Quote Originally Posted by Reynhart View Post
There's a slight problem with that...tome farming is (for now) mandatory.

Back when HW was released, you couldn't even enter Gordias without Law gear. Same for 3.2, with Midas and Eso gear, and, 3.4 with Creator and Lore gear, although I think crafted gear was released at the same time as Creator. And all of that while expert dungeon gear meant absolutely nothing.

So, here's an alternative idea, make expert dungeons drop the same ilvl as the corresponding uncapped tomestone. This way, you would have a RNG-drop way of gearing or a token farming way.
At the point though, tome gear would still be the grind choice that allows you more variance. It just, assuming equal times to get a "tome week's" worth of gear, means that roughly 6 weeks of farming will be obligatory in week one, in order to get all the dungeon gear before entering the new tier. The grind would be hugely inflated, the value of any other content forms almost entirely deflated.

I could see this if it was some sort of Savage 4-man dungeon that's just slightly easier than the content it preps you for AND it had capped loot or severely tapering drop rates per week, but short of that, I think your suggestion lends itself to the opposite of your intentions.