Do you think weapons should be purchasable for valor?

[grimsanta]

Weapons are very, very important for some classes, primarily melee, and not as much for others, like some ranged, healers, and tanks. However, valor can only buy you armor and trinkets. What the current system ends up doing is making valor more valueable to ranged, healers, and tanks, but less valueable to melee, because the average DPS increase one gets from valor spent is smaller for melee classes.

Blizzard's answer to this is always "we don't want everyone to not have to raid to get loot". And the other answer they give is "I've never gone an entire tier without getting a weapon." Well, just because it doesn't happen often that no one gets their weapon, it does happen.

I understand not making weapons easy to purchase. So my idea would to be to put the price at 3000 valor, and lock it to the exalted level of reputation from whatever the primary rep is for that tier.

It's extremely frusterating when I as a melee class am falling behind in dps, despite having as much up-time and higher statistics in other areas than other people in my class, but still doing significantly less dps.

The only other option would be to make some weapons craftable.

Either craftable or valor weapons could be a lower ilvl, like 516 for the current tier. That would be a compromise I could deal with.

Thoughts?

[Thelxi]

Sure. At this point gear is just homogenized stat sticks with strict stat budgets anyway, why not have semi decent 522 weapons to offset extremely bad luck.

[Deleted]

I defo think there should be a solution to this.

RNG on a neck or a ring you can deal with but it would be nice for a solution for Weapons.

Crafted ones maybe a good option?

I don't think they should be 522 though (for this tier).

But right now it is possible to be doing ToT with a 471 blue, not a good place to be in!

[aesthir]

Yes, definetly! I had attended every raid for a month or more before i go one weapon (agi weapons did not drop while we had an abundance of str 2handers...

[Belloc]

I'd be perfectly fine with them putting up a previous tier's quality weapon on valor vendors. So, if they put up valor weapons tomorrow, they'd be 496 ilvl. Non-sha touched, of course.

[Kazgrel]

Reasonable idea, IMO. Weapons are (for the most part) the most vital of all item slots, yet you have instances where people go months without any sort of weapon upgrades. I'm historically had poor luck with weapon drops during current tier:

Wrath: Had 213 mace off KT from Naxx 10; next upgrade I would get is the 219 dagger from ToC 5 man, then heroic dagger from Beasts, then LK 25 normal mace.
Cata: PVP weapon for most of T11 until getting Magmaw dagger near end of it, didn't raid FL while current, had to use staff from DS 5 mans until obtain staff from Madness, then heroic Hagara staff.
MoP: LFR dagger from Protectors from December until 2-3 weeks before ToT, when I got Empress mace (normal) off coin roll. Were it not for the coin, I would still have a 483 weapon right now.

[Lucetia]

Blizzard's answer to this is always "we don't want everyone to not have to raid to get loot". And the other answer they give is "I've never gone an entire tier without getting a weapon." Well, just because it doesn't happen often that no one gets their weapon, it does happen.

It's extremely frusterating when I as a melee class am falling behind in dps, despite having as much up-time and higher statistics in other areas than other people in my class, but still doing significantly less dps.

The only other option would be to make some weapons craftable.

Either craftable or valor weapons could be a lower ilvl, like 516 for the current tier. That would be a compromise I could deal with.

Thoughts?

Well most classes got a craftable this time around. The thing is that it takes about a month to make just 1 502 so they are in low commodity and would take less time to get than to get exalted as you mentioned (going by LFR raiding, normal raiding the odds of you being that unlucky by now to get a weapon if you raid every week are slimmer).

I do agree though it sucks seeing your dps plummet because of a weapon while at the start when everyone had same equiv weapons you were doing a lot better. Now you'll see the casters just jump ahead of you easily even if they have a crap weapon. It wasn't till after a few weeks ToT had been out that I finally got a 2H from Sha of Anger (LFR version) before that I was wielding a 463. Now I burn my bonus roll on Council (gotten the necklace 6 times now, 4 from normal loot roll and 2 from bonus roll, rest are coins). and both times on Lei Shin and still gold.

[Mildennais]

Very much for it. My main used a 463 crafted through all of tier 14 simply due to bad luck. My death knight and shaman both have a 502 and 463, so it's not as bad.

[Noorri]

Instead of making the valor vendor offer items that can't be gotten in the raid, s/he should instead open the raid journal when you interact with him/her and offer you the loot that drops of the bosses for valor points instead.

