Equipment for the Job

I am something of a nightowl so I’m going to touch on some thoughts I’ve had tonight; concerning pvp gear when applied to pve environment. I have only been on Blade’s Edge server now for maybe a week but upon my very arrival I noticed the huge trend that people would carry pvp gear into instances. And I am not talking normal lvl 70-80 dungeons, but heroics. The first heroic I ran was Halls of Lightning and in that case I had two dps guys (the other was probably a girl though) proudly present that they had over 2k dps.

I remember exchanging looks with my fellow shaman there because we had just finished scanning their gear and it was just full of pvp stuff. The truth was revealed to be a lot less awesome than the two claim and I, as a tank, actually dealt more dps than either of them and that is always a bad sign.

True, we ran the length of the instance, without huge difficulties but it did had that feeling dragging along, like when you’re carrying something heavy. I have since found this trend seems to span lots of guilds and I am truly puzzled by it.

Is there a publically acknowledged WoW guru giving everyone this advice or something? If there is, guys, you need to stop taking his advice now!

Here is the rub children; when the good designers at Blizzard sit down to come up with new gear they have a certain quota of stats to share, depending on the level of the item. Pvp gear is set apart from normal pve gear by the presence of a stat called Resilience. It is very important for pvp environment but completely useless when you are running instances, or worse, raids, and whenever there is resilience on a piece of equipment it replaces a stat that is on the contrary useful for a pve player.

I am sure it is a very sexy idea and I know I had similar thoughts when I first considered my death knight’s offspec. After all, running battlegrounds is not that hard and considering the grind and level of difficulty in gaining good enough gear from heroics, it is not a surprise that easily acquired pvp gear has its appeal. But what comes easy also goes easy.

Also, not only are you hurting your own performance but that of your team. Some heroics are quite difficult and demanding. They are fairly simple if tactics are dealt properly and people are good enough geared, but 1-2 dps wearing poor pvp gear will make it all the more harder and will only add to their frustration when the group wipes and denies everyone the chance for emblems, leaving you only with a big repair bill.

When talking about this to the average person, the common reply is that they are wearing the pvp gear until they get better. Some argue that it is very difficult to gain access to good enough gear. Aye, it seems like it at first but in truth, it is not. Here are two good advices I give to my guild members almost everyday:

1) Craftables

There are a surprising number of very good items that you can craft with the help of a proper craft profession. You can find people able to craft these items from all over the place; your guild, trade channel, or might even be one yourself. Look up saronite and titansteel in wowwiki.com and I am certain there is something for everyone.

2) Reputation

I currently have six factions listed in my game, which I consider to be valuable for reputation. Each is easily found and each has a quartermaster. Again, check the list of items they sell (easily from wowwiki.com) and you find that they sell a large variety of superb items. They are good because most require revered or exalted to get, but some can be had with just an honored status.

Most of the reputation items take tenacity to acquire. Start by completing every quest for that faction and then finish by completing daily quests, and if you are up for it, wear their tabard while doing level 80 dungeons or heroics.

That’s it for the night. Now I am going to hit the sack. Hope this was useful to you guys and remember, gearing up might feel tedious and frustrating, but it is also part of the fun.