Redwolf's Journal (continued)

So let's see... Options include: - A bunch of gear available at revered with various factions that sells for valor points. That's going to be slow-going, though, as I'm not going to be capping VP weekly for a while and each piece is something like 1250 to 2250. - There are some good options from what looks like faction-based quest chain endings in certain zones. I'm not sure of all the requirements, but I suspect you need to be revered with the factions for those quest chains to open up, still this makes them probably more available than the VP gear. - There are a few crafted options at item level 450. That seems to be the "gearing up for heroics" stage. There's less at 463 and up, though. As for seriously pre-raid stuff, the only ones I can remotely count on use living steel, and it's going to be a while before we see much of that. - I think I can rule out BOEs at this point, as the world drops will just be too expensive and luck to get one myse...

So another part of my lack of drive in WoW has to do with gearing. Back when 4.3 was coming out, I went through and looked at what gear options there would be. And now... Well, I don't have them all, but I have filled all the slots where the valor point option gives primary defensive stats. I could be valor capping every week (as I was for a little while) to fill out all possible slots with 397 gear. I could be doing LFR to try for 384 tier pieces. But... why? I'm well over the threshold for starting in Dragon Soul, and that's the only place that might be at all challenging from a gear perspective. I'm better-geared than all but two or three guildmates as it is. While I try to be ahead as best I can in case I'm needed, if the guild isn't actively raiding then there's no need for cutting-edge, raid-level gear. And while I was really psyched about the paladin PVP set look, the available blue coloring isn't nearly as striking as the (requires arena rat...

It's taken a few examples and some forum research, but I've come to understand (I think) the intricacies of orange-quality items in SWTOR, and they're... interesting. There's already the standard hierarchy. Gray items are most sellable, white items are basic no-frills stuff with no stat enhancements beyond armor/damage, green items start to have stat modifiers on them, blue items have a few more points than their green counterparts at the same level, and purple ones even more (and perhaps a slot for an sugmentation). All of them can be found, though white-quality armor/weapons pretty much disappear after the first half dozen levels. Crafting patterns you buy are for green quality, but you have a chance to learn blue versions of the patterns by reverse engineering green items (and purple from blue as I understand). Then there's orange items. Orange items have modification slots and the stat benefits of orange-quality items are entirely based on those mods. If y...

Transmogrification is a neat touch, and I've always changed the look of my ugly face shield and shoulders to something that appeals more to me. Void storage is a minor nicety that's freed up a little bank space. The Darkmoon Faire stuff will be a diversion accessible one week a month. But my absolute favorite part of WoW patch 4.3? Being able to queue for a relevant random dungeon without blocking out two hours. It looks like most of this boils down to either spending valor points or getting a token for tier armor that only drops from raid bosses now (again?). There aren't a whole lot of other options, and that... seems strange to me somehow. I mean, a good bit of my current outfit now is non-tier raid drops, and there just don't seem to be that many of them this time around. And the tier pieces come in three varieties. I can pretty much rule out the heroic level. I don't expect to use the raid finder much, but there's slightly weaker-than-normal variants t...

... paladin armor come 4.3. Paladin tier 13 armor looks "okay" in my book. The feathers seem a little more druidy to me than angellic (and remind me a lot of the stone pattern of tier 11), the helmet wings are a bit overdone, and it doesn't remind me at all of the Guardian of Ancient Kings model that supposedly inspired it. There's detail there, but none of it really pops visually. I'd also say the heavy use of silver makes it feel a little dull. But for all that, I don't think it's bad . I could wear it with pride on raid nights, but I'm not wow'd by it like I was the mage set . The priest set is striking, too, if a little creepy. The 2-piece shielding effect is neat, but probably trivial. The 4-piece effect is a little baffling to me, as all tanks are getting a raid defense ability (or modification thereof), but if tanks are sporting 4-piece tier 13, their groups have already learned to handle any massive raid damage in the instance. On th...

So... Firelands tier 12 armor has been mostly revealed . The Firelands theme shows through on most, if not all, sets. I like some better than others, but there are none of them that I actually dislike. I think it's been a while since that happened. Of course, I focus on the paladin set as that's my main character. I think this sums it up in general pretty well. For plate armor, it looks heavy on the cloth - but there are plate-ish elements. I prefer pants to robes/dresses, but I'm okay with that style for paladins. Shoulders are flashy, but kinda cool. The masked look still seems a little unpaladinly to me, but it harkens back to the very memorable/distinctive tier 2 Justicar armor . All-in-all, 'tis fine. It is however, sad that the most distinctive parts (shoulders and headgear) are alwasy the hardest to come by anyway. If I could change one thing about the visual style, though, it would be to add some specifically-paladinly element to the design (of this set a...

