Every week Matthew Rossi writes The Care and Feeding of Warriors, and while leveling three warriors to 70 he has spent a lot of time grinding for armor. It's the curse of the clanking classes. He's ended up wearing that wolf hat from Terrokar more than he would have ever thought possible.

Eventually, you'll get up to 70 if you keep playing your warrior. And when you do, you'll find yourself starting a whole new game. The difference between leveling up and preparing for the instance you'll be expected to run is that you can no longer simply go off and grind and hit the AH for the gear you'll need to fulfill your chosen role, be it tanking, PvE damage or PvP. (You can use the AH still, but most of what you're going to want is dropped in instances.) I was talking with another warrior about what gear you should be working to acquire before raiding seriously, and he reminded me that you first have to get the gear that lets you get the gear, so to speak, and so I thought I'd discuss a few easily obtained starter pieces and then what's out there to upgrade from them.

As always, there are going to be differences of opinion as to what gear is an upgrade depending on what your personal preferences are. For instance, I love +hit on my tanking gear. I hate to miss when I'm tanking, it makes it much more likely that you'll lose aggro. But how much is that +hit really worth? Partially that's a matter of opinion. If you don't feel that you miss often enough to hurt your aggro, then you might prefer a piece with more dodge or block over a piece with +hit. I've decided to err on the side of caution and list alternatives so that everyone can try and find that piece that works the best for them. This column, we'll be looking at various breastplates you can get and how to get them.

Vindicator's Hauberk - This is a nice chestplate available when you reach revered with the Aldor. It's got mitigation and avoidance all over it with that decent amount of stamina, a hefty dose of defense and dodge thrown in. However, it takes revered to get it, which may be a problem for a warrior just hitting 70. By the time you get there you may well have gotten a better chest elsewhere. For example, if you're running Tempest Keep, you could get the next option.

Breastplate of the Bold - Unlike the Hauberk, this is a high-stats chest with three sockets to boot as well as some defense. It's part of the Dungeon 3 set for tanking warriors (I suspect tanking pallies would not mind taking some Bold as they could customize what it lacks for them with those sockets) but, like the Hauberk, it can be a trifle difficult for a new 70 to start running the Arcatraz right off the bat. For one thing it requires a quest chain to even get the key to the place. (However, it's worth doing that quest to get the Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard while assembling your tanking set.) For another, you have to be able to kill Skyriss to get this, and for an undergeared tank that could be a problem.

Breastplate of the Warbringer - This is, to my mind, the easiest to obtain tanking chestplate for a level 70, as you can start the questline while you're level 66. It's available from a relatively easy quest chain (at least when compared to the difficulty of getting either of the previous chests) from Altrius in Nagrand. Almost as much defense as the Hauberk, although sadly not socketed as is the Bold (then again, it's not a set piece from inside a dungeon with a key requirement, either) it does have a nice dollop of +hit on it if, like me, you're interested in that.

Heavy Earthforged Breastplate - This is a crafted Armorsmith BoP, so not all warriors are going to have access to it, and some debate whether or not it's worth the materials. But it's got a nice spread of stats for a warrior as he starts tanking instances or DPSing, and with three sockets it's very customizable. The strength of a socketed item can be hard to determine because as you get better gems you can upgrade the item in whatever direction you choose. But if you're an armorsmith you'll probably have to make this at least once to level your skill, and if you do you might as well wear it, it's certainly a good workhorse breastplate.

Jade-Skull Breastplate - All hail green Wrath! 30 strength, 50 stamina, defense by 25, shield block by 23, and it's available from a boss in an instance that doesn't require a key which you will have to run in order to get the key to get Bold anyway. A lot of warriors don't even bother with any chest before Kara once they have this one, it's a tanking dream piece if you have enough +hit already. And it looks like Wrath. Honestly, what is there not to love? Can anyone tell me? Well, it is a trifle harder than Warbringer, so you might as well pick that one up first on your way to try and get this one.

The Exarch's Protector - This one always kind of leaves me cold. It's available from a Mana-Tombs quest so you could theoretically start it at level 64, making it one of the earliest alternatives on this list, but the particular mix of stats and sockets is a trifle weird... I'm not sure if it's intended for tanking or DPS. It does seem to take the idea of socket flexibility to heart, as you could customize it for either role as you chose, and if you can get a good Mana-Tombs run together at level 64 you could have it before any of the other breastplates so far. I would personally replace it as soon as I could by 70, but it could serve you for a few levels before that.

