Why don't Legendary Weapons Scale?

#1 - May 21, 2011, 1:26 a.m.

With the soon to be released Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest in 4.2 I was thinking of all the old Legendary weapons:

Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros
Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker
Warglaives of Azzinoth
Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury
Shadowmourne
Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings
Atiesh, Greathstaff of the Guardian

The last one is no longer in the game but I was also thinking about Sulfuras and how it was great in Classic WoW but now it is more or less a trophy. I was wondering why these rare, hard to obtain weapons don't scale. They don't have to be the top weapons in the game but it would be nice if they scaled so that they could continue to be used at all levels, they are great status items and we should have a reason to want to carry them around not just store them in our vault. They should not be powerful enough to be the be all, end all weapon of choice but they should be something useable at all levels that you could carry around and use if not doing high end raiding/arena/BGs.

What does everyone else think?

Bashiok

Community Manager

#9 - May 21, 2011, 1:39 a.m.

Weapons are probably the coolest item to upgrade. Head/shoulder slots are also very visible, but for most people it's the most satisfying to get an awesome new weapon. Scaling an item in that slot means we're depriving you of that enjoyment of finding and equipping a new item - - which actually begins to feel pretty crappy. You may see an awesome new weapon drop, but you pass on it (or are forced to pass on it) because your old legendary still scales.

Additionally, it may be tough to get legendaries for a while, but if they were continually the best item it would totally be worth it to go back and roll over that content when it's easier to outfit everyone in your raid with their Infinitely BiS weapon.

Dragonwrath, of course, has a really awesome on-use ability, and we hope that's reason enough for people to keep it around even if it's not always their equipped weapon.