>3 days later

It's a bit early to tell, but what do you reckon the gap between arsenal and either jugg spec in single target situations should be? As a side note, the operative doesn't sound like he was very good at his class either with that big of a disparity. We're also missing the specs of both the jugg and op, but even comparing op's lowest to jugg's highest (concealment to rage) is about a 3k disparity, assuming equal gear and skill. If you compare lethality to vengeance, the gap is essentially less than 2k. So with the gear difference, sounds like the operative could use some work. If we're talking any situation where the jugg is hitting more than one target with slam, then I know you're not surprised by the gap between you two.

Gear is hardly the main interest that NiM raiders have in the long-term, I agree. For myself and my guys, this last tier we truly just raided for the joy of the game. After developing and perfecting our strats for Dxun and Gods timers, we still ran them week in and week out. This could be due to us role swapping, getting more of our friends their achievements, selling the achievements to those who needed it, farming titles on alts, etc. All the raids prior to Gods, like DF and DP, were pretty much only run if we could do them on off-roles, for sales, or out of boredom, but we still enjoyed them for what they were. We always see old players come back when new operations are announced, but funny enough, we find they usually aren't as good as they/we thought they were, so they get on teams that can't clear anything, and thus quit out of frustration or boredom. A lot of the people who complained about Dxun in our community were usually people who didn't really understand the Operation in depth, and people don't like doing things they're not good at. I'll share with you something you may find interesting. Several of my friends and co-raiders are not playing right now. Lost Ark, for instance, took a lot of their attention, and coupled with an expansion that involved a boring gearing system and no new operations, just fueled that disinterest. We're all waiting for R-4, but we also don't care to gear up right now in preparation when we can (hopefully) just gear directly from R-4 drops, instead of the convoluted system in place now. All that to say, the raiding community is nowhere near thrilled with this gearing system, and it is not as tailored to our preferences as people in this thread seem to think it is.

As far as I'm concerned, that isn't a problem. Obviously, I'm not in charge of game design, and as I said in a post several pages back, I'm sure that giving people more methods to gear can't hurt in terms of revenue and player satisfaction. But from my point of view of being a NiM raider for pretty much my entire tenure in game, people not having access to gear they don't need through their preferred solo/casual content is a good thing. If you want something like top tier gear, you should have to do something a bit more challenging than solo content. Brings more people to raiding which means more operations for us, or at least that's the ideal. I'm sure my perspective will upset many who fall into that demographic. It's just my point of view, and if it does upset you, be glad I'm not the one making these design decisions. I also feel this debate has run its course, and I don't really have anything new to say after this post.

Where else do you "continue to see" that argument besides from me? And to that end, I'd point you to my response to you on page 21, specifically the first paragraph. I'm not really arguing that it should be that way. Is it my preference? Yes. But I'm not arrogant enough to think it's my way or the highway, and I'm not pursuing that line of reasoning.

You mean the thread from 2020 that you necro'd?

Your inferences are not really clear, at least to me. People who enjoyed the 6.0 gearing system are not mutually exclusive from any other kind of player. Raiders, soloers, casual players, and so on, all had their gripes and their praises for the system. Personally, I enjoyed 6.0's system as it gave me a ton of different sets to play around with in raids, as well as the tactical system being new. I know many raiders who also enjoyed 6.0's system. How are solo and casual players punished now, but weren't in 6.0, by the gearing system?

Ultimately, I couldn't care less about how people got whatever gear they wanted if I was simply able to gear the way I used to. So sure, if people want to gear through GSF or Flashpoints, let them. But if I'd rather get a group of 8 people and blitz through some HMs, get a specific unassembled piece from each boss and redeem each one so that we could get back to doing NiMs, I'd be content. I can debate the semantics of who should have access to what, but if we take it from a "life-of-the-game" perspective, then yeah, giving people the option to get the gear they want can't hurt - especially with the playerbase now vs then. The commendation system was also not a bad halfway point if all people cared about was the iLvl. You could get unoptimized, no set bonus gear from just doing Flashpoints or w/e, but the best of the best came from the hardest content. Regardless, I truly could not be more disgusted than I am with the thought of gearing through GSF, world bosses, and a "weekly" hardmode since the others either don't work or aren't as viable, among other means, week in and week out.

I'm well aware of why people who don't do the hardest content in the game want the best gear available. Those who want to play an MMO by themselves through and through feel they should have top tier gear so they can do their dailies faster, or it gives them a little more leeway to just use whatever abilities they want with reckless abandon. It does not change the fact that it is not needed for them to have it to accomplish their goal of dailies or SM FPs or whatever. But they wanted it, and so now we have this mess of people afk'ing in GSF, farming one specific boss over and over again, etc - everything ol Keith here seems to think they changed from 6.0. I get your point of view, but frankly I will not concede my own standpoint that the system was at its best when you got the appropriate gear from doing each activity. If you wanted expertise gear, you had to pvp. If you wanted to get gear for Hard Mode, you did Story Mode first. From Hard Mode, you got gear that prepared you for Nightmare. From Nightmare, you got gear that made Nightmare slightly easier. Anyone not doing those activities did not need that gear to do what they wanted to do, and so they did not receive that gear and instead got what was appropriate to the level of effort they put into their activity of choice. If I want to go smash some mobs in Section X by myself, I should not be rewarded in the same way as someone who assembled 8 people to do a Nightmare Op.

This isn't what we wanted. We want to able to get gear directly from operations, like how it used to be. We want to kill a boss and receive a piece of gear relative to the mode we're doing. Those of us who do NiM should be rewarded with NiM-only gear. We don't want to be doing GSF and World Bosses and Flashpoints for gear. If you think we're the ones shaping the game you're sorely mistaken. The people who do only solo and daily content who feel they should have access to gear they don't need have created this mess of a system.

What the hell are y'all talking about

I sure hope so. I've never cancelled my sub out of disgust before this tier. Following every xpac and its inevitable complaints, it's always a question of "is it just not fully understanding and appreciating the change, or are the changes just outright bad?" Most of the time, I attribute it to people not fully understanding how the new system works, or whatever. Not this time. This has been a disaster, and both sides of the table know it. Unfortunately, until the revenues reflect that belief, I fear no real change will be made, or at least not in any acceptable amount of time. I hope the people who genuinely dislike this dumpster fire don't stop after venting their feelings, and realize that in all likelihood their furiously-typed post will have little to no impact on the game's direction. I hope for the best for this game, but I'm truly pessimistic at this time. Gotta speak the language of dollars to get the point across.

Howdy! PM Gabe#4842 on Discord for details. We can get you hooked up.

Objectively, Powertech. Personally, Juggernaut

There's a set bonus, the Fulminating Defense set, that gives Threatening Scream an additional charge.