Tag Archives: Gear

My Priest’s Transmog Set

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As promised, here is a little post detailing my Priest’s transmogrification set. In some slots I have included other options, these are mostly other choices for slots in which I’ve used items unavailable to non-Priests and also cloaks and weapons. I personally prefer her helmless without the tier 7 halo but I shall be using that when I get one!

I recommend checking out the ‘same model as’ tab so that you can get the item which is easiest for you to farm. Do keep your eye out in trade though, as horrid as it is, there are usually pugs going to various places with some fantastic hidden gems!

My biggest ‘bleh’ about transmog is that unless your weapon has an inbuilt enchant effect, like the staff pictured below, it will show your current weapon enchant and I can’t stand how you can’t see the weapons through them but hey ho. There are ways around it you just need to choose a weapon with an enchant effect already or something that carries the enchant well.

Head:
Tier 7 – Kelthuzad in Naxx. Either 10 or 25 versions work great
Hallowed Crown – Harbinger Skyriss in The Arcatraz
Mana-Etched Crown – Aeonus in The Black Morass

Shoulder:
Tier 4 – (as pictured) Maulgar in Gruul’s Lair
Hallowed Pauldrons – Grandmaster Vorpil in Shadow Labrynth
Shoulders of Ruinous Senility –  Professor Putricide in Icecrown Citadel 10 man Heroic

Chest:
Soulcloth Vest – (as pictured) Crafted by Tailors, Karazhan pattern

Wrist:
Ether-Soaked Bracers – (as pictured) Rotface in Icecrown Citadel 10 man Heroic

Gloves:
Tier 1 – (as pictured) Gehennas in Molten Core
Tier 2 – Blackwing Lair
Prismatic Mittens of Mending – Commander Sarannis in The Botanica

Belt:
Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner – (as pictured) Lord Marrowgar in Icecrown Citadel 10 man Heroic
Astralaan Belt – BoE world drop
High Councillor’s Sash –  BoE world drop

Legs:
Kilt of Untreated Wounds – (as pictured) Festergut in Icecrown Citadel 10 man Heroic
Soothsayer’s Kilt – Quest reward from Blast The Infernals!

Boots:
Icecrown Spire Sandals – (as pictured) Deathbringer Saurfang in Icecrown Citadel 10 man Heroic
Silent Slippers of Meditation – Murmur in Shadow Labrynth

Cloak:
Drapes of the Dragonshrine – Trash drop in Hour of Twilight
Mantle of Desire – (as pictured) Quest reward from Elemental Bonds: The Vow
Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran – Moroes in Karazhan

Staff:
Anathema – (as pictured) Priest only and no longer available as of Cataclysm
Staff of Infinite Mysteries – The Curator in Karazhan
Chelley’s Staff of Dark Mending – Trash drop in The Bastion of Twilight
Crystalfire Staff – Omor the Unscarred in Hellfire Ramparts

Dagger:
Voodoo Hexblade -Dragonhawk’s chest in Zul’Aman
Jaded Crystal Dagger – Selin Fireheart in Magister’s Terrace Heroic

Mace:
Reign of Misery – Brutallus in Sunwell Plateau
Scepter of Azshara – Queen Azshara in Well of Eternity

Offhand:
Eerie Stable Lantern – Lord Walden in Shadowfang Keep normal
Star-Heart Lamp – Temporus in The Black Morass
Book of Blood – Crafted by Inscriptors

Shirt:
White Swashbuckler’s Shirt – Crafted by Tailors

I hope this is helpful to you guys – enjoy!

That New Content Feeling

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Patch 4.3 couldn’t have come at a better time. With NaNoWriMo over and done with on Tuesday and my most recent book review written and published (that’s important because it took me a few hours to get right), I logged into my Priest happily to play around with void storage and do a few of the new 5 mans with the manface. Aren’t they great? While I was waiting, I got myself a Glyph of Shadow, which is awesome, and played around on my new horse. I was accused in guild of liking boys because I like the Tyrael’s Charger but I of course slapped that down with a great big, “Yes, I do like boys, and why does it matter?” And then continued to enjoy my pony.

