Emblem of Frost Priority List

[Lex01]

Just curious as to how you all are prioritizing the use of your emblems of frost.

I'm really digging the 95 emblem chest piece Cataclysmic Chestguard
Cataclysmic Chestguard - Items - Sigrie

[gabbu]

I am most likely going for the stam trinket first because Juggernaut seems to hate me , though the on use seems pretty weak.

Corroded Skeleton Key - Item - World of Warcraft

[Dreador]

Gonna be chest, then trinket, then gloves, then belt.

[Theotherone]

For Tank it's: Sentinel's Winter Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft, then Corroded Skeleton Key - Item - World of Warcraft

I am sick of the freaking Naxx 25 cloak I can't get rid of.

For Hunter it's Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape - Item - World of Warcraft and then Band of the Night Raven - Item - World of Warcraft

As you can tell I have horrible luck with cloak drops.

[Takethecake]

Isn't all the T10.0 / T10.25 purchased with Emblems of Frost as well?

With the set bonus for T10 for pretty much all classes being so outstanding I would think most people would be shooting for those pieces fairly early.

[winterbourne]

Its really a matter of what you are driving right now. For me, I side totally with Theotherone: My tanking cloak is so underpowered ( i have no luck getting the ToC cloak) this is the single largest jump forward for me, bar none. That being said, I think this cloak stands up on its own as at least a decent upgrade from nearly any early cloak.

Bottom line, focus on the weakest pieces of your arsenal for replacement. there is the first big +stam trinket available for emblems in a fair bit, if I remember correctly. I'm in the 232 non-set chest right now, so that is a bit lower on my radar.

[loquatious]

T10 has to be my priority - the other stuff is fantastic but second priority

[Athenodorus]

Cloak first, then Stamina trinket. Meanwhile, pay heavily for saronite and craft legs.

[Bihn]

A lot of it is going to depend on what gear drops for me on the way, but right now I'm planning on doing two 60 badge pieces before the next wing comes out (though presumably there should be just enough badges to do a 95 and a 50 badge item)

Out of those, given my current gear set (and I suspect most people's current gear set), the belt is the best option. Unless you have no stam trinkets at all and/or a sub-par chest piece, I'm fairly certain the belt is going to be your best first option, too. Out of all of the bonus armor pieces, you lose the least amount of dodge by getting the gloves (red socket with +9 stamina socket bonus!) and you gain more stamina than you would by just replacing even the normal version of Satrina's/Juggernaut's with the new badge trinket.

So, choosing the belt first you get:
-More stam than upgrading either the 245/258 trinket
-~750 more armor than the 245 belt (a bit more than .5% damage reduction increase at my armor level, it will be more if you have less armor)
-The least amount of dodge loss from replacing any of the other 245/258 tanking options (assuming you use a 10dodge/15 stamina gem)

I agree that that chest is monstrous, though, for many of the same reasons the belt and gloves are. And unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to get too in depth with the tier gear yet, so that might end up being even more desirable.

[Aggathon]

If you get the gloves and belt it is a bigger stat upgrade than the chest, and it allows you to get 2 items before the next wing opens instead of just 1. Once more wings open it'll be a lot easier to pick up things.

I think I may just skip T10, at least for now, in favor of the offset pieces. The offset pieces give you roughly 3k more armor and 630 more hit points. I'm thinking the 2pc might be worth the small drop in stats choosing the T10 shoulders over the other drop shoulders. So I think my order will go:

Belt
Gloves
Chest
Helm
Shoulders
Cloak

Depending on if I get other drops, I may move up the cloak depending on if the helm or shoulders drop before then.

[Kojiyama]

Posted my thoughts about this in another thread earlier:

(I never got lucky with the Anub-10H tribute cloak drop, as the tanking one has never dropped for us... so the relative value of the cloak is pretty high compared to the Jaraxxus-25H one.)

... the T10 for Warriors is pretty underwhelming.

