Blazewing's Furious Kilt and the AH

There are two items on the Shifting Perspectives gear list that are BoE, and both come from rare spawns. The first is Blazewing's Furious Kilt and the second is Tarvus's Poison-Scarred Boots. I've flown through the cave for Tarvus four or five times (seen Lucy on Proudmoore there twice, camping), but no boots yet. Blazewing is in Mount Hyjal, and since that's not part of my circuit, I haven't tried to find him.

I've also been keeping an eye for Blaze's Kilt on the AH. It typically goes for 4-5k asking price for buy out on Proudmoore in the last week or so. I've bid once for 2000g and was outbid. (I've yet to see the boots, fwiw.)

Well, today I'm on for a few minutes, and catch it for 1056g buyout. Stupidly, I waited a few seconds before buying to make sure it wasn't the wrong thing, and luckily it was still there when I recovered. Mine. All mine!

But, um, now what? The next Kilt is up for 3400g buyout. Do I try to make cash or wear the kilt? 2000g is a lot of LW mats.

I listed it. And an hour later, it's gone. For 3142g. /jawDrop Nice. I cleared over 2000g in an hour. I'm still stunned, and stunned worse than the free leather in Tol Barad.

I'm not sure if I made the right decision. I mean, making Pristine Hides might be a better way to make cash, and I may never get better pants with the limited gaming I've been doing. I'll see how close 2000g gets me to the Chestguard and get back to you.

Ah, and I should add, I've found the Mobile Armory to be a painfully addictive timesink while looking for these two items on the AH.

OMGWTFBBQ!! UNLIMTED FREE SAVAGE LEATHER IN TOL BARAD!!shift-1!

I promise not to make another post title like that again. At least any time soon. BUT OMGWTFBBQ!!!! This, my friends, is why soloers/PvErs run druids.

Travel Form + Hibernate == Unlimited, pain-free savage leather.

Ding! 85

And it's happened. I'm finally 85. And it seems appropriate I dinged while turning in Wildhammer reputation quests, as I'll be running that for quite a while.

Continuing the thread from my last few posts, I quickly picked up Aessina-Blessed Gloves (actually did that at 84; they req 85 to equip) and the Mantle of Wild Feathers, which is the Alliance version of Spaulders of the Endless Plains.

Though that bags me the steps Completed step [Shoulder] of achievement [Cataclysmically Superior]. - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 and Completed step [Hands] of achievement [Cataclysmically Superior]. - Tuesday, February 15, 2011, the bonuses are really pretty minor.



Once socketed, it'll be a little better, but still, minor gains. This ain't no tiered armor. ;^D

I started looking at Leatherworking guides like this one to see what it'd take to get to get to the Chestguard of Nature's Fury. I've been vulturing leather like crazy. There have been a few spots where, especially closer to Cat's release, people were smacking mobs and leaving corpses to skin like mad. But even then I've only got about 180 savage leathers and 21 dragonscales. I hate to cheap out, but with 5k gold in the bank, I'll at least take a glance at the AH today.

Also worth noting:
Oasis Bracers BoE drop, Lost City of the Tol'Vir

Shifting Perspectives at WoW Insider said these are BoE. WoWhead lists these as BoP and the comments seem to support that. Shifting seems to have gotten that wrong, so I'll need to 1.) Check the AH to double-check and 2.) Start looking for new bracers.

I think I'll keep running Wildhammer and start checking out Tol Barad. There are apparently a few good places to skin there as part of dailies.

And finally, of all the things I did during 84...

BEST! WEDDING! EVAR! *Hic*

Gear hunting

Okay, I took a look through Shifting Perspective's gear list, which nostalgeek suggested last time. It's a good list, though much is from heroic dungeons, which is probably beyond my part-time gatherer status.

There are many things that are easy enough to grab, though. I'm going to cut and paste a hacked version of the Shifting Perspectives list here which includes helm, neck, shoulders, chest, wrists, hands, and belt. I figured that was enough to start.

Much of the commentary is Caraway's (the post's author). I mark mine with -P. I've cut tons, though, so go "RTFA" (where F=Fabulous, I guess) for the rest of the info.

Tyler Caraway
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/12/17/shifting-perspectives-balance-druid-pre-raid-gear-guide/#continued

Helms

• Cluster of Stars 2,200 justice points
• Helm of Reorigination Doing it the Hard Way, Halls of Origination

For your helm, the best choice to go for is honestly the Cluster of Stars. .... If you don't have enough to get it quite yet, then I would at least queue up to run normal Halls of Reorigination at least once so you can get the helm from a quest you'll find there.

