WoW Gear: Can you still tank?

World of Warcraft: WoW The great tank gear drought of the 60s

The problem is gear. Upon exiting the starting zone, you are thrust out into the world with a minimum of tank gear. Both your trinkets do have tank stats or procs, as does your chest, but it's still a mishmash, and you may find yourself wanting solid tank gear. If you're an alt, as you probably are, you may be lucky enough to have a main that can throw you a few of the new tanking heirlooms, including the cape, shoulders, helm, and chest. That said, the level 58 to 70 field is generally a wasteland of decent tanking upgrades.

Whether from smithing or quest gear, Outland really isn't that big on gear specifically for tanks, especially for questing. Your best bet is to spend a little time outside of dungeons questing in order to grab what high-stamina quest rewards you can, such as the Underworld Helm. You can also grab the Fearless Girdle and the Circle's Stalwart Helmet in Zangarmarsh, which you can gem with Wrath-era gems to give yourself a nice head start on your HP pool or tank stats.

Can you still tank? The answer, essentially, is yes. It isn't always pretty, but low level dungeons are a lot simpler than high level heroics. Your gear doesn't have to be so severely tanked focused, either. That said, there are at least a few things you should do to make sure you're the best tank you can be.

Raid Rx: Is that DPS gear or healing gear?

Got an email this week from a reader. We'll call him G. I'm sure it's a question that many raid leaders or loot masters had to struggle with over the years.

[...] When cloth item A drops, our caster DPS and healers always /roll on it; the caster DPS doesn't seem to mind if it's MP5 or spirit. Let's take an example of the Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner. Our warlock says spirit is good for him and he /rolls; our priest says it's healer gear [because] of the spirit [as] regeneration for him; and our mage of course wants this also.

The healer complains the caster DPS gets to roll not only on items like this but also on cloth stuff with +hit, effectually rolling on everything cloth in ICC. I can kinda see what he means. My question is what's an easy way to differentiate "healer" gear from caster "DPS" gear, or is it all rolled into one big pot now?

Thanks for any help you can give me, I am not the guild leader but I am the full time loot master, the guild leader has given it to me to decide, as he's never played any caster at all.

Well, G, I don't have a lot of DPS toons myself, but I'll do my best to explain it. The loot system I use is loot council for my raiding guild, and this is a situation we deal with in an ongoing basis as loot drops from bosses.

• Paladin loot is self-explanatory.


• MP5 is generally a healing stat.


• Crit and haste are beneficial for both roles.

As always, whom you ultimately decide to hand loot over to is going to depend on a number of factors such as:

• attendance


• performance


• gear needs


• level of content


• seniority in guild or raid group


• spec

And there are probably more things to consider than that. If we omit the above factors, though, there are a few guidelines we can use if we base our decisions purely on stats. So here we go!

If you're deciding gear on the fly, then use the following purely as a rule of thumb.

• Hit If it has hit rating, it's generally used for DPS players. They need that hit rating to hit mobs. Contrary to whatever you may hear in trade chat, you don't need hit gear to heal people. If a healer says to you he needs the hit in order to heal, get yourself a new healer right now.


• Spirit Usually, the healers will want to claim priority on it first. But I believe mages and warlocks have abilities that convert spirit into a desirable stat, such as Molten Armor and Fel Armor.


• MP5 If you see this on gear, option it to your healers first. I can see situations where extremely undergeared DPS would want it since it could possibly be an upgrade no matter what.


• Crit It's universal for both roles. It's not necessarily wrong for a healer to take a crack at it. It's an item that will benefit either.


• Haste Like crit, haste is also beneficial. Having more haste means you can do stuff way faster, the more haste rating you have. Who doesn't want to do things faster? DPS players want haste so they can fire off more spells. Healers want more haste so they unload heals more quickly.

WOW: Gear for paladins

This is fairly straightforward. Protection- and retribution-specced paladins want nothing to do with spell power. Holy paladins can't seem to get enough of it. Your gear will have varying amounts of MP5, haste and crit depending on the level of content you're doing. Since you don't have any competition, feel free to go nuts.

For stuff like trinkets and weapons, if mana isn't a problem for you, then you'll typically want to lean toward something with haste and crit over MP5. A perfect example would be Belt of the Lonely Noble.

Don't let me catch you going after spirit weapons (until Cataclysm, at least).

Gear for shaman

Unlike paladins, there are two shaman specs that both utilize spellpower. Elemental and restoration shamans want spellpower, but the wishes of the preferred secondary specs are going to vary. Follow the same outline as above. At higher levels when mana isn't an issue, it's not uncommon for a resto shaman to want mail gear with haste and crit rating. If you're the loot master, keep in mind that both will benefit from an item like a Split Shape Belt. There's no hit rating on it, so it doesn't scream "DPS," but there is a ton of haste and crit.

An item like the Mail of Crimson Coins is going to garner more interest from a resto shaman than anyone else.

WOW: Gear for druids

While spirit isn't entirely useless for balance druids, you may wish to pass it off to a resto druid first in case they need extra regeneration. While I admit I'm not as well versed with healing druids as I should be, from what I understand, they value haste more than crit. Get that global cooldown all the way down, right?

WoW: Gear for priests

Last but not least, this is the trickiest, as there is an abundance of cloth-wearing classes. There always seems to be some type of feud going on, especially when it comes to gear drops. Follow the same rules as outlined above.

Let's use the item that was mentioned in the original question. A belt like the Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner will benefit a mage, a warlock or a priest. It does have spirit on it, and normally that would go straight to a healer. But don't forget that those DPS classes have talents which convert spirit into an offensive friendly stat.

Hope that helps with the gear resolution!

WoW ICC-25 Priests Gear Guides

As promised, today I will be discussing 25-man Icecrown Citadel loot in a special edition of Spiritual Guidance. Additionally, I will be giving my assessments on tier 10 set bonuses for those of you who are still deciding how to spend your badges. Finally, I'll be offering up the counter arguments that readers left for the 'who to gear first' debate from Sunday's column.

We have a lot of things to discuss, so let's jump right into it!

Back

• Greatcloak of the Turned Champion -- 25-man Deathbringer Saurfang -- There are two, level 264 badge vendor cloaks (Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky and Drape of the Violet Tower) that this cloak off Saurfang is comparable to. Since the drop has spirit on it, this is a better catch for holy. Disc priests will find better itemization off the Drape of the Violet Tower, however if you find yourself frequently switching between holy, or even shadow, this drop (or the other badge cloak) are good multi-purpose cloaks.


• Frostbinder's Shredded Cape -- 25-man Valithria Dreamwalker -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] This is the throughput cloak that all the DPS are going to want. If you are good on mana regen, this will be your best in slot until hard modes. This is really one of those cases where you should try to be courteous to your fellow raiders though, as healers have 3 other great options.

Chest

• Sanguine Silk Robes -- 25-man Blood Prince Council -- First of all, the socket bonus not listed on the tool tip is 9 spellpower. There are two badge options (Ermine Coronation Robes and Meteor Chaser's Raiment) as well as tier (Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Robe) to compare these robes from Blood Prince Council to. The Sanguine Silk Robes are a good option for a holy priest who wants nothing to do with tier 10, and they are better than the level 264 badge robes (Ermine Coronation Robes). I say they're better than the badge robes because regardless of how you value crit and haste, the looted Sanguine Silk Robes have a lot more spirit. If you want spirit, then this drop is what you want, especially when you consider the high badge costs of the Ermine Coronation Robes. If you don't want spirit though, I would save up for the Meteor Chaser's Raiment. They are the non-tier robe of choice for disc priests pre-heroic ICC. If you are considering tier 10, I would say the Sanguine robes are equal once set bonuses are weighed in.

Feet

• Plague Scientist's Boots -- 25-man Festergut -- These are the boots both disc and holy priests are going to want to hold out for if you prioritize throughput. The only other non-hit option currently available for priests are the crafted Sandals of Consecration. Both are equally hard to come by, due to the cost of Primordial Saronite, and disc priests will find the itemization on the Sandals of Consecration less than favorable if they are trying to min/max one gear set.

Finger

• Ring of Maddening Whispers -- 25-man Lady Deathwhisper -- This is a nice ring for holy priests, or disc priests just looking for an upgrade.


• Incarnadine Band of Mending -- 25-man Blood Prince Council -- This is essentially the Ring of Maddening Whispers, with mp5 instead of spirit.


• Ring of Rapid Ascent -- 25-man Gunship -- This is not only the throughput ring option for priests, it appears to be the best of the available rings, due to the slightly higher crit. If you can get this one, congratulations!


• Memory of Malygos -- 25-man Sindragosa -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] This is basically just the Ring of Maddening Whispers, with haste instead of crit. If you're a holy priest, you might like this. Unfortunately, there is no way to currently confirm the socket bonus, since the fight isn't live. Oh, by the way, this ring is a nice tribute to lore, if you're into that sort of thing. I assume if you're playing an MMORPG you are!

Hands

• San'layn Ritualist Gloves -- 25-man Blood Prince Council -- The socket bonus not on the tool tip is 7 spellpower. These gloves are comparable to both badge loot options (Gloves of Ambivalence and Gloves of False Gestures) and the tier gloves(Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Gloves). The San'layn Ritualist Gloves are worse than the Gloves of Ambivalence, so if you wanted the latter, stick with it unless no one else wants the San'layn Ritualist Gloves. The Gloves of False Gestures are the best option for disc priests and holy priests who want throughput over tier. Just take in mind that if you want a level 277 glove upgrade later, there will be no equivalent badge options.

Head

• Corp'rethar Ceremonial Crown -- 25-man Gunship -- If, for whatever reason, you're considering only getting the 2-piece tier bonus, the tier helm (Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Cowl) may be the piece you consider skipping. The Corp'rethar Ceremonial Crown has the same spellpower, slightly less crit, and more spirit than the tier helm. When most of the other tier pieces have more spellpower than their counterparts, this drop makes level 264 tier helm a bit oddly itemized. If you don't want tier, however, the toss up between the two items is 8 spirit or 8 critical strike rating.

