I've been doing some looking at the upcoming 3.2 changes, and their implications for pre-raid gear availability. When I first saw that 5-man heroics were going to drop [Emblem of Conquest], I was actually pretty upset, as were many others. Really awesome gear, it seems to me, should be really hard to earn. But enough editorializing--I decided that before I firmed up my opinion on the change, I should first figure out how much of a difference it was really going to make.
So I made a reasonable approximation of pre-raid BiS gear lists pre-3.2 and post-3.2, and compared the resulting stats. Even if I considered the [Pattern: Death-Warmed Belt] and [Footpads of Silence] to be strictly post-3.2 due to cost, the difference just wasn't that great. But those technically were attainable pre-3.2, so to be fair, I'm going to include them in the pre-3.2 BiS pre-raid gear list.
Let's look at some actual numbers. I have standardized gemming/enchants to focus on STA/Armor over AGI where reasonable, since I needed a standard for comparison purposes, and that seems to be the consensus for hard mode fights.
Basically, grinding something like 484 Emblems of Conquest gains you 870 health, a 4.78% reduction in damage taken, a chunk of hit rating, and a few extra hits taken from parry-hasted bosses. DPS roughly +150, TPS roughly +300.
I'm not saying it's nothing. I'm not even saying it's not worth running a hundred or so heroics. I'm just saying it's not the level of impact that I viscerally expected when news of 3.2 first came out. And that gaining less than 1k health for a change of that magnitude really surprises me.
My understanding was that 3.2 all tier gear would go onto a single token. Is this change not being made retrospectively as well? Apologies I am not on the PTR to check.
My understanding was that 3.2 all tier gear would go onto a single token. Is this change not being made retrospectively as well? Apologies I am not on the PTR to check.
As of the current build at the date of this post the current T7/T8 slot-specific tokens are still being sold by the Emblem vendors, and the current tokens are still listed as currency for the Tier 7/8 items. I very much doubt that this will change but you never know, Blizzard may be feeling generous.
On a side-note, the U25 Idols/Sigils/librams have been added to the EoC vendor for 19 Emblems each. Happy days for those of us who have not seen them drop!
With regard to the changes to Emblems: since Blizzard has said that Emblems of Conquest can still be changed into Emblems of Valor, etc., I imagine that the Valor, etc. items will still be purchased for Emblems of the appropriate type--but since there's a one-for-one down-conversion from Emblems of Conquest, they might as well all be considered sold for Emblems of Conquest. The only way it really differs is if you have some Emblems of Valor, etc. banked when the change-over happens.
Thank you for the news on the U25 idols: I'll take that into account when making the post-3.2 version of the list.
While inferior to Terror, there's an easy to obtain quest reward that has the same proc at a lower quality, [Idol of the Plainstalker]. Rawr values it at about 2/3rd of Terror's value, so at least until you have those 20 bages of justice this is a good intermediate.
Unfortunately Rawr has *very* little information on most idols, so it's hard to judge the value of Plainstalker versus completely different ones like e.g. [Idol of Perspicacious Attacks].
Why is it that I don't see [Spaulders of Egotism]?
They're less than 1k gold and from a higher tier than the trollwoven.
Are they that bad for pre-raid tanking/dps ?
They're much worse for tanking than the trollwoven spaulders - they have less sta, much less agi, no expertise (which is one of the best tank stats) and they have haste, which has a negative value for tanks under expertise cap...
So a lot of gear lists (both this, and various Loot Rank for WotLK lists) says that PVP gear is the way to go, however I am not a big fan of pvp, and grinding:
- 55 WG marks
- 243600 honor
Is a lot of time to spent on something you don't like. Are heroic drops / craftables really that bad that they aren't worth mentioning as well? I know Polar stuff was mentioned as well as the trollwoven, but I think it would be awesome to have a list of stuff to get from various heroics, dungeons etc. as well as the pvp.
Are heroic drops / craftables really that bad that they aren't worth mentioning as well?
Kemi mentioned quite some non-PvP items as well at the bottom of his list, as alternatives. Given my dislike for PvP I'm in the same position as you. Some comments to your list:
While it has slightly more avoidance, it loses in survival compared to [Titanium Earthguard Chain]. Depending on what you have more (gold or emblems) you may want to pick that one instead.
It's the best non-grind avoidance chest piece you can get, but I'm not sure it has enough more avoidance to offset the reduced survival compared to polar. By doing the Ebon Blade quests in Zul'Drak and Icecrown and/or by championing them it shouldn't be *too* hard to hit exalted and buy [Darkheart Chestguard] instead.
Those are more oriented towards health than avoidance, I'd consider [Charged-Bolt Grips] for the avoidance set instead. And look at the gloves that Kemi mentioned in his post.
Go for both if you can afford the Gored Hide. The Ravenous with its sockets will give you a lot more health for the STA set, the Gored Hide has more mitigation.
