This’ll be my second cross post on Big Hit Box.  So be sure to check out their site as well, they got’s a good thing going!  I used to say I wouldn’t want to be part of any club that would have me as a member, but that turned out to be a lonely proposition.  Now on with the post!

 

Before I get to the juice, I’ll give a minor update about my guild situation.  I’m still flying solo, and it’s actually quite refreshing.  I’m still able to raid with the same people I was raiding with before.  Also, I was doing a ton of PUGing before, so this is really no different.  My friends list is really growing, too!  Heck, my first run post guild netted me my stupid epic legs from UK.  FINALLY!

Come Geared, or Don’t Come at All

In my estimation, the Warrior is the most gear dependent class in all of World of Warcraft.  (It’s one of the reasons I rated them at the bottom in my old Casual Class post!)  It doesn’t matter what spec you’re talking about either – Arms, Prot and Fury Warriors all rely on good gear to perform.  The good thing about that is that Warriors also SCALE better with gear than most other classes.  With my Druid, for instance, 20 points in spellpower or spirit here or there didn’t mean all that much, not so with the Warrior. 

There are many gear lists out there for Fury warriors, you can use Wowhead, Elitist Jerks, Tankspot, even the armory.  But if you’re fresh to level 80, and want to hit the ground running with your Fury Warrior, this is the guide for you.  No, it’s not about best in slot, it’s about the quickest route to competency.

You’ll notice a lot of Blacksmithing and other crafted stuff.  Blizzard made things a lot easier on us by making so many good recipes BoE, and largely did away with the old style BoP stuff.  It might be a good idea to take up Blacksmithing if you haven’t already, your extra gem slots will thank me later. 

Lastly, before we get going, remember to think about your overall gear picture as you’re making choices from the below.  You want a MINIMUM of 164 hit, which will make it so your specials (yellow damage) ALWAYS land.  Beyond 164 hit, I concentrated on Strength and AP personally, though there are those that would argue for stacking crit or expertise.  I’m no theorycrafter though, so ask someone else for the cookie cutter way to gear up. 

I’ll go slot by slot, starting at the top.

Head

This is one of those easy, cheesy slam dunk slots.  Blacksmiths make the Spiked Titansteel Helm, which will last you for a LONG time.  Nice bonuses to strength, hit and crit along with a meta and blue gem slot.  Money.  You really can’t do much better for a Fury warrior.  I’ve passed on 25 man drops to hold onto this – it’s that good.  Some day they’ll pry it off my cold, dead head (ewwww).  Have the mats ready at 80, trust me.  Oh, and if you don’t know already, go with the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond for your meta, and you may as well put a blue in that slot for the meta gem requirements.

Neck

You can easily go with more crafted goodness here with the Titanium Impact Choker, but I’ve never really been "sold" on this particular piece.  I like the socket, for sure, and the AP and Agil are nice, but not game changing.  I didn’t personally want to invest the mats in this, and used something easier to get – the Choker of Betrayal from a quest in Zul’Drak- until I got the badge neck. 

Shoulders

The head slot is easy, the shoulders slot just plain stinks.  It’s always been a tough slot to fill, and it was the same with my druid.  Do the guys at Blizz just not like shoulders, or what?  Anyhow, the easiest fill are probably the Savage Saronite Pauldrons, also from your local Blacksmith.  The resilience is essentially useless, but the strength and crit are decent.  They’ll do.  (Another option is the Mantle of Volkhan, if you turn out to need the hit.)

Cloak

Kind of a meh slot all around.  There are a lot of easy to obtain options, but none of them are particularly suited to a Fury Warrior.  But since I’m trying to make this easy, you could either go with the epic crafted Ice Striker’s Cloak, or go with the quest reward Cloak of the Buzzing Swarm.  Unless you’re awash in frozen orbs and primals, go with the quest reward to tide you over until you can pick something up down the line.  Maybe work on Argent Crusade rep at some point for the Cloak of Holy Extermination. 

Chest

This is one of the tougher slots to fill.  There are many, many good options as you start farming 80 instances and heroics, but before that things are a bit on the sparse side.  One option is the Battleplate of Unheard Ovation, a quest reward from Icecrown.  The strength is nice, and expertise is an important stat for a Fury Warrior.  This would tide you over at the beginning, and you should be questing in Icecrown to open up the Ebon Hold faction and dailies anyhow.

