If you’ve been adventuring in Outland and Northrend you’re not getting the full rep rewards for Stormwind. Outland rep for Alliance is mostly Honor Hold (and sometimes neutral reps like the Shattrath rep group and Area 52). Northrend rep for Alliance is mostly Alliance Vanguard (and a BUNCH of neutral reps).
Doing quests for either of those two might give you a very little Stormwind or general Alliance rep, but they’re not going to give you big several hundred point gains.
Scratch that as it was my mistake Quas. My toon already had her artisan flight when Lich King came out so I just assumed you had to have it to get the cold weather.
You have to have EXPERT riding to be eligible for cold weather. Artisan is just a luxury if you can afford it.
Yeah, definitely take off some FrR gear, especially on casters/healers as the only Frost damage they’ll be taking is from the aura. The DPS requirements should be reached if you do that. As for melee/tanks, some FrR can be helpful. 128 FrR gives you a minimum resist of 10%, 219 is 20% and 340 is 30%. We used one piece on each of the melee and they were close to 219, which was fine.
As for healers handling Frost Tomb/UM, we broke out any healer that was tombed immediately. There just isn’t really a way to heal the raid and tanks with 1 healer in that phase. If you’re all grouping up to drop Mystic Buffet stacks, then your Resto Shaman should be in good position to heal the raid with Chain Heal, and shields from the Disc Priest are obviously amazing. So, you have the right set up, just never let a healer solo heal for long, and you should be solid. Good luck, and let me know how it goes!
Also, thanks for the tip on the add-on. I will definitely check it out.
SFG gave a good kill order. Really, HoR is a serious gear check. The DPS need to be able to take down targets fast enough, the tank needs to grab aggro fast and hold it, and the healer needs some solid regen with minimal drinking. I recently got it as my daily random on my resto druid, and had to heal a 28k HP tank through it. I saw it as challenge, so stuck with it, but if I was in a different mood, there would be no way I would stick around with that. Really, a well-rounded group is necessary to get through that instance intact. As for druids, always give them Kings. The regen we get via the 10% Spirit and Intellect outweighs Wisdom when there is Replenishment in the group (which, as a Ret Paladin, you obviously provide) and the druid’s gear is sufficient (which is around Naxxramas level gear). Good luck on your next run!
Quick update from me: Finally got our Reins of the Bloodbathed Froostbrood Vanquisher tonight! Our last achievement needed was Been Waiting a Long Time For This, which we thought we had done last week, but we were reading the wrong numbers (the stacks on Lich King don’t matter, it’s the actual stack of the plague that matters; also, it has to hit 30, it cannot jump from 29 to 31, or else it will not count). Here’s a SS: http://imgur.com/hRXs6.jpg
It’s hard to tell, but the two who didn’t get the achievements, due to missing out on some of the previous ones necessary for the meta are crying. I am the druid in the hideous dress (BiS robes, sigh). Now on to Heroic Lich King!
If your DPS isn’t enough, you can in fact not go out of combat between waves. I ran into that this weekend when my husband and I told the guild “hey, we’ll heal and tank, who wants to random with us?” Turns out the answer included two subpar kitty druids, one of whom even had open gem slots and unenchanted gear. And, of course the first dungeon we got randomed into was H HoR. I saw the loading screen and literally started yelling obscenities, because I hate healing that place with an excellent group, and we didn’t have that. We didn’t have time between waves for me to drink, after the first wave or so, and we didn’t even have enough DPS to finish the Lich King gauntlet at the end - we were backed against the far wall with 3-4 elites up. We salvaged it by getting into a couple of much lower-end heroics and getting our emblems that way.
The gear is not really the reason to be a blacksmith, but instead the bonus of extra sockets in your gloves and bracers. Every profession has some bonus like that, though some are better than others. Alchemy gets better use out of flasks/elixirs/potions, Enchanting gets enchants to rings, Leatherworking gets much better bracer enchants, Tailoring gets better cloak enchants, and Inscription gets better shoulder enchants. Mining gives a stamina boost, Skinning gives increased critical strike rating and Herbalism gets a healing ability.
What are sockets anyway? I mean I think I get the concept, but at what level do they comein? Does all kit have sockets and I just haven’t noticed? My highest char is only lvl 51 if that is at all relevant.
I’m on that quest chain. The 1st thing was to kill some Hel boars, which I was doing when I got too close to one of tehse guys. Wasn’t nuch of a bother for all of being 6 levels hisgher than me, just couldn’t finish it off entirely.
Sockets were introduced in The Burning Crusade expansion along with the profession Jewelcrafting. You won’t see it on gear until you reach the Outland (58 at the earliest). You slot gems that are attached to colors, and there are colors of sockets as well (though some are prismatic and fit all colors). Any color gem can be placed in any socket, but you get some bonuses for matching socket colors and gems (though usually they are not worth it). There are also meta gems, which can only be placed in meta sockets that are in certain helms. Certain stats are attached to certain colors, and there are also hybrid colors:
Red - Strength, Agility, Spellpower, Expertise, Dodge, Attack Power
Yellow - Intellect, Haste, Hit, Defense
Blue - Stamina, Spirit, Spell Penetration
Orange (Red/Yellow), Green (Yellow/Blue) and Purple (Red/Blue) will count as either color for sockets and both for your meta activation (meta gems require a certain number of particular colors of gems to be in your gear before they will become active).
JCs are pretty much the only source of lower level gems. But, since uncommon Northrend gems are super cheap now, you can buy some off the AH for a couple gold (or less) a piece. Basically, any gear you get with sockets will be better than that without because you can place level 70+ gems in them right away.
Looking at that list (updated with a couple you left off), it strikes me that it really is only melee DPS (and hunters) who get totally screwed on one color of gems (blue). Weird. I wonder why blizzard didn’t swap attack power or armor penetration to blue.
Also, there’s a vendor in the first home base in Outland (Thrallmar or (I presume) Honor Hold) who sells gems that you can slot, but you’ll do much better buying off of the AH.
Wanderers, I can’t remember if you’re in our guild, but we also have a couple of jewelcrafters who can cut gems from you for even cheaper than the AH. Most uncut gems can be purchased more cheaply than the cut ones.