Gear guide request/idea

[chaos5061]

oh, i wasnt aware of that, im leveling my dk atm in cata and the blue items seem to have better stats than the greens, but maybe i just didnt notice, i ll pay more attention to it next time i log on to one of my 80+ chars

They have to have the same item level. Say you have a blue chest peice that gives you 20 stamina. If you found a green item of the same item level you would find it will give you the same 20 stamina as the blue item so the color is now kinda reduntant and needs either to be replaced or done away entierly. Now this is through questing mostly where you will see this. Any thing you get through dungeons that are blue will still be better than a green item of the same item level most of the time but not all.

[chaos5061]

They have to have the same item level. Say you have a blue chest peice that gives you 20 stamina. If you found a green item of the same item level you would find it will give you the same 20 stamina as the blue item so the color is now kinda reduntant and needs either to be replaced or done away entierly. Now this is through questing mostly where you will see this. Any thing you get through dungeons that are blue will still be better than a green item of the same item level most of the time but not all.

Here is a post about this from WowInsider where somebody asked this question:
Q: Can we confirm once and for all whether or not color affects the item budgets on items?

I've seen very convincing evidence where the stat budget of green items has been shown to be the same as blue items of the same iLevel. Even Fox Van Allen has been evangelizing the "new" method of stat budgeting for Cataclysm.

A: Epics used to have a higher item budget than blues, which in turn had a higher item budget than greens. This is no longer the case as of Cataclysm. A blue item at ilvl 318 will have the same amount of stamina and intellect (for example) as a green item at ilvl 318. There is no additional stat budget the higher you go up on the "rarity" chain.

Honestly, at this point there's little point to the rarity color system at all. We only really need two colors: white for items with no stats on them, and green for items with stats on them.

[Ripstar]

The only add to that post, Rip, would be for a tank or healer. You can just jump into tanking or healing once you hit max level, but in my experience dealing with those that go this route, it is painful. I can tank anything in game on my pally right now, but thats only cause Ive been tanking with him since he was around level 40, and leveled him tanking till level 80, then ran prot spec to level him to 85. So I learned the abilities long before the difficult content came up in higher levels, and could react in an instance properly because of this.
All the same could be said for my druid heals. Although he is only level 70, I still leveled him in dungeons as a healer from level 15.
Also, buying off the AH (imo) is only if you have a max level toon that can front your alt the gold. Otherwise what you get in a dungeon is good enough for what you'll encounter.
The soapbox post is to lend some of my insight only. If you are planing on running as a DPS, what you know from questing will get you by in the beginning. If you are a tank or heals (in his case tank), practice in runs to learn your toons abilities.
Besides, in lower level runs you can tell the group your new to the role and 99 times out of 100 they will tell you what you need to do. At higher levels you should learn with a guild group only.
/step off soapbox

I agree, as my main is my druid I actually did level as restoration from 1 - 70, wasn't exactly the fastest way to level but at that time i wasnt fussed, i did still manage to beat my friends, but i wasnt out to beat some ridiculous record.

Being a Tank and Healer has its advantages, you learn the do's and don'ts of fairly "easy" dungeons as you progress, so as soon as you hit end game raiding, you've learned , as you pointed out, all of the ways you should react to a certain situation. And yes I forgot to mention I had a main to bank-roll my alt DK into buying those AH upgrades, so that is definately something to consider.

So in other words, to support your post, the best way for a Tank OR Healer, in any situation, regarding you're broke in the gold dept, is to focus on questing and doing dungeons for gear upgrades, but there is a limit. One should not rinse and repeat a dungeon any more than... 3 or 5 times, just to get a item drop. Proceed move on, keep questing, there's really good questlines out there to get awesome rewards...

On a side note once i started playing WoW again I specced into feral to try the changes out and must admit, its awesome. The speed and rate at which I can kill things is soooo much easier and faster than trying to level as a healer, who has next to NO DMG ability whatsoever. When youre a healer your DPS is majorly gimped out. Dont spec into these kind of roles till you hit max level. UNLESS you enjoy the slow grind to the next levels, or you enjoy raiding dungeons as a permanent focus... You almost never will be able to solo things as a healer.

[Kamchak]

So in other words, to support your post, the best way for a Tank OR Healer, in any situation, regarding you're broke in the gold dept, is to focus on questing and doing dungeons for gear upgrades, but there is a limit. One should not rinse and repeat a dungeon any more than... 3 or 5 times, just to get a item drop. Proceed move on, keep questing, there's really good questlines out there to get awesome rewards...

Well spoken. (well said was too short... )

[Ripstar]

Well spoken. (well said was too short... )

Thank you.

Basically we recommend you stop being lazy and find out for yourself what the best gear is for your level. We can't recommend what the best would be, there's just too much behind it and it's not the easy answer you think. Truth is the answer is complex. There is no easy way to do it. And expecting a guide to do it for you, is, ridiculous.

Things to consider:

• Dungeons are good, but they require skill and coordination (more importantly they rely on others to do their job well.)
• Check out the AH for upgrades (require a lot of gold)
• Check out the different professions (crafted gear is expensive, require max skill/lots of gold)
• Quest-lines can be helpful and give free item upgrades (but they take ages to complete, and once you've done it - you've surpassed the item level)
• If you have a guild, ask your guild mates for help, ask them to craft things for a discount price
• More importantly - use your resources!

Simply get the addon that was suggested earlier and there you have it. Problem solved.. You DON'T NEED A GUIDE TO TELL YOU WHAT GEAR TO GET AND WHERE. You just need to use your head, and utilise the free resources out there - such as the addons that compare items, etc.

[rancidpoopy]

I just dropped using Pawn and started using RatingBuster on the advice from Cartman and I can say I like RatingBuster way better than Pawn.

[am88]

So really there is no need to go for blue items any more.

And I find it interesting that there are still a load of purple items that are easily eclipsed by a green item obtained through a quest reward.

I get what the OP is asking for. But like Chaos says, you really don't need to expend extra effort going for the "higher end" blues until you hit the level cap.

I didn't really start running into dungeons until I was 85. I finished levelling with a typical hodge-podge of blue and green and an average i-level in the 280's.

Until a week ago, I've been running normal dungeons and getting a decent drop rate and winning the rolls. Adding in building up rep with the right factions, I now have a i-level of 335 and am running heroics. I continue to build rep with the right factions to get key items. Goal is to enter in with the raid team so that I will be a good contributor to the success of the team.

Atlas Loot has been key in keeping track of what dungeon to go run, what item to look for on the drops, and what factions are worth building rep for.

Questing to get these items isn't in play anymore, as even the quest rewards from the dungeon runs aren't paying out with gear that I need.

So what the OP suggests is interesting, but I'm not yet sold on how it will really help the level 85 player.