Eyonix
got leashed in by his co-workers with a clue and made an additional post in a new thread.
Eyonix wrote:There has been quite a bit of discussion on the boards lately concerning how current end-game gear will be replaced upon leveling in the Burning Crusade and we thought that many of you would appreciate some clarification. The basic idea is that players who have recently obtained level 60 will gain access to immediate upgrades from expansion quests and creatures. Our exact estimates as to when tier 3 gear will become outdated have shifted back and forth somewhat as we continue to tune the expansion, however not dramatically so. While we do anticipate players wearing full tier 3 gear to find some upgrades/sidegrades from new endgame dungeons, the big draw will be in Karazahn and higher.
Please keep in mind that this information is simply meant to provide everyone with some insight into this process, and much like any aspect of game play that's still in development, it's subject to change.
So that implies that Karazahn (10-man instance) might have some sidegrades for Tier 3.
I'm assuming the end-boss or so in Karazahn has these sidegrades; since Ragnaros, Nefarian, C'Thun and Kelthuzad all drop items that are a notch about their own instance average.
That would place all other epic-quality items in Karazahn at around BWL level.
Before you get worried - a lot of BWL items are "kinda nice" but nothing eathshattering aside from maybe the Scarab Trinket, Drake Fang Talisman or something unique like the NAC for Shams.
Remember, BWL is a 40-man L60 instance, Karazahn's a 10-man L70 instance.
BWL is slated to be clearable in 6 hours, Karazahn's slated to be clearable in 22 hours (it has instance lockdown as well, which is quite a daring move and snuff out pugging a 10-man instance).
Personally, based on the way iLevels and item formulae work, I expect L70 blues dropped from 5-man wings and in the world to be roughly equivalent or just slightly superior to the blues you get from ZG currently.
That's a 20-man L60 raid effort compared to doing a non-lockdown 5-man dungeon run.