Tank like a girl

Remember my first shopping list for prot warriors? Wildly popular! Got everything you needed from that list and are eager to run your first heroics? Then let’s do that and check out where you can get the next best gear upgrades.

I am assuming that you have 535 defense, the value to be uncrittable in heroics. If it’s any less, go back to the older list and gear up some more, do your group a favor.

All gear listed will come from four possible sources: BoE crafted or drop, reputation rewards, heroic instance drops or gear you can buy with Emblems of Heroism. If you enjoy spreadsheets, check out the spreadsheet version of this list.

Head:

1. Tempered Titansteel Helm crafted by blacksmiths. Easy to get, this is still the top dog for me, because of the changes in 3.0.8. A meta and a blue socket? Yes please!
2. Arcane-Shielded Helm – Grand Magus Telestra in H Nexus. Meta and a blue socket, yes please! (Sense a theme here?) Also, very high dodge, this is the avoidance helmet of this list.
3. Ground Tremor Helm – Moorabi in H Gundrak. Meta and a red socket, sure! This is the threat helmet, with the red socket just asking for a nice threat gem like e.g. Guardian’s Twilight Opal, and the hit rating on it.

Neck:

1. Chained Military Gorget – 25 Emblems of Heroism. What a sweet piece of necklace. I am looking forward to buying this as the first thing I’ll buy with badges.
2. Titanium Earthguard Chain – crafted by Jewelcrafters. Until you can afford the badge necklace, this is still a fabulous piece. Befriend a JCer now.
3. Shadowseeker’s Pendant – Jedoga Shadowseeker in H Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. If neither of the epic necklaces are available to you, this is a very solid drop with avoidance on top.

Back:

1. Durable Nerubhide Cape – crafted by Leatherworkers. As long as you can stay crit-immune, this is an incredible cloak.
2. Tattered Castle Drape – BoE drop from H Utgarde Keep. Pretty much a sidegrade to the Wyrmrest Cloak but great for SBV sets, if you’re building one.
3. Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions – Honored with Wyrmrest Accord. Still really easy to get, and still a very solid cloak to wear until you can get a better one.

Shoulders:

1. Wapach’s Spaulders of Solidarity – World Drop. I hate it when world drops are the top of any list, but these are the best pre-raiding shoulders you can get. Wishing you the lucky break!
2. Pauldrons of the Colossus – Drakkari Colossus in H Gundrak. Unusually, they have shield block rating as second stat, and they have a socket. Pretty nice piece.
3. Iron Dwarf Smith Pauldrons – General Bjarngrim in H Halls of Lightning. Last in line with that item-level, they’re solid, though I prefer the flexibility of a socket. Also, prefer most other stats to parry, but beggers can’t be choosers, so I’d take them if I ever dared set foot into the heroic version of that instance.

Chest:

1. Heroes’ Dreadnaught Breastplate – 80 Emblems of Heroism. If you don’t want to wait for the lucky day that you get the T7 token into your hands, you can spend 80 emblems on buying it. Interesting approach to tier gear. The 2 piece bonus already sets my heart aflutter.
2. Breastplate of the Solemn Council – Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Do your dailies, grab this incredible chestpiece. It really is that good.
3. Sun-Emblazoned Chestplate – Sjonnir the Ironshaper in H Halls of Stone. I prefer the expertise of the Wyrmrest chestpiece, but if for some reason you’re really set on getting your hit up instead, this would be a good chestpiece for you.

Wrist:

1. Bracers of the Herald – Herald Volazj in H Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. This is one of those must-haves from heroics, the best bracers you will find. Let’s just hope you can brave the Insanity long enough to be able to loot it.
2. Bindings of Dark Will – Salramm the Fleshcrafter in H The Culling of Stratholme. Good bracers are few and far between these days, so if you don’t want to wear the Tempered Saronite bracers forever, these are a good bet.
3. Svala’s Bloodied Shackles – Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle. The state of the prot warrior bracers is so dire that I am listing this drop from normal UP. They’re still the third best.

Hands:

1. Heroes’ Dreadnaught Handguards – 60 Emblems of Heroism Got a socket, are very well-balanced, clearly the top of the pack, especially when you’re not raiding yet.
2. Horn-Tipped Gauntlets – Gal’darah in H Gundrak. Holy moly, look at all that expertise. Do want.
3. Fireproven Gauntlets – Exalted with Kirin Tor. If you’re not having drop luck to get the gloves from Gundrak, or simply do not care to run the instance (I have heard nasty stories), these gloves are almost as good, and just about the only reason for prot warriors to grind KT rep.

Waist:

1. Waistguard of Living Iron – 40 Emblems of Heroism. Very solid stats, so if you have nothing comparable and don’t want to run H Azjol-Nerub much, this is the belt for you.
2. Ancient Aligned Girdle – Anub’arak in H Azjol-Nerub. At least you have this ray of sunshine waiting at the end of one of the harder heroics out there.
3. Skadi’s Iron Belt – Skadi the Ruthless in H Utgarde Pinnacle. On your way to gaining your Red Sword of Courage you should be able to pick up this lovely belt that makes a great addition for any SBV set.

