This’ll be my second cross post on Big Hit Box.  So be sure to check out their site as well, they got’s a good thing going!  I used to say I wouldn’t want to be part of any club that would have me as a member, but that turned out to be a lonely proposition.  Now on with the post!

Before I get to the juice, I’ll give a minor update about my guild situation.  I’m still flying solo, and it’s actually quite refreshing.  I’m still able to raid with the same people I was raiding with before.  Also, I was doing a ton of PUGing before, so this is really no different.  My friends list is really growing, too!  Heck, my first run post guild netted me my stupid epic legs from UK.  FINALLY!

Come Geared, or Don’t Come at All

In my estimation, the Warrior is the most gear dependent class in all of World of Warcraft.  (It’s one of the reasons I rated them at the bottom in my old Casual Class post!)  It doesn’t matter what spec you’re talking about either – Arms, Prot and Fury Warriors all rely on good gear to perform.  The good thing about that is that Warriors also SCALE better with gear than most other classes.  With my Druid, for instance, 20 points in spellpower or spirit here or there didn’t mean all that much, not so with the Warrior. 

There are many gear lists out there for Fury warriors, you can use Wowhead, Elitist Jerks, Tankspot, even the armory.  But if you’re fresh to level 80, and want to hit the ground running with your Fury Warrior, this is the guide for you.  No, it’s not about best in slot, it’s about the quickest route to competency.

You’ll notice a lot of Blacksmithing and other crafted stuff.  Blizzard made things a lot easier on us by making so many good recipes BoE, and largely did away with the old style BoP stuff.  It might be a good idea to take up Blacksmithing if you haven’t already, your extra gem slots will thank me later. 

Lastly, before we get going, remember to think about your overall gear picture as you’re making choices from the below.  You want a MINIMUM of 164 hit, which will make it so your specials (yellow damage) ALWAYS land.  Beyond 164 hit, I concentrated on Strength and AP personally, though there are those that would argue for stacking crit or expertise.  I’m no theorycrafter though, so ask someone else for the cookie cutter way to gear up. 

I’ll go slot by slot, starting at the top.

Head

This is one of those easy, cheesy slam dunk slots.  Blacksmiths make the Spiked Titansteel Helm, which will last you for a LONG time.  Nice bonuses to strength, hit and crit along with a meta and blue gem slot.  Money.  You really can’t do much better for a Fury warrior.  I’ve passed on 25 man drops to hold onto this – it’s that good.  Some day they’ll pry it off my cold, dead head (ewwww).  Have the mats ready at 80, trust me.  Oh, and if you don’t know already, go with the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond for your meta, and you may as well put a blue in that slot for the meta gem requirements.

Neck

You can easily go with more crafted goodness here with the Titanium Impact Choker, but I’ve never really been "sold" on this particular piece.  I like the socket, for sure, and the AP and Agil are nice, but not game changing.  I didn’t personally want to invest the mats in this, and used something easier to get – the Choker of Betrayal from a quest in Zul’Drak- until I got the badge neck. 

Shoulders

The head slot is easy, the shoulders slot just plain stinks.  It’s always been a tough slot to fill, and it was the same with my druid.  Do the guys at Blizz just not like shoulders, or what?  Anyhow, the easiest fill are probably the Savage Saronite Pauldrons, also from your local Blacksmith.  The resilience is essentially useless, but the strength and crit are decent.  They’ll do.  (Another option is the Mantle of Volkhan, if you turn out to need the hit.)

Cloak

Kind of a meh slot all around.  There are a lot of easy to obtain options, but none of them are particularly suited to a Fury Warrior.  But since I’m trying to make this easy, you could either go with the epic crafted Ice Striker’s Cloak, or go with the quest reward Cloak of the Buzzing Swarm.  Unless you’re awash in frozen orbs and primals, go with the quest reward to tide you over until you can pick something up down the line.  Maybe work on Argent Crusade rep at some point for the Cloak of Holy Extermination. 

