Darksend's Weekly Tip: Emblem of Conquest Item Review

Emblem of Conquest Items to buy:

The first item depends on if you have Hood of the Exodus. If you do than get the T8 Chest Token first. If not, then the T8 Helm Token is your better choice and the chest should be bought second.

Next I would suggest the neck, but only if you do not have Boundless Ambition or the neck from 10 man Kologarn, both of which are better

The belt is an amazing threat piece, but it is still not as good as the crafted belt overall. It is also the cheapest item besides the necks and much cheaper (18x6 for the orbs) than the crafted belt. Good placeholder until then.

The legs are again a threat item, but overall worse than both the 10 and 25 man t8 legs.

For DPS:

The neck is almost exactly equal to the 25 man saph quest reward neck (worse if you are a JCer and used a prismatic).

The gloves are not even going to get a link because they are pretty bad. They are an upgrade from 25t7 but that is where it ends. Both t8 gloves are better, as well as the 25 man Auriaya gloves. Best in slot for gloves are by far the PVP gloves.



As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

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?

• Short answer, NONE! Nothing while leveling will be used in anything remotely resembling your final tanking set. Here is a brief list of some that will get you started in heroics thought (both of the instanced quests can be done in heroic as well):
• Normal UP quest reward
• Normal CoT: Strat quest reward
• Icecrown Elite Chain quest reward

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:

• Darkmoon Card: Greatness (AGI): This is the single best investment you can make. It is the best trinket for both DPS and tanking.
• Durable Nerubhide Cape: Since druids do not need defense, this is an amazing starter item.
• Trollwoven Spaulders: replaced only by 25t7 shoulders.
• Titanium Frostguard Ring or Titanium Earthguard Ring: Either one is worth it when starting off, but one of the two best rings in the game is from a heroic and easily farmed, so refrain from buying both.

Others that make the list but are easily replaced:

• Titanium Earthguard Chain
• Chain Gang Legguards
• Trollwoven Girdle

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:

• Heroic UK x3: The best pre-25 naxx bracers and the best pre-ulduar belt both drop here, farm this place every day. As a bonus, the best non-epic tanking weapon drops here as well.
  
• Heroic Azjol-Nerub: Essence of Gossamer: Second best non-profession tanking trinket in the game (to the above greatness deck).
  
• Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep: Keystone Great-Ring: Second best tanking ring in the game to only 25 Saph.
• Heroic Violet Hold x2 (low priority): Staff of Trickery is the best heroic weapon in the game for DPS, and second best (arguably) for tanking to the above UK staff. Cloak of Gushing Wounds is another excellent heroic item that serves a dual tanking/DPS purpose. The reason this is a lower priority is because the instance generates 2 random bosses, so it is entirely possible to not see this boss after several clears.

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:

• Pendant of the Outcast Hero
• Idol of the Ravenous Beast

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:

• Ring of Invincibility: Replaced only by 10+2 Sarth and 10 man maly rings. Best DPS purchase.
  
• *Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak*: Better than the cape off of 10 man Raz, but worse than all 3 of the other dps capes from 10 and 25 naxx.
  
• *Boots of Captain Ellis*: Dawnwalkers are better for DPS and Vile Depict are better for tanking, do not buy unless you are very unlucky.
  

The Breakdown: t7 vs t8

Now, first I would like to explain why this post is a few days delayed. Two reasons, 1) I did not want to bump down the weekly tip for a few days, 2) I have been waiting for wowhead to add the sets to their PTR site.

At first, I was upset, then I took another look at them. Blizzard has decided to move away from equip bonuses and give us massive amounts of stats. This in turn makes them amazing for bears. The most glaring example (thanks to Felhoof of Thinktank for this, I had made most of your conclusions on my own before reading your article but this is one thing i had not seen before) is the 10t8 and 25t8, seen here . The lone exception to this is haste, which is the one thing about t8 that really upsets me (I wish they could have put those stats in expertise or crit).

Here is the comparison tool for the 4 different sets, done from the focus of 25t7. Note that the jump from 10t7 to 25t7 is 13 ilvls, the same jump as 25t7 to 25t8. Now compare the jumps in stats in this comparison. Double the agi and 10 more stam for the same amount of ilvl gain. The hit is nice, and only one piece having expertise is also nice instead of 0 and 2 like t7, but the pieces that they put them on are my next topic: slot by slot comparisons.

Head - Socket bonus is the same color trading 12 stam for 8 agi, leaving the net increase of 8 stam and 24 agi. Helm is a straight upgrade going from 25t7 to either 10 or 25t8, as trading that much crit for that little ap is defiantly worth it.

Since most people use Hood of the Exodus however, here is that comparison. Exodus's dps socket bonus really hurts its case, and that much crit is hard to ignore, but see the conclusions for my thoughts on expertise, you will see a trend in the next few pieces.