Wrist

Easy again.  Vengeance Bindings, no doubt.  Easy to make, weighted nicely for a Fury, and there’s not a whole lot else out there.  Heck, I’m still wearing these while I save for the badge bracers.  Find your local blacksmith.  Again.  Or maybe just take up Blacksmithing yourself, extra gem slots are awfully juicy!

Hands

Another kind of crap choice here in Spiked Cobalt Gauntlets, but at least they’re easy to get.  You can live with a green or two for now.    You could also try to get in a regular Strat group ASAP and pick up the Handwraps of Preserved History, though I may actually lean towards the crafted green in this head to head.  More AP and a little hit to help you along.

Belt

Surprise surprise, we need another blacksmith.  And hence we return for the Spiked Cobalt Belt.  But, if you did get yourself in a regular Strat group for those hands, maybe you’ll get lucky and the Spiked Metal Cilice drops.  Then you can make all kinds of Da Vinci Code jokes if you want to. 

Legs

If a top end guild owes you money, get them to take you on a 2 Drake OS10 for Belabored Legplates.  Otherwise, throw a few cobalt bars at a blacksmith and get Spiked Cobalt Legplates in return.  Oh, and I know what you’re saying about all this green cobalt stuff.  "Where’s the stamina?"  It’s really not all that important, really.  You go down like a cloth wearer if you get aggro from a raid boss anyway!

Boots

Spiked Titansteel Treads will work just fine, and the mats aren’t that bad.  They don’t excite me like the helm does, however, as they are pretty easily replaced when you hit exalted with Ebon Hold.  Boots of Dominance, another quest reward, will work if you want to save your titansteel bars.

Rings

There are so many options here, i won’t bother.  Though I guess picking up the Ring of Scarlet Shadows wouldn’t hurt.  Hit, Crit, AP and a slot.  You could even use this piece for that other blue gem to activate your meta.

Trinket

My first advice for the trinket slot is this:  spend your first 40 badges on the Mirror of Truth.  The trinket slot is quite hard to fill, and that trinket is so good that it’s worth it.  Before that, pick up the Crusader’s Locket from a quest, along with the First Mate’s Pocketwatch.  Underwhelming, I know…hence the Mirror.

Ranged

Hemet’s Trophy Gun is easy enough.  And it looks pretty cool.  I mean come on, it’s made out of some monster’s FACE!  I wouldn’t lose much sleep over this slot in any case.

Weapons

Weapons, weapons, weapons.  Our bread and butter.  I always love to upgrade my big bad 2 handers, the bigger and glowier the better.  It’s not easy to get 2 good ones, though.  For starters, make sure you do the "new" Ring of Blood event in Zul’Drak, as the De-Raged Waraxe is excellent to start out.  This is also an area where a good rep grind will pay off big time.  I didn’t do it this way the first time, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d start grinding Ebon Blade right away so I could pick up one or two Runeblades of Demonstrable Power.  And not just cause they have a long name.  I was using one of these in my off-hand until just last week.  And all you have to do is wear a stupid tabard and do some dailies.  Working on that is also a good idea for the above-mentioned boots.  You could also choose to do Argent Crusade rep first, as the Argent Skeleton Crusher is nice too.  The sword is just better.    An important thing to note about the Runeblade and Crusher is that neither are "unique equipped," so you can use one in each hand!  I really like how 2 Crushers look. 

If you want to jump right into epic weaponry, get a whole crapload of cash and/or titansteel bars and get the Titansteel Destroyer.  It will serve you well, though it is a little unremarkable for me as far as looks.  I like huge, pointy weapons with rotating crap and glowy effects.  The Destroyer looks like it was the leg off some crap throne somewhere.  Meh.  All that strength and a bunch of hit to boot?  PTD likes. 

 

This is by no means the "ultimate" list.  I have no illusions of some secret code of gear, and I’m sure I’ve left off some good options and posted some stupid ones.  It’s the nature of the beast.  So if you have a suggestion about something, throw it in the comments, I’d love to hear it.  If you follow this guide, you’ll be well on your way to a decent starter set, and can start grinding heroics for the "important" stuff.  Some day you too will be doing 5k+ DPS on Loatheb! 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Gear, Warrior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.