Gunship battlechest
Jump to the other ship and kill the mage, wait for the opposing commander to stop evade bugging, jump back, kill some saboteurs, shoot, rinse, repeat. Oh, there's also the archers. If you're lucky, you can get your shield to bounce down the line of them. Now that they're out of the way, let's loot the equipment locker that was sitting on our ship the whole time. That gear might have been useful earlier... oh, well. What did we get?

• Holy
  • Ice-Reinforced Vrykul Helm - 10 man - Yes, yes, a shaman helmet. However, it'll still work on our paladin head. This one sports a meta socket and a yellow gem slot. Haste and mp5 are the equip stats along with the spell power that makes it spell mail.
  • Bracers of Pale Illumination - 10 man - Spell plate bracers with a blue gem socket in tow. The Intellect is actually a bit low on this piece. Equip stats are haste and mp5 along with some spell power. Overall, I'm not all that impressed with this item due to the lower intellect, but I might be getting cynical.
  • Waistband of Righteous Fury - 25 man - A two gem socket belt. One's blue and the other is a yellow gem slot. Equip stats are mp5 and crit with the usual spell power.
  • Ring of Rapid Ascent - 25 man - A crit and haste spell power ring. It also has a blue gem socket on there in case you're interested.
  • Althor's Abacus - 25 man - This one is fun. It's a spell power trinket that adds a flat 179 to your totals. However, it also has a proc with it. When you heal someone, there's a chance the trinket will heal someone else nearby for five to six thousand. According to stats I've seen thrown around, it's about 30% proc rate and a 45 second internal cooldown and it can also crit. This trinket will proc off of normal heals, Beacon heals, HoTs, and even Judgement of Light heals.
• Protection
  • Abomination's Bloody Ring - 10 man - Here's a dodge and hit tanking ring. It also has a blue gem socket on it with a +6 stamina socket bonus along with it. Equip stats are of the hit, dodge, and defense variety with the slight edge being in dodge. Also, the stats are itemized with over double the stamina compared to the strength.
  • Neverending Winter - 10 man - I've liked most of the shield designs in Wrath and this is no exception. If you've been taking the 10-man progression route the whole way, this will replace your baby mummy coffin you got in ToC10. Block rating, parrry, and defense are the equip stats, but no gem slots on this one. Stamina is half again more than the strength, so if you're stacking effective health, then it's probably going to be a good choice.
  • Boneguard Commander's Pauldrons - 25 man - These shoulders are of the dodge/parry variety with some defense rating tossed in to keep you at the cap. It has a yellow as well as a blue gem socket on it for bumping up your stats of choice.
  • Corpse Tongue Coin - 25 man - This dodge trinket (and that's 152 flat dodge rating as an equip) has a nice proc for us paladins. When a melee attack drops you below 35% health, it boosts your armor by 5712 for ten seconds. That means above and beyond our normal toughness under 35% (thanks, Ardent Defender) we'll also get some extra melee damage mitigation to keep us afloat. It also has a 30 second internal cooldown, so don't expect this to save your life non-stop, but it's a nice little proc.
• Retribution
  • Saronite Gargoyle Cloak - 10 man - Here's a new cloak for you damage dealers. It's got a red gem slot, so you might as well just figure that +4 strength socket bonus into the rest of the stats. This one also has about half the crit compared to the haste for itemization which may be a problem.
  • Bone Drake's Enameled Boots - 10 man - While these are dps plate boots, they're really not itemized for retribution pallies. The armor penetration doesn't do much for us and if you're already expertise capped from other gear (that's about 214 rating or 26 skill or 6.5%) the the expertise also does nothing for you. However, it has two sockets that you can stick strength gems into if your boots are lagging behind the rest of your gear.
  • Polar Bear Claw Bracers - 25 man - These bracers go with hit and crit as the equip stats as well as a yellow gem slot.
  • Skeleton Lord's Circle - 25 man - This is a plate dps ring with a yellow gem slot on it. It has crit and expertise in vaguely equal levels.

Deathbringer Saurfang
Definite daddy issues here. Tank swapping, beast kiting, and a fight that could, honestly, last forever if you screw up. Healers, I just wanted to say I love you guys and gals. Also, Blizzard nerf NPC blood spec death knights, plz.

• Holy
  • Soulcleave Pendant - 10 man - This spell power necklace is stacked with a little more crit and a little less haste. There's a yellow gem slot in the middle of it just asking to besocketed with something.
  • Belt of the Blood Nova - 25 man - Sorry, shammies, it's another piece of your gear. In this case, we're looking at a belt with haste and mp5 on it. There are two gem slots on it with one being red and the other being yellow. Don't forget to add a buckle.
• Protection
  • Deathforged Legplates - 10 man - These tanking legs have a nice chunk of stamina allotted in the itemization points. Along side that, you've got defense rating, dodge rating, and expertise rating all lined up. Let's not forget the three gem slots of red, yellow, and blue.
  • Gargoyle Spit Bracers - 10 man - This is actually something you don't see much, but it's a bracer with some extra armor tacked on increasing the total by about 50%. Its other stats are defense and dodge. Oh, I forgot to mention the yellow gem slot. You'd think a pair of bracers would have two gems lots... one for each arm.
• Retribution
  • Blade-Scored Carapace - 10 man - This is a nice chest-piece for ret paladins. It starts with a fair amount of strength, plus it has three gem slots which you'll likely end up filling with strength gems. The equip stats are crit strike and haste rating.
  • Ramaladni's Blade of Culling - 10 man - This is really more of a death knight tanking axe than it is a ret dps weapon. However, if it's an upgrade, then you might as well grab it. The stat allotment for armor penetration doesn't help us much nor does the expertise to a substantial degree unless you're still a bit short of the cap. However, it does have two gem slots which could be filled with strength gems.
  • Deathbringer's Will -25 man - Okay, this trinket has been debated quite a bit. While the armor penetration on it is kinda "meh" for us pallies, the special proc is really swank for just about everyone. It's a smart trinket in that it gives its wielding melee class a set of bonuses appropriate for them. As a ret paladin, your random choices are 600 strength, 600 crit rating, or 600 haste. The internal cooldown is somewhere under two minutes which means that the uptime shouldn't be too bad.
• All Paladins
  
  • Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification - 25 man and H10 man - Ah, the armor token. This is a generic armor token much like they had in the Coliseum. The token can be turned in with the Emblem of Frost tier gear to get an upgrade to a better version of the original. It's a universal token, so it will work with whichever of the five pieces you want to bump up. For those of you like me in 10 man progression, it'll be a while before you see this.

That's it for the entry way. Next week we'll take a look at the Plagueworks and see what we can loot from there.

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The Light and How to Swing It tries to help Paladins cope with the dark times coming in Cataclysm. See the upcoming Paladin changes the expansion will bring. Wrath is coming to a close and the final showdown with the Lich King is here. Are you ready for the assault on Icecrown Citadel?

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