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Shifting Perspectives: Faction gear from the Wyrmrest Accord and Kirin Tor

Allison Robert
Updated ·5 min read


WYRMREST ACCORD:

This is another faction with which you can start building rep relatively early, although it'll be slower going than it will be for the Tuskarr. Be sure to get through the early-70's quest chain to access the daily Defending Wyrmrest Temple.

  • Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions -- Honored, Level 78: Not a half-bad tanking cloak and fairly easy to get at Honored, although in a pinch you can probably afford to keep using a pre-Wrath tanking cloak all the way to 80. At 80 you can and should get Durable Nerubhide Cape crafted if you plan on doing any amount of tanking at all. Slap the +22 agility enchant on that puppy and you're good for anything.

  • Ancestral Sinew Wristguards -- Revered, Level 80: These are one of the best bracers pre-heroics for Restoration with none of that +crit or +haste malarkey to gum the works. Excellent +spellpower in addition to solid stats elsewhere.

  • Arcanum of Blissful Mending -- Revered, Level 80: The Wrath equivalent of the Arcanum of Renewal from Thrallmar/Honor Hold. Restoration Druids will want this as quickly as possible; moonkin may consider it if they've been having mana issues, but most of the time you're going to want the Kirin Tor enchant.

  • Gavel of the Brewing Storm -- Revered, Level 78: This is a useful moonkin mace packing +crit and +haste, but it bothers me a bit. Like most of the other potential moonkin pieces available with reputation from this or any other faction, it lacks +hit -- and your primary concern as you level toward 80 is going to be getting (or staying) hit-capped. If you're dependent on faction gear at 80 as you get ready to raid or do heroics, keep this in mind. If for no other reason than that, the Kirin Tor dagger is better (read on).

  • Sandals of Crimson Fury -- Exalted, Level 80: Cloth, but pretty good moonkin boots with decent +spellpower, +haste, a blue socket, but once again 0 +hit.


KIRIN TOR:

This is almost inarguably one of the best faction reps to grind as a Druid, so it pays to choke down your nausea at the sight of that hideous tabard at 80. You can start building reputation with the Kirin Tor fairly early if you start leveling in Borean Tundra and do the questlines offered by the NPC's on the Amber Ledge. As you might expect from a faction being run by a lot of clothies, most of the potential gear here is particularly useful for casters, but weirdly enough there's also a feral staff and excellent legs available at Revered.

  • Helm of the Majestic Stag -- Honored, Level 78: With the total absence of spirit but 21 mp5, this really seems like more of a Restoration Shaman piece, but it's certainly usable. Welcome to the only leather helm graphic you will see on any decent piece for the next five million years, by the way.

  • Flameheart Spell Scalpel -- Revered, Level 80: Look, Ma! It's +hit! One of the best pre-raid moonkin weapons with solid +spellpower, +hit, and +crit. If you can't get the mats for a Titansteel Guardian for love or money (or if you're not hit-capped using it), this is the weapon worth grinding rep for.

  • Mind-Expanding Leggings -- Revered, Level 80: This is an amazingly good piece for tanking, and it's going to be the piece you want over the Azure Strappy Pants from the Frenzyhearts if you're doing the usual bounce around the factions in Sholazar Basin, or if you spend more time as a bear than a cat. These are arguably the best pre-raid bear legs outside of heroics and arena.

  • Stave of Shrouded Mysteries -- Revered, Level 80: What a bunch of mages are doing with a feral staff is utterly beyond me, but their confusion is our gain. Right now it's inferior by several light years to the Enraged Feral Staff from heroic Utgarde Keep as a tanking piece, but the armor on both pieces is going Splitsville pretty soon. When that happens, the distance between the two with respect to tanking quality is going to shrink quite a bit. The Enraged staff is still going to retain a clear advantage for tanking in the form of both threat production and dodge (the mass of agility on it converts to 1.87% dodge in contrast to the Stave's 1.42% dodge), and I still cannot for the life of me understand itemizing Strength on a feral piece in lieu of Agility (seriously? What gives?), but without the enormous armor difference, the weapons are a lot closer to each other than they would otherwise have been.

  • Robes of Crackling Flame -- Exalted, Level 80: Prejudiced toward healers with a meaty chunk of its stat allocation given to mp5, but Restoration still gets less use out of +haste than other healers (Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, and Wild Growth all being instant cast and still a huge portion, if not an outright majority, of our healing done). Usable? Certainly. Are you doomed to most of your best pieces pre-raid being cloth? Just as certainly.

  • Ghostflicker Waistband -- Exalted, Level 80: Very good Balance belt and it includes a blue socket, but (again) it's primarily useful only if you're otherwise hit-capped.

Next: Frenzyheart and the Oracles.