Dreams
fastest shadowstep in the west
OUTDATED
As the title suggests this is a Warlords of Draenor guide and thus is outdated as of the Legion prepatch (19th/20th of July 2016). I might eventually make a gearing guide for Legion, but I'm keeping this one up in case someone needs it for a WoD private server or whatever. I'll leave a link to the Legion guide here if I make one.
Gearing Guide
Intended mainly for level 70 characters - although some information is relevant for other brackets
As the title suggests this is a Warlords of Draenor guide and thus is outdated as of the Legion prepatch (19th/20th of July 2016). I might eventually make a gearing guide for Legion, but I'm keeping this one up in case someone needs it for a WoD private server or whatever. I'll leave a link to the Legion guide here if I make one.
Gearing Guide
Intended mainly for level 70 characters - although some information is relevant for other brackets
Table of contents:
- Introduction
- PVP Gear
- PVE Gear
Introduction
Hi I'm Onlydreams and I play in various level 70 guilds like Ante Amanthe and Legatum. I'm writing this guide because gearing a low level character in Warlords of Draenor is very different from gearing one in any previous expansion - and as a result a lot of people are either unaware of how it works or are confused when someone tries to explain it to them.This guide is not focused on showing you a complete gearset that you can copy, but rather on teaching you the various systems that affect how we gear our characters and enable you to make decisions on your own.
When someone asks me any question about gearing I almost always have to ask them "Are you gearing your character for pve or pvp?" and often the person will reply "Both". But unlike in previous expansions, it's not currently possible to have an item set that's good for both pvp and pve. As you read through the guide it will become very apparent why that is.
My goal is to present the facts in an easily understandable format. But with that said, if you have any questions regarding gearing a level 70 character please contact me and I'll do my best to clarify.
You can reach me by posting in this thread and tagging me by typing @ Onlydreams with no space, sending me a PM on XPoff or whispering me ingame - Sall#2989 (EU). Although, please make sure you at least read this guide before you ask questions.
PVP Gear
This section will attempt to explain the systems that affect gearing in instanced pvp.Whenever you enter a skirmish or battleground your character is scaled up to level 79. You don't get access to the extra glyph slot and talent tier that unlocks at level 75 or any class abilities you unlock from 71-79, but all your gear scales up to item level 283, increasing its stats accordingly. Yes, even if you are wearing an uncommon quality leather belt from a level 10 quest that has +1 agility, that belt will scale up to ilvl 283 and give you noticeable amount of agility.
Knowing this opens up a whole new world of opportunities when it comes to gearing your character for pvp. Think of all the set bonuses, proc effects and on-use effects from lower levels that you can suddenly use without sacrificing a huge amount of stats.
Does this mean that you have to farm a whole lot of low level items to be competitive in pvp? Nope. A lot of TBC raid gear has gem sockets which are amazing stat value, making them very hard to replace with lower level items that don't have gem sockets. Because of this there are only a few slots where it's worth considering lower level items. Those slots are mainly trinkets, rings and sometimes (depending on your class) weapons.
Here are some examples of lower level items that are commonly used in 70 pvp:
[Lessons of the Darkmaster]
[Searing Words]
[Flashing Steel Talisman]
There are also some lower level items that benefit particularly well from the scaling system. These are items that have both base stats and random stats.
Base stats are stats that never change, such as the stats found on quest rewards and most dungeon loot. Random stats are usually found on uncommon world drops. These items get a random set of stats each time they are looted as well as a matching suffix such as "of the monkey", "of strength", etc.
There are very few items that have both base and random stats, but as mentioned above they scale up better than other items. This is because the scaling system thinks that the base stats and the random stats are two separate statpools, and scales them both up as if they were two separate items. This effectively doubles the stat value on these items when brought into instanced pvp.
Although not many of these items exist, even fewer of them happen to be in the "right" slot - a slot where they aren't just outdone by a huge amount of gem sockets, or an important set bonus.
Here are the three examples of such items that are currently being used in 70 pvp:
[Dark Iron Ring]
[Ribsplitter]
[Aquamarine Signet]
Another great thing about 70 pvp gearing is the set bonuses that we are able to utilize. Unfortunately we are unable to benefit from a lot of the best set bonuses in pve for reasons that I will go further into in the pve gearing section.
Here are some examples of some great set bonuses that are commonly used in 70 pvp:
[Whitemend Wisdom]
[Wrath of Spellfire]
[Brutal Gladiator's Vestments]
[Beast Lord Armor] (2 piece bonus)
Conclusion:
If you have a level 70 character that you are looking to gear for pvp, you should prioritize the three following things:
- Get gear with lots of gem sockets
- Find some powerful set bonuses that you can acquire without losing too many stats
- Look into lower level rings, trinkets and perhaps weapons and see if there is anything worth using for your spec
PVE Gear
This section will attempt to explain the systems that affect gearing in instanced pve.When the WOD prepatch launched and the stat squish went live there was no longer "room" to have differences in stats between high and low tier TBC gear, meaning an item from Sunwell Plateau (ilvl 154+) doesn't necessarily have better stats than an item from Karazhan (ilvl 115). So in order to keep a sense of progression and keep higher tier gear more powerful than lower tier gear, blizzard stealth implemented something we call "the item level boost".
The item level boost increases your damage and healing done, as well as reducing the damage you take based on your characters average item level.
This is how it works specifically: for every average item level your character has above 115, your character will gain 1,66% more damage, 1,66% more healing and 1% less damage taken.
Because of this item level boost system the item level on an item is now the most important stat in pve. But that does not mean you should totally ignore "real" stats and just go for the highest possible item level. In some cases the amount of stats on an item can outweigh another item that has higher item level.
The item level boost has resulted in some pretty ridiculous items being best in slot for pve. Such as [Bottled Tornado] and the [Kor'kron Dark Shaman Vestment] set (notice item levels).
Conclusion:
If you have a level 70 character that you are looking to gear for pve, you should prioritize the three following things:
- Get a [Bottled Tornado] and a [Gnomish Lightning Generator]
- Get high item level gear with relevant stats and preferably lots of gem sockets
- Ignore all set bonuses except t6 if the t6 set bonus for your spec is good
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