Sometimes something that feels good is really just something that’s blatantly OP or otherwise harmful to the spec’s larger overall design. It’s okay to run with that for a patch if other numbers are tuned around it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it should become baseline.
Tier Sets can also be looked at as a testing ground. Obviously Blizzard doesn’t think Holy should have 90% uptime on Holy Words. Because it makes the CD and CDR mechanics way less relevant.
I think that’s reasonable.
Surrender to Madness was also crazy fun back in Emerald Nightmare. But gutting it in the way they did was 100% necessary. It couldn’t function like that without inherently becoming OP in the hands of skilled players.’
Sometimes stuff is better left behind.
And sometimes it just makes the design work better. Even if it is too strong to just be piled onto the spec at its current level, you can still incorporate the IDEA into the spec. Renew is basically useless - giving us some integration between our abilities and renew and then some interplay between renew and our holy words, even if not at the same strength, would be a dramatic improvement.
And sometimes its better not.
I got my first upgrade at 77 and I barely played that char in season 4 
I mean traditionally (as far as WoW is concerned) it’s still pretty similar to the old days. I know there was Naxx stuff that was BiS for early TBC 70’s and then Sunwell Plateau gear blew most of Wrath outta the water until you could start raiding.
I think Cata was the first attempted departure from this method and even then I think my 80’s in semi-ICC equivalent gear didn’t necessarily upgrade immediately. It still took a zone or so before stuff was worth switching over to and I’d imagine this would be even longer for folks who had Heroic 25m Ilvls gear. I dipped out for most of Pandaland and haven’t been a huge raid person even when I did join eventually rejoin the party so no idea how they’ve been handling it from then on. My main point being that from a historical standpoint farming the best gear in the last expansion usually took you till around max level before you switched your stuff up. Though that might only apply to the first couple expansions.
their swtich to ilevel scaling threw a monkey wrench into this.
Having seen now the old ways and the new ways…I’d say the old way was better.
Old wow didn’t care if on those last bubbles to level ding you were a god(dess) among mortals. And if I happened to be a say 61 or 71 or 81 on the run…I wasn’t complaining. I probably had a run from hell before that. I’ll take the cruise control run.
Cata did need gear swap more than prior though. You were right there.
That had some help from mastery coming into play, haste going on more gear and needed by more classes, and other side changes. Like tbcc and wrath one could play the agility game with paladins.
It was A kind of unofficial stat priority in some min/max maths. Cata you dropped any agilty real fast as that math loophole went away.
Why should the very best gear at the end of an expansion be worse than 71 grays?
So, because I never get notifications from blue posts, when I was using my Shaman decked out in tier gear from last expansion. Now at level 80 she will have to find downgrades because I the greens and blues from the delves and world content are weaker. Since as much as I want to run dungeons, my ability to not want to ruin another gamers time with my “handicap” running dungeons or higher content is for not until the release of higher tiers etc.
It was already challenging doing a tier 3 delve which says 545+ gear and I would do it at 512. Now it will be impossible because you rarely get anything dropping from them or follower dungeons. I’ve hit cap on the new crests and flight stone currency and not found a single purple or gear that requires them.
Guess I’ll be leveling all my alts then who are also all decked out in tier gear to 79 and stopping.
oh this is good. i was rocking my set still because breaking it removed 40k dps.
now that you force me it’ll feel better 
I didn’t say 71 grays. Though should blue dungeon gear be an actual genuine upgrade at like…75? Yes. As it is right now, dungeon gear across the board is basically worthless unless you get to level 80 (though that only changed with the tier set adjustments), though it could also be because they just didn’t scale the gear right for the new expansion overall.
Yeah i’m fuggin pissed this is a huge loss until we get tier