Legs

Guess what? There are no legs that drop in 25-man ICC! If you want level 264 legs you will have to choose between tier or crafted gear. Crafted option #1 is Lightweave Leggings. With the spirit, disc priests will want to avoid these. Arguably, since so much goes into crafted gear, holy priests may also prefer to skip on the Lightweave Leggings, for crafted option #2 Leggings of Woven Death. This is because over time most healers will want throughput over regen. Finally, the tier option (Sanctified Crimson Acolyte Leggings) offers comparable but ultimately inferior stats if the set-bonuses aren't valued. However, since there are no leg drops in 25-man ICC that we know of, there might not be 277 leg drops either. This means that if you plan on raiding hard modes, you should probably get tier over crafted gear.

Main-hand

• Frozen Bonespike -- 25-man Lord Marrowgar -- Nice choice for either disc or holy, and since it drops off the first boss in ICC, it shouldn't be hard to come by over time.


• Trauma -- 25-man Rotface -- Various sources report that the proc rate on this mace is not good. Players who have tested it report it healing for an average of 1-2%. One person told me his guild referred to it as "DE fodder," but if it's an upgrade, take it. The spellpower alone is decent, but in general the raw stats just aren't as good as the Frozen Bonespike. I would consider the proc a 'perk' as opposed to something you weigh into the mace's stats.

Neck

• Bone Sentinel's Amulet -- 25-man Lord Marrowgar -- A good choice for holy priests, but you may want to hold out for Blood Queen's Crimson Choker if you don't need more spirit.


• Holiday's Grace -- 25-man Festergut -- Good disc priest itemization, but again, if you're good on regen you'll get more from the neck off Queen Lana'thel. The mp5 will lower the competition for this piece though, making it easier to get, so holy priests can still look to it as an option.


• Blood Queen's Crimson Choker -- 25-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- This is the neck you want if you're going for throughput. Everyone else is going to want it too though.

Off-Hand

• Shadow Silk Spindle -- 25-man Blood Prince Council -- This is the only non-hit level 264 caster off-hand available until the last wing opens next week. This particular off-hand is good for disc and holy.


• Sundial of Eternal Dusk -- 25-man Sindragosa -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] This alternative to the Shadow Silk Spindle has spirit, and is thus better for holy priests.

Shoulders

• Stiffened Corpse Shoulderpads -- Zone drop -- These shoulders drop off of ICC trash. Just like I said in my 10-man gear list, there are currently no shoulder options without spirit, so if you're looking for throughput and don't want tier, this is as good as it's going to get. The exception is if there ends up being shoulders on the Lich King's loot table. Since we can't know for sure though, I would suggest saving your tier shoulder purchase for last. If there are shoulders that drop off Arthas then you can expect a heroic version, if there aren't you can skip these dropped shoulders and go for tier so you can upgrade later.

Trinket

• Althor's Abacus -- 25-man Gunship -- Depending on your preferences, this may be an amazing trinket or just a good trinket. The spellpower bonus is absolutely fantastic to what else is available, but the proc effect will vary in its effectiveness. On heavy raid damage fights this trinket will shine, but in an alternative situation the proc effect will probably just overheal a lot. On average the proc effect is not going to do much more effective healing than the mace we mentioned earlier, but because the spellpower outshines other trinkets it's a nice choice for healers who like the concept. I personally find the effect too random, but if there is ever an extra one around I would surely take it to swap out for certain fights. This trinket is solely throughput, by the way, so if you need regen be sure to check out Purified Lunar Dust at the badge vendors.


• Bauble of True Blood -- 25-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- This is hailed as a PvP trinket, but if you're wanting more mana regen, and didn't get a Solace, this is an okay choice. Cooldown on the use effect is 2 minutes.

Two-Hand

• Dying Light -- 25-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- If you're like me, and always choose a staff, this is going to be a first choice. Lots of haste means it will be sought after by everyone who can use it though. I suspect there might be a better staff for throughput on the Lich King's loot table, but time will tell.

Waist

• Crushing Coldwraith Belt -- 25-man Lord Marrowgar -- This is the throughput belt option, and thankfully since it drops off Marrowgar, everyone should be able to have a shot at it. For this reason I don't recommend spending your badges on the vendor belt, the Circle of Ossus.


• Lingering Illness -- 25-man Festergut -- This belt is an acceptable option for holy priests who didn't nab the Crushing Coldwraith Belt. Disc priests will still find less benefits from spirit in combat.

Wand

• Corpse-Impaling Spike -- 25-man Rotface -- This is the throughput wand in 25-man ICC, so if you're disc or holy and don't need mana, grab this.


• Nightmare Ender -- 25-man Valithria Dreamwalker -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] A wand with spirit: holy priests have at it. The tooltip says it is BoE but it may be an error. Until the fight is live, we can't confirm anything.

Wrists

• Death Surgeon's Sleeves -- 25-man Rotface -- Remember how the Unsullied Cuffs were in a league of their own for a while? Same thing here. There are no crafted or badge options currently available for bracers.

Looking at all of it, I'm actually pretty impressed with the itemization available on the level 264 gear. Between the drops, badge gear, and tier, I think there is something for everyone. I'm very curious what will drop off Arthas and how it will affect our wish lists. When we start seeing some of the Lich King's loot next week, I'll be sure to post a third follow-up story.

WoW Pre-Naxx Hunter Gear List

Unless you have a nice guild chances are you will have to gear up before you can being raiding with them. There are a lot of items out there that a hunter can use, but choosing the best can at times be difficult. In this guide I will advise you to pick up some gear which will help you get raid spots.

Head

King Dred's Helm This is a great piece of gear and there is only two better from Naxx 10. It drops from King Dred in Drak'Tharon Keep Heroic.

Plunderer's Helmet This drops from Invagar the Plunderer in Utgarde Keep Heroic. This is a good head because it is the only one pre-raid that has a meta slot. (Excluding PvP)

Shoulder

Massive Pauldrons of the JormungarDrops from Gortek Palehoof in Utgarde Pinnacle Heroic.

Spauldrons of the Black Arrow These require revered with Knight's of the Ebon Blade and also require you to have unlocked the Shadow Vault.

Chest

Aviary Guardsman's Hauberk This is a zone drop from Drak'Tharon Keep Heroic, luckily it is BOE and you can normally pick it up from the auction house relatively cheap.

Hauberk of Arcane Wrath This drops from Anomalus in Nexus Heroic

Hands

Handgrips of the Savage Emissary These drop from Cyanigosa in Violet Hold Heroic

Grips of the Beast God These drop from Gal'Darah in Gundrak Heroic.

Wrists

Eaglebane Bracers These are made by Leatherworkers and require 40 Icy Dragonscales. They are incredibly cheap for how good they are. These are arguably better than most of the Naxx drops too.

Giantmaim Bracers These are also made by Leatherworkers but are more expensive than the Eaglebane ones. This may be better if you are hitcapped.

Waist

Sovereign's Belt This drops from King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle Heroic.

Belt of Tassled Lanterns This is a zone drop from Gundrak Heroic. It is BOE so check the auction house for it.

Legs

Giantmaim Legguards These are made by Leatherworkers and may set you back a couple of hundred gold.

Leggings of the Stone Halls These drop from Sjonnir The Ironshaper in Halls of Stone Heroic.

Feet

Dragon Slayer's Sabatons These drop from Keristrasza in Nexus Heroic

Boots of Twinkling Stars These require exalted with Kirin Tor and so aren't too desirable.

Neck

Titanium Impact Choker This is made by Jewelcrafters and is quite expensive.

Pendant of the Outcast Hero This costs 25 Emblems of Heroism.

Rings

The Prospector's Prize Drops from Krystallus in Heroic Stones of Hall. This is only good if you are under the hit cap.

Titanium Impact Band Like the necklace, made by Jewelcrafters and is fairly expensive.

Ring of Scarlet Shadows Made by Jewelcrafters.

Mobius Band Drops from Chrono Lord Epoch in Heroic Culling of Stratholme.

Trinkets

Darkmoon Card: Greatness As the name suggests this is a great trinket, comes from handing in the nobles deck to the Darmoon Faire, however it costs a couple of thousand gold. The 90 intellect version is good too.

Incisor Fragment Drops from King Dred in Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep.

Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood Drops from Keristrasza in Nexus Heroic.

Mirror of Truth A great trinket, costs 40 emblems of heroism. 10% proc and so the more crit you have the more often it will proc. The buff lasts for 10 seconds and has a 30 second internal cooldown.

I hope that this helps you gear up for raids!

Hunter gear for the level 80 beginning raider

Have you just reached level 80?

Hoping to see endgame before Patch 3.2?

Are you wanting to raid, but not sure what gear to get?

Well then, this guide is for you!

It might be true that you can go straight from questing and leveling straight into raiding Naxxramas. Maybe even get carried on a few 10man Ulduar Normal mode runs (if this happens I'm sure you will probably be a part of the next Guildwatch post.)

When you make the transition into endgame you really can't expect to crush the damage meters. Don't feel all insulted and indignant, it really isn't your fault. When your questing and leveling you don't really focus on gear much. Not to mention making sure you have the correct pet or spec to achieve the numbers published on Elitist Jerks or some of those other Hunter sites.

Another drawback of making the mad dash to end game could meant that you might have passed up on some great items to get your endgame raiding started on the right foot. Worse yet, you might have vendored or disenchanted some of those quest and reputation rewards for easy gold. Nothing can make you feel lower than a Gnome Warlock than showing up in quest greens and blues, doing less dps than the Tank all because you didn't think ahead and get a good starting raid set.

Of course your favorite Hunter columnist would never think of leaving you out in the cold that way. So I decided to put together a quick gearing guide that will help you achieve solid dps when you start raiding endgame content.


