are useless to anyone staying current with content, and most new stuff is just iterative of the previous tier. I would rather see fewer recipes with more relevance over a bunch of filler we make 70 times and vend for silver because everyone already has better. (who wants ghost iron shield spikes? anyone?) Or, possibly redo the older items so they, and their respective mats, remain relevant over an xpac or two.
I wish that, rather than making new gear require raid mats (and raid drops for the recipes, which I just found out about the 522 gear, AFTER buying a bunch of Blood Spirits, sigh...), they should go the "Reborn" route to keep crafters from jumping straight to the highest gear iLvls.So, for instance, make a 580 piece at the start. Then, next patch, a 600 piece is available. You learn the recipe, and turn in the 580 piece, plus some other mats, to get the 600 piece.
"New Jewelcrafting toys: Prismatic Focusing Lens creates a prismatic beam..." Nice try Blizz. I want new "toys" not stuff brought back from old content.