Bibliophilia and You

It means "love of books." Really. But why should we love books? There's actually some good money to be made in becoming a book dealer of sorts. Many books (and other bits of paper in the form of recipes, plans, schematics, patterns, etc.) are sold in the game by NPCs in remote or little-known locations. For those seriously focused on power-leveling a profession, it's often more convenient to visit an auction house and pay a premium for a needed book or recipe.

I've done both the slog through the wilderness to acquire the needed book and bought it at exorbitant prices on the auction house. It's really been a call of whether I want to trek all the way out to Arathi Highlands, the depths of Ashenvale, or Feathermoon Stronghold right now or not.

So what are these books that can make you some spare cash? It depends on the trade or secondary skill you're targeting. Let it be said that each trade has some valuable recipes hidden on vendors scattered across the world. Knowing where the people who sell the things that people want is the key to making gold. But, I'm not going to focus on the disparate trades. Instead, I'll look today at the books that are available to anyone because they are for the secondary skills and not a particular trade. Before you buy any of the following books,though, check the profits to be made by looking at the going AH price on your server.

First aid requires three books pre-Outland. At 150, you need the "Expert First Aid - Under Wraps" to advance up to 225 skill. This book, and two other volumes "Manual: Heavy Silk Bandage" and "Manual: Mageweave Bandage," are all available from the same vendor. For Alliance, they are in Stromgarde Keep in the human portion (from entrance keep making rights until you're at the vendor). For the Horde, all three books are available in Breckenwall Village in Dustwallow Marsh.

Cooking requires the "Expert Cookbook." The Alliance has it decidedly easier as their book is in a 20-30 zone. The Horde equivalent is in a 30-35 zone. If the books were actually obtained by the character needing them, the Horde must wait longer before being able to safely travel to the location. However, in some form of equity, the Horde book is located in a village (Raventusk Village in Desolace, to be exact) with a flight path. The Alliance book is buried in the bowels of Ashenvale, quite a trek from the nearest flightpoint of Astranar.

Finally, fishing requires a book from Booty Bay. In general, this book seems to sell less well than either the cooking or first aid books. Perhaps this is because fishing is the secondary skill least likely to be pursued; perhaps it's because the book is easily found.

All of the above books sell; some sell better than others. If there already seems to be a market for the books on your server, it can be dangerous to attempt to break into it. You do run the risk of undercutting to the point where the market is destroyed. You also run the risk of not being able to be competitive. Some research will be needed on your server before I recommend venturing into either market.

If this is an interesting topic, I would be willing to expand into vendor-purchased patterns for various trades. Many of these can be sold for very high mark-ups, however to write the article would take some time for fairly in-depth research. Leave a comment if this is something you'd like to see covered.

Ten Commandments of WoW

(Author's Note: This is not intended as offensive, sacrilegious or blasphemous to anyone. The Ten Commandments, though, make a nice frame of reference for just about anyone to discuss ten rules. I wrote these rules in the general style of the Ten Commandments. My additional interpretation is below each Commandment. If anyone is offended by this post, I apologize in advance.)

I. I am your Guild. You shall have no other Guild before me. You shall not make an application to another guild.
(If you are unhappy with your guild, by all means find a new guild. But it's just tacky to be doing that looking while you're still in your guild. It'll look better to both your current and future guild if you have the guts to quit while you look.)

II. You shall not take the Guild's name in vain.
(Don't do something to make your guild look bad. You are the representation of your guild out there in the wide world. The world of guild leaders is remarkably small, and if you are an ass, word will get around.)

III. Remember the Raid Day to keep it.
(This means not signing up if you're not going to be there. Don't make someone hold a spot that you have no intention of filling. It holds up the entire guild. Also, be ready at least a while, like 15-30 minutes in advance. Being ready means having repaired your armor and have everything you need to raid with you.)

