Is Fandral's Flamescythe really worth it?

Ok, so we have all probably seen someone with Fandral's Flamescythe by now. A flaming cat hanging out in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, showing off their new look.  But is it really worth it? Is this weapon more then just a gimmicky weapon put in by Blizzard?  Lets examine the facts shall we...

Here is Fandral's Flamescythe:


Fandral's Flamescythe
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Staff
1428 - 2143 Damage Speed 2.40
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 276 (1.54% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 265 (1.48 @ L85).

We also know that the unlisted trick to this weapon is that druids using it get a new fiery cat form.  Now, the stats are nice, very high and in the right spots.  The mastery on it is nice and the critical strike always helps.  But is this really worth going crazy to go after?

Well, if you like your fair share of PvP, another weapon in your grasp can be:


Ruthless Gladiator's Staff
Season 10
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Staff
1190 - 1786 Damage Speed 2.00
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 272 (1.52% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your resilience rating by 272 (3.44% @ L85).

or


Ruthless Gladiator's Pike
Season 10
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Polearm
2142 - 3215 Damage Speed 3.60
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 272 (1.52% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your resilience rating by 272 (3.44% @ L85).


Now, you do lose out on the mastery on these 2 choices, but although mastery is a nice stat to have, it's not the top stat in most builds at the moment. You can always reforge to get some mastery back, but ultimately, the 265 mastery that the Fandral's Flamescythe gives you does not actually translate in to that much of an improvement.  You have to remember that 265 does not translate in to actually 265 more mastery.  It gets tossed in to the conversion tables like all other stats and then the correct amount is added to your stats.

Now, if you do not have access to or do not like to PvP, there is always "


Witch-Hunter's Harvester
Binds when equipped
Two-Hand Polearm
1614 - 3000 Damage Speed 3.50
(659.2 damage per second)
+361 Agility
+541 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 365
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 241 (1.34% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 241 (1.34 @ L85).

Ok, I know what you are going to say.  And yes, the ilvl and stats are lower.  But look at the big picture here and not the numbers on the polearm.  You are only losing out on 47 agility, 70 stamina, 35 critical strike and 24 mastery.  If you were to add these missing amounts to your stats you would see almost no change in your over all stats. For example, 70 stamina is only going to give you about 700 more health over all. In today's WoW, 700 health doesn't make a  ton of difference, or really any at all.

If you sit back and do that over all math and run that numbers in your stats, you can see that, unless the staff drops while you are in there anyways, it does not seem that Fandral's Flamescythe is the end all/be all of weapons in the game for druids at this point.  Sure the higher stats and ilvl numbers all make it the "best" weapon in game for druids.  But if you stand back and look at it for what it really is, the shine on it seems to die down and it's not really that awesome of a weapon.  Now if you want a weapon that will change you form, then this is simple the best for you.  I feel that this just isn't worth farming for.

If you have any questions or comments you'd like to make on this topic, please feel free to comment.  I will respond to any and all questions posted here.  If you like this or any of my other topics, please follow me. You can also find me on twitter @neosroar.

Can you live in BC again?

I've been seeing people talk lately about "retro-toons" and was curious as to what this was exactly.  It seems that there are people that are creating new characters, leveling them up to lvl70 and then.....*gasp*, capping their experience.  At first I thought this was a bit of a crazy idea.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had so much fun back in BC that it might be worth a shot.  So I leveled up a mage that I already had sitting as lvl62 and capped off my XP at 70.  It was at that point that I had a huge rush of flashbacks from when I hit lvl70 on my druid back in Burning Crusade.

My first stop, Isle of Quel'Danas! Time to start knocking out my Isle dailys again. The more I started doing some rep grinding in dungeons and with turn ins, not to mention beginning to gather some better gear through quartermasters and dungeons, I began to have more fun than I thought I would.  I figured it would be fun for a few days and probably lose it's interest, at which point I'd simply turn back on my XP and move on.  But it's been well over a week and I haven't lost any interest yet.  Maybe it's the fact that I know I can always turn on my XP and move on if I get bored. Maybe it the fact that Blizzard has, in the past, made changes to the over all stats in the game and even with the actual BC gear, I'm doing more damage now then I did then.  Who knows, all I know is that it's become so much fun, I have 5 other guild member that have decided to do the same thing. Next thing we know, we'll have enough people at lvl70 to run Karazhan with all 70s, lol.

I must admit, it's has been really fun.  Running some Cataclysm raids on my level 85 toons and then switching over and running dungeons and other stuff on my level 70 has been a blast so far.  I hope that it doesn't get old or boring any time soon. One thing we, the people in my guild that are going to have toons stay at lvl70, have decided is no twinking.  By this, we mean that you have to get gear from dungeons, heroics, raids, quests or quartermasters. Running battlegrounds to power through and grab all the super-high level PvP gear you can takes away form the fun of it and is somewhat frowned on.  1 or 2 pieces of PvP are ok, but full BG epics is a bit much.

If you have a level70 toon and are interested in having some fun on the Anvilmar server (Alliance side), cap that XP off and give me a pst.  Just whisper Taeo (my lvl70) or Neotaeo, if I'm not on then just whisper anyone in <DunderMifflin> and if they can't invite you, they will let someone know that can that you want an invite.  Come and have some fun, that is what retro-toons are all about!