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"Pimp me up, Yo!" (How to get gear for lvl70)
4/10/09 10:35am
(repost - original was posted on Exodus website in August 2008)
(the concepts in general can apply to lvl80 - sorta / kinda)
Pimp me up, Yo!
One of the most common statements that one hears from the newly 70s is "I am lvl70, but my gear is lvl68. What do I do?" (This comes right after _the_ most common statement of "OMG! I am lvl70; now what do I do?!" That question is addressed in an earlier article.) Have you turned 70 for the first time recently? Do you feel like other toons in Shatt City are inspecting you and then whispering behind your back? Do you giggles and snickers from behind each tree in Trekkoar Forest? Do you feel like wearing a tshirt, shorts and flip-flops, you walked into a Gucci store? Does your green gear clash with your hair? Then this article is for you because you sure need a complete make-over!
As one gets closer to lvl70, one actually should begin to look towards obtaining better gear. When we talk about "better" gear, we are talking strictly blues and purples. Green clashes with a lvl70 hair and cramps hir/her style. From now of it's the high energy end of the electromagnetic spectrum for you 70-boy (/girl/indetermined gender entity).
We will discuss two aspects of this situation. First we will look into _how_ to acquire the higher quality gear and then we will discuss _what_ to acquire at least as guidelines.
There are many ways a lvl70 (or a near-lvl70) can acquire suitable gear:
1) PVP gear: One can acquire the lvl70 PVP gear with either honor points (honor) and battleground badges (badges) or arena points from vendors at Champion's Hall in Southwind City (SWC) or various arena vendors around the realm. To obtain these arena points, badges and honor, one needs to either fight arena battles and do battlegrounds. This is one of the most deterministic ways of acquiring gear (but BG PvP gear is occasionally refered in a derigotary fashion as "welfare epics" by Blizz designers).
Regardless of the disrespect BG PvP gear gets from some designers, it still is a good way to help boost your scores to the point you can do heroic instances and Karazhan (Kara). In the next section, we will discuss how to choose which pieces of gear would be better targets.
Of course, if you like doing BGs or arena, you can just keep doing it to collect the top-most PvP gear possible. It just takes a lot of time and is not the fastest way into Kara if that happens to be your goal.
2) Quest rewards: Up to this point, quest rewards provided most of the equipment you used, but you will find out that there are very few doors left to choose for good gear once you reach lvl70. Rarely any quests will provide good gear for you. This is not to say that there are none at all. In fact, you will find some of the best items as a quest reward or two, but these quests will include significant feats such as going into heroic instances or even raid dungeons to complete. Because of the acts required to succeed in these quests, my mental model categorizes these with instance drops. Aside from these, there are a few, very few, quests that might get you your next piece of gear or two. Look them up.
3) Reputation rewards: Outland has many factions that require you to build reputation (rep) with them. Many of these factions have their own quartermasters selling unique gear and items. To be able to purchase these, you need to attain various levels of rep with the faction of each quartermaster. This is another method one can resort to be replace a few of one's pieces of gear with some blues or even purples because while performing the quests on the way to lvl70, one already builds up some rep with most of these factions. Visit the various quartermasters around Outland and check out their wares and what honor you need for these. Most of them have repeatable quests and specific dungeons that provide faction-specific rep. Raise your rep to the appropriate level and purchase the items your heart desires.
You will also notice that some armor sets are distributed among various factions. To be able to pick up multiple pieces of such a set, you need to build rep with those factions.
4) Drops: When you see the word "drop" in any of the wowarmory.com lists while searching for lvl70 gear, you shouldn't be imagining your average murloc dropping a nice purple for you. These are non-boss drops in heroic or raid dungeons. The main difference between this category and the next one we will discuss is that in the "drops" group, you get a basic probability of an item dropping from a longer list of non-boss mobs in a certain dungeon. It is debatable that matters are any easier in this fashion, but at least you don't have to take down Gruul to get to your purples.
5) Boss drops: Ahhhh! Now we are talking. You take down Big Bad Wolf in Kara and you get to the goodies. Or Gruul... Or some other big ugly monster thing that is very likely to wipe out your whole party. There really isn't much to be said here. Take 'em down, grab your stuff and run! Easier said than done, but this is how it is for the big boys (and girls). Another category that falls in this general area is world boss drops. If you complete the chain that ends in calling Terokk, the Sketti god, you can get some neat stuff there. Or you can take on Doom Lord Kazzak in Hellfire Peninsula. Never mind the fact that he (she? it?) has 1.3 million health... These bosses have great drops also. Just make sure take a friend or two (or ten or twenty) with you.
6) Boss tokens: There is a new category of gear that require certain "tokens" for purchasing. These tokens are also gear of the same type as what you can purchase from special vendors. They are shoulder pieces that you can use to purchase Tier 4, 5 or 6 shoulder pieces. Or helms for such helms. These tokens also drop for high level bosses in raid dungeons.
7) Vendor gear: There are other special vendors around Outland that sell gear that you can purchase only with Badges of Justice. These badges of justice are obtained via very few ways: Raid dungeon bosses drop these badges. You can also get them from some high difficulty level dailies. If you happen to be really really lucky, they occasionally (rarely) pop up in Shattered Sun Supplies daily rewards. The gear you can purchase in this manner is also quite rock'n!
Now go get 'em, Cowboy! (Cowgirl!) (or Cow! that is if you have a Tauren toon...) |
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