Friday, February 12, 2010

Kae's (10-strict) Emblem of Frost Priority List

My personal "order of precedence" resto frost emblem list, taking 10-strict drops into consideration.

I posted a list of 10-strict available haste pieces for resto druids earlier and can be found here.
  1. Lasherweave Gauntlets, 60 badges. These replaced T9 and have haste (> crit), which I needed muchly and didn't want to wait out on Toravon for!
  2. Vestments of Spruce and Fir, 95 badges. These replaced my crafted Lunar Eclipse robes, which is another crit -> haste upgrade. I also decided that of all the T10 pieces, the chest would be the best place to go offkit, with this purchase.
  3. Lasherweave Pauldrons, 60 badges. This replaced my old offkit Pauldrons of the Glacial Winds: a drop in haste, but a gain in spirit and the 2-pc set bonus. I considered waiting for the ones from Lana'thel, but we hadn't killed her yet by the time I had the badges, and this opens the option later for 4-pc set bonus.
  4. Purified Lunar Dust, 60 badges. This is a big boost to my Sif's Remembrance, and pairs well with the Sliver of Pure Ice (which I look forward to getting the heroic version of).
  5. Idol of Black Willow, 30 badges. Small but definite boost over Flaring Growth; requires build-up time however.
  6. From here I will have to make a decision based off of what drops I have already picked up elsewhere, and how far we have progressed:
    • Cape: Heartsick Mender's cape from heroic ICC10 is better than the badge cloak, but to gain it will require a good chunk of heroic-mode kills. I will decide if I want to purchase this cape at the time that I reach this point in my list, depending on how soon I feel I will be able to get the HM cape from heroic princes.
    • Hat: T10 is ultimately where I want to go, though Thaumaturge's Crackling Cowl is a good hold-over. The T10 does not have haste, so until equipping it gives me the 4-pc bonus, I want to use my cloth offkit hat for its haste. Thus, if I get pants to drop from VoA, I will buy the hat to make 4-pc.
    • Pants: I think it best to wait for a drop from Toravon (the 264 version, either drop or via token upgrade), or else Unrelenting Blood from ICC10 Saurfang heroic. I don't believe they are worth spending badges on until everything else has been purchased. If I haven't bought that hat yet (since I am using the cloth haste hat), then I plan to wait until I have enough badges to purchase both hat and pants together at the same time for 4-pc, thus expanding the length of time I have to hope to get the pants from VoA.
    • Note: the T10 hat and pants would be needed for the 4-pc set bonus. Both slots have non-set versions available as drops in ICC from Saurfang which are rated highly and have haste on them, which is why I have put them at the bottom of my priority list and why they are so dependent on each other.

  7. There is the Circle of Ossus to consider. It is rated (pretty much) the same as the Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner, but the Cord costs no badges and is a drop from heroic Deathwhisper: difference being a *tiny* bit less haste and spirit, and a yellow socket in place of a red. I am *assuming* the socket bonus for the heroic Cord is 7 spellpower, which is currently left off of the wowhead tooltip; programs such as Rawr will need to have this socket bonus added to the item to accurately compare the belts. I think I'll just wait out the Deathwhisper heroic-mode drop rather than spend any badges on this!
  8. Beyond those, I think my badges will then be put to offspec (cat!). That's a whole nother list to be worked out :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Kae for the list. I used to use elitistjerks/lootrank to figure all this out, but it so much easier to read other people's lists :-)

I currently have 4T9 and have bought the Vestments of Spruce and Fir. So by buying and equipping a T10 piece I would break the 4T9 bonus.

Do I equip the Gauntlets and break the 4T9 bonus or do I wait till I have 120 badges and can buy the hands and shoulders and then run 2T10 and 2T9?

Do you think the benefit of the T10 hands piece is worth losing the 4T9 set bonus?

BTW, I am not currently haste capped with a CF build.

Thanks

Edard - Fenris

Kae said...

IMO, the sooner you can break away from a CF build and pick up those deeper-tier resto talents (especially living spirit for the staying-power and SP boost), the better. Personally, I never picked up 4-pc T9 (passed most of the 245 tokens to others, particularly for gearing offspec tanks), so I never missed it.

Also, I have noticed how much of a jump the later bosses in ICC are from a gearing stand point. The 251 gear we're collecting through the weeks is helping us slowly push past the DPS/healing/survival barriers the bosses pose. Arthas himself is standing as a major gear-check in being able to heal through the raw damage and still have the DPS to kill the valkyr.

Now, assuming you are running 25-mans as well as 10s, you will be earning badges relatively quickly, so it will only be a short while that you go without the 2-pc set bonus for T10.

Short of the long: the upgrade is probably worth it, particularly as you're upgrading a 232 pair of hands to 251 :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the feedback - the gloves will be first on my list - I almost got them but had enough emblems for the emblem chest piece and could not resist being a big spender!!

We are not running ICC25 yet - only have about 1.5 groups running ICC10 so Frost emblems are slow in coming ;-( But there are many other fun parts of the game to focus on - so not a problem

Edard