This actually isn't specifically about hunters but as a hunter main the T5 set bonus still remains the one set bonus I liked for use outside of just raiding more than any set bonus. Have other classes ever even had something that awesome as far as set gear goes?
For those that do not know, and any soloing hunter would know, the 2 piece T5 set bonus heals your pet for 15% of the damage you do.
Perhaps the question should be will we see set bonus' on gear that are not just direct performace increases ever again? Or would we even want them?
Personally I have used the T5 set more times than I can remember. It is such a powerful set for soloing that it was in my bags nearly all the time during wrath so I could switch into it. The stats were lower, sure, but the increased survivability of my pet was unmatched when I was wearing it.
In cataclysm, when stats really started to get out of hand I considered putting the T5 set away forever but I dragged it out of the moth balls to use it once more doing some soloing. While its stats were considerably less than the stats on my current gear the heal it gave to my pet was worth it. I put all my old gear in the void storage but I still keep the T5s in my bank should I need them.
So far this expansion I had not had a moment to consider using them and the ridiculously unnecessary stat boosts on gear that have made inflation move at an insane rate because blizzard once again failed at looking at the big picture and let it get out of hand basically means that putting on my T5 now is a huge loss. Would that 15% heal really be worth it if putting on the T5 two piece possibly lowered me from 100K to 75K?
At first I thought no, it is not worth it, but then soloing BWD last week and often finding myself doing 50K DPS because I had to spend so much time micro managing my pet and so little time doing damage it occurred to me the T5 two piece set is still worth it. Sure, my damage dealing potential will drop a great deal but the need to micro manage my pet, which hurts your bottom line more, will be decreased vastly if I am basically getting a 15% HoT rolling on my pet the entire fight.
So back to square one. Back to the T5 set even with insanely low stats on it compared to today's gear. T5 truly has a life of its own.
And that is what made me think about it. Will hunters ever get an update for that? I would love to have a set bonus like that for soloing that was not so out of date. All set bonus' are about performance boosts and not utility. I do understand that the self heal back in BC was a performance boost as the pet did need that healing to live, so yes, it was designed for a DPS boost by keeping your pet alive, but it was so much more. In fact, it was more to the extent that it is still useful even as we are sporting T15 gear, 10 tiers later, many years later, 3 expansions later, and it remains the single best set bonus in the game for the soloing hunter thanks to its utility.
Would people be adverse to there being a set bonus on gear that was meant for utility? Something that might not always be good in a raid but really shines elsewhere?
Even if blizzard were to add something like that again I don't think us hunters will ever see a replacement for T5 because pets no longer need healing in raids. So including that as a set bonus would basically be giving us nothing. And I am sure giving us a set bonus like that now would go over just as well as farting in church. Even I would complain and I want a set bonus that gives us pet healing again.
I propose that we have a way to upgrade old gear. A way to upgrade T5 to T6 stats, then to T7 stats, then to T8 stats and so on. So if we wanted to bring our T5 set up to current stat level we can. But that would bring a problem all in its own. Perhaps for some classes an older set would be the best set and people would prefer to waste all their time and resources into upgrading an old set instead of collecting the new one. Blizzard would never allow that type of real choice in game. Maybe always level the set upgrades to one tier behind. Now that is an idea. Sporting my T5 sets with T14 type stats would really make soloing things much easier.
Will hunters even see a T5 type set bonus again? No, we won't. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news for all those soloing hunters.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Heh. I still have a gear set that has an "Extreme Solo" partial set that subs in the T5 helm and shoulders... and I still use it occasionally. I love my 2pc T5.
ReplyDeleteI used it when leveling in MoP (was using a ferocity pet so he was a bit squishy), actually had someone whisper me to ask why I was running it. Basically just responded back that not having to worry about my pet's health was worth a small drop in dps to me. Not sure he was convinced but it was the truth.
2pc T5 was amazing, and unique. We'll likely never see anything similar and definitely nothing that we'll still be tempted to run a couple of expansions later.
Well, in PvE, anyway. Chances of a useful utility bonus are a lot better in PvP gear.
Here's an idea... why don't they make heirloom gear even more useful by giving them tier-like 2- and 4pc bonuses? The one for hunters could be the 15% pet healing at 2pc and, say, an auto-Concussive Shot for 4pc. They'd have to figure out a way to have bonuses for multiple classes on the same piece, though, I don't think we'd want to have to buy separate hunter and shaman mail heirloom pieces. Would make for another somewhat useful JP dump, though. :) Just have us be able to trade in our current non-bonus piece for a bonus piece for the class of our choice and buy pieces for other classes with JP, etc. That could work.
Now that they've added the ability to upgrade heirloom gear, that'd be a great place to put that type of bonus. You'd be stuck with gear an expansion old but that would still be relatively useful without being competitive with current gear.
I like the heirloom set piece idea, really good one and very useful as a JP dump as you mentioned. It would also mean that at least the stats would be equivalent to level 85 instead of level 70.
DeleteI endorse this ideal completely.
Heirloom set gear with bonuses meant to make leveling easier, like the 15% healing to a pet. Love it.
I've never gone back and gotten it. When it was still useful, I couldn't solo those instances to get it, and now it's questionable how useful it is.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely like Anon's heirloom set bonuses idea though.
They are a nice addition to any hunters collection and still has its uses even if every expansion it seems like those uses are fewer and fewer.
DeleteGo for it. It is easy enough to farm up the tier stuff now.
Yeah, any time I hear a hunter moaning about having nothing to do I tell them to go far 2pc T5... I managed to do it solo back in Cat so it should be pretty trivial now. As Grumpy says, it's pretty much a rite of passage and something you'll keep forever.
DeleteI also think all hunters should have a Leggings of Beast Mastery in their bank but that's a lot harder to find these days. That was the first epic piece I ever got on any toon, though, so that may only be a requirement for my hunters. :) Far as I'm aware of that's the only piece of gear that ever directly increased pet stats, not hunter stats.