I think it's worth merging in some drops from at least the non-heroic version of Trial of the Champion - there are 4 pieces of ilevel 200 leather melee gear, and one *very* nice trinket:
I haven't done any of the relevant item comparisons, but there are groups farming that instance right now constantly - runs only take 15-20 minutes, and 5 epics drop from each run. These are very easy to get, compared to heroic drops, and faster than honor grinding.
These others are from the heroic ToC, and are listed at ilevel 219 (though I'm not sure that's accurate, they've been playing around with it recently). This is a fairly hard heroic instance, especially if you get Paletress, but the drops are very good, and don't overlap with the regular ones at all. It also takes less time than most heroics to finish.
These others are from the heroic ToC, and are listed at ilevel 219 (though I'm not sure that's accurate, they've been playing around with it recently). This is a fairly hard heroic instance, especially if you get Paletress, but the drops are very good, and don't overlap with the regular ones at all. It also takes less time than most heroics to finish.
All the items from heroic ToC are indeed ilevel 219; they started at ilevel 213 but were upgraded late in the 3.2 PTR cycle. A hotfix went in that updated the armor and weapon DPS to the proper 219 levels; [Marrowstrike] now has 2200 FAP, for example. So, all the leather from there has a bit more armor on it, than it does on the stats currently shown at Wowhead.
I haven't done any of the relevant item comparisons
Of course the Rawr output depends on the rest of your gear, but certainly not all drops from non-Heroic ToC were upgrades for me. Some are more DPS than tanking gear.
[Gloves of the Argent Fanatic] is pretty good, especially with the blue socket and the +STA socket bonus, comparable to or better than the gloves that drop in Heroics.
[The Black Heart] is great. I don't entirely like the RNG of the proc, so I'll probably keep using [Figurine - Monarch Crab] in fights where I want control over the effect (like bosses with a damage increase in the last phase), but for all other fights this one saves a button click and is just awesome.
[Armbands of the Wary Lookout] is better than e.g. [Bindings of the Tunneler], but not as much as the item level would suggest. Much of the budget went to DPS/threat stats and not to mitigation or survival. If you have no PvP or Rep bracers yet, take it, otherwise use them for DPS or pass.
[Mask of Distant Memory] is better than the bracers because of the two sockets. In fact, it's one of the best helmets available pre-raid.
If you don't have expertise to the dodge cap, I think its a no brainer to get [Treads of Dismal Fortune] .
If your attacks are undodgeable but are still parryable, expertise isn't as valuable, so they become closer in value.
[Treads of Dismal Fortune] .
If your attacks are undodgeable but are still parryable, expertise isn't as valuable, so they become closer in value.
Hmm, you're right. Last time when playing with Rawr it insisted on the raw +STA of the Polars, but I probably had the survival soft cap set too high.
Indeed the boots are an improvement, maybe not for the STA set but definitely for avoidance.
Edit: Yes, when setting survival soft cap to T8 raids, with my non-raid gear, Rawr starts preferring the polars, if you set the cap to something sensible for the gear level (T7 or heroics), it prefers the Treads of Dismal Fortune.
I've been looking at the question of how non-raiders can best spend [Emblem of Triumph]. I started by building the BiS set without using Emblems of Triumph, and then looking at the rating-increase-per-Emblem using Rawr. I set threat to a custom weighting of 4, because threat is not our biggest problem, and it's more important to focus on survivability when one is trying to leapfrog past content.
I ran the numbers twice, once assuming you dropped the gold for the [Crusader Orb]s needed to make the new chest and bracers and buy a [Signet of the Traitor King], once assuming you did not.
Basically, in both cases, buy the ring and shoulder for Emblems of Triumph first. Once you've got those, the trinket is a reasonable third choice, but if you're not buying the chest and wrist, the [Hood of Lethal Intent] should possibly come first.
And in both cases, unless for some reason you really want a faster Growl and more Lacerate damage, hold off on buying the gloves and legs until late in the game, because the return on investment is really poor.
Note: the above analyses were done without taking into account the new epic gems, but it's too late tonight for me to fix that. I'll get to it after the weekend. Until then, please take the above results with a grain of salt.
I don't think the trinket's worth it; while it's good, it's too situational to be purchased early. The ring, shoulder and head pieces should definitely be bought ahead of that.
What about the totally awesome [Idol of Mutilation] for only 25 Emblems that will also be great any time you go cat? I'd make that my first purchase and, in fact, I did, though I'm very much in feral tank post-raid gear.
The problem with the [Idol of Mutilation] is that it is slightly inferior, as a tanking idol, to the venerable [Idol of the Corruptor]. I don't deny that the [Idol of Mutilation] may be the best overall purchase, because if its astonishingly good Cat utility, but this is the pre-raid tanking pre-raid gear thread.
I'll include a mention of it, though, when I edit the main post.
