Ironsoul

The other day I was looking at Kvasira's gear and wondering when I'd ever get out of the Spiked Titansteel Helm and the Titansteel Destroyer.

I don't need the hit rating, for heaven's sake!

And I was commenting to Vialora how I hope that Flame Levi, one of those times I'm in Ulduar-10, drops this neat two-handed weapon that he has.

And usually I'm the only plate DPS in Ulduar-10.

And the other night, Vialora is invited along.

And Flame Levi drops Ironsoul.

And Vialora has more DKP.

But Vialora lives in my house.

And I know how to castrate things.

And make brownies.

Together, those two arguments convinced him that passing so I can get the upgrade was a good idea.

I'm sure my guild thinks I beat him into submission.

But I think 'beat' is too strong a word. Strongly demonic glares and the promise of brownies isn't beating. It's negotiation. It's a compromise.

(In all honesty, Vialora passed out of the goodness of his heart, and the fact that I raid far more often than he does, and would use the weapon more. Also, his equipped weapon was better than my equipped weapon at the time (he is using The Jawbone). So I really do owe him brownies and my very sincere gratitude.)

Ridiculously Lucky

I (as Kikidas) had been in an OS25, which was an odd run in and of itself because the DK leader tried to not invite other DK's (or melee... curious that, dontchathink?) because of the DK tier token shares it with rogues, druids and mages.

Yet he had like, 5 mages. Go fig.

Anyway, so I finish the OS25 (getting nothing, lesigh), and I'm in Dalaran when the shout comes out that they need reinforcements!

I sigh to myself and note that I need an upgraded headpiece and appppparently, the Titan-forged Hood of Dominance is the one to get if you can get it. And to get it, you need 40 marks of Wintergrasp.

So I go do my duty and "help" take Wintergrasp.

And I see someone call out in LFG that they're forming a VoA25.

And I ask if I can join. And I'm in. And somehow, I'm given assistant. And we fill the raid up. I try for balance, so I didn't invite more than 3 DK's (despite the zillion and ten who wanted in the raid), tried to keep it at 3 mages and hunters, but we wound up with 4 and 4. A few rogues, a few druids, a few warriors, some priests, one pally, a few shaman... but no other warlocks even asked to come in (seriously, no one asked!). So I'm the only warlock.

And the Watcher goes down. And Seraphelia looks at the loot and says, "Damn it, three warlock pieces."

I laugh, certain he's jesting. But he says he isn't. And I nearly kill myself in the Watchers cloud o' gas trying to see... oh frabjabulous day... he isn't kidding.

Valorous Plagueheart Robe, Valorous Plagueheart Leggings and Deadly Gladiator's Felweave Trousers all dropped. And they start the rolls and someone politely points out (it wasn't me, either!) that there's only one warlock. And he asks if I want all of it...

I say, "Oh that would be kind of you, thank you."... okay, what I really said was "YES! :D :D :D"

I am ridiculously, undeservedly lucky.

Karika goes to Naxxramas-25

Yesterday, Boon and Vialora celebrated Vialora's 21st birthday by getting drunk and shooting zombies. Owaru joined in.

So Neshura, Posolutely and myself were at loose ends. And lo and behold, an ex-guildie was trying to get together a 25-man Naxx.

So I ask what he needs. Healer, DPS.

I tell him I have a restoration shaman and Nesh was on and Pos was on in the form of Abs the warlock.

He wound up tanking, but ... I offered Abs! Don't look at me that way.

So, they somehow wound up with 6 healers... but I was the only shaman healer, and one of only two shaman at all. The other was elemental and geared very nicely.

So, we hit the spiders first. And what should drop but the Shield of Assimilation. A caster ring also dropped, but I figured I'd go for what I know I can get. :)

Then we hit up the Widow, and the Atonement Greaves dropped. I asked if, even though I already got a drop, if it was going to just get sharded, if anyone minded if I took them.

And lastly, Maexxna donated the Quivering Tunic to the righteous cause of gearing up Karika.

We didn't get any others down, but I figure.. that's good enough for one night, right?

Woot woot. Go shammy, go shammy, go!

Anope!

Apparently, it is not an upgrade! Despite what I just said, the strength on the Amulet is better, I gain more AP from it.

Why is that?

Because I have Divine Strength, which increases my strength by 15%. So the Amulet actually DOES give me more Attack Power.

The issue of the crit is still up for grabs however... but I didn't go for the Pendant after all.

