2.4 Thoughts

[NiteFox]

WOW Blue PvP gear is nice. Statistically of course, it's a huge downgrade from my T4/5 stuff, and when I work with the sockets they're going to get cheapo gems =p, but the resilience really does make up for it somehow.

The nice thing with the blue PvP gear is that the two-piece bonus currently stacks with the two-piece bonus on arena season 1. At the moment I'm decked out with the helmet and pants of the blue set (To replace my Divination questline reward helmet and a pair of pants I got from early on in the Netherwing line) and the shoulders and gloves of the S1 set, which is about all I could be bothered to farm before I realised that working towards the epic flying mount was a much better waste of my time.

Both sets have +35 resilience at 2/5, and both sets have a rather mediocre reduced cooldown on Concussive Shot (Blue) and Multi Shot (S1) at 4/5. +70 resilience or +35 and a second off a shot? Tough decision:PIt seems that the set was pretty much designed for folks like me, i.e. too lazy or stuck in a bad battlegroup to get the full S1 set, and need something to pad out the remaining slots. Misery is an aptly-named battlegroup if you're Horde.

Going back to the earlier discussion about the cash rewards from the upped daily limit, I've been struck by just how the change has made so many things... Well, affordable. I'm not terribly motivated, and generally have bad luck with drops anyway. If there's a farming guide out there that promises an easy 100g an hour, I'd follow it and only get 25g with my luck. I lose greed rolls, I lose need rolls, everyone else in an instance gets the better drops while I have to empty the trash out of my inventory. My main income is and always has been through certain payoffs - Namely, quests. Quests are a guaranteed source of cash, and I did pretty much the entirety of great 5200g grind for the epic flying mount (No way was I riding that ugly Sha'tari spacehopper just to save 40g) in daily quests that returned a total of about 75g per day.

A few days ago, after doing the basic Outland dailies for the Shattered Sun (Throne, Multiphase Readings, Nether Residue, and Sunfury Attack Plans - We hadn't reached phase 2 by then) I spent a pile of cash in the auction house buying enough Fel Armaments to almost get to exalted and the wrong friggin' gem to fill out the last slot in my new PvP helm (Not my fault the +8 strength shares the same icon as the +16 AP). Before doing the Shattered Sun quests on the isle, as well as my daily Netherwing fix, I had maybe 4g.

At the end of it all, as well as finishing some group quests in SMV (Varedis Must Be Stopped, Battle At Crimson Watch) I had about 300g. Wow.

The reason why everything is affordable is that inflation really hasn't hit the servers yet. In fact, a lot of stuff I'd buy isn't prone to inflation (Ammo, food, water, all of which a hunter needs plenty of stacks of) or is even actually cheaper than the prices I used to pay (Being exalted with at least three convenient Outland factions means I save a fair amount of money on repair bills). Granted, I never splurged enough at one time to prevent me from maintaining my daily upkeep, but my increased income essentially means those costs are negligible. A solid day's worth of dailies can bring in enough cash for about two or three respecs (Still doesn't stop the warriors from complaining), a single-man guild like myself can afford extra tabs on my essential guild bank.

Inflation hasn't hit though, as I said. The Fel Armaments I bought were the same price as they were before 2.4 went live, and as a result I now have enough dust I don't know what to do with. A single gem at 65g would have a fairly large chunk out of what I'd be earning that day, now I can actually afford to make a silly mistake like buying out the wrong gem. Another source of my income, selling Netherweave, is still a fairly steady price, swinging from between 2.5g to 3.5g, despite the fact that Netherweave is dreadfully common and everyone can now afford to pay a little extra.

Hell, I may be able to afford primals for the Netherstrike set I plan on building. The only real snag with that set is the Netherscales, which never seem to sell.