Help getting raid geared

[Starbuck_Jones]

So last week I joned a raiding guild that raids 3 nights a week that fits my schedule well. It seems im not geared enough or have enough HP's to get a spot. Other than gearing for an off spec and that may be just what I have to do, can anyone who does raid take a peek at my gear and offer me some upgrade options that I could get myself (5 boxing) while I pick some scraps up from pug raids and weeklys? I hit just over 40k-hp buffed on my paladin.

My gearscore sucks according to the website, but other than a few old peices I just dont see how I can gear myself any better, let alone pick up another 5k hp. The druid tank they have has about 52k hp and ive seen it spike over 70k from some proc. Thats rough to compete with.

[thinus]

Neck - The Warlord's Depravity - ToC heroic; Fossilized Ammonite Choker - HoR heroic
Trinket - The Black Heart - ToC normal
Weapon - Rimefang's Claw - PoS heroic; Peacekeeper Blade - ToC heroic
Shield - Splintered Door of the Citadel - HoR normal
Feet - Black Spire Sabatons - FoS heroic; Spiked Deathdealers - crafted (pricy)
Finger - Mark of the Relentless - ToC heroic

All small stamina upgrades. Probably squeeze another 1-2K out. Your defense is also very high, can't you swap a gem or two somewhere?

[Starbuck_Jones]

Yea, ive been swapping def gems out. Thanks for the list. I havent even set foot into ToC yet due to the mounted combat stuff. Looks like Ill have to break down and get some ui mods etc so I can get that place down.

[thinus]

Actually, with Peacekeeper Blade from ToC heroic you can get more hp than with Rimefang's Claw if you add a 30 sta gem.

How many frost badges have you got? You get MASSIVE hp boosts with some of the frost badge gear.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Im at 39 frost badges so far.

[thinus]

At 50 you can look at the cloak and at 60 the belt/shoulders/gloves. I got the belt first as it was the biggest upgrade for me stat wise.

Also, if you can get into a trash rep farming ICC10/25 group then the Ashen Band of Courage is good as well or you can 5-box ICC10 trash for the rep. There is a thread or two about it, Maxion also did a vid I think.

[jimbobobb]

I can't give you a direct link right now because I can't access the armory from work, but look up 'brik' on the stormreaver server. That's my paladin, and he has tanked icc and toc 25 no problems - all of his gear save I think his shield is straight from heroics/badges/crafted junk because I can't get anything to drop for him to save my life.

Also, buy the key from frost badges first - that trinket is amazing for tanks.

[thinus]

I can't give you a direct link right now because I can't access the armory from work, but look up 'brik' on the stormreaver server. That's my paladin, and he has tanked icc and toc 25 no problems - all of his gear save I think his shield is straight from heroics/badges/crafted junk because I can't get anything to drop for him to save my life.

Also, buy the key from frost badges first - that trinket is amazing for tanks.

Brik's armory (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormreaver&cn=Brik)

Enchant your shield!??!?!?!!

You have a few raid items and you are also a BS and JC which gives you more hp.

[Multibocks]

LOL stamina enchant on shield WRU!?

[Greythan]

I'm looking at the frost trinket as the first upgrade once I've saved enough emblems. The STA on that is massive.

That said, I *can* purchase that with frost emblems from heroics right? Or do I have to have some other drop from a 10/25 man in order to get it?

[thinus]

You can purchase it with 60 Emblems of Frost, the kind you get from the daily heroic works fine.

[Starbuck_Jones]

So yesterday I spent all day getting 0-450 mining. I dropped skinning for it so there was -40 crit for +60 sta. I have blacksmithing so the 2 extra gem slots hold +30 sta gems. I regemmed everything pretty much to match the Maintankadins site here.

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/index.php?rb_v=viewtopic&f=21&t=23475

I only have one purple gem to maintain the meta requirement, and one green gem because the socket bonus is +12 like they advise. I went from 33214 Unbuffed hp to 35329 unbuffed by the end of the day. I dont see whats wrong with the STA enchant on the shield over the def one like they recomend seeing how im still 16 points over the def cap so I have a lot of wiggle room there still.

Upgrades im looking at are the shield from HoR normal. The 19 badge neck, and hopefuly find some spiked deathdealers. +2 more gem slots would be secksy. Then start rep grinding for a new ring. After that I guess more crafted items with the new primal saronite items useing frost badges off of my shaman to buy them. But thats a long ways off unless I start really gold grinding and just buy them.

