Band Of The Swift Paw Old
317 Armor
31Stam
22Agi
21Str
10Int
Yellow Socket (2Str)
Was 4th Best on Emmerald's List
Band Of The Swift Paw New
177 Armor
31Stam
22Agi
26Str
10Int
Yellow Socket (2Str)
Yet, Vindicator's kept same stats (no alterations to armor), making what used to be 5th and 6th best easily better than what was 4th best. Why didn't they increase the Band's Agility (defensive aspect) as opposed to Strength like they did for...
Nordrassil Handgrips Old
514 Armor
40 Stam
27 Agi
35 Str
18 Int
Nordrassil Handgrips New
262 Armor
40 Stam
36 Agi
35 Str
18 Int
Yet, Brutal didn't lose any stats and now is imo a lot better than just ~20 points better than Nordrassil for PVE. The Armor stayed at 368 (550 more than Nordrassil in bear), the +13hit rating, and the Maim effect, 8 more stam, 7 more Int and otherwise same Str & Agi as the new Nordrassil Handgrips.
More amazing to me, is how a Blue Trinket has more armor than my T5 Hands now.
Scoping things out to see what their overall procedures were with these gear changes I noticed cleft; Why didn't they change Clefthoof chest from 25 defense to something else? They made it a point to allow crit immunity without gear and then turn around and strip the armor off cleft and then do nothing with the now mostly worthless defense rating?
I realize some things could have been overlooked, and then too things will be moving into a whole new direction with the intro of the expansion, at which time most of this stuff won't even matter anymore, but I get this overall feeling like PvP gear is now a lot better for PvE than it used to be relative to PvE options. Footwear rings a bell.
Some how, the changes in gear, and how varying pieces of gear compare to each other, doesn't sit well with me compared to how they were relative to one another prior to this update.
Someone could probably quote me something from the patch notes, or argue about moving toward Agility, or the changes to the talent tree, but it won't change the opinion I hold about gear relativity prior to this update and now.