Chest

This is one of the tougher slots to fill.  There are many, many good options as you start farming 80 instances and heroics, but before that things are a bit on the sparse side.  One option is the Battleplate of Unheard Ovation, a quest reward from Icecrown.  The strength is nice, and expertise is an important stat for a Fury Warrior.  This would tide you over at the beginning, and you should be questing in Icecrown to open up the Ebon Hold faction and dailies anyhow.

Wrist

Easy again.  Vengeance Bindings, no doubt.  Easy to make, weighted nicely for a Fury, and there’s not a whole lot else out there.  Heck, I’m still wearing these while I save for the badge bracers.  Find your local blacksmith.  Again.  Or maybe just take up Blacksmithing yourself, extra gem slots are awfully juicy!

Hands

Another kind of crap choice here in Spiked Cobalt Gauntlets, but at least they’re easy to get.  You can live with a green or two for now.    You could also try to get in a regular Strat group ASAP and pick up the Handwraps of Preserved History, though I may actually lean towards the crafted green in this head to head.  More AP and a little hit to help you along.

Belt

Surprise surprise, we need another blacksmith.  And hence we return for the Spiked Cobalt Belt.  But, if you did get yourself in a regular Strat group for those hands, maybe you’ll get lucky and the Spiked Metal Cilice drops.  Then you can make all kinds of Da Vinci Code jokes if you want to. 

Legs

If a top end guild owes you money, get them to take you on a 2 Drake OS10 for Belabored Legplates.  Otherwise, throw a few cobalt bars at a blacksmith and get Spiked Cobalt Legplates in return.  Oh, and I know what you’re saying about all this green cobalt stuff.  "Where’s the stamina?"  It’s really not all that important, really.  You go down like a cloth wearer if you get aggro from a raid boss anyway!

Boots

Spiked Titansteel Treads will work just fine, and the mats aren’t that bad.  They don’t excite me like the helm does, however, as they are pretty easily replaced when you hit exalted with Ebon Hold.  Boots of Dominance, another quest reward, will work if you want to save your titansteel bars.

Rings

There are so many options here, i won’t bother.  Though I guess picking up the Ring of Scarlet Shadows wouldn’t hurt.  Hit, Crit, AP and a slot.  You could even use this piece for that other blue gem to activate your meta.

Trinket

My first advice for the trinket slot is this:  spend your first 40 badges on the Mirror of Truth.  The trinket slot is quite hard to fill, and that trinket is so good that it’s worth it.  Before that, pick up the Crusader’s Locket from a quest, along with the First Mate’s Pocketwatch.  Underwhelming, I know…hence the Mirror.

Ranged

Hemet’s Trophy Gun is easy enough.  And it looks pretty cool.  I mean come on, it’s made out of some monster’s FACE!  I wouldn’t lose much sleep over this slot in any case.

Weapons

Weapons, weapons, weapons.  Our bread and butter.  I always love to upgrade my big bad 2 handers, the bigger and glowier the better.  It’s not easy to get 2 good ones, though.  For starters, make sure you do the "new" Ring of Blood event in Zul’Drak, as the De-Raged Waraxe is excellent to start out.  This is also an area where a good rep grind will pay off big time.  I didn’t do it this way the first time, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d start grinding Ebon Blade right away so I could pick up one or two Runeblades of Demonstrable Power.  And not just cause they have a long name.  I was using one of these in my off-hand until just last week.  And all you have to do is wear a stupid tabard and do some dailies.  Working on that is also a good idea for the above-mentioned boots.  You could also choose to do Argent Crusade rep first, as the Argent Skeleton Crusher is nice too.  The sword is just better.    An important thing to note about the Runeblade and Crusher is that neither are "unique equipped," so you can use one in each hand!  I really like how 2 Crushers look. 

If you want to jump right into epic weaponry, get a whole crapload of cash and/or titansteel bars and get the Titansteel Destroyer.  It will serve you well, though it is a little unremarkable for me as far as looks.  I like huge, pointy weapons with rotating crap and glowy effects.  The Destroyer looks like it was the leg off some crap throne somewhere.  Meh.  All that strength and a bunch of hit to boot?  PTD likes. 

