This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
Guide to "gearing up" in a month or less
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
Polatrite
First things first:
"geared up" in this guide means an average ilvl of 232 or better - essentially the best heroic gear. This gear level will get you into ICC 10/25 on most servers and will allow you to perform fine with the current buff.
Second things second:
this guide is for experienced players and rerolls. A new player is better off going to their
class specific boards
and getting advice from stickies or players there. Furthermore, a new player shouldn't rush the gearing process - you need to take your time and develop your skills during the process of gearing, otherwise you won't be competitive (PVE or PVP) when you do become geared.
Warning
: This is not a substitute for class-specific information! Do not spend your Frost and Triumph emblems until you reach your class boards!
I recently got my second character to 80. I made a goal of gearing him up as quickly as possible so that I could get into raids immediately. My first character geared up very quickly by having a group of friends to spam heroics at a ridiculous rate with, however I didn't have that luxury this time (they're out till Cata), so this was mostly a solo effort.
Contents:
0) Before 80
1) Dungeons
2) PVP
3) Auction House Equipment, Gems and Enchants
4) Raids
5) Frost Emblems
6) Off-spec Gear
7) closing Statements
And without further hesitation...
0) Before 80
Before reaching 80, there are a few things you can do to give yourself a jump start. First, you could finish leveling from 78-80 via primarily dungeons. If you enter heroics with a nice set of ilvl 154+ gear, you're going to be much better off. In addition, while in main cities,
begin looking at cheap blues on the auction house
. If you can pick up several pieces of ilvl 187-200 gear for only a couple hundred gold, it's worth the investment.
Second, you're able to starting farming for reputation with various Northrend factions prior to level 80 (thanks cloudp). All you need to do is pick up the appropriate
tabard
and wear it while doing your dungeons. Reputation allows you to purchase special rewards specific to your class - ilvl 200 blues and epics. Upon reaching 80, you can immediately purchase these items and be even further ahead in dungeons. This is
especially important for tanks
with the Wyrmrest Accord faction.
1) Dungeons
Here is the most important advice in this entire guide:
do not select random heroics
. At least not immediately. You may think the extra 2 emblems you get per instance are worth you're time, but they are not. You should do random heroics only for your frost emblems, and then AFTER you complete all your priority heroics and dungeons.
Your priorities are: Normal TOC, FOS, POS, and heroic TOC. Later on, you will do heroic FOS and POS as well. Queue for these dungeons individually (you need to complete the quest in FOS to unlock POS, and the quest in POS to unlock HOR) and run through them, acquiring excellent loot as you go. Normal TOC is of debatable importance (check the
drops
).
"Why shouldn't I do random heroics? I could get my T9 faster!" For your random heroics, the only additional bonus you get is a pitiful amount of gold and 2 emblems. 2 emblems is equal to 4% of a piece of emblem gear. Emblem gear is ilvl 232. The dungeons I have outlined above drop ilvl 219-232 gear like candy. You would have to do 25 random heroics in order to get one piece of additional gear. Otherwise you could simply do heroic FOS 5 times and get every useful item in there (except that damn Scorpion). The time tradeoff simply isn't worth it - get your priority dungeons out of the way FIRST, then do additional dungeons for emblems if you have time.
2) PVP
In this world of gearscore judgement, PVP gear is a valuable opportunity for a PVE player to gear up. It's easy to get PVP gear without actually doing TOO much PVP. Completing your Wintergrasp weeklies every week will net you plenty of honor, plus enough Stone Keeper Shards to purchase additional honor. Every dungeon you complete when you own Wintergrasp is also additional Shards to convert into honor. And lastly your Wintergrasp marks can be used to purchase some relatively nice trinkets (some budget wasted on resilience).
A single PVP daily (one random BG) is also a great source of honor. If you win the BG on the first try, you'll earn roughly 5-9k honor depending on which one. If you lose the first one, but win the second, you'll come in with 7-13k honor. PVP equipment ranges from 23k~ honor to 68k~.
Which gear should you buy? Definitely don't buy primary-set gear, that is: gloves/hands/helm/chest/legs. Those are your tier pieces to get your set bonuses, and you want those set bonuses if possible. Instead, get offset pieces like bracers, rings(!), amulet, and possibly a battlemasters trinket (especially for tanks). The Wrathful PVP ring is a must-have. That along with your Ashen Verdict ring will net you two easy to get and extremely powerful rings.