The new instances gave me a distinctly familiar feeling. I’m awful at remembering the names because it has been so many months, but the first instance reminded me of one of the mid-level instances in Rift, the last part reminded me of the desert zone, and the third one reminded me of one of the later Rift instances. No, not being all, “They clearly copied Rift!” Just an observation. I loved them. They’re new content with new gear and the storyline is interesting. What’s not to love? Plus that second one has really made me appreciate Night Elf Shadow Priests…

And something seems a little off about Tyrande…

And how could I not include this one? Possibly my favourite of the new bosses and it looks freaking cool.

We did a few with the same Rogue and healer who we met in a pug and were both competent and friendly and that’s a pretty rare event. It’s always nice when you do get those kinds of pugs. I may have awwwed a little when the healer left with, “Nice to meet you.” I thought that was a little adorable.

I got myself a new wand, finally netting myself Cataclysmically Epic after a year.. though it did put my achievement points back into the 5s! And my first pair of dropped non-blue shoulders, and a helm, 2 rings, an offhand, and the tier 12 chest, getting me upto 369 ilvl from 361. I’ll be good for the raid finder in no time! Then today I picked up the staff from the last instance so I can finally use Anathema *squee* (and knock my ilvl upto 370 but that’s less important, right?). *strokes the pretty*

After, we ran through Black Temple with a friend and another guildy (the non-douchey variety, hooray), not only did I gain about 1,000 gold from that run but it was fun. We just finished a little later than hoped but oh well. I transmogged my gear fully and went off to bed.

I am absolutely in love with this set. I never got the chance to wear tier 4 when it was current because I was a Tailoring Shadow Priest *grumbles* and for those of you who weren’t around in Burning Crusade, the Shadoweave set (shoulders, chest, and boots) you made with tailoring was best in slot until tier 6. Obviously that’s just the shoulders but I do also have the robe in void storage.

How are you enjoying the new content? Or are you perhaps disappointed thus far?

You’ve Lost That Epic Feeling

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Erc wrote a post, I read it, I commented. I realised that my rant about emblems, dungeons, raids, and my opinion on how this game could work really well in regards to gearing, raiding and hardmodes, mixed in with a little of my TBC nostalgia, was a post in itself. Or perhaps a rant too long for a comment.

Epic Dungeons

Many people say that epic dungeons are long gone. They pine for the days of Blackrock Depths, Maraudon, Dire Maul, but in essence I believe that Blizzard have given us an almost perfect middle ground in the Frozen Halls. Three dungeons, the Forge of Souls, the Pit of Saron, and the Halls of Reflection, which are intended to be run back to back as you help Lady Sylvanas or Jaina, but the best part is that because they have been split into three separate instances, they can also be treated as such, making them just a little more PUG friendly than Blackrock Depths ever was. I know it’s not quite the same thing, and I love the long epic dungeons, but I think it’s the best we’re going to get. Mind you, I hope we get something bloody long and epic in the form of Uldum after waiting this long for it.

Emblems

The thing with emblems is something I haven’t been happy with since they introduced Conquest emblems for running heroics. Yeah, great, I can gear up my alts, but I’m not fond of the idea that Naxxramas, Sartharian, Malygos, and Ulduar are pretty much skipped, aside from quick weeklies (for more emblems!!) and zerg runs. These were well designed raids, why change things so much that they become almost forgotten and left behind?

The Burning Crusade (and “Badgers”)

Back in TBC (nostalgia moment) we had 2 10 mans. Karazhan and Zul’Aman. We also had just one type of emblem: Badge of Justice. Originally, you could only receive badges from heroics, and heroics were fucking hard. I can remember back on my Warlock at the beginning, we got a group together for Heroic Underbog. We tried several times, even with the Rogue kiting one all the way back to the door we couldn’t get past the 2 bog lords before the first boss. This was how difficult heroics originally were. It wasn’t until later on in the expansion that heroics were nerfed, and a little later we could receive badges from raid bosses. This was a good thing, it made gearing up much easier and through TBC we would run Kara every Friday for badges, and sometimes gear. We’d take our mains, our alts, and sure it did get boring, but nowhere near as boring as Trial did. It was long, and epic, and we had a few laughs while we did it. That was the difference.

I was never a fan of the removal of the Black Temple and Mount Hyjal attunements as early on as they did, because when you killed Kael’thas and Lady Vashj for that attunement, you had a feeling of pride much bigger than any achievement, because they were HARD. The first couple of bosses in BT and Hyjal seemed almost like a “and now you can relax for a bit” reward for defeating two very difficult encounters, once they’d removed that, it felt just a little cheapened. I don’t think they shouldn’t have done it at all, I just think they should have waited until the 30% nerf.

