Pre-TBC : Screwed Over More?

I thought this over after talking/debating with an old highschool friend who also plays WoW. He has a 60 shaman and I had a 60 hunter (both before TBC) ad we got to talking about gear. He complains that now in TBC he has to compete with hunters even more for gear because he's Enchancement. Mainly Blizzard admited to screwing hunters over on gear post-40 and did a lot in the way of gear development in TBC. And I'm suspecting it's this gear he's competing with hunters over. My point was that the bulk of 50 - 60 mail armor was for the most part shaman, with spellcaster stats (+spellpower, +healing, stam, int) and hunters were screwed with very few viable hunter drops (usually +agi, +crit +hit).

So we got into a discussion has to who was most screwed on gear pre-TBC, hunters or enchancement shamans. My contested point was that hunters were screwed more simply because we were more limited in role than enchancement shaman. We are supposed to do ranged DPS, a little CC, and occasionally a special shot specific to some bosses. So without reasonable gear it was more difficult to perform in raid situations. His contested point was that all the enchancement mail went to hunters first and he was expected to simply heal/totem/etc. and was forced to grab a bunch of +healing gear simply to keep up as a guild healer.

My counter-point was at the very least shamans who were enchancement had more they could do in a raid situation. Yeah they may not enjoy healing or like it, but the fact was with decent healing gear (and no talent respec) they could perform well enough to justify being there. Hunters were pretty much only there for ranged DPS and not much else, so lack of gear impacts our role more severely. His counter-point was simply he didn't want to be stuck as healer and he wanted to melee/DPS more in raids.

I expect the first 5 - 6 posts to be flames, two being "Pissi" and probably TseTse.

bird of a feather...

lol hunters had no gear

feral druids were the most screwed followed by non raiding paladins of any spec then elemental shaman and balance druids.

Tell him that Shaman are still the most overpowered disgustingly unbalanced class in the game and he should cry less.

feral druids were the most screwed followed by non raiding paladins of any spec then elemental shaman and balance druids.there was at least 10x more feral gear in the game than balance gear, sorry

feral druids are fucking sick, what the fuck are u smoking elessar, druids like pagy are getting fucked.

I have to attest to feral druids at least in the tank department. Had one tank LBRS for us and he was simply ungodly when it came to armor and HP. To the point he really didn't need to be healed after 2 - 3 pulls or so.

Feral druids didn't get screwed on gear though, they pretty much are 100% on-point with any rogue gear and there's a bunch of that. The only problem is the rogues want it before you, but it is still actually in the game.

from 60 to 66 i haven't felt more like hunters got fucked on rewards at least. 90% or more of the rewards are geared towards shamans, but i'm hoping it gets better from here on. my shaman buddy on horde (i play alliance currently) said that the mail rewards for them are geared towards hunters more, but i'm not sure if that's true?

so far as loot goes in instances, seem to get a lot of things for paladins, shamans, and druids.

now that both sides have 2 mail users that focus on different stats (or the same sometimes, but blizzard has their own idea for it), the mail that is gotten is either straight shaman, or straight hunter, rarely any that goes both ways. and so far, it's been all shaman shit i suppose in the end when you get all your set pieces, it doesn't really matter much. i sort of wanted to use the rewards and instance drops that i got though because my hunter didn't have good stuff to begin with.

I have to attest to feral druids at least in the tank department. Had one tank LBRS for us and he was simply ungodly when it came to armor and HP. To the point he really didn't need to be healed after 2 - 3 pulls or so.

Feral druids didn't get screwed on gear though, they pretty much are 100% on-point with any rogue gear and there's a bunch of that. The only problem is the rogues want it before you, but it is still actually in the game.

....lbrs? wtf



no. Feral/balance druids are fucking sick right now.

so far i've been in instance groups in outlands with a druid tanking, main healing, and dps. they cover every role, and do it pretty much better than the ones that are supposed to be doing it. granted, for a better healer than priest you kinda need the tree form and can't go feral. but when specced for doing one thing in particular (in this case tanking or healing) they end up doing it just as good, or better than any class.

