Monday, March 9, 2009

Peering Into the 8-Ball - Divining My Gear Upgrades

With Sarth-10 3D now conquered and a Malygos-10 6-minute kill imminent, my Glory of the Raider achievement is nearly in the bag. What next? Max out my gear, of course!

Based on my current gear set, I have a few areas to improve. First and foremost, I plan on grabbing Valorous shoulders to replace my Heroes' shoulders. That's just a matter of saving up Badges of Valor to buy a shoulder token. After that, however, things get murky because of my lack of access to 25-man loot.

Here's a list of stuff that I'm wearing, other than shoulders, that I'd like to replace:

Finding upgrades for these is going to be difficult. For my helm, I'd need to kill Sartharion-25 3D and get the helm that drops there. That's probably not happening unless 2 of the 3 raiding paladins in my guild decide not to show up on a Sunday night and the guild just so happens to be doing Sarth-3D that night. As the magic 8-Ball would say, "Outlook not so good."

For the belt, I'd be after Girdle of Razuvious. Razuvious is killable by PUGs, so I might be able to luck out with that. Let's shake up that 8-Ball again - "Signs point to yes."

Looking at my boots, some might argue that Iron-Spring Jumpers are best in slot. Others feel the Melancholy Sabatons from Malygos-25 are. I usually go with pure ilvl when there's any question, and the Malygos boots are higher. But, that would require a Malygos-25 kill, another thing I have not achieved. It's more likely than a Sarth-3D kill though, since it just requires killing Malygos, not killing him all special-like. "Reply hazy, try again."

Loatheb's Shadow is a great trinket. Fury of the Five Flights and Darkmoon Card: Greatness are better. FotFF requires an OS-25 kill and then beating the hordes of physical DPS that want it out on the roll. DMC: G requires me farming gold. Neither are likely. "My sources say no."

Replacing my weapon is a matter of doing more Naxx-25. I'd be looking to grab either The Jawbone from Maexxna or the Betrayer of Humanity from Kel'Thuzad. I think I can kill Maexxna again and snag a Jawbone. "As I see it, yes."

Finally, my libram. The upgrade choices are the Deadly libram, which I don't PvP enough to get, or the Naxx-25 libram, which I haven't seen drop. I guess it's just a matter of running Naxx-25 some more. "Outlook good."

/cracks knuckles
Looks like I've got some work to do.

4 comments:

Suicidal Zebra said...

3.1 = Libram of Radiance (the Naxx-25 Libram) available for 25 Emblems of Valor. Hopefully you'll get lucky with a drop before that but if you don't there are at least going to be other options. There is a new Libram dropping from Ulduar-25, but right now it has placeholder stats.

With the scheduled nerf it goes without saying that the Venture Co. Libram is going to be dross in 3.1, to the extent that Furious Blows will be better. If you still have that Libram don't lose it ;).

Anonymous said...

What scheduled nerf is this? I'm just come out of the woods for a week or so.

Shwitz44 said...

@Peregrine
It's been rumored that the Venture Co. libram will increase Divine Storm damage by a flat value instead of increasing crit rating for a few seconds.

I planned on getting the Deadly libram (only requires 1300 rating next season) or Naxx-25 libram (supposedly available via valor tokens in 3.1), so I don't very much care what they do to the Venture Co. libram, just as long as one of the others becomes more readily available.

PS - thanks for the heads up on the Libram of Radiance, Zebra.

Suicidal Zebra said...

I've thrown it up on my blog but basically the Venture Co. Ret Libram is being changed from 73 crit rating following a DStorm (whether it hits or not) to 'Your Divine Storm deals +81 more damage'.

Basically, it's a huge hairy nerf.