Patch 2.4 Notes

[Kevin]

1050 badges if you want to fill every slot with it. Much of that stuff would be T5 quality, some like ring #2 would be worse.

That's one year of Kara, if you just do that. Or if you do Kara, 2 ZAs, and 2 heroics on nights where you don't have a 10 man, that is 2.5 months, playing 3-4 hr every night.

Yeah the claims that it was T6 gear as opposed to what it turned out to be were a little off on some stuff. While it is higher ilvl some of it (at least a few of the pieces I've looked at for tanks) are sidegrades. One is better for effective health one is better for avoidance. Take the pants.

New (ilvl 141 cost 100 badges) Sunguard Legplates
Armor: 1406
Stam: 78
Sockets: RB +3 dodge rating
Def Rating: 43 (18.18)
Dodge Rating: 35 (1.85%)
Expertise Rating: 23 (5.83)

Old (ilvl 128 cost 75 badges) Unwavering Legguards
Armor: 1406
Stam: 73
Sockets: RYB +6 stam
Def Rating: 22 (9.3)
SB Rating: 30 (3.8%)
SB Value: 59

So Even if you don't socket for pure stam on the old ones but get the bonus they will end up with more stam and the same armor as the new one, and they will up your block value. Since block has an impact on effective health (though it's less safe to assume that you will block every hit now with some of the attack speeds) the old pants are actually better for effective health. Of course as all good tanks know effective health isn't the only thing you need to survive but it is the top thing on some fights. The new pants don't give up a ton of EH and they have better avoidance with the little boost of expertise for aggro and less chance of getting "parry bombed". But they aren't clearly better.

You have something similar with the belts

New Girdle of the Fearless (75 badges)
Armor: 904
Stam: 58
Sockets: R +3 stam
Def Rating: 34 (14.37)
Hit Rating: 23 (1.46%)
Expertise: 22 (5.58)

Old Iron-tusk Girdle (60 badges)
Armor: 904
Stam: 45
Sockets: BY +3 dodge rating
Def Rating: 21 (8.88)
Dodge Rating: 33 (1.74%)

If you socket for pure stam (and I can see some folks actually going for the talasite in the old one instead of 2xstars) you end up with 70 stam vs 69 stam (or 66 and 4 more def rating and 3 more dodge rating). In terms of effective health they are pretty close. The old belt actually has more avoidance. But again there is value to hit rating and expertise on a tanking item, especially one that does offer very high effective health, but depending on your other gear from drops and what not the old belt could still be a better choice for a tank.


Now I didn't look at too many other pieces of gear. I know that the new badge BP (especially since the old badge tanking chests only had a pally option but there are 4 of the new options) is a very nice tanking option for a warrior and since it doesn't have anything spent on pally tanking stats is way better than the old badge option for warriors (and I know some warriors got it since they couldn't get drops). Things may be even more different for the DPS classes. But in looking at some of the tanking stuff I know that the new badge gear is not significantly better and in most case T6 generally offered more or the same EH and then added avoidance or aggro stats over T5, T6 was generally not a sidegrade some of the badge gear looks to be that way.

The badges do continue to offer a very nice way to gear up your off roll for many classes though. But I'm glad to see that on my short glance through that the new badge gear wasn't always clearly superior to the old stuff or even some of the T5 items. That helps with some of the incentive issues and it offers some really nice stuff for non raiders who also aren't interested in the PvP grind (or want to suppliment it).