IV. Honor your Guild Leader and Raid Leader.
(Both of these people work very hard to make life good for the guild. Don't do anything to make their lives harder. This means following directions in raids and not causing drama in guild. Don't do anything that makes these already overworked individuals work ANY harder.)

V. You shall not kill (unless it be the next in the kill order).
(Know the kill order. Follow the kill order. Assume that those assigned crowd control will continue to control their mobs until it's time to kill the mob. Please don't "help out" by dotting a hunter's trap or mage's sheep target. It just makes the mob uncontrollable.)

VI. You shall not raid with another Guild. Honor thy raid ID.
(If you are absolutely positive your guild won't need you, then go ahead and break this one. But seriously, you should be most interested in getting your closest allies the furthest along. This means not getting saved to a Karazhan on Thursday when the guild might need you on Friday.)

VII. You shall not Ninja Loot.
(Loot is the single largest cause of all drama. Loot is the one thing that will cause normally peaceful folks to act up in anger. Don't be the cause of asshattery.)

VIII. You shall not bear false witness against your Guild mates.
(They're your guild. Don't tell lies about them. It's just common sense.)

IX. You shall not covet another's mobs.
(There are plenty of mobs in the game. Don't intentionally steal someone else's kills. I don't care if you are horde and they are alliance, it's just not cool.)

X. You shall not covet another's veins or herbs.
(If you see someone fighting RIGHT NEXT to an ore vein or herb, assume that they intend to use it as soon as they're done fighting. This goes a long way to not tarnishing your guild's name ore reputation.)

Blizzcon 2008 Questions

I admit I have a few questions. I've read all about the fact that there will be a Blizzcon this year (in October). Tickets, as far as I know, are not yet available for the event. However, it does raise some interesting questions for me.

Blizzcon has traditionally been used as a public relations event to announce new games and expansions. The timing of this event seems to be off, though. Vivendi (the parent company of Blizzard) expects that the second WoW expansion will be released "in the second half of 2008." If that expectation is true, we would presumably already have a release date by the time of Blizzcon 2008.

With the announcement of the date of Blizzcon, I don't think anyone expects to have WotLK before October 10. We also don't expect the date of release to be a big announcement at Blizzcon. If Blizzard will make the projected release of WotLK, that release date must already have been released.

So what will Blizzard announce?

One possibility is a Starcraft II update or release date. Development is still continuing on on that title. Another possibility is Diablo III. Blizzard acquired the diablo3.com domain name from a fan site. While the acquisition of this domain does not ensure the eventual release of Diablo III, I fully expect Blizzard to return to the Diablo world eventually. Another possibility, from what is already known, is that Blizzard also has a non-WoW MMO in planning. What this MMO will be is unknown, but part of the Blizzcon 2007 attendance pack was a beta key to an unannounced MMO. They could certainly fill us in on some more details of that in October.

So, that's my thoughts on what Blizzcon means. I'm actually thinking trying to go this year. I'll be very excited to get my hands on the loot bag and wonder what kind of Murloc-Themed in game item will be available this year.

Warning - Spotty Coverage Possible

I wanted to let you all know that I'm suffering some fairly severe pain from what I believe to be a herniated disc. That said, it's not generally comfortable to be in any one position for long periods of time (i.e. raiding for 4 hours) and the medication I'm taking makes me a little muzzy-headed. This also is not indicative of thought provoking, intense blog posts.

So, a warning that updates may not be either as timely or as cerebral as some of the posts around these parts.

Gem Combinations

Today I'm looking at crafted gems. This discussion doesn't consider the gems that can be purchased, are quest rewards or are drops in dungeons.

When you look at the gem possibilities for socketing you gear, you quickly can determine the following about the primary colors of gems:

• Red Gems affect Strength, Attack Power, Agility, Spell Damage, Dodge or Healing
• Blue Gems affect Mana per 5, Stamina, Spirit or Spell Penetration
• Yellow Gems affect Spell Critical Rating, Spell Hit Rating, Intellect, Resilence, Spell Haste, Hit Rating, Critical Rating or Defense.