Upgrade?

So something I'm running into a lot with a few things... is the question, "I know it's purple. And it does have a somewhat higher crit rating than the item I have on. But other than that, I lose 45 Strength to gain 49 Agility. I'm not sure it's really an upgrade?"

What I'm talking about is that Kvasira is currently wearing the Gold Amulet of Kings out of Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle.

The Collar of Dissolution dropped last night in Naxx-10. And the Pendant of the Outcast Hero which is a Dalaran Emblem of Heroism token reward.

But are they better? Their i-level is the same, 200. One is just colored purple, the other blue.

So, let's compare.

47 Strength gives me 94 Attack Power. (It takes 14 AP to increase DPS by 1, or so says WoWWiki.) So in terms of Attack Power, both pieces may actually be better than the Amulet. (pout, I hate it when my research proves what I was about to say wrong.)

It takes 45 crit rating to increase your crit by 1%. It takes (for a paladin), 52 agility to increase crit by 1%.

There's a conversion for when Agi becomes more important than Str.

For me, it seems that equilibrium point is when my 'DPS' is about 902.71.

Right now, it's at 434 something.

So according to this, I should still be focusing more on Str than Agi. This is subject to change with talents, and as I get more or less strength, more or less agility, more or less crit chance.

It's, to put it simply, confusing as hell.

It's [(0.1428-0)x(1+0.26)]/0.0002 for me.

This is [(DPSperStr-DPSperAgi)x(1+Crit)]/CritperAgi

For people who aren't hunters and rogues, it's always 0.1428 for DPSperStr and for anyone who isn't a rogue, hunter or cat druid, it's 0 for DPSperAgi.

So from what I see of this, when I mouse over my 'Damage' and it reads 902 DPS, that's when I say 1 point of Agility > 1 point of Strength. Until that point in time, Strength is still my baby.

For crit chance, I'm sitting at about 26% right now. The Pendant would give me an overall 1.7% crit. The Amulet gives about a 0.95%. The Collar gives about a 0.69%.

Once you get above 25% for a retribution paladin, give or take, Vengeance and Righteous Vengeance are always aglow and active.

So would the extra 0.75% crit chance matter? Crits are pretty. Crits make us laugh in glee. And at this level, it takes a walloping amount of crit rating or agility to make us sit up and go, "Really? Wooooow." So when you say it like, it's just an increase in 0.75% crit... makes it sound like less than it is. It's actually a good boost.

What the Collar has that the other two do NOT is Expertise. Now, if you have talents that are guaranteed to never be dodged or missed, then boogy for you. For us paladins, we need expertise to avoid that 5-6% dodging that bosses will do.

So that 38 Expertise Rating calculates out to being a little over 1% decrease in the boss' ability to dodge (or parry) my attacks.

Right now, raid buffed, using Elixir of Expertise and Rhinolicious Wormsteak, with my expertise gems, I'm at about 5% dodge free.

So... in my opinion, if you're hit capped and close to expertise capped, the Collar is not an upgrade.

In my opinion, the Pendant ekes out over the Amulet.

Which means I know what I'm buying when I get home tonight.

Epic Fail of Loot

Undoubtedly there is a whole range of people out there, from the people who were waltzing through BT, TK, SWP, etc, etc to the people who could barely finish a level 70 5-man on regular... regardless to say, one of the things everyone looks forward to when they start a new place, new zone, new instance is... new loot.

New phat epikz.

My own toons fall in between the spectrum outlined above. I had Kikidas and Kathe and Kiljara and Kvasira who were geared super-nicely to the point they could waltz through any given heroic and Mags/Gruuls/ZA without a care in the world.

Well, okay, they cared about ZA before the nerf-battage, but they still did A-O-K.

Then we hit Northrend and we eagerly look at quest rewards, wondering what we'll be upgrading.

On one hand, the thought of upgrading a hard-earned piece of purple with a quest green gave most of us nightmares. Thankfully, I had no one in position to have nightmares at the start of BC, but I've heard the whining.. er, QQing... erm, I mean, the valid concerns of people who were raiding pre-BC and how they felt about post-BC quest upgrades. (I jest, I'd have been irritated too.)

Then I hit Northrend with Kvasira and Kikidas, arguably two of my most well geared characters. Kvasira is geared mostly in PvP gear - Season 2 purchased with honor and the Season 3 gloves. For a ret pally who is PvEing and not in raids, this was awesome gear! It had crit. It had strength. It had intellect (ah, the days before Divine Plea).

