Deathknight Level 70 Tanking Gear Set

My DK has got it goin' on!

She hit level 70 and swapped into the Cobalt gear set that's craftable by Blacksmiths in their early Northrend professions levels:

[Cobalt Helm]
[Cobalt Shoulders]
[Cobalt Chestpiece]
[Cobalt Bracers]
[Cobalt Boots]
[Cobalt Legplates]
[Cobalt Belt]
[Cobalt Gauntlets]

Then, after affixing Armor Kits and various enchants with the Outland and early Northrend materials I had laying around in this Enchanter's bank, I headed to the Auction House and picked myself up a few [Eternal Belt Buckle]s and a [Solid Chalcedony] to fill this current belt's gem slot as created by the belt buckle.

I looked for new rings and trinkets, and managed to pick up one Heavy Adamantite Ring for low cost, but since it's unique-equipped, I couldn't make use of two. Trinkets were available in the form of the Darkmoon Faire ones, but the cheapest one started at 500g and I'm not sure I'm ready to invest that much without a bit of thinking, first.

Before and After
I'd originally taken some screenshots to be included in this entry that were meant to show how much of a change this new gear is going to make for me, but I must admit - I was going to be comparing apples and oranges, and then I had blog problems, so I'll save those screenshots for another entry.

You see, I didn't plan to tank during the Outland levels and as a result I focused on my DPS set and DPS Blood spec. So when I plan show the difference between the DPS gear I had on when I hit 70 and the Tanking gear set I put on after I dinged, it's not really a fair comparison.


WoWGrrl's Done The Research Already!

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I'm getting my Blacksmith buddy to craft me the cobalt DPS gear set soon, and once that's crafted then I can do a more direct comparison of the improvements that can be had with a wee bit of work right at the level 70 marker for plate-wearing DPS or Tanks (Paladin, Warrior, Deathknight).

Blizzard has done a really good job at making sure the Tanks can start to be decently geared going into the new leveling dungeons this time around - while DPS folk wearing tailored or leatherworked gear have to level up to 72/74/76 before they can wear their full "set" of gear, Tanks can deck themselves out right at 70.

It remains to be seen if DPS gear requires higher levels than 70 to wear the whole set!

Epic Flyer Purchased
Once I got my gear all in line, I headed through the portal to Shattrath City and then hopped the Taxi to Thrallmar.

Being only Honored with Thrallmar, the cost of my Epic Flying training was a cool 4500g. Ouch! That took a chunk out of my savings, but didn't decimate my monetary supplies like the first two characters I purchased Epic Flying for back in Burning Crusade. By the time my third character got to 70 in order to qualify for Epic Flying training, I had gotten a much better handle on my cash flow and still had thousands of gold left over.

With this Deathknight's purchase of Epic Flying skill, it's my fifth toon with Epic Flying.

It used to be that I bought Epic Flying more because of how painfully slow regular flying was in comparison - once you flew an Epic, your other flyers felt so horribly slow that you were MOTIVATED to get the money to upgrade to the faster flyer. But now, it's simply because I can!

Choosing A Rune Enchantment
Oh yah! One more enchant I got done was on my new 2h sword, but I forgot to write about it.

One thing that makes a Deathknight unique from almost every other class in World of Warcraft is that we can enchant our own weapons with class-related skills.

Now, I realize the Warlocks can do the same, but I don't think their firestones, etc, have the same flexibility as the Deathknight Runeforging.

After I finished off the enchants and armor patches and had visited the Auction House to get some belt buckles and a cheap stamina gem to go into it, I opened up my Death Gate and headed back to "home base" to apply a runeforge enchant to my new 2h sword. My sword wasn't anything spectactular, so I'm not thinking of applying any "real" enchants on it yet.

I looked through my list of Runeforge enchants, and finally chose Rune of Swordshattering for my tanking sword:

Rune of Swordshattering: Affixes your two-handed rune weapon with a rune that increases Parry chance by 4% and reduces the duration of Disarm effects by 50%.

That looks like a good tanking runeforge to me!

Stay tuned for an upcoming entry where I talk about the coming together of my Blood DPS set, along with my first adventures as a tank in Northrend.