Legs:

1. Bolstered Legplates – Cyanigosa in H Violet Hold. Not much to say, best until Naxx, very good piece of gear and thanks to coming from H VH probably one of the easiest ones to get.
2. Ley-Guardian’s Legguards – Eregos in H Oculus. This instance is probably my least favorite because there are so many annoying factors in there, including vehicle combat. Nevertheless, there’s some fine tanking gear to get.
3. Legplates of the Infinite Drakonid – Chrono-Lord Epoch in H The Culling of Stratholme. The lack of socket puts it lowest on my pants totem pole, but they’re still pretty good stuff, until you get the Bolstered Legplates.

Feet:

1. Tempered Titansteel Treads – crafted by blacksmiths. They are easy to obtain, have the highest stamina and the highest armor. This is why I rank them highest. In reality, they’re really tied with the other two pairs of boots I am listing, which really makes this a tie between the crafted boots or the Wyrmrest rep boots, unless you’re a huge avoidance fan.
2. Greaves of Ancient Evil – Herald Volazj in H Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. Lots of dodge, for avoidance fans.
3. Sabatons of Draconic Vigor – Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Easy to get, excellent boots.

Main Hand:

1. Red Sword of Courage – King Ymiron in H Utgarde Pinnacle. The Sun Eater of a new generation, we are all facing running this instance whenever we can (and get past the Skadi gauntlet) just to get our greedy hands on it.
2. Infantry Assault Blade – Prince Keleseth in H Utgarde Keep. No luck in UP? Visit the easier instance downstairs and the first boss might have a sword for you. Unfortunately it’s slow, but still quite nice.
3. Cloudstrider’s Waraxe – Varos Cloudstrider in H Oculus. As discerning orc, this axe would make a shiny toy for me until I get that sword, but sadly, it just has to drop in Oculus of all places. Boo!

Shields:

1. Crygil’s Discarded Plate Panel – 35 Emblems of Heroism. As badge competition is high, you might wish to pick up one of the other shields first and burn badges on this very nice one later. All the top shields are pretty nice.
2. Royal Crest of Lordaeron – Mal’ganis in H The Culling of Stratholme. Such a beautiful model, though there are silly cries that use horde tanks should not use it. Pfft, I say. Stat-wise, ahead of the Titansteel one, so if I get my hands on it, it’s mine!
3. Titansteel Shield Wall – crafted by blacksmiths. Easy to get, so still top of the line.

The next two categories, rings and trinkets, are not listed in order of priority, I just picked six very good candidates for those slots. Your own mileage may vary. Rings and trinkets are best for rounding your character, to fill stat gaps and such.

Rings:

• Titanium Earthguard Ring – crafted by Jewelcrafters. It’s awesome, it has a socket, it can be bought for gold from any jewelcrafter with the design. Win!
• Keystone Great-Ring – The Prophet Tharon’ja in H Drak’tharon Keep. Screams druid, but if you’re above the crit-limit defense-wise, this is very tasty.
• Band of Torture – Drakos the Interrogator in H Oculus. Much armor on this ring, which makes it pretty attractive.
• Nerubian Shield Ring – Elder Nadox in H Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. Lots of armor rings available, looks like. The differences to Band of Torture are minuscule.
• Ring of Earthen Might – crafted by Jewelcrafters. Armor, dodge, str/sta and a socket, and reaaaaally easy mats.
• Woeful Band – Maiden of Grief in H Halls of Stone. I don’t care too much for parry, but that’s what this ring offers aside from the staples of str/sta and defense.

Trinkets:

• Essence of Gossamer – Hadronox in H Azjol-Nerub. 111 stamina? Hot diggity damn. A mitigation effect proc? That’s some fine trinket to me.
• Valor Medal of the First War – 40 Emblems of Heroism. My, you look a lot like Moroes’ Lucky Pocketwatch, don’t you?
• Darkmoon Card: Greatness – Darkmoon Nobles’ Deck. So much strength. Of course you can also get the agility trinket, for extra mitigation and crit, but I would go for strength, most likely. The proc would be strength for prot warriors. There’s a reason cards of the nobles deck are insanely expensive atm. Befriend a scribe.
• Seal of the Pantheon – Loken in Halls of Lightning. Wot, a normal instance drop, listed? Yup, because it’s still the only defense trinket, and defense is awesome. The on-use is also nice. Never dropped for me, of course.
• Offering of Sacrifice – Gal’darah in H Gundrak. Your basic armor trinket that offers an extra Last Stand effect. Combine with Enraged Regeneration to save your ass.

Also see:

• WotLK Shopping List for Protection Warriors, Part I: pre-heroics
• WotLK Shopping List, Part III: 10-man raids

Time for another reference guide, mostly for myself, hopefully of interest for others too. A new expansion means new consumables, from buff foods to elixirs to flasks. Let’s see what’s out there.

Potion:

• The Health pot du jour is called Runic Healing Potion this time around. Due to potion sickness, chain-chugging is a thing of the past, so time your potion use carefully.
• As alternative to using a health potion, you could try an Indestructible Potion instead. That’s a lot of armor that might help in encounters with Enrages or very heavy melee damage.

