Category: WoW Gear
The Sunwell badge loot vendor popped at around 8am this morning on my server. I really did try hard to find a valid reason why I couldn't go to work but alas, I'll have to wait until this evening in order to cash in. I have all of my gems and leg armor materials ready to craft and cut. It's a reasonably good idea to buy any chanting and gemming materials that you need before the vendor on your server pops, since there is a high chance that prices will skyrocket. I do though, need to find someone who can craft a Solid Empyrean Sapphire, won it off of Magtheridon this weekend. I very heavily regret prematurely socketting my ZA +15 stamina quest gem. Why didn't I save it?
For approximately a month before 2.4 I was slacking off on all of my daily quests, letting my gold stash dip below 200g across all characters. It's now safely in the 4 digit range again, thanks to the abundance of new daily quests lol (and reputation completism). Did all of my raid fish and material farming last night. I need to remember to purchase flasks before next weekend. I should otherwise be good on elixirs, pots, oils, etc. My purchase list for tonight are the Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor and the Chestplate of Stoicism. In comparison to other items for reference:
- Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor vs Unwavering Legguards: 0 armor, -7 stamina, +3 def, +43 dodge rating, +37 spell damage, -30 shield block rating, -59 shield block rating
- Chestplate of Stoicism vs Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian: +61 armor, +18 stamina (-4 if both pieces are socketted with all Solid Stars), +29 defense, -4 dodge, -35 spell damage, +39 block value, -2 sockets
- Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian vs Panzar'Thar Breastplate: +157 armor, +9 stamina, -4 defense, -24 block rating, +38 dodge, -39 block value, +35 spell damage, +0 sockets
- Chestplate of Stoicism vs Panzar'Thar Breastplate: +315 armor, +27 stamina (+3 stamina if both pieces are socketted with all Solid Stars), +25 defense, +34 dodge, -24 block rating, -2 sockets, equal block value
The extra defense is nice because I'm barely sitting at 490 now. I'll probably replace 150 health with the new +15 def chest enchant. If I find that I am avoiding attacks to the extreme detriment of threat in the easier raid instances, I can swap out pieces. Defense isn't useless past 490; I think I might have stated that somewhere months ago. Oh, none of the shields that I want will drop. Neither will that new trinket.../cursed.
Gruul is on farm (took a 2-month 25-man raid break during December and January), working on SSC and soon TK (flu hit key
raid members this weekend, boo). We've been holding off-raid night
Karazhan farming runs for alts and people who need badges. Badges, need more badges.
Gear: Swapped the Chess Event tanking sword for the Amani Punisher from the eagle boss in ZA. Also replaced my shoulders, boots, belt, and cape (think I already posted about that). I almost blew all of my badges on the Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian a day before the new 2.4 rewards were announced. Need: The 2.4 tanking chest, the 2.4 tanking ring, Jan'Alai's shield, and Malacrass' Helm. I need to replace my gloves at some point, but I haven't researched a suitable replacement. It's a little odd but, I'm having a little trouble staying above 490 defense on my want list. I keep swapping it for other tanking stats because many of the pieces that I "need" don't have any def.
Other Stuff
Gasp, I have a new hobby that doesn't involve the computer or any other nerd paraphernalia! I bought an electric guitar/amp/etc
in January and have been learning to play it. I devote around 1 to 1.5
hours a day to practicing and learning music theory (less on Friday and
Saturdays, ie raid nights). It's fun!
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Call of Duty 4: I know I'm kind of late jumping on this game seeing that it has been out for several months (queue of games to play, no time). Excellent single player campaign, easily one of the best this year. I'm not really a huge fan of the military shooter genre (don't really need any more WWII simulators. FFS move on to a different subject, we get it), but the pacing and storyline are exceptional.
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Audiosurf: A puzzle/rhythm game hybrid. You select a song from your personal music collection and the game will generate a level based on the tempo, etc. Oh, it also comes with the Orange Box Soundtrack integrated into the game.
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Sins of a Solar Empire: I don't have this yet, but I am considering buying it. From what I understand, it's a hybrid strategy game somewhere between Civilization and Homeworld; Pulling the elements that I really loved from each of the two game genres but without the tedious micromanagement. Only interested though, if it runs gracefully in Windowed mode on my secondary monitor.
I will try to update more!
Soaked up a few pieces for my offhealing set: [Spaulders of the Advocate] off of Halazzi and [Mojo-mender's Mask] off of Akil'zon. I am not honestly sure what either is supposed to be, the shoulders look like, as a guildy put it, "crap glued together" lol.
Got Jan'alai down in Zul'Aman. There are two important factors to the fight: Egg popping and bomb dodging (bombs are easy as shit to dodge). The boss is on a platform with a two separate platforms off to the East and West side, each platform containing a number of eggs. Every 45 seconds or so 2 trolls will spawn, each will head to a platform and begin popping eggs. When the eggs pop dragonhawks will spawn.
