Lets talk Gear!

[Sam DeathWalker]

My guys are getting high enough so that gear is starting to become important.

I'v tried gearscore and ratingsbuster but I went back to Pawn. This is how they assign specs default to these 3 classes which are my most important. 1000000 is zero weight, and specs not listed are also zero weight. Does this make sense to you guys (each spec is weighted based upon the usefullness to the class, with stamina the most important for prot pal and hit rating most important for fire mage etc. I like pawn best cause its cusomizable and you can click on the item and see ratings for both what you have and the upgrade. This is obviously pve specs.

Pro Pal:

( Pawn: v1: "Paladin: tank": IsWand=-1000000, IsFist=-1000000, IsStaff=-1000000, Agility=60, ExpertiseRating=59, IsDagger=-1000000, DefenseRating=45, MetaSocketEffect=3600, BlockValue=6, BlockRating=7, IsThrown=-1000000, IsBow=-1000000, Strength=16, ParryRating=30, DodgeRating=55, Stamina=100, IsGun=-1000000, IsCrossbow=-1000000, Armor=8, GemQualityLevel=81 )

Fire Mage:

( Pawn: v1: "Mage: fire": Intellect=13, IsFist=-1000000, Is2HMace=-1000000, IsMace=-1000000, CritRating=43, IsAxe=-1000000, IsThrown=-1000000, HasteRating=53, IsCrossbow=-1000000, MetaSocketEffect=3600, FrostSpellDamage=23, IsGun=-1000000, Is2HAxe=-1000000, FireSpellDamage=46, Is2HSword=-1000000, IsBow=-1000000, IsMail=-1000000, IsPlate=-1000000, IsLeather=-1000000, IsPolearm=-1000000, HitRating=100, Stamina=0.1, SpellPower=46, IsShield=-1000000, ArcaneSpellDamage=23, GemQualityLevel=81 )

Elem Sham:

( Pawn: v1: "Shaman: elemental": IsWand=-1000000, CritRating=40, HasteRating=56, IsCrossbow=-1000000, MetaSocketEffect=3600, IsPolearm=-1000000, IsGun=-1000000, IsThrown=-1000000, IsBow=-1000000, IsSword=-1000000, Intellect=11, HitRating=100, Stamina=0.1, SpellPower=60, IsPlate=-1000000, Is2HSword=-1000000, GemQualityLevel=81 )

[Zub]

i think you're complicating things a bit...

Protection Paladin:
Any plate with lots of stam, and defense till you reach the cap
the other stats (parry/block/dodge/strength) are always bundled with the above two.
you DON'T need any spellpower items,

Fire Mage / Elem Shaman:
Any Cloth / Mail that has spell power. If it has Hit, it's a bonus (until hit cap - check specifics for mages/shamans)
Int / crit / haste are usually bundled with the above stats
.

for casters, staves usually have more stam/pure stats, but you can get more spellpower/haste/crit out of one-hand-+offhand combo.
For shamies, get a one-hand and a shield (which you can enchant).


to begin, since it doesn't really matter if you have +3 haste or -2 spirit, just compare by iLevel and you'll probably be right 80% of the time, without having to spent 10min min-maxing.

[Zub]

i just checked your paladin (main i guess, since at 79 he's 6 levels higher than some others)
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ner%27zhul&cn=Samdeathwkzz

your enchants on Weapon and Legs are useless. you do NOT need spellpower on a paladin tank.
If you found a website that told you to put spellpower on your weapon, it's because that's what was needed back in 2007 and the website wasn't updated
2+ years ago the talents were changed to give you enough spell power from tanking stats.

[Noids]

Have a look at elitist jerks forum and theorycrafting think tank if you want good up to date info Sam, but otherwise as Zub said above.

[Iceorbz]

Prot paladin --- Defense rating > 540 --> then stamina in all sockets.

Fire mage? What the fuck ? /delete /reroll either arcane or frost. Hit Rating - Spell power / Haste

Elemental Shaman -- hit rating -- spellpower / haste

[Mercurio]

Fire mage? What the fuck ? /delete /reroll either arcane or frost.


I LOLed :p

[Starbuck_Jones]

Get to 80 first.
Run Randoms and get T9 with your tank and healer.
Run randoms yourself till your whole group is geared.
Worry about the rest later.

There is nothing wrong with caster gear on your tank as long as you meet the required goals for tanking. High hp and def cap. I run with 2 pieces of caster gear on sbjones except when raiding. 10k mana over 5k means that all my mana regens are double what the were so I dont ever have to stop and drink. w/o the caster gear, im so overgeared that im oom after every other pull or sooner. Things die to fast to get any reasonable mp back from sanctuary and divine plea was not enough and I dont take any damage being block capped to get mana from heals.

