To all those who just read my RSS feed (and don’t regularly visit the website), the RSS item regarding my latest post on gearing a new druid for T4 is completely and totally incorrect. I accidentally meshed together some T4 and T5/T6 data while doing some house cleaning, and it resulted in the completely incorrect items/stats being posted. The post has since been updated to reflect the correct information. My apologies for any confusion.
Oh, and this is probably a good time to mention as any. I myself view most blogs purely in my RSS reader, and I have no problems with you doing the same for my blog (actually, I encourage it, as it makes it easier to keep updated). However, for posts with tables (of items, or of data), I specifically design them in a way that makes them look best on my website, not for your RSS reader. So for the full experience, check out the original article, =D
Continuing from the last segment, where we covering gearing a Feral Druid from a new 70 up through instances and heroics, we’re going to continue and gear your Druid up through T4 instances. This will include Karazhan, Gruul’s, and Mag’s. By this point I’m going to assume you’re able to run these raids enough times that you can get enough badges to get all the badge gear, although you won’t be able to do so immediately. It will all come in time, however. I will also include higher-end crafted items that you should now start being able to afford.
For clarification, each level of gear described below is not absolute. What I mean by that is that just because I show a row of items doesn’t mean you have to get all those items before the gear becomes viable. Go and download Rawr, install it, play around with it, and learn to use it. When you obtain a new item, let Rawr now, and then re-optimize. Rawr isn’t perfect, but it can be a tremendous help for you, and save you a LOT of time. Again, remember to tell it to keep “% Chance to be Crit” at “<= 0″ when optimizing.
Well, let’s not waste any more time, and get to it!
Okay, so you’re starting to find heroics getting easier and easier. You’ve got more than enough health and armor for any situation, and your healers love you. You’re also starting to run out of gear you can get without raiding. So you look to your guild and at other with similar interests to yourself, and you all head into Karazhan. After running that for a while, you generate enough interest for a larger group and run both Gruul’s and Mag’s. You start to see a fairly steady stream of [Badge of Justice] flowing in, and with your good gear money is starting to be less and less of an issue. This is where the game really starts to shine and you start to have your most fun tanking the huge guys with millions of health.
You’ll notice that even though we break through the T4 barrier, a few items are still from the last gear level. Another thing you’ll notice is we broke through the 30% barrier. If possible, try to have above 30% dodge (buffed) before you go into Karazhan. Just add this as another parameter to Rawr and it should do the rest, ;)
Again, keep in mind this is an optimized solution created by Rawr. In most cases (including the case where you don’t have EXACTLY the setup below), there will be items better than the ones listed below. For example, [Slikk's Cloak of Placation] is a much better cape overall, but turns out to be worse in the one instance below. Again, use Rawr yourself for your best outcome, ;)
(Note: [Idol of Terror] makes an excellent alternative for the idol below. See the comments for discussion about this trinket vs. [Idol of Ursoc])
Let’s go ahead and gear up as follows:
| Head | Neck | Shldrs | Back | Chest | Wrists | Hands | Waist | Legs | Feet | Finger | Finger | Trinket | Trinket | Wep | Idol |
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The biggest difference you’ll notice is that our health, armor, and dodge are a LOT higher. In fact, you should hit the armor cap once you’re all raid buffed up, which along with the dodge will result in you receiving a lot less damage. Your healers will love you for this! =D
If you have all of the above gear, you will find yourself with the following statistics (self-buffed with MotW):
| Health: 17697 (T) 16804 (NE) | Armor: 32730 (T) 32752 (NE) | Dodge: 36.92% (T) 38.67% (NE) |
| Miss: 6.12% | Mitigation: 73.24% (T) 73.25% (NE) | Dodge + Miss: 43.04% (T) 44.79% (NE) |
| Total Mitigation: 82.88% (T) 83.36 (NE) | Chance to be Crit: -0.06% | Overal Points: 116515.6 (T) 114211.3 (NE) |
| Limited Threat: 950.52 (T) 933.50 (NE) | Unlimited Threat: 1223.58 (T) 1206.884 (NE) |
I had finished writing up the whole T5 raid section and had picked out most of the gear we’d be using, and even built a pretty little table for it all, when Rawr crashed out when I tried Optimizing. After numerous restarts and trying a few more computers, it seems Rawr crashes if you have too many items picked out as “available.” I’ve been talking with the developer for the past two days, and hopefully will have a copy that works soon. This post was originally going to cover T4 and T5, but due to the freeze up I’ve temporarily forgone the T5, but didn’t want to just leave the T4 information sitting in my box as a draft, so here it is.
