Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Darksend's Weekly Tip: DING! 80, What heroics to run, what gear to buy

Ok, so you just hit 80 and you need to start gearing up. How should you do it? Simple:

  • I have some good blues from leveling, which ones are worth saving?
  • What can I get before stepping foot in an instance?
  • What heroics should I run first?
  • So I ran a few Heroics, what should I buy with my emblems?
  • I finally moved into 25 man raids, are there any valor items I should get?


What items should I have from questing or leveling instances?


There are several quests that give blue quest rewards, and a lot of people do instances while leveling. Are any of those items worth keeping?
What should I spend my gold on?

There are some amazing items you can get before even setting foot into heroics. Most likely if you just hit 80 you will be short on gold, here is a quick spending list to get you started:
Others that make the list but are easily replaced:

The most painful thing for a tank, out DPSing your group in a pug heroic

It happens, so if you want the most bang for the buck, here are the "must run" heroics and their tanking drops:
Emblem of Heroism Items to buy:

Based on my earlier recommendations, things that might possibly appear higher on this list will already have an item of equal level in that slot and have thus been down ranked (noted with a star).
  • Chestguard of the Lost Vanq: This is the very first thing you should buy with emblems no matter what. The chests available from heroics are very sub-par.
  • Gloves of the Lost Vanq: Best gloves until 25 man raiding (since the nerf to the gloves from the CoT quest) and also gives you the 2pc (more important for cat than tanking though).
  • *Chained Military Gorget*: If you crafted the neck above, get the gloves first, otherwise this would normally be my second item to buy. Best neck until 25 naxx.
  • Valor Medal of the First War: I like having this around to pair with greatness deck for avoidance, but not a very strong trinekt especially if you are a JCer or an Alchemist.
  • *Mirror of Truth*: If you are a JCer or Alchemist, or already have a greatness deck and essence of gossamer, then this trinket is definatly a must buy before valor medal. Combine it with greatness deck for a threat/trash set (until the 25 maly trinket).
  • *Jorach's Crocklisk Skin Belt*: Not better than the belt from heroic UK listed above. Only buy if you have spare emblems or bad luck.
The following items are DPS items that should not take priority over tanking items but are good buys that have no comparable item from a heroic:
Emblem of Valor Items to buy:

Finally, you have moved into 25 man raiding. In this list, stars will denote items that are ranked lower because of other drops you have access to in 25 man raiding not other items on this list.
  • Signet of the Impregnable Fortress: Best threat ring in the game, the def is kind of a turn off but the high stam and multiple threat stats more than make up for it.
  • Legplates of the Lost Vanq: I was going to list this third because you can get them as a drop from 2 different bosses (and my guild gets 4 pairs a run), but the fact is these legs are way to good to be left up to chance (best tanking legs in the game ATM).
  • Mantle of the Lost Vanq: As I said above, this is the only thing that replaces those crafted shoulders, but if you have them buy the legs 1st.
  • *Platinum Mesh Cloak*: For threat, the best choice is the 10-Sarth 1D cape with a 16 hit gem, and for mitigation the best one if the one from 25 naxx off random bosses. This leaves this cape in kind of a bad place.
DPS items:

6 comments:

  1. Wow, great and helpful post. Thanks!

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  2. Just a plea: your link color (screaming red) is insanely hard to read against the dark blue background color. I literally cannot read this post due to the number of links... it hurts my eyes.

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  3. Go with the frostguard ring, even though you will replace it you can still have it as part of a FR set which might allow wearing a better piece of leather. For example when I DPS on Saph I wear just FR belt and this ring to get FR which is better than having to wear 2 pieces of FR leather imho.

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  4. I made a very conscious decision to leave the polar gear off this list. With the changes coming in 3.1 polar gear took a large hit (lower HP modifier but also less crits to proc SD, a SD that will already be lower due to the lack of AP on the polar gear).

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  5. Wouldn't the Staff of Feral Furies also make the list? It's farmed from the Argent Tournament and almost as the 10 Naxx Plague Beast.

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  6. Though the actual date it was published on was the 7th of april, it was actually written over a month before that. As such it does not include anything that was on PTR at the time of publication (which was before 3.1 went live).

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