the difference between geared and non-geard players is far worse than the difference coming from the heavy shop-items
just imagine a battle between a level 8 runed full orange geared and a level 13 geared purple geared player... when i saw this i was surprised how much gear matters (i was aware that gear > runes, but this really opened my eyes on HOW much > )
gearing is ruining the fun for many ppl, thats why i am really looking forward to 7.0
what i am NOT looking forward to is that raids will play such an important role... there are many players who cant participate in hard raids due to beeing weak, having only weak guildmates, playing solo, having not enough guildmates, etc.... so these players would be excluded form the option of having the best possible gear? (they are already excluded from raids, but as for now raids gain closely to nothing, just 1 ruby a costum and like.... +1 brutality from relics or something...? but these players can still reach the highest gearlevel if tenacious...)i really hope the difference the raidgear gives is not THIS big
as for usueless gear, i am also sceptical about the usage of gearing beyond a certain point, but it should be said here that those who have max. gear will also have an advantage in 7.0 - i read (heared?) something like there will again be an option to exchange gear 65 to gear 70 (?), so at least it wont become completely worthless
and a serious question, what would you call a "whale" in allods? runes 13? runes 11? runes 7? if you have medium-level items? high? or only if you have (all) very high items?
i think its hard to determine that since the borders are so blurred here... for the player with level 3 runes, the player with 5s is the "whale", but for the level 5 runed, the one with 7s is the whale, etc... its like foodchain, lol