Battle Elixir:

• Guru’s Elixir raises all stats by 20, so is quite the excellent choice.
• Elixir of Expertise does exactly what the name suggests, raising expertise. Strong stat for tanks, so it’s a very good consumable to use, if you’re not using a flask.
• In a similar vein, you could also use Elixir of Accuracy for hit rating for threat.
• If you can’t get either of those battle elixirs, I would use either Elixir of Lightning Speed, Elixir of Deadly Strikes or Elixir of Armor Piercing, but I personally don’t think they’re as strong as the other two.
• You want to use something that scales with Blessing of Kings? How about Elixir of Mighty Strength for bigger Shield Slams?
• If you’re of the druidic persuasion, Elixir of Mighty Agility is probably the best option.

Guardian Elixir:

• Elixir of Mighty Fortitude is very nifty, and offers tons of extra health plus regen.
• Defense is a very strong avoidance stat nowadays and still worth stacking beyond the crit cap, so I highly endorse Elixir of Mighty Defense.
• Elixir of Protection offers extra armor, I will have to test if I get more mileage out of extra armor than any of the others.

Flasks:

• Flask of Stoneblood is the tanking flask, I suppose. It’s a shame that it’s just health now, no longer any extra defense.
• If health is no concern and you want to increase your personal DPS and threat, there’s Flask of Endless Rage.

Food:

All the new buff food brings back all the stats that show up on gear these days. You get to choose between strength, agility, expertise, hit, haste, armor penetration, crit rating plus 40 stamina. Which one you want to use is really up to you. Used an expertise battle elixir? Combine it with buff food that gives you extra strength, e.g.

• Strength:  Dragonfin Filet
• Agility: Blackened Dragonfin
• Expertise: Rhinolicious Wyrmsteak
• Hit: Snapper Extreme
• Haste: Imperial Manta Steak or Very Burnt Worg
• Armor Penetration: Hearty Rhino
• Crit: Spiced Wyrm Burger or Spicy Blue Nettlefish

Lots of options. Think I missed anything? Leave a comment.

As I keep mentioning, I also play a resto shaman. She hit 77 today, huzzah. I don’t want to spam my blog with a lot of shaman info, after all this is a tanking blog. However, a lot of people sounded interested in my resto shaman gear list similar to my pre-heroics prot warrior list. Here it is.

The only gear listed are mail drops or rewards, but don’t be shy when it comes to wearing cloth or leather if no one else is rolling. For those of you who care, enjoy. It’s my first attempt at a Google Spreadsheet, and I find it quite handy.

The third leveling instance is in Dragonblight, with a level range of 72-74. Both Alliance and Horde have flight points right in the area (Star’s Rest/Agmar’s Hammer respectively). There are two quests, Death to the Traitor King and Don’t Forget the Eggs, both can be picked up right outside the instance, no pre-reqs necessary. The latter quest has a very solid plate tank reward, Expelling Gauntlets.

Azjol-Nerub is unique in that it has a surprising lack of trash mobs. Three bosses, little trash, and you’re in and out of the instance in 30 minutes. Azjol-Nerub, the fast food amongst instances! The normal version is not too challenging, but I hear it’s one of the rougher heroics, largely because of the first boss.

 
Trash:

As far as classic trash goes, there are exactly three trash pulls in the whole instance. A patrol of two nerubians at the instance entrance, a group of three before the first boss encounter, and a group of two before the final boss. Of the trash mobs, the Skirmishers are by far the most annoying ones and I would kill them first. They have an Enrage that makes them focus on a random target in the party for 10 seconds, which can be lethal if it’s a cloth-wearer. While they’re enraged, they’re immune to taunt and any form of CC. Only thing that’ll help are stuns and Tranq Shot. As prot warrior, keep your Concussion Blow ready for the enrage. All other trash isn’t very exciting and shouldn’t be a problem. If you want to use CC, all mobs are undead, so Shackle is the best form of CC here.

Krik’thir the Gatewatcher:

The first boss has three groups of mobs waiting before him. Every group has a Watcher plus two friends. As soon as you pull the first group, you start the event. Once you have a group down, the next group will engage shortly afterwards. Be careful, you can pull an extra group if you’re too close to it, been there, done that. All three groups have Skirmishers, so kill them first, or CC them before they are an issue. Once all three watchers are down, the big guy himself will come running. Tank him in the center of the room. His Mind Flay can be interrupted with Shield Bash, I actually haven’t tested if you can reflect it. Periodically, annoying little swarmers will pop from the walls which need to be DPSd down, you can add a couple Thunderclaps to the mix.

As far as drops go, nothing to see here for prot warriors.

Hadronox:

Once you move down into the spider-webbed area, you can already see Hadronox at the bottom of the spider-web, chewing his way through masses of Nerubians. You on the other hand will see three Nerubians not far below you, at the bottom of a set of doorways. Pull them up to you while still keeping the endless stream of non-elites that come fleeing out of the doorways under control, and do the same for the other elite groups that will come out of the doors. Eventually, Hadronox will have moved up to the doors where he will kill the rest of the Nerubians, web the doors closed, and then it’s time to deal with that huge, disgusting spider (I am arachnophobiac, so I hated this part) once all the Nerubians are dead.

Hadronox himself isn’t that challenging. Ideally, you have someone in the group who can dispel poison. If not, the poison damage will have to be healed through. Don’t stand in the acid clouds. Other than that, tank and spank.

Again, absolutely no loot any prot warrior could use.