Necks

• Yellow Smoke Pendant Dragonmaw / Wildhammer Exalted
• Eye of Many Deaths Jewelcrafting

Shoulders

• Spaulders of the Endless Plains Dragonmaw / Wildhammer Honored

Chests

• Wrap of the Fallen City The Fall of Neferset City, Uldum
• (There's some debate on wowhead on if the Chestguard of Nature's Fury is worth a rip or not. -P)

The quest reward from Uldum (note: This is apparently a really easy quest - P) is going to be the best chest that you can really get until you start heroics or purchase the JP one.

Wrists

• Oasis Bracers BoE drop, Lost City of the Tol'Vir

(Note that these are BoE and can be purchased on the Auction House! -P EDIT: WoWhead lists these as BoP and the comments seem to support that. Shifting Perspectives seems to have gotten that wrong. -P)

Hands

• Aessina-Blessed Gloves Guardians of Hyjal revered

To be perfectly honest, there isn't much reason to not go for the rep reward gloves, especially considering that you can reach revered merely by completing all of the quests in Hyjal. ...

Belts

• Withered Dream Belt Dragonmaw / Wildhammer exalted
• (The Lightning Lash is apparently about equal to the Wildhammer rep item, with some arguing its gem slot makes it BiS pre-raid. -P)

I'm honestly not even going to bother listing any other belts out there, because nothing compares to this belt at all. ...

Two things jump out.
1.) I should've already gotten the Aessina-Blessed Gloves but I haven't. I've finished HyJal, so I should be revered, it appears (green, above).

2.) Three of these items (and four on the whole list) are based on Wildhammer rep (yellow, above). Guess where I'm farming next?

3.) Okay, three. Wrap of the Fallen City seems easy to get iff you've done Uldum. I started there, but quickly went Highlands. I can't tell how many of these questlines you need to do, but it appears to require a few. I might not be pulling in the Wrap.

I'll admit that I'm miffed that none of this is Leatherworking craftable. /sigh There's some debate on wowhead on if the Chestguard of Nature's Fury is worth a rip or not. The Lightning Lash is apparently about equal to the Wildhammer rep item, with some arguing its gem slot makes it BiS pre-raid.

I'll add some of that and do more research.

One final bit: It looks like you might need a Finkle's Skinner to skin some bosses. It looks like The Beast is soloable now. Here's one guide. I really shoulda gotten this years ago. I'm also going to need some Pristine Hide if I'm going to craft the chestpiece instead of going to Uldum.

More xserver PUGging

Another good night of PUGging. Back in June I was looking at gearing up with pre-raid content, mostly using the guide at Laser Chicken to figure out what to get after WoW.com's Shifting Perspectives had let me down so badly with the shoulders. I also decided it was about time I got serious and enchanted some gear. I'd been using the [Totemic Purification Rod] so long I figured it was safe. About 50-60g later in tips and mats, I had +50 Spellpower.

Not two hours later, I rolled on and won a [Blood Boil Lancet]. Bittersweet.

The cross-server LFG has really changed the game. I've been running quests and rep runs, and barely got in 5 minutes at a time before being zapped into a dungeon. The way this changes geography and social interactions is bizarre. It's the same game as before, sure, but it plays to much differently, it's difficult to describe. Obviously much quicker gear accumulation. No real reason to run rep for gear anymore, it'd seem, other than to pass a little time between instances. I'll probably start camping Sons of Hodir.

The grouping has gone well. I've gotten invited to two 50-80% done runs, which stinks a bit. I'd like to enjoy the whole instance rather than finish off a last boss or two, but on random you don't know ahead of time (and I guess you don't on the named dungeon LFG either). One group seemed to have recently kicked a hunter. I'm not sure how much better I did -- though I heard he didn't have ammo. FTW!!!!#1 Still, I'm not seeing people more than once. It's weird. Was nice to see someone who had gotten kicked out of Wintergrasp into the queue area in the snow from The Demonic Reich. At least they're local.

In other news, I leveled my Leatherworking to 440 so that I could make -- and did make -- [Windripper Leggings]. The leg armor that got me from 435 to 440 is worth about 100g a pop, which has been nice. Farming Eternal Air was a breeze in Wintergrasp. At first Wintergrasp was being contested and I had to wait. Couldn't even be a rear and sneak in; too long a queue for the battle. Later, however, I found that you could sneak into a couple of areas on the edges of Wintergrasp, not quite be in the zone, and farm some Tempest Revenants and Whispering Winds while technically in Dragonblight. The farming was very quick. Nobody around. Felt eerie. Quiet.

So that's two purples in the rotation with a low bid on some Windripper Boots that I hope comes through that would make three. The spellpower is growing well. No big deal to many, I know, but I'm at about 9k starfire crits now, which happens enough during Eclipse that I feel useful.

