Is lariat still bis for mages?

[Aloe-nethergarde-keep]

dunno what to upgrade with my spark and crest now and wonder if lariat is still the way to go?

[Keyleigh-malganis]

1. Since necks and Rings are secondary stat sticks, the ilvl on them is not paramount. They don’t give primary stat, so you really only gain a bit of secondary stats for upgrading it. I’d do it last.

2. Lariat has been nerfed insofar that it requires you to have a lot of gemmed sockets on your gear (the more sockets, the better the Lariat proc, with the proc being nerfed compared to old Lariat if you have less than X gems socketed). It’s obviously still the same necklace you had, so secondary stat wise … it’s still a good neck (with your BiS secondary stats!).
   Difference being only the proc, which is an embellishment. So basically you’re asking if there is a better embellishment to wear other than the Lariat.

3. The gemmed socket restriction also means it will be stronger when you start picking up sockets from the Vault instead of items. You could obviously rush getting sockets but generally, once again, Lariat is not worth upgrading first.

Conclusion: If you got something else to upgrade that isn’t a ring, go for that first instead of the Lariat. Other than that, figure out if you want an embellishment other than the Lariat, craft it and replace the Lariat with a normal neck.

[Minnji-eonar]

They buffed everything but the lariat so its not BiS anymore. The new shadowflame one is strong and can be doubled up on, the cronoweave 2 set is supposed to be good for frost too. They are all a lot more even now.