I hit 74 without really upgrading more than maybe one ring. And then finally I started to upgrade pieces of gear. Here and there. The first upgrade was a twinge and a wince. I was really about to get rid of my hard earned gear. The thought of all the PvPing I had to do to get that gear... *sigh*. Now that I'm 77, NOW I'm starting to really get pieces that are clear upgrades to my gear. Sidegrades are so wierd.

And none of the gear has INTELLECT on it. My mana has tanked. Thankfully, with the improvements to retribution paladin mana returns, I haven't had too big of an issue.

And then there's Kikidas. I don't think I've upgraded anything on her yet. Granted, she's only level 72, but I don't expect I'll see an upgrade until 75 at least as well.

Then there is the other end of the spectrum.. Karika my shaman who dinged 70 on my Birthday, which was one week before the release of Wrath. She had the blessed cloth pieces from the Scourge Event, but other than that, was really not well geared. And I'm upgrading just about everything, with the exception of the chest piece, which though it's cloth, is still better thus far than anything I've run across. I'm sure it'll change soon.

Now, what is all this about, I hear you wonder. Because really, it's rather boring.

Boon and I have been feeling very let down by the lack of upgrades. We feel like though the content is cool and the quests are awesome and the storyline is epic... we were still in most of our Outlands gear.

Suddenly, playing the Deathknight/Shaman combination is much more exciting (and will make the crawl to 80 that much slower, as we split our play) as everytime we turn around there's an upgrade or a sidegrade. It's so much more exciting when you know there's a good chance that you'll get to upgrade something.

And has anyone else noticed the switch in gear? All of a sudden everything has haste rating and armor penetration and expertise.

Now, please do correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't armor penetration like spell penetration - more useful in PvP than in PvE? According to RetLoL, Armor Pen increases damage exponentially. Does that still hold true, with all the changes that have come? Or is Blizz trying to tell us something?

The Nerfing of Burning Crusade (rant)

First of all... I want to apologize in advance because the tone of this post is going to seem elitist.

I am frustrated with the nerfing of the Burning Crusade. I understand the reasons they had to do it, to get rid of crushing blows, reduce the need for chain-potting, etc.

But I am frustrated. I worked really hard on some of my characters for some of the gear that I have. Do I want to be the only one to get the gear? No. I'm happy for people who get upgrades! It's exciting for everyone involved!

But the other day a new 70 retadin in my guild got into BLACK TEMPLE.

BLACK F-ING TEMPLE.

Wearing blues and a few epics.

He got upgrades, which is great for him! I'm happy. Part of it was that he's friends with people who raid BT. But without the nerf... he'd not have gotten to go until he did the whole dance routine of upgrades. Even in a guild that raided BT regularly pre-nerf, he'd have to have a certain minimum of gear before they'd take him in, right?

Maybe not, because there are people who have always gotten into raids they did not have the gear to compete in.

But I look at that and something inside dies just a little bit as I look at Kvasira and I think of all the work I did in upgrading her gear to compete in a raid and make her raid viable in terms of DPS, not just raid saving or buffing.

And then I look at the gear level of people who are in Karazhan, and SSC and BT and ...

*sigh*

Normally, I could care less about it. It's just that I worked so frikkin hard to get Kvasira geared up... and all my work... I should have just waited for the nerf bat to hit BC and paid some guild to let me run with them in BT. I'd have gotten better gear for less work.

Now, I do NOT think that PvP gear or badge gear are 'welfare epics'. You work HARD for that gear, both in terms of running heroics (or even Karas) until you have the badges you need to upgrade a single piece of gear, as well as running countless battlegrounds (and if you're Alliance... losing countless battlegrounds) to upgrade a single piece of gear. Even if it isn't 'hard' in terms of skill (face it, we've all run with people who can't tell their ass from their elbow in a heroic or a battleground... they get the same amount of badges and honor (not quite, they changed honor gains in BG's) as the people who are doing their jobs...) - it's still a lot of time dedicated to running heroics and battlegrounds.

(And yes, yes, yes, I know, people dedicate a lot of time to raiding and just because you're in a raid doesn't mean you'll get every single drop that would benefit you, don't try to trip me up with the nittygritty details. This is a rant, damnit, logic has no place here!)

I guess I have a problem with the perception that people don't have to work as hard as I did to get to the same place.

Because people look at my gear, be it badge rewards or pvp rewards, and know exactly what I had to do to get that.

