The Light and How to Swing It: Looting in the Plagueworks
With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown.
A quick service announcement: We will be moving The Light and How to Swing It over to Thursdays. We'll still have the weekend spot as well. How are we doing this you might ask? Chase Christian will be doing a holy paladin only version of TLaHtSI during the weekends with my coverage of retribution and protection on Thursdays.
A looting we will go. A looting we will go. Hi-ho the merry-oh, a looting we will go. This week, we're delving into the geist filled section known as the Plagueworks. Precious and Stinky aren't technically bosses, but they're still fun little encounters, so I figured I'd give at least one of the puppies center stage in today's header. Last week, we looted our way through the lower spire in Icecrown if you want to go back and take a look. Otherwise, onto the loots!
Festergut's innards
Spread out, don't blow up, jump on spores, and spread out again. Oh, and for the love of all that is sacred and holy, try not to breathe in that stuff. It's nasty.
Holy
Signet of Putrefaction - 10 man - This ring is stacking haste and mp5 both on top of a red gem socket.
Festergut's Gaseous Gloves - 10 man - A set of plate hands with a pair of gem slots (red and yellow) with a bunch of mp5 and a fair amount of crit. Intellect is paired evenly with stamina, so no big bonus there.
Holiday's Grace - 25 man - This necklace has a yellow socket for an intellect gem giving you an additional five spell power. Otherwise, it's stats are mp5 and crit in fairly equal amounts for itemization.
Plague Scientist's Boots - 25 man - These are cloth boots, but they should still fit okay. A red and blue socket along side a lot of haste as well as some crit.
Horrific Flesh Epaulets - 25 man - Here's a set of resto-shaman shoulders that has stats we like. One each of red and blue gem slots on top of crit and haste with the emphasis on crit.
Unclean Surgical Gloves - 25 man - Yeah, we're still in resto-shaman gear, but this time it's gloves. These also have red and blue gem slots as well as a healthy batch of haste and some mp5.
Faceplate of the Forgotten - 25 man - Here's a spell plate helmet for you. It's rocking high crit and equal (as far as itemization points go) mp5. There is a meta socket on this piece as well as a blue gem slot.
Protection
Cloak of Many Skins - 10 man - This tanking cloak has a pretty decent chunk of stamina on it compared to strength. It also has a blue socket for stamina gems which means you'll probably get that four additional dodge rating. The equip stats are split three ways with defense rating getting the most, then parry and dodge coming up in the rear.
Belt of Broken Bones - 25 man - This belt has a red and blue socket to start out with before worrying about adding a buckle. The stamina is fairly high and it also boosts up parry quite a bit. It also has defense rating and dodge rating as additional stats.
Retribution
Festering Fingerguards - 10 man - These hands are fairly decent with a pair of sockets in red and yellow. However, a tank in need of either the hit or expertise these offer might also end up bidding over you if she's in need of a threat upgrade. At this point in the game, they don't have to worry as much about their def cap and can use some gear slots just for threat.
Fleshrending Gauntlets - 25 man - These gauntlets are on the 'must have' list for ret paladins. The critical strike rating and haste are both good and the two gem slots are nothing to sneeze at. However, remember that even though it's a "best in slot" item, please gear intelligently and weigh it against your current stat needs.
Might of Blight - 25 man - This is an okay ring. It's got a yellow gem slot which you could toss a red strength gem into and the crit isn't bad on it, but I'm not a fan of armor penetration for paladins. Armor penetration only affects about a third of our total damage output. So, while it isn't a horrible stat, it's not at the top of my list.
Rotface's toy chest
To the left, to the left. To the right, to the right. And if you step in the massive amounts of toxic waste, the only super power you'll gain is the complete inability to contribute further to that particular fight.
Holy
Choker of Filthy Diamonds - 10 man - This is a blue socketed necklace. It's got a wee bit more stamina than intellect, but nothing detrimental. Side stats are haste and mp5.
Lockjaw - 10 man -This mace does favor stamina a little bit more than intellect. However, the haste and mp5 is fairly decent as well as the spell power. Overall, it's not a bad weapon.
Bloodsunder's Bracers - 25 man - While these mail bracers don't show up as having a socket bonus, they really do. It got hotfixed in on the 4th of January and WoWhead's info doesn't show it. I can't actually find a reference to what that socket bonus is though. So, uhm, yeah. The yellow socket is great for an intellect gem and the crit and haste isn't shabby either. However, this is shaman gear and not actually plate.
Trauma - 25 man - This is a cool proc-based healing mace, but appears to only work within the group that the heal had a proc in. This means if you want the effect it grants to hit someone, you'd better be in the same party they are. The proc itself works similar to Althor's Abacus with a HoT instead of a direct heal. Some are claiming that this is the greatest thing since hotdogs on a stick, but others are a little blah over it. The main issue is that if people are spread out or if you're doing primarily direct heals, it's not as useful as you have fewer chances to cause it to proc. Also, the limit to an individual party is a downside. However, it does have a lot of raw spellpower on it which is one of the upsides. Overall, your mileage will vary greatly from fight to fight. In some cases, it could be phenomenal. In other cases it will appear rather lackluster.
