Robe of the archmage - worth it?

[MammaMu]

Hi all,
my mage is now lvl57 with herbalism 300 / skinning 300. The skinning was just a moneymaker in the midlevels and will be replaced with something useful, probably alchemy.

However, before that I'm thinking about skipping skinning for powerleveling Tailoring to 300 to get Robe of the Archmage. Tailoring to 300 aint no biggie as i got more than enough runecloth and mageweave in stock, and getting linen and wool is easy with aoe and Deadmines-farming. The crux is that I hardly will have the patience to farm for all the essences, and so I'm looking at a total mat cost of ca 500g for the robe (pattern + essences). 500g is just about my amassed wealth at the moment, but I can live with that.

Robe of the Archmage seems to be the best chestpiece I can get for a long, long time, but my question to you: is it worth 500g? Shall I wait with it until I ding 60 and get my elite mount?

Compared to boe purple stuff on my AH 500g seems like an ok price, and with tailoring I can also stock up on mooncloth bags before moving on to alchemy, but since I will plunder my elite mount fund for the robe I have a hard time deciding...

[Babobery]

I would post this in mage forum, however from what I have seen you will get a lot of support for the robe there. It beats tier 0, it beats tier 0.5, and for a lot people it beats tier 1...........

[BigPapi]

I have this robe. While it may not be better than the tier 1 or 2 pieces, it is very good and will last you awhile depending on where your guild is raiding

A feature I like is, that it is usable. You can restore mana. Not a lot I know, but it's something. You will find better pieces out there, but I am happy with it for sure.

If you are not already 300 tailoring, that will cost you some cash. Plus the recipe is a rare drop (unless you already have it)

[MammaMu]

Thanks for your replies.

I will definitely get the robe, however I will wait until i ding 60, have my elite mount and try to farm at least some of the essences myself, at closer thought I really dont want to blow my entire fortune on it right now even though I'm tempted.

So, my torn but trustworthy dreamweave vest will have to last me a couple of more levels...;-)

[Loriel]

I would think it depends a bit on whether you're planning to go raiding with your Mage. If you're able to join a raiding guild that has MC on farm, the robe could be replaced by the Arcanist one fairly quickly and easily - making a pretty poor return on that 500g investment. If you have to skill up Tailoring just to get the robe it makes it even less worth it, I think. And you would still need to get the pattern for it, no?

If you're not planning on going raiding then I guess it does make sense to go for the Robe and also possibly the Belt, as you in this case have no easy way to obtain items that are equal or better.

Personally I am still a bit annoyed that I spent a fair amount of gold crafting a Mooncloth Robe for my Priest at lvl 56, only to have it superceded by a Devout Robe at 58, and it would imho be a shame to let the same kind of thing happen to an item as expensive as the Robe of the Archmage. It's the samle old story of BOP instance drops being better than the crafted items, although the epic tailoring pieces are pretty good in that regard, albeit pretty expensive to make.

[Diamondlights]

This pattern dropped the other night so our guild tailor took it but I don't think it would be worth the investment in time/mats/skill-up to just wear one item.

I would think it would be easier to farm Strat for Alanna's Embrace, or even Robe of Everlasting Night from DM is pretty good - certainly for the investment in time and effort.

[MammaMu]

Hmm, more to ponder...well, as it looks now I will be a busybee for at least a couple of months after dinging 60, running the 5-man instances etc, before doing any raiding, so the Robe of the Archmage will probably be worth it. As it is my guild won't get any routine 40-man raids going until the end of the summer at the earliest, so low chance of sneaking in on easy MC runs.

As for the pattern its usually on my AH for a reasonable price.

Mage tier 0 is to my humble eyes just crap, I aim to run the 5-manners a lot to collect good mix'n'match gear instead so RoEN might be an alternative.

Oh well, we'll see how I choose, many thanks for the replies.

[Twoflower]

the robe is better than T1, so get it :) you ll first get a better robe from nefarian ^^

[Morollan]

Got it last week and am loving it. Also stops me having to farm Drakkisath for the Magister robes. :grin:

[FodderCannoned]

farm to 60 off guys that drop the essences, they also drop core of elements now i believe too, which is a good moneymaker