[zenga]

There is nothing wrong with caster gear on your tank as long as you meet the required goals for tanking. High hp and def cap. I run with 2 pieces of caster gear on sbjones except when raiding. 10k mana over 5k means that all my mana regens are double what the were so I dont ever have to stop and drink. w/o the caster gear, im so overgeared that im oom after every other pull or sooner. Things die to fast to get any reasonable mp back from sanctuary and divine plea was not enough and I dont take any damage being block capped to get mana from heals.

True that, but only if you outgear the place. However with seal of wisdom & judgement of wisdom, sanct & DP i never run oom on my tank (ilvl264 geared). Stuff dies so quick with my shammies that the aggro loss from seal of wisdom ain't an issue either.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well the Pal hit 80 last night in AV so I spent like 30,000 to deck him out. Only slot weak is the gloves.

Followed the advise here and went for defensive and Hit points. Didnt quite make it defensive but 32K Hit Points.

Armory not update yet but should be soon.

Also living bomb is just to powerfull in pvp to have any other mage cept fire. And drgon's breath is very nice in pve, I hit a single mob with 6 livingbombs and 1dragon's breath and just forget about the mob untill it dies.

[ghonosyph]

fire is the way to go when you get super geared, and in cataclysm its AMAZING

[zenga]

Well the Pal hit 80 last night in AV so I spent like 30,000 to deck him out. Only slot weak is the gloves.


Followed the advise here and went for defensive and Hit points. Didnt quite make it defensive but 32K Hit Points.

I hope you didn't mix up hit with health points right? Since I see 2 expensive pve dps pieces: Wodin's Lucky Necklace (http://www.wowhead.com/item=50452) and Raging Behemoth's Shoulderplates. (http://www.wowhead.com/item=50020)

Those pieces are actually pretty worthless tank pieces since you are not def capped at all (you want 535 def rating for mobs 2 lvls above you, i.e. heroic dungeon bosses, and 540 for ?? bosses ,i.e. lvl 83 raidbosses). If you were to outgear the encounters, then it might be valid to equip some dps pieces.

Maybe you go for a ret off spec, but else this seems like a waste of gold to me.

However it should be enough to gather a bunch of mobs out on the questing field, stay alive and dps them down with your troops.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I went Def and Sta, as advised and also according to Pawn, the reason for Sta is to get more hit points right?

Ya expensive is the word.

With the neck I just went with the overall better item, it had 90sta which was up with the most of them, and agi translates to defensive stuffs also. I mean it not like there is a 120Sta item in the neck for a lot less.

All the items with DEF on them also have STR and STA it seems, thats just how they come. I doubleckecked everything with Pawn also and of the available items for sale in the AH these were the highest (and the highest price) most always.

The chest (which I made myself on my blacksmith) seems to be the prototype DEF item;

Breastplate of the White Knight
Binds when equipped
PlateChest
2473 Armor
+103 Strength
+168 Stamina
http://www.dual-boxing.com/shared/global/tooltip/images/icons/Socket_Red.pngRed Socket
http://www.dual-boxing.com/shared/global/tooltip/images/icons/Socket_Blue.pngBlue Socket
http://www.dual-boxing.com/shared/global/tooltip/images/icons/Socket_Yellow.pngYellow Socket
Durability: 165 / 165
Races: Orc, Undead, Tauren, Troll, Blood Elf
Requires Level 80
Item Level 245
Equip: Increases defense rating by 71
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 55
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 63

And it has STR and STA and ARM, and then a bunch of defensive, dodge and parry.

The 4000 plus gold neck was:

Wodin's Lucky Necklace
Binds when equipped
Neck
+90 Agility
+90 Stamina
http://www.dual-boxing.com/shared/global/tooltip/images/icons/Socket_Yellow.pngYellow Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Improves hit rating by 38
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 69
Equip: Increases your attack power by 105

Let me see what AGI turns into sec. Ok level 80 you need 60AGI to get 1 percent more dodge.


Ya maybe you are right the Neck and Shoulders arn't perfect for prot but they did rate a bit higher, let me log in and check why.



Titanium Earthguard Chain
Binds when equipped
Neck
350 Armor
+49 Strength
+63 Stamina
Red Socket (http://www.wowhead.com/items=3&filter=cr=81;crs=2;crv=0)
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Requires Level 80
Item Level 200Equip: Increases defense rating by 34 (6.91 @ L80 (http://javascript<b></b>:;)).

ok pawn says the 4700 gold neck is 45.1 and the other (free as I can make them) is 37.3


Ya its a very very high price to pay for a very little edge for sure but I have gold in the bank, my Pal is my tank and needs the best gear I can afford, but a resonable person who didnt have a ton of gold to spend would for sure take the earthguard chain. I mean I still have over 100K in the bank doing nothing.