Anub’arak:

Once you’ve run down the web, done the huge jump down (best part of the instance!) and killed the lone trash group before Anub’arak, it’s time to face this bug that some might remember as really cool hero unit from Frozen Throne. It’s important that everyone moves onto his platform as you engage him, as it will be webbed closed behind you. You don’t want anyone locked out.

Make sure to position Anub’arak so that his back is to the rest of the group, because of his Pound ability. This will only affect people standing in front of him. Pound has a cast time and it is possible to run through him while he casts, but not entirely necessary. It’s just important that no one else is in front of him. At 66%, 33% and 15%, Anub’arak burrows. At this point, you should be ready to pick up the elite adds that come in from the spot you entered as well. The rest of the group can DPS down the non-elites, but you should tank the elite adds. At the same time, make sure to move when you notice the ground shake beneath you when Anub’arak tries to Impale you, to avoid extra damage. Rinse and repeat, until the Crypt Lord is dead.

He drops Signet of Arachnathid Command, which is a pretty nice tanking ring and due to proper itemization for WotLK tanks might even beat the Exalted rep ring from The Violet Eye.

And that’s it for the shorter Nerubian instance, Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom will be next.

Didn’t really want to stay up late tonight, but by the time it was bed-time, I had 128k exp to go.

 
Thank you for ruining my ding shot, Mr. Annoying Nightelf Deathknight. I re-positioned myself a couple times before turning in. He must have read my mind because he would move with me, every single time. Screenshot griefing, the latest pastime on carebear servers.

Then I skilled up to blacksmithing 420 and made Daunting Handguards. Very sleepy now.

79.5, that’s where Kadomi’s at, followed by my shaman at 76. I probably won’t hit 80 tonight, as I work til 11 pm today, but tomorrow it’s going to happen. I just finished off the last quests in Zul’Drak, hitting the quest achievement, so I am going to hit 80 in Sholazar Basin, which is cool, I can do massive mining sessions right after hitting 80. To my shame I haven’t gotten a single bar of Titansteel yet, I am short one ore to smelt my first one.

I have professed my love for Dragonblight before, because the quests there felt so epic, so full of story, and then when I hit Grizzly Hills, I was really disappointed. Like all zones so far, Grizzly Hills has a story, but it wasn’t anywhere as captivating as Dragonblight. I do like the elements of the corruption of Vordrassil, and it’s my wank that the mysterious unnamed raid instance for 3.3 is going to see Yogg-Saron as end boss. The one redeeming quality for Grizzly Hills though? The quest chain introducing Drakuru. That was just freaking cool. As usual, a quest NPC makes you jump through hoops, and it’s your fault for having created an evil troll overlord to conquer Zul’Drak for the Lich King. Very nice touch.

Which takes me right to Zul’Drak, which I completely and totally loved. It’s my favorite zone so far, quest-wise. The Scourge-side had the great Drakuru quest chain where you spend your time as ghoul. So much fun. I cursed a lot in the final event but eventually got the hang of it. All those vehicle and pet quests make me feel like a loser. Speaking of vehicle quest, how cool is it to ride on the back of a giant and squish Scourge, pick them up and throw them around? Very cool.

Moving on to the live troll side of Zul’Drak on the next tier, you get the story of a troll empire, where the Drakkari were so desperate to battle the Scourge that they killed their animal gods and absorbed their power, leaving only one animal god behind. I so loved that quest chain, and really had a lore-squee moment when the Zandalari summoned the ghosts of Halazzi, Nalorakk, Jan’alai and A’kilzon for advice. I am such a troll lore fangirl. I am sad that I am done with Zul’Drak, and I can’t wait to see Gundrak.

Naturally, I loved Drak’tharon Keep as instance. It was beautiful, and the mechanics of the last boss were pretty neat. I am not fully sold on Violet Hold. I probably just need to run it more often to get as comfortable with it as I was with Black Morass. I have yet to find out where those emergency switches are. Not that we ever needed them. It was a bit rougher to heal than to tank in there.

Gear-wise, I am pretty happy on Kadomi. I think the gear plan is well under-way and I am sitting at 20.5k armor, 18.5k health unbuffed and 521 defense now. I have zero enchants, and very few gems, so I really think 540 is not going to be a problem. From my shopping list, I got the Stratholme trash shoulders from a guildie, the Wyrmrest cloak and the Argent Crusade pants.

I need to start making light plans for our first 10-man ventures. Based on our current roster, it’s possible I’d actually heal before tanking, as we just lost a healer. Which would make me a little bit sad. Despite my love for shaman healing, tanking will always remain my first love and favorite spec.

Update: The most current shopping list updated for 3.3. Disregard everything below, left in the blog for historical reasons.

After my two previous posts looking at reputation rewards and craftable tanking gear, I have now looked at instance drops and quest rewards, compared all of them, and came up with my personal shopping list which I’ll use to gear up for heroics and entry-raiding. All items on the list are either available through reputation, questing or normal level instances. I am not including BoP craftables like engineering goggles or jewelcrafting trinkets.

A priority on the gear is defense. Once you hit the magic cap of 540, it will get easier to focus on gear that is more balanced than pure defense gear. This also means that in my top 3 per slot a higher def piece might be better until you hit the cap. For heroics you will need a defense of 535, for raid bosses you will need 540 defense.

On we go! As always, comments are very welcome.