This is by no means the "ultimate" list.  I have no illusions of some secret code of gear, and I’m sure I’ve left off some good options and posted some stupid ones.  It’s the nature of the beast.  So if you have a suggestion about something, throw it in the comments, I’d love to hear it.  If you follow this guide, you’ll be well on your way to a decent starter set, and can start grinding heroics for the "important" stuff.  Some day you too will be doing 5k+ DPS on Loatheb! 

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

                                                     – W. H. Auden

 

PTD is sad, there can be no doubt.  From time to time I’ve spoken about minor issues I have had with my guild.  The fact is that my schedule doesn’t align very well with the rest of them.  I can’t blame anyone for that, it’s just how things are.  I’ve toyed with leaving before, and even transferred over to Draenor at one point to join another blogger. 

I toyed with it, and Friday night I typed in the most difficult of commands:

/gquit

I didn’t come to the decision easily.  I’ve been with the same group since before WoW was even released.  I hooked up with them while playing Horizons, and they are a great group of people.  Things have changed with the guild though, over time.  It’s a different group of people from when I started.  There are quite a few old timers, but we have a lot of new folks as well. 

I’m going to tell you all now what it was that pushed me over the edge.  I won’t name any names, and if anyone from my now former guild reads this, please do not take offense.  The act of blogging, the act of sharing, can be cathartic.  I need a little bit of that right now.

The /gquit Story

My guild is running 25 mans in house regularly since the release of Wrath.  Earlier I mentioned my scheduling conflicts, and they come into play here.  I just can’t raid when they do.  I’ve never been able to.  Quite a few people in the guild think that is the primary reason I left.  I’m here to set the record straight, it actually has very little to do with my decision to move on.  It is related, but not a cause.

Remember that I’ve really NEVER been able to raid with my guild.  This is nothing new for me, and I learned to live with that fact long, long ago.  It’s the reason that I find my raiding outlet outside the guild, and I’ve always been happy to have said outlet.  To be sure, I would LOVE to raid with my guild, but it just isn’t in the cards.

This does cause other problems behind the scenes, however.  Because I don’t raid with the guild, there are many players that are relatively new that I’ve never really played with.  They don’t know me from Adam, and they really have no idea if I’m any "good" or not.  Because of that, they aren’t going to be apt to invite me to fill a heroic group, or a PUG raid or whatnot.  Honestly I don’t really blame them, there are some horrible players out there.

So recently our raid leaders put all 10 man content to "open" status.  That means anyone can schedule and run a raid whenever they want to.  I had been waiting for this, because in BC I organized my own Kara runs under this rule, and they were quite successful.  I hoped to start doing that again with Naxx.  So last week I made a post on the boards to try to set up a run for Friday night. 

Nobody signed up.  I only got 2 replies to my post at all. One person said they would help out if they happened to be around, and the other saying they couldn’t make it.  That was ok though, I figured I’d just try to whip one up that night.

So Friday night I log on, and right away ask in guild if anyone would be interested in running Naxx 10.  I got no response.  A few minutes later, I asked again.  One of the late night guild tanks I often ran with told me to message another guildy, he though he might be putting something together. 

So I messaged said guildy directly, and I got no response.  If he missed my PM or just didn’t have time to respond, I have no idea.  So I asked in guild one last time, and when I again got no response, I headed off to the AH to mess around for a few.

About 15 minutes later, I was trying to put together a heroic group instead, and asked the tank from earlier if he wanted to tank it.  He said he couldn’t as he was just about to run Naxx with some guildies. 

"Huh???" 

I didn’t see anything in guild chat about a Naxx run starting, and I was frankly a bit shocked.  Lo and behold, I look at the roster and see 10 guildies gathering in and around Dragonblight.  At this point, I’m already steamed.  I rarely have time to raid, I tried to schedule something for this exact time, and even asked in guild chat if anything was happening, and from my perspective, I was completely ignored.  From what I could tell, it was a run set up through PM, with someone picking and choosing who to invite.

