Secret Ways : Character Building

Continuing the series 'Be Prepared for Wrath of the Lich King', this time on Badges of Justice you have lying around.

In Wrath of the Lich King, there will be new "badges": Emblem of Heroism, similar to Badges of Justice, but for level 80. Badges of Justice will continue dropping in level 70 heroics and raids, but you can only use them to level 70 items.

If you have plenty of Badges lying around, you might want to make use of them now - or actually not lying around anymore, as they are in your Character windows Currency tab, but anyway.

More and less you have two options:

1) Use Badges of Justice to optimize your gear for leveling, that starts after a week from now, by buying items that will help you do more damage, and thus, level more quickly.

* use lootrank.com to evaluate which items you could possibly buy. You don't have to do theorycrafting yourself, as you can take advantage of the templates dwarfpriest has gracefully submitted to lootrank.com for all of us.

2) Use Badges of Justice to buy uncut Epic Gems, 15 badges a shot. You can use the gems yourself to help the early leveling, or you can sell'em as they're not bind in anyway to you:

* Cut the gems yourself, or find Jewelcrafter to cut them for you, and socket the gems to your current gear to boost damage.

* Sell the gems! Prices are going down fast, but you still might fetch several hundreds of gold if you're quick. Check the Auction House for the prices, and decide if it's better to sell the raw gems or the cut ones.

I'm going for a combination of these, I'll be buying couple of items I can use, which will even out my shadowpriest gear in different slots, and the rest of the badges I'll be putting on gems, which I will sell. If it happens that I can't sell'em during this week for reasonably good price, I'll get'em cut for +Spellpower & possibly +Hit gems and use them then.

One more tip: It's only a week to go until expansion is live, so make a use of it and empty your bags and bank from unneeded trash and sell'em at Auction House. After doing that you might want to empty your quest log (by doing the quests preferrably, not just abandoning them) to have a fresh start with the quests from the expansion.

If you're in a guild, or even responsible for the guild bank, you might have a lot of work to do when emptying the guild bank and selling the items, but it pays off with more room in bank for the new mats and items, and of course, some much needed gold for the guild.

That's all for now. See you in Northrend.

I think everyone reads WoW Insider, but I still pinpoint their post today about New Patch 2.4 Badge of Justice Gear. They previously posted about the badge prices of the new gear and now they continue on the subject.

Of course the original source is the good'ol mmo-champion where patch 2.4 PTR news have been covered almost live. So that's the real place to go and check the new Sunwell badge loot.

The new healing cloth items have so much spirit one might get drunk just by looking at them, just look at this chest piece. I know that these are still in PTR, and prices/stats can change or they might even cancel the whole thing (unlikely thou), but I just wanted to say: mmm, Pants!

Now excuse me, I gotta go back and get some more Badges of Justice. You should too.

Why no-one told me that you can go left in Mechanar, and you don't have to go right?

I bumped into Eternalone's post in WoW EU Forums: Heroic Mechanar: TEH way to do it

Unless you're doing a rep run, you most likely want to go through Mechanar as fast as possible (e.g. the Heroic Daily) - if so, read on.

To summarize the way to do Mechanar the fastest, I quote original poster from the thread at forums:

I always considered that the fastest way to clear mech is to go left, pull the mini boss, go down the stairs, clear up until the first boss, pull the second mini boss straight after him

Malleus goes a bit further in the thread, and offers the reasoning behind "left is right, right is wrong" in Mechanar, by analyzing why the left side is faster, but the quote above summarizes it.

I don't think I'll go right (in Mechanar) ever again :)

Gearing through badges of justice is great way to upgrade and get ready for raiding (and heroics are fun, at least for me)

While patch 2.4 might bring some new goodness in badge rewards, here's where we (healing priest) are now...

I Posted this on EU WoW Priest Forums and decided to add it here as well:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=2843524572&postId=28432089831&sid=1#5

I don't know about you, but I want to use badges on gear that last for as long as possible
e.g. items that are not immediately replaced, or if they are replaced, it's lucky/rare drop from hard boss

Of course, one has to consider what to replace with badge reward and what not.

Here's a list of heroic badge healing priest rewards.
The number being how high the item ranks compared to other low raid items
(Karazhan, Gruul�s, Mag�s Lair, Zul�Aman)

Wrist:
1 Wristguards of Tranquil Thought 35 Heroic Badges

Hand:
1 Light-Blessed Bonds 60 Heroic Badges

Legs:
1 Achromic Trousers of the Naaru 75 Heroic Badges

Off-Hand:
! Voodoo Shaker 35 Heroic Badges
2 Tears of Heaven 25 Heroic Badges

Wand:
2 Carved Witch Doctor�s Stick 25 Heroic Badges

Trinkets:
1 Essence of the Martyr 41 Heroic Badges
14 Icon of the Silver Crescent 41 Heroic Badges

Back:
3 Kharmaa�s Shroud of Hope 60 Heroic Badges
5 Bishop�s Cloak 25 Heroic Badges

Neck:
5 Necklace of Eternal Hope 25 Heroic Badges

Head:
6 Cowl of Naaru Blessings 50 Heroic Badges

Finger:
6 Band of Halos 25 Heroic Badges

Items ranked using a formula (stats weights: .15 stam / .2 int / .35 spirit / 1 mp5 / .03 spell crit / .25 heal / .1 spell haste). Bonuses, unique effects, and trinkets are all rated on a conversion system to the aforementioned stats, and then ranked.


List shamelessly ripped from A Dwarf Priest: http://dwarfpriest.com/2007/09/30/best-casual-pve-healing-gear/trackback/

Additional Gear Ranking Resource (for your own ranking for example): http://www.lootzor.com/

Heroic Dungeon runs can be pain with bad PUG. Solution: Run with people you know - guild mates, in-game or real-life friends.

Doing Heroic Badge Farming is just so much easier when everyone knows what they're doing and know what the others in the group are doing without telling and keeping an eye on them. Same marks, crowd controls fly without asking, looting goes without drama.

I've been lucky enough to find heroic-loving-Warrior-Tank and equally-heroic-loving-Hunter who seem to do heroics together, and they occasionally ask me to join them for heroic - I guess my healing has been good enough :)

I've known them and we've been running heroics together longer than I've known any of my guildies and I could say I've become friends with them (in the game), especially with the Warrior Tank.

Playing with guildies and helping them is one thing I enjoy, but I would go to the world's end with these two.

Why?

Because I trust them.

With the three of us, we PUG the rest of the group (usually Mage and Lock), or are lucky enough when our A-List friends are online.

So most of the time we are group of 4 who have run that instance several times, or sometimes all 5 know each other. Even "the worst case" of us three with two "randoms", it's always a blast.

And after time, some inside jokes start to form (not the ones causing hah-hah-wipes, but just making comments only possible when played with someone for some time).

Like Auctioneering & Raiding, these heroic runs with in-game friends are the things that keep me coming back to the game.