The way item level is calculated, just having those legs in your bags could help bump your iLevel. If you and your guildmates are trying to get you up to heroic level, pants that are going to be sharded anyway might as well be in your bags instead.

It's the same principle behind having all the PvP gear the second you ding 85, which I know I did. My guild and i knew what I was doing.

I have to agree here. Fair enough, if you're working with your guild or friends to get yourself into heroics -with them- ASAP then this method has it's benefits, but for a Rookie guide, to people very likely planning to use this advice to enter PuG heroics - seriously, no. This will only get you into the instance in a state of gear -less- ready for the difficulties of a heroic than you would otherwise, which is going to upset you and the people you PuG with.

Only do this if your DPS. That is all I ask.

DPS performance is drastically skill related, but even the best Tanks and Healers can't get by if they drastically under gear something.

A lot will depend on how you're going to be doing heroics. If you're running with guildies where you know you'll be in a skilled group with strong communication, patience, and so forth, using tricks like PvP gear and off-type or off-spec armors to get into heroics, no prob. Your guildies no doubt want you there sooner rather than later, and if you have to "cheat" slightly to get your ilvl high enough, so be it.

If you're doing the same thing in a pug where you aren't able to hold up your end of the damage/healing/tanking bargain, that's clearly uncool. I don't want to quantify that with specific numbers, but if you pug, you'd better be able to "do your bit," just to be fair to the others in your group.

While this will bump up your ilvl and possibly make you able to que for heroics, there is a caveat to it. If you are running heroics with your guild, and they know what is going on as Mr. Rossi says, great. Your guild has knowingly accepted that, and can help carry you if need be. Play the system and get geared up.

If you are using the Dungeon Finder for your heroics…well you are kind of taking advantage of the system. If it’s one or two items, meh, probably not a problem. But if it is hurting your performance, you very well may not be able to down the heroic.

It’s not just tanks and healers either (which could be just disastrous, as in wipe on the first trash pull) but unless you have a raid geared DPS carrying the load, three sub par dps will make the heroics nearly impossible as well. This kind of thinking contributes to people not wanting to use the D-finder, and thus a 45 minute que for my alt that is actually geared enough to run one correctly.

If you wouldn’t want to be taken advantage of in a random pug, then you should probably consider that before you game the system.

Gear in the bag (or bank) is the correct answer... (now)

I'm not saying you should totally cheat the system, but hedging it a bit will definitely speed things up.

On my main, I got to 329 legitimately... After that first week in Cata, everyone doing heroics was in the same boat - total noobs! Getting into a heroic with five people that cheated the system was just asking for trouble from the new (and hard at that moment) content.

My 2nd toon to 85 had 3 pcs of epic gear ready for him to ding. I crafted up a couple pcs of pvp gear and kept em in my bank till I got a few upgrades and then sold off those pvp items.

With guildies (and even the good chance you're gonna get in a random with geared players now) to carry you through, there's absolutely no reason to run a regular dungeon at lv 85 looking for gear.

The bottom line is... Either use craftables or visit your AH, pick up enough BoE items 333 or greater to raise your iLv avg to 329 or greater, you can keep them in your bank (don't have to be in your bags), get into heroics the moment you ding 85, and once you get some upgrades and have a legit iLv score, put the BoEs back up on the AH.

I did this too, but pleasepleasepleasplease PLEASE don't wear such gear if it does not fit your class/spec into a dungeon. ex:I did that on my hunter "cheating" the dungeon finder by having cloth/leather in my BAGS, but I always had class/spec-appropriate gear EQUIPPED, because it's just silly to wear ilvl 346 cloth gear over my ilvl 318 green mail pieces. And as was mentioned above, something like this can only be done by people who know their class. I made sure that I was [if not topping the dps charts] pulling my own weight by being the best possible CC/interrupter I could and not drag the group down.

I have to agree. I was shocked when I read the recommendation that they game the iLevel requirement to get into heroics. This is a horrible recommendation and is one of the common causes of the horror stores people love to post about how bad random DF groups are.

As far as everyone posting about doing it to join guild groups, here's a tip. Don't bother. Just run the dungeon the old fashioned way. Anyone who is level 85 can manually zone into a heroic instance no matter what their iLevel is. Sure, you actually have to walk to the dungeon and you don't get the bonus badges but it shouldn't take too many drops to legitimately get you the required ilevel to queue for heroics.

End the iLevel gaming.