Head
Headguard of Westrift from Cache of Eregos in The Oculus or Truesight Ice Blinders if an Engineer Neck
Necklace of the Chrono-Lord from Chrono-Lord Epoch in Stratholme Past or Titanium Impact Choker from Jewelcrafting Back:
Ice Striker's Cloak from Leatherworking Shoulders:
Spaulders of Skillful Maneuvers from Mage-Lord Urom in Normal mode The Oculus Chest:
Lightningbringer's Hauberk from the Whatever it Takes! Quest in Halls of Lightning or Polished Regimental Hauberk when Exalted with Argent Crusade Waist:
Waistband of the Thuzadin from Salramm the Fleshcrafter in The Culling of Stratholme Hands:
Tear-Linked Gauntlets from Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle Wrists:
Tornado Cuffs from Ionar in Halls of Lightening or Dragonfriend Bracers when Exalted with Wyrmrest Accord Legs:
Leather-Braced Chain Leggings from Loken in Halls of Lightning or Giantmaim Legguards from Leatherworking Feet:
Boots of the Terrestrial Guardian from Halls of Lightning or Dragonstompers from Leatherworking Rings:
Bjarngrim Family Signet from General Bjarngrim in Halls of Lightning or Band of the Kirin Tor from the Jewelry Vendor in Dalaran and Titanium Impact Band from Jewelcrafting Trinkets:
Fezzik's Pocketwatch from the The Last Line of Defense quest in Icecrown and Vestige of Haldor from King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle Gun:
Zombie Sweeper Shotgun when Revered with Argent Crusade or Nesingwary 4000 from Engineering Melee:
Runeblade of Demonstrable Power when Revered with Ebon Blade or Whale-Stick Harpoon when Revered with Kalu'ak

WoW Guide to the latest features

Before WoW Patch 3.1 hit the live servers, I wrote about the changes that would be coming for those of us with limited playtime. Now that we've had the patch and some fixes and more fixes and yet even more fixes, let's talk a bit about what actually happened and how best to take advantage of the features for casual players.

First of all, the Gear Manager did not make it into WoW Patch 3.1 or WoW 3.1.1. Hopefully when it does, it will allow for automatic equipment switching when changing forms/specs. With Outfitter being developed again and with other options available, there is no reason to include this feature until they get it right.


Cooking, Fishing, First Aid: The secondary professions no longer require the purchase of books to train. You can now go to the appropriate trainer and just pay to level up. Hot Spices and Soothing Spices are now obsolete. If you have some in your bags or bank, they have become grey and can be sold. Most of the recipes have been reduced to meat only, so apples are no longer needed for the Jungle and Strider Stews, for example. Overall, cooking, fishing and first aid got more convenient to level and there are better rewards.

Dual Specs: Dual Specs are implemented and everyone is doing it. Even if you don't raid, they are very convenient for those who both PvP and PvE or players who split their time between soloing and grouping. So, save up 1000 gold and if you are over level 40, try it out at your nearest class trainer. You'll also need two sets of glyphs to go along with your two specs, so make sure you have those covered as well. And check out your class column here at WoW Insider for advice as to how to dual spec your class.

Quest Tracking: The most useful and possibly most annoying thing about the improved Quest tracking features is that the item you need to use to complete a quest will be displayed and usable next to the quest on your main screen. It is very useful, when your quest is being actively tracked and if you have enough screen real estate. I find that the changes don't affect my questing very much and a program like Quest Helper still very much makes the leveling faster and more convenient.

Talent Calculator: The new built-in Talent Calculator did get implemented, but you have to activate it -- on every character. Go to the Game Menu, Interface, Display and then check the box that says Preview Talent Changes. Now, when you select your talents, you will need to accept them before they will apply. But this allows you to right click to remove any selections and make changes as needed before accepting them. I don't really find it intuitive that it is listed under Display, nor do I agree with having it default to off. But I'm happy it's there, now that I know where to find it. And since my druid was hit by the talents disappearing bug multiple times, I made good use of it.

Other little casual friendly changes did get made as promised, such as Hearthstone cooldown times getting reduced to 30 minutes (yay!) and ground mounts swimming through water instead of dismounting you (also yay!). Overall, the patches and instability and bugfixes did finally end up in a more casual friendly game for us.

Oh and Happy Mothers' Day to all of you gamer moms out there! I hope you get some extra uninterrupted playtime in today and get to see Star Trek as often as you want to. (Insert fangirl noise here)

Gearing your Mage for PvP

Of all the new stuff patch 3.1 brought us, perhaps this single most significant change was the addition of dual specs. Suddenly everybody and their second cousins can tank (or think they can tank), and every Druid/Paladin/Shaman has a resto/holy spec waiting in the wings. Everybody rolls on everything in every dungeon because they're "gearing up for their second spec"...or third spec...or whatever.

Mages don't have multiple roles to fill. We can't use our second talent spec slot for a tank or healer build. Our choices are and always have been DPS or DPS, just as God intended. And so, the advent of dual specs have instead opened up a different kind of door for a lot of Mages: PvP.

For the first time, we can keep our mana-efficient, DPS-maximized raiding build, and still have a second PvP-centric build on stand-by. A lot of Mages are taking advantage of this, and many are taking their first real steps into the strange and somewhat intimidating world of player-versus-player combat. For the Mage making that first foray into PvP, the culture shock can be very real, and the gear gap can seem insurmountable.

Fear not. Arcane Brilliance is here to tell you how to quickly and easily close that gap. Click the link below, and we'll have you mounting Warlock heads on your wall in no time.


Wrath of the Lich King has made PvP accessible like never before. Gear is easier to obtain, resilience isn't the absolute necessity it once was, and the options for fighting other players have never been so numerous and varied. In Burning Crusade, if you wanted to start getting PvP gear, you had two choices. You could start grinding honor in battlegrounds--a process that quickly became so repetitive and boring that a common practice was to simply plant your character in Alterac Valley and then go eat a sandwich or something while he soaked up honor--or you could try out Arena combat, which meant getting your face pounded mercilessly ten times a week until you'd gotten enough points to buy your first piece of gear, then repeating the process. In the old system, the die-hards got ever better gear, while the more casual PvPer fell further and further behind.

Thankfully, none of that is true anymore. Getting into PvP can still be daunting, but it isn't the exercise in humility it once was. Today, we'll cover the numerous ways to quickly and easily start building your Mage's PvP arsenal.

The Currency

There are several ways to purchase PvP gear, and in some cases, you can choose which way you want to buy certain items. There are even ways to exchange one form of PvP currency for another, so in a very real sense, you can gear up in whatever way you prefer. Hate Arena, but love Wintergrasp? There are ways to get a lot of what you want without having to do the things you don't like.

Honor
Everytime you kill another player, you get honor (except in Arenas). Battlegrounds net you a certain amount of bonus honor for winning (and losing), and there are numerous PvP quests that will grant large amounts of honor for completing certain PvP objectives. Honor is probably the fastest currency to amass, which is why you generally need copious amounts of it to purchase things.

Arena Points
To get this currency, you must fight in Arenas. You must compete in at least ten matches every week, and at the end of each week, you are awarded Arena points based on your team's rating. Season 6 changed the way this system works, and in my own humble opinion, did so in a very positive way.

Every new team now starts at a rating of zero, and each win gains you rating, usually in large amounts. As you approach the old midpoint of a 1500 rating, you'll start to see smaller gains for wins and larger point-loss for defeats. The upshot of this is that it is now far less of a blow to your self-esteem to start out in Arenas. Some of those you fight will be good, but others will suck just as hard as you do, and at first, at least, you'll see your rating steadily rise.

You use this currency in conjunction with honor to buy gear, and the better gear has a minimum Arena rating requirement to purchase. In other words, you can only suck for so long before you run out of things to spend your Arena points on.

Marks of Honor
These are awarded for participating in battlegrounds, and Wintergrasp. You get three for winning, and one for losing. The Wintergrasp marks, in particular, are used to purchase exclusive gear and items, many of which are very nice indeed. You can trade the marks from the other battlegrounds in for honor, or use them to buy mounts or lower level PvP gear.

The Gear

You can get PvP gear very quickly in Wrath, and with a minimum of grinding. There is quite a lot of it that requires no Arena rating whatsoever. Seriously, hop in and out of Wintergrasp a few times, do a few battlegrounds in-between, and you'll be able to buy a piece or two. The idea here is to start building up a little resilience, so that you can survive long enough to kill something.

Frostsavage set
This Tailoring set is easily craftable, made cheaply, and is pretty rock solid. Patch 3.1 even upped the ante by giving it a couple of nice set-bonuses. You can pick it up rather cheaply on the auction house, or simply gather the mats yourself and have your own set made. This was designed as an entry-level PvP option for players to don before ever having to set foot in an Arena or battleground, and it fills that role quite nicely.

Hateful Gladiator set

With the start of Arena season 6, this set no longer has a rating requirement. The easiest way to start obtaining the major pieces (chest, legs, gloves, head, shoulder) is to jump into Arena right away. Form yourself a team, get at least one other person to play with, and do your ten matches a week, or more if you develop a taste for it. Each week or two, you should be able to buy a new piece for a small amount of Arena points and a little bit of honor.

If you absolutely hate Arena, you can also purchase these items (as well as their non-set counterparts) with straight honor, but the required amount is much larger.

Deadly Gladiator Non-set pieces
These can now be purchased at the PvP vendor in Orgrimmar straight up for honor with no rating requirements. You can fill a lot of your slots with these (neck, waist, ring, wrist, feet, cloak, trinket) with just a little work in battlegrounds or Wintergrasp.

Wintergrasp items
These are purchased with Wintergrasp marks, so to buy them, you'll need to start participating in Wintergrasp as often as possible. Patch 3.1 added a bunch more of these, and they provide nice alternatives to fill in gaps in your gear when you run out of honor/Arena points. They now include options for the following slots: head, belt, chest, boots, and a number of very nice new trinkets. So before you spend your hard-earned honor or Arena points on an item for any of those slots, check your Wintergrasp marks and see if you can't fill that slot another way.

Hateful and Savage Gladiator sets for Emblems

If you've been doing a lot of raiding, and have a lot of extra Emblems of Valor/Heroism, you can use them to purchase the lower-level PvP sets if you so choose. This can be a decent enough way to fill in gaps, especially if you want to gear up for PvP quickly and have the spare emblems lying around. The nice thing about all of these Gladiator's sets is that you can mix and match from them and still retain your set bonuses. One less thing to worry about, right?

Deadly/Furious Gladiator sets
The Deadly set was top-tier in season 5, and still isn't shabby. You can obtain the various pieces at a lower Arena rating than the new Ulduar-comparable Furious set, so as your ratings rise, you may wish to invest in a piece or two of Deadly stuff to get by on in the meantime.

The Furious set, on the other hand, is the new hotness added with Season 6, and it is sexy. If Arena is your cup of tea, then this set is your goal. Build up your rating, save up your honor and Arena points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

You can also use the new Emblems of Conquest from Ulduar to buy the items from this set, but I'm not sure why anybody'd want to do that. If you've been tooling around Ulduar so long already that you've got Emblems to spare, you should be able to kick the crap out of enough people in PvP to obtain this gear far easier by hitting the Arena.
Gladiator's Weapons
Again, these all require high Arena ratings to obtain. They should be a goal for now, but expect getting them to take a while. Initially, you'll be perfectly fine bringing in a nice PvE weapon with some good PvP stats on it (stamina, spellpower, haste, crit, intellect, etc.). Just grab your favorite staff or spellblade and take the plunge.

