Tag Archive for 'gear'

Be Feral with 15 Howling Fjord Quest Rewards

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Yashima
on December 9, 2008
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As I wrote below I respecced Yáshimá to feral yesterday. Now I have been feral before and enjoyed playing the spec a lot. There is just one problem. She is an Enchanter. What do Enchanters do with gear they don’t think they’ll need anymore “because I’ll just level her Moonkin for a while?”

So now I am in need of any kind of item to replace items with Spellpower.

Here’s my selected (Alliance) quest + quest reward for the easiest route to have a full feral equipment again within hours of arriving in Northrend. I’ll choose a single quest reward for each slot, I will also try to choose the easiest quests to achieve this. (Basic WoWHead search I am using for this). Many of these quests involve short chains … because most often a reward is only given after doing 2 or 3 things for a person.

Note: There are no idols available as quest rewards in the Fjord.

There are quite a few quest chains involved. Especially if you “lust” for the blue trinkets you will have to complete 2 complete quest hubs. Personally I will probably do all quests in the Fjord a second time (Yashima has already completed them and now Yáshimá will), maybe I will just switch the order of some of the hubs I’ll do a bit now that I know where I can expect which reward.

Most often you can also try a few other ways to obtain loot: do an instance run or two, contact your favorite crafter, scan the AH or hope for world drops that fit you. This is just a list of stuff that you can get without need for lucky rolls or farming mats which should be fine for all you Alts out there.

If you manage to get into a group for a run on Utgarde Keep, there are two quests you should take with you:

Moonkin: Level 80 Starting Gear

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Yashima
on December 5, 2008
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So here’s my plan for minimum effort to obtain a nice starter set of spellpower items to heal and dps at level 80:

Since I will of course also be running an instance every once in a while each and any of these items can be replaced by what I can obtain through instances. I just hate to depending on winning a roll on an item that doesn’t even drop every time on a boss.

What I am wondering while looking through items: is there no Hit Rating + Spellpower Gear???

The most stressful will probably be to camp the AH for the BoE items and get to Revered with the Kirin’Tor. Currently I am half-way to honored thanks to the Cooking quest. We have already finished most of the other quests that award Kirin’Tor faction. So I’ll have to champion them at 80. I have no idea how hard the Sons of Hodir reputation will be to earn …

Update: I already managed to snag the boots and the off-hand and I am finally making my new Alchemist’s trinket. I decided that in direct comparison for “leveling items” I will keep my S3 Wrists and S3 Chest instead of choosing the items selected above. I’ll see if any upgrades come when they came :)

Deterministic Blue Spellpower Gear for Druids

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Yashima
on December 5, 2008
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Yashima

I call this gear list “deterministic” because all the items are otainable with a (admittedly more or less) measurable amount of effort. When I plan out my gear for a character I usually look at available items in a certain order based on how much effort and most importantly luck is involved. Items that need luck are last on my list. On top of my list are items that I can easily obtain by solo-ing a fixed amount of content.

What kind of gear is qualifies as deterministic?

  • Quest Rewards – you complete the quest and get the reward, this is the easiest and most often fastest way to get a reward.
  • Faction Rewards – you can repeat dailies or run instances until you reach the desired level and then you can go to the quartermaster and buy the reward. In Northrend several factions have dailies that reward large chunks of faction points and easily get you up to the desired level. For other factions you just wear their tabard and go to an instance.
  • Some Currency Based Rewards – you do whatever is required (usually killing bosses in instances or doing repeatable quests) to obtain the currency and buy the reward. Note: PvP rewards are currency based but I am not going to list them here for two reasons: 1) because there is PvP gear for every class and spec nowadays and 2) PvP depends on too many other people that you have no control over … so there is luck in getting good groups involved unless you farm pre-mades.

Rewards that need a little luck or patience:

  • Crafted Rewards – farming most crafting mats is not quite straightforwad, since most drops have a less than 100% drop chance there is always some luck involved. Crafting mats that can be obtained solo-ing or on the AH are absolutely on my list. Once you have the mats you need to find a crafter but for many items this is not impossible to find someone in your guild or among your friends or get referred to a crafter
  • BoE Random World Drops – can usually be bought on the AH for more or less reasonable prices – getting money is deterministic by doing dailies …

What gear does not qualify?

  • BoP Random Drops from instance bosses. 1) you often need luck to find a group for the instance your drop is from, 2) you need to be lucky to have the boss drop the desired item and 3) you need to win the roll on that item. This is the type of gear that either requires a lot of effort and much time or a lot of luck. That is why I don’t really focus on boss drops until I have figured out what kind of equipment I can get from other avenues. I have rarely “farmed” an instance for a drop …

So without much more discussion, here are a few items that should be attainable for most Druids:

Blue Quest Rewards (search)

Faction Based Gear

Crafted by Leatherworkers (search)

Crafter by Jewelcrafters (search)

Crafted by Tailors (search)

Crafted by Blacksmiths

Bought with currency (search)

BoE World Drops (search)

When I get to 80 and have all the Blues I want, I will make an upgraded listed with nice purplies.