Blackened Chestplate - Our previous armor pieces have been either tanking or tanking variant pieces. But this is a pure DPS/PvP piece, and a really good one that you can get by level 67 that will carry you until you start getting good instance drops. It's available from a really interesting and fun quest chain in Blade's Edge, the Horde version of which has an unfortunate tendency to bug out. Still, if you're going to be in Blade's Edge anyway, and you are, why not get this sweet little reward to carry you to 70? (If you need help for some of it, the rewards available should tempt most of your friends, too.) Plus, you'll get to kill a Gronn. Honestly, this is a quest no one should miss out on, and worth going back and doing if you did when you hit 70 for some decent gold as well.

Adamantite Breastplate - This is a craftable, non-Armorsmith, Bind on Equip item that really does fill the 'jack of all trades' role for a warrior on the way to 70. It's not the best tanking piece, nor the best DPS or PvP piece, but it's got decent armor and stats and three sockets, and it's fairly easy to make. If you just want a piece that's good enough to tide you over until you get one of these more specialized pieces, then this is your baby. Another benefit of it is that it's part of a decent set of level 66 blues that will ensure that you're not spending all of your time desperately grinding on instances waiting for that one piece that just won't drop. Sure, you'll want to replace it with better, but at least you won't be wearing a green 'of the whale' piece while you're trying to do that.

Chestplate of A'dal - If you're primarily a tanking warrior who wants a DPS piece to help grind with, or a weekend PvP'er who wants an easily soloable quest chain to help supplement your gear as you try and get ready for the Arena, this is a nice alternative. Good strength and stam, available from a not particularly difficult quest chain you can start on as soon as you hit 70 (heck, you could start it at 67 if you don't want to wait to grind up the money for a flyer) and with both +hit and +crit so you don't have to worry about which one you want, it's a nice little warrior plate reward in a sea of pally plate since The Burning Crusade launched.

Durotan's Battle Harness - My tauren is still wearing this to DPS and PvP in, and I don't think I'll even upgrade it when I finally see Doomplate drop. For an Arms warrior I agree with one of the commenters on WoWhead, this is a very strong piece and will carry you for quite some time, at least until you can start running Hellfire Ramparts in Heroic mode for the Crimsonforge. (Since the Crimsonforge is only available in a Heroic, I'm not really going to cover it here, but it is a nice piece for Arms or Arms/Fury builds.) Plus, it's the legacy chestplate for generations of Frostwolf chieftans! If you enjoy the lore, you'll keep this even after you have a better drop.

Doomplate Chestguard - By itself this is debatably not as good as the Durotan's, and is much harder to get. But with the set bonuses this piece can really shine for a fury warrior and it drops off of a boss who you'll probably be farming for your Bold piece anyway. I've never gotten four pieces of Doomplate to drop (I have only seen the chest, in fact) but I'm told the set bonus is extremely good. I'd hold onto this one for when you can take advantage of those bonuses, or socket it with resilience and stamina and use it for PvP.

Ragesteel Breastplate - This is, plain and simple, a PvE DPS piece and nothing but. It has no stam, no resilience, no stats that are good for anything but smashing face. The two piece set bonus is nice, if you're a blacksmith, but if not you won't get it so it's not really worth discussing for most warriors. (Although nowadays most serious DPS warriors seem to be smiths so they can craft some nice epics for themselves. Me, I went herbalism/alchemy. Sigh.) It's a decent piece and if you don't have better you might as well use it, but I prefer any of the other chestplates listed - if I was purely about raid DPS I might rate this piece higher until I got an upgrade in a heroic or Kara.

Well, there you go - armor for a starting 70 that doesn't require a heroic or raid to acquire. What did I miss? (I know I missed some, you always miss some.) When we return to the subject we'll probably discuss helms or cloaks, if only because they can provide some of the most varied options.

Tags: DPS, Gear, Grinding, joystiqfeatures, PvP, Quests, Tanking, Warriors

Filed under: Warrior, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Lore, (Warrior) The Care and Feeding of Warriors, Herbalism