Last item -- I probably won't play as much for the balance of this month. Felt like taking a WoW break, and I've nearly gotten my $15 out already. I've enjoyed the instance runs and the gear, but I'm so freakin' far away from raids it's disheartening.

(Last last item -- none of my screenshots or movies from the last run were saved. Odd. Have to settle for making my leggings.)

Welcome, Windhawk Bracers

Welp, I finally leveled my leatherworking, farmed even more mats, caved and auction housed the last three Primal Airs, and created Windhawk Bracers, the only item of the Windhawk set that doesn't require a Primal Nether and, therefore, a little instancing to craft.

So let the mathes comparison begin. Rather than trying to go theoretical, let's just slap up a screenshot comparison of Jal's stats with the Windhawk Bracers versus Murkblood Bracers of Nature's Wrath, the latter worth 115 armor and +42 nature damage.



So here are the changes with the Windhawk with a vendored +4 spell critical yellow gem, all stats listed while in moonkin form:

Nature damage: -10
Health: +220
Mana: +285
Non-nature spell dmg: +32
Healing: +52
Crit %: +1.14
Mana Regen: +10
Armor: +220

I'm not too worried about the base stat changes not listed above, as their practical usefulness should be reflected in the stats.

So here, it's a nobrainer. I lose 10 dmg per Wrath, but gain pretty seriously everywhere else, including +1.14% crit, which is another (381 to 429 + 745) * 1.14% = 13.11 damage already for my wraths, on average. The Murkbloods aren't better even with wrath damage, their speciality area. So out go the Murkblood Bracers to the vendor. Sad to see 'em go.

Other nature's wrath items aren't so obvious, I don't think. I've upgraded a few slots since I last took stock. My helm gives +81 nature damage, iirc. That's going to take a disproportionate increase in stats to beat (realizing there's no Windhawk headpiece). Chest is currently giving +75 nature damage, and the Dragonhawk version gives +81; will the Windhawk Hauberk beat that? Its intellect bonus is just 12 more than the bracers, and spell dmg just 19 more. Can that beat a +39 nature damage increase on the chest relative to bracers? It'll be closer, I think. We'll see.

Again, for general use, the Windhawk armor has it all over "of Nature's Wrath" gear. I'm here looking specifically at burst damage, as that's the most important thing when doing PvE outdoors, when you can root most anything, and when filling the DPS slot in a 5-spot instance. Your drinks are going to outweigh mana regen bonuses for PvE and 5-spots, and armor shouldn't matter too much if you root melee mobs and have good tanks.

And you can't come close to beating the price of the Nature's Wrath gear at 8-15g a slot. That's less than many daily quest rewards!

Here's what a full set of Windhawk needs, according to gajackson at thottbot.com:

18 Heavy Knothide Leathers
48 Wind Scales
34 Primal Airs
6 Primal Mights
3 Primal Nethers

+ 3 Yellow gems (or compatible) total
+ 3 Blue gems (or compatible) total

+ whatever you are going to choose in the way of endgame-ish AKs, enchants, etc.

What's the better causal gamer buy again? All of the above for 3 pieces of armor, or less than 100g for 400+ DPS?

The Windhawk bracers beat out Dragonhawk Bands even for adding damage to wrath, so, farming already done, they're in for all of my outfits, panzer, boomkin, and hybrid. It's my first purple armor since I made Lava Belts for the Old World. I just wonder if completing the set is going to be worth it, or I should save the time and effort to run instances until the WotLK shows up.

Learning gems

I've got two pieces of gear in my standard sets now (panzer, boomkin, and healing sets have been standard, though I'm inching towards a healing/boom hybrid set recently) that have sockets, and I figured with the new daily quest money I oughta fill them in. Originally, having gone Scryer, I figured I'd just vendor some 2g gems from the "Fence" outside of the Shatt inn, but after doing a little research at WoW Gem Finder, thott, and wowhead, I hit the Auction House first.

In brief, the move panned out. I've now got every blue or red socket filled with this thing (aka "Royal Shadow Draenite"), which on Proudmoore was going for less than 2g per gem. Heck, +7 Healing +3 Spell Damage and +1 Mana per 5 Seconds for 1.2g? Not bad, and I finally get the socket bonuses on my items.

So if you've been thinking about socketing gear but either thought you'd replace the piece(s) in short order or were too cheap to shell out for lowbie gems in an attempt to save up for blues & purples (or if you're worried about both), stop. Go to your AH with a few gold and socket up.

