Thursday (27 Jan) - Gear and You

Thursday (27 Jan) - Gear and You

There was no raid Thursday night as our raid leader had a real life issue to take care of. We are short on tanks for the five mans and while they try to help out, I know there is a burn out factor. Wild may have to take his chances with a heroic DF PUG, but that is a scary proposition. Wild did get his dailies done, and is closing in on Dragonmaw Revered rep, where there is an i346 waiting for Wild. At Exalted there are two i359s Wild covets.

There has been an interesting side conversation about gearing up for the level 80-84 pvp bracket. This bracket can be entered by cata level 80 players as well as non-cata level 80s. As Lao has discovered in the lower 75-79 bracket, doing pvp battlegrounds in pre-cata gear is a quick way to get killed - over and over. She related one incident where she and two other mostly pre-cata geared pvpers encountered a cata geared rogue who proceeded to kill all three of them over and over until they finally brought him down through repeated and continuous graveyard runs. There really is a gulf of a difference between pre-cata and cata level gear.

We recently got into a discussion about player health. In pvp the single most important factor is how much health the player has, because that largely decides how long that player will survive in combat. Stamina is the single most important stat for increasing health.

Wild has an accountants eye toward his own gear and has tracked that information for a long time. Just to give a sense of how that has changed over time, I went back a year and tracked Wild's gear progress from pre-cata level 80 to cata level 85. Note that as a healer Wild does not need and can't achieve the kind of health numbers that bear tanks and other tanking classes can achieve, but is more similar to healer/caster types.

Wild's health
Jan 2010 - 18,827
Feb 2010 - 19,897
Mar 2010 - 19,717 (changed weapons adding spell power but lacking stamina)
Apr 2010 - 20,487
May 2010 - no change
Jun 2010 - 20,787
Jul 2010 - 20,977
Aug 2010 - no change
Sep 2010 - no change (pre-cata, pre patch 4.0)
Oct 2010 - 31,987 (base patch 4.0)
Nov 2010 - 32,037
Dec 2010 - 43,370 (Cata launch, made level 81, 8 Dec)
Dec 2010 - 44,124 (level 82, 9 Dec)
Dec 2010 - 52,175 (level 83, 10 Dec)
Dec 2010 - 69,164 (level 84, 23 Dec - I was out of town for a week)
Dec 2010 - 78,259 (level 85, 26 Dec - there was this Christmas thing)
Dec 2010 - 94,379 (four high level items added over a four day period)
Jan 2010 - 99,531 (first week of Jan)
Jan 2010 - 103,745 (current)

In 2010 pre-cata, Wild's health went up from 18,827 to 20,977, slightly more than 2,000 health. That extra health helped Wild survive and defeat the Lich King.

Wild's health went up 11,000 on patch 4.0 day, which was essentially the adjustment of pre-cata stats to cata stats. Since this was still pre-expansion, all players received it.

Wild's health was up another 11,000 on cata launch day, which included a lot of leveling and a ding to level 81. And a whole slew of new cata level gear.

Less than three weeks later Wild's health was up another 35,000 - to 78,259.

And on Christmas eve it had risen again by 16,000 - to 94,379.

The pace has slowed as Wild is having to work harder for gear upgrades. Even so, in the three weeks since the beginning of 2011 Wild's health has risen by more than 4,000 - twice the increase for the entire year of 2010.

You want to join a pvp battle in pre-cata gear? That's what you're facing.