Then, the kicker.  This is the bit that really pushed me over the edge.  I looked at the guys who were in Naxx, and notice no less than 3 of them were running alts through.  Frigging ALTS. 

/cue smoke coming out of my ears

I know they have every right to have their fun, they have every right to bring their alts to Naxx, especially with the new "open" policy on 10 mans, but it still hurt.  I’ve been in Naxx a total of 3 times, and I’ve never finished it.  With any character.  I thought I could at least do that with people from the guild, and I thought I did quite a bit to try to make it happen, only to see myself left out. 

And I found myself sitting at my desk, with my head in my hands, frustrated, frustrated, frustrated.  I realized that it’s a position I had been in recently, for not dissimilar reasons.  It was time — this is a game, after all.

/gquit

Homelessness

And that’s how PTD found himself adrift in the World of Warcraft.  No place to rest my head, no guild to call home.  And, at least for now, that’s where I’ll stay.  I really don’t know where I will go next, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.  I do have options.

I could go back.  I’m pretty sure I made my exit amicable enough that they would take me back.  And my old guild (and I’m going to have to remember that part…maybe I should call it my ex-guild, in a way it feels like a break-up) is nothing if not forgiving and mature.

I also already know of another guild that would take me on if I should ask.  I know a few of their members, and it’s certainly being considered.  I guess in some ways it seems hard to try to start over again.  (There we go again with the break-up analogies.)  So I don’t know.

I could also just test the waters and see what’s out there.  I could start running PUGs until my eyes bleed, and see if I find any good folks.  I’m sure that if I PUG without a guild tag and show what I can do, I could catch on elsewhere.

I suppose I could go as far as to look into other servers again.  But I really couldn’t see myself spending the minimum of 100 bucks I’d want to spend to get four characters to a new server.  (80 Warrior, 80 Druid, 72 Hunter [w/ my only epic flyer], and 68 Priest [high level enchanter])

Right now I’m just not really sure what I would want.  So I guess I’ll drift for a bit, and see what happens. 

And with that in mind…

Warhammer Online

Have no fear, I am not quitting WoW.    But they do have a free trial right now, so I went ahead and loaded it up.  I’ll admit that I am having fun with it for the time being.  I seriously, seriously doubt I would leave WoW for it, but it is fun.  The PvP is pretty fun, at least.  The normal questing and mob killing PvE aspect is a little lacking, but the Public Quests are a lot of fun.  It sure is a feature I’d like to see Blizzard steal, that’s for sure!

I even went ahead and picked up the full game, but only because I got it at a local Circuit City (RIP Circuit City) for 10 bucks.  Yeah, that’s right, 10 bucks.  Ahh, to profit from other’s misery.  Though I feel no real shame, it being a corporate behemoth’s misery I am profiting from. 

Anyhow, I won’t really get into it here about WAR.  I am having fun, the RvR is pretty well done, the Public Quests are awesome, and it makes for a good diversion while I try to sort my WoW life. 

So that’s it.  Change is in the air, and I’m not yet sure if that’s good or bad.  Have any of you dealt with a similar situation?  How did you deal with it and move on?

Now, you might think this is odd, as I think it’s obvious that I’ve been a pretty big Wrath fanboy.  Still, as time goes by, and I see more and more of the content, and reach many more individual goals, I’ve come across a few big changes that bother me.  I love what Blizzard did overall with this expansion, I’m having a blast and still playing as much as I can, but it isn’t perfect.  Perhaps it’s the curmudgeon in me, but there are a few things that are just plain sticking in my craw.  Let’s take a look!

1)  The Death of CC

Somewhere along the way, CC died.  I didn’t even really notice it for awhile, I just figured we were flat out bludgeoning the content.  I recall it often got like this when we seriously outgeared certain instances, and I didn’t realize how serious the problem was anymore.

