Hi.
I remember a lot of the T3/Naxx gear lasted all the way up to level 70 in TBC in many cases. However, looking at some of the pre-bis raid gear for Wrath, it looks like none of the bis gear from Sunwell will be used. That said, I’m curious how far through the leveling process these pieces tend to last.
Thanks.
Been a long time, but if memory serves, I kept most of my gear until around the 75+ mark before I started replacing it with blues, some you’ll probably keep till 80.
T5 will fall off very fast in wotlk. It’s not like classic to tbc where AQ and naxx items are still good at level 70.
I remember wearing my T6 all the way to Naxx but that was the era before sweatlords.
Some pieces are preraid bis
Classic gear was obsolete by 70.
Crusade gear will probably be obsolete by 80.
High end gear gives you a nice starting advantage but eventually you dump it.
77-80 (pre bis) will remove pretty much everything from Sunwell.
Vanilla gear to tbc lasted because it was less of an ilvl spike than it is from TBC to wotlk.
For example most of sunwell gear is ilvl154-164(somewhere around there) and level 80 heroic dungeons drop ilvl200 along with 10 man Naxx.
You can see how big the disparity in ilvl is from just doing heroics.
One of the most overlooked negative aspects that Wrath introduced to the game was the ilvl bloat, that still plagues the retail game to this day.
This is a prime example of that in practice.
sunwell gear will mostly serve until 76-78ish and some until naxx 80 if your guild is speeding
and skipping heroics first time
Enchanted/gemmed T6 & Sunwell gear can more or less last you til Heroic dungeons/Naxx10 at 80. It depends on how long you spend doing Heroics and what gear you get.
Everything else outside of that will likely be replaced by Normal high-end (level 78+/177 ilvl) dungeon and quest blues.
For us casters, a lot of wrath cloth blues tend to be bloated with stamina, intellect, and spirit, so they’re not necessarily better even at higher item levels vs. sunwell gear.
Even if you enter Naxx in Sunwell gear tho you’ll be more than okay.
This doesn’t really happen until ICC
This happens at the start of the xpac with Naxx and accelerates starting at ToC.
The primary reason for this is because of the various raid difficulties they introduce, which widens the ilvl range per tier. Naxx & Ulduar have 2 difficulty versions and ToC and ICC have 4 difficulty versions.
There’s a reason that all Ulduar gear gets replaced by ToC gear, but isn’t necessarily the case going from MC to BWL.
Yeah but in the beginning it’s only around 13 item level difference it doesn’t really take off until Icc where it’s over 20 by then
Like I agree that it definitely does happen it just happens a little later than you think
There’s lots of pieces that will be very decent side grades into WoTLk pre-raid. DST for example isn’t a terrible pre-raid option.
Mostly replaced by 80.
The list I have seen at least for mage because that’s what I’m going to be playing have no sunwell gear as their pre-raid bis
Also interestingly enough 10 man Naxx drops ilvl200 the same as heroic dungeons.
There’s a few pieces that are surprisingly close to pre-raid. So if youre struggling to get stuff you want from heroics then you do have options - though it usually comes at a cost of stamina. Either way naxx should be easy in sunwell gear on 10 and 25. Only thing I dont expect is for people to do sarth 3drake in sunwell gear.
The way it was done in Vanilla was far better game design. The Wrath and beyond model of complete gear replacement SUCKS.
Couldn’t agree more
I too loved having only 2 upgrades from Kara and none at all from leveling. At least Naxx gear is pretty I guess. 
yeah but Epic 200s has more stats than Blue 200s, and there aren’t many heroic epics.