 
Head:

• Tempered Titansteel Helm – Crafted by blacksmiths. Very basic stats, but big numbers when it comes to armor, stamina, defense.
• Helm of the Ley Guardian – Cache of Eregos in The Oculus. Excellent piece, with high armor, very high def, a red socket and hit rating for extra threat. Best blue helm outside of heroics for sure.
• The Crusader’s Resolution – reward from The Crusader’s Pinnacle in Icecrown. Very solid piece, but no socket.

Pet peeve number one. Why are all the helmet models the same? Lazy, Blizzard, lazy.

 
Neck:

• Titanium Earthguard Chain – Crafted by Jewelcrafters. Great stats and a socket, and the mats don’t seem too insane.
• Amulet of Deflected Blows – Skadi the Ruthless in Utgarde Pinnacle.
• Reinforced Titanium Neckguard – Icecrown quest reward for The Admiral Revealed

 
Back:

• Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions – Honored with Wyrmrest Accord. Extremely nice cloak, and Honored is not that lofty a goal.
• Flowing Cloak of Command – Salramm the Fleshcrafter in The Culling of Stratholme. Holy moly, that’s a lot of armor. Pretty nice.
• Screeching Cape – Erekem in The Violet Hold. You can get this cloak early if you’re lucky, not a bad way to go.

 
Shoulders:

• Crusader’s Square Pauldrons – BoE Trash drop in The Culling of Stratholme. Check the AH, you might get lucky and score these shoulders which are quite excellent.
• Pauldrons of Reconnaissance – quest reward for Halls of Stone. Run an instance, score this excellent reward, nice deal. And it’s not even a level 80 instance.
• Tempered Saronite Shoulders – Crafted by Blacksmiths. Hooray, non-spiky shoulders. Another lazy model issue, pet peeve number 2. These shoulders don’t have much to offer other than good chunks of basic tank stats, but they are so easy to get.

 
Chest:

• Breastplate of the Solemn Council – Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Hands down the best pre-heroic chest, very sweet deal. Buy your tabard now and be ready to burn through Wyrmrest Accord rep.
• Reanimated Armor – Gortok Palehoof in Utgarde Pinnacle. Also not bad at all. How about grinding rep in the Pinnacle? Would work for me.
• Silver-Plated Battlechest – Quest reward for Junk in my trunk in Utgarde Pinnacle. Another argument for Pinnacle as place to be for chestpieces. Grab the quest reward or the drop until you have rep, if you’re into that.

 
Wrist:

• Svala’s Bloodied Shackles – Svala Sorrowgrave in Utgarde Pinnacle. Okay, I get it, we spend a lot of time in that place. Great bracers.
• Bracers of Reverence – Quest reward for A Wing and a Prayer in The Oculus.
• Tempered Saronite Bracers – Crafted by Blacksmiths. The cheap way for a lot of defense.

 
Hands:

• Fireproven Gauntlets – Exalted with Kirin Tor. Just about the only possible thing rep with them gains us, so that’d be the last rep for me to grind. But very sweet gloves, no doubt.
• Daunting Handguards – Crafted by Blacksmiths. Massive amounts of defense, no kidding.
• Gauntlets of Vigilance – Quest reward for The Reckoning in Storm Peaks. Color me flabbergasted, tank gear with agility on. It’s like blast from the past.

 
Waist:

• Girdle of Obscuring – Mage-Lord Urom in The Oculus
• Tempered Saronite Belt – Crafted by Blacksmiths. There are few belt options, so it won’t hurt to go with the crafted one. It’s pretty nice.

 
Legs:

• Special Issue Legplates – Honored with Argent Crusade. Sockets make my heart sing, there are so few of them these days. Great legs.
• Daunting Legplates – Crafted by Blacksmiths. If you’re really out to get tons of defense.
• Void Sentry Legplates – Zuramat the Obliterator in The Violet Hold. Another piece with one socket, and that’s why it’s listed, because it makes gear more versatile.

 
Feet:

• Tempered Titansteel Treads – Crafted by Blacksmiths
• Sabatons of Draconic Vigor – Revered with Wyrmrest Accord. Clearly you’re grinding that rep first anyway, right? Pick it up with the chestpiece, win.
• Slaughterhouse Sabatons or Toxin-Tempered Sabatons – Meathook in The Culling of Stratholme or Honored with the Knights of the Ebon Blade. These boots are absolutely identical, they just look slightly different.
• Tempered Saronite Boots – Crafted by Blacksmiths. When you can get nothing else, the Tempered set will tide you over.

 
Rings:

• Titanium Earthguard Ring – Crafted by Jewelcrafters
• Dragonflight Great-Ring – Cache of Eregos in The Oculus
• Gal’darah’s Signet – Gal’darah in Gundrak
• Solid Platinum Band – Quest reward for For Posterity in Gundrak
• Staunch Signet – Quest reward for The Struggle Persists in The Oculus

 
Trinkets:

• Seal of the Pantheon – Loken in Halls of Lightning. Welcome to the only defense trinket pre-heroic and Naxxramas. Heed the words of Veneretio over at Tankingtips.com and keep your old defense trinkets. If you’re strapped to hit the def cap, you might need them.
• Sonic Booster – Crafted by Engineers. Massive massive amounts of stamina and a great threat proc. If you don’t need defense, definitely worth a look. If you are an engineer, that is. If you read the fine-print, you need 390 engineering to use it. Boo, fine print. Thanks for catching this, Daraxxus.

