Gear Check/Advice Thread (All Specific Advice Requests Here)

[econ21]

I am leveling a Protection Paladin just for the fun of it. I have to play very casual due to work and family, so I may get to play my pally once a week at best. Just looking for some basic advice on leveling and running a dungeon or two as a tank.

Well, with all those heirlooms, you should have no problem gear wise. I would recommend using LFD as much as possible, as that's where we shine - tanking. There are very nice XP and gear rewards too, so for the time constrained, it's not a bad option.

If you've looked around this site, you will have seen theckhd's FAQ and his spec/glyph guide, which although they focus on end game, will give you good general guidance.

BS is a good profession, but you don't seem to have a second? Why not mining? It would supports levelling BS a lot. It's not time efficient, but I liked to level up BS to gear up my char. There are non-trivial gear gaps at the start of each expansion (you're coming up to one with Burning Crusade). Your heirlooms will see you through, except maybe the Cata one, but crafted gear can plug some gaps.

One tip for Burning Crusade gear: use wowhead to find quests that reward you with socketed plate gear. The inflation of gem stats means you can get a stamina heavy tank if you want.

[Cowmmunion]

The thought of putting in gems or enchants on anything that isn't at least 359 in this day and age seems weird to me, unless you are twinking it for PvP.

[Hrobertgar]

The thought of putting in gems or enchants on anything that isn't at least 359 in this day and age seems weird to me, unless you are twinking it for PvP.

I disagree. Some of the lower quality gems and enchants are very cheap. I don't put high end gems/enchants in low end gear for alts, but I always gem/enchant everything, its like free points and gold is easy to come by anyways.

I would put better gems/enchants on lower level items, but it seems a waste if it going to be replaced quickly.

[gronc2]

Hello friends,

Any advice you give would be appreciated: http://armorylite.com/us/gundrak/gronc

However, what I am mainly concerned with is an issue of gearing strategy. I may or may not have much ability to raid, and not sure how I will be treated as one of the new tanks in the guild in regard to drops. So my question is do I spend my valor points on best in slot items like cloak and libram? Or do I spend them on items that will help me the most right now, like the helm, brestplate or belt?

Again, any input on any part of my gear would be welcomed as well.

gronc

[Klaudandus]

Hello friends,

Any advice you give would be appreciated: http://armorylite.com/us/gundrak/gronc

However, what I am mainly concerned with is an issue of gearing strategy. I may or may not have much ability to raid, and not sure how I will be treated as one of the new tanks in the guild in regard to drops. So my question is do I spend my valor points on best in slot items like cloak and libram? Or do I spend them on items that will help me the most right now, like the helm, brestplate or belt?

Again, any input on any part of my gear would be welcomed as well.

gronc

Cloak, Libram, Neck and Ring from VP are all safe bets as there are NO upgrades for those slots available within DS. Well, there is a 2nd Tanking Ring available within DS, but you use two rings, not one =P

After that, what I'd purchase would be the Belt since that's BiS unless you get heroic Blackhorn.

[Cowmmunion]

Klaudandus, how can you spread such stories! That tanking ring is a myth, a rumor, a whisper in the night!

[Klaudandus]

Fine, you can use the DPS ring if your dps don't need it. Sure it's Mastery and Hit but better than anything else, unless you have the 391 Ring from the FL Rep Quartermaster.

[gronc2]

Thanks, any other thoughts on my gearing?

Do we always plan on food and elixirs to get us to the 102.4? on my server the mastery elixir is sometimes not ez to get, I guess I can just level up my fishing and make the lava scale minestrone.

I am planning to spend my current vps on the ring and should get libram tomorrow, then cloak next week. Hate the 1,000 vp cap

anyways, appreciate the time, thanks

gronc

[Cowmmunion]

Fine, you can use the DPS ring if your dps don't need it. Sure it's Mastery and Hit but better than anything else, unless you have the 391 Ring from the FL Rep Quartermaster.

Mastery/Hit would be perfect itemization for me right now. I'm actually using both Valor rings at the moment. 95 crit is completely wasted itemization, but it was still an upgrade over the 378 JP ring. The Parry/Mastery ring... I'd far prefer the Mastery/Hit. Yet so far the only Strength/Stamina ring we've seen is one of the Mastery/Haste ones.

