Raid angst.

Bit of a moan this time...

Wulf has now been raiding with CD for about nine months. In that time we've completed Zul'Gurrub, Molten Core and Onyxia, got all but the last boss down in AQ20 and have taken down five out of the eight bosses in Blackwing Lair. Not the most stellar career, but not bad for a semi-casual raid group which started with a load of folks in sub-standard gear.

As it stands, Wulf's gear is pretty much as good as it can reasonably get. He's almost got his full Tier 1 armour set, his epic quest bow and a set of really nice weapons for both raid use and for PVP/soloing. Once he gets his Helm from Molten Core, he'll be by and large sorted for gear.

And I'm spending 3-4 nights a week working on Blackwing Lair with CD, and realising nothing I want drops there, with the exception of a couple of trinkets/jewelry. The Hunter Tier 2 is a sad joke, not enough of an upgrade from Tier 1 to be worth the effort to obtain. Plus it makes Wulf look like Barney the sodding Dinosaur!

AQ40 is a similar boat, ugly class armour set and nothing of real interest beyond a few trinkets and a couple of weapons.

The sad fact is, because they changed the way Hunter damage worked in patch 1.10, most of the ranged weapons in instances before that (all the ones I've just listed) just don't offer that much of an upgrade, so therefore aren't worth the stupid bidding wars that will follow their drops. This is frustrating to say the least, given that every patch and every new instance sees newer, sicker weapons for the melee classes that see them pull further and further ahead of us in the damage stakes. Hunter itemisation sucks because we're the only class that actually relies on our ranged weapons.

Now Naxxramas, the new instance in 1.11, finally starts to offer something in the way of compensation for this change, in the shape of cool-looking class armour and a ranged weapon that is actually a substantial upgrade at long last. Sadly, since CD haven't even managed a foothold into AQ40, I'm not sure when we'll be getting into Naxxramas.

So week after week, I'll show up for raids, watch my DKP total go up, my gold go down as I pay for ammo and repairs and see drop after drop which honestly isn't worth it. Why? Because I love the people I'm playing with, and the challenges that these new encounter bring, but I've grown weary of the rewards my beloved class recieves for it.