Meta Gems/Enchants
These can actually be purchased in Wintergrasp with Stone Keeper's Shards, which if you've been playing at all since the expansion hit, should be sitting around in large piles around your house, collecting dust and making your wife angry. The metas are quite nice, and generally geared toward PvP benefits, like run speed or stun resist, and the head/shoulder enchants are good for adding a bit of resilience and spellpower.

In the history of WoW, I can safely say there has absolutely never been a better time to jump into PvP. My personal advice is this: Wintergrasp, Wintergrasp, Wintergrasp. Go as often as you can. Do all of the daily quests there as often as you can. Do the Battleground victory daily if you have time, unless it's Alterac Valley and you're in one of the many battlegroups where that battleground is impossible to win for your faction. I swear, I had that frigging daily in my log for a month straight before I got into a match where there was something resembling an equal number of Horde to Alliance and we actually won one. I hate that place now. I hate it so much.

In addition, form a team and get your ten Arena matches in a week. Even if you're losing all ten, and you feel terrible about yourself afterwards, the points are worth it. For pure time-spent to gear obtained, Arena and Wintergrasp are the ways to go.

You can also get a lot of the various Gladiator's gear as drops from the Wintergrasp raid bosses, so keep an eye out for people asking for more DPS for those raids. They're short, easy (well, the first one is), and if your faction has Wintergrasp, people are always looking for more. Nothing beats winning the roll on a piece of Furious gear you don't even have the rating requirement to otherwise purchase.

If nothing else, you should consider hopping on the PvP bandwagon for the opportunity to kill more Warlocks. As the old saying goes: "every time a Warlock dies, and angel gets its wings." I'm not sure that's exactly how it goes, but that's how I'm teaching it to my children.

WoW 25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear

10-man ilvl 25-man
Naxx 200
KT, EoE 213 Naxx
Ulduar 219
Ulduar hard 226 Ulduar, KT/EoE
232 Ulduar weapons
239 Ulduar hard
Once upon a time, the only raiding in WoW was 40-man raiding, and we did it uphill, both ways, and flasks went away when you died. And we liked it. Later on in Classic WoW, some 20-man raids were introduced in the form of Zul'gurub and Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, and they were generally seen as successful.

So successful, in fact, that when Burning Crusade came along, there were no more 40-man raids - only 10 and 25. At the beginning, the only 10-man was BC's entry-level raid, Karazhan. Everything else, from the small T4 raids (Gruul, Magtheridon) on up through T6, was exclusively 25-man. Notably, Gruul and Mags returned the same quality of rewards as KZ. Eventually a second 10-man raid (Zul'Aman) was introduced, with roughly a T5 level of difficulty, and of rewards.

Blizzard noticed that people really liked these 10-man raids. And so it came to pass that in the current expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, every raid instance is available in both 10- and 25-man versions. However, in a departure from all previous tradition, the 10- and 25-man instances at the same tier (which is to say, T7, at the moment) reward different levels of gear: Naxx-10 gives you ilvl 200 epics, whereas Naxx-25 rewards you with ilvl 213.

Actually, saying that raids at the same tier reward different gear was slightly misleading of me. In actuality, the 10- and 25-man versions of raids in Wrath are tuned a tier (13 ilvls) apart. In the terminology of prior versions of WoW, if Naxx-10 is a T7 raid, we ought to call Naxx-25 T8. Ulduar-10 would then also be T8, and Uld-25 would be T9. We don't use names like this probably because the "tier" designation is related to tier sets that drop in raids, and the Naxx-25 T7.5 set is obviously more similar to the Naxx-10 T7.0 set than to the Uld-10 T8.0 set.

However, this is mostly a technicality. The take-away point is that in Wrath, the developers seem to have decided that 25-man raiding is better than 10-man raiding. It rewards better gear. And in Ulduar (which is of course the centerpiece of the upcoming 3.1 patch), this difference sharpens, since as far as I can tell there is no way to get the new legendary healer mace, Val'anyr, by doing 10-man raids.

The information thus far is that the Fragments of Val'anyr (of which you combine 30 to form the mace itself, reminiscent of Atiesh) drop mainly from hard-mode 25-man bosses, with a smaller chance to drop from non-hard-mode 25-man bosses. (Please correct me in the comments if you know this to be incorrect.) Which means if you're a healer in a 25-man raiding guild who's willing to put in some effort, you can probably get Val'anyr sooner or later. But if you're in a 10-man raiding guild, simply put, you're flat our of luck (unless you want to do a lot of pugs, I guess).

In my opinion, there is no justification for this. A common argument is that 25-mans are harder, and thus 25-man raiders "deserve" better gear. In my experience, this is absolutely false; the bits of 25-man Naxx that I've done I could practically have slept through, and 10-man Sarth with 3 drakes is generally accepted as the toughest fight in the game right now. This may be different in Ulduar (I haven't tried it on the PTR), but I doubt it - the more raiders you have, the more room for slack.

Another argument is that the 25-mans require more time investment. This is true to the extent that it's simply harder to wrangle 25 AFK-happy, incompatible-schedule-having raiders than 10 of them. But if that alone is enough to command better rewards, every guild leader who's ever held a guild meeting should get free epics. We should be rewarding skill, not suffering. This is related to the argument that 10-man raids are for "casuals", while 25-man raids are for "hardcore" players.

The third major argument in favor of the gear disparity between 10- and 25-mans, and a very telling one, is that if 10s had rewards equal to 25s, nobody would do the 25s. The only reason I can think of for this is that 25s are less fun to organize and/or to play that 10s. But should Blizzard really be using gear to incentivize players to do less fun content?

Note that I'm not advocating for free epics here. Reward should be proportional to effort. But reward should not necessarily be proportional to pain, which seems to be the idea behind the third argument.

I'll cut to the chase here: 25s are no harder than 10s, and not inherently better in any way that I can see. It's time to stop discriminating between the two. Let 10s and 25s reward the exact same quality of gear, and let the players' choice on which raid size to run be motivated by how many of their friends they want to play with, or the size of their guild, or what kind of a raiding environment they like, not the lure of better gear. And as an added bonus, you no longer have to itemize 10s and 25s separately if you don't want to.

If this leads to 25s being virtually abandoned, honestly, I see no problem with that. Let the most fun content win out. You don't see many people doing Heroic Oculus - should we make all drops in it 6 ilvls higher? To me, the answer is an obvious no. Instead, fix the content to make it more fun.

I don't, as it happens, think that changing 10s and 25s to drop the same gear would lead to an abandonment of 25s. There are lots of players out there who like the environment and the action of a 25-man raid, and there are lots of guilds built around that size of group. I seriously doubt everyone will suddenly start doing 10s just because their stats are no longer better than everyone else's.

Incidentally, this provides a solution to a concern about achievements that is currently under debate in the PTR forums. The realm-first achievements for Ulduar-10 were removed under concerns that 25-man guilds would pop into Uld-25 to get a few epics and then go back and clobber Uld-10, reaping the achievements. This is not behavior that Blizz wants to promote, so they pulled the Uld-10 realm firsts. If Uld-10 and Uld-25 rewarded the same gear, this would no longer be a possible strategy.

They are apparently planning to implement an achievement for defeating Algalon without having any gear of greater ilvl than Uld-10 hard modes (226), but we still don't get any realm-firsts in 10-man raiding, while the 25-man raiders do. Yeah, I'm whining a bit, but it is a disparity, and it does give the chance of a greater reward (a realm first) for easier content.

When I was hashing out this argument with the WoW Insider team, Alex and Rossi were very passionate that awarding the same gear from 10s that you do from 25s would kill 25-man raiding, despite the fact that many players prefer 25s. The reason for this would be that 25s take more time (which I'm not disagreeing with), and that players will optimize their play for greatest character advancement per time. In other words, if you can raid Uld-10 in 3 hours for gear of ilvl X, nobody is going to take the 4 hours to raid Uld-25 for gear of the same ilvl, no matter how much more they may prefer the 25-man-raiding environment.

This argument is reasonable, and Ghostcrawler appears to agree with it (or at least agree that the death of 25-man raiding would result from gear parity). However, I just don't buy it. I think that as long as the reward rate disparity isn't huge (as it is with current arenas, leading to their unpopularity), people will play what they want - if they like 25-man raiding, they'll do it. I don't think raiders aren't motivated by gear - they clearly are - but I also don't think they're solely motivated by gear. Other factors are at play.

For my 25-man-raiding constituency, I have make a pair of polls to test my hypothesis. These are obviously very unconclusive and unscientific, but I would appreciate your responses nonetheless. 10-man raiders or non-raiders, please refrain from voting; I'd like to keep these polls as representative as I can.

Encrypted Text: Upcoming Rogue gear in patch 3.1

With patch 3.1's steam winding down, I predict its release in the next three weeks. Our most recent change was a simple increase to Deadly Throw's velocity: hardly groundbreaking. We should begin finalizing new builds, and planning our gear upgrade paths.

Between the Argent Tournament, Ulduar, and new PvP gear, Rogues everywhere will be very busy collecting all of the new leather gear that we'll have access to. Read on to find out where to pick up the best upgrades, and how to prepare by stockpiling now. And to any Warriors looking for a wishlist: Sorry guys, leather is for Rogues (& our pictured feline friends)!

Argent Tournament:
Blizzard's first attempt at a true solo PvE environment is one of the bigger attractions of patch 3.1. We've compiled a guide to the Argent Tournament, based on the information available so far. Siha over at Banana Shoulders also has an excellent series covering the actual Tournament mechanics. While many of the details concerning the rewards are still unknown, we do have information on a few of the available items.

It's all ilvl 200 gear, which is equivalent to a Heroic Dungeon or Naxx10 gear. If you're already sporting a level 80 epic in the same slot, it's unlikely that these rewards will be very attractive. However, for those Rogues who are still working on building their level 80 set, these should be some easy items to acquire.

