“Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.”
Immanuel Kant
Tier Gear: Nighthold
Let us anticipate for a moment and see what is in store for us with gearing (tier sets) in the Nighthold raid, coming out in January 17, 2016.
The Good is that they are the same sets in LFR, Normal and Heroic. Your four-piece set can stay intact as you move (if you do) through the different versions of the raid.
The Good is that we now have six slots of opportunity as they have added the Cloak to the tier list.
*Crafting Note: if you are crafting pieces of armor, don’t craft in the tier slots. Stick with Boots and Waist, for example.
The Challenge is to make them interesting and desirable. Our Artifact major traits look a lot like tier bonuses from the past. In my opinion, Nighthold is failing by giving us “no fun” set pieces.
The Question is: are they really Bind on Pick Up? We can’t trade tier to fellow members in the raid? Say it ain’t so!
The Scary is that it looks like there is a “Upgrade Level 0/2” meaning … yikes … Valor Point grinding once again. As a strategy to keep players re-running dungeons and the LFR: this design is well-used and kinda sucks.
The Not-So-Scary is that this isn’t the last raid of the expansion and we don’t need to max out our gear using Valor Point upgrades.
The Design Goal has typically been to use the set piece bonus to encourage us to use our more powerful spells: basically teaching us how to play our character — which is a very good thing. The Deal is: that is accomplished by our major Artifact traits already.
They look (to me) like weak Artifact traits. Passive. A small buff to make us feel stronger and a bit cheap.
There is no “fun” built in to the bonus; like a speed buff or bubble or “frogs raineth down on the enemy”. An On Use bonus could have been fun too!
It looks to me like they spent all their good ideas on Legendaries and Artifact traits and now have yet a third thing to design for; bonus sets.
Hood of the Astral Warden
Item Level 875+
Upgrade Level 0/2
Binds when picked up
Head Leather
291 Armor
+1,637 [Agility or Intellect]
+2,456 Stamina
+931 Critical Strike (2.66% @ L110)
+502 Mastery (1.43 @ L110)
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 110
Garb of the Astral Warden (0/6)
Robe of the Astral Warden
Gloves of the Astral Warden
Hood of the Astral Warden
Leggings of the Astral Warden
Mantle of the Astral Warden
Cloak of the Astral Warden
(2) Set (Balance): Lunar and Solar Empowerments also increase the critical strike chance of their corresponding spells by 15%.
(2) Set (Feral): Thrash now generates a combo point if it hits at least 1 target.
(2) Set (Guardian): Your abilities have an additional 10% chance to trigger Gore.
(2) Set (Restoration): Wild Growth grants you 3000 Mastery for 7 sec.
(4) Set (Balance): Lunar Strike has a 12% chance to grant Solar Empowerment and Solar Wrath has a 7% chance to grant Lunar Empowerment.
(4) Set (Feral): Shred and Swipe deal 8% more damage per your Bleed effect on the target.
(4) Set (Guardian): Mangle reduces the cost of your next Ironfur, Mark of Ursol, or Frenzied Regeneration by 5 Rage, stacking up to 2 times.
(4) Set (Restoration): Each time your Rejuvenation heals a target, it has a 2% chance to jump to a new target at full duration.
Sell Price: 45 2 90
Coffee Cakes and Crits 
Good possibility too that they require an insane amount of Obliterum to upgrade. I will be curious how the Shadowpriest tier works with what ever change the figure out to make Surrender to Madness not a must take talent. The funny thing is, even doing Normal EN one night, and at least once through all of LFR, I really have not done any raiding, very few Mythic dungeons, and even fewer Mythic +2. I have been stuck leveling professions due to the insane amounts of an item you have to craft to leve, so it’s just been Darkmoon. And the story questing has kept me fairly busy. All of those side quests in raids and dungeons are on the shelf for some time later when I actually feel like doing them.
THe only one I wish I could complete is Kara, but that last fight is so painful, I may never get it this expansion.
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I am hoping that 7.2 (in April?) will lift the lid on crafting since we’ll have flying. Being an odd-ball, I have a Druid at 103, herbing/mining with the intention of gathering when flying comes out.
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I have had at points near 1000 cloth. I can make the Imbued version real easy. But the mats from other professions. That’s the wall. That and I made 15 gloves the other day. Went up 1 point to 796. I’m just going to wait until next weeks Darkmoon to cap Tailoring.
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What I’m really not impressed about is the restoration 2 set bonus.. I don’t need mastery in a raid setting. Am I running Nighthold to get gear to make me stronger in mythic dgns?
Druid’s mastery is weak in raids so I do not understand why it was included as a stat on gear designed for raiding. It makes me scratch my head and wonder what I’m missing. Crit or haste would have been welcomed with open arms.
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I can only guess to keep an eye on the PTR and hope it gets re-designed.
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