Either way, once heroics became farmable and badges could be gained from raids, and there was some awesome gear from badges towards the end, not to mention Magister’s Terrace, with this, you could gear up enough to do Black Temple. Even so, there wasn’t really any skipping of content aside from Kael and Vashj. In my opinion, this was good.

Wrath of the Lich King

The beginning of Wrath was okay, Naxx seemed pretty piss easy to start with but hey ho, it was the first raid. Heroics were easily puggable to allow you to gear up to start raiding, which was great. Ulduar was a nice, big, epic raid instance. Then the Trial patch hit, you could get gear equal to Ulduar level, not to mention they changed the way hardmodes worked, which were fine in Ulduar. If Blizzard had kept the gearing system the way it was around the middle of the Ulduar patch (after a few nerfs, the easy modes are supposed to be doable after all), then content wouldn’t need to be skipped so much and the game would feel less like this linear, bland factory of mass production.

This is why I am pretty nostalgic towards TBC, there were 2 10 mans without a 25 man version, which made them less repetitive. The encounters were fun, the raids were epic. I have some great memories from Kara and heroic farming with friends, not to mention Black Temple runs, which stands as my favourite raid instance even now. Comparing then, to the game now, well.. there is a lot of difference. Things are too easy and repetitive now, raids aren’t that fun anymore, when I do raid it’s just doing the same thing over and over.. I pine for TBC, heck, I pine for Naxx and early Ulduar. When it’s just about having the best gear and keeping up, the game really loses its epic feeling.

My Opinions

My ideal situation would be kind of a mix between TBC and now. There would be multiple types of emblems, one for heroics, and separate types for each raiding tier, like in early Wrath. These would reward boots, trinkets, rings, the usual stuff, but no tier loot, that would be received from drops only. Hardmodes would exist the way they did in Ulduar, you would have to activate them in differing ways rather than simply clicking a “I want this to be heroic” button on the raid interface. The hardmodes would be fun, the easy modes would be doable for the more casual players, perhaps a buff similar to the one in Icecrown too. No content would be skipped just because people didn’t have to anymore and therefore couldn’t be bothered, it would work for all types of players. Thus mixing up the game a bit more, giving some variety, and less of the repetitiveness that leads to so much burnout. We’re getting there, the game is improving a lot, but there’s still a little way to go in my opinion.

When is the last time this game felt truly epic for you?

Ideal Marksman Hunter Heroic Gear List

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I’ve been helping a couple of friends with gearing and gemming their characters recently and so I thought, “What if I just do a list, of gear which I’d aim for, if I levelled another hunter and had access only to heroics, excluding Frost Emblems?” So here is a list, aimed at Marksman hunters. I’ll also dedicate this post to Zal.

If you want to see other options: Pre-Raid Gear List.

Helm:

*Windrunner’s Headpiece of Conquest – I’ve linked to the Horde version, but it’s the same for alliance. 50 Emblem of Triumph.
Enchant – Arcanum of Torment, Ebon Blade revered.
Gems – Meta: Relentless Earthsiege Diamond. Socket 1: Deadly Ametrine.

Shoulder:

*Pauldrons of the Devourer/Epaulets of the Devourer – 1st Horde, 2nd Alliance. 45 Emblem of Triumph.
Enchant – Greater Inscription of the Axe, with helm and shoulder enchants being made BoA, I’ll assume you have a character who is exalted with Sons of Hodir. If not, the Lesser version is fine until exalted.
Gems – Deadly Ametrine.

Chest:

*Crusader’s Dragonscale Breastplate – The same available for Alliance. Made by Leatherworkers, requires: 40 Icy Dragonscale, 8 Eternal Water, 8 Eternal Life, 8 Arctic Fur, and 8 Crusader Orbs.
Enchant – 10 Stats.
Gems – Red Socket: Delicate Cardinal Ruby. Blue Socket: Nightmare Tear. Yellow Socket: Deadly Ametrine.