Displayed here at MMO-Champion, there appears to be two weapons of interested to Rogues: a slow mace and a slow dagger. These are comparable with The Fleshshaper and Crimson Steel, with these PvE items having better stats than the current AT rewards. There are also a pair of leather boots, complimented by a necklace and a new resilience trinket.

While I still prefer the Wintergrasp version of the trinket, the boots are actually very solid. It could be that I was still using level 75 blue boots even after weeks of raiding, and that they were my last blue piece before going all epic, but I really had a difficult time finding some good armor for my sneaky feet. I'd suggesting picking these up if you're still kicking around in your Rhino Hide Kneeboots.

PvP:
Wintergrasp has had its rewards upped a notch, with a new belt, trinkets, and chest pieces available for Rogues. These are all ilvl 213, and as such are comparable with the Deadly Gladiator pieces available. If you compare the pieces, they are almost identical, except for a few switched stats (ArPen for crit, for example). These are very easy pieces to obtain, as they only require Wintergrasp Marks. I suggest saving Wintergrasp Marks now to purchase these new pieces if you don't have a Deadly Gladiator piece available. The PvP trinkets are particularly valuable to Rogues, as they will allow us to grab even more offensive stats in lieu of resilience on our 2nd trinket slot. Ghostcrawler says that players follow the loot... and he's absolutely right.

We've also seen the addition of Furious Gladiator gear, the next progression in PvP gear. It's a tier above the current Deadly Gear, and as such will be highly desired. You can save up Honor for it now, but remember that Arena points will be wiped come the patch. While it remains to be seen how the upcoming arena rating shakeup will affect the ease of acquiring this gear, there will still be a constantly tapped source: Emalon. Think of Emalon as Archavon's bigger brother, and with better loot. He'll be sharing a place with Archavon in Wintergrasp keep in 3.1, and will give you the ability to roll on some new PvP gear if your faction has control.

Ulduar:
I've added a quick-reference list of the new items that are confirmed for patch 3.1, but I'm doubtful that this is the complete list. Ghostcrawler was quoted as saying that Ulduar would contain more items than all of the raiding instances in TBC combined, and this was AFTER the caster gear consolidation. How many items are missing will remain to be seen, but we still have a good idea of the types of gear we'll be seeing.

Ulduar10 gear should be comparable with Naxx25 gear, which will allow for players in smaller guilds compete with the Naxx25 geared players. Ulduar10H (my signal for "hard mode") will be comparable with Ulduar25! This is huge, as it allows a well-trained and organized group of 10 to collect the same level of gear as a beginning 25 person raid. My guild will be gunning for U10H as quickly as possible.

U25 will be a half-tier above Naxx25, with U25H providing the full tier upgrade over current content. I don't see U25H being completed be nearly as many guilds as there are downing KT25 every week, and so this should help to normalize the gear spectrum. With many guilds sporting U25 and a few sporting U10H, they will be on even footing for output. U25H will have the advantage, but will be reserved for the most talented of raiders.

MMO-Champion has a great collection of the new leather gear available, split up by normal and heroic difficulties. If you found this guild to ilvls confusing, check out the WotLK section of the ilvl WoWWiki. They've got a nice chart that should answer any questions you may have.

Emblem Gear:
While much of the emblem gear is unavailable, I want to explain how the new token and naming system works. The "Heroes" prefix refers to ilvl 200 gear, the "Valorous" prefix refers to ilvl 213-219 gear, and the "Conqueror's" prefix refers to ilvl 226+ gear. Emblems of Heroism will continue to buy ilvl 200 gear, so don't expect to find any upgrades here. However, there will be a new type of Valorous token introduced (some are calling them different colors, such as red and blue Valorous tokens) that will be used for ilvl 219 gear exclusively. Current Emblems of Valor will NOT allow you to purchase any of this new gear, and so saving up your EoVs is not a wise investment.

The new EoV2s (my name for them) will be usable for the new ilvl 219 gear, and the current EoVs will stick to ilvl 213 gear. While it's only a slight upgrade, my hopes are that the EoV2 gear occupies different slots than the current gear, allowing us to maximize our gearing speed without worrying about wasting any Emblems. Look for two pieces of T810 and T825 available on the vendors as well!

Tier 8, Terrorblade Battlegear:
Our new set, called Terrorblade Battlegear, is again available in two flavors: Valorous (ilvl 219) and Conqueror's (ilvl 226). The set bonuses, which are often the key difference that sways our gearing choice one way or another, have been a subject of controversy. The 2 piece bonus sounds fairly weak on paper, a 3.3% increase in our base energy regeneration when a target has Deadly Poison on them. This is less than half the value of a single point into Vitality!

However, this bonus will truly shine when consider that many of the bosses in Ulduar will have adds and other mobs participating in combat. This is not something that was very prevalent in Naxxramas. The ability to Fan of Knives and apply Deadly Poison to 5 mobs would then give us 5 energy every 3 seconds, which is closer to 15% increased energy regeneration. Consider if there were, I don't know, say 15 mobs in range. This would be 15e/3s, or a 50% increase in energy regeneration! Rogues will thrive in multi-mob environments, where before we were lame ducks without Blade Flurry available.

The 4 piece bonus is something that Feral Druids will receive as a talent, but beggars can't be choosers. The fact remains that this will be an awesome talent. With Rupture currently making up around 5% of a Rogue's raiding damage (this is true for most builds), this should increase its damage by a percent equal to your critical strike chance. So with 40% crit buffed, your Rupture damage will be increased by 40%. This is a serious boost to one of our more underused abilities.

A subject I brought up on EJ without any answers: does HAT proc off of these new Rupture crits? If so, Rupture could become a mainstay of the HAT Rogue's rotation, adding a steady stream of CP for only the one GCD it will take to apply it. This will allow HAT Rogues to generate significantly more CP by themselves, while also assisting them in reaching the ideal 5 CP / second goal in a raid environment. With one tick of Rupture every two seconds, and a 40-50% crit chance in a raid, a pile of HAT Rogues could be back to generating enough CP to top the PvE charts. I tried testing this on the PTR with Primal Gore but nobody was available.

Conclusion:
Start saving up WG marks and honor for the upcoming gear, and watch a few videos of the U10 and U25 starter fights so that you'll know your role in these 3.1 dungeons. We've got a lot of new content to conquer, and having a plan ahead of time will put you ahead of all the other Rogues vying for your arena team and raiding spots.

The evolutionary design of Arena gear

When we reported on MMO Champion's sneak peek at the new Furious Gladiator gear, you might have found that new Arena sets were somewhat familiar. They should be. Arena Season 6 item sets are slight variations on a theme. Most of the pieces are recolored versions of the Season 5 multi-tier sets, but the head and shoulder pieces are entirely new models.

What many players who don't like the sets seem to miss on is that this is something entirely new in the game. Blizzard has always done recolored versions of armor, but this is the first time by my reckoning that they have done evolutionary tier gear. When I first encountered Blizzard's new multi-tiered PvP gear system, I was apprehensive about the next season's gear because I was afraid it would be difficult to match pieces visually. Arena gear had, prior to Season 5, been mere recolors of PvE raid sets, so there was no contuity from the one season to the next.

The problem with that was upgrading from one season's set to the other created visual clashes. As much as we like to min/max, PvPers like to look good, too. Enter Season 5 and the multi-tier gear system. There were three different sets of gear but all of them melded seamlessly into the other, with minor discrepancies in color. The introduction of an entirely new set of gear with completely different designs in Season 6 would have invalidated not just one but three sets of gear. However, the new design philosophy builds upon the older models, evolving -- as Alex put it -- like Azerothian Pokemon.

This approach solves the problem of clashing sets across seasons. The important distinction here is that, unlike PvE sets, PvP gear share set bonuses across tiers. That is to say, wearing one piece from each of the three -- soon to be four -- tiers of PvP gear will confer set bonuses. More than in PvE, players are led to upgrade directly through PvP tier gear, so wearing pieces across different tiers will always happen. The evolutionary designs ensure that transitioning from one tier to the next will keep character appearance cohesive. I know there's a bit of a debate about similar-looking sets, but this is a different animal.

If you don't like the base sets (Season 5), then obviously, fancier shoulders and helmets won't do anything for you. It took me a while to digest the understated designs of Wrath PvP gear, but the whole nipples-of-dragons argument made sense to me. Don't get me wrong, I still pine for faction-specific PvP sets, and I think the old Marshal / Warlord item sets were still some of the best designed gear, but I have grown to appreciate this new design philosophy. When I'm raiding, I'm in shiny green and gold, fancy winged Gundam armor. But when I PvP, I slap on a gunmetal set that's designed for business. I like that. I think it's a great idea.

The biggest and arguably only fault of the design team, really, is that there's decidedly a dearth of badassery. I mean, PvE gear is supposed to look regal and impressive and sometimes even awe-inspiring. They usually get that with raid sets. PvP gear, on the other hand, is supposed to be badass. That's all. Zarhym's whole soldiers-in-battle-ready-gear is a good concept, but man, the sets just really need more attitude. The good news is that the latest iterations show that they're trying to give these same sets some attitude.

The potential is pretty awesome. Remember that Blizzard's artists can just as easily change the skin of other pieces, not just "grow" the shoulders in future sets (if I'm not mistaken, they've very subtly changed the Shaman chest graphic). It's extremely possible to have different, badass PvP sets in future seasons, but hearkens to the base designs of Season 5. Zarhym stated that the looks of the sets would improve over the seasons -- while the original designs might have been underwhelming for some of the classes, the new sets are an improvement.

I really love that Blizzard is taking a completely different approach to armor design. It's evolutionary, if not revolutionary. There is no abandonment of previous designs, there's growth from them. This is really what Michael was so enthused about when he reported about Season 6 gear. I wish we'd seen that right away with the Deadly Gladiator shoulders and head pieces, but that might have tipped off their hand too early. I mean, alright, Season 5 Shamans looked like turtles, but they get to break away from that in Season 6. From funny-looking to fearsome? Not yet, sorry, but you get the idea.

Instead of expecting to see a new set each season, I'm excited to see how it evolves from the old. How the design team will utilize existing themes and build upon them. For the first time ever, we'll have entire sets that are direct upgrades or evolutions visually from their lower tier counterparts. As an artist, that's a different design challenge altogether. As underwhelmed as I was with the designs of the first iteration of Wrath PvP gear, I'm pretty stoked to see how far Blizzard's team will take this.