Some of the color characteristics, don't combine with other colors, leaving the primary as the only option for increasing that statistic. These "pure" stats are Parry and Dodge (from Red) and Spirit (from Blue). All yellow characteristics can and do combine.

So, that leaves us with 5 combinable red characteristics, 3 combinable blue characteristics and all 8 yellow. So there are a potential for 15 purple gems (of which there are 6), 40 orange gems (of which there are 7), and 24 green gems (of which there are 6).

Sadly, its obvious that Blizzard can't put every combination into the game. Some of the combinations wouldn't even make sense for any class in the game (Spell Haste & Agility or Spell Damage & Hit Rating), but some of them would be welcome additions (Attack Power & Hit Rating or Healing & Spirit).

Please visit the gem resource I mentioned a few days ago to determine exactly which gems you want in YOUR gear.

Edited: There is indeed a crafted gem that combines healing and spirit , and not surprisingly is purple. However, it's pretty well hidden in that the base gem requirement is not a Shadow Draenite, Nightseye or Shadowsong Amethyst. Instead, the base gem is a shadow pearl. Thanks to Awlbiste's eagle eyes for catching this mistake.

Tailoring Recipe Drops

Time for another installment of trade-skill drop locations. This time, we're going to address the bind-on-pickup recipes for tailoring. For each of the other installments, we've addressed the instance or non-instance portion of the drops.

For tailoring, the non-instance part is easy. There is ONE bind-on-pickup tailoring pattern outside of an instance. That is the casters around Manaforge Coruu who drop the pattern for the Spellfire Bag. This is the enchanting specific bag.

And that's it for the non-instances.

Instance Drops

Blizzard looked kindly on the tailors as far as instances go. Without discussing twenty-five man raids, there are over a dozen patterns scattered out there-all with drop rates around 1%. Here they are, broken down by instance.

The Steamvaults

• Warlord Kalithresh drops the pattern for the Battlecast Hood.
  

Shattered Halls

• Grand Warlock Netherkurse drops the Spellstrike Hood pattern.
  

Shadow Labyrinth

• The final boss, Murmur, drops the pattern for the Spellstrike Pants.
  

Botanica

• Thorngrin the Tender, the third boss, drops the pattern for Battlecast Pants.
• Warp Splinter, the final boss, drops the pattern for the Whitemend Hood.
  

The Arcatraz

• Dalliah the Doomsayer, either the second or third boss depending on which you do first, drops the Whitemend Pants pattern.
• Arcatraz Sentinels (there are several) can drop the pattern for the Arcanoweave Bracers.
  

The Mechanar

• Pathaleon the Calculator, the final boss, drops the pattern for Araanoweave Robe.
• The Arcanoweave Boots pattern can be dropped by Sunseeker Astromages, of which there are several.
  

Magister's Terrace

• Kael'thas Sunstrider can drop the pattern for the Unyielding Girdle.
• Unyielding Bracers pattern, which matches the girdle above, is also dropped by Kael'thas.
  

Karazhan

• Phantom Valets can drop the pattern for the Soulcloth Vest.
• The matching Soulcloth Shoulders recipe is dropped by Phantom Attendants.

Sunwell Plateau

• Trash mobs in Sunwell Plateau drop the pattern for Sunfire Robes. (thanks for the correction in comments)
  

So, if you tailors out there are missing key BOP patterns, don't waste much time in the wide world; crawl into the dungeons instead. There are quite a few patterns to check off your list, and at such low droprates, you're going to be spending a lot of time in there if you want to collect them all.

Molten Core - A Perspective from 70

So, last night my guild went to Molten Core. It was a great piece of nostalgia. From the perspective of someone who is now 70, there are some things that have changed, some things that still hold true, and some things which I had completely forgotten.