I've felt pretty fucked on rewards post TBC as a mage. Up until about 65 it's fine, but post 65 all the cloth rewards are +healing.

hunters got/are shafted on mail loot since beta. everything is fucking shaman stats :|

also, my guild has 2 solid 5 mans running while waiting for more to catch up to 70... everything my group gets to drop is feral druid shit :|

I've felt pretty fucked on rewards post TBC as a mage. Up until about 65 it's fine, but post 65 all the cloth rewards are +healing.
At 69 I still have yet to upgrade one piece of healing/mp5/pve gear. I guess I picked up 2 of the +69(?) healing trinkets from Ramparts or Furnace whichever it was, but they won't get any raid use other than watching big renew ticks scroll by when I'm bored.

But for +dmg shit I've upgraded mantle of blackwing cabal with a level 62 quest reward, my WSG legs w/ constitution libram enchant with a low-60s reward and I've been using 2 static +dmg trinkets over the on use trinkets to bring me up to +630dmg.

Perhaps your mage gear was much better than what I've used since 60, but +dmg gear is everywhere - granted most of it is either half the dmg with tons of stam or like 5 more +dmg but with half the stam.

No I've upgraded, it's just that most of the cloth rewards for later quests and most of the drops off of instance bosses seem to be +120 healing instead of +spells/heals. I've upgraded quite a bit, but it's annoying to do a bunch of chain quests and see that the rewards suck.

The gear upgrades were meh for a mage via questing. It feels like the gear scales better for other classes than me as a mage. However, i've also picked up a few pretty nice pieces in some of the 70 instances (Runesong Dagger for example on the 2nd boss in Shattered Halls). The hard 70's (non-heroic, hard ones... with the 69-70 elite trash, e.g. Shattered Halls) provide some solid upgrades.


Additionally, it seems that tradeskills are significantly more helpful than previous. Reason: BOP items. For example, mages can make spellfire gear which provides a HUGE +dmg bonus compared to the gear you would otherwise get. It's BOP though, so only the tailor can make it. Similarly, there are enchants which can only be applied to the enchanters goods.

Yea I just found out last night though that Spellcloth has a 4 day cooldown. No way I'm buying it either.

i got the pattern last night for spellstrike pants

too bad spellfire and spellstrike has 0 stamina :(

I'm also talking Pre-TBC, meaning before Outlands when the highest raid dungeon was Naxx at the time. And I mean gear in terms of simple availability rather that fighting over another class for. Feral druid gear is simply rogue gear flat out, they can get it and it's in the game. The only problem is they have to compete with rogues to get it, but at least it's there. Balance druids I assume is simply spellcaster leather (+int, +stam, +spell, etc.) and I see more than a reasonable amount there before TBC showed up.

Hunter mail, at the bare bones, would be mail armor with +agi, +stam, and some +crit/hit. There's not a whole lot of that in end-game, and those stats are also reasonable for melee-ing it stands to reason Enchancement shamans look for that same gear. But Pre-TBC there wasn't a whole lot to choose from. Blizzard had admitted hunters got screwed on gear and fixed it for TBC, and I already seen proof of it. Annoyingly so, running Ramp and BF and the only shit that's dropped is hunter mail (or enchance shaman mail) but that's when playing my warrior.

TBC regular quests I'm a little miffed about warrior armor myself. two quests in BF and simply a lvl 60 one in HFP and they both offer blue chestpieces of all for materials. And in both quests the blue plate piece is clearly paladin.

Balance druids I assume is simply spellcaster leather (+int, +stam, +spell, etc.) and I see more than a reasonable amount there before TBC showed up.

Not that you being stupid is anything new, but there's almost NONE of that in pre-BC. Virtually impossible to get a set of OOMkin leather.

Not that you being stupid is anything new, but there's almost NONE of that in pre-BC. Virtually impossible to get a set of OOMkin leather.

I dunno running around what end-game I had I saw more of that than I did hunter mail. Think the last one hunet piece I saw were gloves from ZG, and checking the loot tables of the 40-man dungeons there wasn't much else after that save 1 - 2 pieces.