Gear isn't everything. But it does count for something... I recently had the joy of queueing my priest up for a random heroic dungeon and being dropped into Pit of Saron. It seemed odd to me that one of the group members was a ghost. And odder still as I started following people around the side, finding parts of the instance mysteriously clear. I hadn't seen a "do you want to join a dungeon in progress" message. And yet, we stacked up before the cave run to the end. Garfrost and Ick were already down. Well... okay, that leaves one boss and since I'm doing it mostly for Emblems of Frost, that should be easy, right? Then I look at our paladin tank. Some items are particularly noticeable, and I recognize the Titansteel Shield Wall. It's a good "entry level" epic shield for level 80 tanks. It's not terribly comforting to see in one of the hardest 5-man heroics in the game. A quick inspect didn't fill me with much confidence beyond that: a f...

A little over two months since I last looked at my gear planning on the verge of patch 3.3. In that time, I haven't done everything I could at every chance to help out my character. I don't run a random heroic dungeon everyday with my main, much less with alts. On the other hand, I'm not sure I expected to be downing bosses in Icecrown Citadel at this point either... I don't really expect to be clearing ICC bosses prior to Cataclysm, though it could happen, so heroic versions of any ICC drops might be eventual goals. Ignoring the 25-man BOP drops, though, I'm actually a little surprised at how close I am to my "end" goals for gear this expansion. Done Head: Currently Faceplate of the Honorbound , the non-tier Emblem of Triumph helm. This is a solid piece and serving me well. I imagine I'll eventually upgrade to Lightsworn Faceguard , tier 10 from Emblems of Frost, but it's not a major priority. Done Neck: Currently Shard of the Crystal Fo...

With 3.3 all but assured to be released tomorrow, I'm taking a look at what loot to expect down the line. There's a lot of stuff to be sure. The new 5-man dungeons drop gear that's on par with 10-man Ulduar on normal and higher on heroic, so making a push to get through them looks like the new way to gear up. And, of course, the emblems are shifting, so EoTs will be much easier to gain. Whee! From 5-man dungeons (232 heroic, 219 normal): Rimefang's Claw : 232. This will likely become my new tank weapon for a good long while. It actually isn't a huge upgrade over the Peacekeeper Blade I have now, but it's enough of one to want. And it looks less... gnomishly mechanical. ;) Fossilized Ammonite Choker : 232. This neckpiece looks pretty good, and should likely replace my 226 one, even if I think it means losing some hit. Ick's Rotting Thumb : 232. Viable avoidance trinket I suppose. It may make my Valor Medal of the First War obsolete, but it doesn'...

The great part about the emblem system is it gives you options. The bad part? It gives you options... I finished last night's couple runs (dang, we should really push through CoS sometime) with 57 Emblems of Conquest and 32 Emblems of Triumph. With EoC's, 58 is a "magic" number. That's the cost for a head or chest token for the tier 8(.5) armor. For anyone who doesn't raid Ulduar, that's upgrade material there. Now, if I focus on my most-used spec, Protection, I'd pick up my Conqueror's Aegis Faceguard . This is an upgrade over my Helm of the Crestfallen Challenger , though it sacrifices some parry and hit for everything else (stamina, strength, dodge, block, and a little armor and defense). It would also give the 2-piece set bonus, as I already have the chestpiece, which is a 10% increase in seal damge. That wouldn't be a huge output increase, but more damage is always better. But... I recently switched my secondary spec to Holy. For ...

I'm not going to delve into this fully at the moment, but I was asked to look into feral druid DPS rotations. This post seems to be fairly updated, and contains a priority list for the build that may work: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=54761.0 So... Patch 3.2 for WoW is a big deal as far as equipment goes. Prior, my main was about as well-geared as I could expect until getting into 10-man raids. While the guild has been growing, it's not that size yet. Then the patch hit and suddenly there are upgrades available for almost every gear slot available via the new 5-main dungeon (mostly on heroic), Emblems of Conquest (now dropping from all heroic dungeons), and Emblems of Triumph (I won't see the drops anytime soon, but can earn 0 or 2 per day by doing the heroic dungeon daily quest). It's been one week now. My schedule has limited how much I've been able to do. I currently have 28 Emblems of Conquest, 6 Emblems of Triumph, and precisely zero tank ...