My last Badges, and what to spend them on?

Given the changes in 3.0 and what the expansion will bring, how am I best spending my last lot of Badges?

I currently have about 190 badges, and that will end up being more like 250 with Kara/ZA farming and such until D-Day.

I'm loving Block Value at the moment and the AoE grind just amuses me so much as well as smashing my shield into someone's face for a ridiculous amount of damage.

Is there any real 'must haves' for the expansion? Or is just buying gems the best way.

Current Badge items I've purchased;
Slikk's Cloak of Placation
Farstrider Defender's Cloak
Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx
Girdle of the Fearless
Unwavering Legguards
Ring of Unyielding Force
Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600, of course.

I've held off of the expertise neck so far as I'm exalted with Scryers and SSO.

My gear is mostly Kara/T4/ZA stuff as the 25 Mans hadn't really been available to me - certainly pre 3.0 at least, but pugs are much more freely accessible now so some 25 man T4/5 gear and maybe even some T6 gear (who knows!) could end up coming my way.

So yeah, should I buy some nice stuff like Chestplate of Stoicism, stack Strength and go smash more faces, or should I just buy gems and hope some nice gear finds its way into my bags? I'm not very good at DPS, but is there any DPS kit worth getting that I might not have thought of (i.e a crapload of strength or pen)?

All suggestions welcome!

Replace something blue or buy gems and sell them.

I bought the crossbow of relentless strikes and I'm getting one or two of the badge axes

well seeing as i got everything i wanted from badges now (fuck the dps gear =) prot dps ftw <3)
i just bought alot of epic gems and sold on AH to make some money for Wrath.

in your case it depends on what you wanna do, i mean are you lvling as prot? or dps? get better dps gear? and if there aint no tank gear upgrade well then do my suggestion and buy gems to sell

Definitely Levelling as Prot.

I didn't want to 'Waste' my badges on something that wouldn't benefit me. Since the patch, Badges have just kept coming and coming and didn't want to just sell Gems like everyone else unless I really had nothing else to buy.

Like I said, I'm not that good at Warrior DPS, I levelled as prot from about 45 onwards as levelled with my GF (Nelf hunter, obviously) from then on and haven't specced Arms or Fury since.

I abhor PvP and just can't stand it, although I certainly found it slightly more fun (more fun as in only having one eye scooped out with a rusty spoon rather than both eyes) since the patch when going for the G.N.E.R.D Rage Achievement, so I've no real reason to spec anything other than Prot - even with the incoming Dual-Specs option I'll probably go fo offensive/defensive Prot Specs.

I just didn't want to miss a trick with a badge item(s) that will make Prot Levelling easier.

I've not bought the following (yet):

Ring of the Stalwart Protector
Sunguard Legplates
Sabatons of the Righteous Defender (I have Jungle Stompers)

I know they (and the Expertise neck) are probably the best Raid Tanking badge items in the game, but would I use them in the expansion?

Would Legplates of Unending Fury and/or Breastplate of Ire, Amani Mask of Death serve me better in my levelling - even as prot? Would that massive amount of strength be worth it? Or maybe something with some Armor Ignore?

Or should I stop thinking and just buy Lionseyes and Crimson Spinels ;)

All the strength will definitely add some more dps to you even as prot. More attack power and larger shield slams or just larger hits all together make solo questing and all that non raid stuff go quicker. I plan on leveling as prot as well, but I will use mostly dps gear unless some tanking is required or I am trying to solo something a bit above me. Hope that gives you any help or if nothing else an opinion to go with it.

Having every single piece of prot and dps badge gear, I find myself using extra badges to buy gems and sell them. First thing I got when the new badge gear came out was the chest, but if you are farming ZA then I would hold out for ZJ's chest because it's almost just as good. According to my calendar, we have 4 more attempts at ZA before the expansion, when I'm sure ZA will become ZG part 2.

Get the Sunguard legs, IMO. The Expertise is pretty hawt. Others have done the math and pre 3.0, expertise was the best threat stat. I don't see how that can have changed.

I'm in the same position. I have 81 badges and have all the badge gear except:

Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600 - Item - World of Warcraft
Ring of the Stalwart Protector - Item - World of Warcraft
Slikk's Cloak of Placation - Item - World of Warcraft

Well, I have a ton of rings including the ZA chest ring and the SoS honored ring. I have the cloak off Alar and Corren's Lucky Coin so none of that is necassary. I was leaning toward the ring uintil this week and those other 2 fellinto my lap. I would love autoblocker but heck, I have the coin, I don't really need it. I can't see stacking them both going forward into the expansion. I guess I could get it anyway or load up on some DPS gear but.....meh.