The badge gloves, cloak, and waist especially are much larger (and better value) upgrades than any of the T10 pieces. Additionally, the only super-great T10 pieces until you are killing heroic-25 bosses are the Helm and Shoulders, which are fairly expensive.

Even then, the other badge pieces are actually bigger slot upgrades than the Helm and Shoulders, at a lower cost.

The T10 Gloves are not very good at all, the T10 legs are pretty bad compared to the crafted ones, and the T10 chest is really not better (and arguably worse) than the badge chest until you can turn it into the 277 version. (It is very similar if you have the normal 25-man version, at the expense of taking a token from a fellow raider for almost no immediate upgrade.)






My current badge plan is:

1. Badge Gloves
2. Badge Waist
3. Badge Cloak
4. Badge Chest
5. Set Shoulders
6. Set Helm
7. Set Chest (someday, when I get my 3rd heroic-25 token)
8. Set Gloves (someday, when I get my 4th heroic-25 tokens)

Although the 4-set is an interesting bonus, I doubt I will be aiming for the 4-set bonus until I have access to 4 heroic tokens, which cause the Chest to pull away from the badge version. (Although the 277 T10 gloves are still similar to the survival value of the badge gloves with higher EH bias, it would be worth the 4-set bonus if you had the other 3.)

It's also worth noting that the shoulders are only really good if you are trying specfically to get the set bonus. The Boneguard Commander Pauldrons are otherwise better due to the extra (and better colored) socket. They are close enough to warrent swapping them if you really want the 2-set bonus (which is nice) but if, for instance, the shoulders dropped for me I would probably put off buying the T10 shoulders until after the helm for sure--I'm not totally certain I won't do that anyway, given how long it takes to get badges.

(I'm actually a bit sad in regard to the state of the tanking set pieces... was hoping for them to be nice, but they just aren't. Low number of sockets, strange itemization, and stronger alternatives doesn't make them that attractive.)

[Aggathon]

Posted my thoughts about this in another thread earlier:

(I never got lucky with the Anub-10H tribute cloak drop, as the tanking one has never dropped for us... so the relative value of the cloak is pretty high compared to the Jaraxxus-25H one.)

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47436 ??

The stat differences are:
+564 Armor+25 str+8 stam(-) 9 defense(-)1 dodge(-)43 expertise

The cloak is definitely a must have, but it's not as big of an upgrade as many other things.

It's also worth noting that the shoulders are only really good if you are trying specfically to get the set bonus. The Boneguard Commander Pauldrons are otherwise better due to the extra (and better colored) socket. They are close enough to warrent swapping them if you really want the 2-set bonus (which is nice) but if, for instance, the shoulders dropped for me I would probably put off buying the T10 shoulders until after the helm for sure--I'm not totally certain I won't do that anyway, given how long it takes to get badges.

Hey looky here! Something else we completely agree on... speaking of I want your opinion on the T10 shenanigans, check out my thread please!
http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f97/5...ses-worth.html

[Kojiyama]

The armor is fairly valuable at the moment, at least for me.

Suppose it depends on how much one values the expertise, but from the looks of it with Misdirection being made uber now threat is really even more of a non-issue than it was before.

The cloak is fairly cheap at 50 badges, and for me it seems like a better upgrade than the helm at 95.

In regard to the shoulders, the problem there is that the 264 Shoulders are a better upgrade than the cloak, but the 251 Shoulders are not...so unless I steal a token from someone (which I'm not inclined to do, for reasons you cover in the other thread) it doesn't seem so great.

[Aggathon]

Oh ya, I'm not even considering the 251 gear. And ya, like I said the cloak is definitely a upgrade, but at least for me, the gloves, belt, and chest are all better for me by a bit. what order I get the T10/Cloak in really depends on what drops for me. If I get the offset helm and/or shoulders to drop, I'm gonna pick up the cloak first.

[Kojiyama]

Perhaps interesting, perhaps not... I did some quick math on the the survival upgrades each piece would offer me personally, divided by the emblem cost.

