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by Rich Maloy 
Aug 24th 2010 at 8:00PM
Casual raider? Or not fortunate enough to play a shaman as your main, but instead stuck on another, lesser class? This article is for you. If you need to go out and gear up your shaman from guild alt runs, PUG raids and mucking about in daily dungeons for your two frost emblems, then read on for your gear choices.
From the applications we received over the past few months at Big Crits, it seems that guilds and PUGs alike had a hard time getting past Deathbringer Saurfang -- that is, until the bigger ICC buff hit. Now the breaking point is 6/12 ICC, with kills on Festergut and Rotface being commonplace but little experience beyond that available. Taking into consideration how far casual guilds or alt runs can realistically get into ICC, I've listed the loot in order of progression, from easy to hard.
A frost emblem strategy
To fill four pieces of tier 10 set of Frostwitch's Battlegear, the best-in-slot totem and the accompanying best-in-slot trinket, would require 435 Emblems of Frost. The maximum number of frost emblems you can possibly obtain in one week is 60. That takes into account full clears of both ICC and Ruby Sanctum in 10s and 25s of each, plus completing two ICC weekly raid quests, plus the weekly raid quest in Dalaran, plus running one random dungeon every day, and finally one lowly VoA.
Even collecting the maximum number of emblems each week, it would still take 7.25 weeks to fill out all of that gear. Let's face it, you're reading this article because you don't have access to 60 Emblems of Frost each week for the next two months, so you need a strategy for emblem expenditures.
While the two-piece and four-piece set bonuses are awesome for enhancement, I recommend that fresh 80s go for the Herkuml War Token first. Trinkets are harder to come by than other items, and we're fortunate to have one of our BiS trinkets so readily available. Spend the emblems on the trinket first.
Next spend on shoulders, chest, helm and legs of tier 10, depending on which is the biggest upgrade at the time. The hands are the piece to leave out of your tier 10 set. Finally, if you still have some emblems left after it's all done, buy Bizuri's totem.
The big list
But where's the rest of the loot coming from? Killing stuff -- where else? What follows are two lists for gear, one organized by slot, the other by boss. Use the first list to find your best upgrade options and the second list to prioritize your raid nights. Not that you're one of those players who only shows up when it's a boss you need, right? You're one of those faithful dedicated players who is around every night, for every kill, whether or not it benefits you. Right? Right.
Not every item listed is a best-in-slot item for enhancement, but even an i251 mail piece stacked with armor penetration is better than an i200-level crafted item. If you want a rough approximation of what to replace, simply go for gear with agility plus haste or hit first; next, go for gear with agility and ArP as a second choice; and finally, if no one else is taking it and it's a significant upgrade, take strength gear. I'm not including leather gear, which due to the lack of intellect is normally inferior than mail gear. I also didn't include the strength gear, just out of principle.
The loot below is not ordered by preference; I simply list 10-man loot first, followed by 25-man loot, followed by Halion loot.
Head
- Taldron's Short-Sighted Helm Rotface 10
- Snowserpent Mail Helm Lord Marrowgar 25
Neck
- Wodin's Lucky Necklace ICC BoE drop; buy this from the AH if you can afford it
- Precious's Putrid Collar Festergut 10
- Rimetooth Pendant Sindragosa 10
- Sindragosa's Cruel Claw Sindragosa 25
- Baltharus' Gift Halion 10
Shoulders
- Pauldrons of Lost Hope Gunship Battle 10
- Shoulderpads of the Morbid Ritual Professor Putricide 10
- Twilight Scale Shoulders Halion 10
Back
- Shawl of Nerubian Silk Lord Marrowgar 10
- Shadowvault Slayer's Cloak Gunship Battle 25
Chest
- Hauberk of a Thousand Cuts Deathbringer Saurfang 10
- Carapace of Forgotten Kings Festergut 25
Wrist
- Icecrown Rampart Bracers Gunship Battle 10
- Scourge Hunter's Vambraces Gunship Battle 25
Hands
- Handgrips of Frost and Sleet Lady Deathwhisper 10
- Anub'ar Stalker's Gloves Valithria Dreamwalker 25
Waist
- Linked Scourge Vertebrae Lord Marrowgar 10
- Blood-Drinker's Girdle Blood Prince Council 10
- Nerub'ar Stalker's Cord Festergut 25
Legs
- Legguards of the Twisted Dream Valithria Dreamwalker 10
Feet
- Taldron's Long Neglected Boots Festergut 10
- Wyrmwing Treads Sindragosa 10
- Treads of the Wasteland Blood Princes Council 25
- Returning Footfalls Halion 25
Finger
- Saurfang's Cold-Forged Band Deathbringer Saurfang 10
- Seal of the Twilight Queen Blood Queen Lana'thel 10
- Band of the Bone Colossus Lord Marrowgar 25
- Seal of Many Mouths Rotface 25
- Frostbrood Sapphire Ring Valithria Dreamwalker 25
- Signet of Twilight Halion 25
Trinket
For an in-depth enhancement trinket analysis, check out this pre-Ruby Sanctum post.
