Yet Another Warlock Nerf

On the “not so surprising” news front… WoW Insider is reporting on two new rings that have been discovered during the Beta testing of the WotLK.  Whats special about these rings is that they come with superior stats and the ability to teleport yourself to Dalaran.  The only catch is that they cost 8000g a piece.  Yes, you read that right, 8000 gold. One ring is meant for caster classes, and the other is meant for melee classes.

I think we all knew this was coming at some point… with the mass infusion of gold in Azeroth right now, it was only a matter of time before more items like this popped up.

Last month in patch 2.4.3, Blizzard introduced 22 slot “Gigantique” bags to the Haris Pilton NPC in Shattrath.  These bags go for a rather cheap 1200 gold comparatively. This was the first money sink added into the game since the advent of the new SSO dailies.

Is anyone really surprised that these money sinks were coming? Everyone I meet in Shatt these days has at least 1000 gold on them at all times, even if they spend a lot on frivilous things, they recoup the costs in no time.  As a max level enchanter, I have to admit that with the inflation that has rocked the Auction House, that I find it hard not to have that much gold on me at all times.  But 8000 gold is a lot.

But it might be worth it.  Looking at the stats on that ring, and comparing it to the best caster ring in the game, according to the Warlock’s Den:

The DPS point value, which is a point system that the Warlock’s Den uses to rate gear, of this new ring comes in at 8552 and that doesn’t include the extra crit that you’ll get from all that intellect.  As a point of reference the Ring of Captured Storms has a DPS point value of 6676.  That’s quite a gear bump for 8000 gold, and you don’t have to slave away at Black Temple for days to get it.

So is this the kind of stats we’re going to see on the new Tier level gear that comes out in WotLK? Or is it going to be even better than this?

The best ring that you can purchase in BC through reputation is Ashyen’s Gift which falls around 3000 DPS points behind the Ring of Captured Storms. This indicates that these rings probably won’t be even close to the best rings in the game.  Blizzard always makes the best gear come from end game content, so what kind of stats will the gear from Icecrown Citadel have? How big of a gear reset are we going to see in WotLK?  If this ring is any indication, it could be bigger than Blizzard is promising, and around the scale of what we saw in the Burning Crusade.