All These Different "Tiers" of Gear Are the Worst Thing WoW Has Ever Done

[Trubo]

you cant go by madness logs not only is there a huge haste buff but towards the end people would intentionally hold packs of adds on platforms and let them heal over and over for the specific purpose of padding WoL with spellweave

Not just padding but to help kill the last limb since the usual strategy of Ysera -> Nozdormu -> Alexestraza -> Kalecgos meant that you actually had to focus the burning tendons or whatever they were called that caused that stacked raid-wide increasing fire damage. Once they were dead you were free to aoe a bit to proc Spellweave and destroy the limb.

[MoanaLisa]

Upgrades are upgrades. If you take a break during an expansion you're going to fall behind. That hasn't changed in nearly a decade. Figure out a path for getting to where you need to go and then follow it. It's really not that difficult.

By the by, I don't chase after gear. It's very relaxing and makes the game a lot more fun. And your post doesn't make any sense where on the one hand Blizzard is handing out gear and on the other is making it impossible for returning players to gear up. No news here but gear makes so much difference in capability that it's pretty much wiped out skill as a determining factor for entering higher level raids so your parses are probably worthless to most raid leaders. That's a design decision that I hope that Blizzard would rethink but I doubt that it will happen. It's part and parcel of spreading out raiding content difficulty to make it accessible to all.

[Mirri]

you cant go by madness logs not only is there a huge haste buff but towards the end people would intentionally hold packs of adds on platforms and let them heal over and over for the specific purpose of padding WoL with spellweave

Fair enough then. Is there such a boss in SoO where you have a semi-patchwerk fight then where people can do up to 600k single target sustained with minimal movement? Because that is what is being claimed by Karlzone! I'm sure there are such fights, but which ones would be a good fight to compare?

[shadowstep]

i linked a handful of parses in this thread and you obviously need to take a class on reading comprehension if you didn't get my post it was pretty clear to a lot of people.

I think that you need a class on How to Talk with people, by reading your posts all i see is an arrogant dude that stoped playing for almost 2 tiers and now is having a hard time catching up, spewing bullshit after bullshit on this forum , and calling nerds to guys that make sugestions and talking shit to people that have a different opinion...

you stopped playing, now suck it up and farm.... if you dont want to, then quit again, no1 will even miss you..

[Hypasonic]

SO you say friends convinced you to come back? Well, where are they? They should also be helping you gear up too by taking you to these flex groups and even a normal run, so wouldn't just go and blame the game completely.

[Fluttershy]

I returned back at the end of 5.3 patch and started SoO with just 514 item level, beginning of legendary quest. Now I'm at 574 and aiming to kill garrosh before WoD(which is like 6 months away lmfao).

This patch has definitely been the most brutal for people to catch up, thanks to flex gear you now have an extra hoop of shit you have to go through before going through normal.

Before it was LFR->normal->heroic.

Now it's LFR->flex(but only if you're 530-540+ already)->normal(only after you have a cloak and 550+) ->heroic. Takes fucking forever and has 0 skill base, you just grind shit for your cloak and hope celestials and flex/lfr gives you enough gear to be able to join normals by the time you get your cloak, at which point everyone wants a garrosh kill achieve to even join.

[Akraen]

Guess I'm just smarter. I took my guild, recruited people, made a 25m raid team, and got to ilvl 579.

I've only dealt with heroics this expansion by playing well and associating with others who play well. The ilvl they started with was inconsequential.

[Fluorescent0]

Fair enough then. Is there such a boss in SoO where you have a semi-patchwerk fight then where people can do up to 600k single target sustained with minimal movement? Because that is what is being claimed by Karlzone! I'm sure there are such fights, but which ones would be a good fight to compare?

Every log on Iron Juggernaut in the top 200 is over 500k. That's enough to outdo cataclysm scaling (25k->60k, or 2.4x, compared to 140k->500k, or 3.6x) by a factor of 1.2x, or about 50%, which is more or less in line with the ilevel gap increase between first tier heroic and last tier heroic. (44 in cataclysm, 63 in mop)

Keep in mind that madness wasn't only about spellcleave cleaving, you also had a 20% damage buff up for 80% of the fight, a 20% haste buff up for 60% of the fight, a target taking double damage for ~20% of the fight and all cleaves reflecting full damage onto the cleaved targets (so double damage was reflected) because they weren't reworked yet. That's what massively inflated those parses, and the reason combat rogues basically dominanted wol for that boss.

[Anzen]

I'm confused.

You are undergeared for this tier and won't get taken to current tier raids (understandably).

You then proceed to say that all the different tiers, actually designed to help you gear up quicker, are the reason for this (lol?).

If there was no LFR, or flex, or warforged items, or whatever you whined about, you'd still be in the exact same spot, too undergeared (by some peoples standards) to join a normal raid with the only difference being that you have no other alteratives to gear up.

I can't help but think this thread wasn't thought through when made and was intended to just be a dig at flex.

I personally think flex is amazing.