 
Main Hand:

• Eternally Folded Blade – Volkhan in Halls of Lightning. The strongest tanking weapon of that item level.
• Crescent of Brooding Fury or Hammer of Quiet Mourning – Quest reward from Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper in Zul’Drak. If you’re an orc, get the axe, and dwarves and humans should get the mace. Everyone else can just get what they like best.
• Blade of the Empty Void – Quest reward from Tirion’s Gambit in Icecrown.

 
Shield:

• Titansteel Shield Wall – Crafted by Blacksmiths. Save your pocket money for this shiny shield!
• Leeka’s Shield – Mal’ganis in The Culling of Stratholme
• Riot Shield – Xevozz in The Violet Hold
• Saronite Bulwark – Crafted by Blacksmiths

 
Ranged Weapon:

• Armor Plated Combat Shotgun – Crafted by Engineers. Nummy. Engineers will make some cash with these statsticks.
• Weighted Throwing Axe – quest chain in the Storm Peaks. Not the fastest thrown weapon, but still probably not bad on trash pulls.

And that’s it, the big shopping list. Hope some of you can use it. I have a gear plan, and I am gonna use it.

See also:

• WotLK Shopping List, Part II: heroics and emblem gear.
• WotLK Shopping List, Part III: 10-man raids

That’s what it feels like, as I continue leveling. I am not bored of leveling yet, but I am getting fidgety. People running heroics left and right and I have yet to run more instances, which are the heart of the game for me. Kadomi is now 77, and I really did not know how much I missed flying until I had it again. In celebration, I explored the zones I haven’t touched on Kadomi, which gained me the Northrend and World Explorer achievement. Just so you know, Brann Bronzebeard, your tabard sucks. It’s ugly, my guild tabard > dwarf tabards. I also found my new home and favorite zone ever, Sholazar Basin. Why? Saronite nodes whereever you fly! I had bought all saronite so far, but yesterday I flew around like mad to get enough saronite for two Saronite Bulwarks and a Saronite Protector for guildies and me. Hooray!

I am still questing in the Grizzly Hills at the moment. After the epicness of Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills was a let-down. Pretty zone, but I get to kill worgs and deer for their meat? Very exciting. *yawn* Thankfully, the quest quality improved, and I did enjoy the Drakuru quests, all the old buddies from Zul’Aman, including Harrison Jones, and the Titan storyline. However, I wish that the Dun Argol quests didn’t require you to ride back to the freaking place six times in a row. Another thing I really loved was the worgens. Can’t wait to do that final quest of the chain. Thumbs up, Blizzard, bringing back old villains is awesome.

I finally managed to run Ahn’kahet, which I found very enjoyable, both as tank and as resto shaman (who is 74.5 atm, another reason I am leveling so slowly). The visuals are quite stunning, the boss encounters are all pretty fun, good stuff. I did enjoy it more with the group of my shaman, as we were of the right level for the instance, in the group I tanked for, we were all way too high-level for the place, me being the lowest at 76. This week I really need to push harder to see more instances, I definitely want to get Drak’tharon Keep and Violet Hold done.

I finally completed my gear spreadsheets, both for Kadomi and Garande (the shaman I keep talking about). I think I have my ultimate shopping list for pre-Naxx and pre-heroics, which I am going to share with all of you tomorrow. It didn’t seem very tough to accomplish.

Speaking of gear, I have started making the pieces of Tempered Saronite that are better than my old tanking gear, and with heavy heart I have replaced a lot of badge gear already. Aside from those pieces, nothing much has changed. I love my new Saronite Bulwark that I just crafted. I replaced the Zul’jin axe with Crimson Cranium Crusher from the Amphitheater of Anguish chain in Zul’Drak. Gosh, this thing is huge. It’s so ugly. It’s stats are so awesome. Mwah. This will have to serve as my tanking weapon until I get Crescent of Brooding Fury.

Happy Turkey-Day, American readers, and happy Thursday to everyone else.

The Nexus is the second Northrend instance, located in the Coldarra in Borean Tundra. To get there, get the dragon flight point at Amber Ledge. This instance is supposed to be for the range 71-73, and offers four very fun boss fights, good rewards, and is definitely a step up from Utgarde Keep. I highly recommend doing all quest chains in the Coldarra to receive all quests, because the whole story behind the final encounter is superb, if tragic.

Quest rewards for tanks:

• Tundra Pauldrons are the reward for Have they no shame? and that’s what I want to say about those shoulders too. Have they no shame to make me replace my awesome Pauldrons of Stone Resolve so early in the expansion?
• Postponing the Inevitable has one pre-req quest and rewards you with Gauntlets of the Disturbed Giant, which are also very nice.
• If you’re looking for nice boots and never got anything better than the Boots of Elusion, make sure to pick up the quest Quickening after you did the pre-req quest, as the reward is Boots of the Unbowed Protector.

Trash:

Each boss has some trash associated with them, so you will fight various mobs. You can go see the bosses in any order. I have usually started with the right hallway, but you can also go left first. In the hallways you will find one lone dragonkin pat, either a female caster or a male melee dragonkin. Nothing to worry about whatsoever.