[deidios]

As someone who went about 4 months last tier without getting a weapon on one of my alt I agree that there should be a solution to this. I do not think the weapons should be of normal 522 quality just because I agree with you should have to raid to get loot, I think that they should be raid finder quality of the current tier (502 for this tier) this way anything you get from a normal raid will be better but you wont be stuck with crap until that time comes.

[fangless]

I think the last time they were, was the Sunwell isle?

Or at least, viable epic quality ones. They don't seem to want to do it very often.

[MasterHamster]

Still stuck with a 5.0 rare weapon.

Add a 502 (not 522) for 2500 Valor

[Belloc]

Instead of making the valor vendor offer items that can't be gotten in the raid, s/he should instead open the raid journal when you interact with him/her and offer you the loot that drops of the bosses for valor points instead.

No. No no no. Blizzard has made it clear that they do not want us to be able to be guaranteed to get boss loot. They prefer it to be random. Your suggestion would remove a large amount of players from the raid game specifically because they would no longer have to raid to get the boss drops they want. Can you understand how bad that would be?

[Nobleshield]

I wouldn't mind having like one level behind weapons available (different weapons, not the raid drops i.e. no sha-touched) for VP, but not current level weapons.

[bowchikabow]

I got a 463 staff back in September when I hit 90. Raided on and off in T14, no weapon.. ToT comes out... and I have to do raidfinder STILL and just got my caster sword from ToS last week... then yesterday got staff from ToT. went 6 months with no weapon upgrade doing normal AND raidfinder in T14.. make weapons available for valor plz.

[Deleted]

*shrug* I've never been unlucky enough to not get a weapon in the first few weeks, never mind an entire tier (I know it CAN happen to some people, which sucks). For 2handers (for example) there are a total of 4 in ToT (2 from specific boses, 2 as random boss loot). We do have a rogue in the team that has never seen a dagger drop in normal runs - he's now assassination with an average ilvl of 514 using 483 sha-touched raidfinder daggers.

The difficulty when it comes to weapons vs armor as valor items is that armor is all about the passive stats you gain. Whether or not those stats are as good as 522 raid drops (hint: they're usually not, there are some exceptions) can make them somewhat desirable or total garbage... I don't want any more hit gear this tier please thanks :-D

Weapons, for melee anyway mainly revolve around the weapon damage so, whether or not the secondary stats are any "good" really doesn't matter. If you have a 522 weapon then you're basically sorted and any sort of upgrade from raid drops is going to be minimal in terms of your overall DPS until you get a thunderforged or heroic weapon. If Valor weapons were introduced then every melee would head straight for those at the start of a tier.

I'd agree with some of the above posters. Adding previous tier weapons to the VP vendor or making raid-finder versions craftable (in less than 30days) would go a long way towards helping those really unlucky people... However a balance needs to be kept. Getting a weapon as a melee is one of those "ZOMG, YES!" moments where you see a considerable DPS boost from one bit of gear - you don't really want to lose that IMO.

[Deleted]

Definitely not.

[Kazgrel]

Sooo who is exalted with Shado-Pan Assault already?

*crickets*

Personally I just hit revered with them last night. This tier is set up very well to allow 522 weapons for 2.5-3k valor at exalted. Much different than the Sunwell set up.

I don't expect to ever see weapons available via VP again, though.

Semi-OT: If you think my weapon history is bad, you should see my history with caster shields...with my current guild it's almost like they don't exist, at least until the tier is at least halfway over (if not more).

[Ryzzen]

The weapon could be 522 quality easily. If you are going to lock it to the Assault rep, make it exalted, and have a high (2250?) VP cost, why not have it be 522? My raid team is currently 8/12, almost 9, have been downing 4+ bosses for weeks now, and have gotten a grand total of TWO weapon drops. Adding it to exalted would make sense to me.

[Kivana]

There needs to be some sort of ability be it a vendor or priority with coins on weapon drops as they are for many classes the MOST important piece of gear.

What we DO NOT need is another Sunwell patch vendor, where you got a SW ilvl weapon from running 5 mans and/or Kara.

Current top end weapons are ilvl 522 right and the rep ones are ilvl 476, what we could do with is a compromise of something in-between, possibly 496. Nothing top end and totally OP, but a weapon we can buy if RNG avoids us for too long.