Arena Season 6: Rise of the Furious Gladiator Set

Kalgan hopped on over to the forums to make a significant post that previews what can happen in Arena Season 6, the tiers of gear available, and what will happen to the Vault of Archavon. One of my fears going into the next Arena Season was that Archavon the Stone Watcher would lose his relevance, as he drops significantly lower tier gear a full season behind the current one. This would have greatly devalued control of Wintergrasp.

However, Kalgan reveals that a new boss in another wing of the Vault of Archavon will drop the Furious Gladiator pieces. He makes no mention of past season's gear, and says that the new boss' loot table will be structured slightly differently drom Archavon's. This could mean that the 10-man version can drop the Honor-bought non-set pieces rather than a lower tier of Arena gear and notes that the boss will not drop the chest piece. In the same post, he pegs the chest piece at a 1750 rating requirement, which should probably indicate that the boss will not drop items with a higher requirement (head, shoulder, weapon, etc.). This is an important announcement that ensures the relevance of Wintergrasp. The boss is also expected to drop Tier 8 pieces, making it equally appealing to PvE players.


One important change to the beginning of Season 6 will be that new teams and personal ratings are likely to start below the previous median of 1500, which will result in players climbing the ladder rather than dropping through it. This is a significant change to the system and should provide a more fulfilling experience for all manner of Arena play. He also details proposed costs for all the current Arena items as well as proposed ratings for the new WoW Furious Gladiator gear.

HONOR ITEMS / NO ARENA RATINGS REQUIREMENT
Hateful Gloves
Hateful Legs
Hateful Chest
Hateful Helm
Hateful Shoulders
Hateful Ring
Hateful Trinket (there isn't technically a Hateful Gladiator trinket, but Kalgan is referring to the Medallions of the Alliance and the Horde)

Deadly Bracer
Deadly Belt
Deadly Boots
Deadly Neck
Deadly Ring
Deadly Cape
Deadly Trinket (the Battlemaster trinkets)

Honor costs for the Hateful Gladiator set items are expected to match the current season's Savage Gladiator gear, while the non-set Deadly Gladiator pieces are expected to match Hateful Gladiator non-set items. Those aforementioned items will either be retired at the beginning of Season 6 or lowered in cost. I'm inclined to think they will be retired.

HONOR ITEMS / ARENA RATINGS REQUIREMENT
1400+: Furious Bracer
1450+: Furious Belt
1500+: Furious Boots
1550+: Furious Neck
1650+: Furious Ring
1800+: Furious Trinket (higher version of Medallions, likely higher Resilience)
1900+: Furious Cape

The Honor costs for the Furious Gladiator non-set pieces are expected to match the current Deadly Gladiator non-set pieces. Kalgan also indicates that these will drop off the new boss in the Vault of Archavon.

UNSPECIFIED METHOD OF ACQUISITION / RATINGS REQUIREMENT
1300+: Deadly Relics/Idols/Librams/Totems
1350+: Deadly Gloves
1400+: Deadly Legs
1450+: Deadly Chest
1500+: Deadly Helm
1550+: Deadly Shoulders

Kalgan says that the Deadly Gladiator set pieces will not be as easily accessible as the current Hateful Gladiator items are with Emblems of Conquest, the new tier of raid emblems which will drop from Ulduar. Currently, all pieces of the Hateful Gladiator items are available through Emblems of Valor. It's quite possible that ratings requirements will still be required to purchase the items, only using a different currency.

SEASON 6 ARENA GEAR / RATINGS REQUIREMENT
1600+: Furious Gloves
1700+: Furious Legs
1750+: Furious Chest
1850+: Furious Helm
1950+: Furious Wands/Relics/etc
2000+: Furious Weapon
2100+: Furious Shoulders
2300+: Furious Tabard

Note that the lowest minimum requirement of any type is at 1300, which indicates that teams and players are likely to start Season 6 at a lower rating than past seasons, perhaps 1200 or lower. The spread between the Furious Gladiator set pieces is also very large compared to Season 5's Deadly Gladiator items. There is a massive spread in ratings between the lowest required ratings and highest required ratings, which is indicative of how the new Arena system and Blizzard's philosophy of putting players in their proper brackets. Kalgan importantly puts a disclaimer to everything, however, and mentions that all this information is subject to change. Still, it's a great insight into the process.

Curiously, the highest rating requirement belongs to the WoW Furious Gladiator tabard. It is purely cosmetic but, as Kalgan says, "awesome-looking". At 2300, it is at a higher rating than any Arena item before it, even more difficult to obtain than the 2200 shoulders from Season 4. The changes are likely to come with Patch 3.1 or shortly thereafter, as these items are the PvP equivalent of Ulduar gear. When asked about when Blizzard will stop at the increasingly angry naming convention of Arena gear, Kalgan replies that they plan to stop right before "Foo Jackin' Gladiator". Amen to that.

What WoW 3.1 means for casual players

As you are no doubt aware, content patch 3.1 is being tested on the PTR. There is the new dungeon of Ulduar, which really isn't going to affect most casual players for a while. And there is a long list of class changes that are ever evolving and that you can check our 3.1 Guide for the latest about your favorite class(es). Professions are getting some balancing, so keep an eye out for what's going on there as well. Players with limited playtime should also be aware of new features and functionality that will affect your daily play sessions, regardless of class or profession. Following is a list of what I think is most interesting for the casual player.

Hearthstone cooldown halved: The cooldown on your hearthstone will be reduced from 60 minutes to 30 minutes. I think this is particularly convenient for short play sessions or times when you have to end your playsession abruptly due to real life interruptions. Just hearth to an inn and exit the game, guaranteeing rest and relative safety. But it's also good for questing around hubs for longer playsessions.

Ground mounts will be able to swim: No more being dismounted when you hit deep water -- your ground mount will be able to carry you to shore. This is a nice little convenience for questing and just travel in general. Be aware, however, that flying mounts will still dismount you if you try to swim.

You will be able to queue for Battlegrounds from anywhere: Rather than going to major cities to queue for BGs, you will be able to queue from anywhere in the world and when the BG ends, you will return to where you were. This is really great for those of us who PvP and have limited playtime. Now we can much more easily fit both questing and Battlegrounds into our playsessions.

Dual Specs: The most highly anticipated feature for Patch 3.1 is the ability to toggle between two talent specs on the fly. While this should make things easier for raiders, I think that many casual players will find this new functionality very convenient as well. If you are level 40 or over and have the spare cash (a one time fee of 1000 gold at this writing), you can pay a trainer to give you a Primary and Secondary talent setup to choose from. I think this will be very useful for players who PvP so that you can have a questing spec as well as a Battleground spec. If you are able to do 5 man instances, this will also allow you to have a solo spec and a group spec. This will also allow you to have a tried and true spec and an experimental spec so that you can try out different specs in your secondary setup, while still keeping your known-good spec. Dual Specs will allow a flexibility that I will definitely be making use of... once I save up the cash for my favorite characters.

Built-in Talent Calculator: This is functionality that I think should have been implemented at launch. In 3.1, you will choose your talents and then accept them, rather than spending your talent points as you go. I can't tell you how many times I've clicked incorrectly and literally had to pay for my mistakes. Now you can fine tune your talent choices in game before being stuck with them until you respec. I thank you, Blizzard, and my virtual pocketbook thanks you.

New Quest functions: Now you can right click directly onto the quests you are tracking to do some quest management as opposed to having to go into the Quest Log to do everything. It's a nice little feature that makes the in-game quest tracker more convenient but doesn't replace Questhelper or any other addon like it.

Gear Manager: Last time, I talked about addons for casual players and I recommended Outfitter. Outfitter is a gear management addon which allows you to setup different gear sets to be used in different situations. It has the added functionality of automatically changing to sets when certain conditions arise. For example, it will change to your riding set when you get on your mount. Or, for druids, it will change to the appropriate set when you change form. The new WoW Gear Manager does not do any automatic wardrobe changes. You save gear sets to buttons that can be hotkeyed. The other function missing from the in-game Gear Manager is extra storage for gear. When this feature was first discussed at BlizzCon 2007, the developers bragged that they would be able to incorporate more bag space for your gear into the functionality of an in-game gear manager. Unfortunately, this has yet to be implemented. Overall, I see no reason to stop using either Outfitter or Itemrack once Patch 3.1 is released.

There are a lot of small changes like confirmation boxes on purchases over 150 gold and I am sure the patch will continue to evolve while it is being tested. Features are, of course, subject to change without notice. But as things stand right now, it looks like WoW will get more convenient for those of us with limited playtime.

Did Resilience fail in Wrath?

I'm sure that one good question has been running through the minds of a lot of PvP players is if Resilience is worth it. The trend early on in Arena Season 5 was the predominance of burst, keeping matches fast and putting the worth of Resilience under the microscope. Blizzard has repeatedly said that Resilience would make a difference, but the truth is, this only applies to higher levels of Arena play where players have access to the best Resilience gear. Because of the high item budget of Resilience, most players won't feel its impact with only a few items.

Ghostcrawler chimes in with Blizzard's analysis of how this happened in Wrath of the Lich King. He explains how PvE content was made very accessible, thus giving many players access to powerful gear (or weapons) while introductory PvP gear came much later and was difficult to get. This resulted in players entering Arenas with low life and no resilience -- you can probably imagine how that turned out. It didn't help that classes were dealing too much burst to begin with, which led to class changes through several patches. A final point he mentions is how BC granted a lot of Stamina that wasn't replicated in Wrath, which made players "feel a little fragile initially".

Ghostcrawler prefaced his post by saying that Blizzard increased the budget of Resilience -- which means it eats up a lot more item points for a lot less bang -- because PvP gear in The Burning Crusade was too attractive. This "forced a lot of players to feel like they were supposed to head to the Arena," in order to be competitive. Ironically, this isn't any different now despite the different tiers of PvP gear available. The best gear is still only accessible through Arenas.

This is the problem. Unless you compete in high level Arena play, you're unlikely to feel the benefits of full Resilience. You simply won't have access to the necessary gear, specially in the current environment where it takes a whopping 82 Resilience Rating per 1% of Resilience. For casual PvPers -- and even though Blizzard never quite acknowledges them, always considering Arena play as their baseline -- PvP will always be a burst affair.

