Welcome, Windhawk Bracers

Welp, I finally leveled my leatherworking, farmed even more mats, caved and auction housed the last three Primal Airs, and created Windhawk Bracers, the only item of the Windhawk set that doesn't require a Primal Nether and, therefore, a little instancing to craft.

So let the mathes comparison begin. Rather than trying to go theoretical, let's just slap up a screenshot comparison of Jal's stats with the Windhawk Bracers versus Murkblood Bracers of Nature's Wrath, the latter worth 115 armor and +42 nature damage.



So here are the changes with the Windhawk with a vendored +4 spell critical yellow gem, all stats listed while in moonkin form:

Nature damage: -10
Health: +220
Mana: +285
Non-nature spell dmg: +32
Healing: +52
Crit %: +1.14
Mana Regen: +10
Armor: +220

I'm not too worried about the base stat changes not listed above, as their practical usefulness should be reflected in the stats.

So here, it's a nobrainer. I lose 10 dmg per Wrath, but gain pretty seriously everywhere else, including +1.14% crit, which is another (381 to 429 + 745) * 1.14% = 13.11 damage already for my wraths, on average. The Murkbloods aren't better even with wrath damage, their speciality area. So out go the Murkblood Bracers to the vendor. Sad to see 'em go.

Other nature's wrath items aren't so obvious, I don't think. I've upgraded a few slots since I last took stock. My helm gives +81 nature damage, iirc. That's going to take a disproportionate increase in stats to beat (realizing there's no Windhawk headpiece). Chest is currently giving +75 nature damage, and the Dragonhawk version gives +81; will the Windhawk Hauberk beat that? Its intellect bonus is just 12 more than the bracers, and spell dmg just 19 more. Can that beat a +39 nature damage increase on the chest relative to bracers? It'll be closer, I think. We'll see.

Again, for general use, the Windhawk armor has it all over "of Nature's Wrath" gear. I'm here looking specifically at burst damage, as that's the most important thing when doing PvE outdoors, when you can root most anything, and when filling the DPS slot in a 5-spot instance. Your drinks are going to outweigh mana regen bonuses for PvE and 5-spots, and armor shouldn't matter too much if you root melee mobs and have good tanks.

And you can't come close to beating the price of the Nature's Wrath gear at 8-15g a slot. That's less than many daily quest rewards!

Here's what a full set of Windhawk needs, according to gajackson at thottbot.com:

18 Heavy Knothide Leathers
48 Wind Scales
34 Primal Airs
6 Primal Mights
3 Primal Nethers

+ 3 Yellow gems (or compatible) total
+ 3 Blue gems (or compatible) total

+ whatever you are going to choose in the way of endgame-ish AKs, enchants, etc.

What's the better causal gamer buy again? All of the above for 3 pieces of armor, or less than 100g for 400+ DPS?

The Windhawk bracers beat out Dragonhawk Bands even for adding damage to wrath, so, farming already done, they're in for all of my outfits, panzer, boomkin, and hybrid. It's my first purple armor since I made Lava Belts for the Old World. I just wonder if completing the set is going to be worth it, or I should save the time and effort to run instances until the WotLK shows up.