Someone carried (or not carried with the nerf bat) through BT or some other insane place like that and gets the gear... people look at that gear and say, "Woah, that guy raids BT!".

*sigh*

100 Badges and More!

Last night Knights of Utopia hit Gruul's, with some of our new allied guild friends, Dragon Knights, and friends of friends. The usual sort of thing. :)

Now, we did have a mix of people in there who have done Gruul's before, but we had a LOT of people who never have done it at all.

And we one shot High King and Gruul. 1% of Gruul's life and there were no tanks left alive! And we (the kickass DPS and the kickass healers) still did it.

And that put me at 99 badges. And we said... maybe we should try Magtheridon?

And we did and we got him to 32%... and then every other attempt, barely past his first blast nova. :( No warlocks also didn't help, just a lot of hunters. :) So we had infernals going everywhere. We also need to work on the blast nova timing. Someone was clicking way too early, before he started to cast, when the 'countdown to blast nova' countdown started.

So I had to try to find a way to get just a single badge... and I never ever get badges from the Shattered Sun Supply packages.

But I did! And now I have the Embrace of Everlasting Prowess!

Woot woot.

Oh, oh, oh. Mini-fangirl issue. I wrote an email to BBB about Hurricane+Barkskin as an aggro generating tool and what his thoughts were and how he used it... and he wrote me back! *squeal*

Rawr Tank

Gauntlets of Malorne and Tameless Breeches are now mine.

Rawr.

The Merits of Gear

It has been the frustration of many a tanking druid that we seem to be s.o.l. for leather tanking gear, outside of 25 mans. Karazhan only has two T4 pieces for us.

Heavy Clefthoof only gets you so far.

Heroic drops only get you so far.

You'd have to run badge run after badge run in Karazhan and heroics to get the super-awesome-omg-I-love-you badge reward gear. Which is well worth doing and should be done.

But until then, I decided to plug my holes with PvP gear.

The nice thing about druid tanks is that we're the only tanking class where resilience works as well as defense... especially since not a lot of leather pieces have defense on it. :P We can't block or parry, so we dodge like Neo. And we can reach uncrittableness either through 415 defense(with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest) or 100 resilience... or some combination thereof.

But some of the pieces we need... like our T4 pieces, can only be found in 25 mans. Which makes your average, ordinary druid s.o.l.

Now, don't get me wrong, you can get very nice drops in Karazhan, without any badge pieces or other heroic gear. Helmet, gloves, neck piece, cloak, rings, trinket and boots.

Heroic pieces of note: Tree-Mender's Belt from H.Ramps
Barkchip Boots from H.UB
Feral Staff of Lashing from H.Bot -- if you're still struggling with defense and armor however, Earthwarden is still the weapon of choice.
Forestwalker Kilt from H.MT
Forestheart Bracers from H.Shattered Halls
Cloak of Blade Turning from H.MrT
Commendation of Kael'Thas from H.Dead Mines (what... shut up. He could be there. They brunch on Tuesdays.)
Yor's Revenge and Nexus Prince's Ring of Balance from a quest to summon Yor in H.MT

Crafted pieces of note:
Boots of Natural Grace is a BoP LW recipe.
Belt of Natural Power is a BoE LW recipe.
Resolute Cape is a BoE Tailoring recipe.
Hard Khorium Band and Hard Khorium Choker are BoE JC recipes.
Figurine - Empyrean Tortoise is a BoP JC recipe.

Everything else... is 25 man or PvP gear.

So, in my quest to finally get out of the Heavy Clefthoof Leather I've been wearing 4eva! I've been badge running Kara and heroics and PvPing until my eyes have bled and my admittedly limited patience for PvP has completely disappeared.

But, I was shocked and horrified to discover that my "upgrades" from PvPing ... were almost downgrades! Actually, in one case, it was!

The Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Leggings have a lot less armor and a lot less stamina than Heavy Clefthoof Leggings. A lot less stamina because if you figure that you're gemming Solid Star of Elune's in two of the three spaces, that's .. a lot less stamina. Or even in all three. Or if you were crazy enough to socket Solid Empyean Sapphire or Eye of the Sea.

However, the Tameless Breeches, given that they're 100 badge piece rewards, are a much bigger upgrade than both.

So what's the problem, I hear you say. Just get the breeches. The problem is that I was PvPing to get the PvP pants, figuring they were better without actually checking. Because I can sometimes be an idiot.