The addition of a set bonus to the crafted PvP sets is a case of too little, too late. It's a good move, but by the time Patch 3.1 rolls around, it will be time for Season 6 and anyone wearing the crafted PvP sets to Arenas are gimping themselves. One important point that Ghostcrawler made is Blizzard is considering launching the next Arena season at the same time as the first tier of the next raid content, which should help narrow the gap between PvE and PvP gear acquisition.

Resilience didn't exactly fail in Wrath. It just didn't get to players on time. Many players are slowly feeling the effects of toned down burst as well as healer dominance (once again). Particularly in high rated Arenas, it has become rather difficult to burst anything down. Healers are essential to comps and with the Tournament Realms granting access to the best Arena gear, players will be able to feel the difference. Current gear is still a ways off from the Resilience soft cap, but it's getting there. Season 6 is just around the corner, after all.

Emblem of Conquest gear up on Patch 3.1 PTR

Emblems of Conquest are the new Emblems of Valor - that is to say, they drop from the 25-man version of Ulduar and enable you to buy ilvl 226 stuff. This much we knew. What we haven't known, until now, is what exactly they'd let you buy.

With this latest PTR patch, the gear sold for Emblems of Conquest is now availabe. The names are placeholders ("Emblem of Conquest Healer Neck"), and the stats may also be relatively placeholder-y as well, but it's something to look at, anyway.

Currently up are:

• Runed Orbs for 15 EoC; these are like Frozen Orbs and will be used for crafting.


• Necklaces for 16 EoC.


• Belts and gloves for 23 EoC.


• Legs for 32 EoC.


• Deadly Gladiator gear (38 EoC for hands and shoulders, 48 EoC for head, legs, and chest).


• Tier 8.5 chest and head tokens for 48 EoC each.


• Emblems of Valor for one EoC.

You can see the stats on everything over on the inimitable MMO-Champion, although I don't think the tier 8 vendors are implemented yet, so we still don't know the precise numbers on those. What I'm really anxious to have confirmed is that we'll be able to buy tier 8.0 with the Emblems of Valor that drop out of 10-man Ulduar - if that's not the case, I will be one very upset raider. And what's with some of those prices? 38 badges? Really?

Druid Faction Gear

There is good news for Druid fans. Here we will touch upon the faction gear for Druids. What if you are running lots of dungeons and getting acquainted with the array of drops on both normal and heroic modes are available at that moment.

For both the Alliance and Horde factions in Wrath, the reputation rewards are identical, so you're not missing out on anything whether you level a Night Elf or Tauren through Northrend. With that said, don't prioritize this faction beyond what you need to do for the head enchant if you PvP a lot or want the extra stamina for tanking; here there really isn't much beyond that and an off-hand that's easily replaced.

We'll discuss the rep grinds that become accessible a little earlier in the trek to 80 --the Tuskarr, the Alliance Vanguard/Horde Expedition, Wyrmrest Accord, Kirin Tor, and Oracles/Frenzyheart. Next we'll cover the Knights of the Ebon Blade, the Argent Crusade, and Sons of Hodir, as you're not likely to see these guys as early as you'll see the others. Indeed, before a quest line that phases the lady into existence, you won't see the Knights of the Ebon Blade quartermaster at all.

You should have a bit of Argent rep under your belt by the time you reach the Argent Vanguard in Icecrown, especially if you're good about doing the Argent dailies in Zul'drak. Yes, even the super-annoying alchemy one. Hey, Finklestein! Try finding your own damn ingredients in that pigsty of a stockroom! The lack of organizational know-how in this faction leaves me with very little optimism over their chances versus Arthas, but that's no reason not to make off with some decent gear before Arthas wins the inevitable triumph of the good guys.

Cloak of Holy Extermination is a cat DPS cloak, although we would have preferred +crit or +hit in the place of the armor penetration which doesn't do anything for our Rake or Rip damage. Even so, armor penetration as a stat isn't bad if you already have a lot of it, but you can get a better cloak a level earlier in Halls of Stone. However, there is still a decent option if you need something to get you to 80.

Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector is the best helm enchant for tanks in the game. Revered with the Argent Crusade isn't hard to get if you're religious about wearing their (pretty awesome) tabard in level 80 dungeons and heroics, or if you've done all of the AC quests in Dragon-blight, Zul'drak, and Icecrown. If you plan on tanking any heroics or raids, get this enchant as quickly as possible. Argent Skeleton Crusher- Revered, level 80: The reason we include this 2H mace for consideration is that it'll be an okay weapon for ferals once we scale with weapon DPS rather than feral attack power. There're better feral weapons out there. Without doubt, it will be usable once the weapon changes go live. It ensures that you should be running your furry ass off in heroic Violet Hold to get Staff of Trickery instead of having to use this. And as long as you're in heroic VH, pick up Cloak of the Gushing Wound too, which will easily replace Cloak of Holy Extermination if you didn't get the Halls of Stone cloak.

Boots of the Neverending Path is the best pre-raid piece for cats, especially if you're hurting for +hit, which you probably are with all that +haste and +penetration crap on leather. The notion of "sharing" gear with rogues might have left you with the impression that getting +hit on leather was going to be a piece of cake, but apparently that's not the case; there is a ghastly lack of +hit on the leather you're likely to be hitting 80 with.

Signet of Hopeful Light are bandying about as an excellent choice for Paladin and Shaman healers. Although it's the latest in a line of reputation caster gear entirely devoid of +hit. With no spirit, it's a decidedly mediocre ring for Restoration.

WoW Mage Talent Spec And Gear

As most Mages will agree with the fact that fire and forst are two trees worth climbing up to for leveling. While fire gives you better burst damage and good single-target killing capabilities, frost Mages can control their opponents better and generally multi-target better. Fire is quite heavy on mana and will require more downtime, but you will also kill mobs faster so that makes up for it a little. On the other hand, frost takes a bit more time to kill the several mobs you're about to control, but frost spells are more mana efficient. Frost is also more reliant on spell cool-downs than fire.

So which one should you choose? That's not something anyone can be told, you're better off trying both types of specs first, at least for a couple of early levels (20+).

But if you really want someone to tell you what to do, you can try going fire for the first 40 levels and see how the burst-Mage type fits you, then do a respec to frost. Don't dismiss it after a few days, like most players that respecced to something new do, after they had their old build for some time. Give it at least 3-4 levels, get used to the talents, the new spells, the attack patterns and the playing style of a frost build. Once you're level 45, you already have a good knowledge of both specs, so you can pick one up now to use for leveling all the way to 70. Note that in a few levels, you will be eligible to take the 41-point main talent in each spec, so you'll have to decide now if you'll need the short-distance cone-damage Dragon's Breath from the fire tree, or the water elemental from the frost tree.

Arcane may be useful as a support build, but you shouldn't really put more than 10-12 talent points in it. Talents in Arcane worth taking include Improved Arcane Missles, Arcane Concentration for the 10% free-damage spell chance and Wand Specialization. You should bear in mind that your wand is your main non-spell DPS and a 25% increase in its damage for 2 points' worth is a fair trade, especially for Fire Mages that will find themselves out of mana and will require using their wand to finish the mobs they were grinding.

In the first instance, you won't find a lot of +spell damage or +fire/frost/arcane damage gear around Azeroth, so you'll have to choose between physical stats. Intellect and Stamina should always get priority over Spirit. For those Mages that say Spirit is equally important because it reduces downtimes.

At level 35, +spell damage items start to drop and you should prioritize this spell effect over physical stats. So the prioritization formula is +spell damage > Intellect > Stamina > Spirit. Specific tree damage such as +frost, +arcane and +fire can be used over spell damage, especially if your playing style doesn't involve using too many spells outside your main spec tree. For fire mages, +spell crit chance and Intellect gain more importance since they improve your burst damage and your build is all about focus fire burst damage.

Another gear-related mage question is that whether I should use a staff or a 1-handed sword + offhand combination. The answer is simple. You are able to use the one that gives you better stats overall, since it's not like you'll be using melee that often. Just add-up the stats and spell effects from your Sword/Offhand and compare them to the ones on the staff and you'll know what to use. One last note regarding this comparison: usually, staves have a lot of few different stats, whereas 1-handed/offhanded combinations have less of more stats/effects. Take that into account when comparing Mage weapons.

Arena Season 5 is out!

The PvP patch is coming today and starting off the new arena season for World of Warcraft - WoW Arena Season 5. With it comes the delightful addition of PvP armor and weapons that are sure to be on most player's Christmas lists. Still there are some changes to the way things works with the newest arena season. Blizzard has learned a lot about PvP rewards from the previous expansion and they're trying not to repeat any mistakes. In the Burning Crusade they made the season one arena gear a little too powerful compared to the gear from heroics. This sort of resulted in a dead period where people mostly ignored heroic dungeons. It really wasn't until the Badge of Justice loot started to get better that heroics and Karazhan started to see a resurgence in popularity.

This time around it looks like Blizzard is allowing multiple ways of getting the arena gear. Players will be able to use emblems, honor points, and arena points to gear up for their cage matches. Blizzard also seems to be using a more complex tier system this time around. The arena season 5 looks like it will have three tiers to start with. Most likely as new arena seasons are introduced the lowest tier will be dropped.

Main Set Pieces and Weapons (chest, legs, etc)

Tier 1 - Blue Arena Gear (Savage Gladiators)
(Honor and Arena points: No Ratings) or Emblems of Heroism
Equal to the Blue level 80 gear from Heroic dungeons

Tier 2 - Epic Arena Gear (Hateful Gladiators)
(Arena points: Ratings from 1600-1800) or Emblems of Valor
Equal to the Epic level 80 gear from Heroic dungeons

Tier 3 - Epic Arena Gear (Deadly Gladiators)
(Arena points: Ratings in the 1900-2100)
Equal to 25 man raid gear but with more PvP stats (stamina, resilience)


Secondary Set pieces and accessories (bracers, rings, etc)

Tier 1 - Epic Arena Gear (Hateful Gladiators)
(Honor Points: Ratings in the 1600-1800)
Equal to the Epic level 80 gear from Heroic dungeons

Tier 2 - Epic Arena Gear (Deadly Gladiators)
(Honor points: Ratings in the 1900-2100)
Equal to 25 man raid gear but with more PvP stats (stamina, resilience)

I must say that I was not a fan of the introduction of rating requirements to PvP gear. There were too many ways to cheat the early versions of the arena system. Even with rating requirements a lot of players simply bought spots on high end teams or created a smurf team. By the time Blizzard ironed out all the bugs the cheaters were already a couple tiers ahead of most other players. This gear advantage made it impossible to compete fairly and I found myself wandering to other games that promised PvP glory. The same thing could happen again, but not unless a new flaw in the PvP reward system is found. Otherwise I think Blizzard has a fair chance of keeping a static, but somewhat satisfying PvP game going for quite some time.

