It's Tier-10 Time

Patch 3.3 is coming, and along with it, Tier-10. I posted a preveiw image of the set here. Now for the items and stats...

What we're looking at is the Frost Witch's Garb.

Slot	Garb (T10)	Sanctified Garb (T10.5)	Sanctified Garb (Heroic, T10.75)
Hands	Frost Witch's Handguards	Sanctified Frost Witch's Handguards	Sanctified Frost Witch's Handguards (Heroic)
Head	Frost Witch's Headpiece	Sanctified Frost Witch's Headpiece	Sanctified Frost Witch's Headpiece (Heroic)
Legs	Frost Witch's Legguards	Sanctified Frost Witch's Legguards	Sanctified Frost Witch's Legguards (Heroic)
Shoulder	Frost Witch's Spaulders	Sanctified Frost Witch's Spaulders	Sanctified Frost Witch's Spaulders (Heroic)
Chest	Frost Witch's Tunic	Sanctified Frost Witch's Tunic	Sanctified Frost Witch's Tunic (Heroic)

What's most interesting are the shoulders. Looking at those, we find Call of the Shoveltusk -- Periodically calls forth the spirits of the Shoveltusk to bolster the bearer's spirits in battle. What that does, nobody seems to know. At this point, I'd guess it's just visual. But that's just speculation.


Our bonuses look like this:

2-Piece -- Your Riptide spell grants 20% spell haste for your next spellcast within 10 sec.

At first, you see haste, and you get optimistic. But then you ask yourself, "Self, when will I ever use it?" Unfortunately, this isn't something you can change your "rotation" over (as the designers have said they intended). It is only incidental. You can't use it to set up another heal, or you'll just be adding a cooldown to an already pre-hasted cast. So, it's nothing to get too excited about.

4-Piece -- Your Chain Heal critical strikes cause the target to heal for 25% of the healed amount over 9 sec.

This appears to add a Heal over Time (HoT) effect to the target of your critical Chain Heal. It's a free heal, so I won't complain. Nothing earth-shattering, though.

Item Links

Trying out MMO-Champion's item link script... pretty easy to use...

I picked up the Belt of the Ice Burrower this weekend. The bad thing about it is it's lack of haste. After gemming it up, I'm going to lose about 50 haste. After doing quite a bit of thinking, I'm going to be regemming all my gear to make up for the lack of haste. Because of the additional Mp5 on the new belt, I will instead play with flasks\food. The Spell Power I lose by regemming, I could make up with flask or food, rather than using the Mp5 flask and food. I anticipate that it will take some time to get the balance right again.

The (Real) Tier10 Preview

It's here! I must say, it's not too bad looking. The helm is a little awkward, but it can always be hidden :)

UPDATE -- Shaman Tier 10 Revealed!

We finally have a preview of the Shaman Tier 10 armor set! So without further ado, here it is:



Can't wait to see the Draenei version!

Find more of his artwork here.

Shaman Tier 10 Named

Still no preview for the Shaman Tier 10 set, but we do have names now.

Frost Witch's Garb (Restoration)
Frost Witch's Regalia (Elemental)
Frost Witch's Battlegear (Enhancement)

Would still like pictures. :(

Dilemma

First, to start, just an update on the shaman Tier-10 preview. Oh wait, there isn't one.


And for the Dilemma:

So I mentioned before that I picked up a really nice staff. One thing I didn't think of though, is how I'm going to replace it. How do I replace a two-hander with a MH+OH upgrade?

The only upgrade I'd be able to take is both a new MH + a new OH. Using new MH + old OH, or vise versa would be a downgrade from the staff. So in order to upgrade, I'd have to have both new MH+OH.

My choices, as I see them, are as follows:

1) I pick up MH and it sits in bank until I am able to pick up an OH to go with it. Meanwhile, someone else who could have been using it is going without, while it's sitting in the bank doing nothing.

2) I pick up a new MH and I use my old OH, eating the downgrade until I get a new OH.

3) I pass until everyone else already has new MH + OH. The danger there is, how long will I be two steps behind everyone else?

Not sure what the right move is there.

Still No Tier-10 Preview

I'm a bit disappointed that there has been no preview for the shaman Tier-10 set. My only hope is that it's going to be so grand that they wanted to take extra time to get it just right. In reality, it's likely going to be something they've been putting off and are finally just going to grab some old gear to retexture. /sigh