Rot-Resistant Breastplate - 25 man - This chest piece has three gem slots (one for each color) and stacks haste and crit as its equip stats.
Protection
Bile-Encrusted Medallion - 25 man - Ah, a tanking necklace with armor on it. It has a single red gem socket if you want to toss some agility in there for extra dodge and armor or just a blue stamina gem for more health. The equip stats are dodge and defense rating, but the main point of interest is the armor on it.
Blightborne Warplate - 25 man - This chest piece has a substantial amount of stamina on it compared to the strength as well as three gem slots (red, blue, and yellow) and as such, the effective health potential on this item is fairly high. It also stacks large chunks of both dodge rating and defense rating with a little bit of hit rating on the side. Overall, a really nice tanking piece.
Retribution
Flesh-Shaper's Gurney Strap - 10 man - This belt has a decent strength to stamina ratio as well as two gem slots on it. The armor penetration on it isn't all the impressive as I mentioned my view on that earlier, but it's got a fair chunk of hit raiting as well. The strength stacking on it makes it a pretty decent belt for ret pallies.
Rotface's Rupturing Ring - 10 man - This dps ring has a yellow gem slot in it that you can stack some strength into as well as some expertise and armor penetration.
Winding Sheet - 25 man - This is a great cape for ret paladins and probably the best you'll see until hard modes. The gem slot allows for stacking some more strength and the crit and haste are always welcome to the party.
Raging Behemoth's Shoulderplates - 25 man - The two gem slots on these shoulders as well the large stack of crit on it makes for a fairly decent choice for ret pallies. The addition of hit rating might put you over the cap, but it should give you room if you decide to swap some other gear around.
Professor Putricide's laboratory
Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be abominations. Or do, rather. Slimes are tasty after all.
Holy
Cauterized Cord - 10 man - This is a cloth belt, but it still has the stats we like. The yellow and red gem slots give you some customization options and the stats in crit and haste aren't bad either.
Rippling Flesh Kilt - 10 man - These are shaman legs, but if you don't have one in your party, I'm sure they won't mind. They've got three gem slots (two yellow and one red) and put the rest of the stats equally into crit and haste.
Chestplate of Septic Stitches - 10 man - This spell plate chest piece has three red gem sockets down the center of it. It puts most of its stat allotment into crits, but also has a healthy chunk of mp5.
Protection
The Facelifter - 10 man - Ah, a tanking sword for those that might not want the mace from earlier in the instance. This one gives you parry and expertise instead of the dodge and hit from the Bonebreaker Scepter. The other stat it hands out is defense rating which you get a little bit more of on this than the mace. It comes down to a case of choosing which stats you need.
Unidentifiable Organ - 10 man - This tanking trinket has armor as its base 'gimme' stat. The proc, however, is based on getting hit. you have a 60% chance to gain stamina and that stacks then times. Essentially, you start gaining more max health throughout the course of a fight which is always a good thing. That is, until it suddenly goes away.
Last Word - 25 man - This tanking mace is a call back to the old Blessing of Light that we paladins used to grant (well, the holy ones did at least). While the mace itself doesn't have any strength on it and the stamina isn't much higher than the 10 man version, the proc gives you a hundred strength as well as the old Blessing of Light effect of having incoming heals increased. It can be a fairly decent weapon if used right, but it might mess with initial aggro.
Retribution
Infected Choker - 10 man - This necklace has a red socket in there, so if you pop in a strength gem, you should be getting the bonus. Otherwise, it's got both crit strike as well as expertise as its stats.
Scalpel-Sharpening Shoulderguards - 10 man - Red and blue sockets on this one, but again we've got a fairly large amount of armor penetration on it which I'm not thrilled about. The hit rating is fairly nice if you need to shore you gear back up after swapping things around.
Tiny Abomination in a Jar - 25 man - This is the best trinket for an Icecrown raiding ret paladin. Well, not the best, because there is a heroic version. When you hit things, you gain motes. When you get eight motes, you attack for half weapon damage. For a paladin, this causes your seals to also hit which causes even more damage. Pretty sweet. Oh, it also includes some hit rating baseline.
All Paladins
Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification - 25 man and heroic 10 man - Yet another of the generic tier gear upgrades. If you're purchased any of your tier set with badges, you can upgrade them with one of these tokens. It doesn't matter which piece of the tier set it is, you can still use this token to bump it up a bit.
This coming Thursday, we're going to be covering the loot in the Crimson Halls. Drop on by to see what we've got in store or check back on next Saturday to read the new holy paladin column by our own Chase Christian.
The Light and How to Swing It tries to help Paladins cope with the dark times coming in Cataclysm. See the upcoming Paladin changes the expansion will bring. Wrath is coming to a close and the final showdown with the Lich King is here. Are you ready for the assault on Icecrown Citadel?
