karazhan-gear-guide
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Blood Pact: Gearing a Lock for Karazhan, part 1
'Grats on your new 70 Warlock! You've just turned experience into gold (at least until WotLK lands) and unlocked the wonderful world of BC raiding and Arena PvP. What do you do now? Gear up, of course! I've touched on some general gearing guidelines for the pre-Karazhan Warlock in "Locked and loaded", it's time now to drill down to the specific pieces, especially since the introduction of Battlegear with patch 2.4.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Gearing for Kara, Prot Warriors part 2
Last week, for our fiftieth post, we spent so much time talking about prot gear to get ready to tank Karazhan that everyone went mad and the moon cracked open and rained fire upon the Earth. So get ready for part two! (Note, it's possible that didn't actually happen. But it felt like it did.)This week, we're going to be covering gloves, boots, helms, capes and tanking weapons. Last week's column and this column from a while back cover the other slots you'll need for tanking gear to allow you to step into Kara and begin annoying mobs with your irritating taunts while not dying immediately when they start punching you in the face.Without further ado, let's get down to business.
Totem Talk: Stuff to wear to kill stuff in Karazhan Pt. 1
Last week, we talked about preparing for a shaman's roles in raiding. This week, we'll be talking about what gear to wear when you're stepping into Karazhan for the first time. Since shamans have three very different specs, this will inevitably be a multi-part series. Thankfully, some of the work has already been done for us: here you can find a list of pre-raid belts, bracers and boots for the aspiring raiding shaman.If you look at the picture of my newly elemental shaman to the right as I took him out of his first Karazhan run, you'll notice he's wearing a goodly amount of cloth. However, since this series would become impossibly long if I listed every possible leather and cloth drop that would be good for a shaman, I'm going to prioritize mail until the end of the series. If there's enough demand, I'll continue and conclude with a 'leather and cloth' post covering pieces that are good for a shaman. (The pieces I'm wearing there? They lack in MP5. Not all that great. You should have seen the crap I was wearing before this run.) I'm also going to try and avoid any badge gear that's superior to Karazhan level gear, because that kind of gear seems to me to be what people run Kara to be able to buy, not what they buy to be able to run Kara.This is not meant to imply that leather or cloth aren't often 'best in slot' for a shaman. Please have mercy on my poor aching fingers which toil endlessly compiling such lists! I don't want to go on the cart! I feel happy! I feel happy!Anyway, on to our gearing story.
Gearing a Holy Priest for Karazhan, part two
Hey, Priest fans! Here is part two of our guide to some sweet gear that will get you ready to run Karazhan, everyone's favorite entry-level raid. If you missed part one, go check it out; I'll wait. Previously on "Gearing a Holy Priest for Karazhan" we talked about three relevant sets, as well as items for the head, neck, back, chest, and wrist. Today I'll be going over the rest of the slots, as well as gems. Let's get started. Gloves Hallowed Handwraps (Kargath Bladefist, Shattered Halls). You'll want to be running Hellfire instances anyway to get your Honor Hold/Thrallmar rep up for the head glyph. Blood Surgeon's Mitts. These drop from Broggok on normal Blood Furnace, oddly enough, but they're darn nice pre-KZ gloves. Gloves of Piety (world drop BoE). If you really can't get either of the above items, you might be able to snag these at the AH for cheap. Enchant Major Healing. A bit expensive; personally I might wait till Hallowed if not until a KZ drop (there are two good priest gloves in KZ) to enchant that. But if you have the spare cash/mats, go for it.