Nobody CCs anymore, not anywhere.  I can’t think of a single encounter where a group I was in had to bother marking targets for sheeping or frost traps or anything.  Heck, people laughed when I first began my forays into tanking, and asked for CC from mages or hunters.  It seems every tank has a way to hold several mobs without really breaking a sweat.  And the DPS is so through the roof, even for players in crap gear, that CC isn’t even necessary anymore.  And I’m not just talking about in heroics, I mean in any situation.  Not even Naxx requires anything other than a little Mind Control for a single boss fight. 

Remember that nasty old 6 pull towards the end of Magisters’ Terrace?  And how with the right CC you made strategic, quick work of it?  I do.  I remember what a bastard of a pull it was without any CC.  Frantic, edge of your seat, let’s hope we get through this alive type excitement.  Well, nowadays I guess all we’d need is a Warrior’s TC to grab everyone, eh? 

What happened?  I remember that one Druid change I was quite excited about was the fact that they were going to allow roots to be used indoors.  Wow, I thought, I could actually contribute to CC in a pinch.

Boy was I wrong.  Bye bye CC, it seems we left you somewhere in Magisters’ Terrace.

2)  No Rare Patterns

Here’s another one.  Tradeskill recipes.  Remember when people used to grind for rare drop enchanting recipes, and then were able to make a nice profit off them for quite some time?  Well, those days are long gone, too.  Is it just me, or is everything too easy to get now?  Sure, you have your patterns only available at exalted rep, or the couple tailoring patterns tied to achievements, but that’s not all that difficult.  It’s just a matter of time. 

In the end, though so many good patterns are BoE, pretty much everyone can make them.  The AH, for even good epics, is a pure undercut fest.  Unless, of course, you have a Nobles card to sell.  There’s no profit!  Boo!

It seems maybe I’d be better off going to straight mat farming to make money.  But of course I’ve always been terrible at making money.  I’ve played since beta and only have one stinking epic flyer, and even that seemed to take forever.

PTD is just too dang spendy. 

3)  OP DKs are Everywhere

And they embarrass me with their easy cheesy DPS.  DKs are the locks of Wrath, crazy DPS with crap gear.  Insane DPS with great gear.  To top it all off, they’re competing directly with my for my tasty DPS plate drops.  Doh!  Yes, yes, I know they are fairly complex to play, but I’ve  yet to see one doing under 2k DPS, and most I’ve seen are closer to 3k if not well over.  Hell, even as tanks they put a sizable dent in the DPS meters, it can be disheartening! 

And I thought for sure they would have gotten a sizable nerf by now, but I don’t see it yet.  My new precious TG warrior is getting a nerf, and DKs everywhere are now laughing at me.

In that ultra-cool evil sounding maniacal laugh.  It just ain’t fair!

4)  PUGing Heroics is Now an Option

I mean, it used to be an option before, but now it’s almost too easy.  The only PUG heroic I’ve seen fail is in one instance:  Azjol Nerub.  Every other PUG  heroic I’ve been in, and I’ve been in a lot, has blasted whatever heroic we chose to tangle with. 

I NEVER used to PUG heroics.  Never.

Now I have no real fear of doing so, and the curmudgeon in my doesn’t like it.  "In my day you NEVER PUGed heroics, and you used CC too!"

Really though, all these complaints are fairly minor, and not really complaints at all.  The fact is that WoW has changed, just as it did when BC was released.  It’s just that this time everything became easier.  It makes me glad I’m not a hardcore player, as I’m sure I’d be incredibly bored by now.  I do hope that Ulduar is a solid upgrade in difficulty, though.

I still find myself logging in at any opportunity, and enjoying my time running Naxx or Heroics or whatever.  Whether they are "easier" or not, I’m having a good time.  Hell, I even busted out the Druid the other night to heal a 10 man Naxx run, and I found that I’ve still got it.  I intend to keep him dusted off, too, and will continue to pull him out whenever I  hear the cry for a healer. 

So, now that the honeymoon is over, what do you think about Wrath?