Wrist:

*Crusader’s Dragonscale Bracers – The same available for Alliance. Made by Leatherworkers, requires: 40 Icy Dragonscale, 8 Eternal Water, 6 Arctic Fur, 4 Crusader Orbs.
Enchant – 50 Attack Power
Gems – Delicate Cardinal Ruby

Gloves:

*Gloves of the Dark Exile – Dropped by the Black Knight in Heroic Trial of the Champion, the 5 man.
Enchant – 20 Agility
Gems – Delicate Cardinal Ruby

Belt:

*Belt of Dragons – Crafted by Leatherworkers. Requires: 18 Heavy Borean Leather, 8 Arctic Fur, 40 Icy Dragonscale, 6 Runed Orbs
Enchant – Eternal Belt Buckle
Gems – 3x Delicate Cardinal Ruby

Legs:

*Windrunner’s Legguards of Conquest – The same for Alliance. 50 Emblem of Triumph.
Enchant – Icescale Leg Armor
Gems – 2x Delicate Cardinal Ruby. (If you decide not to get the crafted chest, this blue slot is another good place for a Nightmare Tear)

Feet:

*Spiked Toestompers – The Icecrown crafted boots are better, but very expensive at the moment. These drop from Falric in Heroic Halls of Reflection.
Enchant – Cat’s Swiftness, hard to find, another alternative is Tuskarr’s Vitality. If you need the hit however, Icewalker.

Cloak:

*Accursed Crawling Cape – Drops from Devourer of Souls in normal Forge of Souls.
Enchant – 22 Agility.

Neck:

*Broach of the Wailing Night – 19 Emblem of Conquest.

Rings:

*Dexterous Brightstone Ring – 35 Emblem of Triumph.

*Band of Stained Souls – Drops from Scourgelord Tyrannus in Heroic Pit of Saron.

Main Hand Weapon:

*Quel’Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned – Rewarded from the Battered Hilt quest, Battered Hilt drops from certain trahs mobs in Heroic Frozen Halls instances, however, can be very difficult to get hold of one, another option is:
*Orca-Hunter’s Harpoon – Which drops from Marwyn in Heroic Halls of Reflection.
Enchant – Massacre, 110 Attack Power.
Gems – Delicate Cardinal Ruby.

Ranged Weapon:

*Felglacier Bolter – Drops from Ick in Heroic Pit of Saron.
Enchant – If you can get hold of one and need the hit, Hit Scope, however not only hard to get hold of, but they will be expensive, so otherwise use a Crit Scope.

Trinkets:

*Needle-Encrusted Scorpion – Drops from Devourer of Souls in Heroic Forge of Souls.

*Darkmoon Card: Greatness – Reward from Nobles Deck. The agility version of course.

If you’re low on hit, there is a hit trinket which I personally am not fond of but for 50 Emblem of Triumph there is the Mark of Supremacy. There is a 20 hit enchant for gloves. There are also gems.

Icecrown Raiding Gear List

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Note: Not updated since the first ICC wing.

After a little thought and some chats with a lovely hunter in my guild, I started thinking about a gear list. Not wanting to take items off another player that I probably won’t use so I gave it a go and I’ve been slowly editing it and will continue to do so. It’s important to remember that the T9 2 set, which grants your Serpent Sting the ability to crit, remains better than the T10 4 set, and even some item drops in Icecrown Citadel with awesome starts (I thank Rilgon for finding this out). Some items are still not in the game, so I may update this post at a later date if I find something new to add.

Assuming you have 3 points in Focused Aim, you’ll need to get about 165 hit rating (5%, though correct me if I’m wrong) from gear. Of course, if you don’t and want to find more hit items, you can check the MMO Champion Icecrown gear list. The set below should put you at about 5.24% hit and 68.7% armor pen, with the Scorpion proc giving 48.44% armor pen.

The armor pen cap is 1400, as as such with the Scorpion, you need about 722 armor pen on your gear. Haste may not be an ideal stat but it’s worth keeping Steady Shot at roughly a 1.5 second cast time (the tooltip is bugged, it’s a 2 second cast time without haste), and remember that 523 haste rating is the soft cap needed to lower Steady Shot down to the 1.5 second cast time. Also remember that there is no crit cap for hunters.

Please remember this is my personal preference on gear, some options may not be optimal for everybody, this is purely my opinion, for my own marksman spec, survival may and probably will be different entirely due to not needing to reach the armor pen cap anywhere near as much as marksman hunters. Though feel free to look through and use it or take ideas from it. That is why I posted it :) It is a post I intend to keep up-to-date over the coming months. Also, some items here you may not recognise as I’ve added the horde versions, if you click the wowhead link I’ve added you can see the alliance versions.