In other news, my last week has been mostly spent farming. I don't know how you farmers do it. I'll post more about it later, but I'm generally trying to make my way to creating the BoP Windhawk armor set, which apparently is as good a set for moonkin as you can get without raiding or instance running. Being able to make it requires me to respec my specialization to Tribal Leatherworking (100g) and gathering a ton of of mats. I also turned out to have only gotten to LW 360 before my "hiatus", so I've been trying to level up LW last night and today, which hasn't been fun.

So yes, I've decided to go boomkin with my BoP items instead of Panzer for the time being. Huge cred loss if you call your site "Panzerkin.blogspot.com," yo, but I've already got pretty good armor/stam gear for bear and Panzer and figured I'd go DPS for instances, which is where my guild is lacking.

Zul'Aman, soulbound Leatherworking, and additions to the Moonkin blogroll

Okay, Zul'Aman stunk. I couldn't go anywhere. I like to scout out instances solo before running them, judging about how difficult the first pat or two is and going cat to get the layout down before playing. No luck here. It's a raid instance, so I got a guildie to group me so I could drop by, but then there's this danged door that won't open unless you have 5 party members banging on some gong. Thanks, Blizzard. Perhaps I could do the "die and get by" trick that allows you to enter a few other keyed instances, but I didn't see a good ledge nearby nor any mobs to aggravate. Lots of wasted time. Ran to the Shattered Sun to do a few dailies.

Welp, I finally remembered my goal before I took my seven month break: Make the specialist leatherworking soulbound set. Unfortunately, elemental leatherworking's soulbound set is essentially for feral druids (and rogues, etc). I'm not into respecializing, as that runs me 100 gold. Here's the down-low from WoWWiki:

First you must unlearn your current specialization. To do that, go back to the original quest giver for your Leatherworking specialization and pay 100  to remove your specialization (this cost varies depending on your level, 25  at 49 for instance. See herefor more.) You will lose only patterns that require that specialization. Note: you will not lose any patterns available prior to The Burning Crusade since their specialization requirements were removed when the expansion was released.

You can then learn a new specialization by going to Narain Soothfancy and reading a book. He is located north of Steamwheedle Port in Tanaris. The book on his table will teach you either the Dragonscale, Elemental or Tribal leatherworking specialization skill.

Seriously? Now anyone can dream up a Helm of Fire that I spent what seems like years repping to get? I know they don't sell for crud any more (though I did bring in a few hundred gold before the market crashed out), but this is horrible. And now I just read a book to respecialize? Tempting, but I'm only at about 220g right now. Part-timers don't carry much cash.

And then there's the question of if a panzerkin should be purely into balance gear, which seems almost clothkin-esque. How does the feral gear spec out if I supplement with +nature dmg or more traditional balance fare? Looks like Primalstrike might be something to get simply to help when you're wailing with your staff. "Equip: Improves hit rating by 12 (0.76% @ L70). Equip: Increases attack power by 108." Not too shabby.

Here's a post to thottbot that talks about feral/rogue gem choice for the Primalstrike vest.

Re: Primalstrike Vest
Score 0.75     Vote: [-] [+] by Ethral <The Gladiators>, 6.1 months ago
Yes, if you decide to keep your primalstrike (it won't hurt you at all) you will use it until Tier 4, and unless your guild is already working on Magtheridon, you're probably 2+ months away from getting it.

You should be slapped for not having hit rating in that chestpiece as a Rogue.

For a yellow socket you want:

+8 Hit Rating

Red:

+4 Hit Rating +4 Agility

Blue: (depending on what you need more)

+4 Agility +6 Stamina
Or
+4 Critical Strike Rating + 6 Stamina

While I'm at it, here are a few new moonkin druid blogs I've dug up and need to read a bit to get back in the swing of things. I've already started into a few, but haven't gotten too far.

http://ferociousbite.blogspot.com/ (enjoyable read!)
http://moon-queen.blogspot.com/ (post on joining a raiding guild)
http://waradwen.blogspot.com/ (looks like a pretty serious raider)
http://neighborhoodmoonkin.blogspot.com/ (starting the moonkin gem research)
http://laserchicken.blogspot.com/ (he'll be back)

Note to self: Leatherworking Guide

Note to self: Leatherworking Guide

An Elemental Reward

With TBC, Blizzard introduced a few BoP armor sets for high level leatherworkers. It's sort of a thanks for specializing which had become nearly useless after TBC killed the value of the old purple craftables.

Just so I won't forget (yet again) what my elemental specialization reward armor set is, well, it's the Primal Intent set (wowwiki):

The Primal Intent set is the 3 piece Bind on Pickup (BoP) armor set which can be crafted by elemental leatherworkers once they reach skill level 375.