10s Quick Start Gearing Guide [Shadowlands]

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Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the Shadowlands 10s quick start gear guide. The purpose of this guide is to give new 10s a solid reference and foundation when gearing their brand new toons. Experienced players will find less use of this guide, but hey, you still might learn something new.

If you've been around a while, and this thread (or format in general) is familiar to you, then it's probably because you've read the Veteran Quick Start Gearing Guide from BFA. This thread follows the exact same format (straight up ctrl + c and ctrl + v, actually.) This thread was a bitch to format the first time around and I'm not about to do it all over again.

Starting Notes (Important - Read)
  • This is a living document. It will be updated as the meta develops and is by no means a 'finalized' guide. I provided alternative options to every Staff of the One True Bramble King listed in the guide as a contingency plan for when it is inevitably fixed or changed in some way.
  • In order to be as newb friendly as possible, I decided to leave out (almost) anything and everything that requires using a higher level to farm, lottery luck or big money, items like old Green Lenses and Knightly Longswords, and GFED pieces (obvoiusly.) I wanted every gear set in this thread to be 100% obtainable on your level 10 specifically.
  • This guide assumes you are using engineering and alchemy for professions, hence the lack of shoulder enchants listed. Get vanilla alchemy to 300 for the Alchemist's Flask. It gives a permanent +4 main stat buff.
  • I mentioned previously how I wanted every gear set to be 100% obtainable on your own toon. However, there is unfortunately one (and only one) exception used in every spec in this guide. Of course, I am talking about the Hunger of the Pack. This is an agility or strength trinket looted from the Legion dungeon "Halls of Valor." Since it is str/agi only, not every class / spec can loot this naturally. Before going through with obtaining this trinket, confirm that your class has no specs that can loot it. For example, if you are a restoration druid, simply set your loot specialization to feral or guardian when you are running HoV and you will be eligible to loot it. If you are a class like a warlock, mage, or priest that is not able to loot the trinket naturally at all (as they have no specs that benefit from str/agi,) then you are going to have to have either A: a high level run you through the dungeon and loot it via legacy loot mode, or B: have another level 10 that is eligible for it loot it and trade it to you. I really wanted to keep this guide 100% natural, but this trinket just blows every option out of the water in terms of speed sets; it's impossible to ignore. Even post nerf, this trinket is BiS (best in slot) for speed clears for every class and every spec and it's not even close.
  • While 10s can do both Atal'Dazar and Freehold, you must actually run to the entrance of the dungeon of the opposite faction (queueing for them is locked until 15.) This means, that if you are alliance and want to run Atal'Dazar, you are going to have to actually run to the entrance of the dungeon and clear it yourself (and vice versa.) Where I provide an Atal'Dazar drop, I do my best to provide the Freehold alternative as well. Unfortunately their drop tables are not 100% consistent with each other though, so if you want to follow this guide completely, you may need to take a trip out to the opposite faction's dungeon and run it without LFG. This is still arguably easier than farming BoEs.
  • There are a handful of (what I refer to as) 'ghost' enchants at 10... meaning, you can apply them just fine, and the tooltips read just fine, but they are not actually giving you any +stats... This is a fairly unexplored subject, so I assure you I won't be able to list every ghost enchant in the game or what levels they kick in, but the slot that this really applies the most to (that I know of) is rings. @Sponsor and I have found that the ONLY ring enchant that actually provides +1 secondary stats is the "Binding of X" enchant. This is important. When buying your ring enchants, MAKE SURE they are "Binding of X."
  • Should go without saying, but where I list Binding of X and Gift of X enchants in this guide, you can replace with any preferred secondary stat of your choice. I just simply believe that vers is the best secondary to get in low amounts as it pushes both your output and your survivability (damage mitigation.)
  • As of writing this, based on what we know, there is no way to get a DH out of the starting zone before level 10, making level 10 demon hunter twinks impossible. Until somebody figures out a way, or the weirdo who has already found a way and hasn't told anybody yet decides to make it public information, there will be no DH section in this thread. If there were one, it would surely look a lot like the outlaw rogue section.
  • Freehold and Atal'Dazar drops listed are eligible to proc a socket, tertiary stat, and a double proc of socket AND tertiary. In a perfect world, wherever you are using one of these, it is a socket / speed double proc. That's pretty long term and unless you get really lucky you'll be living in these dungeons. That said, any time a drop from one of these two dungeons is listed, I suggest just going for a socket proc... best bang for your buck.
  • And finally, this is no secret at this point, Shadowlands tooltips are fucked. We should all be used to this by now. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to get scalable item links to actually display the stats at level 10; a lot (most) items in this thread are going to display much higher stats than they actually give at 10. Luckily, you typically just want to go for items with the most sockets or best procs / on uses. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
Legend / Formatting (also important)
  • "Any" at the end of a category means that there are no other noteworthy pieces in that slot for that particular spec, meaning you can put any dungeon drop (I recommend Legion) in that slot and it will be viable until you get your upgrade.
  • In the past I've used gt and lt operators in threads like these. This time around, I decided to opt for the comma for simplicity sake and keeping the thread easy to read and sift through. Personally, I do believe there are a lot of superior choices, but I've seen people run all sorts of different things, and we do have a lot of options. This is especially true for trinkets. Man, we have so many trinket options that are good it's really impossible to pick 2 clear cut BiS options. I use a dozen different trinkets situationally when playing my 10.
Death Knight - Blood
Death Knight - Frost
Death Knight - Unholy
Druid - Balance
Druid - Feral
Druid - Guardian
Druid - Restoration
Hunter - Beast Mastery
Hunter - Marksmanship
Hunter - Survival
Mage - Arcane, Fire, and Frost
Monk - Brewmaster
Monk - Mistweaver
Monk - Windwalker
Paladin - Holy
Paladin - Protection
Paladin - Retribution
Priest - Discipline, Holy, and Shadow
Rogue - Assassination
Rogue - Outlaw
Rogue - Subtlety
Shaman - Elemental
Shaman - Enhance
Shaman - Restoration
Warlock - Affliction, Demonology, and Destruction
Warrior - Arms
Warrior - Fury
Warrior - Protection
References
Information sources
Change Log
  • 2021-07-21 - First draft published
 
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Green Lens no longer proc secondary stats?
nope
[doublepost=1631478127,1631478040][/doublepost]Btw readers, pretty much every weapon section of this guide is now out of date. I will update the specs once I am more versed in weapon alternatives.
 
I believe I may have thought of a way to make a 10 DH twink... maybe. I have not actually attempted this yet, but I think I may have figured out a way to do it. Once I actually attempt this feat of impossibility I will post my results.

EDIT: OK so my idea was a total bust. lol it was never going to work due to restrictions in place on DH's while in the starting zone.
 
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