- Whispering Fanged Skull Lady Deathwhisper 10
- Deathbringer's Will Deathbringer Saurfang 25
- Tiny Abom in a Jar - Professor Putricide 25
- Sharpened Twilight Scale Halion 25
Weapons
I wrote a separate post about weapons, which you can read at your leisure, or peruse the list below.
- Frost Giant's Cleaver Gunship Battle 10
- Gutbuster Festergut 10
- Abomination Knuckles Rotface 10
- Pugius, Fist of Defiance Lich King 10
- Black Bruise Festergut 25
- Keleseth's Seducer Blood Princes Council 25
- Havoc's Call, Blade of the Lordaeron Kings Lich King 25
Icecrown Citadel 10-man
Lord Marrowgar
Lady Deathwhisper
Gunship Battle
Deathbringer Saurfang
Festergut
Rotface
Professor Putricide
Blood Prince Council
Blood Queen Lana'thel
Valithria Dreamwalker
Sindragosa
Lich King
Icecrown Citadel 25-man
Lord Marrowgar
Lady Deathwhisper
- none
Gunship Battle
Deathbringer Saurfang
Festergut
Rotface
Professor Putricide
Blood Princes Council
Blood Queen Lana'thel
- none
Valithria Dreamwalker
Sindragosa
Lich King
Ruby Santcum
I also covered Ruby Sanctum loot in a post a few weeks ago.
Halion 10
Halion 25
May all your hits be crits!
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk. Whether it's Matt Sampson's elemental edition, Joe Perez's coverage of restoration or Rich Maloy's enhancement edition, WoW.com's shaman experts have you covered.Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
SaintStryfe Aug 25th 2010 10:51AM
naw, you don't want to do that. The itemization on that cloak is pretty terrible. Gem for Expertise, get the better cloak off of 25man lootship (heroic if anyone in your group can do it. It's not any harder at all) which is nearly perfect.
SaintStryfe Aug 25th 2010 10:43AM
Umb: ENH have one of the harder times because one of our races (Orcs) get a huge bennie out of using items with an explicit MH/OH difference (that being fist weapons for their racial). You're right, since they've fixed the MH/OH difference, most races will have very little to consider. But I was trying to write as generically as possible, so I wasn't wasting time bringing that up.
Plus I'm just of a slightly older school where ya gear up in heroics before you even consider raids. This late in an expansion, it's not crazy to have a bunch of people in 5500+gs take a fresh 80 in, carry him, get lucky, get 3-4 drops in a night and have an 80 alt running around with a Venture Co. Relic, a blue cape but half in 264 gear. If you can swing that, very cool. With that Pally alt I mentioned, I had her running around in quest greens and blues but the moment she hit 80 I had her wearing ICC crafted Pants, Boots, ToC crafted Chest and Wrists, Titansteel shield and helm, and she had a relic from the badges earned from the non-heroic daily. 10 minutes into level 80-dom she had a 4k+ GS. She was tanking H-ToC5 later that day and ICC instances a few days later. Within the week she had tanked all of ToC10 and I just had her less then two weeks later doing ICC25.
At this point, I consider "Run ToC5, H-ToC5 and the ICC instances" almost generic information. Plus, H-ToC5 and ICC instances require more gear. Black Icicle, the best pre-raid weapon is ilevel 232 out of H-HoR. If you can do that, then you're more then fit to go into ToC10 or 25.
One reason I like H-CoT:Strat for the offhand is that there's several other nice benefits to the place, most of which can't really be quantified in terms of stats (it's cool for lore, there's a few other nice drops, there's a free epic mount that most newbies won't have a problem getting). Also, an iLevel 200 is perfectly fine for getting into other content.
TSBC is something I pointed out, but I don't like it. One, it's expensive - on my server they're still going over 1000g pre-made, and individual mats are still 600+. If you're rich then it'd be a good option, but I wanted to provide some cheap-as-free options. AT weapons or the H-CoT:Strat options are just as good for no cash layout. Personally, I think pre-raid gearing is when one should start building that nest egg for things like Epic flight, or buying a Battered Hilt, or leveling professions. Unless you have it to spare (you have a rich alt or a guild to help) save your cash.
And the pre-raid JC trinkets are FINE. They are two things: cheap and available. If you are a JC at that level, these things cost nearly nothing to make. With Gem slots they're also flexible. No they're not perfect but they fill the hole til other things drop. I don't disagree with your exceptions at all, but I'm not sitting here making a full list of every good drop - other people have done that and you can find it with this incredible invention called Google.
Umb Aug 25th 2010 1:41PM
@Saint:
To be honest, I have no clue what you mean with that. I can only guess you are referring to the orc racial that gives 5 expertise when using a fist weapon (OR axe). Whether that weapon is in the mainhand or offhand makes no difference at all, nor does it matter if both weapons are of a different type; as long as they're axes, fists or both, you get the racial bonus. Please let me know if my assumption is incorrect.