[cFortyfive]

Every top 40 log on Iron Juggernaut in the top 200 is over 500k. That's enough to outdo cataclysm scaling (25k->60k, or 2.4x, compared to 140k->500k, or 3.6x) by a factor of 1.2x, or about 50%, which is more or less in line with the ilevel gap increase between first tier heroic and last tier heroic. (44 in cataclysm, 63 in mop)

That seems pretty accurate. Also looking at madness would probably the same as using galakras parses where a handful of guys were left to aoe all the adds as indicator for dps development.

[gallamann]

OP, I rather enjoy the varying gear levels. It gives you a chance at a small upgrade when farming the same bosses every week. It provides you with the means to get a "lower" version of gear via LFR and Flex. For example I am still rocking Flex trinkets despite killing and double rolling since SoO released.

[Louis CK]

OP, I rather enjoy the varying gear levels. It gives you a chance at a small upgrade when farming the same bosses every week. It provides you with the means to get a "lower" version of gear via LFR and Flex. For example I am still rocking Flex trinkets despite killing and double rolling since SoO released.

I don't think the OP's real issue is the gear, it's that he can't get in runs, or when he is in runs he's not performing well enough to be in those runs. If the tiers didn't exist as they do, he would be stuck in 5 mans and wouldn't see a raid for quite sometime based on the scenarios he's provided.

I just hit 90 on two toons last week and was in flex the same week. I wasn't top on heals/DPS in my 501 ilvl, but I surely wasn't last, not did I get kicked or complained about, because I perform better in my 501 ilvl than most in pugs in their 520+ ilvl. And in a week or two I'll be in normal pugs.

If OP is really as good as he claims, he shouldn't be experiencing the issues he is.

[Durantye]

I seriously doubt if you were doing tons of top 50 parses you would be hard pressed to find a guild to take you. 110k dps in heroic upgraded gear from 5.1 is pathetic at best, yes 500k dps is far from what we started with, but we didn't get there from gear alone, we got buffed a ton of times. The only way I can see you doing such low numbers is if you are a boomkin since you have an intel mace for a weapon that's possible. But if you have such good parses and so many 95th+ percentiles just join a fucking guild and quit crying that lfr heroes are beating your ass, I came back from my break with an ilvl of 526 but I had parses to prove I was good and got recruited within seconds on the forums I found a heroic guild willing to gear me. Took me a total of 8 bosses to go from ilvl 526 to 550s+, the only reason you should be having problems is if you are being stubborn. Gearing is by no means difficult, you quit early tot right? You should be on secrets now so your cape isn't ages away. About this not happening in other xpacs though, you're out of your mind unless the guilds you came back to sucked major cock. Quitting in 4.1 and coming back in 4.3 you were gonna be absolute trashed on the meters, same as now.

Gearing is a joke stop whining and put some effort into it and you'd be up to speed in a week.

[Gurushock]

I remember way back in the day getting even a peace of blue gear felt great, and then finely getting epic gear... Good times. And yeah I didn't start getting burnt out in WoW till they started making it to where epics were like getting blues back in BC/wotlk. But with LFR being added at the end of cata and going into MoP just made it feel like a grind for gear on a new insane level. Get lfr gear=enchat/gem it, get normal gear=enchat/gem it, then heroic=enchat/gem it(and don't forget warforged and whatnot for normal/heroic)... Now we have flex, and on top of that we have to reforge after every peace of gear(for the most part) and that gets to soak up a lot of gold and time. I'm not to worried about gold though.

All in all yes we have WAY to many tiers of gear, and getting a epic doesn't feel epic anymore =/

But most people in wow(from what the devs think) all they want is epics, more and more epics!

I'm glad reforging is going away in Warlords, and other things they are doing with gear but idk....

[Qualia]

Every log on Iron Juggernaut in the top 200 is over 500k. That's enough to outdo cataclysm scaling (25k->60k, or 2.4x, compared to 140k->500k, or 3.6x) by a factor of 1.2x, or about 50%, which is more or less in line with the ilevel gap increase between first tier heroic and last tier heroic. (44 in cataclysm, 63 in mop)

I wouldn't say that. If we are to ignore Asian logs (due to the higher ilevel and more lockouts per week), tank logs (tank DPS, especially on farm, has been cheesy for this expansion, but it has nothing to do with gear scaling) and bugged logs (basically all those <1' logs), we are left with 5 people doing slightly more than 500k, and the rest lower. A quick look at Raidbots heroic Iron Juggernaut top 100 for example - put us at 489k (Rogue) highest on the average (and Raidbots count both Asia and bugged logs IIRC, so the average number is actually lower than that).

Now, keep in mind that according to Blue twitter (probably Ghostcrawler's, but I cannot find it atm), the item upgrade system is there in place of the % nerf (which means fully upgraded is supposed to be the equivalent of the 20-30% buff from DS, 8 more ilvl convert into ~15% more damage, more or less based on class). That, plus top logs atm = BiS or very close to one. Suddenly the number doesn't seem so inflated anymore, no?