Ormorok-trash: The halls leading to Ormorok are filled with lots of annoying little flowers. Round them up, burn them down, and then make sure that your healer in particular doesn’t hang around where the flowers died. They leave a pod behind that will pop after one minute and then the flower will be back, to harass your healer and ranged DPS. The rest of the trash are either pathing groups of Crystalline Tenders and their tree buddies, or static Crystalline Protectors. When fighting the pat, make sure to interrupt the Tranquility the tenders cast and take them out first. CC shouldn’t be necessary, but if it makes you feel safer, you can use a warlock’s Banish or a hunter’s trap here. Try to keep moving, to avoid the flower repops.

Ormorok the Tree-Shaper: Standing on a pedestal surrounded by pods is Ormorok. The moment he’s dead, the flowers finally stop respawning, which should be enough to make anyone happy at this point. However, the pods on the pedestal are false alarm, there are no flower adds up there. Ormorok is the most tank-and-spank fight in the Nexus that you’ll find, but be on your toes. Much like Lord Ahune from mid-summer, he will cast spikes that will throw you in the air and cause extra fall damage if you don’t avoid them. Strafe away if they start popping in your area, watch the ground. It’s pretty easy to avoid them. He enrages, so save your survival abilities like Shield Wall for it.

As loot, he drops Chiseled Stalagmite Pauldrons, which are pretty nice DPS shoulders.

Anomalus-trash: Take a turn in the middle of the hallway leading to Ormorok, which will lead you to dragonkin trying to fight Mana Wraiths coming from Chaotic rifts. The dragonkin groups are usually two melee, one caster. Make sure to interrupt the heals of the casters. When you attack a rift, make sure that the DPS is all on the rift and not wasting time on wraiths. Those will spawn endlessly as long as the rift is open. Tank the wraiths, and interrupt their casts as you can. Once you’re getting closer to Anomalus, there will be voidwalker-type mobs. Again, try to interrupt them when they try to mana-burn a mana-class in your party.

Anomalus: Anorexic voidwalkers make their comeback in this very pale version. This fight is a DPS race. Frequently, Anomalus will open a chaos rift, and until the rift is done for, he’s immune to all damage. As tank this means that as soon as he goes immune, you start picking up mana wraiths instead, until your DPS has closed the rift, then you go back to Anomalus. Rinse and repeat. If your DPS is quick with switching targets, this shouldn’t take too long. Again, it’s important that no one wastes time on wraiths when they should be attacking the rifts. I have seen the case that several rifts were open at the same time, not sure what’s up with that.

He drops nothing of interest to any prot warrior. Or any other tanking class, at that.

Grand Magus Telestra trash: Once you’ve cleared up the ramp and dealt with some more dragonkin/rift trash, you end up in Grand Magus Telestra’s area of the instance. There are several mage hunter pats here, so you might end up getting adds. One pat comes right to the end of Anomalus’ area, the other pat patrols up to where you go to Telestra’s room. The mage hunters come with doggies that silence. All other trash is humanoid, so if you want to use CC, you know your options. Mage Hunter Ascendants have a huge array of annoying mage skills. Spell reflect and interrupts are your friend here. The Initiates use Renew, but Shield Slam should take care of that. As long as you can keep the pull bunched up to use AoE tanking on them, you shouldn’t have a problem. I recommend killing Ascendants first.

Grand Magus Telestra: In this fun fight you get to deal with one annoying mage, and three copies. Good times! When you go in, make sure that all ranged DPS and the healer stay away, as she will use a spell called Firebomb that will damage all in her vicinity. She will also cast a spell called Gravity Lapse that picks everyone up with like tentacles and flings them about. Once everyone is dumped on the ground, charge back to her and hopefully all ranged people are back at range as soon as they can. At 50% Telestra disappears, as she splits into three copies: arcane, frost and fire mage. Neat trick. All three copies can be tanked and have normal aggro tables. The kill order largely depends on your group make-up. If you have a mage, sheep the frost mage, kill arcane and fire, then frost. No mage, but someone who can dispel magic? Kill the frost mage, then arcane, then fire. No dispeller? Arcane, frost, fire. Once the copies are down, Telestra comes back, and you finish her off.

Again, no tank loot here.

The Alliance/Horde Hallway: As you head back to the instance entrance for Keristrasza’s chamber, you will find a hallway with 2-3 frozen mobs in groups. If you’re horde, they will be alliance, if you’re alliance, they will be horde mobs. The abilities and unit names are all the same. Rangers are hunters and they will always try to get away from you to shoot at you. The berserkers probably pose the highest risk, as they have a knockback attack that can throw you into the next frozen group. Make sure you’re never standing with your back towards the next group. The commanders are your average whirlwinding warrior. Kill the clerics first, then the berserkers, and either commanders or rangers next. If you didn’t kill one of the the mage hunter pats as mentioned earlier, it might add here as it paths through this hallway.