One good thing about wow is that someone can not raid at all and get this fairly high ilevel gear from the AH like I did, the gap between Raiders and AHers is no where near as great as in EQ. My gs is 4382 which is about teir 9.15; a bit better then 10 man ulduar and worst then 25 man ulduar .... whatever that is.

Oh you can only have ONE darkmoon card total right? I didn't want to spend 3000 and find out I couldn't have two, but I dont know.

[zenga]

Honestly I don't know what pawn is. I take it's a tool that rates gear for a certain class / spec? Their are quite a few of those, and while it has it's value, I quite often see the wrong items coming out on top.

A main tank and an off tank can have different gear needs (e.g. it's not too big of a deal if the main tank who stays on the boss misses a spell, whereas the offtank needs to pickup the add straight away and a miss or threat loss could mean a dps or healer gets killed, ... or an offtank who picks up and add could really benefit from a dodge use trinket, whereas a maintank goes for max stamina). Not too mention the huge difference between a dungeon tank, a toc tank and an ICC tank, where stacking dodge is pretty useless in icc cause of the flat debuff.

Those are all things that a tool like that does not take into account.

The thing with the neck is, is that a neck that drops in hc dungeons has more stamina and mitigation on it than the 264 dps neck. Thus making it a worthless tanking piece unless you really outgear the content. If that's the case than more dps will result in a/ a bigger chance of success and b/ easier threat management. But that's just the theory.

I'd really suggest that you check some of the armory links from the many posters here and see how they gear their tanks, that will tell you way more than any of those gear tools can do.

And on a final note: being rich is not an excuse for stupidity or laziness. It makes it way easier to deal with though :D

[Bot]

the reason why you would go for the earthguard chain as opposed to the dps neck is the defense rating. you aren't close to uncrittable almost 60 points away. your bastardizing the useful portion of gs by boiling it down to a score regardless of gear/role compatability. the addon is only useful if the gear that the score is based on is meant for the role. my feral druid can have a gs of 5000 in all resto gear but that doesnt mean anything. until you hit 540 def rating i'd gem for it in all slots.

your boots, pants and cape are really nice but have 0 defense you could replace them with blues from the wyrmrest accord and argent crusade faction vendors to get a little boost... except you have like no faction rep in wrath.

as for darkmoon cards. i dont know but if i were you id chain run toc5 man until the black knight drops:

The Black Heart
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+126 Stamina
Requires Level 80
Item Level 200
Equip: Each time a melee attack strikes you, you have a chance to gain 7056 armor for 10 sec.

i'm not at all familiar with pawn but it seems like you would do better without it. at least on the tank. tank stats are pretty easy. def till 540 > stam> str the other stats associated with tanking come naturally for the most part. there may be an arguement to getting some hit/expertise to knock misses and parrys off the table but in the content that i think you would be doing i dont know that you need to worry about that too much.

speaking of what i think maybe you should tell us what type of content are you looking to get involved with?

hope i could help :)

[Zub]

speaking of what i think maybe you should tell us what type of content are you looking to get involved with?
That's really the main question isn't it?

Sam, what do you want to do with your toons now that one has reached max level?
i mean, as we told you ages ago, there isn't one big boss of doom that you can take on without going into a raid instance, and all of them have already been killed solo by boxers.
Still if that's your goal, then the gear you have will not be sufficient, you'll need to gear up step by step (from the several instance/raid levels) to get there.
The gear you have on your paladin will be great however for farming heroics and lower raid tiers (Naxx/Ulduar) but yeah, get crit-immune first.


If your aim is to mass pvp, then you don't need a 'tank' as such, as taunts/tanking doesn't work on players.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Im going to the tables in IC to tag bost my whole crew, when the mages get to 77 and can hit those level 80 mobs. After that is something else but first step is to get everyone to 80 / 85

[Iceorbz]

fire is the way to go when you get super geared, and in cataclysm its AMAZING

Eh ive played alot of areana, and raided a bit to -- never seen a fire mage =p.

[Iceorbz]

Sam,

- dump your meta gem, get the + defense rating.

- Get rid of the neck, pickup titanium earthguard or the level 80 blue neck (its still better). Stop looking at just "sta", the defense adds avoidance and crit reduction (The most important)

- Look on the auction house for some ilvl 200 (maybe 213) epic shoulders that drop from naxx, if not get saronite shoulders, enchant them with the PVP enchant for 10k honor, unless you have hodir rep up.

- Chest - Replace your enchant with 22 defense

- Shield - Replace titanium spike, its garbage... get defense to shield.

- Your gloves will last you till you can replace the ring, neck, ect ect...