Note, some of this is quite relative to your actual situation with gear...this really only strictly applies to someone with a typical loadout of the better non-Anub TotGC items and such. And, as always, ranking of gear is subjective, depends on what you already have, fight parameters, etc. yadda yadda.

This omits pieces that are a downgrade from my current gear.

Sanctified Ymirjar Lord's Pauldrons    1.519
Gauntlets of the Kraken                1.400
Verdigris Chain Belt                   1.086
Sanctified Ymirjar Lord's Greathelm    0.957
Sentinel's Winter Cloak                0.857
Sanctified Ymirjar Lord's Handguards   0.670
Sanctified Ymirjar Lord's Breastplate  0.439
Ymirjar Lord's Greathelm               0.341
Cataclysmic Chestguard                 0.165

Has helped me to look at it as a perspective of upgrade/badges, so perhaps it is useful.

[Bihn]

I think that's interesting. I'd like to hear a more in depth description of your process.
What is the unit you are using? Survivability(however you define it) per badge?

You and I have the same gloves and belt and my mental math placed the badge belt above the gloves (I also have the extra blacksmithing socket, though I don't think that effects the calculation). Unless I'm missing something, the belt has better gem slots at the expensive of only 11 armor. Everything else is equivalent.

[Kojiyama]

While the items themselves have very (almost oddly!) similar stats, the delta compared to the other items is a bit different.

The difference basically comes down to +11 Armor, and +20 Dodge (delta) for the Gloves at a loss of -15 Stamina. (Depending on how you socket it, of course... but this is keeping in mind that you do have to live without both for a little while, so the loss of dodge in the waist slot is greater than the glove slot for me, plus the minor bit of armor. In a vacuum, the belt is very slightly better than the gloves for the reasons you mentioned.)

Both are very good upgrades, though. The other consideration is also that, realistically, the 258 belt is still quite obtainable from Jaraxxus (while the 258 gloves are a bit more of a crapshoot given the limited availability, and depending on if your guild is doing Anub-25H) so the gloves are probably the best bet initially. From what I can see, initially the belt is a pretty small upgrade over the Heroic Girdle of Bloodied Scars, which isn't too difficult to get now for most guilds.

As with all things, everything is relative to what you have already.

The upgrade scale is the upgrade of burst time per slot--which I typically use when looking at survivability--divided by the badge cost. Some other models could be looked at, but would probably give similar results. Rawr has recently added a new feature that lets you insert costs (not sure if it's in the public build yet though) to things and view Direct Upgrades/Cost, which is what I was playing around with to generate that list. Once there's a release with it, should be easy enough for anyone to muck about with it.

Just thought it might be interesting to post.

[Dragaan]

I think the non-tier armor pieces are very, very strong items. The huge boost in armor I'm sure would be awesome for progressing through the heroics, but they aren't available just yet and nothing really warrants absolute max survival gear right now. The 2p t10 bonus is just too amazing to pass up, so I'll be buying at least 2 pieces of t10 first. I should hopefully have at least 1 token to purchase the mid-grade t10 by then.

[Regill]

Based on what gear I already have, which pieces are still 245, and which are 258, I'm upgrading with frost emblems this way:

t10 shoulders (have a token for mid level already or this wouldn't be first)
offset Chest (still have 245 currently)
offset Gloves (still have 245 currently)
Belt (have 258 so lower priority)
Cloak (have 258 so lower priority)
t10 helm (should have another token by this point) to complete 2pc t10 bonus

All that may change depending on drop luck of course. If by some miracle I get a 258 chest before I build up enough badges, the order will change. I'm more trying to illustrate the type of thinking you should go through when planning. Upgrade your weakest slots first, don't just rely on some order posted here. Notice that the trinket isn't even on my list, because I have double juggernauts and glyph already, but it might be high on yours if you have poor trinket luck. Then again I think we are all lusting after the Organ from ten man...

[Shenron]

I will most probably getting the tier pieces first as you can upgrade them with the tokens bit by bit. I was thinking about the trinket, but the use effect seems a bit week, and the 30 stam upgrade doesn't seem like something to gasp about.