Things that have changed:

• It's perfectly viable to have one 70 protection paladin tank things that used to take 5 tanks and 4 off-tanks (mages, warlocks, etc.) like Major Domo Executus (tanked single-handedly by a paladin) or Garr (tanked by our feral druid/protection paladin team).
• Getting an unexpected add of Lava Annihilator, Lava Surger or even 2 Molten Giants is no longer an insta-wipe.
• One DPS class (like an elemental shaman) pulling a pack of imps leading to Lucifron doesn't immediately cause a party wipe.
• Fifteen raid members is perfectly viable -- even if some of them are low 60's types.
• Four healers for fifteen raiders is probably overkill. One of the healers could have brought a DPS alt.
• Paladins and Bears can actually tank and tank effectively.
• Shadow is a viable spec for a priest.
• Passing out water or healthstones is mega-super easy and doesn't require addons (like Vending Machine).

Things that are still true:

• Curses and magic effects still suck. For priests the addition of Mass Dispel cleans up a lot of the cursing duties, but there's still a ton of cleansing to do.
• Sulfuron Harbinger's adds still heal if you don't separate them. Instead of doing it the "right" way, we wound up running them out of mana.
• Packs of five core hounds still have to die at nearly the same time. We had one re-ignite problem. This reignition winds up getting the hounds out of synch health-wise and causes some rather serious problems.
• If you don't focus on the adds a boss brings with him, you're going to run into issues.

Things that I had forgotten:

• Lava cores and fiery cores drop from packs pretty regularly.
  
• Major Domo's chest isn't assignable via master looter.
• The gear drops are (nearly) all class restricted. Classes were only meant to have one viable spec before BC (Druids, Paladins, Shamans and Priests are all healers. Warriors are all tanks.)
• some pretty cool patterns drop in MC.

All in all, it was very fun. I went in there on my priest hoping to see one thing drop - The Eye of Divinity. I know that Anathema/Benediction is a completely underwhelming staff at 70, but I've always wanted one. Luckily, I had the Eye of Shadow from a long time ago, so now all I need to do is the quest.

Engineering Drop Recipes

Hi all. Back from a longish weekend in celebration of my birthday that included many things WoW. I'll post full(er) updates later on in the week about what went on, but I wanted to make a quick list of Engineering Drop Recipes for you all to go farm.

Luckily there are only seven recipes to worry about:

Non-Instances

Blade's Edge Mountains

• Doomforge Engineers drop schematics for Felsteel Boomstick
• Gan'arg Analysts drop Field Repair Bot, 110G schematics

Netherstorm

• Sunfury Archers drop schematics for Adamantite Arrow Machine
• Sunfury Bowman (God Blizz, name these mobs more distinctly) drop schematics for Khorium Scope

Shadowmoon Valley

• Mo'Arg Weaponsmiths drop schematics for Hyper-Vision Goggles

Instances

Steamvaults

• Mekgineer Steamrigger drops Rocket Boots Xtreme (Leather variety)

Mechanar

• Mechano-Lord Capacitus drops Rocket Boots Xtreme (Cloth)

Karazhan

• Attumen drops Stabilized Eternium Scope
  

Useful Links

I was having a bit of blogger's block today and have sort of struggled for a topic most of the day. In the end, when I'm struggling I tend to make a list of things. And if you review any portion of my blog, you'll see a lot of lists. In fact, if I ever move to a self-host, I may just have to recast this blog as "Bremm's Lists of Useful Things."

Anyhow, today isn't about anything in game. Instead, its the websites about the game that you can use. I've sort of broken them down into sections.

Research about quests, specs, items and what not
These are the sorts of places where you go to figure out "who drops Legacy?" or "where is Scout Jyoba?"* They each contain search boxes where you can type any name from the game. Most of them also have a talent calculator.

• WoWDB This is my new site. It has everything I need and (supposedly) no hidden virii disguising themselves as advertisements. I particularly like the ability to have tooltips from items compare to what your default character (registration required) is wearing. Makes upgrade planning easy.
• Wowhead Used to be my favorite and looks and behaves very much like WoWDB above.
• Allakhazam and Thottbot are the old school versions that lead to snazzy places like Wowhead. Apparently "thottbot" has also became a verb.

