On Gear

Gear is a tricky subject for me sometimes. I don't raid to get gear, I raid because I like the sense of accomplishment that comes with it. It is REALLY fun that first time you kill a boss you have been having trouble with, or knowing that an encounter is confusing and odd and then everyone does their job right and the boss goes down and makes it seem easy. That said, gear is an integral part of raiding. Most of the rewards for raiding are gear, and if my gear lags behind, I can't contribute as much to the progress of my raid. Moreover, I do like gear. It's fun to look at the Armory or WoW Heroes and be reminded of what you have done. I have several pieces of 264 gear and this says that I (with my guild) can kill bosses in ICC 25 (even if only in the Lower Spire so far).

I will freely admit that I play (and have only played) in a time of easy epics compared to previous eras of the game. There are still many epics that mean something, however, and the idea that gear indicates skill is not entirely irrelevant. Note that I am not saying that high gearscore indicates a player with more skill or knowledge, but that there are certain pieces of gear that one can associate with skill to some extent. For example, if I had to choose between two players, one in a lot of 245 ToC25 gear and one in a lot of 239 gear, I would take the guy in 239 gear without hesitation. The only place you can get 239 gear is Ulduar 25 hard modes, and those were much harder than ToC25 in their day (and still generally require more skill) and should presumably indicate at least some skill.

The thing that sent my thinking on this particular tangent was the weapons that drop from the Lich King. It is Wyrmfoe's stated goal to kill the Lich King, and after last week's run (one-shot the Lower Spire, including our guild's first ever attempt at Saurfang), I fully believe we are capable of it, even with only 6 hours a week of raiding. The weapon I want from him is Glorenzelg, which is the best weapon I can get from normal mode. My only real problem with it is this: as of right now, it shows the same model in Wowhead as the Citadel Enforcer's Claymore. Blizzard has cautioned against trusting too much to this, but Ensidia, at least, has seen this weapon and made no mention of that model being inaccurate, and the icons are the same. That means that if I get the incredibly awesome weapon dropped by the Lich King himself, the final boss of the entire expansion, presumably the hardest normal mode encounter in the game, it will look the same as if I were wielding the weapon dropped by the first boss of the 10 man version of ICC. I know that it seems kind of petty, but the majority of the drops from Arthas have unique models, and that seems like a good way to show at a glance that a player is at least somewhat skilled. I'm sure that at some point pugs will take him down and /roll to give Glorenzelg out, but at least for a while having that means that a 25 man raiding guild considers you worthy of wielding a drop from Arthas himself. It feels like people should be able to see that at a glance, and not have to inspect you to find out.

EDIT: Turns out Oathbinder, the polearm from the Lich King, is actually better. It also appears to not have a unique model, and I feel the concern is valid regardless.