I know we have a thread about this change, but I'm more interested in how the gear will compare going forward rather than how it effects people's current gear choices and playstyles. I was poised to start buying armor with emblems 6 weeks ago but home renovations and moving have kept me away from the game. I bought the trinket and ring first, and was aiming for the robe next with the plan to only get 2 pieces of T10.

Basically, for one who is trying to choose the best gear to spend badges on from the start, what's best bang for your buck now? Do we now want 4 pieces and fill out the fifth with something with more crit/haste and less spirit? If so, what would that fifth piece be? Still the robe? Badge gloves or crafted pants? Does it matter much what the fifth is?

Thanks.

One could make a case for either the [Meteor Chaser's Raiment] or the [Leggings of Woven Death] as they have the exact same stats. So what you want to look at is the trade-off in tier legs or chest. Legs have more spirit and haste, while the chest has less spirit and crit. The difference is rather minor however so you should look at other factors: will you use the gear for an off-spec? If so, then the Leggings of Woven Death are great for shadow. For disc, I chose the Meteor Chaser's Raiment but I'm also not going for tier gear right now so there's a good chance I'll get the Leggings of Woven Death sometime soon too because both are solid throughput pieces for a non-tier healy priest. In general however, the chest and legs, followed by the head, offer the biggest item budgets so if you want to go off-set, one of those pieces will most often yield the greatest stat difference.

As for priority, you should decide if you want tier first or more off-set. Both are viable, but beware that our tier bonus might be changing (and could change still from what was announced for the latest PTR patch) which adds some question marks to the equation.

The leggings of woven death are great, but as they need 10 Primordial Saronite at 23 emblems each, plus some epic uncut gems and expensive cloth, the cost is way more than equivalent pieces (though you can use level 80 alts to farm for them while you keep the emblems your main earns for BoP purchases).

It's also worth remembering that T10 and 10.5 legs and gloves can drop from the new VoA boss, so if you run that each week I'd save spending emblems on those until last.

There are also good ilevel 264 BoE shoulders that drop from the 25 man trash before the first boss. If you have a bit of cash you can buy these on the AH quite often, or see if there are any 25man rep runs happening and hope you get lucky.

Because of the reasonable chance of seeing some of the above loot, I'd recommend spending emblems on the head first.

Not sure if I missed something but [Pattern: Leggings of Woven Death] lists 8 Primordial Saronite (plus one if you're buying it to craft yourself) and 10 each of Ebonweave and Spellweave. These cloth aren't particularly difficult to come by, as most tailors burn their cooldowns regularly to fuel the market. Sure they're expensive if you buy on the AH, but what isn't? And if you're buying them yourself, then you can already make the cloth which puts this item in reach as the only resource you're spending is time. Definitely worth it if you're looking to prop up a 4T10 shadow set IMHO.

That being said, Vault does drop hands and legs, and there's a reason I bought the helm and shoulders first

Only 8! Woohoo, I'm closer than I thought

Well, I'm a tailor so I already have the cloth for the pants and a guildie has the recipe already so I'd just need the 8 primordial saronite. Not easy to come by no, but I haven't entirely ruled it out as an option. After all, if I get the T10 robe instead of Meteor's, I can be all matchy-matchy, (I will confess, I love the +vanity of the red\purple combination). Since we do do VoA when it's available during our raid times legs will likely be one of the last pieces I upgrade.

I picked up a non-set 264 hat a while back so I don't know that I'll by the hat right away, so I guess the first piece I'll buy will be the shoulders, which I wanted anyway. Our 25-man sign-ups have been shaky of late so I won't bank on the trash drop.

Beyond that I guess I'll wait out the change and see what ends up going live. In general it sounds like picking up 4pc T10 is not a bad way to go for disc now from what I am hearing?

I primarily MT heal in 10s, but do a lot of raid heal/bubble spam in 25s since we almost always have one paly and a disc priest better geared than I.

As you can tell from the last few days' activities on these forums, T10 is a sticky issue Some bought 4T10 and like it, some don't. Some never bought 4T10 or even 2T10 and judged it on its text alone (I'm one of these). Opinions will differ and it depends on a lot of things.

Personally, I run 10s and only get to occasionally PUG 25s, so the likelihood of getting a token to upgrade i251 T10 is not great and not something I'll rely on. So upgrading from i245 pieces to i251 wasn't a great choice for my emblems, and it particularly wasn't ideal when I was trading off crit/haste pieces for crit/spirit or haste/spirit, especially if they weren't going to get to i264 any time soon. If you think 4T10 would be upgraded to i264 soon, then they're probably not a bad choice. That's not the case for me though, so I'm doing what I can with offset and ICC drops.

Currently, IMHO, 2T10 is very forgettable and 4T10 is interesting, and I'd pick it up eventually to play with it and maybe try some hard modes. If this change goes through though, 4T10 isn't something I'll pursue except for its possibility to upgrade to i264, with the bonus being a very unimpressive plus.