The Upgrade that 15% of you can’t even afford

Posted by girlsround on 07 27th, 2009

Categories: Tanking & Cooldown Rotation Tips | no responses

How much gold do you have?

Definitely one of the most enjoyable aspects of this site is just how involved you guys get in the polls. It’s a great way of seeing just where the tanking community stands on a particular issue or in the case of the above poll, what the average tank’s day-to-day life is like. (By the way, if you’re ever curious about a particular poll question feel free to ask me to put it up) After this poll was up for a while, a friend of mine commented on just how poor tanks are. Personally, I’d like to think it’s just that we actually spend our gold to improve our characters. Which brings me to today’s tip…

How much is 6 Stamina worth to you?

With Patch 3.2 will come a series of new epic gems, but what many of you may not know is that we’ve already been able to use 1 for a while now. Stormjewels are acquirable through the Fishing Daily available in Dalaran. As expected, the odds of getting one from the quest are horrible. The odds of getting the one you need are even worse. Of course, the simplest solution is to just buy one off the Auction House.

Solid Stormjewels sit around the 500 gold mark on most servers which unfortunately means a few of you can’t afford them. It also means probably 11% more of you won’t be able to justify it to yourselves to do it.

The rest of you, there’s really no excuse. An upgrade is an upgrade.

But, I might replace whatever I put it in right away!

Well the trick is for that not to happen! Let’s take a look at some of the best pieces available to you to put a Stormjewel in.

Indestructible Plate Girdle
The current best-in-slot belt has a blue slot just asking to have a Stormjewel in it. The best part is that even if you aren’t doing Ulduar25, you can save up some runed orbs among other things and pay someone to craft this for you. Between the jewel and the belt, it’s a big price to pay, but that’s the price you pay for longevity.

Saronite Plated Legguards
The majority of the community won’t be killing Algalon25, so these are your best-in-slot legs and thankfully, they drop early in Ulduar25 off Kologarn. They feature an unnaturally large amount of armor that makes them the perfect non-set compliment to your 4 piece set and as a result, are many player’s favourite place to put a Solid Stormjewel.

Ultimate Guide Guarantee: "...within seconds of accepting a quest you will
know WHERE to go, HOW to complete it, and WHEN to do it." Click Here For Proof!

Armor Plated Combat Shotgun
For those of you not venturing into Ulduar25, the shotgun is the obvious choice to sport your Stormjewel. Even if you do manage to acquire Veranus’ Bane, for the Stamina stacking tank, this gun is still superior.

The Philosophy of Spending for Small Upgrades

There’s a lot of you out there that I know wonder how people afford stuff like this. You make excuses to yourselves and your friends that it’s a waste and that anyone that has such small, expensive upgrades has way too much time and money on their hands. What you don’t realize though is just how easy it is to maintain the “rich” look once you’ve got it.

Yes, it sucks when you’re first starting. It’s not cheap to get the best enchant on every piece and it’s not cheap either to get the best gems in every slot. If you’ve been raiding for a while though, you’ll notice it’s very rare to get more than a single piece in a week, often it’s even less frequent than that. It isn’t expensive to gem and enchant just 1 piece which really is what it’s all about once you’re set.

So, start grinding gold. Set yourself up. Then go back to being cheap again.