I was doing some theorycrafting for myself in an attempt to figure out what gear I’d be going for once my druid hits 70 (less than a bar shy of 65 now). Having a Mage who raided for a long while, I am a strong believe that PvP gear does not belong in a hardcore PvE environment. I’ve always laughed when someone applied to my guild and was sporting a full set of PvP gear and were telling me they wanted to raid in it. I always told them to go run some instances, and get some raiding gear. I went by the rule of thumb that you PvE to get gear to PvE, and you PvP to get gear to PvP. I knew that every so often one item from PvP would be really good for PvE (my mage uses [item]32820[/item] and [item]25857[/item] just because they blew away any PvE alternate until very late endgame). However, a full set of PvP gear was completely out of the question.
To help gear my Druid, I searched the WoW forums and came across a fantastic thread by Rahlar titled Gearing up for BC endgame healing, where Rahlar suggests gear that one can obtain pre-heroic, which is exactly what I’m looking for. Let’s restrict this set to only items you can obtain through PvE (instances, profesisons, etc.). Using his ideal item set, and filling in the blanks, you get the following (click for sandbox):
| +Healing* | mp5* | Spirit* | Intellect | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [item]Hood of Primal Life[/item] | 68 (76) | (5) | 31 (35) | 37 | - |
| [item]31749[/item] | 51 | - | - | - | - |
| [item]28250[/item] | 48 | 8 | - | 25 | - |
| [item]Cloak of Scintillating Auras[/item] | 42 (47) | (3) | 18 (20) | 16 | - |
| [item]29781[/item] | 64 (72) | (5) | 28 (32) | 25 | - |
| [item]Mana Infused Wristguards[/item] | 25 (27) | (1) | 7 (8) | 8 | - |
| [item]Gloves of the Living Touch[/item] | 77 (83) | (4) | 22 (25) | 18 | - |
| [item]28398[/item] | 53 (59) | (4) | 21 (24) | 24 | - |
| [item]Moonglade Pants[/item] | 55 (61) | (4) | 23 (26) | 25 | - |
| [item]Boots of the Glade-Keeper[/item] | 53 (58) | (3) | 20 (23) | 24 | - |
| [item]Cosmic Lifeband[/item] | 57 | 7 | - | - | - |
| [item]29322[/item] | 42 (47) | 7 (10) | 18 (20) | - | - |
| [item]Bangle of Endless Blessings[/item] | - | - | - | - | - |
| [item]13503[/item] | (4) | (2) | 15 (17) | 15 | - |
| [item]Serpentcrest Life-Staff[/item] | 227 (240) | (8) | 46 (52) | 27 | - |
| Total | 862 (926) | 22 (47) | 249 (286) | 244 | - |
| +Healing | mp5 | Spirit | Intellect | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [item]31376[/item] | 75 | 6 | - | 33 | Sockets: Meta, Yellow |
| [item]31378[/item] | 46 | 4 | - | 21 | Sockets: Red, Yellow |
| [item]31379[/item] | 75 | 6 | - | 30 | Sockets: Red, Red, Yellow |
| [item]31375[/item] | 62 | 6 | - | 27 | - |
| [item]31377[/item] | 84 | 10 | - | 37 | - |
| [item]32451[/item] | 375 | - | - | 18 | - |
| [item]32452[/item] | 35 | - | - | 14 | - |
| [item]33922[/item] | 51 | 6 | - | 16 | Sockets: Yellow |
| [item]33918[/item] | 51 | 6 | - | 20 | - |
| [item]33064[/item] | 44 | 5 | - | 17 | - |
| [item]28378[/item] | 26 | - | - | 12 | - |
| [item]33887[/item] | 40 | 7 | - | 22 | Sockets: Red |
| [item]33886[/item] | 75 | 9 | - | 30 | - |
| [item]33885[/item] | 75 | 9 | - | 30 | - |
| [item]34580[/item] | 88 | - | - | - | - |
| [item]34580[/item] | 88 | - | - | - | - |
| Total | 1290 | 74 | 0 | 327 | - |
Am I missing something, or does the PvP set completely trump the PvE set (until you get into post-kara raiding)?
The reason the PvP gear completely trumps the PvE gear is because what’s being compared is of a different level.
Season 1 Gear is on par with Tier 4 Gear
Season 2 Gear is on par with Tier 5 Gear
Season 3 Gear is on par with Tier 6 Gear
They’re similar to each other. It’s the fact that they have 2 different purposes using the same pool of stat points.
In this case, you’re comparing Pre T4 Gear with Season 3 gear (which is about the same as T6).
As a result, no matter how many ways you slice it, the Season 3 gear will blow that particular linked set of PvE gear out of the water even though it was meant for PvP. If you compare similar levelled gear like T5 and Season 2, then you’ll notice that T5 would blow out S2 hands down in PvE encounters.
Now, does this mean you should get PvP gear out of the box to pre raid kara? Well yeah, if you can find a decent 5s team thats in the 2200 rating that can carry you on their backs. But even then, it would still take you almost 8 weeks to assemble a full set. You’re better going off with PvE gear and then plugging in your missing pieces with Vindicator’s or Vengeful’s stuff.
Every piece of the set, weapon, and offhand, are all Season one. Unless Vindicator epics are considered Season 3, which a surprise to me, then it seems he only delves into Season one PvP.
The lack of spirit on the PVP gear does not bode well for a tree of life druid. Spirit is arguably the third if not second most important stat for a TOL druid. If you go dreamstate then the pvp set is made a lot more viable.
Báne, that is one of the things that surprises me most. Trees of Life need Spirit for 3 things;
* Assist in spirit-based mana regen out of combat
* Assist in spirit-based mana regen in combat
* Increase healing granted by Tree of Life Form
Feel free to check my math above, but it seems that although the PvP set has zero spirit, it still provides MORE regen in combat than the PvE set, and provides more +healing (even with ToL aura taken into account). The only area it falls behind in is mana regen outside of combat, which is arguably negligible (due to drinking and such).
and thus we have why raiding is quickly dieing, and the “e-sport” of arena will become the the one and only thing any one cares about. PvP gear has become way over powered for how easy it is to get
Well I have S1, and it seems to blow T4 OUT, but for PVE, the T4 set bonus is better, and if you socket the T4 right, it is probaly better than S1, also.. S1 takes about a week to get… not 8