[econ21]

So my question is do I spend my valor points on best in slot items like cloak and libram? Or do I spend them on items that will help me the most right now, like the helm, brestplate or belt?

It's been a while, but IIRC when I started the VP grind, the belt provided the biggest CTC upgrade bang for my VP buck and the libram one of the smallest. I would hold off on potential tier slots (helm, bp) as with LFR you have a very good chance of filling them with 384 gear and, due to set bonuses, that can be better than the 397 VP offset pieces. Once you have bought the belt and BiS pieces (and trinket) by all means fill in any slots missing tier pieces, but best to wait and see which ones the RNG gods have been unkind too first.

[Klaudandus]

Yeah, but you can get the 397 belt off of blackhorn, which of course is not as good as the VP one but it's a decent stop gap. I'd always aim for pieces that you cannot get from DS first.

[gronc2]

thanks again

gronc

[Maklesh]

Hi o/

Last week I (finally) managed to get Souldrinker from Madness (used heroic Hand of Morchok before that). Now I started wondering. I'm progressing on Spine hc atm (hopefully it's going down tonight.........) and was wondering if it is worth it to go for expertise softcap to get more out of the weapon, or if I should keep the 'ctc > stam > dr' priority.

At the moment my stats, fully raidbuffed and with feast, are as follows;
Dodge chance: 18,22%
Parry chance: 18,13%
Block chance: 61,05%
Total 102.40%

If I would be going for 26 expertise (I managed to toy around a bit and get 485 rating, which is probably the closest I'll get to/over cap);
Dodge chance: 17,02%
Parry chance: 17,19%
Block chance: 63,20%
Total 102.41%

Do you believe the increase of 11 expertise is worth dumping 2.15% dodge/parry (while ofcourse staying at full ctc)?

My armory link (hope it has proper spec/gear on it) is http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/outland/Maklesh/advanced

[Sola]

Hi all,
could you check my gear and talent and give any advice?
I'm stepping into DS 10 Hc with my guild and i would like to know if there is some tweak i can do to get in the right shape.

here is my armory link

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/g ... nia/simple

I have also Morchok shoulders 397 but i think the tier ones are better atm cause i can get the 4x tier bonus

thanks in advance for any suggestion.

Solamnia

[Maklesh]

could you check my gear and talent and give any advice?

First thing that comes to mind is if you have a mastery (or avoidance) trinket somewhere?
Using one mastery trinket will bring you to full CTC easily. This in turns gives some flexibility in gemming where you could get, for instance, some more stamina out of yellow gemslots. Where needed you can then switch around trinkets if a fight requires it.

If you don't have a mastery trinket yet there are several options;
- You should start farming Tol Barad Commendation for Mirror of Broken Images (I see you're exalted with Wardens) and buy the mastery trinket with resistance-on-use. The trinket is still insanely good because of the on-use on certain fights in Dragon Soul. Even if you have a higher ilvl trinket this one is still very good to have.
- Avengers of Hyjal sell both Stay of Execution (dodge trinket) and Essence of the Eternal Flame (mastery trinket with str-on-use). I would go for the mastery trinket in your case, but that's because I'm not a big fan of the on-use of the dodge-trinket.

askmrrobot.com is a nice website you can use to optimize your gear easily after getting your trinket.

Spec and glyphs
I would take out one point in Reckoning and put it in Pursuit of Justice. Reckoning is more of a filler talent and run speed never hurts.

Prime Glyphs
Change glyph of HotR with Glyph of Judgement. HotR is rarely used on bosses and since threat got buffed it's mostly for increased dps. Judgement gives more singletarget dmg, but also a higher absord (even though it's still low) from your 2set.
Major Glyphs
- Lose Glyph of Divine Plea. If you're having mana problems then using Consecration less should solve most of your problems (I didn't even have it on my bars for a long time).
- I would change Glyph of Consecration with either Glyph of Divine Protection (I love the 40% magic dmg reduction on some fights) or Glyph of Lay on Hands (a situational glyph, but better than most alternatives).