Gearing a Holy priest for Karazhan, part one
Hello, fellow Holy priests! Are you interested in Karazhan, but have never gone yet? Maybe you want some Badges, maybe you want some nice epics, or maybe you just want to hang out with nine other folks and have some fun. But what to wear? Well, the good news is you don't need amazing gear to start KZ. In fact, healing KZ can be easier than healing many heroics, in my experience, if only because you have another healer or two there to help you out. Of course, the better your gear is, the better your performance will be, but there are many easy-to-reach pieces of gear that will perform fine, and several that will perform amazingly, for Karazhan. Join me as I step through some recommended options.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Gearing for Kara, Prot Warriors part 1
The Care and Feeding of Warriors embarks on a massive multi-part exploration of how to gear your new level 70 to tank and DPS in the 10 man raids. Matthew Rossi begs your forbearance, as this sucker is going to be insanely long when it is all said and done.Karazhan is fast becoming the new UBRS. The ten man cap on the raid and the fact that the gear from Kara was necessary to begin thinking about 25 man raids (now, the badges from Kara are - Karazhan is the rough equivalent of five heroic dailies in a two to three hour run once you've gotten the place on farm status) makes it the gateway through which both serious endgame raiders had to progress and a dandy place for smaller guilds to clean out, and were it not for the raid timer I'm sure we'd see guilds running Kara repeatedly in a week, and the only thing that stops daily Kara PuG's is that same timer. Now you've reached level 70, and you want to tank or DPS in Karazhan.Well, first things first: I'm going to have to disappoint you a little. If you're a DPS warrior, there's not a lot of DPS plate in Karazhan. There are some nice weapons, yes, and you're going to want the badges to buy gear with, but you're not going to find much in terms of plate in here for your DPS needs aside from some boots and the Tier 4 DPS options, which in many cases you will replace as soon as you have the badges or the Gruul/Mag runs to do so. Still, the weapons are nice. For a tank, Karazhan has more goodies in store. But first, you have to get into the instance.The minimum tanking requirements for Karazhan (literally, for stepping in the door and tanking Attumen) are 490 defense, 12k health and armor. It would be nice to have at least 400 shield block value and you should be uncrushable with shield block up. This is achievable with drops from the 70 five man instances, heroics, and reputation rewards. I'm not going to list a lot of badge gear here because, frankly, if you have 100 badges to spend on a breastplate you probably are already tanking in Karazhan. Likewise, while I will list the tanking drops in Karazhan, I won't do that until after I've listed the options outside it first. Those drops will be considered as upgrades you'll probably need before tanking Prince Malchezaar. Before we get started, here's a list of rings, trinkets and necklaces that will still be of use to you.
Shifting Perspectives: Gearing your bear tank from 70 to Karazhan!
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week John Patricelli, the Big Bear Butt Blogger, comes late to the party with a mammoth of an article that hopes to cover bear tank gear choices from dinging at 70 up to and through running Karazhan with your guild. Gearing up as a bear tank As you approach level 70 as a feral druid, your playstyle to this point has most likely been as a Kitty, focusing on causing lots of damage, very swiftly. Kind of like a stripped down, no frills rogue. But with style. As much as you enjoy being a kitty, however, you just know all your friends want you to tank. With Fury Warriors, Enhancement Shamans, Retribution Paladins and real Rogues floating around, there is no shortage of melee DPS in the game. But a good tank! Well, that's another story.
Pimp My Profile: Pre-Heroic Protection Paladin
Welcome to the first edition of our new twice-monthly column, Pimp My Profile. Readers submit their Armory profile to us and every two weeks we pick one to review. We provide a Gear Check, Talent Tune Up, AddOn/Macro recommendations and more to help you reach your goals in the game.For the inaugural column, I asked my long time friend Jon to submit his new Paladin for da pimpage. He had recently shelved his Warrior in favor or leveling a new Paladin to 70 to be the main tank for our casual group. Having played the class for only two months, he had a few questions and concerns. Here is what he had to say:"I'm highly aware of needing to obtain the "uncrittable" defense numbers so far in order to get a defense anywhere near 490 I've found that I have to sacrifice too much spell damage which eats into my ability to hold agro. I abandoned a 63 warrior in favor of my Pally tank and the teary eyed joy that comes with being able generate lots of agro quickly on multiple mobs. Big spell damage is essential to my ability to tank for my trigger happy friends whose 5 man instance approach is more akin to "Who's Line Is It Anyway" rather than the production of Shakespeare most people reading this think their guild regularly produces."Jon's goals as a new level 70 Protection Paladin on the verge of tanking Heroics are: To attain uncrushability by equipping more avoidance gear (+Dodge,+Parry or +Block equipment) Regain his threat generation through +Spell damage Retaining his uncrittable status by keeping his Defense at least at 490 Let's look at Jon's current set up and what he, or any pre-Heroic L70 Protection Paladin, can do to achieve those goals.
BigRedKitty: Gear Up for Karazhan
Each week, Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. Your gear, bluntly, stinks. You thought all that mail gear from those quests was fabulous until someone pointed out it was all for Shaman. You've got Strength, Spell Hit and Crit, chance-on-melee hit procs, and Spirit out the yin-yang. Nice. What are you gonna do now? Instances? Who's going to run an instance with hunter decked out in blue cloth leggings? PvP? You won't survive ten seconds unless it's due to your opponents laughing so hard they can't get their fingers to smash the Destroy the Incompetent Huntard button. You're an outcast. But we can help! One thing you can do is spend some of that gold you've been hoarding. The Auction House is loaded with super-duper bind-on-equip gear that is plenty good enough to get you through the first four bosses of Karazhan. Those guys drop gear that will keep you in line with the rest of your guildmates. But your current clownness isn't going to get an invite, so we've got to clean you up and make you look all sparkly. Grab your two-handed mace -- why did you even choose that, you know hunters can't even equip them -- and hustle to the nearest Auction House. Let's go shopping.
