Shopping Time Again
This weekend, I got invited to run Sartharion 10 again with Heroes Inc, once again as Ret DPS. I had the benefit this time of watching one of their Ret Paladins who was much better geared than I was. I didn't hold out any hope of keeping up with him in DPS, but I tried to watch to see if he did anything different than I did.
The one thing that I did notice was that he used Consecration much more than I did. I came to the conclusion that I'm being too frugal with my mana pool. I'm so worried I'm going to run OOM that I don't tend to use Consecrate in single target situations.
I also switched from Seal of Command to Seal of the Martyr.
With those changes I broke the 1500 dps barrier and posted 1700 DPS despite really poor gear. If I'm going to keep running as Ret, I need to start saving up for a Titansteel Bonecrusher. That would be the single biggest upgrade I can get. My preference would be to start running stuff as Prot, but my flexibility to go Ret when needed has meant that I've gotten to get some experience with the fights, and I've picked up some Emblems, and a little bit of gear to boot.
Case in point, I managed to win the Sack of Spoils from Sartharion, and the Emblems inside took my total to 25.
So I pulled up WoWhead to see what I could purchase with my Badges.
Hmm, there's a bunch of stuff to send to low level alts. That's nice, but not a priority. They've got a bunch of 'blue' PVP stuff you can buy. Again, nice, but not a priority for me.
All right, here's the good stuff. For tanking, they've got a necklace, a shield, a sword, a libram, a dodge trinket, and a belt.
I've already got the Titansteel Shield Wall, so I'm going to dismiss the Shield for the moment as a low priority need. I also have Slayer of the Lifeless, so the sword is also low priority.
The Libram is a big brother of the Mother Sharaz Libram that I have. The Libram of Obstruction would be 162 more Block Value every time I judged. It only costs 15 Emblems.
The neck costs 25 Emblems and is an upgrade, albeit not a huge one, over my Burning Skull Pendant.
The Belt is a nice looking piece of gear and costs 40 Badges. It would be a major upgrade over my Tempered Saronite Belt.
So the question is do I go ahead and buy either the Libram or the Neck or wait until I can collect 15 more Emblems and snag the Belt. The Belt is clearly a bigger upgrade than the Neck over what I currently have now in those slots. So despite the urge to want to go out and buy the Libram and the Neck right now because I can, I'm going to wait and save my tokens until I can afford the Belt.
The one thing that I did notice was that he used Consecration much more than I did. I came to the conclusion that I'm being too frugal with my mana pool. I'm so worried I'm going to run OOM that I don't tend to use Consecrate in single target situations.
I also switched from Seal of Command to Seal of the Martyr.
With those changes I broke the 1500 dps barrier and posted 1700 DPS despite really poor gear. If I'm going to keep running as Ret, I need to start saving up for a Titansteel Bonecrusher. That would be the single biggest upgrade I can get. My preference would be to start running stuff as Prot, but my flexibility to go Ret when needed has meant that I've gotten to get some experience with the fights, and I've picked up some Emblems, and a little bit of gear to boot.
Case in point, I managed to win the Sack of Spoils from Sartharion, and the Emblems inside took my total to 25.
So I pulled up WoWhead to see what I could purchase with my Badges.
Hmm, there's a bunch of stuff to send to low level alts. That's nice, but not a priority. They've got a bunch of 'blue' PVP stuff you can buy. Again, nice, but not a priority for me.
All right, here's the good stuff. For tanking, they've got a necklace, a shield, a sword, a libram, a dodge trinket, and a belt.
I've already got the Titansteel Shield Wall, so I'm going to dismiss the Shield for the moment as a low priority need. I also have Slayer of the Lifeless, so the sword is also low priority.
The Libram is a big brother of the Mother Sharaz Libram that I have. The Libram of Obstruction would be 162 more Block Value every time I judged. It only costs 15 Emblems.
The neck costs 25 Emblems and is an upgrade, albeit not a huge one, over my Burning Skull Pendant.
The Belt is a nice looking piece of gear and costs 40 Badges. It would be a major upgrade over my Tempered Saronite Belt.
So the question is do I go ahead and buy either the Libram or the Neck or wait until I can collect 15 more Emblems and snag the Belt. The Belt is clearly a bigger upgrade than the Neck over what I currently have now in those slots. So despite the urge to want to go out and buy the Libram and the Neck right now because I can, I'm going to wait and save my tokens until I can afford the Belt.
Comments
And yes, if you're going ret you always go Blood/Martyr...hell I even use it on Loatheb and rely on my art of war procs + divine storm to keep topped off.
The belt is probably the 3rd-best currently in the game (exceeded by the belt from Maexxna and maybe the Ancient Aligned Girdle from Anub'arak in Heroic Azjol-Nerub.
Since Honorshammer is a dwarf, the Titansteel Destroyer is actually a very nice weapon because of the 5 expertise skill racial. Even if you're hit-capped, Titansteel Destroyer trumps the Sword of Justice with 17dps and 54 strength compared with the 77 crit on the SoJ. Adding in 40 expertise and 54 hit rating (especially since Precision was hotfixed back out the game) just makes it even better.
I got the neck first because I had 5 emblems when I was looking and someone mentioned a belt in Heroic AN that was *almost* as good as the badge one (a hold over + still get badges). I have yet to run Heroic AN though, and I have both the neck and belt now :)
Almost saved up enough now for the necklace.
What I would suggest is that you save up the badges for Ret gear, as good items are somewhat difficult to come by.
a) not a tanking sword
b) only an offhand sword
Good thing you already have the Slayer. ;)
Farming that instance gives you 2 great tanking items, the 111 stam trinket and the belt, which has had a pretty good drop rate so far. Other than having a get slot, the heroic AN one i think has better stats than the badge one.
The neck I would hold out on and get the jewel crafting one due to it has 1 more defense, 12 less stam, but a gem slot where the badge necklace does not.
Jewel crafting tanking ring is pretty good in that is has a gem slot as well and the bracers from Heroic old kingdom are pretty good.
-Teurion
gloves - I agree with you that you can get epics any time from raiding OS. Both 10-man and 25-man are PUGed daily on my server, very easy to do. Plus there are other tanking gloves out there, like epics from Heroic Gundrak and Kirin Tor rep. In the meantime, there are very solid blues from Heroic VH.
chest - this is the one badge purchase I made, because I didn't want to wait for a drop. If you know for sure that you are clearing 4 horsemen every week, then maybe wait, but if you want to gear up this is not a bad purchase.
neck - the blue you have is almost as good (I had the same piece until I got a drop in Naxx10). There are 2 tanking necks in Naxx10, one with Block Rating and Value, and Heritage drops in Naxx25 all the time (seen it twice in the last 4.5 wings cleared).
trinket - I don't want dodge, I want Defense from Thaddius in Naxx. Or I'd take Levanthor's but he's never shown up for me in VH. Right now I'm still using Commendation of Kael'Thas because I love STA. =P
belt - is really good, but Heroic AzN has one that's very close, and it has an awesome STA trinket as well. I'm using the one from AzN.
libram - the one item here that you can't get equivalent or better from a drop.
As for the 213 badge gear, it is much better - a lot of the items are best in slot. Boots, Ring, Cloak are all very good buys. The bracers are not quite as highly rated. And the T 7.5 legs and shoulders one can hopefully get by running Naxx25.
One note is that Naxx25 and OS25 are not much harder (if at all) than the 10-mans. I would make sure I was running OS10&25 and Vault 10&25 every week for drops and badges - those are easily PUGed. Get in on whatever Naxx runs you can. You'll be purpled out in no time!
Fedaykin98