So I go looking.. I have all this honor to buy something, and only 92 badges (so close to 100 piece.. must... instance... arrrgh!). So I can't get both the breeches and the Embrace of Everlasting Prowess that I was wanting to get.

However, the Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic, while not as good in terms of armor as the Heavy Clefthoof Vest is clearly an upgrade in all other attributes.

So I bought that, and have changed from planning on buying the 100 badge chest piece to planning on buying the 100 badge leg piece. Once I get 8 more badges.

And then I get to start badge-collecting.. all.. over.. again.

Kvasira in the End Game

No, I'm not there yet. But I will be shortly.

I've persevered and though I'm not the top of the DPS charts in the runs I'm in, I'm not that far behind... and I serve group utility. I off-heal. I buff. I protect (blessing of protection on the priest is very handy!). I sometimes taunt. And I do damage. Decent damage.

At level 67 (I'm 68 now), I was pushing 270-300ish DPS in Durnhold, Crypts, Mana Tombs and Sethekk Halls (the lower the level of the mobs, the higher my DPS, as is typical).

In one instance, I outDPSed the rogue we were running with. In another, I was keeping pace (lower than, but pacing) a level 70.

My next step is to figure out where I fit into end game raiding and playing. I have no illusions about my abilities, but I also have no illusions about my chances of getting into the PuG heroics I'd like to run. Will my group run with me? Yes, they will. And I will run heroics as often as that group decides to run them.

But the downside to a retribution paladin is that we are gear dependent, much like a rogue and other melee classes. Every level, I go to the auction house and I upgrade whatever gear I can. In the past, with other characters, I'd let two or three levels pass before I visited the auction house. But my DPS goes down the tubes if I don't stay on top of the gear that I need.

One thing I've discovered, by just looking at PvP weapons (which I've read are probably the best a RetPally could probably have), that a lot of the PvP level 70 gear ... looks like what I look for on the auction house.

Strength and Intellect. (Stamina)
Crit Rating
Variety of things like increased damage from Judgement of Crusader and cooldown on Hammer of Justice.

I was looking at the Merciless Gladiator's Vindication set, the Gladiator's Greatsword, Vindicator's Scaled Belt, Vindicator's Scaled Bracers and Vindicator's Scaled Greaves.

Now.. this is a LOT of PvP.. and for someone who reportedly hates PvP. I calculated it... 133222 Honor, 90 AV, 90 AB, 50 WSG and 40 EOTS.

Now, as I'm rereading what I typed, some of the gear is showing up on WoWHead as Arena gear, some of it is showing up as tier tokens. And maybe they are, but then I can't figure out why I saw them in Stormwind?

Now.. here's the real shocker. I'm finding that I don't mind PvP all THAT much. I still don't have the mindset for it. I can't kill anything to save my life (get it, can't kill to ... nevermind). But I'm good at screwing up other people's goals! Oh, are you trying to heal... FERAL CHARGE or BASH! Rawr. Or when I was resto/balance... Entangling Roots, Cyclone and LifebloomLifebloomLifebloom!

So, just maybe... maybe... it won't be so bad.

Now, obviously, this gear has nothing on it for Hit Rating, for which I figure what I didn't have in other gear (cloak, neck piece, etc), I'd make up for with gems.

Now, this is a pipedream.. I know this, you know this. But at least it gives me a goal to work towards on gearing Kvasira up outside of heroics with my friends.

Still working on Badge Gear and a few more PvP pieces for Kathe.

But ... there it is. Kvasira is viable in PvE. Once I get Kings (it's my level 70 talent point), I'm set.

Tree-Mender's Belt

Kathe runs Heroic Ramparts until Absitively bleeds from his eyes (and other orifices). The belt doesn't drop. And at 3 badges per run, she was able to afford the 60 badge belt Waistguard of the Great Beast. So she stopped running H.Ramps. (It wasn't really 20 Ramps runs, since there was a Karazhan badge run (18 badges) in the middle somewhere.)

Kava runs her first ever Heroic Ramparts tonight. She is now the proud owner of the Tree-Mender's Belt. It isn't as good for a rogue as other belts out there. BUT I'M GOING TO WEAR IT.

Hate you, Blizzard.

Merciless Ahune of the Festival!

I was originally going to title this 'Ahune the Frost Lord, Merciless Gladiator and Fire Festival', then realized that was long and boring, though precise.

This at least makes you go.. 'huh?'