General information about classes, math, bosses, strategies
There's only one link in here. It's the place I go to start most any research. Everyone should know about this. It's Wowwiki.

Information about your character in game
These websites are all about rating your character. Mostly for increasing your epeen.

• BeImba! This site looks at your gear, evaluates your gear and spec and tells you where you should be raiding and what enhancements you need to make to your gear to get better.
• Gankbang This site looks at you and your server and ranks where you personally are across the server.
• Warcrafter This site is both a rating for your character and allows sandbox mode where you can change gear, enchants, spec and gems. Awesome for planning out who to be once you're finished with a character.
• Reputation Calculator This site lists your reputation with various factions (Outland only) and lists what repeatable quests you need to do to advance to the next level. For certain factions it also shows how many days it "should" take you to advance.
• Gem Finder This site helps you find gems to increase your gear. Sortable by quality and effect. Just awesome.

* Extra points to anyone who can answer both of these without using any research site :o)

Easy Gold Making Tips (Daily Quests)

Since Burning Crusade, it's become easier than ever to make gold in World of Warcraft. I'm sure Blizzard has done this on purpose. It's a good way to help combat the urge players get to buy gold, it keeps interest in the game up, and it gives people who only have an hour to play something to do.

I have an order associated with how I do my daily quests. This works well for me, you may need to tweak it for your circumstances.

1. I'm always hearthed in Shattrath city, so the first thing I do is fly out to Slimyr Lake and check if I have the fishing skill needed to complete the daily fishing quest. Currently, the fishing on my hunter is only around 260 skill, so with lures he can do either the Shrimp quest or the Crocolisks in the City quest. If it's Shrimp, I take a short jaunt out to Zangarmarsh and do that one. (Either 25 or 24 quests left)
   
2. Back to Shattrath and check the cooking quest. I usually don't pick it up now because I'm shortly headed to the Sunwell Isle and none of them are completed out there.
3. Pick up the Nether Residue quest (there are mines on the island).
4. Take the portal to Sunwell.
5. Pick up the Ley Line scrying quest, the boat bombing and demon bombing quests, the demon killing/banner placing quest, the robot draining quest, the mana remnants quest and killing 15 different Blood Elf quest.
6. Head off to kill robots & collect mana remnants. Turn those two in. (Either 23 or 22 quests left)
7. Head over to the docks and do the two bombing quests. Head down to read the crystal and kill the 6 summoners, 3 marksmen and 6 blood knights.
8. Go over to the demon portal, scry the portal and kill 6 demons. Find the corpse of the harbinger and stake it. Turn in four quests that are complete. (Either 19 or 18 quests left)
9. Pick up the Darkspine Ore Quest and the Greengill coast quest. Head over there, kill the myrmidons for keys (until you have 3) and casters for orbs. Free 10 murlocs and collect 3 ore. Head over to the shrine and scry that.
10. Head back to town and turn in 3 quests. (Either 16 or 15 left).
11. Pick up the Rootthorn quest and the Atamal Artifacts quest. Use the quest reward from killing demons to teleport back to Shattrath.
12. Fly over to Shadowmoon and get the Atamal artifacts. Fly to Honor Hold and up to the throne and do the quest to destroy the portal and kill the channelers. Turn those in. (Either 14 or 13 quests left)
13. Fly back to Shattrath, then head up and collect your roots.
14. Back to Shattrath, pick up Sunfury Attack plans, mana batteries and readings in Nagrand quest. If the cooking quest is Manaberries or Spiritual Soup, pick those up now.
15. Fly to Cosmowrench. Fly over and kill guys around Manaforge Duro until the plans drop. If the cooking quest is manaberries, head off to one of the domes and collect them. Then head off to Blade's Edge, up to Bashir landing. Kill guys until the disruptor drops, use it and collect the 10 mana batteries.
16. Fly to Telaar. Don your goggles and collect the 6 fireballs. If cooking is spiritual soup, kill the clefthoofs for meat (if you don't have any) head over to the Ancestral grounds and use the cookpot.
17. Go back to Shattrath. Turn in the 3 quests completed (4 if cooking was done.) You may have also collected all your nether residue. (Somewhere between 8 and 11 quests left)
18. Take the portal to Sunwell island, turn in the artifacts & roots. (6 to 9 quests left).
19. Hearthstone to Shattrath.
20. You've done well. You now have options. There are 2 Skettis quests to do (3 if the cooking is the kaliri wings). There are 4 Ogri'la quests to do (5 if the cooking daily is Super Hot). Finish what you want there. Fly back to Shattrath and turn in. At the maximum you have only 3 daily quests left to do.
21. Your options now to finish up (if you aren't already) is to do Netherwing quests (if you can), check out the daily dungeon, daily heroic dungeon or battleground quests. If none of those appeals to you, there are daily PVP quests in Hellfire, Nagrand and Terrokar.

