Mage spirit>crit gubbins

[Splishy]

Possibly of interest to Chol (and Fortuna!) is http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/03/28/arcane-brilliance-okay-now-i-like-spirit/

if you normally use Molten Armor and have it glyphed the current PTR build has upped the spirit>crit rate to 55%. 35% from the basic Molten Armor and another 20% for the glyph. That means in his current gear Fortuna will gain an extra 4.04% crit from his spirit on top of his current crit. (337*.55=185.35. 185.35/45.91=4.037246787192 yadda yadda. I'm not sure how many significant figures the game works to, but...)

Suddenly those wasted spirit points from pants itemisation aren't so bad. Enchant cloak - wisdom might actually be worthwhile for anyone other than priests and druids now!

[Kyon]

Also means there'll be even more bickering about supposedly "healing" items. Yes I'm aware that Locks wanted spirit since Wrath as well, but next thing you know the plate-leather-mail-cloth boundaries will fall and we'll see a plate piece that every single class wants.

I say it's just laziness on dev's side, not wanting to introduce a larger loot-table or other means to get stuff (badges) but simply make stuff exsistant more desirable for everyone.

[Splishy]

If it's got hit on it then it's not healing gear pretty much. Given how in certain specs (ie the one that Chol is using at present) it's impossible to get hitcapped even in full t7.5 then casters are still going to need hit on gear.

I'm tempted to agree with you though - by making the 3 plate classes all need one of 2 sets of stats (barring holy paladins) dependent on if they're tank or DPS it means less work on the itemisation front. There's the argument that it leads to less loot being sharded but... once those people get the gear they want then there's no real motivation to be raiding.

Yes, the gear is there to see you through the next level of content, but it works as a carrot on a stick too. If you can get pretty much the single best weapon on the AH it can make for a dull raiding experience...

[Daffyd]

I say it's just laziness on dev's side, not wanting to introduce a larger loot-table or other means to get stuff (badges) but simply make stuff exsistant more desirable for everyone.

That's because the playerbase whines hugely if loot is only useful to one or two classes, the loot table gets too big and "your loot" never drops.  The loot design change is 100% as a response to the whining of the playerbase, just as the limited number of models is a response to the complaints about looking like a clown until you're in a tier set.

[Choleric]

Thanks for the link  I meant to say your other link to Elitist Jerks was great too thanks - I'll be making sure I use MI when AoEing trash next time.

I'm certainly glad that I decided to pick up the spirit trinket yesterday, that'll mean that this spirit>crit rating change actually buffs me too.  I'm pleased to hear about living bomb as well, 'cause I love it - a great instant cast DoT that you can keep applying.  Even the imp. scorch nerf is compensated for with a 1/2/3% crit chance to scorch, fireball and frostfire.  When you see the number of changes all the other classes are going through, mages appear to have very little to complain about (or even dicuss) in comparison.  The test will be how the other class changes pan out, and how they affect mage standing on the dps tables.  

Spirit on T7 was a headscratcher, but they obviously planned these spirit changes a long time ago (even I had heard a rumour), but sounds like they've been tweaking a lot.

That's because the playerbase whines hugely if loot is only useful to one or two classes, the loot table gets too big and "your loot" never drops.

And in some ways it has improved, as Splishy says, there should be less sharding these days.  You only have to look at the way that the Tier gear is dished out now to see the response, each token can be rolled on by 3 or 4 classes, no more raiding for 2 hours to get one person their chestpiece (UBRS? - or even worse, to find that the piece is useless to the class members that are present.  Getting geared up is much faster than it used to be, maybe a little too fast.  But the dungeons feel designed with that in mind now too.

[Daffyd]

Also means there'll be even more bickering about supposedly "healing" items.

Forgot to mention this too:  No there won't be, not so long as I have the kick button to hand.  People rolling on items that are useable but crap for them still pisses me off but arguments about items that are good for everyone involved will lead to raid kicks.

[Daffyd]

Getting geared up is much faster than it used to be, maybe a little too fast.  But the dungeons feel designed with that in mind now too.

Getting basically geared up is fast, getting geared with BiS is a total pain in the arse and neither Daff nor Bronwyn have had so much as a sniff at their OS25 trinkets (BiS for virtually everyone).  You get to a level where you can play with your mates and not feel like a passenger extremely quickly (you're the perfect example), now get from 2k DPS to 3k and tell me it wasn't much harder than getting from 1k to 2k

[Choleric]

Very true , still, even collecting Tier 1 was slower than the current basics.  I know that as far as gear goes I am only on the first rung, but the feeling of catching up so far has been quicker than previously (although this has been helped by both the lack of competition for the iLevel 200 stuff and the fact that I've been incredibly lucky these past two weekends).  You're always ahead of the curve so I doubt you get the feeling of "Christ I'm shit, I need loot!"

[Daffyd]

What you're seeing is what you're meant to be seeing, this is the end of T7 and Naxx is now a guaranteed 29 items per clear with 3 or more from Sartharion and a good chance at Malygos (this week he dies again).  Not to forget Archavon, another 2 items but less chance they'll be yours.

When we start Ulduar we won't be getting 30+ pieces of ilevel 216 gear a week, it will start slowly until it reaches the point where we can just stomp the place and at that point we're ready for T9 and the loot just falls on any alt or passenger that comes along.

It's a curve, you started at the end of this one but the next one is about to start and it won't be so fast this time