With the Wrath of the Lich King expansion just around the corner, many players are afraid of getting their hard earned gear replaced by green drops. Players have stopped raiding because, “What’s the difference? Wrath is coming out soon.”

Fear not, your Purples won’t be replaced with quest Greens right away when you step into Northrend. Depending on how far into progression you are now, your current gear has potential to even last you all the way to level 80. Your non-set slots will most likely be the first gear to be replaced. That would mean your Neck, Rings, Cloak, and maybe Weapons, and Trinkets depending how far progressed you are.

With a quick search through the quest rewards for the areas in Northrend, you will be able to keep S1/T4 until they will be slowly be replaced by levels 72 – 74 Blues. S2/T5 gear will be able to last you start replacing them at around levels 74 – 76. Your S3/T6 gear will last you til around levels 76 – 78, and your S4/Sunwell gear will last you until levels 78 – 80.

This is just a rough estimate based on quest rewards. You have to also factor in new crafted gear, and gear decision based on “DPS increase vs Set Bonuses”. Your new gloves might have 5 more Spell Power, but is it worth giving up uninterrupted Spell Casting?

Quote by Bornakk:

“Players and items will have an increase in their stats/items that goes along with leveling to 80, it will just be a little more consistent when compared to The Burning Crusade. What I mean by this is the way items are working right now will be closer to the new items you get in Wrath of the Lich King and it isn’t like you will see an item with double the usual amount of stamina from your first quest. “

If you have been playing WoW before TBC, you won’t be seeing that huge jump in gear that you had experienced when the Burning Crusade expansion was released. Even then, if you were a raider, your epics weren’t replaced by quest rewards anytime soon.

From personal experience, when the Burning Crusade expansion was released, I leveled from 60 to 70 and kept my 8 piece Netherwind set (Tier 2). Sure I could have replaced a few of them for an increase of 15 Spell Damage, but it wasn’t worth losing my Netherwind Procs at the time. I only remember my Weapons, Cloak, Neck, and Trinkets being replaced before level 68.

Just taking a look back at some of the gear that were available before the expansion, and comparing them to some of the gear we have now, they are still very good.

[Neltharion's Tear] is still one of the best trinkets in the game. It has very nice passive Spell Damage, and also gives you Spell Hit, the most important stat for a Mage.

[Ring of the Fallen God] can still compete with the current rings we see today. It even has more Spell Damage than the [Band of Eternity] which is the first ring you get when you step into Tier 6 territory.

Those weren’t even end game gear either! That was still Tier 2 – Tier 2.5 level gear.

I’m not afraid of my current gear being replaced anytime soon, and the thought of Wrath gear replacing your current gear shouldn’t prevent you from continuing to raid. From doing some of the group instances on beta, I have yet to replace any of my gear with any of the drops I’ve seen.

Also if you have been following BRK, his Tier 5 gear has lasted him well past level 75, and wasn’t replaced totally until level 78.

So go for Tier 5 or Tier 6 gear! They will last you for quite some time. If anything, they will help you level up even faster.