Yes, I do agree that you should run heroics before you begin running raids. However, running ToC5 and the ICC 5-mans on NORMAL mode yields better gear than running the old heroics, and they can be done multiple times a day. You say generic information, I say it's better than recommending running Strat which offers vastly inferior loot.
On my server the mats for TSBC are about 200 to 300g, tops. If you or one of your friends has mining, the mats can be farmed in about an hour if you're unlucky. For casual players, it offers the certainty of obtaining a weapon, as opposed to running a heroic once a day which may not drop your weapon, ever.
And I have to disagree with you on the JC trinkets, they're a just bad as I said they were, but I guess we have different standards. On top of that, several trinkets obtained from quests at 80 are just as 'good' or better. A poor recommendation, imho.
Plus, if you want to be really helpful, there's this other incredible invention called wowhead.com. Or wow-loot.com.
I don't mean to annoy you, because in general I agree with what you said in your posts. There are some bits of info however that don't make sense to me. Again, in my humble opinion, just trying to provide the casual readers here with another view. I guess you and me will have to agree to disagree.
Umb Aug 25th 2010 1:14PM
@Daoisith:
While that neck is not as bad as some PvP pieces because it has a nice chunk of hit, it is certainly not the best itemised neck to be found outside of raids. Consider these:
Ancient Pendant of Arathor (ilvl 219, ToC5 normal)
- You lose 60 hit, but gain 22ap , 44 crit and 33 arp. The agi on it contributes to crit rating as well. , About equal or slightly better if you're above the spell hitcap. Not spectacular, but proof that PvE 219 can be better than PvP 264.
Barbed Ymirheim Choker (ilvl 232, PoS hc)
- You lose 60 hit, but gain 52ap, 39crit and 48 haste. The agi on it contributes to crit rating as well. Vastly superior if you're above the spell hitcap, and probably still better if your slightly under the spell hitcap. A clear example of lower ilvl being the superior choice.
These two just jumped came up first and are reasonably easy to obtain. Remember to keep resilience and stamina out of the picture when comparing items; both stats do not (directly) contribute to better dps. And if you need the stamina to survive in PvE, your items aren't the problem ;)
shade780 Aug 25th 2010 2:17PM
"I have such fascinating things to show you"
Love it, even if I have to run mana tombs for the 20th time =]
shade780 Aug 25th 2010 2:19PM
FAIL, that was meant for a totally different article
johnnyamerika Aug 25th 2010 3:22PM
Uggg... another winning Maloy article. This guy's totally mailing these in at this point. The commenters have provided infinitely more valuable information than he did in this recap of what you can find on wowhead in 10 minutes.
Docseuzz Aug 25th 2010 3:46PM
another good idea (prob mentioned already) - is to subspec resto for your badge grind o rama- much shorter random queues, and on runs where you are enh - spellcaster mail still drops... :)
Maeb Aug 25th 2010 3:51PM
Your first problem, enhancement should not be your alt but your main, nuf said.
jdhorner Aug 25th 2010 5:56PM
I must admit, I'm rather disappointed in the article's content versus its title. This would be -great- for people who are in a raiding guild that DOES alt runs, or even a raiding guild at all. But it's nearly impossible to get any of this, especially on my server, where GS is king. I'd love to see a list that showed a few great possible combinations of awesome Enh gear that was limited to dungeons (both new and old), emblems of Triumph or lower, and ICC/TotC crafted gear. Maybe any of the TotC or higher BoE drops as well, since you'd never know when you might get lucky on the AH.
But ICC 10/25 raids? Not going to happen. However, I do appreciate the article. My nearly-80 Shaman loves any and all Enh info he can get. :D
Grive Aug 27th 2010 12:28AM
"Casual raider? Or not fortunate enough to play a shaman as your main, but instead stuck on another, lesser class? This article is for you. If you need to go out and gear up your shaman from guild alt runs, PUG raids and mucking about in daily dungeons for your two frost emblems, then read on for your gear choices."
everyone should read that again...then read it again. If it doesn't apply to you then why did you comment on this page and de-rail a perfectly good article? Read it again...now read it again. Do you get it now? Now does it apply to you? Yes? then read on my friend! No? read it anyways, you might find something useful. Nothing useful? OK stay tuned for the next article, it may yet have some tips and tricks therein. Its amazing how people get in an uproar over things without actually comprehending what they are reading and determining whether or not it applies to their situation.
DoubleCrit Aug 27th 2010 9:40AM
Very nice write up. With the 30% buff in ICC and the ease of getting gear now walking into ICC with a already geared 25 man will allow you to soak up the epics. Heck the day I dinged 80 I when to the AH picked up 2 purples ran maybe 3 heroics and did a 6/12 ICC 25 man.
Being a healer means you get groups 10x faster than DPS.
So overpowered now.