If quest rewards and blues from 5 mans are comparable (and in many cases flat out superior) to epic raid loots, why are we even raiding in the first place?

Lets compare a couple pieces of gear from 5 mans (and a quest) with what we can get in Karazhan.

Exhibit 1: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28530
Stats: 21stam/19int/13 spell hit/ 23 spell damage.

compared to

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29333
Stats: 18 int/ 21 crit rating/19 damage.

The first piece requires a long attunement process for Karazhan, 9 other competent players, a flying mount, and drops off a decently difficult raid boss (moroes).
The second piece is a quest reward for a lvl 67 quest. I had it at level 65, and its arguably better (for pve dps) than a purple raid drop. Took a grand total of 1.5 hours and I had a 100% chance to get it (quest reward)

Lets check out some boots

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28517
Stats: 27stam/ 20 INT / 23 dmg / red and blue socket (+3 int socket bonus)

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27902
Stats: 21 stam/ 22 int/ +14 spir/ 20 crit rating/ 26 dmg.

First item, is an epic drop in Karazhan. Yet, it is in every way inferior to to the blue drop from Shadow Lab. You would have to spend 50G+ on the best gems to bring the epic boots on equal footing with the blue drop.


Lets check out some headgear

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28586
Stats: 31 stam/ 34 int/ 28 crit rating/ 39 DMG

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=31104
Stats: 12 stam/15int/8 spirit/ 24 crit rating / 35 damage/ 3 sockets (+5 damage socket bonus)

First helm is an epic drop . Second helm is a 5 man quest reward that takes 2 hrs tops to complete. yet the second helm is significantly better.


I could easily find plenty more example of lackluster (even downgrades) raid drops. But I think I've made the point I want to make. I.e, that blue drops/ qeust rewards as in many cases better than anything you can find in raid zones. Moreover, all of the epic tailoring patterns are head and shoulders above ANY piece of raid loot I have seen so far. Heck Spellfire/Spellstrike is better than tier 5. So I would reiterate my earlier question. Why am I busting my ass farming consumables, doing my attunements, and wiping for hours every night on new content that provides me with no meaningful upgrades? If there a blizzard rep that gets a chance to read this, they should know that I'm not the only one asking this question.

I know that blizzard wants to keep raiders and PVPers on a somewhat even playing field but I think blizzard is making a HUGE mistake with the current raid itemization. I can see it in my guild already, people are sick of repeatedly wiping, farming huge amounts of consumables, and generally spending 3-5 hrs a night for loot that more often than not just gets DE'ed. Raiders are going to loose interest in raiding, and then WoW if things dont change soon.

your right they need to buff the purple loot more though that could become game breaking with some of it. I really think someone in the dev department has really been dropping the ball alought. they don't seem to really think out the effects of thier changes in items. And thier skill changes have really cuased some grief such as thier new icelance spell which evidently someone didnt do thier job properly in QAing it. I think thier needs to be a major shakeup in blizzard developer, and QA departments for dropping the ball so badly over and over agian.

and in other news the next patch will be nerfing all rare items and epics will stay the same

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Q u o t e:
If quest rewards and blues from 5 mans are comparable (and in many cases flat out superior) to epic raid loots, why are we even raiding in the first place?

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Because raiding is fun, right? RIGHT!?

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Q u o t e:
your right they need to buff the purple loot more though that could become game breaking with some of it. I really think someone in the dev department has really been dropping the ball alought. they don't seem to really think out the effects of thier changes in items. And thier skill changes have really cuased some grief such as thier new icelance spell which evidently someone didnt do thier job properly in QAing it. I think thier needs to be a major shakeup in blizzard developer, and QA departments for dropping the ball so badly over and over agian.

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Buffing purple loot most likely WILL cause some imbalance problems, but it had to be done.

Its absurd to expect people to devote ENORMOUS quantities of their free time to raid for (at best) marginal gear upgrades.

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Q u o t e:


Because raiding is fun, right? RIGHT!?

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Hehe

Lets not kid ourselves.

RAIDING IS FUN BECAUSE YOU GET PHAT LOOTS AND YOU GET TO SEE YOUR CHARACTER PROGRESS IN POWER.

Or, at least thats why raiding used to be fun. Now its pretty tedious because even when mage loots do drop I rarely want to use them.

There is a definite problem here. There's really no excuse for the epic loot being arguably worse than much easier to attain blue gear. However...the solution Blizzard most likely will adopt won't be a good one for anyone. They'll probably just nerf all the blue gear instead of buffing the epics.

If you don't think the rewards for raiding are good, don't raid. Eventually Blizzard will put more non-raid content in the game. By continuing to raid, you are telling them "we love raiding, we don't care if the loot is crappy". This encourages them to make more raid instances with no gear upgrades.

Case in point: all the Evokers Second Sight Helms are just WAY too imbalanced. Even after the damage nerf they are rediculously over-powered.

*edit* I see you pointed it out already.

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Q u o t e:
and in other news the next patch will be nerfing all rare items and epics will stay the same

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Q u o t e:


Because raiding is fun, right? RIGHT!?

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lol yeah, exactly. I wish Blizzard would come out with a raid instance with zero drops at all just for people who feed everyone this BS line about "why they raid." They can spend all day every day there "experiencing new content" and "having fun with the guild," not earning a single new piece of equipment.

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Q u o t e:
We have already started working on balancing the equipment in game a bit more with patch 2.0.10 with the corrections to socketing. There were some items that had to be adjusted to more appropriate values which meant some were adjusted down and others were adjusted up. This is going to be something we plan to continue working on over time in upcoming patches as we evaluate items that may not be living up to what we wanted them to be or are more powerful than originally intended.

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roughly translated into "we will be performing sweeping nerfs to rare quailty items"

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Q u o t e:
We have already started working on balancing the equipment in game a bit more with patch 2.0.10 with the corrections to socketing. There were some items that had to be adjusted to more appropriate values which meant some were adjusted down and others were adjusted up. This is going to be something we plan to continue working on over time in upcoming patches as we evaluate items that may not be living up to what we wanted them to be or are more powerful than originally intended.

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So basically, you're going to reduce the blues to the point that the purple's look good? Am I reading that right?

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Q u o t e:
We have already started working on balancing the equipment in game a bit more with patch 2.0.10 with the corrections to socketing. There were some items that had to be adjusted to more appropriate values which meant some were adjusted down and others were adjusted up. This is going to be something we plan to continue working on over time in upcoming patches as we evaluate items that may not be living up to what we wanted them to be or are more powerful than originally intended.

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Are the developers aware that, according to pretty well-understood item value mechanics, much of the raid-acquired loot is significantly underbudgeted even when it doesn't have sockets?

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Q u o t e:
We have already started working on balancing the equipment in game a bit more with patch 2.0.10 with the corrections to socketing. There were some items that had to be adjusted to more appropriate values which meant some were adjusted down and others were adjusted up. This is going to be something we plan to continue working on over time in upcoming patches as we evaluate items that may not be living up to what we wanted them to be or are more powerful than originally intended.

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I dont think you addressed the issue, OR you are unfamiliar with the changes that happened in the recent patch.

Many socketed, epic items were NOT adjusted. None of the ones I own were.