Non-Emblem Gear T9 and above

[crowdx]

Hi all,
so I am pretty close to being fully decked out on most of my team with T9 gear and I am now wondering where everyone else is getting the extra gear, e.g. trinkets, weapons etc. This seems to be my main weakness right now on my warlocks, they still have a crappy main hand spell weapon and their second trinket is also just a filler.
Do I have to run some raids? Even with my current gear, my gear score has not hit 5k and so most pugs would not been keen on invites to raids.
How are you guys filling those last gear slots?
Thanks as always for all your help

[olibri1]

That's up to you. The best gear is from icc25. ICC10 also happens to drop 264s from trash. It'll take you quite a while to get enough Emblems of Frost without raiding.

Personally, I occasionally raid with my guys to pick up good gear. 232s from heroics just won't cut it for me. In the past I've run 2 or 3 guys in a raid, but the ICC fights are difficult enough that I don't do that yet. It's pretty common for me to bring 3 dps to an Ony25.

[crowdx]

I presume you raid with friends or guildies? I am seeing myself running into the gear score issue with PuGs :(

[olibri1]

No, lots of PUGs. My main runs with my guild, but my alts all pug it. Here are some tips on this topic:

1. Don't focus your badges just on set items. The set bonuses aren't that good. There are a few Triumph 245s that you can get (rings, trinkets, hat, etc.)
2. Ppl overlook your gearscore if you are a healer.
3. Ppl overlook your gearscore somewhat if you are ranged dps for Ony.
4. Ony25 drops a 245 hat, but each of your toons can get her head for a 245 item (mainly physical dps neck and spellpower ring (with spirit)). The head from Ony10 also yields 245s.
5. Ony25 drops some great weapons and a decent spellpower offhand.
6. Your weapons need some upgrades. You can easily get these from the new instances. Remember that even the non-heroic version drops 219s which are still upgrades for you (and you can run them as much as you want).
7. Ppl fall over themselves for a tank. Once your tank's GS gets a little higher, you can bring one of your alts (ranged dps is best) to a raid with him (say its your friend). Only do this if you are confident with the fights though, otherwise you'll wipe the raid trying to learn 2 spots at once.
8. Gearscore is weighted towards bigger items, so given the choice between upgrading a chest or a back, choose the chest. The faster your gear becomes perceptibly acceptable, the faster you'll get upgrades.

[daviddoran]

If they are picky about gearscore, just wait til later in the week, or on mondays, and they tend to be less demanding and just need to fill spots.

There are rings and trinkets from triumph badges, that are decent, you could just go for all of those, even if they arent ideal for your classes.

Also, if you cant/dont want to do the new ICC heroics by yourself, pug em one or two toons a time. There's excellent gear in there, and the quests get you 6 frost badges. I'd also recommend doing the ICC "rep farming" runs, because even at Friendly with Ashen Verdict, you get an awesome ring, that only gets better as you get more rep with Ashen Verdict.

There's always the option to farm gold and buy the battered hilt, and get quel delars all around. Not cheap, but its something you can do to get ICC raid level weapons without raiding.

But you are at a similar wall that I am at. once you get full T9, and a bunch of the other gear, there's nothing else to go for. Maybe buy the orbs and sell them to buy Hilts? I know one guildie of mine is saving his frosts from his daily dungeons for primordial saronite, and sells em each for 2k.

I have started to pug raids, and found that once you get a good run or 2 in, and get lucky with drops and /rolls, you have an easier time getting into more. I had mostly PvP gear on my shamans when I started to pug PvE, and didn't get too many complaints, and now only have 2 PvP pieces left on my main shaman.

[crowdx]

I have done all the new Ice Crown dungeons, FoS, PoS and still working on HoR on normal mode but not on Heroic. I am lacking the dps on the first boss in FoS to brute force him at present, working on it lol
I also want to get ToC done but have not worked enough on it to have success.
It just seems counter productive for a multiboxer to do PuGs , I am 5 boxing because I do not want to deal with idiots in PuGs and the last guild I was in got annoyed because I did not want to run my game time for their raiding schedule.
:(

[kadaan]

Even without gearing up from raids, ICC 5-man heroics, or even random heroics, you can get a pretty awesome set:

Head: 245 Triumph off-set (or 251 Frost T10)
Neck: 226 Conquest
Shoulders: 245 Triumph off-set (or 251 Frost T10)
Back: 213 Valor (or 264 Frost)
Chest: 245 Crafted (or 251 Frost T10, or 264 Frost off-set)
Bracers: 245 Crafted
Hands: 232 Triumph T9 (or 251 Frost T10, or 264 Frost off-set)
Belt: 226 Crafted (or 264 frost)
Legs: 232 Triumph T9 (or 251 Frost T10)
Feet: 226 Crafted
Finger 1: 251 Kirin Tor (10-13k, depending on Kirin Tor rep level)
Finger 2: 245 Triumph
Finger 3: 213 Valor
Trinket 1: 264 Frost
Trinket 2: 245 Triumph
Trinket 3: 200 Heroism
Off-Hand: 200 Heroism
Ranged: 245 Triumph

Weapon is the only slot that sucks. The only 2 "BoE" weapons are the ilvl 200 Titansteel crafted or the 251 Battered Hilt weapon. Heroic ToC drops 219 weapons for all archetypes, and the ICC 5-mans drop 219 and 232 weapons.

[crowdx]

I pretty much have most of the gear listed above but my gear score is only in the mid 4k, highest I think is at 4558 I think being my healer.
I do have a decent main hand weapon on my tank but my dps all have titansteel blade (spell one) for my casters and Nesingway 4000 for my hunter.
With the warlock trinket, is Sundial of the Exile worth getting instead of the trinket which is 128 intellect and use for 500 spellpower? I would need to convert some badges to get emblems of heroism and so have not tried the sundial trinket. Having said that, using the non triumph badges I would think will drop my gearscore even lower :(

[kadaan]

Sadly the sundial is better than the 245 trinket for caster dps, but will lower your gearscore. Yet another reason why gearscore is retarded. Player skill and fight knowledge easily make up for 1-2 tiers worth of gear. I pugged a ToC25 on my mage a while back and was told that my gearscore was way too low, but they needed ranged so I got in anyway. I had the 232 shoulders, 226 t8 hat/chest + 219 gloves/legs (so I at least had 4pct8), and everything else was 200-219. I ended up top 5 dps on every fight (and #2 on Twins!)

[crowdx]

I know, Gear score is really messing up this game. I can put together a set of gear that is 5k, but without correct enchants, gems and rotations I would still suck.
I think the big hit I am getting in Gearscore is lack of a high end main hand weapon.