Last updated: 18th December 2009

Tier 10

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Ooh ooh! I’m sorry, but in my opinion, hunters have yet to have a decent looking tier set, and 6 was just creepy. Tier 10 isn’t much different BUT:

  • Hunter T10 2P Bonus – Your Auto Shots have a 5% chance to cause you and your pet to deal 15% additional damage for until cancelled.
  • Hunter T10 4P Bonus – Your Shot abilities deal 4% increased damage to targets afflicted with Viper Sting, Serpent Sting, or Wyvern Sting.

“Yay”  o_o two good set bonuses? Okay, everytime Dan sees a “your pets’ increased damage” he automatically says “ooh, a BM buff” well no. How many people actually use the Tier9 4 set, and how many MM and Surv hunters run around DPSing without a pet (if anybody does that you should slap yourself on the head and go tame a wolf). The 2 piece isn’t just increasing your pet’s damage, it increases yours, and that’s pretty insane. The 4 set is basically increasing the damage of.. everything. Overall, a very nice damage increasing set. It does make me wonder what the set bonuses in Cataclysm will be like, surely they’re running out of decent and original set bonuses, short of redoing every single class.

The appearance of Tier 10 I’m personally unsure on. I don’t like the helm, but I’m a big fan of hide helm so that’s not a problem. The shoulders are a little too big in my opinion, and the rest of the set looks a little boring but I’m used to that. Boring looking hunter sets. The purple design does kind of make up for it in my opinion, I’m really liking the purple model. What do you think about the Tier sets?

Back to Raiding?

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As agreed, tonight I started raiding again. Cleared TotC25 on normal mode, I picked up the boots I was after finally meaning I could switch my tier shoulders for the non-tier shoulders and switch in the T9 chest, keeping my 2 set bonus. After redoing my UI completely, and not raiding in such a long time, I still had to get used to playing again. We went on and one-shot Beasts hard mode, after they’d downed it the night before I think, and 5 wipes on Jaraxxus then he went down. Faction Champions proved to be a bigger challenge however.. By raid end I ran off to gem and enchant, we got a group for TotC10 normal mode, where I also picked up a nice ring (no more Naxx gear, woohoo!) only this time, I decided it was time.. I’d specced Marksman. And it wasn’t so bad after all. I’m sitting on about 80% armour pen, including the Runestone proc. We then killed Onyxia, finally grabbing the achievement and a couple more there.

I’m sorry about the lack of screenshots. I did take a few, but the only image editting programme I have is Paint. I don’t like working with Paint. That and I’m not massively in the mood. Also, sorry for the waffle.

Frozen Halls Loot?

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Just to specify that the weapons I linked earlier (the bow, crossbow and gun models) are from the raid, not the 5 man. There hasn’t been any specific drops data-mined yet, sadly. I’m sure they’ll be up soon though. Currently all that’s been found are weapon models and placeholder stats for Icecrown raid craftables, using ‘Icecrown Thing of Crafting Things’ which sounds awesome by the way, and I personally really hope they keep that name :p

More interesting Cataclysm updates

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  • The Cataclysm will be released after Icecrown Citadel, not only with the date but also lore-wise.
  • The dances we were told were coming with Wrath are still being worked on…
  • Once faction changes have been sorted, they are planning on implementing race changes, which would mean a Blood Elf Paladin could switch to a Tauren, for example.
  • They may be adding the ability to reorder the characters on the character sheet, thank God I’ve wanted this one for a while xD
  • The guild levelling system being discussed will enable you to create guild heirlooms. You’ll be able to buy profession plans with this and anyone in your guild can wear the item, and it scales with level.
  • In order to ensure enhancement shamans and hunters are able to share the same gear, Blizzard will try to give enhancements similar talents to those given to rets in order for them to use the same gear.
  • In 3.3 they’re talking about pets scaling from all hunter stats and also allowing buffs from raid encounters to affect them (uh oh I smell nerfs inc already…)
  • Also in 3.3, they’re planning to make it so that pets can’t be hit by boss AoEs but others (i.e. PvP) can affect them.

Source: World of Raids.