3) Auction House Equipment, Gems and Enchants
If you have the cash, I highly recommend investing in one or two pieces of high dollar gear from the auction house. If you can find a great epic ilvl 245+ item for 1.5-2k or so, particularly if it has a lot of sockets, I recommend purchasing it.
Sockets are one of the most valuable parts of gear for an undergeared player
, because sockets allow you to switch gems based on what your needs are as you rapidly replace gear. If you're not defense capped, gem defense. If you're not hit capped, gem hit. If you need more haste, gem that. As you cap stats and reach plateaus, you can switch around your gems.
Speaking of gems, stick with blue gems in all your equipment below ilvl 232. Once you start getting ilvl 232 gear, you may consider epic gems if you can afford it. It's especially good to put epic gems in 2 pieces of your T9 set bonus gear - you'll probably be keeping at least 2pc for a long time. Enchants are in a similar boat - don't purchase the most expensive enchants for your gear (save for perhaps weapon enchants on physical DPS classes). Save your cash until your gear starts hitting the ilvl 232 mark, then enchant better.
4) Raids
Make sure you do your weekly raid as soon as possible. Don't wait until you're geared up, just get in there and raid. As long as someone will let you in and your gear isn't utterly pitiful, you should be able to be carried by the group (in the sense that they will easily make up for ANY gear deficiency you have, but you still need to do your job in the raid properly). The exception, of course, is tanks and tank healers. If you're one of those roles and can't do the job then the raid will simply get angry and fall apart, wasting valuable time. Beyond that, based on your server and the typical weekly happenings, you may be able to get into some slightly older raids. TOC 10/25 is great, Onyxia 10/25 is also excellent. I wouldn't waste time with Ulduar or Naxx though - the difficulty of the raid is reasonably high for a PuG and the loot isn't better (or equivilant) to most of the heroic gear you're going to be getting. You'd be better off doing randoms.
Do VOA 10 and 25 every week. Once you're geared up, you can drop VOA 10, but continue doing VOA 25. It's an excellent source of loot, and the additional frost emblems are critical.
5) Frost Emblems
It's a good idea to refer to your class forums in order to maximize your use of frost emblems. Usually, however, I advise your first purchase to be either 25/30 frost ranged/relic/idol/libram slot gear. This gear usually provides some kind of 45 second ICD proc or other function that greatly boosts the power of something you're doing regularly. For example, the resto druid frost idol causes Rejuvenate to randomly increase spell power by 250~. Having this additional 250 spell power at the beginning of a tough boss fight (like Falric, Tyrannus) can be the difference between OOM and clear, or wiping due to lack of healing power. For other classes, the mechanics are very much the same.
The other option is to try and shoot for your
2pc T10 bonus
. For some classes this is extremely powerful (rogues) but other classes it's less important. Again, refer to your class forums for the best advice.
6) Off-spec Gear
Don't be afraid to roll on your off-spec gear,
provided the group is OK with it
. Usually
if everyone selects greed/disenchant
on a piece of gear, and my off-spec could use it, I'll roll on it. If someone complains, change your behavior (or risk getting kicked). This late in the expansion and content however, most people are fully geared and usually running their own dailies or whatever else. The sacrifice of 10g vendor value is hardly a concern.
That said, don't roll on items when somebody is rolling on it for main-spec. If the ultimate tank trinket drops and the tank is squishy but doing a good job on aggro, let the tank have it.
7) Closing Statements
There is one last piece of amazing gear you can get for yourself: the Ashen Verdict ring. Look for ICC rep runs to earn Ashen Verdict reputation. Once you become friendly with the reputation, you can complete
this quest
and select a nice, beefy ring. After you've geared up and begin running ICC, you can further upgrade it.
I would like to thank my mom, dad, counseller, chiropractor, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards ...
In all seriousness, this guide isn't anything special, however it will get you geared up - likely in less than a month if you can run at least 3-4 dungeons a day. If you have any comments, suggestions, or criticism please let me know.
Post by
161859
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Nazeka
going from ilvl 170 green to ilvl 264 pvp is actually a *really* good move.
Post by
93865
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Polatrite
You can do heroics before lvl 80? I didn't know that. But, you should also add that there are some great dungeon quest rewards that you should also get.
Fixed that to say dungeons.
Again, I disagree. You act as if you only get 2 emblems if you run 25 heroics. If you run 25 heroics, you get 50 additional emblems. That is a lot, and an extra piece of gear. Better to work on that vs RNG drops for the few heroics that you can only run once a day. In conclusion, random heroics will gear you up faster. Plus, if you are DPS, randoms are a LOT faster to get in to relative to specific heroics.