The problem with the [Idol of Mutilation] is that it is slightly inferior, as a tanking idol, to the venerable [Idol of the Corruptor]. I don't deny that the [Idol of Mutilation] may be the best overall purchase, because if its astonishingly good Cat utility, but this is the pre-raid tanking pre-raid gear thread.
I'll include a mention of it, though, when I edit the main post.
How do you figure 153 Agi from mangles (+18% from talents / kings, so 180 agi) is better than 200 dodge rating from lacerates / swipes? Both will be up almost all the time, 200 dodge rating is 4.4% dodge before DR, 180 agi is only 3.8%.
How do you figure 153 Agi from mangles (+18% from talents / kings, so 180 agi) is better than 200 dodge rating from lacerates / swipes? Both will be up almost all the time, 200 dodge rating is 4.4% dodge before DR, 180 agi is only 3.8%.
Because that 153 agility also provides 306 armor and a couple % of crit. The mutilation idol certainly does provide more avoidance (even with Kings/SotF), but the other parts that make agility so good are still around.
Because that 153 agility also provides 306 armor and a couple % of crit. The mutilation idol certainly does provide more avoidance (even with Kings/SotF), but the other parts that make agility so good are still around.
Something I haven't seen mentioned by anyone is the up times of each. [Idol of Mutilation] has the advantage of not proccing on an attack with a cooldown, having just tanked General Vezax with NeedToKnow watching the buff from [Idol of the Corruptor] it wasn't up for a fair amount of the fight. I don't have Improved Mangle in my Tanking spec which would help a little.
I did some testing of [Idol of Mutilation] while trying to get a mount from Anzu, I pulled a couple of times using Shadowmeld to reset it. While the Evasion buff doesn't refresh its duration it didn't fail to refresh on the next Lacerate or Swipe. Further testing during the raid showed it not always refreshing as it dropped off but unless it overlaps with refreshing Demo Roar or Mangle cooldown it comes up again very quickly.
Having said all that it will vary depending on your gear setup, in my threat suit the [Idol of the Corruptor] has better up time because of the more aggressive stats.
Kemi, when you update this post to reflect the many changes since you first wrote it, please add something along the lines of this for levelling players:
The Road to 80
Level your character up to Outland whatever way you want. From Outland onwards, a little planning may save time later on.
Once in Outland, consider if you want to do BC heroics or raids in your low seventies. Even though you can skip the [Idol of Terror] now and head straight for [Idol of the Corruptor], it is still a good idol until you get your emblems, and it's a nice exercise for the bigger work at level 80.
If you want to do heroics, consider the reputation requirements for BC, and make sure you hit Honored with the factions where it's most easy to find a group for. In practice only the Hellfire instances are generally useful in this regard, so do enough quests there to get your reputation. As far as raiding goes, only Kara is still run often enough to be sensible, so try to quest for the key.
Once you hit Northrend, quest for [Idol of the Plainstalker] if you haven't got Terror yet. Otherwise, focus on your tradeskills or some achievement you want, since there's not much to do yet for a few levels.
At level 73 you can go to Grizzly Hills. Make sure you get enough Venture Coins to get [Idol of Perspicacious Attacks] and head to Zul'Drak when you hit 74.
In Zul'Drak, do all Argent Crusade quests for a good head start on their reputation. Once you're done you probably can't quest in Storm Peaks right away, but continue there as soon as you can.
Once in Storm Peaks, start the Sons of Hodir quest line, do their dailies, and start the Argent Tournament dailies in Icecrown as well. If you play your toon long enough per day to have time left, do the Argent Crusade quests in Icecrown, or start doing level 80 non-heroic dungeons. See Kemi's original post for pointers on that.
If you're trying to save them time I can't imagine anything worse than sending them into TBC heroics. Leveling is SO fast these days, even through Outland, that they'll be 68 and ready for Northrend by the time they finish Nagrand if not Terokkar. Wasting time worrying about TBC factions or heroics is a really, really, really bad idea.
Likewise, with the great gear dropping in Trial of the Champion and Conquest badges dropping in all heroics, there's almost no point in bothering with Northrend factions other than Hodir for the shoulder enchants any longer. By the time a new character is exalted with a Northrend faction and able to buy the epics they'll almost certainly have far better from Emblems or ToC runs.
Working on Hodir in Storm Peaks early is about the only useful advice in there.
EDIT: barrettj is totally right. Argent Crusade is needed too. They did make it much easier to get that one though since just doing the Tournament dailies gives you tons of it so you can probably focus on those and not mess with Argent Crusade dailies elsewhere.
there's almost no point in bothering with Northrend factions other than Hodir for the shoulder enchants any longer. By the time a new character is exalted with a Northrend faction and able to buy the epics they'll almost certainly have far better from Emblems or ToC runs.
07/09/09, 9:28 PM
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