I did ask my guild what my HP goal should be to start running raids and they said 45k unbuffed. I damn near choked on that. I dont see how I can get another 9700unbuffed hp on my own. Let alone say 4700 to get to the 40k mark.

[crowdx]

Is the guild not helping you gear? Any good guild I have been would bring guildies on gear runs and give them gear to help get them geared to run the raids.
Are they letting you raid at all with them? Do they just have a ton of highly geared tanks and do not really care about adding another tank?

[Starbuck_Jones]

They have enough people to do 2 groups of ICC 10 man. Though any where from 0-3 people are non guild members on some of them. 25 man ICC they dont have enough people for and have lists of people they try and invite when they can to fill it. There are about 12-15 full time raiders and supriseingly they dont have a prot pally in the guild so I have a roll to fill if they let me.

I have run a lot of heroics with them and some quick raids. I ran 10 Onyxia, 25 Sartharion, and 10 Maly with them, but they were spur of the moment and they had plenty of room etc. Thats where I got my ony trinket from. Last night they were a few people short for 25m ICC and one of the spots they needed was a tank and they said no. However when they were done for the night on vent, they were talking about running some 10-25 ToC and gearing me. Looking at some more gear, I can get the 222sta 60frost badge trinket next week and if I get the rest of the stuff people have suggested I think I can eek out another 2-3k unbuffed hp.

I did tell them flat out yesterday that I cant get to 40-45k unbuffed hp on my own and will need some real help. Honestly I think they are mostly hesitant on going through the pain of me learning the fights etc. Tankspot vids help, but doesnt count for experience. Once I cap out on about 4 more items I can reasonably get on my own if they dont start including me ill have to shop somewhere else.

[Klesh]

45k unbuffed is pretty stupid. You can get to 41 to 42k just with heroics though. The pally listed in my sig is at 40.9k with way too much defense, am too lazy to change gems though. Note: Am not using any ICC craftables.

[falsfire3401]

My guild does just fine in ICC-10 with tanks that are 37-40k unbuffed. ICC-10 should be entirely doable for your guy as an offtank, they should let you in to offtank and have their "main" offtank go dps for the night. You will get frost emblems faster, rep towards the ring, and maybe a few iLvl 251 drops.

45k unbuffed as a minimum requirement to tank ICC-10 seems a bit (not much, but a bit) on the high side for me...

[jimbobobb]

Brik's armory (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormreaver&cn=Brik)

Enchant your shield!??!?!?!!

You have a few raid items and you are also a BS and JC which gives you more hp.

Thanks for the shield catch - dunno how that happened.

And he has exactly one raid item - said unenchanted shield. Every other item on him is bought with emblems, from the AH, or crafted. I'd say he's pretty much the poster child for what you can do w/out any raids.

[Starbuck_Jones]

Yay. After 3 weeks with the new guild, ive been promoted from floor hugger to raider. I still have some upgrades to get like trinket, boots, ring, neck. I did get a nice upgrade with rimefangs claw over that baby rattle mace I was useing before out of heroic pit of sauron. They ran me through 10ToC and I got a very nice shield upgrade as well. We also ran 10 Ulduar and killed 5 bosses or so, but no tank gear dropped. Anyway after the sword and board upgrades I must have hit some magic gear score or proved I wasnt a doof because this week ive was told im going to ICC!

There was a minor bit of drama when I got promoted in vent. Guild leader said you comming with us next week (this week) to icc. Another guild member asked who wasnt tanking then. GL said, we have 2 groups, were not pugging a tank anymore. So off to tankspot to rewatch all the boss vids again.

[crowdx]

CONGRATS!! very happy for you, makes all your raid gearing worthwhile :)

[Starbuck_Jones]

Saurafang was bugged or something, but the first 3 fights in ICC10 went down without a hitch for my first run in that place. I got quite the upgrades from the run. Nice tank shield dropped off of the Gunship Battle and I must say that was one of the cooler encounters ive seen in a while. I got my rep ring, and it put me over 60 frost badges so I picked up the T10 gloves. Not the biggest upgrade I could have gotten, but were doing 25man now and you can only get an armor token if you have a T10 peice and not many have them as they opted for the trinkets and belt/back. Because that broke my 4 peice t9 set bonus I bought the 245 shoulders as well. So Shield, Ring, Gloves, Shoulders all got upgraded.

Next upgrade prolly will be the crafted boots once I hit honored. And prolly the frost badge belt in another month lol.