Cloth vrs Leather vrs Idiotic Raid Leaders

(Disclaimer: I've been awake for 32 straight hours at the time of this post, and I've been fueled on Hot Pockets and Diet Pepsi. If there are any spelling, grammatical, or common sense mistakes, I apologize. I'M SORRY MY GRAMMAR IS BAD SCYTHE.)

Heya, I'd like to take the time away from my normally mind numbing posts, to address an issue I've seen pop up quite frequently over the past few days. Thankfully, my guild is unaffected by this plague of stupidity, so it's only limited to pugs and my ret paladin's "Guild" (I use the term lightly, because honestly I wouldn't be in there if not for my uncle needing me to be there for progression).

This "Issue" is, boomkins (and other classes, however this post is focused primarily towards boomkins) rolling on cloth gear as main set, over being forced to only roll for leather main set.

I'll start with a couple points on the way blizzard itemizes gear.

1) Every piece of dungeon gear in game and every piece that will be implemented in the future has a certain amount of points alloted to stat location. The higher the Ilevel, the more points alloted. This is why you see gear with intel, stam, and 3 stats, or intel, stam, spirit, and 2 stats. It should be noted, that plate dps gear only has str, stam, and 2 stats, because blizzard puts a lot of itemization on stamina.

2) There are currently 2 classes that use leather gear primarily in game atm. Out of those 2 classes, there are 5 possible specs. (I've bunched all 3 rogue specs into a dps category, and I've seperated Feral-Tank and Feral-Dps.) Out of those 5 specs, 3 use agility and physicial stats, and 2 use spellpower and caster type stats. With this in mind, Blizzard itemizes a majority of leather spellpower gear with spirit, thus leaving out a 3rd caster stat, most likely crit or haste. Boomkins do benefit slightly from spirit, converting roughly 10% of our total spirit into spellpower. Therefore, Blizzard finds no problem in just itemizing leather spellpower gear with spirit, and offering boomkins an opportunity to roll on cloth gear. In fact, it is a common belief that Blizzard itemizes cloth gear with the intentions of boomkins actually competing for it. (Of course I have no official source for this, but it seems to be the general consensus of a majority of players on mmo-champion.com).


All of that being said above, of course, is more than enough proof of why Boomkins should be allowed to roll on cloth with any other caster. (In my opinion of course :) ). However, if you still need further persuading, I've taken the liberty of uploading MY PERSONAL BiS STRICT 10 BOOMKIN GEAR LIST into a simulator that I use, called "Team Robot WoW Simulator". I do not use Wrath Calcs because I do not have Open Office on my laptop, and I find the simulator more than sufficient to help me figure out what gear is best. I say My Personal list because, I did do a few 25 mans before joining my current strict 10 guild, and I was able to acquire some 264 gear that is better than 264 gear in 10 man ICC. I will include alternatives in those cases. Also, to further affirm my point, since a few items in my BiS list are cloth, I will include the Leather alternatives, and post the dps lost of using that item over the BiS cloth.


Weapon- Heroic Tel'thas, Dagger of the Blood King (63 SP enchant, 23 SP gem)

Offhand- Heroic Scourge Lord's Baton (23 SP gem)

Idol- Idol of the Lunar Eclipse

Head- Sanctified Lasherweave Cover (Kirin Tor Enchant, 21 Crit meta, 23 SP gem)

Neck- Heroic Soulcleave Pendant (Sp/Haste Gem)

Shoulders- Sanctified Lasherweave Mantel (Sp/Crit Enchant, 23 SP gem)

Back- Heroic Lich Wrappings (23 Haste enchant, 23 SP gem)

Chest- Sanctified Lasherweave Vestment (10 Stats enchant, 23 SP gem, Sp/Haste gem)

Bracers- Heroic Bracers of Dark Blessings (30 SP enchant, 23 SP gem)
Leather Alternative: Heroic Wrists of Septic Shock (30 SP enchant, 23 SP gem) 4.5 DPS loss

Gloves- Sanctified Lasherweave Gloves (28 SP enchant, 23 SP gem)

Belt- Belt of Petrified Ivy ( SP/Haste gem, 23 SP gem, 23 Sp gem)

Legs- Heroic Kilt of Untreated Wounds (Sp/Spirit Leg enchant, 3 23 SP gems)
Leather Alternative: Leggings of Unrelenting Blood (Sp/Spirit Enchant, 23 SP gem, SP/Haste gem, Sp/Spirit gem) 100 dps loss

Boots- Plague Scientists Boots (15 stam/minor speed enchant, Sp/Spirit Gem, 23 SP gem)
10 Man Alternative: Heroic Boots of the Frozen Seed (15 stam/minor speed, SP/spirit, 23 SP gem)

Ring 1- Ashen Band of Endless Destruction (Sp/Haste gem)

Ring 2- Loop of the endless Labyrinth (Sp/Spirit gem)
10 Man Alternative: Heroic Cerise Coiled Ring (23 SP gem)

Trinket 1- Heroic Muradin's Spylgass

Trinket 2- Reign of the Dead, Illustration of the Dragonsoul, Eye of the Broodmother, Abyssal Rune (In order of best to worst).


Total DPS lost: 104.5 dps.



Now... You might look at that and say "Hey, that's not that big a deal!" Well, you're wrong. Assuming a raid with 6 dpsers, if they were all forced to lose 104.5 dps by not using their ideal gear, the raid would lose a total of 623 dps. Which, in a 15 minute boss fight (*Cough HM LK Cough*), equates to 560,700 damage lost over the course of a fight. Believe it or not, when it comes down to it... that's a lot of wasted damage... Damage which could be gained by simply allowing your druid to /roll on gear that is clearly itemized better for him than that PoS leather.



Long story short, I think boomkins, ele shamans, resto shamans, holy pallys, w/e, should be allowed to roll on gear that is an upgrade, even if it is not in their armor class. Any clothie, or even a leather wearer or mail wearer who complains about loot competition, are just loot whores at heart, and are most likely going to be detrimental to their raid, and their guild.


K I'm done ranting :D


/guffaw


-Bus