Nibelung 1 comment

Wednesday came again, another fresh ICC25 ahead of me. I won a neck from Marrowgar but decided to pass it on to one of the Warlocks in the guild that could make better use of it. And so we came to Deathwhisper. At last, [Nibelung] drops. Now I know there has been a lot of discussion over on Elitist Jerks about this, so I thought it might be worth explaining my choice to use it.

I've seen discussion on Nibelung both for and against. An obvious negative point is that it has no crit, no haste, no hit. What it does have is a unique ability. First of all I'll go back to that negative point.

If you are a raiding moonkin then I have no doubt that you are familiar with the druid caps. Our hit cap is easily achieved. In fact it is so easily achieved that Aeiedil is currently well over-cap until she gets her new tier 10 hat. Our haste soft-cap is easily hit. Even our crit soft-cap is easily touched. Beyond these points haste and crit become less valuable than before them, though I would like to stress that they are still valuable.

Weapons provide a prime source of these stats. My previous staff, the [Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff] has 136 haste on it which is a significant amount. By dropping that, my haste comes down to about 410 in my current gearset, which is still above the haste soft cap (marginally). This in turn means my Wrath clips less in extreme situations. This to me is not a bad thing, it gives more freedom on my other gear slots to pick better equipment without worrying about going so far over caps that it becomes undesirable.

In exchange for this stat sacrifice I gain the chance for Val'kyr to join my side. This proc is quite random and, due to the limited survivability of the Val'kyr, sometimes a bit worthless. Sometimes. On fights like Festergut I have had fights where some 15% of my DPS is provided by the Nibelung proc. In a similar vein I have had fights where the percentage is 3% or under.

There is another side to this. I can't be the only one that is a bit bored of the same old equipment. Oh look here is another staff, is it the one with SP/Crit/Haste? Yes? Awesome! Oh wait I want the SP/Crit/Spirit one. It's a bit of a boring repition in the recent dungeons driven by players expectation of what is and isn't a useful stat. This direction that Blizzard are taking to include powerful procs in place of some of these stats appeals to me. It adds something a bit different to the raid.

At the end of the day I do not regret taking Nibelung (despite now being at the bottom of the guild priority list) and until Cataclysm it will most likely serve as my primary weapon. When the Heroic version comes I will seize it with both wings. Theorycrafting may well prove other options to be a better choice from a Min/Max point of view, but Nibelung is far from being the worst choice out there. Bring on the Val'kyr!