Just an Update: Idols … forgotten because they rarely contain spellpower which I used to filter out feral gear ;) The best for leveling balance druids should be available through Venture Coins: Idol of Arcane Terror.

The Clown Factor

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Yashima
on November 18, 2008
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Yashima Level 71
 Yáshimá Level 64

Comparing “leveling outfits” in Burning Crusade and Wrath I find that there is some improvement.

While Yáshimá looked like a colorful clown in Burning Crusade, in Wrath the items aren’t as pretty as shiny purple epics but for a few quest rewards and instance drops they go surprisingly well together with the old Kara shoulders and the S3 chest still going strong ;)

I am glad I am not looking all funny again.

PS: As you can see I also got myself a new hair cut.

How I select new gear

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Yashima
on March 26, 2008
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Teno asked me to find him a new chest piece for his Hunter who is still wearing green which embarrasses every time he meets another Hunter. So by the example of his chest piece I am going to show how I go about finding my upgrades.

First thing I go to WoWHead – currently my favorite item search engine: WoWHead

Then I create a basic search for the item(s) in question. This time we want a Mail Chest, at least blue, usable by Hunters, with a level requirement of 70 and a maximum Item-Level of 130 which includes Zul Aman and Karazahn. I have also added a filter to include only chest pieces that include Agility, Teno’s favorite stat.

Then I go through the short list of results to find out where each piece drops.

For a first quick upgrade anything that can be bought through factions or crafted without Primal nether qualifies.

Epics:

Rares:

First strike out anything from the above list, that will be nearly impossible to obtain within guild events. Next check for more Chest Pieces that may not necessarily have Agi on them. Kara is suspiciously missing from the list so far. So here’s some more, this time “No Agi, with Ranged AP“:

Again strike out everything that does not qualify, in this case special crafter gear. Now look for a few more pieces by checking if I missed anything by relying on Agi or AP as primary stats. Does not look that way. No Hit or Crit Rating gear without either Agi or AP ;)

So now we can go through the choices and find a good upgrade path that includes as little farming or randomness as possible and yet nets us the best results in terms of stats.

My first choice of upgrades would be pieces that can be bought from a faction or crafted without a Primal Nether. If the crafting involves a lot of farming I would first run two to three normal or heroic instances and hope for luck.

Next on my personal list would be to check the stuff to be bought for Honor. S1 does not cost too much and usually provides a nice upgrade that will certainly be better even in PvE than anything green.

Finally there may be some pieces from Raid instances that might be the best possible upgrades or even from Heroics. After getting a first easy upgrade I would keep these pieces in mind and try to get on runs to those places. If there are no such pieces from bosses we can and will down more or less regularly (Nightbane does not qualify as regular, as we have not downed him yet to my knowledge), I would got for the Primal Nether and try to find a crafter or even buy someone from our guild the recipe.

So if you’re a Hunter looking for a new chest piece consider your options and choose from above.

I usually choose several slots I may want to upgrade and “work” on them parallel by hoarding BoJs from Heroic runs for one slot and hoping for drops for another while farming a bit of Honor, Arena Points or materials on the side. I left out S2 and S3 for a reason: farming Arena Points takes a really long time for a chest piece if you are not very good …

Good Luck with upgrading.

Btw the Armory Upgrade function gets similar results much faster ;) Doesn’t work out every time though.

Equipping a fresh 70 Mage

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Yashima
on March 11, 2008
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I just made it to 70 with Thalya and so I guess there may be a couple more Mage related posts instead of the usual Druid fare I am posting.

I have not really looked for a guide to equipping my mage. It is far easier to plan her equipment than it was for Yashima. After all a Mage needs DPS equipment and since I don’t plan on leaving my frost spec and I am pretty sure PvP equipment is not what I want for PvE purposes it becomes even easier.

Of course I started out at 70 with my Tailoring crafter set Shadows Embrace. So there go 3 slots (shoulder, chest and feet):

I’ve already ordered a Battlecast Hood to accompany the 3 piece Ice Mage set. Spellstrike would be better, but having a crafter with a Nether ready and the optical fit just trumps the Spellstrike. So much for the head slot: Battlecast Hood.

I also managed to snitch a nice set of pants from Botanica on Sunday: Devil-Stitched Leggings.

All the rest of my gear is totally outdated. I am looking for gear with Spell-Hit, Spelldamage, Intelligence and Stamina possibly. I think Spellcrit is nice, too but I think as an Ice Mage the other stats are more important (tell me if I am wrong).