[HeedmySpeed]

You're not alone. I came back after missing the entirety of ToT and I just can't bring myself to gear up with the inane LFR and Flex grinds or the unfulfilling Timeless Isles grind.

What's more, there's not much incentive to keep pushing through TWO version of the same instance for a 3rd version with extra bells and whistles and slightly altered gear cosmetics.

PvE has been fucked all to hell.

[Deleted]

My point was, with all the gear up's available its not hard to reach an ilvl where you can do respectable numbers for normal modes / the early heroics. At least if your as good as OP claims

I understand that some gear gaps will be impossible to close with skill

That's true. However most of the guilds on the early heroics already outgear the bosses immensely and due to the item inflation, they'll be doing way higher dps than OP and he won't be accepted in because of this. At least that's how I interpreted his post.

EDIT:

Fair enough then. Is there such a boss in SoO where you have a semi-patchwerk fight then where people can do up to 600k single target sustained with minimal movement? Because that is what is being claimed by Karlzone! I'm sure there are such fights, but which ones would be a good fight to compare?

Yeah there aren't pure patchwerk fights like Ultraxion in this tier. It's either Malkorok and adjusting for ooze damage, Juggernaut or perhaps even Thok for some specs. Looking at the numbers again, I did misjudge about 50k, as tank logs, bugged logs and asian logs are way higher. Still my point stands. Dps increased a lot more in MoP.

[Fluttershy]

That's true. However most of the guilds on the early heroics already outgear the bosses immensely and due to the item inflation, they'll be doing way higher dps than OP and he won't be accepted in because of this. At least that's how I interpreted his post.

He'd be completely useless for a few weeks even if someone did invite him. Not a lot of guilds on the final 3 H bosses will want to take anyone below 570, even the worse progressed ones want 565+.

Yeah sure 25man guilds are on average 575-578 nowadays so he could get loot fed easily if he could somehow convince them that gearing up his 510 char to 570+ in 2-3 weeks without paying his dues is worth it, but for a 10man guild he's just gonna see countless HM gear getting de'd and nothing useful dropping and burden the raid more cause they're practically 9 manning the fights for 2months.

[Barrysanders]

A lot of people in here are drastically overstating ilvl growth rates. Say we start at 496 (where I started when my druid dinged 90 and the average for all timeless isle gear), do any of you truly think you're getting 50 total ilvls in just a few weeks of lfr/flex? I've raided flex to completion for the last 5 lockouts, starting at 524, gained after weeks of lfr self-abuse, and I'm currently sitting at 541. Now, my drops haven't been particularly bad, and I'm in full flex gear except for boots (tot lfr 502), 1 trinket (soo lfr), timeless cape (burden) and lfr tier chestpiece. With a quick recap, that's 17 I lvls in 5 weeks with flex, and these figures INCLUDE making the 553 lw belt and getting celestial tier pant drop. 70 bosses and 15 bonus rolls gained me 17 I lvls and it's still impossible to be taken seriously looking for nm pugs. Yes I know I need to get the legendary cape, and that the cape and a decent pair of boots (the frustration of not getting boots is leading me to question my sanity) will most likely put me close enough to 550 to be considered for most pugs, but I have no clue what the reception will be for a player with no former raid experience outside of flex (I started in cata but stopped when a friend did, and had no max lvl chars until mop. I know this issue is a whole different animal but it's looming on my horizon) So when all is said and done, I've been grinding lfr->flex with celestials, bonus rolls and leatherworking craft gear, and in 3 months have gained 45 ilvls. People saying it only takes "a few weeks of flex" to catch up are on crack.

[Fluorescent0]

I wouldn't say that. If we are to ignore Asian logs (due to the higher ilevel and more lockouts per week), tank logs (tank DPS, especially on farm, has been cheesy for this expansion, but it has nothing to do with gear scaling) and bugged logs (basically all those <1' logs), we are left with 5 people doing slightly more than 500k, and the rest lower. A quick look at Raidbots heroic Iron Juggernaut top 100 for example - put us at 489k (Rogue) highest on the average (and Raidbots count both Asia and bugged logs IIRC, so the average number is actually lower than that).

Now, keep in mind that according to Blue twitter (probably Ghostcrawler's, but I cannot find it atm), the item upgrade system is there in place of the % nerf (which means fully upgraded is supposed to be the equivalent of the 20-30% buff from DS, 8 more ilvl convert into ~15% more damage, more or less based on class). That, plus top logs atm = BiS or very close to one. Suddenly the number doesn't seem so inflated anymore, no?

There are 7 indeed, against 29 over 60k on ultraxion. Keep in mind there are also about 4 months of farm yet to come and that iron juggernaut isn't a straight patchwerk and you can see why the 500k assumption is a correct one off which to do comparisons.

Also do keep in mind that while upgrades could have been considered progressive nerfs on the first two tiers, where they weren't available from the start, the point is kinda moot for this tier where pretty much anybody starting with 3k valor on patch day could have all their items upgraded, so it hasn't really worked out.