The problem is that doing 25 heroics and getting Azjol 6 of those 25 times presents you absolutely no opportunities to gear up all the offset pieces. The five pieces of tier gear you get from emblems still doesn't account for the other 11-13 pieces of gear you need to get up to ilvl 232. By running specific dungeons with quality gear, you are statistically and mathematically more likely to gear up faster. There are fringe cases where this is not true (bad luck, ninja rolls, 3 druids in an instance, etc.) but the majority of times this is absolutely correct. If you do 25 heroics and get 50 emblems, that's fantastic. But if 18-20 of those heroics produce incredibly subpar gear then you literally have 18-20 wasted opportunities to get quality gear.
Do specific dungeons first, then do randoms if you have time.
Horrible advice. I would never tell people to try and fudge gear so that you have better GS.
There are way too many other things wrong with this "guide", that I don't even want to get further into. I admire what you are trying to do, but you should just leave it up to each of the individual class forums who already have stickies on how to gear.
Not every class has a valid or up-to-date thread on how to acquire gear in a quick manner. Things have changed significantly from when I geared up my previous character (January) to when I geared up my current character (over the last 17 days - avg ilvl 232 last night)
No, it absolutely is not horrible advice. Compare
Ghostly Wristwraps
with
Wrathful Gladiator's Armwraps of Salvation
. The PVE item is a BoP zone drop in ICC heroics. It's also the best leather caster bracer above ilvl 200 outside of obsolete raids. The PVP version is easily accessable for only 43,400 honor. The stat benefit of the PVE version is 5 int and 46 crit rating. The PVP version has 52 stamina, 19 spirit and 28 spell power. The difference is practically negligible from an item budget standpoint and one is extraordinarily more accessable than the other.
Should the player instead attempt to get into ICC with ilvl 200 blue bracers? I don't think so.
Use PVP gear because it is available, attainable, and viable.
This is totally selfish and wrong-headed.
Why should people carry you? Why play the game to be carried? What makes you think your damn time is so precious, more than anyone else's - like the people being slowed down by your bad DPS and not contributing?
Groups fall apart all the time due to bad DPS. You really think that if a wipe occurs it's because tanks and tank healers aren't good enough? DPS is at least as significant as the other two roles, the only difference being - as you noted - it is usually cumulative performance that matters, but that's only true because there's numerically more DPS and thus a few bads can be carried. Still, why lay that on the tank, healers, and competent DPS? Why should they carry you?
All raid weeklies are low level content and doable in low level gear. You don't need 232 gear to "not be carried".
Bluntly, people like you are ruining this game. You play for loot and have this ridiculous attitude of entitlement and think tanks and healers are there to carry you through content.
I highlighted the line above which invalidates your entire post. All raid weeklies are low level content and doable in low level gear, therefore nobody is actually carrying you. By "carrying" I mean "making up for the difference in gear". People outgear the weekly raids by 2 tiers and over 50 ilvl PER ITEM in some cases. However you STILL see gearscore trolling with raid leaders requiring a gearscore requirement 400 points above the gear the raid even drops.
My recommendation here isn't to get inside the raid and jack off, but rather to get inside the raid and potentially get USEFUL and USABLE loot since you are, indeed, undergeared. Quit blowing it out of proportion as if I'm suggesting someone goes in with TBC greens and spams Amplify Magic on themself for the entire period inside the raid.
Post by
Polatrite
Updated the original post based on feedback, clarified "being carried" so Aeslu's panties can unbunch, added a bit about the Ashen Verdict ring, and fixed a couple typos.
Post by
161859
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
anywherenotes
You didn't cover which pieces should be bought with triumph emblems, at least not that I see from a quick skim.
I find it that 2-piece bonus of t9 is usually not good. And chances are that you don't really want to get 4-piece t9 bonus, as you maybe getting t10 piece by that time.
I highly recommend getting higher-iLevel non-tier pieces for triumph emblems. Having a higher GS will get you into more pugs than t9 bonuses.
The pvp bracers are certainly a great piece to get. I found pvp cloak to be awesome as well - I think they come in +hit and +crit varieties, and so it makes it helps to reach the hit-cap. (if I remember that right).
Post by
93865
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Polatrite
I'm presenting a nonsensical argument that doesn't even appear to have read your text, rather less quote it in any meaningful context, correlate it to my own opinion, and produce a tangible debate topic.
