Feb 10
4
Icecrown Citadel weapon comparison
Arthas is finally available in Icecrown Citadel, and with him comes a nice little loot list. While I was a bit disappointed that he only seem to drop weapons, it does sort of make sense. We are more or less covered on every other item slot already.
I would never dream of posting any sort of spoilers (Dumbledore dies!), the loot list got me thinking about my previous BIS list and how each weapon combination compares to each other, and on normal versus heroic difficulty. As it turns out, my initial sloppy guess that going from normal to heroic was just a straight upgrade, was invalid.
In my comparasson, I didn’t bother to include Abracadaver because it’s generally not a very good moonkin weapon. I also completely disregarded Nibelung, because it’s pretty difficult to calculate on. Including loot from Arthas, we have the following viable weapon choices.
Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas
Frozen Bonespike
Halion, Staff of Forgotten Love
Tel’Thas, Dagger of the Blood King
and the Royal Scepter of Terenas II.
What’s that, you say? A healer mace? What is this lunacy?! Well, as it turns out, its not actually a bad weapon, even if some of the item stats are wasted on mp5. You may remember Guiding Star from Ulduar, which was quite a good weapon in its time.
I went ahead and made a Google Spreadsheet, in my search to find out how these items actually compare against each other. Boy was I in for a suprise! You can see the spreadsheet here, and follow along: Click this link!
I went ahead and added up all the spell power, crit, haste and spirit across the items, and then calculated their value due to the weights set by Elitist Jerks. These are approximate values, ofcourse, but they should still give a fair overview of how the items compare against each other.
If you manage to kill Arthas on normal, and have full access to every piece of loot in the instance, Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas seems to be the best weapon you can go for. Closely followed by that is the Frozen Bonespike with a Shadow Silk Spindle. While there isn’t a massive difference between Archus and the FB/SSS, Frozen Bonespike is much easier to go for in terms of availability. If you can kill Arthas, then you can kill the bosses dropping Frozen Bonespike and Shadow Silk Spindle.
But the tables are turned when we finally kill Arthas on heroic. Archus heroic seems to be a little bit under budget. It doesn’t increase its stats more than 10,58% and it retains it’s two sockets. This means that the Frozen Bonespike and Shadow Silk Spindle surpasses it in value if both are heroic. But beating both Frozen Bonespike and Archus is the wild card of today: The Royal Scepter of Terenas II!
Royal Scepter of Terenas II has the biggest increase from normal to heroic. This mace, along with a Shadow Silk Spindle, will net you nothing less than 1012 spell power alone, provided you have access to the heroic versions. The stats from this combo are increased by a massive 18,55%, and even though it has some unwanted mp5, it comes out in a massive lead above anything else.
These items may, ofcourse, be changed in the future. Archus seems to need some love, and The Royal Scepter of Terenas II seems to be a tad over budget. But if you are wondering what kind of upgrades you should dream about when you go to bed, here is the rundown:
From normal Icecrown Citadel 25, your best in slot will either be Archus or FB/SSS, with a small lead for Archus. If you are tough enough to get down Arthas on heroic 25 man, and then survive a rigorous attack from your healers, the Royal Scepter and Shadow Silk Spindle wins by a massive lead, but before you get this, you will probably pick up a Frozen Bonespike before.
UPDATE! There seems to be some debate on Archus’ stats on 25 man heroic. Sigrie reports it to have three sockets, while Wowhead sais it has two. I have changed the spreadsheet to reflect three sockets, which brings it slightly over FB/SSS.
These seem to be your options if you really want to min/max your stats. On a positive note, the Royal Scepter of Terenas II looks really, really neat. Tel’Thas looks excactly like Frozen Bonespike, and while Archus has a special look as well, the 10 man staff from Arthas looks excactly like Nibelung.
Looks are important, aight?
PS. On a sidenote, it seems that Nibelung got a stealth nerf. It no longer seems to proc off starfall, which is too bad, but not a terrible loss. I still saw it proc plenty of times off regular attacks, but I do feel overall that I would be a bit more confident with a solid weapon compared to Nibelungs current.. defects.
PPS. Don’t you just love upgrades? I am always completely on the boss when we do Lady Deathwhisper, and despite a mind control, I’d say I did quite well for a stand-and-nuke fight. Ofcourse, the buff to Earth and Moon probably isn’t solely responsible for this, but it’s still the right kind of nice.