At an average of 10 gold per quest (some more, some less) you should be up 250 or so gold, not counting random drops you've collected, the contents of your Shattered Sun bags, cloth, motes (mana, fire, earth) and harvestables. Put some stuff on the AH or disenchant it. You've done well.

Take a break, because there are still another batch of 25 quests to finish tomorrow.

Since there are too many dailies to do them all, you should prioritize them according to your goals. If you're trying to get your drake, it makes more sense to do Netherwing Dailies first. If you want Shattered Sun Rep, this guide should serve you well.

Schadenfreude Grows Up

The guild I'm in is really growing up. You may have caught the fact that we downed Gruul for the first time on Saturday. This isn't such a huge thing; plenty of folks have downed Gruul.

What I'm really talking about is the fact that nine days ago we had several monumental wipes and decidedly mediocre DPS on Gruul. I posted about hit rating and spell hit rating last week. Apparently several people took the raid leader to heart and worked on themselves. They worked very hard on getting themselves to the place where they could perform their best. Many folks did respecs from shuffling a few points to wholesale changes to their spec. Lots of people got themselves enchanted with the right things. Tons spent gold swapping gems out in favor of other gems. All in all, a lot of time and hard work was put into getting ready.

And it paid off. Gruul went down pretty easily. DPS was much more consistent across the board. Sure, there are still a few people who need to do some serious work. Sure there is still gear to be obtained. Sure, we're not at 100%. But we're way up from last week.

And I'll share something else too. Even after Gruul's Lair was done and we were farming Karazhan, the discussion was still pretty focused. People were actively discussing the merits of spell hit, spell crit, spell penetration, and so on while we were pulling and dealing with trash. For most of the time I just sat there and listened.

Good Job, Schadenfreude!!

Posting on Weekends?

I know you all don't normally look for a post from me on the weekends, but special circumstances call for special posts.

I think the picture below speaks for itself.


Number one on damage meters (thanks for the spec, BRK) and gratz me on the Dragonspine Trophy!

Enchanting Recipes by Faction

I keep track about where my traffic is coming from. You'd be surprised at the number of searches that got folks to my page based on my enchanting drop recipe article last week. In the interest of providing further information I've compiled some rep based recipes, the rep level needed and what you can get.

I hope this helps.

Honor Hold/Thrallmar
This reputation will come from completing quests in Hellfire Peninsula and running Hellfire Citadel dungeons. Above Honored, you'll either need to run Shattered Halls or the Heroic versions of Ramparts or Blood Furnace.

• Enchant Bracer - Superior Healing (at friendly)
• Enchant Cloak - Subtlety (at exalted)

Cenarion Expedition
This reputation comes from all over the Outland. If you only perform the repeatable Unidentified Plant Parts quests until Honored, you'll definitely have a head start. There are quests in Zangarmarsh, Terrokar and Blade's Edge. Slave Pens and Underbog will also give rep until honored (above that they must be heroic). Steamvaults will give rep in either heroic or normal.