I’ll try to minimize the random drop luck I need and so I prefer going with crafted or quest items:

To complete the list, I will now list alternatives for the slots I already managed to fill with luck or tailoring:

So a lot of Questing and a few instances you will want to run anyway should get you ready to tackle Heroics and eventually Karazhan with your Mage. Do not forget to enchant the items you are pretty sure will not see an upgrade in the next week and put in some gems if you have sockets. For Heroics you may not need Hit Rating maxed out but if you want to go to Kara try and get it close to the cap. Everything you need to know about Spell-Hit can be found at WoWWiki.

At 70 most content will require 5 people to advance your equipment in a significant way. This is the game at 70. There are a few solo-able things but if you want to get into PvE group play, you will need to practive PvE group play.

Healing Idols & Emerald Queen

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Yashima
on March 4, 2008
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I am currently in a disappointed mood. I am looking at the various Idols available for Restoration Druids. There are bunch of pretty boring ones available and the one you get for from the Swift Flight Form quest series (see below under “misc).

Currently (pre patch 2.4 and probably after) Lifebloom is the most powerful of a Druid’s Healing abilities. So it makes no sense to me to make getting other idols my priority.

There is one that buffs the tick and one that buffs the endheal. One is obviously a PvE Idol the other PvP. Sad healer that I am, I have run SL so often and never saw the Idol drop.

There’s only one thing that would redeem the other idols: setting up a bunch of macroes to use the correct idol with each spell I cast. Would that even work or would I need perfect timing on my global cooldown instant casts so as to not loose any time while switching around Idols in combat?

Here’s the overview of the available idols at level 70:

Lifebloom Idols:

Rejuvenation Idols:

Healing Touch Idols:

Regrowth Idols:

Other:

Sample Macro that should work without using a global cooldown:

/equip Idol of the Emerald Queen
/cast Lifebloom

What happens if I have one for Rejuvenation as well and call the macro before the global cooldown from the cast before is up?

I just found out that the above macro will only work out of combat. In-combat it will use two global cooldowns and need to be pressed twice. This mirrors the experience I had with Wrath/Starfire Idols I tried to use with macros.

So the idea is in vain and I will stick with my Raven Goddess until I get the Emerald Queen.

Consumables are the Hit

Published
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Yashima
on February 22, 2008
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Druid Hit Rating Gear Part III

This is the third part of my guide to Hit Rating gear for Druids. In the first part I listed all Leather gear with Hit Rating. The second had a list of non-Leather gear Druids might want and is also suitable for other melee classes

This last installment will contain all possible ways to enhance your gear with Hit Rating or to use Consumables to improve your Hit Rating temporarily

Gems
Gems with Hit Rating are either orange or yellow. So you need either red or yellow Gem slots on your gear if you strive to keep the socket bonusses. At this moment there are no Meta-Gems that improve Hit Rating.

Orange

Yellow


Enchants
There are no Armor Kits or Leg Armor enchants that give a bonus to Hit Rating. There is just one single Enchant that grants Hit Rating: Glyph of Ferocity. You need to be Revered with Cenarion Expedition for this Head Enchant.

Consumables
There are no Elixirs or Flasks that grant Hit Rating. There is however buff food that does:

The first is a recipe that can be obtained from the daily cooking quest in Shattrath and the other two can only be obtained during the respective holiday events.

Part I – All Leather Gear
Part II – All Non-Leather Gear for Druids

Patch 2.4: Leather Badge Gear

Published
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Yashima
on February 21, 2008
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A simple search on WoWHead gives you all you would want to know about Leather Gear. A second query retrieves all the gear for other slots. Chest and leg armor go for 100 Badges each. Gloves and belts go for 75 Badges. There are also Rings for which there is no price given yet. Items are supposed to be on par with T6 gear.

Feral/Bear

Rogue/Cat

Balance

Resto

For myself none of these items are really interesting. We do not do a full Kara clear every week. No Zul Aman. I don’t do a lot of instances and if I do they are not always Heroic. If I get 10 Badges a week on average that is a rather high estimate. Still it is nice to have an overview if it turns out I do have a whole bunch of Badges all of a sudden.

Hit Rating For (nearly) Everybody

Published
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Yashima
on February 21, 2008
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Druid Hit Rating Gear Part II
This is the second part of my guide to Hit Rating Gear for Druids. Because it is for Druids I only included weapons that have Feral-AttackPower on them. Everything else can of course be worn by all other melee classes as well.

Feral Weapons
Drops

PvP & Quest Items

Amulets
Drops

Badges & Crafted

Cloaks
Drops

Rings
Drops

Faction Rewards

Trinkets
Drops

Here’s the whole series:
Part I – Hit on Leather
Part II – Hit Rating for (nearly) everybody
Part III – Consumables are the Hit

PS – Expertise Rating Gear for Druids may interest you as well.