We've talked at length about the Icecrown craftables last week, but we were mostly focused on the driving, universal material required to make them. That is, we were mostly talking about the Primordial Saronite. The recipes for Icecrown craftable are given to you by the Ashen Verdict, in order to help you do battle with the legions of the Lich King.

This week, let's start looking at the items created by these recipes, and see how they perform in their respective roles. I think some of the craftable items will be pleasantly useful even over the occasional tier gear, especially if you consider that you can grab these items from the Auction House. (Primordial Saronite seems to have now dropped in price across the board, even selling for less than 2,000 on some servers.)

Take a look behind the cut, and let's start talking about the gear itself.

Blacksmithing -- Tank Gear

The two recipes for Blacksmithing-created tank gear are the Boots of Kingly Upheaval and the Pillars of Might. Both are fairly solid tanking items if you are already uncrittable. (For plate classes, that's usually at the 540 Defense mark.) If you're already past that landmark for tanking prowess, then the boots and legs focus on the other key avoidance stats. Namely, dodge and parry. Since there's no Block stats on either of the boots, they're fairly usable by any of the three, plate tanking classes. Each item is item level 264, so they're going to be fairly worthwhile compared to most items that drop from 10-man normal mode.

Blacksmithing -- Physical DPS

The physical DPS items for Blacksmithing are the Hellfrozen Bonegrinders and the Legplates of Painful Death. They both sound terribly harsh and mean, don't they? Although, I suppose that's absolutely appropriate for warriors, death knights, and paladins whose sole purpose is to smash your face in.

Similar to the situation with Blacksmithing's tank gear, we can assume that most plate-wearing DPS are already hit and expertise capped by the time they're storming Icecrown Citadel. As a result, neither of those stats appear on the physical DPS items. Instead, the Hellfrozen Bonegrinders and the Legplates of Painful death sport Critical Strike Rating and Armor Penetration. Different classes have different levels of priority on Armor Penetration, but the Critical Strike Rating will be useful for everyone.

Blacksmithing -- Spellpower Plate

Those holy paladins are always coming along adding a third type of plate armor. In this case, the Holy paladins are represented in the blacksmithing plans by the Protectors of Life and the Puresteel Leggings. Spellpower plate can always be kind of a tricky subject, when you're trying to rate "what's best." Some paladins might prefer Haste, if they're not already capped out, while others are big fans of crit. Still, since these are about equivalent to the Sanctified Lightsworn Greaves, for example, they're a pretty good deal if you're being thrifty with badges.

Engineering -- Ammunition

We've already talked at length about the Iceblade Arrows and Shatter Rounds, but it's worth reinforcing. For the cheap price of a couple crystallized elements, you can build a stack of ammunition that every hunter will want to get their hands on. Definitely worth the time to make it.

Leatherworking -- Physical Combat Leather

You can't call the Bladeborn Leggings and Footpads of Impending Death simply physical DPS items because many bears will also crave this gear for their tanking sets. It wouldn't take much for a bear to shove all Stam gems into the Bladeborn Leggings to turn them into an absolutely amazing hit point item. It's notable, however, that neither of these items are made with actual leather. The closest you get to "leather" for these items are Arctic Fur and Nerubian Chitin. The gear must have a hard outer shell, with a very nice fur lining.

Leatherworking -- Physical DPS Mail

The Draconic Bonesplinter Legguards and Rock-Steady Treads represent the physical combat mail armor for hunters and Enhancement shamans. This pair of gear assumes that your physical DPS character is already rocking out at the hit cap, and thus focused on stats like Critical Strike and Armor Penetration. Notably, the Draconic Bonesplinter Legguards might be more attractive to many hunters than their own T10.5 legs, the Sanctified Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter's Legguards, since those items "waste" itemization allocation on Haste.

Leatherworking -- Spellpower Leather

The leatherworking spellpower leather patterns create the Blessed Cenarion Boots and the Legwraps of Unleashed Nature. In a moment of sublime convenience, neither of these items have Hit Rating. Trees don't need hit rating for much, and most Boomkin in Icecrown are already going to be hit-capped. Blizzard has saved themselves a little itemization trouble this way.

Leatherworking -- Spellpower Mail

Like holy paladins, Elemental shaman always manage to add an interesting category of gear. They also tend to have the coolest names for their gear. The leatherworking spellpower mail pieces are the Earthsoul Boots and the Lightning-Infused Leggings. I really like the vibe of these two names, since they give shaman a nice "grounded lightning" feel to their pants and feet.

Tailoring -- (Mostly) Healing Cloth

I specify "mostly" healing cloth for the Sandals of Consecration and Lightweave Leggings because otherwise I would no sooner finish typing this article than someone would present very good argument for why a mage or warlock would want to wear the items. That being said, you can tell these items are probably intended for your healing priests because of the names (Lightweave), and the hefty amount of Spirit boasted by both items. Here's hoping you've been stocking up on Moonshroud, because you'll need 30 to make both piece of gear.

Tailoring -- (Mostly) DPS Cloth

Similar to the healing cloth, I'm strictly specifying that the Leggings of Woven Death and Deathfrost Boots are only mostly for DPS. But still, the hit rating on the Deathfrost Boots are a dead giveaway that they're intended for damage dealers. However, I'm not quite why the boots are the only Icecrown craftable to sport Hit rating, since all the other gear mostly assumes you've got that stat covered. Maybe it's the prodigious amounts of Hit required for spellcasters, or maybe that's just the way the itemization budget lined up.

Summary

So, most general character roles have a pair of Icecrown craftables that will be useful for them. With the exception of the Deathfrost Boots, though, all of the gear assumes your basic, required stats are already covered. That's Defense for the tanky types and Hit for the damage dealers. Since all of the gear is item level 264, they'll be well-worth the time for anyone who's not doing 25-man raids, but some of the gear will be good even for those folks.

If you manage to get these up on the Auction House, remember that you should be charging at least your server's going rate for Primordial Saronite, or you'll just be giving away materials for free. Take the time to look at all of the individual costs for the materials, and try hit a fair price just a little bit above that. We'll be talking more about how to set a minimum market price for items next week. Until then, good trading!

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Insider Trader (Professions)