To Upgrade or Not?

DPS now or DPS later. That’s the issue I’m wrestling with. It’s nothing but risk around here right now. I’ve joined a heroic Siege group that is so hell-bent is clearing the place, that we’ll soon be extending lockouts to focus on progression.

My spot is tenuous. It’s mine to lose, but I’m definitely in trial mode. In our first outing we went 6/14. I was told that my numbers were low, and my combat logs don’t dispute that. In my defense it was only my second time defeating Immerseus and Protectors and my first time seeing Norushen, Sha, Galakras, Juggernaut and Shamans in Heroic. Everyone else in the group had defeated them previously.

I also had the second lowest item level in the group at 572. The only one lower was a Mage clocking in at 558. A damn good Mage. I’m not too worried about the low numbers, as I explained to the raid leader when I’m learning a new encounter, I tend to focus on survivability and learning the mechanics over pumping out DPS.

My damage taken was the lowest of any DPS on all of our encounters. Trust me when I say, I know how to hide in a corner and be safe.

Our next raid is Sunday and I’m debating about upgrading more of my current gear to help my DPS now versus waiting to see if I get any drops and upgrade those. The expectation is we’ll start fresh and kill Malkorok this week. There’s some pretty nice loot to be had here.

There’s also a lot of junk like these Precision Cutters and Quarantine Shoulderguards. Seriously, even Ask Mr. Robot hates them.

amr_badloot

Did I mention that these were the only drops I got this week?

Back to Ask Mr. Robot, here are my top valor upgrades.

amr_upgrades

Tier Chest? Drops from Sha, and will be killed this week.

Tier Gloves? Drops from Nazgrim and should be killed this week.

Ring of Restless Energy? Drops from Malkorok and we’re hoping to kill him this week.

Reality Ripper Ring? Drops from Norushen and will be killed this week.

Tier Shoulders? Drops from Blackfuse. He’s a long ways off, and I’m 3/4 with upgrades so not a huge gain to finish this off.

Kor’kron Hand Cannon? Drops from Malkorok who I mentioned could be dead this week.

I’m surprised that gun is coming up as an upgrade over my Hisek’s Reserve Longbow, which has the perfect set of secondary stats for any Hunter spec. That’s how gear works though. You can’t just evaluate pieces on a one-to-one basis, you have look at how all of your gear fits together. That said, I think I’ll meet the math half way and transmog into the Kor’kron Hand Cannon rather than upgrade it.

It takes exactly one week’s worth of valor to fully upgrade an item. If I save my valor and get two drops, then on Tuesday I can fully upgrade those two pieces. If I spend the valor this week then it’s possible I’ll get the heroic version of that item this week, and the prior upgrades will be wasted.

You can see my dilemma. On the one hand I need to consider doing what I can to upgrade my DPS for the upcoming run and help secure my spot. On the other, my DPS stands to be greater by upgrading heroic pieces than my existing ones.

Life was much simpler before I found this heroic SoO group. I had a plan to upgrade my remaining gear. I knew which pieces were next and when I’d be done with the whole process.

I think my best bet is to suck less this week and hope I get some killer drops and upgrade those rather than spend the valor now. Sound like a good plan?

3 Comments on “To Upgrade or Not?”

  1. Since starting heroics, I had been riding a reserve of 2k Valor, but I spent all but 500 last week for two reasons I don’t think apply to you. 1: I think I need the boost to help get Sha down. 2: I doubt my group will get much further, so I might as well use it while it’s available, rather than still have it when we call it off for the summer.

    Were I in your situation instead, I’d continue riding 2k Valor hoping for Tier/weapon drops.

  2. So I’m only just starting in on heroics (and I’m progressing with the group, not joining in after they’ve got stuff on farm, so my gear and DPS are not much different from anyone else’s), and I’m not a raid leader, but I think your plan is what I’d do.

    Since last week your excuse for being low on the meters was a combination of gear and learning the fights… this week the fight learning part no longer applies (theoretically. hah.) – so if you can show some improvement there while at the same time staying low damage-taken, and especially if you get some good loot this week, hopefully next week you’ll be able to start climbing up. I’m personally trying to go into each new reset at 2k valor, and doing most of my upgrades after the week’s raids are over, because I’d rather upgrade a new drop that’s a big upgrade if I have the opportunity, rather than have spent all my points already on getting two pieces to +16 and then getting the heroic loot after.

  3. In my experience, spending your valor points on upgrading an item greatly increases your chances of an upgrade of that item to drop in your next raid 😉

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