5461

Wut? 8 days of grinding for a weapon when you can (potentially) get one in your very first heroic?

All my TB badges are going to mounts. Mounts and pets. The only thing with any permanence in this game.

5462

Yes, or (potentially) get unlucky with weapon drops in heroics. Most people worried about 346 weapons will be doing TB dailies for the epic trinkets anyway.

5463

A) I don’t understand where folks are getting the “8 days” figure. I get 6-7 badges per day since we never own the central portion of TB as alliance. Weapons are 85 badges. Am I missing a hidden source of an additional 6-7 badges per day, or are people just considering that they always have TB so always get the interior quests as well?

B) Are there any enhancement shaman worthy weapons in the dungeons, period? I’m at like ilvl 344 on my shaman and the closest I’ve come is a semi-crappy strength axe that dropped in VP. My druid hadn’t seen a single feral worthy 2Her drop in a heroic or a normal until after he had the badges from TB.

5464

Fist weapon from err whatever the giant worm is called. Offhand from justice points (cheap, too). There’s a few maces and things too, and the rolling pin being 2.8 speed makes it a monstrous offhand.

We also have it easy because we can get good ilvl 333 fist weapons off the AH at a low cost.

Now, if we were to talk about how the raid weapons only drop from end bosses or the tiny amount of trash in BWD, well…

5465

You missed a spear in H Tol’Vir. In the end, the TB weapon, the PvP or the Blacksmithing polearms are still better than anything you’ll get in a dungeon.

5466

There are three decent ones from heroics and the BS crafted one is excellent The TB one isn’t really good enough to worry about getting enough tokens for unless your luck is just really terrible.

5467

And this is the offhand from justice points.

5468

It’s all about the ilevel. The feral druid weapons from TB, Blacksmithing, or heroic dungeons are all nearly identical in overall power. PVP weapons are certainly better, with their higher ilevel; one of the many ways where ferals almost need to do PVP, just to get PVE gear…

5469

Your 85’s were ready for heroics on the day they hit 85? Mine were not, and it’s a good way to add to ilevel while you are waiting through 45-min LFD queues.

5470

Yeah, Tol Barad changes hands more often than that on my server. With a little effort, I can ususally catch it when horde has won and get the 6 that are only available when your faction controls.

5471

Most 85s can do Heroics after maybe one day of finishing a few rep milestones and picking up a few BoEs.

It’ll be harder for tanks and healers, sure, but it’s possible.

5472

Heh… I’ve done stonecore like 25 times or more (heroic + normal combined) across 3 characters and I’ve seen the fist drop once in normal mode only (and of course it wasn’t my shaman who was there at the time). I’ve never seen the others drop in either normal or heroic mode. I’m just lucky that way.

Of course, my ilvl 346 bear is currently still rocking green, ilvl 318 bracers because I haven’t seen feral drops in either normal or heroic modes to replace them yet, and so far as I can tell there’s no point option of any type nor is there a suitable crafted option. (There may be valor point options, but that’s rather slow to accumulate since we’re not raiding yet in my guild. Maybe this week will be the week when all 10 of us are on for our raid night!)

5473

Epic belts and chests are readily available on my server in the 4k-8k range. 339 pvp gear can be used in a pinch, but its very hit or miss as to whether your class’ gear is affordable (compare prices on hunter Dragonscale gear with cloth caster gear, huge difference). But buying 333 BoEs will not change a sub-329 ilevel that much. For that, you need enough 346 gear to balance lower pieces.

But…346 rep gear is only available from rep vendors at revered. If your guild has rep perks, this can be a bit more manageable, but groups like Hyjal, Ramkahen, and Earthen Ring have to be ground up with tabards after their quests are exhausted. Dragonmaw and Therazane at least have dailies, but they have to be unlocked through questing that you may or may not have done.

And the catch-22 is that if you don’t have access to heroics to grind rep, you are limited to only 3 regular dungeons with long wait times, and no random LFD bonus JP. It was pretty frustrating to get 4 85s geared without spending over 100k for raid BoEs. I hear things have been tweaked, but my gearing hit a nasty little dead spot around ilevel 326, and eking out those last few was a pain.

5474

It really depends a lot on how much questing you did. I’ve got three 85s at the moment and while they weren’t heroic-ready as quickly as Aaron’s suggesting, it didn’t take long at all. If you did all of Hyjal and Vash, you should be pretty close to revered with both of their factions. Doing all of Twilight Highlands will give you several ilvl 333 pieces from quests. I really pushed my shaman to get raid ready as quickly as possible, but I was able to get my warrior and DK to heroic level within a week or two of casual play after hitting 85.

5475

I farmed tons of materials to deck my 6 85s in craftable epics…then promptly quit the game as I burned myself out from farming too much and maxing out 6 toons.

5476

I am not bloody surprised!

5477

Yeah. I’m about as casual as it gets, and I really didn’t have a problem (or a long pause after reaching 85) in making the jump to heroics. You get pretty well decked out in 333 gear just from quests to get to 85, plus running a few ordinary instances. Throw in a Justice Points purchase or so and you’re good to go (or at least my priest was).

I’m having a much harder time getting all my 346+ gear, just because it is much harder to PUG heroics than it is ordinary 85 dungeons.

5478

Seliza’s Spear is substantially superior to the Spear of Trailing Shadows, at least for bears. Haste and hit are pointless–and hit isn’t even good for cats–whereas mastery and crit are wonderful.

5479

I was able to get into Heroics well before I was actually ready to make the jump :) Now that I’ve slapped on a few rep rewards and the like, I’m sitting quite pretty in them even though I lack trinkets/wand.

Now my only issue is scheduling the 2-3 hours I need to run one! (30-45min dps queue, then 1.5-2hrs to actually run it…)

Oh how I wish we could queue a toon while playing another.

5480

I was rocking my green bracers till I got replacements from Chimaeron.

It was rather sadfacery.