Warrior with maxed heroic badge loot looking for advice

[Heathen]

Good morning Gentlemen,

My first post here, albeit a long time reader of these forums.

My character profile is here:

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Steamwheedle%20Cartel&n=Heathen

I am a softcore player - I play too much but I dont raid enough, this expansion has been great news for me, what an equipment bump ...

I have 40 tier 9 badges saved - I will have 46 on Friday. I cant decide whether to get the 45 badge shoulders, or get the 30 badge shoulders. The 45 are clearly the best item regarding total stat spend, but the 30 ones have a blue slot and expertise on them

Hellscream's Pauldrons of Conquest - Item - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=48460) - 30
Shoulderguards of Enduring Order - Item - World of Warcraft (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47699) - 45

Any advice would be appreciated - go for shoulders, or use the badges to improve my other poorer slots (ranged, blue trinket, rings maybe? I wasnt that impressed with the trinket - and I have all the badge trinkets from previous content)

I have also been trying to dip back below the hit cap - and increase my expertise and stamina. As you can see from my gems - I try to enable all the gem bonuses.

I generally run around doing 1800 dps in heroics, more in Nax. I imagine that the only upgrades I can now get are in Ulduar, but your specific advice on what I should aim would be great.

Any idea on how to improve expertise? I have started to gem into it (+ hands enchant + food + expertise potion) I find the dps increase quite startling. I saw a +expertise trinket from 10 man ToC which I might shoot for but I could see a lot of rogues going slightly bonkers at me if I took it for tanking (!) [and I would need to get off my arse and organise 10 man ToC...]

Finally - shields. Where oh where can I get a great looking "Horde" shield? I want a massive battered dirty, blood covered, just wrestled from a the hands of a prissy paladin, shield?

/salute

Heathen

[Glittersmith]

I would take the 45badge shoulders since they have a good itemization and is of a higher ilvl than the 30badges ones.

[Andomar]

I'm in the same situation and going for the 45 badge shoulders.

There's a nice expertise ring (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47243) in TOC5. You can tank fine without expertise gear though :)

[drae]

TBH the two pieces are itemized to different goals, one is threat and one is survivability.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to eventually acquire both of them; which I would take first? Probably the tier ones because your expertise is low, your avoidance is good and tier piece bonus is nice when combo's with the T8 bonus and the devastate glyph. The tier piece has more defence; and it appears your "somewhat" gemming and enchanting for defence - the higher defence on the tier piece would help you remove those gems for some more "preferable" stats.

Personally I'm a HUGE fan of expertise over hit, so much so I only run with ~3% hit and hardcap expertise. I realize it's probably a slight drop in threat vs ~12% expertise and say 6% hit, and I'm slowly working to repair that deficiency.

In most cases the selection of individual gear pieces like the question the OP posed is based upon what you access to, what your current gear is like, and your gearing style.

[Heathen]

Hi Drae - any chance you can link your armoury? I would be interested in getting more expertise.

I have a few yellow sta/def gems - I am just about to get rid of them as I am over the def cap and could use those slots for other stats. I just dont like the idea of loosing gem bonuses.

What set item would you get next if I took the 30 badge shoulders? legs? (ie so that I can get 2 set bonus)

[drae]

I'd be happy to link my armory, if I was able to access it from work and I had logged out in a gearset that would be useful in regards to this conversation.

To keep the T8 2p bonus, which limits the choices you can make; either legs or gloves.

LEGS
I am not a fan of wrymguard legplates, the Block Rating is not desirable. The downside is your not hurting for Hit rating at all currently; and the Hellscream legs come with a large amount of hit rating. Again they have a lot more defense and it would allow you to move away from the defence enchant on your cloak (get armor!) and if your using any def/stam gems in straight blue slots you can replace them as well.

Gloves
The hellscream gloves would really up your survivability and reduce some of the hit rating your rocking. Unfortunately theres a loss to defence there (though you are still making up for some of it via the shoulder upgrade) and dodge (tho the parry increase surpasses the loss of dodge).
If you can pick-up T8 Legs, and drop the T8 Helm for the T9 helm that would be a really good move; the T8 helm is weak (again with the block rating; I assumming your interested in gearing for bosses and not trash BTW).


For gemming personally I use:
-Expertise / Stam gems in my tps set for red sockets.
-Dodge / Stam gems in my survival set for red sockets.
-Stam gems for all blue sockets.
-Hit / Expertise gems in my TPS set Yellow Sockets.
-Def / Stam or Hit / Stam gems (depending on my cap juggling) in my survival set for yellow sockets.

I gem for Socket Bonus' whenever possible.

I hate yellow sockets, I use my dragons tear (or whatever the +10 stat prismatic unique-equip gem is called) in the piece I use the most that has a yellow socket.



Hope that helps!

[Griff]

Take another look at the hats - faceguard of the honorbound (I think that's it) would be a nice upgrade for you. T8 helm is sub-par. You'd have to save your badges though, as it is 75 IIRC.