Set Armor VS. Mastercrafted in RoK?

[Amataelia]

Generally I'm a glass half full type of person when it comes to crafting, especially with my tailor.  I still sold plenty of mc armor in T7, had very little issues moving it at all and I love all the new ts changes and the love crafters are getting lately. My only concern is this:  Mastercrafted is supposed to be the "transition" armor in each new tier but who in their right mind would even want MC when most Legendary set pieces in T7 are pretty easy to obtain with a little work and will suffice to cover that spot in T8?   There is no way I would replace my set armor with T8 MC if the stats on it remain in line with previous tiers. Am I just being paranoid?  Does anyone else see a potential issue with this?  Could this be another risk vs. reward type thing with the increase in rare harvests lately?

[lilmohi]

I think it's safe to say that the only T8 MC armor that will be sold will be to new players and twinks who don't want to stop at t7 to get a full set of set armor.  Some jewelry will sell, a couple weapons, and probably a ton of ju-ju dolls, and bags/boxes.  Of course, who knows maybe they will implement set crafted armor. <img src="/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Calthine]

People had the same concern when KoS came out and it ended up working like this: People who have been sitting at the cap with maxed raid gear, you're right, for the most part they'll skip Mastercrafted.  The thing to remember is that most people aren't maxed out, top end raiders (estimates are the "hardcore" raiders are from 1% to 10% of the game population).  There's people like me, who are 65 in mostly Mastercrafted and never raid and might make 70 by November, might not.  And there's lots of new players coming in all the time. So yeah, your new T8 Mastercrafted may not fly off the shelves initially, T7 didn't, because people have had a chance to sit at the cap and gear up.  But it will sell as people level up.  The nice thing about EQ2 is it doesn't seem to max and leave people behind the way EQ1 did (at least when I played it)

[Amataelia]

If I remember correctly T7 didn't fly off the shelves in the beginning because the stats weren't that great and people still had the old version cobalt etc on..........we also didn't have set armor in T6 to compete with. Again, I may just be a bit over concerned here but I felt it was something to look into.

[lilmohi]

<p>Things have changed a lot since T6 & T7 expansions came out.  Back then pretty much the only people who had a full set of Legendary+ armor was the raiders (very small percentage).  However now with the set armor even the casual groupers have at least 5 pieces, and the other slots pretty much all have some kind of legendary armor that sells quite cheap.  I found it amusing that i was recently able to gear out a twink with nearly a full set of t7 legendary armor for about what a single piece of legendary gear was selling for before DoF was released.</p><p>I have 3 lvl 70's and not one has a single armor slot that isn't legendary.  Compare that to when DoF came out and i think i might have had one legendary item on my main.  Heck when Dof came out i bought several pieces of handcrafted armor because it was an upgrade. <img src="/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>As a note, i don't raid, and only group about once a week.</p>

[Rast]

<p>won't make that much of a difference, T8 will move about as well at t7 does, which means, don't hold your breath.  T8 will probably be the first tier I won't get mastercrafted for Jal, becuase quite honestly, it will be a sideways move at best for me (I'm predominately KoS fabled and only raid casually).</p><p>Set armor I think will make it harder to market the crafted, unless Domino pulls a real dozzy out of her halfling hat...</p>

[Deson]

There is A LOT more to this than I think people are accounting for. DoF dropped gear sucked, DoF crafted was (too)great. KoS was the first pass at re-itemizing and t3-t6 are relatively better. Adding to that in KoS, we got the ironic reversal of drops being too easy and too good and crafted being crap. Also, unlike Beghn, Domino is not swapped redoing the entire system as far as both (re-)itemization and mechanics so, while amply busy, she's not so busy as to miss details or ignore now long standing concerns.  DFC gear is in as well and provided a good look at things yet to come for crafting. There are also Nest of the Great Egg recipes and EH recipes. Overall, between all that's been done in the last several months, resources being added to or taking advantage of trades and Domino herself, while certainly we should remain wary, we are on track for the first time to feel confident that we wont be left behind. T8 Mastercrafted will probably be as good as t3-t6 relatively, the real question is- what else are we looking forward to?If we get a new quality of gear to craft( I vote Grandmaster Crafted for items that would be more powerful than MC gear), doesn't that change the entire perspective?

[Rast]

<p>It would still have to top the legendary set stuff (which is level 69 armor, so pretty close to the next tier as it is) which many guilds would be able to put on farm status (and alot can now) to provide all of their people with high end legendary stuff with very little effort and mentored down, provide a host of xp too.</p><p>Add to that senario that those who raid, will be more readily be capable of getting the fabled set armor to put themselves into the situation of far better gear from that than anything MC could ever hope to compete with (MC can't even compete with KoS fabled, let alone EoF fabled stuff)</p>