The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 5.2 and warrior gear part 3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.
This has been something of a wild month for me. I started it playing a tauren warrior, and I'm ending it as a worgen. I've spent the month raiding Throne of Thunder and thinking about warrior gear I need to pick up as we progress through the place. The weird thing about gear is, it's really just a means to an end. You get gear to get better to progress through harder content, that's pretty much all there is to the gearing cycle. Each new patch, each new raid opens up new angles for progression, but it's really always heading towards that brass ring of "Beat X boss, get Y gear to beat Z boss." Until the expansion ends, anyway.
As one of the largest raids we've seen in a while, Throne of Thunder has a lot of gear. We covered six bosses last time, taking us to the mid point of the raid. Now we get to look at the remaining bosses. The Halls of Flesh Shaping and Pinnacle of Storms await. As before, I'm just going to list the 522 gear that drops in normal 10/25 - thunderforged variants are 6 ilevels higher, and thus are usually the best option in normal raids.
Before we get into the bosses, however, there are a few drops shared across several of the bosses in the zone worth mentioning. These have a chance to drop from any boss, and include the Greatsword of Frozen Hells (a 2h sword), Bo-Ris, Horror in the Night (a strength polearm), Visage of the Doomed (tank shield), Reconstructed Furious Shoulderplates (haste/mastery DPS shoulders), Reconstructed Bloody Shoulderplates (tank shoulders), and Do-tharak, the Swordbreaker (a hit/mastery sword usable by tanks or SMF warriors, although with hit and mastery as its stats it's arguably a better tank weapon). Since these are shared boss loot, they can drop from pretty much any time you use a coin in the instance.
Durumu the Forgotten
Durumu is one of those complex fights with a lot of moving parts that requires a great deal of awareness on your part. I personally hate the maze with the fervor and intensity of a thousand suns, just like Superman hates milk. But what do we warriors get for enduring the fight?
Well, for starters he drops the Caustic Spike Bracers. Yes, they're another set of random enchant plate bracers, just like off Jin'rokh. Don't ask me, I only raid here. I haven't seen these drop so I'm not sure if they mostly come in DPS flavors or not. The Treads of the Blind Eye are pure avoidance tanking boots, Durumu's Severed Tentacle is a tanking ring itemized equally between avoidance and active mitigation, the Reinforced Mirror-Sheen Cloak is a pure avoidance tanking cloak, and the Artery Rippers are pure avoidance tanking gloves. So what I'm saying is, if those bracers aren't heavily slanted for DPS stats, then Durumu drops jack all for a DPS warrior.
Primordius
Do you like saurok? How about saurok with a wide assortment of oozes and mutation based debuffs that are necessary to manage to kill said saurok? I hope so. Once he's dead, what does he drop?
Well,for DPS warriors he drops one of the sweetest plums in the instance, Primordius' Talisman of Rage. That's right, a crit trinket. Isn't it beautiful? You'll also want to keep an eye out for the Hydra-Scale Bloodcloak, a crit/exp DPS cape. There's also the Band of the Scaled Tyrant, a hit/haste DPS ring. Then we have the Pathogenic Gauntlets, hit/haste gloves that depress me. If they were hit/mastery they'd be good tank pieces. Being hit/haste, they're useless for tanking (haste gives prot warriors nothing) and not terribly good for DPS.
Tanks can still find gear here, though, including the tank itemized Acid-Spine Bonemace. Just like the majority of Durumu's tank drops, this is itemized for pure avoidance and it has a weird speed on it as well (2.4 instead of 2.6) so I'm not sure how popular it's going to be. If you were putting together a maximum avoidance set, it'd be very useful. Continuing the trend of pure avoidance on gear, the Metabolically Boosted Shoulderplates are all dodge/parry. Sometimes I wonder about you, Blizzard. For that matter, the Black Blood Legplates are also dodge/parry itemized. The Greatshield of the Gloaming at least has mastery on it, but man, would it kill someone to put some hit or exp on a tank drop after going through all that work to make tanks want hit and expertise? There's a reasonable amount of both on our tier set for tanking, but not enough to make up for the difficulty we'll find getting any on offset pieces.
Dark Animus
Okay, so there's this robot and its powered by the evil fluid from John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness and just tell us what we get when we win already, you say? Okay.
There's really not a ton on our evil ooze filled robot friend for us. There's the Delicate Vial of the Sanguinaire, a dodge trinket with a mastery proc chance when you dodge. There's our tier chest token, so good luck fighting with all the other warriors, shaman, hunters and monks for a chance at that. Then there's the well-itemized Crown of the Golden Golem, which is a crit/haste DPS hat.
Once we get past Dark Animus, we're on the path to finally dealing with the the big boss himself, but first we need to get past his last guardians.
Iron Qon
Doggies! Trying to kill you! What happens if they don't manage it? We get loot! He only drops about three items warriors will be interested in, discounting all of that shared boss loot from the beginning of this post. (Remember, all bosses in the instance have a chance to drop any of that stuff.)
There's the ever in demand tier shoulder token. Then there's the reasonably well itemized Rein-Binder's Fists, solid crit DPS gloves with some haste. Qon's Flaming Scimitar is, to my eyes, a better tanking weapon than the purely for tanks Acid-Spine Bonemace, although it's also useful for a SMF warrior.
Twin Consorts
Okay, so Lei Shen made himself two girlfriends because... I guess he's both weird and creepy. I'm sorry, this is a dude who apparently once made another wife, then killed her, so I'm not really sure what he's going for here. But anyway, once his two Stockholm Syndrome consorts are dead and you feel bad about it, there's shiny things to loot.
The Moonjade Necklace is a dodge/expertise neck with a red socket. It's a pleasant surprise for tanks wanting some active mitigation. The Tidal Force Treads are DPS boots with crit/haste, so not bad for us now. The Gaze of the Twins is a DPS trinket with strength and a crit proc, making it an ideal companion to the Talisman off of Primordius. And of course, there's the tier helm token. Get ready to punch a hunter in the nards and call a monk a mean name. (Don't do those things.)
Okay, you've poked a giant eyeball out, you've murdered a lizard, you've killed some dogs and you're finally at Lei Shen's door. What does the first sovereign emperor of the mogu have on his body?
Lei Shen, The Thunder King
For starters, you can actually get and wear the same hat Lei Shen himself wears. No, really! The Doomed Crown of Lei Shen is exactly the hat Lei Shen is wearing. I love it when they do this kind of thing. And it's a hit/mastery hat, so tanks and DPS can make use of it. I love it when they do that, too. Lei Shen also drops one of the most magificiently ludicrous shields ever, the Ultimate Protection of the Emperor. It's got parry and mastery and a red socket. The Legplates of Whipping Ionization are tank legs with dodge, mastery and three red sockets. Also, the Soul Barrier is a tank trinket with stamina and an on-use damage absorption effect.
Arms and TG warriors will be looking for the axe Uroe, Harbinger of Terror, which in addition to being well itemized is also pretty spiffy looking. I'm a sucker for models with moving parts. The Legplates of the Lightning Throne are well itemized for a DPS warrior as well.
And that closes out ToT. I know it doesn't mention Ra-Den, because if you're looking to get Ra-Den gear, you're already finished with Heroic ToT, and you didn't need this guide even a little bit.
At the center of the fury of battle stand the warriors: protection, arms and fury. Check out more strategies and tips especially for warriors, from hot issues for today's warriors to Cataclysm 101 for DPS warriors and our guide to reputation gear for warriors.