As everyone knows, Arena Season 4 hit yesterday. This means that Arena Season 2 gear is available for honor and BG marks. This means the PvP that I was doing as Kathe finally paid off in the form of the Merciless Gladiator Dragonhide Shoulders and Gloves to replace what I was wearing... namely the Shoulderpads of Assassination and the Verdant Gloves.

I am considering getting a few more PvP pieces... since Druid Tanks can use Resilience in place of pure Defense here and there, unlike warriors and paladins who need Defense for parry and block. My question is... how much resilience is too much resilience? How much defense do I want? It's easier for me to PvP than it is for me to get the insane number of badges I'd need to upgrade my gear.

I have the nifty little code that you can use to find out if you're still uncrittable... but since not every beginner bear is running around in PvP gear tanking... there's a drawback. What is it? Does anyone know? That wasn't rhetorical. Answer me. Please.

(Incidentally, I haven't checked on my uncrittableness, since I'm not specced for tanking right now, and that will make a difference... it also explains my armory at the moment. I'm ashamed. I logged out in my pitiful PvP gear. *cry*)

The festival boss, Lord Ahune, is a daily killable quest in regular Slave Pens. And you can also do him on Heroic for the chance at better loot, which is only reasonable. Maybe it's just us, but that fight is a giant pain in the ass. We tried it once on Heroic with a great tank, a great healer and great DPS. And didn't make it through the first Phase 1. But even on regular, we're averaging 3/5 kills. The healer dies. The tank dies. A DPS dies. Usually we start to lose control during the third Phase 1. The healer is OOM so the tank dies. The elite then goes to eat the healer OR the DPS. A few times, we've survived without a tank or healer in that third phase (<3 warlocks) but ... yowza.

I'm going to keep trying, at least on regular. Kikidas already has the Frostscythe but what we're really after is Deathfrost. Rumor has it that it's a guaranteed drop on heroic. I shall keep trying as long as he's alive!

And for the last... the Fire Festival Burning Blossoms of hate and agony... er, heh. Boon is on vacation for the week. Which is unfortunate because he really wants a few things from the Fire Festival that you can only get by turning in massive quantities of Burning Blossoms. His #1 desire: Brazier of Dancing Flame, followed by the Vestment of Summer and the Sandals of Summer.

I'm pretty sure that I can get those for him. I spent about two and a half hours last night honoring and desecrating flames all across Azeroth and Outlands. This, by the way, is a good way to spend some quality time reading a book while on auto-run. It is also a good way to get some fast easy cash. Fast and easy if there isn't someone guarding said flame that you are trying to desecrate. That would suck. Luckily, no one was a) around or b) interested in messing with a level 70 holy paladin. And that would have taken 20% longer... if I didn't have Crusader Aura. So, travel with a paladin if you can!

If you are interested in doing this insanity, please print off or otherwise have handy the list found at Kaliope's blog. It made it a ton easier to know what towns, where, had a flame for me to visit. Incidentally, the list is in ALMOST 'follow exactly' order (keeping in mind you have to bounce from horde list to alliance list in that follow order.). A little pre-planning before you head out to know where you're going to ride to and fly to will save you a ton of avoidable 'backtracking' time.

Incidentally... I feel bad for the poor Horde. As I was running through the vast emptiness of the Barrens... I realized it would suck to have to have leveled through the Barrens. I also realized that three of the fires the Horde would have to desecrate can only be reached by traveling on an Alliance boat - Dolanaar in Teldrassil and Blood Watch and Azure Watch over by the Exodar.

This is balanced by the hell ride without close flight paths that was Razor Hill in Durotar, Sun's Retreat in Stonetalon, Crossroads in the Barrens, TheTownInTheMiddleOfNowhere in 1k Needles and BloodyHoofSomething in Mulgor.

Since you can't visit the fires a second time, I have to find another way to make blossoms for Boon. The daily quest 'Striking Back' (this is a chain quest, by the way, I recommend starting said chain in Darnassus (or Shattrath). Makes getting to the Zoram Strand much easier.) He's already done the Fire Throwing quests. We shall see. If anyone has any other suggestions on how to get the hell blossoms.. er, Burning Blossoms, lemme know please.

Early Karazhan Gear and Misconceptions

I have this horrible preconception of certain things about raiding. I know it's wrong and I attempt to overcome it whenever possible.

Since the only time I ever really paid attention to Kiki's stats was when I was raiding TK and SSC... I've come to the notion that all raiders need those stats. That's what I did! That's what YOU should do too!

