Flux

Want to raid? Collect Badges of Justice.

The new ‘best’ items in the game for PvE are in Soulwell and they are a little better than Tier 6, we’ll call them Tier 6.5. Getting to them is difficult unless you are in a raiding guild that is entering Soulwell. For those of you going in Hyjal Summit, Black Temple, or even Karazhan, Blizzard has made it easier than ever. All you need is more badges to get geared up. With those badges you can buy items that are better than Tier 5 and almost as good as Tier 6. In some specific cases they are even better than Tier 6. And the badges to get it all, are now more common than ever.

Let’s look at what you need to do to get there.

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If you have been collecting heroic badges and shopping at G’eras for epic gear, you may have noticed the Inferno items and asked yourself. Do I really need that much fire resistance? Ever?

Unless you are a tank, warlock, or melee damage then the answer is no. Otherwise, the answer is yes. Eventually.

There are three Burning Crusades boss fights that require fire resistance. Leothras the Blind in Serpentshrine Caverns, Azgalor in Mount Hyjal and Illidan in the Black Temple.

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Some items in the game are remarkable in that they are either insanely useful or very powerful. Let’s take a look at one.

Everlasting Underspore Frond

Profile: Continuously free mana and health regeneration food
Where: Underbog, behind Hungarfen
How: Quest Oh, It’s On!
Loot: Everlasting Underspore Frond gives Underspore Pod

Having trouble finding Mana Biscuits or just tired of the taste? Get your own Everlasting Gobstopper^w Underspore Frond and try Underspore Pod’s. Sometimes tasty and always free.

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Often there is a choice of which item to upgrade first. For example, do you get the most out of updating your head slot item or your shoulder item? At first, this will be fairly easy to answer. You just upgrade the one that is the worst quality. For example, get rid of your greens for blues and then purples. And secondly upgrade your item level.

We have talked about gearing up, quality and item levels previously.

But as all your items start to become the same quality and roughly the same level this becomes harder to decide. A third way to help you decide is to know how Blizzard spends points on itemization.

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Some items in the game are remarkable in that they are either insanely useful or very powerful. Let’s take a look at one.

Goblin Jumper Cables XL / Goblin Jumper Cables

Profile: Jump start your wipe, a chance to ress when everyone else is dead.
Where: Schematics drops from Plugger Spazzring in Blackrock Depths / various vendors.
How: Crafted by Goblin Engineer / Engineer
Loot: Cables XL / Cables

This item and it’s younger brother are must haves if you’re Hunter, Rogue, or Mage that has Engineering. It gives you a chance at resurrecting a party member out of combat. Why is this useful? Recovering from party wipes.

As a Hunter, Rogue, or Mage you are one of only four classes in the game that can escape combat. The other is a Paladin with Divine Intervention, but they can already resurrect your party if they survive. With these cables, if your party is about to wipe you can Feign Death, Vanish, or cast Invisibility to escape combat. You then wait for everyone to die and for the creatures to run back. And viola, resurrect a party member that can resurrect everyone else. It saves time, repair bills, and in instances it gives you more shots at the next boss before the repops.

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Some items in the game are remarkable in that they are either insanely useful or very powerful. Let’s take a look at one.

Medallion of the Alliance / Horde

Profile: Stop being crowd controlled, it’s not just for PvP.
Where: honor reward
How: Get ready to run some battlegrounds
Loot: Medallion and it’s younger brother Insignia

Both this trinket and it’s younger brother the Insignia of the Alliance / Horde have undergone a few changes over their lifetime. There is a version for each class in the game that used to do different things, but since patch 2.1.3 they all have the same effect. The remove slow and crowd control effects cast on your by other players and often by creatures. This turns out to be insanely useful in PvP and surprisingly useful in many creature encounters as well.

Those who have been doing PvP since before The Burning Crusades usually picked up the Insignia and even continued to use it in the expansion after they hit level 70. But for some reason, and I did this too, a lot of us glanced at the Medallion and thought, meh it’s not much of an upgrade. We saw the 50 resilience and the, if we didn’t miss it, the reduced cooldown. It seemed to cost too many honor points so we happily went off and spent the points elsewhere.

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If you have been playing WoW for awhile you have probably hit the wall, level 70, the end game. The game may have seemed to come to a grinding halt, or slowed down to a crawl. But some of the most exciting content the game has to offer is ahead, it’s just harder to get to. So how do you continue to improve your character and get in those raids to see it?

It’s all about gear. And not grinding the fun out of it.

Knowing where and how to get better gear are the first steps. So let’s take a look at advanced gear, after level 61, and the two most important questions. When is new gear better and where do I find it? For those who know their gear needs well, check out the summary table below showing where to get gear based on item level.

How can I tell if an item is better?

Deciding which item is best for you depends on specifics including your role in the group. But there are two general measures you can look at. It’s what most people use at a glance, Quality and Level.

Quality is the color; grey, white, green, blue, purple, and orange. Generally the colors on the right are better than the ones on the left and it’s our first general rule. For advanced gear, the lowest purple is better than the best blue. Other players often inspect your character in the game or the armory and glance at the color, ‘counting the purples’, to see if you are able to join them. It’s an easy guide to what you can and can’t do.

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