Chest - Do most people match this socket bonus? I don't know about most people but I used an 8 agi 8 hit gem to gain the socket bonus. The change of color from yellow to blue for a tank is very nice. Using a 24 stam, you gain 15 stam for 2 agi and 8 hit on sockets. That puts the next exchange at 10 agi and 32 stam, while gaining 41 hit in exchange for 40 expertise. Again, see my conclusion on losing expertise.

Legs - Again for purposes of socket bonuses lets use an 8 agi 8 hit in both yellows and an 8 agi 12 stam in the red and blue. This results in no change in stats from sockets. This is probably the piece that torments me the most. 3 pieces, 14 expertise rating lost so far.

Here is the comparison on using t7 chest and t8 legs vs t8 chest and t7 legs. Personally I think I am going to go t8 chest t7 legs. When adding in sockets to that comparision, it becomes 8 hit vs 3 stam and 6 agi. Making the net gains 11 less agi no stam change and 41 hit rating gained with my choice.

Shoulders - The first item that truely truely upsets me. Same color but a 6 stam for a 4 crit bonus is bad, Blizzard if you are reading this please reconsider making this 4agi instead of 4crit. Making the net change 17 stam for 17 crit when adding sockets into the comparison. Upgrading from 25t7 to 10t8 is not worth it but the expertise gain is to much to ignore so going from 25t7 to 25t8 is worth it, and makes t8 legs that much more appealing.

Gloves - 50 crit for 43 armor pen in respect to SD is horrible itemization. Accounting for the change in sockets, using an 8 agi 12 stam and an 8 agi 8 hit, the net change is 22 agi and 12 stam. This is the first place I am looking to use a non set item ATM. 50 crit on t7 is just to much to give up.

Conclusion:

Expertise is going to be a problem, we lose 3 major expertise pieces while possibly not even using the one piece of the new set that has expertise, probably going to change necks from the KT 25 neck to the new badge neck, changing rings to the 2 new ones gives a slight expertise refund (unless you were using the badge ring in which case its a 21 expertise upgrade).

I use Belt of the Tortured most times to tank on live, but for those still using the UK one (which is actually what I have been using on PTR because of the extra socket) we gain even more hit for a neutral expertise change.

Until we start seeing more of the off-set items it is hard to predict how stats will be balanced and which will be more valuable hit or expertise.

New tank ring and drop woes

Now, I know this was discovered a while back, but since it just dropped again today it reminded me i had not posted it yet:

/Drool. Hopefully i can convince my main tank to pass that to me, and let him get the expertise one with slightly more defense and dodge. Ideally you will want both in the end as they are both better than gatekeeper (still have yet to see a single one drop on a main run and my alt has seen 6) and Keystone. Hang on to the badge ring for your threat set, but swap in the above expertise ring instead of deflection band/gatekeeper depending on your hit (at least for me hit is a lot harder to come by).

Now, last night i was quite upset when I saw a ring with parry and dodge on it, I was upset until i saw it was only ilvl 219 so it is a 10 man drop, so its not worth getting too upset over. Although it is just parry and dodge, no defense on it. While I know some warriors can get away with it, maybe with the new gear they can use rings without defense but it is going to be interesting to see how much use that ring actually gets. We can only hope they change the parry to expertise.

Overall I am quiet happy with the itemization on rings, capes, necks, and trinkets, but the actual leather gear is not that good. I don't think we realized how over budget recluse was until I saw this. Again though, most if not all of the leather drops have been 226 so until we see some of the higher ilvl dps/tanking leather I probably won't be impressed enough to post images of it.


Now a challenge for those of you who played feral druids when BC launched:

Since Gatekeeper is my new Squid-stick, in the comments post how many runs it took you to get Zierhut's Lost Treads and Terestrian's Stranglestaff. For me it was 11 runs for the boots and 23 for the staff.

Ulduar tank trinkets and swipe buff

PTR showed us 2 new tanking trinkets, both of which have identical stats to Defender's Code. Unfortunately, one is only on the EU ptr as it is a boss the US has not tested yet. The one from US realms is quite impressive:


With luck, both the trinkets will be itemized to be useable by druids (not that the saph 25 trinket is better than the badge one even for dk warrior and pally avoidance, but the fact it is parry is a big slap in the face). If this is the case, JCer's save a prismatic gem from monarch crab. Most likely it will be something with block but if it is an updated version of the badge trinket, or even another stam trinket, both monarch crab and essense of gossomer are useless.

The question remains, will you use this + greatness or this + monarch/essence(for non JCer's) and what are the stats of the EU tanking trinket?

Well, here is the tanking trinket from EU, let me warn you, it is BAD. Our second trinket will almost defiantly still be greatness or monarch crab:


Don't say i did not warn you.

Swipe changes: source

Swipe: The Bear Form and Dire Bear Form version of this ability no longer has a targeting requirement and hits targets behind the druid and to the sides.

Agi/Stam opal:
Added a recipe for Shifting Twilight Opal to the daily jewelcrafting vendor.

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