And I would be ... mistaken. (Not wrong, for I am never wrong.)

But one thing I am firmly against is 'gearing for Karazhan within Karazhan'. It caused problems, it will cause problems and it's generally a bad idea. (And it only works for DPS, unless your second rate healer/tank is partnered with a uber healer/tank that can pick up their slack, but generally, poor DPS is carry-able whereas a poor healer or tank is not.)

However, this doesn't mean that you have to run heroic after heroic after heroic after heroic after heroic to get all epics and badge gear before you ever step foot within Karazhan!

What this does mean is that you WILL have to run certain instances to get dropped gear, or you WILL have to craft gear, or you WILL have to get rep to get rep items, or you WILL have to PvP to get some needed hole in gear (damn you, druid tank shoulders! Damn you!) or you WILL have to buy gear. If you're an instance-hog, omg there are so many drops available to you to get you where you need to be. If you like heroics, please, do some. If you're a crafter, make whatever set is spec-appropriate for yourself. Etc. Etc. Ad Nauseum.

(If I could get Abs to show me how to do the wowhead links, like he promised, I've got some ideas for blogs I could write! But alas, alas, I cannot and he won't... *sob*)

Now, in order to be a successful run, REGARDLESS of the color of your gear, you need to have a certain amount of numbers. You can find a rogue in all purples that can't hit the broad side of a barn outside of PvP. This is because PvP attack gear is usually NOT what you want in PvE settings... and getting PvPers to understand this is sometimes related to banging your head against a wall repeatedly, while wishing it was THEIR head you were banging against a wall repeatedly. PvP attack gear usually doesn't have +hit or +spell hit on it, because in PvP, that isn't as important as attack power and crit rating and penetration and all that fun stuff I know next to nothing about. I don't care if you have 1 trillion attack power... it's useless if you can't hit your target.

Seriously, if you doubt the words that I say, get yourself a damage meter and play with it the next time you're in an instance or heroic or whatever. (not applicable against normal mobs, because normal mobs don't have the stats an instance or raid boss will have) And see. We've had someone in our group with amazing purple gear, he looked awesome. He had infinite cosmic attack power. And he was behind in DPS against two non-epixd players. Because his hit rating was through the floor.

Or you're a tank but you're stacking stamina instead of uncrittability, or ... I could go on.

But I digress!

(As you knew I would, so don't act all surprised.)

Here is a link to the recommended starting numbers for a Karazhan run. They aren't that hard to reach. And depending on how much leeway you're willing to give people, some of those numbers are fudgable, with buffs, kings, gotw, etc.

The other big thing that will help in your early runs is making sure everyone knows the pulls. You can find guides galore out there that discuss the strategy for the trash pulls and the bosses. There are probably as many different ways of doing those fights as there are ... uh, fingers on a hand. (I was going to say sand on a beach, but there probably aren't QUITE as many as that.) So just pick one that works for your particular group setup and run with it.

And above all.. have fun. It's a game.

Frozen Shadoweave vs. Tier 4 or 5

So, in my journey of discovery that I've undertaken this week (what, didn't you know?) I've come across a few references where people compare FSW with Tier 4/5 gear, favorably.

So. Let's compare.

a. Shadow's Embrace / Spellstrike Infusion vs. b. Voidheart Rainment vs. c. Corruptor Rainment
(I can't get wowhead to pop up the cool little things, so you'll have to click!)

Now, the nifty thing about those links is they sum them up for you! Most of my work is already done. Woot woot.

The reason I list Shadow's Embrace with Spellstrike Infusion is that likely if you're sticking with those, you'll have both. Versus if you go full T4 or T5.

Now, I can't make nifty tables because I'm an idiot, so I'm going to go stat by stat comparison. Roughly.

Example: Longer Name: a. FSW/SI (35 letters) > b. VR (17 letters) = c. CR (17 letters)

Armor: c 907 > b 821 > a 734
-- armor is useful, but not essential for a warlock that isn't tanking.

Stamina: c 240 > b 183 > a 94
-- it's to be expected that the higher tier armor has more stamina, but of note is that the difference between stamina between B and A is almost double. In some instances, well, a lot of instances, you need a MINIMUM amount of stamina to survive. Most warlocks don't have an issue with that, but it's still something to keep an eye on.

