Ready for Kara or not?

[Starbuck]

I basically got all the dungeon blues, going for the belt in Arca key quest and don't know if Myrmidion helmet is better than the Felsteel one I have. But I will get it anyway from Steamvault quest.

Pvp'ing for the Gladiator shoulders atm, and also need rep for the head enchant from KoT, but then I think I'm done. Or what?

Armory link here

Thankful for any feedback

*$

[Dunmail]

My gear was probably worse when I first started Kara & I used many similar blues. Only one's I'd suggest are the KOT legs if you can get the rep as it's a massive amount of stam you can pack onto to them. Only part I'd be worried about is having to use +def gems to roll over the cap, as +hit or +dodge would probably help you more skimming the stats, and the bracers would be a cheap tweak.

I used mine like that until splashing out on some Green fortress ones for the extra stam for the harder bosses. I mention the +hit as 20 seems pretty low and a few misses or dps crits could be painful. If you are lucky with the first few boss drops then you'd be laughing as the bracers and belt would be a massive boost to you. Something like the heroic ramps belt would serve you well over what you have.

[AlmtyBob]

Your gear looks fine for starting Kara. Your success with Maiden and Curator will depend a lot on how well geared your healers are. Prince and Nightbane will gib you quickly until your stam is past the ~14.5k mark and dodge+parry is in the low to mid 40's. A few points:

-Your Felsteel helm is slightly better than [item]Myrmidon's Headdress[/item]

-Dunmail is right, grind out BM runs until revered for the [item]Timewarden's Leggings[/item] and the [item]Glyph of the Defender[/item] for your head piece.

-Swap out your +15 str on gloves for Superior Agility, 2% threat, or +10 stam. Since you might not have them long +10 stam from a leatherworker would be the cheapest.

-Farm Heroic Ramps for [item]Lion's Heart Girdle[/item] or Heroic SP for [item]Girdle of the Immovable[/item]

-Farm badges as much as possible for some of the upcoming 2.4 badge gear. There are so many great upgrades from badges it's almost cheating, so get your guildies together and start farming.

-Farm [item]The Sun Eater[/item] from Heroic Mech. If you have a warlock and skip Sepethrea it's also an easy 3 badges.

-As long as you can keep your defense past 490 (a little less with the resil on your shield actually) avoid the socket bonuses like the plague and gem for +12 stam most of the time. I don't blame you if you don't want to blow gold on +12 stam gems on gear you'll replace in early Kara though.

-Again Dunmail makes a good point about your threat generation. An easy around that is to definitely dump Improved Disarm and Improved Shield Bash. Possibly dump Improved Revenge, drop one or two points in Tactical Mastery, and drop Improved Defensive Stance. All those points would be put to better use in maxxing Focused Rage, Toughness, One-Handed Weapon Specialization, and Cruelty in that order. That should go a long way towards improving your mitigation and threat gen. Specs are a lot of personal preference but I think everyone would agree you need at least Focused Rage, Toughness, and One-handed Weapon Specialization maxxed.

[Starbuck]

Woah, those are great hints for me. Thanks a lot mates.

I never thought of looking into my talent tree, but certainly will now.

One thing though AlmtyBob, I've tried a few heroics and got whacked pretty hard all three times - and that by trash mobs only. Not even close to meet a boss. No way I'm gonna farm heroics with this gear. Or maybe Im doing something wrong? Somebody told me to do Kara before doing heroics, correct or not?

*$

[AlmtyBob]

Your gear is absolutely fine for maybe 1/3rd of the Heroics. If you're doing something wrong it's one of 3 things.

-You chose the wrong Heroic. Stick to SP, Mech, or MAYBE Ramps. If you do Mech make sure you have a warlock.

-Bad Composition. When you're doing Heroics early on the more CC you can get the better. I never run anything without a mage if I can avoid it. If you manage to get 2 mages and a (good) hunter you'll blow through Heroics like nothing. Also, never ever bring another warrior. You'll need the DPS gear that drops for many fights, especially if you ever happen to off tank. For that matter I can't think of any Heroic encounter where it's melee DPS is preferred. In fact there's many fights (Pandemonius in MT, Murmur in Slabs, Pathaleon in Mech, etc) where melee DPS is going to be raped and cut down on the heals YOU receive.

-Lack of heals. At least in the case of the above 3 heroics, an overgeared healer (+1500 healing and up) will make up for any undergearing issues you have.

Kara trash in general will be a bit easier than most Heroic trash and you'll have more room error. Regardless, there's no reason you shouldn't be farming Heroics.

[Starbuck]

Thx mate, this was big help for me.

Heroics, Kara, bring it on.

*$

[Dunmail]

Kara's easy in comparision to many heroics, especially the trash, when you first start. Ramparts is a great example of that - easy bosses, but a couple of particuarly nasty areas / pulls, that can easily turn into a wipe fest. I've been to AC once on heroic and never going back, and that was with half decent gear. Flares on bridge.... where is the designer and let me have 5 minutes alone with him where the screams won't be heard.

Bot is also quite good if you have 1/2 CC, especially if you have a lock for the demons. Alot of badges, but boss 3 would be a gear check (skipable), hits hard, nasty with aggro and the Aoe isn't too nice.

The hard part (I found anyway) is having the gear to withstand 2 of the nastier mobs smacking you and hope the healer is well awake, and not out aggroing you by stopping you spurting all over the floor (blood - behave...).

I never realised how much of a difference the extra 2 points in Thunderclap make with CC. Gimping cruelty for that has made many heroics much less of a headbanging experience for me. Talents make a huge difference, and often worth spending a bit of time fighting that twitchy pile of kack armoury is to have a peek at other people's setups, especially any MT's you know. It's probably cost me a couple of hundred gold in fiddling around to get one I'm pretty happy with, with respecs and stuff. Annoying if it's only to shift 1 or 2 points, but what works for someone else, may not be the ultimate option for you.

The gear progression lists here, and similar threads do make life much simpler, or point you in a sensible direction to go. As mentioned at the start I find Kara much easier to tank than heroics, which no doubt many guildies/Pugs would agree with as some were just atrocious experiences, others perfect, simple and fast which makes you wonder WTF they can be such hard work. I guess the main difference in heroics, especially on initial/mediocre gear is you need everyone to pull their weight and if something goes wrong it can wipe all too easily, or someone starts kicking off and so on.

Doing both has provided me with alot of purples and badges to buy even more (although not as many as I'd like =p). I've probably learned more about tanking, and looking at tanking setups from attempting and doing heroics, probably why I have so much irritation at a couple of them. Nice to have a challenge though, and especially usful when they (or party members) show what you have to work on.

[AlmtyBob]

Agreed, all around. Kara trash is much more organized and generally easier. Unlike most heroics, it's rare you'll pull adds and there's only a few pulls that require CC. Once you've done all the pulls a couple of times you should be able to fly through them. Compare that to skipping pulls in SP & SV, flares & ghosts in AC, a miss-pull in ramps, pre-second boss groups in BF, etc, where sometimes even a well geared group can get wiped.

Try to make some good lock, mage, and healer friends and find the Heroics you feel comfortable with and just start farming.