Come again?
Post by
darkdog
The problem is people thinking like the op gearing up to pad there GS and ignoring stats.
A quick example had a guild member with a 5400 GS dk that had both hit badge trinkets and a couple peices of wintergrasp pvp gear mostly ungemmed and unenchanted.
Now he got into a icc10 run with a whole bunch of other people with the same mindset they got to the boat event before wiping and giving it up.
He happened to have used a combat logging site. He linked the site he was at 3k dps with the 30% buff and the top dps was at 6k dps
So i asked him what his rotation was and he said what rotation....
People are getting to 80 too fast without learning there class and then getting entry raid gear by doing lolaoe heroics and skipping having to learn there class at all.
I like the way the game has helped casuals being able to get raid entry gear and spend more time raiding instead of tbc where casuals were not able to keep up with gearing and left behind but they need to do something to help people learn there class.
Post by
93865
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
obiwaynekenobi
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the way you're supposed to run dungeons like so:
* Regular Northrend dungeons (<80)
* Regular level 80 dungeons (e.g. Utgarde Keep, Oculus, Culling, Halls of Lightning)
* Heroic dungeons
* Regular ToC
* Heroic ToC
* Regular Forge/Pit/Halls
* Heroic Forge/Pit/Halls
I see a LOT of people who basically say to bypass doing normal heroics to make sure all your gear is at blue/purple iLevel 200 and skip straight to regular ToC/FoS/PoS/HoR, in effect just pushing the fact that earlier heroics are just there for Emblems, and nothing else (as everyone ignores the gear upgrades, speaking as a fresh 80 with quest blues/greens and maybe some crafted/instance blues, that could come from regular heroics)
Post by
cloudp
Ok, my problems with this guide.
First, I wholeheartedly disagree with the
"Here is the most important advice in this entire guide: do not select random heroics."
No, this isn't the way. Simply because those two extra Emblems are contributing to what may possibly be your final set of gear, while what you get in dungeons, once ready to raid Icecrown, will vanish into thin air. Why not thinking in long-term character development? Time "wasted" now is time saved much later on.
That "Roll first, ask questions later" is such a selfish behaviour. If loot wasn't decided by the leader before, yes, you're actually entitled to do so and stop rolls when prompted -after-. But really, why put such a thing in a guide?
You ignored reputation rewards. I believe you mention Ashen Verdict somewhere there, but reputation gear is worth something - especially for classes looking to cap specific stats PvP supporting gear won't get (Defense). If you suggest boe blues, why not reputation gear?
There's also the Dalaran ring, a super-expensive one, but nevertheless worth mentioning in a pre-raid sense for gold-loaded characters.
Post by
dumac
Hmm however you seem to forget not all weekly are low level content per say, you forgotten the one true weekly:)
Lord Marrowgar Must Die!
He may be one of the easiest in there and with buffs, but he is still current content boss:)
Also this can be difficult to do with half wits due the mechanism of fight in phase 3, However if you dps is high enough you can burn him down really low(This on the other hand is low level content fight).
Malygos Must Die!
Also to play the devil advocate, tanks and healers does usually get more to prove off due to be frank if one sucks bad the grp will go bad faster. A dps can slack easier than a tank who is not good geared can if his healer is not good, a tank cannot be well if he is not healed unless he is so good geared he makes up for it.
A dps on the other hand can usually slack on this content more.
Easiest weekly is without a doubt this one, even a level 80 in green can do this:
Flame Leviathan Must Die!
As is see it, any person who got the stamina to do it then content was out and pull his weight is more than welcome in my weekly groups. Aslong the person does make a dent on performance I will take him, only exception is the first link i showed mostly due if that is weekly i wanna get further in that said instance for some gear and fun to kill more.
Post by
93865
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
d3xx
PvP gear is rarely viable. You picked one of the few examples where it works.
I disagree, the i265 cloaks, rings, and necks are comparable to i245 pve items.
Also, you stated to get PvP gear to help with GearScore. That is how you started the entire PvP section. And that is 100% what I disagree with. If the stats are better, then ok. But to appease GS? No.
GS is simply a summary of gear level. Most raid leaders would more likely accept you with a couple of 245/264 pvp items compared with if you were wearing some blues. That has been my experience.
Buy whatever crafted/boe stuff you can (chest, bracers, boots, belt, etc), get your T9 set from heroics, and fill out the rest with gear from pos/fos/pvp.
Post by
545803
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
161859
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
495454
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.