Intellect: b 157 > c 146 > a 64
-- in this instance, B has more intellect than C, but only barely. But C has more than double A. Intellect increases your spell crit chance, not merely your mana pool. And while life-tap and dark-pact mean mana-pool-schmana-pool, they do nothing for your spell crit chance.

Healing: c 248 > b 203 > a 64
-- EDIT: Thanks to /emofire, I look like a moron! No, honestly thank you, Emo. :) So, according to WoWWiki, drain life, etc, does not benefit from +healing. So, does this only apply then to health funnel? What does it apply to? Do our bandages get a buff? Why the heck does our Tier armor have +healing? ... is it for those of us who want to secretly be shadow priests? Give it up, you can't heal anyone!... ahem.. So overall importance, depending on just which of our abilities it applies to (health funnel and bandaging??)... who the heck knows. I don't. Anyone?

Damage: Shadow: a 271 > c 248 > b 203; Fire: c 248 > b 203 > a 92; AVERAGE: c 248 > b 203 > a 181
-- This is the one place where, IMNSHO, A has a clear advantage over the others. You're a warlock. Unless you're destro-specced, (even if you are!) you do a lot of shadow damage. It's what we are. We're shadow-mages (only much cooler). However, it's boost to FIRE damage is pitiful and unless you're completely removing Immolate from your DoT rotation (some afflocks do), you're gimping yourself. I suppose destro-locks and firelocks possibly go Spellfire tailoring.

Spell Crit: c 88 > b 66 > a 50
-- If you're truly an afflock and you believe SB is for weenies, then this stat means nothing for you. However, even an afflock does a vast majority of their damage from SB. SB can crit. So, not so stupid a stat to look at, is it? The FSW set has ZERO spell crit. All the spell crit in this information comes from the SI set.

Spell Hit: c 65 > b 44 > a 38
-- Everyone needs spell hit. We all know the magic numbers. FSW set has ZERO spell hit.

Sockets: a 12 (2R, 5Y, 5B) > c 8 (6Y, 1B, 1Meta) > b 7 (3Y, 2R, 1B, 1Meta)
-- Though it lacks a meta socket, the sheer amount of gems you can put into set A makes it very customizable. A Great Dawnstone supplies +8 spell hit. If you ignore socket bonuses, you could get 96 spell hit in A, 65 in C and 56 in B. A Runed Living Ruby supplies +9 damage. Do the math, I'm lazy. Obviously, the more sockets you have, the more you can boost your gear. It's a nice versatility that so far, IMNSHO, is a saving grace of the mixed A set.

Set Bonus: There is no real rating for this, as the bonus of the set bonus varies from spec to spec and situation to situation.
A offers the chance for 92 spell damage for 10 seconds (SI) and 2% of shadow damage returned in the form of health (FSW). The FSW set bonus was rather nice to have when I was hateful bolt soaker in Kara and when I was farming, but personally, I'd rather have higher overall health and just siphon life.
B 2 pieces give you 135 fire or shadow damage chance, 4 gives your corruption and immolate abilities a 3 second boost in duration.
C 2 pieces gives your pet 15% of your damage in the form of life (hello demonology!) and 4 pieces cause your SB to increase the damage of your corruption by 10% and your incinerate to increase the damage of your immolate by 10%. (affliction or destruction)
IMNSHO, 2 pieces of B is better than 2 pieces of SI. What's really nifty if you could combine the two! Legs and Head of SI, two other pieces of B... then you could get a boost of 217 spell damage (fire or shadow) at any given time. Wouldn't that be nice?
I wish I had four pieces of C, since I'm a big fan of corruption. :)

Anyway... I guess this post could have come across better, maybe I can learn to put in a table and clean it up.

I suppose if you're looking in terms of just overall shadow damage and versatility, FSW/SI is the way to go. However, you take a hit in stamina, intellect, spell hit and spell crit and fire damage.

The nice thing is... my gear is mixed and matched! I'm wearing the FSW boots, T4 head, gloves, chest and legs and T5 shoulders. Though I've lost the FSW set bonus and obviously am no longer wearing the spell strike set, I evaluate gear on a gear by gear basis and upgrade to whatever is better, taking into consideration things like set bonuses and the like. It's a very individualized situation, where HOW you play and WHAT spec you play changes what gear works best for you. You don't HAVE to stick to only T4 or T5 or FSW/SI. You can do what I do, some T4, a T5, some FSW...

Maybe I'll make my first visit to Dr. Doom or Boom or whatever his name is with a few changes of gear and see what works best for me.