Every time the trolls spawn you want to allow a certain amount of eggs to pop because when Jan'alai reaches 35%, ALL of the eggs will pop at once. We kind of brute forced it: When he was at around 55%, we accidentally let ALL of the remaining eggs pop, so about 20 or so dragonhawks were free. Nuked them down and nuked the boss. If all of the eggs are popped, Jan'alai enrages. Compared to the damage output of say, Halazzi, it's pretty weak. Pew pew.
Jan'alai drops a really nice shield that I want. Getting a graphic update too! It currently shares the same graphic as the Hakkar shield, which is kind of ugly...
I finally finished off my cooking to 374 and acquired the Fish Tracking spell (new in patch 2.3). Just an FYI: You get the spell from the Weather-Bean Journal, which can be found in any of the crates that you fish. The easiest way to get it, by far, is to look for the Steam Pump Floatsam in Zangarmarsh. Fly around the edges of the lakes/lagoons, look for piles of floating crap, fish in them. Took me a half hour. Fish tracking by the way, makes it 10x easier to farm crawdads.
Nature Resistance gear for Hydross. Magical resistance caps out at 365 (75% mitigation), for level 70 players facing level 73 raid bosses (effectively boss level * 5).
Magical resistance caps out at 365 (75% mitigation), for level 70 players facing level 73 raid bosses (effectively boss level * 5). This list should add up to more than 365, allowing you to mix and match pieces.
I am thinking that Gruul is just one of those fights where everyone has to get used to positioning. After everyone can stay out of the cave-in and position for Shatter fast without dying, focus can shift exclusively to maximizing DPS output. On our very first week we got him down to 48%, second week we got him down to 39%, last week 7% (consistently below 30% and 20%). I was absent from Gruul this week for real life festivities, but grats guys! Keep up the great work :D
Tanking gear wise, I need one more item from Karazhan: the [Wrynn Dynasty Greaves], which just won't drop /lootcurse. I also need one more Furies card, the 7 (most expensive unfortunately...and I blew cash on gems and raid pots). With both, my health should be close to 14,000 unbuffed? [Gorehowl] dropped off of Prince. Since no one wanted it I loot soaked it and slapped Savagery on it. Thinking about blowing all of my arena points for the [item]Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders[/item] to add to my DPS set.
OH! Patch 2.2 is coming out tomorrow.
"Easily" obtainable epic craftable gear. Easy as in you can get the pattern and craft it. There's a nice belt pattern that drops from TK and Serpentshrine. I didn't list it because it requires BoP drops from those instances to craft. The boots listed are BoP upon craft.
The Nether Vortexes are BoP drops from Serpentshrine and The Eye. The Primal Nethers are BoP drops from end bosses in level 70 instances (low drop rate in normal, 100% drop rate in heroics). Nethers are also available for purchase with 10 heroic badges.
From a paladin perspective mind you, so some of the items have spell damage and int.
[Bracers of the Green Fortress]
Best tanking bracers imo (barring any drops from the high level 25-mans). I'm too poor to afford these at the moment, the Attumen bracers will have to do T_T.
- From: 365 BoE Blacksmithing Pattern, world drop.
- Mats: Hardened Adamantite Bar (6), Primal Life (20), Primal Nether
[Boots of the Protector]
One of if not the best tankadin boots out there. Remember that tier 4 and tier 5 do not include boots.
- From: 375 BoE Blacksmithing Pattern, Random Serpentshrine and Eye drop.
- Mats: Primal Nether (2), Hardened Adamantite Bar (4), Primal Water (12)
- Notes: The pattern itself is BoE, but the item is BoP.
[Red Havoc Boots]
These are great too, though I haven't seen this pattern on my server yet. It really depends on how you have your gear distributed I guess.
- From: 375 Blacksmithing Pattern, Random Serpentshrine and Eye drop.
- Mats: Primal Nether (2), Hardened Adamantite Bar (4), Primal Fire (12)
[Helm of the Stalwart Defender]
1.3k+ armor on a helm o_O. kek I craft these on Proudmoore, just hit me up :D $$$.
- From: 365 BoE Blacksmithing Pattern, world drop.
- Mats: Hardened Adamantite Bar (8), Primal Earth (22), Primal Mana(12), Primal Nether
[item]Oathkeeper's Helm[/item]
Not all that great of a raid tanking helm imo. Intellect and mana/5 isn't all that great, not much stamina, and not much avoidance/mitigation, etc.
- From: 365 BoE Blacksmithing Pattern, world drop.
- Mats: Hardened Adamantite Bar (8), Primal Might (3), Primal Life (18), Primal Nether