• Enchant Gloves - Spellstrike (at revered)
• Enchant Cloak - Stealth (at exalted)

Lower City
This reputation will come from a few quests in Shattrath city, at the caravan in the Bone Wastes and from Auchindoun dungeons Auchenai Crypts (until honored, then must be heroic), Setthek Halls and Shadow Labyrinth. There is also a repeatable Arakkoa Feather turn in (30 at a time) until honored.

• Enchant Ring - Stats (at honored)
• Enchant Cloak - Dodge (at exalted)

The Consortium
This reputation comes from up to four repeatable quests (ivory tusks, Oshugun fragments, obsidian war beads and Zaxxis insignias), quests in Nagrand (a few), quests in Netherstorm (Area 52, Stormspire and Ethereum Staging Grounds), Mana Tombs (until honored) or Mana Tombs heroic.

• Enchant Cloak - Spell Penetration (at friendly)
• Enchant Weapon - Striking (at honored)
• Enchant Ring - Weapon Might (at revered)

The Sha'Tar
This reputation comes from a few quests in Terrokar (western edge of Bone Wastes), sympathetic reputation from Aldor or Scryers, or running any of the Tempest Keep dungeons (Botanica, Mechanar or Arcatraz).

• Enchant Gloves - Major Healing (at friendly)
• Enchant Ring - Healing Power (at revered)
• Enchant Weapon - Major Healing (at revered)
• Enchant Gloves - Threat (at exalted)

The Violet Eye
This reputation comes from Karazhan quests and killing mobs inside Karazhan.

• Enchant Weapon - Greater Agility (at exalted)

The Keepers of Time
This reputation comes from the few quests in the Caverns of Time in Tanaris or running Old Hillsbrad and Black Morass.

• Enchant Gloves - Major Spellpower (at honored)
• Enchant Ring - Spellpower (at honored)
  
• Enchant Gloves - Superior Agility (at exalted)

Shattered Sun Offensive
This reputation comes from the hundreds of daily quests introduced with 2.4. Running Magister's Terrace at either normal or heroic also gives reputation.

• Enchant Chest - Defense (at honored)
• Voidshatter (at honored)

This should give you some idea which reputation is most important for you to grind. If you're lucky the enchanting drop you're farming is also giving you the reputation you need!

Gear Uprades for Hunters

I've accumulated over 100 Badges of Justice on my hunter. And the time has come to make a decision about what gear I want to get next. Since I can only choose one piece, I've got to pick between a new chest piece or new leggings.

The new chest piece I'd pick up would be the Scaled Drakeskin Chestguard. This would replace my Gladiator's Chain Armor from battlegrounds.

I've done a little analysis, to make sure what I'm going to be losing. The badge piece is clearly superior in nearly every way. It has 122 more armor, 20 more agility, 9 more intellect, 12 less stamina, 2 fewer red sockets (which I've socked with 32 attack power), 4 less critical strike rating (from the socket bonus), 10 less critical strike rating(equip), 20 less resilience, and 76 more attack power, and finally 25 more haste rating.

Since 20 agility for hunters is equivalent to 20 attack power, 11.04 crit rating and 20 armor, I've factored all this together determine that if I switch I get:

• 68 AP
• -2.96 critical strike rating (I have 88 crit rating right now)
• 142 Armor
• 135 Mana
• -120 health
• -20 resilence
• 2.38% haste (at 10.51 haste rating = 1% haste)

My choices in leggings are the Leggings of the Pursuit which would replace my Leggings of Beast Mastery. The badge pieces are better in every way except that I'm afraid I'd miss the pet buffs with my current pants. If pressed, I'd choose the badge legs.

However, happily (???) I only have enough badges to buy one. Thus, I'm intending to visit my band and pick up my badges and happily trot out to the island and get a new chest piece. And now, I'll have to get it enchanted....