Best non-tier 9 piece?

[Xeek]

Hey, i'm an old mage that just started playing the game about a week and a half ago after quitting before 3.1 came out
i started raiding again, and was wondering out of all the new gear, which slot has the best non-tier piece?

i want the 4pc T9 bonus of 5% crit, but which slot should be replaced?

i was thinking chest get merlin's robe, but i just want to make sure before i get it crafted and spend badges on other pieces

thx

[Silvereen]

Get Merlin's robe and ditch the chest piece from T9. Most of casters' ToC gear has loads of hit, so the chest from the set is practically useless.

[Shawaam]

Either legs or chest. They both doesn't have any haste and they give spirit+crit/hit. So, if not hitcapped, bye legs, if hitcapped, bye chest.

[Jalyne]

Merlin's robe, unless your lucky to get heroic 25 man non tier chest, great in pve, and also very usefull in pvp aswell.

Might cost alot to get crafted, cost me for my mage 10k+ in mat costs, but its worth it.

[Skarrd]

Skyweaver vestments is best in slot, but its from heroic valkyr25. flowing robes of the ascent are also pretty good but there is less hit+haste to account for the loss and it ends up lower overall dps. That said, if you aren't running heroic 25's, merlin's robe is your best bet.

[Swizzle]

helm, legs, gloves, and shoulders are BiS for fire with Skyweaver Vestments

[frozenvoid]

For arcane Merlins robe beats the heroic version of skyweaver vestments

[Skarrd]

For arcane Merlins robe beats the heroic version of skyweaver vestments

Making use of the hit on skyweaver and dropping it on another piece ends up as the top dps set.

[riccou]

why are people still fire

[Milamber]

why are people still fire

Srsly I don't know.... Maybe Scorch? Or Living Bomb?

[Swizzle]

they enjoy it?

[Prostatus]

Fire is a lazy mage's spec

In all seriousness though, fire does have it's place depending on raid comps so there are definitely some fire mages still out there. After playing arcane I find it so simple and boring with the lack of CD's and mana management, I dread the nights we do ToGC25 Anub pulls

[Gobber]

Right now I'm having more problems with Fire mana than arcane...maybe cause I dropped 2 points in master of elements for 3/3 student of the mind & combustion

2 min evo with free mbarr procs means arcane is actually quite easy on the mana now

[Steady]

I honestly don't know how you can be suprised people still play fire. Arcane is in no way, shape or form more interesting than fire, especially since Missile Barrage was changed to a 40% proc chance (meaning you're very likely to be using it on the 4th AB) and MB procs were made free of mana cost, if you find yourself struggling with mana you're very likely either unlucky with procs and thus are spamming Arcane Blast, or you have a very small mana pool to start with. The mana management aspect of Arcane is all but gone since 3.2.2. I personally find multi-LBing, watching Hot Streak etc much more entertaining than pressing AB 4 times then AM, and watching, shock horror, 2 different cooldown timers.

With regard to the thread title - the chest is the obvious piece to drop due to its poor itemisation, Merlin's Robe is a nice attainable option and both the robes from Beasts heroic (70% of the spirit = crit rating with MA glyphed and T9 4-set) or the ones from Val'kyrs heroic if you need the hit are the best options.