Keristrasza: As you approach her chamber, make sure that all dragonkin pats in the area are dead. She is surrounded by three orbs, one for each boss you downed. Position yourself facing her, while everyone else lines up by her side, but never behind her. Have someone else use the three orbs and voila, welcome to the fight where mobility is everything. Keristrasza applies a debuff called Intense Cold. It stacks, is a DoT effect and slows down. If people don’t respond to it by moving, they’re dead faster than they can say ‘Huh, what?’ The debuff is removed by moving. Either strafing or jumping in place. This is of course tricky for all casters. Whatever your DPS and healer are doing, make sure they don’t move in front of her or behind her, to avoid both her breath attack and the tail-swipe. The tricky part here really is the moving. As tank, you got it easy, so do it like I did, giggle while you jump like a maniac.

Again, nothing for tanks as drop, but that’s alright.

I highly recommend running the Nexus at least once, I thought the instance was beautiful and full of fun encounters.

For more instance guides (though I will continue writing my own as well), check out not coding’s blog.

How’s Northrend been treating you? I still have a jolly good time, and I am not anywhere near the level cap myself. I am leveling my main Kadomi and my shaman Garande mostly side-by-side, so I am sitting at 75.5 with Kadomi and 73 with my shaman.

During the week I mostly played my shaman, who is currently in the Borean Tundra. I did HF with Kadomi, so I wanted the change of scenery. While I hated the first couple quests around Warsong Hold, I really have to agree with the achievement, Nothing Boring about Borean. I really loved the D.E.H.T.A quests in all their diversity. Who wouldn’t want to stomp on things with a mammoth? And seriously, who wouldn’t want to free baby murlocs?

Seriously, the D.E.H.T.A quests in the murloc village really made me laugh so much, it was awesome. From the cuteness of the babbling babies, to the hilarity of the murloc suit. If you haven’t done any quests in the Borean Tundra, do those two, and don’t forget to /dance and jump around a lot while wearing the costume. I moved my shaman to Taunka’le village now, and am still about 20 quests away from the quest achievement for the zone.

Later in the week I started playing Kadomi more seriously, investing more time. Let me just tell you how much I dig the Dragonblight. I thought the whole zone was done fabulously well, and even the more mundane tasks lead you to quests that make you feel epic. The phasing is so gentle it’s hard to notice, but it’s there. Once you’ve sworn the Taunka into the Horde, you will notice more and more of them show up at Agmar’s Hammer, ready to fight. Then you go to Icemist Village, and free the Taunka Chieftain from the Nerubians. A mini-boss shows up and even though the Taunka chief and the taunka he summons do most of the work, it feels really epic. Afterwards, you get to Agmar’s Hammer, and he’s there, and you get him to declare himself for the Horde. That’s the whole thread throughout the zone. You do great things. I really enjoyed the whole Scarlet Onslaught quest chain. Reading Abbendis’ diary was pretty creepy. I can’t wait to met Barean Westwind again. I enjoyed traveling to all the Dragonshrines and fighting along with bitchy Future Me. The machinations of the Blue Dragonflight were everywhere, and it’s cool.

I won’t say much about Wrathgate. The prequests were great and when you finally get out there, to Wrathgate, I think most people won’t be disappointed. It’s too good for me to say much about it. I love Saurfang, he really is as cool as all the myths about him. Also, Thrall kicks ass and from a lore-standpoint I don’t think Alliance has any leader comparable to him. I have forgiven him all his crimes of noobdom from Old Hillsbrad, he just kicks ass.

If I have one quibble with Dragonblight, it’s Alexstrasza. Was it really necessary to turn her non-dragon form into a female bloodelf in a bikini and thigh-highs, with horns? Really, Blizzard, really? I am sure you picked out the most regal slutwear for her, I am sure. Bah. Male designers, catering to the masses. I pretty much prefer her dragonform. She’s got bling, the lady!

I had hoped to hit both Azjol-Nerub and Ahn’kahet this weekend, but I only got in a couple Azjol-Nerub runs. If you are arachnophobiac like me, Azjol-Nerub is not exactly the place to be, especially not the second boss in there. The passage down through the spiderwebs to the hole in the ground is fantastically beautiful. It reminded me a bit of Maraudon on crack. The jump down the hole is really amazing, you zoom past so many beautiful sights. I didn’t even know you can die while jumping, so I am pretty happy no one in my groups died. I would call the place short but not sweet, and it’s a lot of fun running it. I really can’t wait for Ahn’kahet though. It’s supposed to be enormous, beautiful and have the best end-boss fight ever.

Leveling as prot continues to be amazing. I really love the AoE grinding, and my new pastime is testing my limits with soloing group quests. It doesn’t always work out anymore, the elites in Dragonblight are a bit more taxing. The two closest calls were Rattlebore in Really Big Worm and Grom’thar the Thunderbringer from Wanton Warlord. I had to blow all cooldowns for Rattlebore, and almost all of them for Grom’thar. Enraged Regeneration is <3. By the way, thank you, group of four alliance guys who stood there and watched when I fought Rattlebore, without lifting a finger when it got really close for me. Thank you so much. Thankfully most of the other alliance people I ran into when trying to solo elites were a lot more helpful than that. Your admiring BUR when I survived only made me want to KEK at you.

Gear upgrades have slowed down to a crawl. I have made my Saronite Defender and switched to Expelling Gauntlets as quest reward from Azjol-Nerub. I am also loving on my new Medallion of Heroism for grinding. I highly recommend Veneretio’s macros for grinding, though I dig the Retaliation one a lot more than the Recklessness one. But they both work and I am having fun finding out the best uses for them.