Prolly just going to buy gems, heh.

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Originally Posted by Horacio

Get the Sunguard legs, IMO. The Expertise is pretty hawt. Others have done the math and pre 3.0, expertise was the best threat stat. I don't see how that can have changed.

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But my point was, will I need threat or avoidance like Sunguard Legplates gives. Wouldn't Strength and Block be better against those l70-75 mobs I'll be facing before I get some genuine upgrades.

Note, no drops in ZA tonight. Only 3 more tries at the Shield, chest and Mojo :(

dont bother about the chest...shield yes..grab it..mojo ..ofc..mandatory must have :)

i had the chest and changed it for the badge one stoicismmmmss...par excellence.

As Horacio said.. expertise is amazing.

In a perfect world, all warrior tank gear would have tons of Expertise and Block value.

Oh and Horacio.. I have the Autoblocker and the Coin. While its certainly 'novelty' at best.. you can use both at the same time and those + Shield Block makes for some absolutely absurd Damage Shield procs and Shield Slams. I was farming ZG for mount bosses with a SP and a prot pally and was getting 1100+ damage shield crits this way.

You should get it if for no other reason than to play around, if you have the badges!

Oh and as for the Amani Mask of Death.. I bought that just because of the way it looked.. my human warrior has the full 'set' of dps/ZA plate and she looks like some kind of freakish, trollmade murloc deity! I never fail to get whispers when I run around in it, lol.

Again, I'll revert to saying, this isn't a question about tanking, we all know how good expertise is for threat and the reduction of parry-gibs. And there's nothing that reduces damage taken like avoidance from Dodge and Parry.

BUT.

Is all this avoidance and expertise going to be as useful for levelling as a protection warrior? Wouldn't swapping those stats for Strength and/or Block be better when taking on the L68-75 mobs in the first new Northrend Zones?

Should I finally get my Warbringer Chestguard from Maggy tonight, would that be better for the levelling grind than Chestplate of Stoicism?

Of course Chestplate of Stoicism has more EH and Avoidance, but assuming 3x Bold Crimson Spinel, would the T4 piece with it's higher (socketed) Strength and the additional base Block Value - plus the BV from the Strength - be better? It also has approx. 3.2% extra Block Rating too, which means more Damage Shields, and more chance of Revenge being up. With more Revenge uptime, consider how useful the 4-set Bonus could also prove to be, now we all have Glyph of Revenge.

Of course, should the Loot Gods be against me, I'll be buying the Badge chest immediately. But It's just something to consider and I could then put another 100 Badges to better use.

Any badge tanking items that aren't really similar to what you already have might be nice. Aside from tanking instances which you won't need to be geared to the teeth for, think of whether you want to build a DPS leveling set, or an AE leveling set. I'm not convinced at this point that one is faster than the other, so it's definitely a matter of personal preference.

i'm in this same boat, i basically have what I think I need for leveling (full season 4 with season 3 shoulder/weapons) for grinding, and for tanking gear I am composed mostly of t4, za, and badge gear, so I doubt I need more badge tanking gear. wtheck do I do with my badges? gems and sell on AH?

Bah. No chestpiece. 2x Hero and 1x Champion. Most annoying.

My current main has very few badges (new 70). Not enough to buy anything worth while. I am confident in Blizzards ability to provide the proper leveling gear, so will be turning all my badges on all my toons to gems, as leveling gems.

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Originally Posted by Taaryn

Oh and as for the Amani Mask of Death.. I bought that just because of the way it looked

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Lol, I got it for the same reason. That thing is badass. :D

As for the badges, just turn em all into raw or cut Crimson Spinels and sell em all man, since those red ones are the most popular it seems. People are still buying them off the AH for 100g+. Gogo before their price drops even lower!

There are going to be blue quest rewards better than T6 starting at about level 77/78.

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Originally Posted by Bouncelot

My current main has very few badges (new 70). Not enough to buy anything worth while. I am confident in Blizzards ability to provide the proper leveling gear, so will be turning all my badges on all my toons to gems, as leveling gems.

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Green WotlK gems are better than current epic ones. Rather sell them, or pick up a badge piece.