Ailis in Hunterland

Three of the shamans in my guild, myself included have full (or nearly full) T7.5 armor sets.  One is Elemental, one is Resto and one is Enhancement.  In order to tell us apart, you have to inspect us and look at our build.

Why?

Because we’re identical.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the look of my 7.5 set.  It’s not ostentatious but it is attention-grabbing.   It is extremely eye-pleasing on the female Draenei.  However, I wish, as Enhancement (the red-headed stepchild of the Shaman world), my set would look a little different.

This is a subject that’s popping up in a few places (as a minor note to the overall debate of 10 man vs. 25 man raiding) as we all wait for information on loot tables and armor sets from Ulduar and Patch 3.1.  During the Burning Crusade, the complaint was raised that the gear was too different and, if you wanted to mix and match pieces, you ended up looking like a clown in most cases.  Blizzard’s apparent answer to this with Wrath was to make most armor sets (or what could theoretically be construed as a set) look similar so you wouldn’t look ridiculous while leveling.  

How the heirloom shoulders became exempt to this rule, I do not know.

Now, I realize that tier sets, no matter the spec, have been the same across the three trees for a while, but, with the implementation of achievements and, with them, lots of titles, there should be some sort of difference in gear both in stats and looks depending on when you attained said piece.  Blizzard started to touch on this with the availability of extra loot by downing 1-3 drakes in Obsidian Sanctum.  Why would this be difficult to implement with the rest of the raid bosses?  Do this achivement while downing this boss and you get an extra few pieces of loot that actually look different enough so people know you got it from getting that achievement.

Or create an armor set that drops a piece or two at a time when you get the Sarth3D 10 man achievement?  This seems to me to be the hardest fight in the game at the moment so rewarding those who complete it with loot or an armor set that sets them apart from the masses seems like a good thing.

Same with Undying or Immortal.  Give them an armor set or set of weapons that goes with that achievement and that achievement only; or, if you tank through the Widow’s enrage, she has a different set of drops.

There are a lot of options here.

Right now, the only difference between 10 man and 25 man raiding and, therefore, loot is the bosses have more HP and there *might* be a slight hitch in the play such as KT making a giant boomkin run around and pew-pew everyone.  There should be more than that and I should look the same as every shaman that’s completed it either with their guild or in pugs.  I earned every piece of my gear and yet I look the same as that shaman over there who pugged it all the time, maybe didn’t do great DPS, but happened to bring good dice to the run that night.

In my opinion, there should be differences and more than just a different color or more HP or more buffs or more this or that.  There should be something completely new like an extra boss or two, more iterations of extra loot for doing the fight this particular way, or a completely new way of fighting that same boss in 10-man.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve said in vent, “Have you done him on 10-man?  Yes?  Okay, it’s exactly the same.”

I realize this is just one idea in a sea of many ideas being thrown about to make raiding more interesting and progressive.  In my opinion, if Blizzard wants raiding to be on a progressive path then they should utilize all the paths they’ve put in the game.  Right now, higher level loot drops from 25 man.  Great.  First, make 25 man a different raid experience from 10 man.  Then give us better/different loot.  Then, to make it more of a progression, give us better/different loot from getting certain achievments.

What do you guys think?