- Purchase the epic ring from ICC

[Zub]

come on guys, the gear he has on his paly is more than enough to tag large packs of mobs in Icecrown while he levels his other toons.

[zenga]

Eh ive played alot of areana, and raided a bit to -- never seen a fire mage =p.

Well fire mages in 264/277 gear will surprise you i guess :)

[tripleboxed]

I better gear up :D

[Zub]

then again, for the 90% of us under iLevel 260, it seems frost or arcane is better :p

my mage is currently around 4300 gearscore / iLevel 220ish, and was frost since the start.
I respecced him arcane last night, to try it out. he now dishes 800dps more than yesterday, it's insane, and sooooo simple to macro.

[zenga]

it's insane, and sooooo simple to macro.
rumor has it even paris hilton can play a mage

[Zub]

she sold all her bags did she?

[zenga]

what's a bag?

[Zub]

what's a bag?
well, it's a bag!

Portable Hole

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ok I moved to 3 gems. plus 20 defence in yellow and plus 10 defence and dodge in red and plus 10 defence and 15 sta in blue. Thats just the best that can be done to max defense with gems.

I have the pvp shoulder enchant and added a few defense enchants when possible.

On the shield I need to see how the spike works, I have used it a lot to get agro from pulling lots of mobs for aoe, not sure how this will play out at the IC tables.

Im at 514 right now getting closer to 540. Ill think about next things. Resilence I found out will add to your crit aviod percent which will let you get immune at a lower defensive level, not sure if I will go that way though. Maybe though it dosnt have the diminishing returns that I am getting with defense right now.

I really hate to lose the 10percent stun thing in the meta slot for 20 defense but .... I don't know.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ner%27zhul&cn=Samdeathwkzz

[tripleboxed]

im trying to put together a list of gear for my team when they 80 so i can focus on getting im just not sure what to get exactly im mostly interested in pvp gear since this is my pvp team my priest is disc and my mages are arcane if any can help me with a list here it would be appreciated knowing that im not good at this stuff thanks in advance.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Resilence is best for pvp by far, but very poor for pve. Ya and even though my mages are level 76ish I am buy level 80 stuffs with my honor points, got the shoulder enchants and the movement trinket (62000 hornor or so lol.

[shadewalker]

Resilence I found out will add to your crit aviod percent which will let you get immune at a lower defensive level, not sure if I will go that way though. Maybe though it dosnt have the diminishing returns that I am getting with defense right now.



Just a heads up for you from the 4.0.1 patch notes, don't get too used to using resilience for tanking.

Items

Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.
Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Thanks good heads up there.

[Iceorbz]

Just remember sam you get threat / damage / mana from dodging, blocking, parry. That shield spike is such minimal damage no one will ever really notice it over a consecration. Character is looking better! @ 535 you will be crit immune to normal heroics.

Those spikes are only good for boosting low levels, imo. Or in really high threat block sets (people used to use them on adds for Anub).

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ok Ill replace the shield spike and see whats up Im so close now at 528 ...

Might have to replace the neck .... 5000 gold down the drain lol ....



Keep in mind I have not raided a single mob.


Ok here is another question what gear, if any, can help reduce the effects of fear or howl of terror etc. In AV I dont get my shaman in the same group with my mages so my totems are usless, for the mages. I know the pvp trinkets help but anything else of use gear wise?

[Iceorbz]

Nah man -- pvp is a whole different beast for gemming and stuff. I wouldn't worry about it at this time to close to cataclysm. Just keep focusing on getting your toons up like you are. There is nothing that will significantly assist you in pvp for fears and howls.

You can keep the neck, just replace it with the 23 conquest badge one. Replace the shoulders after that -- and then the gloves with the t9. You will be good 2 go then.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya it is to close to cata to really min/max level 80 gear.

[zenga]

Ok here is another question what gear, if any, can help reduce the effects of fear or howl of terror etc. In AV I dont get my shaman in the same group with my mages so my totems are usless, for the mages. I know the pvp trinkets help but anything else of use gear wise?

You can spec into unyielding faith (http://www.wowhead.com/spell=25836), which is a tier 2 talent in the holy tree.

And there are a couple of metagems like this one (http://www.wowhead.com/item=41379)or this one (http://www.wowhead.com/item=41335) (etc ...)

[David]

From what I`ve seen with mages above 6k GS is that they are fire most of the time.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya I am speced into that on my Pal:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZEGxAMuMRsIucdx:oMNczV (http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhead.com/talent#sx0bZvGxAMuMMsIufdx:oMNczVhttp://www.wowhe)

Its mostly for mages though, dont see a similar of them.

Ok good on the meta gems didnt know about them, will try and aquire 10percent is 10percent.