I had a great time last night being able to help out in ICC25 and we did eventually get the kill by the skin of our teeth, but we did not have long before the enrage and tbh we had to time our heroism to make sure we did not get an additional wave of adds, which would have otherwise wiped us. Anyway, it got me thinking about the raid and how to improve its performance as the enrage timers and dps requirements only get harder from here on in - DMR is after all pushing raid content that is beyond 'social' content, so you need a bit of focus to get things done!
One of the things that struck me looking around the raid was just how much i213-i226 (low ilevel) gear was still being used by DMR raiders. You can buy i245 gear with emblems from heroics (as well as i232 Tier 9 set items), so there really should be no excuse to have less than i232 gear in slots where emblem gear is available for purchase, it's not like the emblems are difficult to come by! For example:
In one week you could:
1 x Weekly raid quest - 5 x Emblem of Triumph
2 random heroics per day - 56 x Emblem of Triumph
TOTAL - 61 Emblems of Triumph in a week
Most heroics can be completed in less than 20 mins, some in under 10 mins.
That's 61 Emblem of Triumph in 7 days which ignores any badges you might also get from doing other older raid instances. It means means you can go buy a Tier 9 i232 set item or an i245 trinket/ring etc.
Tier Set Items:
i232 Tier 9 - 30 or 50 Emblems per piece (3 or 6 days per piece)
Non-Tier Items
i245 head - 75 emblems (8 days)
i245 chest - 75 emblems (8 days)
i245 shoulders - 50 emblems (8 days)
i245 ring - 35 emblems (4 days)
i245 Idol/Relic/Libram/Totem/Sigil - 25 emblems (3 days)
i245 trinket - 50 emblems (6 days)
Upgradeable i251-277 ring - FREE with Ashen Verdict Friendly rep
So ask yourself this: why am I wearing less than i232 gear when it is so easy to buy upgrades?
The dps/hps/mitigation from higher ilevel gear is immense and it is designed to get you ICC kills without flirting with the enrage timer like we did last night. If you want to raid ICC25 and have fun, put in a little bit of time to prepare yourself properly, otherwise you'll get to see lots of wipes and few boss kills as you will always hit the enrage timer.
And along the way if you had done the above you would have also collected at least 19 Emblems of Frost (plus however many you got from raiding ICC that week) for future i251 Tier 10 gear purchases.
REMEMBER
The first random heroic each day gives you 2 x Emblems of Frost each day plus the Emblems of Triumph for each boss killed (min 3 per instance).
The second and additional random heroics per day gives you 2 x Emblem of Triumph for it being 'random' plus Emblems of Triumph for each boss kill, resulting in at least 5x Emblems of Triumph per heroic run.
DO RANDOM HEROICS EVERY DAY
(and remember you can make up a guild group and then queue for a 'random heroic' and that still gets you the additional badges!)
Altho I agree with the fundamental argument behind it sometimes its a case of certain items being best in slot
i.e
[ITEM]37657[/ITEM] is only a heroic ilvl 200 item but I only recently upgraded it to [ITEM]48724[/ITEM] because I gained a few new pieces of gear or gem-slots which allowed me to mitigate the loss of 73haste. In certain boss fights I would switch back to it because 73haste is > the almost 2k mana I get from the int.
there are plenty of other trinkets out there i would love to carry but a) you often go up against a lot of competition for trinkets b) the decent ones drop in the last 3 bosses of uld25.
This is a classic example (for my class) [ITEM]47897[/ITEM] vs [ITEM]48287[/ITEM]
first is i232 drops from Anub10 carries nice crit & haste. 2nd is a trophy plus badge piece, carries no haste, way to much mp5 and a blue socket. Imo I wouldnt waste my time, dkp and badges on the 2nd.
I'm sure its different for other classes where maybe the gear is a little more balanced, but I would always think about what your replacing and what stats are most important to your talents and way of playing over what ilvl the gear is.
You can always pull exceptions out of the bag, but take a look around you in raid and see how many non-exceptions are out there. There's actually an exception to the [ITEM]47897[/ITEM] vs [ITEM]48287[/ITEM] you quoted too, but I am sure you know it. The point was that in most cases I saw *way* much low level gear when badges could buy better. Specifically I was looking at non-exception gear.
like I say I agree with the basic argument (99% of the time),
Just saying think about the stats not the ilvl, of course being a slacker and not upgrading because you "cant afford the gems" or "I spend my badges on pvp gear" isn't an excuse.
i agree with whats you've put TL, i myself am still using some lower item level gear which i need to get replaced. but also on a side note We all need to start pulling our fingers out of our arse's and start focusing a lot more than we are now, or otherwise we are just going to end up in the same postion that we were in with uld25. its going to be hard yes. but this is the end content of the expansion so its to be expected.
I did just that TL, spent a week around xmas, just doing randoms and pretty much replaced all my gear to at least 232/245 level. Just at a point now where I need to goto places other gear drops ;)
On top of that I used the gold i made during runs to raise enchanting from 0-400 in just over a day just so I could get the SP ring enchants..