WoW Death Knight Statistics Primer

I've seen a lot of people asking these questions as we've been getting into the expansion: Now that I am trying to gear by Death Knights, what stats should I get? What's good for a Death Knight? Which armor should I take? We've started getting in that somewhat in the last few columns, with advice on reputation gear and starting zone gear, but I figured today we should delve a little bit more into the why of Death Knight stats.

Today's column will double as a little bit of primer on how Death Knights get their power, and what stats you should be looking for on armor in general to make your Death Knight the best it can be. It's not completely in depth, but it should get you well on the road to understanding just how Death Knights get all that awesome power and sexiness.

We'll have 3 sections today. The Good are stats that are excellent choices for DPS, Tanks, or both. The So-So are stats which still do us some good, but are pretty situational or conditional in their usefulness. The Outcasts are those stats that you should avoid -- Well, I'd say avoid like the plague, but we're Death Knights. We like the plague around here. So I'll just say you should avoid them.

The Good:

Strength and Attack Power: Strength is the number one stat for most types of Death Knight DPS, and is hardly a slouch for tanking either. 1 strength converts to 2 attack power, and that attack power scales into spell power for the purpose of a Death Knight's spells, which include diseases and non-weapon attacks such as Death Coil. In addition, 4 strength converts into 1 parry rating.

Long story short, Strength is going to be your mainstay for DPS, and it's no slouch for tanking either, providing both extra parry rating and extra threat. You'll probably end up taking attack power gear every once in a while, especially rings and amulets, and it will work fine for you, but remember that strength does go that extra mile as well.

Critical Strike Rating: This is easily the second most important DPS stat for a Death Knight, especially since it affects both melee and spell critical strike percentage. Death Knights need critical strikes to activate talents such as Bloody Vengeance, Killing Machine, and Wandering Plague, and everyone appreciates a good Death Strike crit when they're low on health. Don't neglect this statistic, especially if you have one of the above talents or a talent that increases your critical strike damage bonus.

Hit Rating: I cannot emphasize the importance of hit rating enough. You can have all the strength in the world, and it doesn't matter much if you can't hit the broad side of a dragon. One of the best ways for a tank to up their threat level is to get some hit rating. At the same time, once you have enough hit rating, getting more won't do you much good.

The problem is, right now, there's some disagreement over how much hit one needs. Traditionally, one needs 5% hit rating to hit like-level mobs or PCs with 2-handed weapons and special attacks, 9% to hit boss-level (level 83) mobs with the same, and 17% to hit boss level mobs with spells. However, some are claiming that the new boss-level hit cap is now 8% for melee special attacks, and parses of damage meters seem to be offering conflicting information on whether this is true or not.

For now, I'd recommend that you try to get around 5% melee hit rating while leveling, grinding, or doing 5-mans, and somewhere between 8-9% melee hit rating for raiding until we know more for sure. At 80, 32.7 hit rating equal 1% of melee hit, and 26 hit rating equals 1% of spell hit. That means you'll want somewhere between 270-296 hit rating for that raid cap.

If you want to try to cap out your spell hit rating, you should probably take Virulence in the Unholy tree, then aim for the approximately 365 spell hit rating you'll need to make up the other 14%. Dual wielders have even further to go, with approximately 28% before they cap out white damage hit percentage. If you focus on getting to the spell hit cap and take Nerves of Cold Steel, though, you might be able to squeak through with less.

Remember, in all of these cases, that if you're grouped with a Draenei or are a Draenei you can lower your needed hit by 1%, while a Shadow Priest's Misery or a Moonkin's Improved Faerie Fire can lower your needed spell hit by 3%.

Overall, Hit rating is something that theorycrafters are going to want to watch much more closely. There's evidence that some calculations have changed pretty drastically, but debate continues as to just how much things have changed. In the meantime, it's a good idea to keep hit capped anyway. It's better to hit than to miss.

Defense Rating: If you're planning to tank 5-mans or raids, especially at the Heroic level, you'll need to get uncrittable via defense, which at level 80, will mean you need 540 defense skill. This means that at level 80, you will need approximately 690 defense rating to gain critical strike immunity against level 83 (Boss level) mobs.

The unfortunate problem with this is that we're definitely a little bit harder to gear for defense that other tanks, having neither the benefit of a talent like Survival of the Fittest nor the ability to equip a shield nor defense itemization for 2-handers. Luckily, this is something that the devs have acknowledged, and have said they may fix in the form of new defense Sigils and runeforgeing enchants into the future.

In the meantime, some people are taking creative measures to get their defense to the magic number. For example, since defense trinkets are in short supply in Wrath until the harder dungeons and raids, many are heading back to Burning Crusade to get Dabiri's Enigma from the Netherstorm quest Dimensius the All Devouring, while others are even headed into the Shadow Labyrinth to solo Blackheart the Inciter in hopes that he'll drop the Adamantine Figurine.

Parry Rating: The more Parry rating you have, the less you get hit. As a tank, this is good. Look for armor with this stuff on it once you have your defense rating and a good health pool. If you've picked up the Spell Deflection talent in the Blood tree, you have even more reason to grab parry rating.

Dodge Rating: The less you get hit, the less chances you have to die. That's really the best way to describe why dodge rating is a good idea for a Death Knight tank. This is especially true of Unholy Death Knight tanks. Their major tanking cooldown, Bone Shield, provides a major amount of damage reduction as long as a bone is up. A successful hit removes a bone, and each bone removal is followed by a short period before another hit can remove a bone -- most Theorycrafters estimate that period at between 2 to 4 seconds. Thus, the more you dodge, the longer the shield stays up.

Stamina: As a tank, you need stamina. The more health you have, the longer you survive. It's a simple idea. A larger HP pool works against both physical and magical damage, which is also a plus. Even as DPS, you shouldn't neglect Stamina completely. AE and Environmental damage or loose adds could spell your doom if your health pool is too low.

Armor: If you're a tank, you definitely want Armor. For Death Knights, it's even more important to find decent high armor pieces since we don't have a shield. The more armor you have, the more you'll get when you switch over to Frost Presence, as well.

The So-So

Expertise: This statistic is actually relatively useful to tanks, who may want to consider getting a good amount to prevent parries and dodges. It takes approximately 8.2 expertise rating to equal 1 expertise at 80. You'll need about 26 expertise to prevent dodges, which is all a DPS should need since mobs can't parry from behind, or about 60 expertise to prevent parries, which would be nice for tanks, but shouldn't be taken at the expense of too many mitigation or avoidance stats.

This statistic loses some of its usefulness when we remember that it works only with physical attacks, and spells can't be dodged or parried, Death Knight specs that focus more on spell-like damage may find they'll do better stacking more strength instead of expertise. Still, physical damage specs like Blood may also find that getting that dodge cap in expertise, which shouldn't be too painful thanks to talents, may be just what they need to get their DPS to the next level.

Armor Penetration: Like expertise before it, the problem with this statistic is that it doesn't work on spells, or rather, doesn't work on non-physical damage, which bypasses armor automatically. Thus, it's difficult to justify taking this, especially armor penetration was nerf in Wrath from straight values to a rating that gives a percentage rating that is applied only after any armor debuffs.

Still, once again, physical damage heavy specs (That is, Blood) may find some limited usefulness from this statistic, but any spec that does most of their damage via magical or elemental means (that is, pretty much any permutation of Unholy or Frost) would probably be better advised to stack more strength, attack power, and critical strike rating.

Haste: The problem with haste for Death Knights is that pretty much all of our attacks are instant outside of weapon swings, meaning haste has very little to actually speed up. Even speeding up our global cooldown is a bit iffy. Since haste doesn't actually speed up the cooldown of our runes, we may not even have anything to cast with that extra time. Tri-spec Dual wielders, who rely on fast swings for more procs from Killing Machine and more damage from Necrosis, may end up getting some use out of haste, but most Death Knights should probably avoid it in favor of other stats.

Agility: Agility adds melee critical strike rating, dodge, and armor for a Death Knight. The latter two actually make it a decent choice for a Death Knight tank, especially an Unholy Death Knight tank looking to keep Bone Shield up longer. For DPS, though, you'll want to grab critical strike rating for your critical strike needs since you want spell critical strike too.

The Outcasts

Intellect: Technically, this statistic does give you spell critical strike percentage, but you'd be better off getting raw critical strike rating, since that applies to melee critical strike as well. Avoid this statistic.

Spirit: Technically, you do get health regeneration from this statistic, but honestly, even non-Blood Death Knights rarely need more than Death Strike and a couple bandages to stay topped off in most situations. Avoid this stat on your armor.

Block Value and Block Rating: Both of these statistics deal with shield usage and blocking, which don't apply to us. You may find a piece of tank gear every once in a while which is worth taking in spite of block value because of how good it is otherwise, but the block statistics themselves do nothing for us.

Spellpower: Despite our use of spells, we don't need this at all. All of our spells scale with attack power instead of spell power. Unless you genuinely have no other option for the slot (and you probably always will have one, if only thanks to our starting zone quest armor), don't wear armor with spell power.

The Run Down and the Wrap-up

So in essence, the too long, didn't read version of the above goes something like this:

• DPS will want hit rating to the 293 cap, strength, critical strike rating, and maybe some expertise, in that general order.
• Tanks will want defense rating to the cap, stamina, armor, parry rating, dodge rating or agility, strength, and a solid amount of expertise and hit rating, also in that general order, with some allowance for more strength or hit rating if more threat generation proves needful.
• Intellect, spirit, block value, block rating, and spellpower are worthless to us. Don't take them.

But in the end -- and I've said this before -- there's probably still theorycrafting to be done. Not only are we into a new expansion, but we're into a new class that doesn't have the benefit of years of testing, debate, discussion, and theorizing that other classes have. Chances are as we continue to play and test, we may find new theories and realities of DPS and tanking that will change or clarify some of this information in major ways. We'll keep watching here at Lichborne, of course. Good luck as you continue building your new Death Knight. Hopefully now you understand exactly how to build it a bit better.