Please don't recommend people greed gear to game the item level requirements to enter pugs. It doesn't help anyone.

I have to be honest, I'm right there with you.

I can't believe the article is actually suggesting getting useless gear just to boost your item level in order to get into heroics, in which you will then woefully underperform because you didn't legitimately upgrade your gear, causing a huge headache for everyone involved.

I mean, if you are - as Rossi suggests - trying to unlock the ability to queue for heroics so you can run them with your guild or friends, then fine, do what you want.

If you're planning to just the random group finder and you use this strategy, then you're just a dick. Honestly, it's not hard to get to the required item level legitimately. Do Uldum, do Twilight Highlands, run some normals and get a rep or two to Revered. Not. That. Hard.

I'll say this, and only this: my DK still has 4pc T10, with cata blues in every other slot, plus a bunch of questing greens in his bag to bump his ilevel. I get crap for it almost every time I run, but most of the time they shut up when they see me do 13k dps on a boss fight. The problem is that I have yet to find any gear that can top that 4pc bonus, outside of raids, which I don't have time for anymore. If blizz is so intent on gating everything by ilevel, they need to at least provide us with gear that is better than what we had in the last expansion.

I had done this (inadvertently) on my resto/enh shammy while trying to get into heroics. Once I saw that my iLvl was +329 I eagerly queued to heal a random. After near-wipes on every pull, I realized that it wasn't my resto set that was +329, it was the combination of my resto blues PLUS the enh blues in my bag. My resto set alone didn't nearly make the cut and caused some warranted frustration on everybody's part.

This loophole is a very, very poor one to exploit (intentionally or not) just to sneak into heroics, as it can/will cost everyone else time/effort/gold just because you want your new 346's ASAP.

Bad advice, Mr. Rossi

Good idea for an article but it is terrible to have rubbish gear just to boost GEAR SCORE (which is what this is, just now WoW has tragically made it an essential part of the game not just an add-on that people complained about). If you are going to say this, you should've gone through all the PvP gear that you could cheat the score with.

And how about finishing twilight Highlands for the 333 gear? Or the quest in SW etc for the 333 belt. Both much better suggestions than a paladin with cloth pants.

ok, first to rugus and everyone else hate spamming a VALID point made in the ORIGINAL article, i dont think what Mr Grey meant was to greed on items that DIDNT HELP ur character at all, he simply said something you WOULDNT NORMALLY ROLL ON OTHERWISE

lets take a pally for example, pallys wear plate last time i checked, so they normally wouldnt wear cloth or mail, however as was done NORMALLY in wrath and BC a pally could roll greed on say a cloth caster piece that was an upgrade even though it wasnt plate. In cata we lose a bonus if we arent wearing what was "intended" for ur class, BUT if the piece is still an ilevel and stat upgrade even thought YOU WOULDNT NORMALLY ROLL ON IT because its cloth, go ahead because it ups ur ilevel... MG didnt say HEY KEEP IT IN UR BAGS AND GAME THE SYSTEM, Rossi (a scholar and a gentleman) said that he did it to get his gear level up to par for rdf, he didnt recommend others do it, he mentioned something that wasnt in the article that he did. We should all ASSUME that Rossi knows his class becasue he writes articles for the classes he plays for the site... the original comment in the article was valid, Rossi's personal experience comment was also valid, trolling isnt so valid... take things in CONTEXT and they look alot better...

just my two cents, now go ahead and vote me down, im just saying something that needed to be said

"> For example, if no one else wants a pair of cloth pants that drop,
> even a paladin might consider rolling on them
> for the sake of raising his item level."

Please. Do NOT encourage people to do this (not that many need encouraging).

The item level requirement is there for a reason. The items in your bags are not helping you heal/ tank/ dps and perform your role. You are cheesing the system merely to get someone else to carry you.

It really sucks wiping on bosses because 2 of the 3 DPS are doing sub 4k, single-target, and the healer goes OOM after 10 minutes. Or because the tank simply doesn't have enough mitigation, and runs the healer OOM fast. Or because the healer simply doesn't have the raw oomph to keep the tank up.

Just do nonheroics--they give you JP now per boss. Gear up properly before joining a heroic. Yes, gear doesn't mean everything. But it does mean something, or you would be tanking naked. Gear is the ceiling for your potential capacity to fill your role. If the ceiling for your capacity is below the threshold that heroics demand, you will simply not be able to carry your weight beyond a certain point.