Originally Posted by
SleepySlug
They HAVE to do that though or else the first tier(s) of raid content are complete jokes to anyone who completed the final tier of the previous expansion.
Example: Heroic LK dropped 271 gear. First tier of Cata raiding dropped 359. That's 88 ilvl difference. Now, imagine you just cut that difference in half. That would mean that the first tier of raiding would be 44 ilvls above that of the final tier of the expansion before. You'd end up with ilvl 315 gear being dropped in this hypothetical first tier raid. Now, let's look at what that equates to in-game. That's about 2nd tier dungeons (Stonecore and Vortex Pinnacle). Now, I don't know how many of you had Heroic ICC gear, but you didn't replace that very quickly AT ALL. Stonecore and Vortex Pinnacle were jokes for most if you had that much gear. To make this gap between expansions smaller than it already is would severely drop the difficulty and satisfaction of raiding at the beginning of an expansion, an issue that was ALREADY a problem in Cataclysm.