Ruby Disappointment

I keep waiting for the Ruby Sanctum loot table to be released in full for 10 man Raiders. The problem is, I think it has. 11 items from one boss seems like a pretty large loot table to me. What I find odd is that out of that list there is exactly 1 items for Tanks. Tanks generally account for about 20% of your 10 man Raid, yet there is one and only one item in the loot table for them. That would be Scion's Treads. These aren’t a bad pair of Tanking boots. They are item level 258 and have 1779 Armor, +114 Strength, +158 Stamina, Blue Socket, Red Socket, Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina, increases defense rating by 44, increases your dodge rating by 60, and increases your parry rating by 52. But I find it very strange that the designers would choose the Boot slot for a new item for Tanks in Ruby Sanctum.
By now most 10 man tanks will have spent either the gold or badges for the Boots of Kingly Upheaval. These are item level 264 and have 1815 Armor (+36 armor), +92 Strength (-22 Strength), +157 Stamina (-1 Stamina), Yellow Socket, Blue Socket, Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina, increases your dodge rating by 72 (+12), increases your parry rating by 72 (+20), and improves hit rating by 53 (+53).
The stats in parentheses are how the BoKU compare to the Scion’s Treads. They are virtually identical. You basically trade one threat stat for another, and pick up some additional avoidance which is probably eaten up by diminishing returns and Ruby Sanctum’s version of Chill of the Throne.
I’d say I’m a tad disappointed, and I’m green with envy looking at the 25 man loot table. There are still a pair of tanking boots, but 25 man raiders get a trinket for every role. There is a Healer Trinket, a Tanking Trinket, a Melee/Hunter DPS trinket and a Spell DPS Trinket. Trinkets are especially difficult slots to fill because you have so much competition for them. 10 man Tanks have solid trinket options, owing largely to the Emblem bought Corroded Skeleton Key to pair with the Unidentifiable Organ.  DPS are still farming 25 man ToC and ICC for trinkets like Death’s Choice and Deathbringer’s Will. For strict 10 man raiders, they are going to 5 man dungeons. Some specs, like our Moonkin, are using Healer trinkets as their best options. I tend to think everyone would have been better served by having the Trinkets in the 10 man loot table.
I also think that our boys at Blizzard missed an opportunity here to sort of test drive the new loot system for Cataclysm. With Ruby Sanctum, they could have made the choice to have the 10 and 25 drop the same loot, only with stats varied to the appropriate item level. So the 25 would drop an item level 271 item, and the 10 man would drop the item level 258 version of that item with reduced stats. It may have given them some insights on how the loot system would work in Cataclysm.
Instead of going out with a bang like the Devs did in Burning Crusade with Sunwell, Wrath looks like it will go out with a whimper with the offering of Ruby Sanctum.

Comments

Shayzani said…
Definitely disappointing. I can't even begin to imagine why they chose to slot boots of all things.
chillen said…
I completely agree. As a pretty strict 10-man raider, at first I was dissapointed, because no thought was put into the 10-man loot. I thought the developers said that they were going to put interesting "flavor" items as loot, kind of like the Onyxia gear, but the loot looks trully blah. I also thought for a brief moment that they may implement the Cataclysm loot table for Ruby Sanctum. But again, they give the most interesting gear (trinkets at this point in the expansion) only to 25-man raiders.

Then I thought, who cares?
This is a one boss instance, there's no need for progression gear.

I've downed the true "end boss" of this expansion, albeit not on heroic mode, but really heroic-LK was never a priority for me or my guild.

I'll be trading in all my epics for greens and blues within a few month.

Finally, I'm chocking-up Ruby Sanctum with Operation Gnomeregan and Zalzune's Fall as "fun lore events" heralding the upcoming Cataclysm.

Right now, our guild is taking pot shots at heroic modes - nothing too serious. We've reduced the number of nights we raid, and most people are trying to wrap up achievements. So whatever gear drops from Ruby Sanctum is fine, I'm more interested in continuing to have fun with my guild, and it does look like a fun (quick) raid.
Ellevis said…
The issue for me is trinkets. Blizzard has royally screwed up on trinkets for 10 man raiders this expansion.

Only way to get a good trinket is to run 25 mans, sigh.
Feist said…
The issue for me is trinkets. Blizzard has royally screwed up on trinkets for 10 man raiders this expansion.

Only way to get a good trinket is to run 25 mans, sigh.


Ask a 25 man raider the same question, you'd get the exact opposite answer.

*Cough Mjolnirrunestone/embraceofthespider/royalsealofkingllane/meteoritecrystal/muradin'sspyglass/whisperingfangedskull/unidentifiableorgan/etc. Cough*

Excuse me. Had something stuck in my throat there.

The only real tier in which 25 man raiders had a clear across the board advantage on the trinket front was in TOC.

And honestly, TOC 1) sucked anyway, and 2) was pretty easily puggable on 25N for the most part.
Unknown said…
"I also think that our boys at Blizzard missed an opportunity here to sort of test drive the new loot system for Cataclysm."

I couldn't agree more. Sometimes I wonder why Blizz passes up opprotunities to test incoming game changes.

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