I've been running a little experiment with an alt account. This character didn't even have a sparrow to begin with. I've progressed all the way to 1264 (in 3 weeks) and have run the raid multiple times with basically no MW gear and no mods other than back up mag. I feel just as strong as my main account. So MW 'ing is really not necessary. And yes having more mods can make it easier but also not necessary. the armor, really you just need some good 60+ drops. I'm wearing IB - helm, Raid gauntlets, New Monarchy - chest piece, Dead Orbit - legs. (raid cloak if your wondering) I can hit 70 mobility, 70 resilience and 60 intellect, the others are around 30-50 - no mods, no mw. So sunsetting armor not a big deal. Once you've attained the item it can be transmoged (we'll see) into an ornament, so really its about base stats. The biggest area of need for this character was some good weapons and a great DPS'ing heavy. Fixed by buying Sleeper and then attaining Xeno - which was easy to rerun the quest to get. (saving up for Anarchy) So inconclusion WEAPONS make this game, without good ones the struggle is real. And so long as they replace the ones they sunset with equal or better I'm ok with it. But the lack of variety is clear. P.S. the only mods I really miss are power friends and boss spec. Cheers Wook