Next time, we’ll venture into SSC, TK, and ZA!
While gearing up my Feral Druid, there was something peculiar that caught my attention. Keep in mind that other than that Kara run (which I was basically carried through, since my heals were insignificant at the time), I had yet to do a single instance. If I was a new player to the game, I would have zero experience with group dynamics, or working with a group at this point. I wouldn’t know the basics about waiting for the tank to get aggro, waiting for casters to get mana after a pull, or even what “marking” is. The idea of a “boss” would be something new for me, especially a boss with unique moves that I had never seen before.
This game almost forces you into groups if you want to get gear, so you don’t end up in a Kara group without knowing anything about running with a group. I remember grinding instances on my Mage to get minor upgrades, which affected my DPS and survivability so significantly. And gear that I couldn’t get in instances, I’d have to spend a lot of time working towards. I can’t even remember how many hours it took me to farm for just the [Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders], let alone the other two items in the set. And don’t even get me started on the primals needed for [Spellstrike Hood] and it’s companion. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of time and gold that went into powerleveling my tailoring up to 375 so I could make and use the full set. Now compare it to my druid.
I bought [Heavy Clefthoof Leggings], [Heavy Clefthoof Vest], and [Heavy Clefthoof Boots] from a LWer in Orgrimmar for 150g. I bought the gems ([Enduring Talasite] and [Solid Star of Elune]) uncut from the AH and had the guild jewelcrafter cut them for me. I spent a day doing AV for [Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders], and gemmed that up as well. Paid the guild LWer 10g for a [Stylin' Purple Hat], and he gave me 4 Heavy Knothide Armor Kits free. I hit him up a little later and paid him 100g for [Nethercleft Leg Armor] which I attached to the leggings. I bought [Braxxis' Staff of Slumber] from the AH for 30g, and I had [Dabiri's Enigma] from a Netherstorm quest that I stashed in case I needed a defense rating boost. I also grabbed [Strength of the Untamed] from the CE quartermaster. The rest of my gear was made up of random odds and ends that I had picked up while leveling or during my first Kara run (like [Bracers of Maliciousness]).
Without stepping into any instance, and without paying that much gold (<500g), I was already set with crit immunity, 14k life, and 20k armor self-buffed. I was basically ready for Kara. If you read my post from a few days ago where I talk about gearing up a new Druid, you saw that I could get a Druid to almost 17k health and 23k armor without even running a single normal instance!
It becomes increasingly interesting once you look into the respective play style of each class, and what’s required of them. I found that most of the time on my Mage I was spamming a single hotkey over and over, occasionally hitting another one to put it on cooldown, all while watching the DPS charts. Depending on the fight, I may switch target or move around a bit, but it all came down to spamming a button or two. On the other hand, my Druid required full situational awareness, and the ability to instantly react to a change in situation, whether that be a CC breaking that I need to pick up, losing aggro on a target, or even having to reposition or move around, based on the fight. I need to have my “oh shit” buttons ready, and need to be able to react to anything at anytime.
It’s an interesting juxtaposition, if you really take the time to think about it. The class that is simpler to play requires a lot more when it comes to gearing up, while the one that is harder to play and requires more attention (and, may I say, requires more skill?) and focus and reaction time, is significantly easier to gear in comparison. Hm… perhaps this is another way that Blizzard balances the game?
What do you think? Anyone else play any classes that they had an easy time gearing? Or the opposite, any of you found yourselves having to invest a lot of time towards gearing up your class? And how hard (or easy) would you say it was to gear yourself up? Share your thoughts in the comments, or in your own blog post (link back so I see it)!
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