Epic Diapers

Where's my loot, DW?! NVM, I'll ask Blizzard.

Patch 4.3 has been out for some time now, and my raid team has hit the 10 man normal raid, Dragon Soul, week after week. Acquiring gear is always subject to the RNG that is the roll and what actually drops, but I have a complaint about the change in how players acquire tier 13 set gear in 4.3. Previously (tier 11 and 12), 3 out of the 5 tier pieces were purchased with valor points, but you did have to down the final 2 bosses to have a shot at your tier shoulders and helm. Most of our raid team would be fairly balanced in terms of 2-3 tier pieces after a couple of months of raiding that tier level. However, I find myself in the same time frame out from the patch’s drop, yet I have zero tier pieces, but our resto shaman has 6! Yes, 6! He has 3 tier pieces each for his resto and balance sets. How did we get here?

Blizzard decided to change how you acquire tier gear. Tokens to purchase tier gear are only available from the bosses in normal and heroic Dragon Soul (except the first boss, Mor’chak). We have yet to down Ultraxion as our DPS isn’t quite there, so my raid team has only been able to gain access to 3 pieces of tier gear via tokens. The main problem with this system is raid composition. The tier token that applies to me (a death knight), is also shared by rogues, mages, and druids, the only token applying to 4 classes. That’s SIX of our 10 team members! (2 DKs, 2 druids, 1 rogue, 1 mage). We have one priest and one paladin, but no warlocks, so only 2 are rolling for that token, and one hunter and one shaman (and no warriors) that roll for the third token.

This week was even more infuriating. All three tokens that dropped were for the same group (warrior, hunter, shaman), an occurrence that only has a 1 in 27 chance. We normally have one shaman and one hunter, still unbalanced compared to my token, but this week our hunter was out (replaced by a rogue, ironically), so our Shaman picked up all three tokens…in one run in one night! This is how he has acquired 3 tier pieces for each set.

There is something inherently wrong with a system in which one raid member can pick up 6 tier pieces and a few others have picked up zero. My token has a 1/3 chance of dropping off each boss, so on average, one of my tokens will drop each raiding week. Since I roll against 5 others, my chances of getting a tier piece start at 1/6. Obviously, as those that share my token group get their main spec gear, my chances improve, but it will take months before I get 3 tier pieces for my main spec, unless I’m incredibly lucky on rolls.

At least our Hunter, Shaman, Priest and Paladin will be sporting their 3 pieces before our unfortunate group of 6 will even have 1 or 2.

I am not considering LFR tier gear in this post, as it’s inferior to the normal tier gear, which is what I’m shooting for. However, at this point, I’ll take it. Unfortunately, I have yet to get any pieces in my 3 LFR runs. In fact, I seem to be losing out on melee DPS gear to tanks, just to rub it in. Thanks again, Blizzard; now go and fix this!

Sihx