So I hit 70... Now what?

[Dren]

WoW Wiki for all your needs: http://www.wowwiki.com/Daily_quest

Basically go see Wind Trader Zhareem in the Lower City in Shattrath and see what he's looking for. Every day there's a specifically targeted Heroic Outland Dungeon that has special drops you turn in for XP (if not 70), gold, 2 badges and rep with Consortium and whatever faction runs that instance.

I suspect they give Consortium rep cuz after a certain point you start getting gems in the mail from them. (Or they did in the past - not there yet myself to verify.)

They never got mail to work so now you have to swing by their camp in nagrand and pick them up yourself

ARGH, I keep forgetting to do that!  The other problem is that it is just about as far away from the FP as it can be.  There is no other reason to visit that spot for me.  PAIN.

[Fabricated]

Headpiece: Felsteel Helm, It's great until you get an engineering helm if you want to go that route.
Necklace: Strength of the Untamed, a CE revered reward.
Shoulders: Sadly, there's only really one good choice here and it's Shoulderguards of the Bold off Murmur. And they don't drop well. Shoulders are one of the two very hard things to get early as a tank.
Cloak: Devilshark Cape, off the last boss of reg Steamvault. Seriously, I still wear this thing to raid ZA and SSC.
Chest: Vindicator's Hauberk A revered Aldor reward. Great stuff until you get 75 badges.
Bracers: Sha'tari Wrought Armbands, which is a Quest reward from Auchindoun's Soul Devices.
Weapon: Honor's Call, the Honor Hold exalted reward.
Shield: Crest of the Sha'tar, the Sha'tar exalted reward.
Gun: Consortium Blaster, Revered Consortium. 15 stam stat-stick with extra AP.
Trinket 1: Admantine Figurine, which drops off 2nd SLabs boss. Lots of Def there.
Trinket 2: Figurine of the Colossus, drops off last boss of Shattered Halls. Lots of Shield block rating.
Ring 1: Andormu's Tear, a quest reward from the Caverns of Time.
Ring 2: Elementium Band of the Sentry, off the last boss of Arcatraz. A GREAT ring until much later.
Boots: Boots of the Colossus, off first boss in Mana-Tombs Heroic. I include this as the only heroic because he's easy to get to.
Legs: Felsteel Leggings, yep another Felsteel item to buy or craft.
Belt: Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard, which is a quest reward from the Arcatraz Key line.
Hands: Felsteel Gloves, the 3rd piece for the +25 Str bonus.

I just want to point out that this is why I don't like standard MMORPG fare and will only deal in random loot these days.

I don't want to know what to get. Mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. (This isn't just about WoW).

Some of those aren't the best items you can get in that class...there's probably 2-3 more options for each slot for tanks. Some require hitting heroics however.

Here's all the tank gear you can get without too much trouble:

Head:
Myrmidon's Headress - Free metagem helmet you get for completing the Steamvaults.
Felsteel Helm - It's easy to get.
Warhelm of the Bold - Pretty "eh" to me considering the Myrmidon's Headress gives the benefit of a metagem with better base stats. Not bad though.
Greathelm of the Unbreakable - a fairly common drop from Shattered Halls, solid stats. Not as good as some of the helms above since you can't shove nice gems into it to drag it above the quality of a flat-stat blue, but I have one with an FR enchant I use for my FR set so I can keep some tank stats.

Shoulder: You are kinda screwed in this regard...
Shoulderguards of the Bold - Best tank shoulders out of a non-heroic 5-man.
Pauldron's of Brute Force - You can probably find a better green "of the champion" at level 70, but these may be made better with gems.

Chest:
Jade-Skull Breastplate - Better than the Aldor Hauberk IMO, but that's just me.
Breastplate of the Warbringer - Blizz really needs to think about what they name shit. Quest reward, and a great tank BP if you need some hit%.
Breastplate of the Bold - Kinda eh again like most of the Bold set, but you can get a lot of stamina out of this with 3 sockets.

Legs:
Timewarden's Leggings - Best pre-raid tank leggings IMO. Felsteel is overrated.
Felsteel Leggings - Yeah, Timewarden legs are better, but you can buy these for peanuts.
Legplates of the Bold - You can do worse, and you'll have to run the Dark Portal at least once to get to Kara.
Greaves of the Shatterer - Another Shattered Halls drop. Pretty good IMO if you're uneasy about having nothing but +stamina/avoidance tank gear and no strength.

Bracers:
Sha'tari Wrought Armguards - Uh, this is about it without running heroics.
Junior Technician 3rd Grade Bracers - These used to be better than any blue but they got nerfed a bit. They're still good though.

Gloves:
Felsteel Gloves - About the only Felsteel piece I think is really great.
Thatia's Self-Correcting Gauntlets - Another solid set of gauntlets.
Gauntlets of the Bold - More bold set stuff. Eh.

Boots:
Flesh Beast's Metal Greaves - I have no idea why but there are no good tank boots from non-heroics. Mana Tombs quest reward.
Sha'tari Wrought Greaves - Not tank stats specifically but about as good as you're gonna get in terms of max ilevel blues.
Ascendant's Boots - More green quest rewards that're better than blues.

Belt:
Sha'tari Vindicator's Waistguard - Best belt you can get for quite a while. Freebie for Arcatraz quest series.
Girdle of the Lost Vindicator - Solid green belt you can use in place of the above.

Rings:
Elementium Band of the Sentry - This you won't throw away for a long long time.
Andormu's Tear - It's all avoidance and no stamina, which just kills the usefulness of this ring for me. It's great avoidance but when you're starting out you really want more HP.
Iron Band of the Unbreakable - Kinda geared towards druids, but good stats and easy to get.
Protector's Mark of Redemption - Great quest reward ring from Shadowmoon Valley.
Wind Trader's Band - Fantastic green quest reward that's easy to get.

Trinkets:
Dabiri's Enigma - Fantastic quest reward from the Netherstorm, goes well with~
Figurine of the Collusus - Not the greatest tank trinket out there but good if you're hurting for block rating, use both this and Dabiri's Engima at the same time and you get an almost guaranteed 120 damage off of each hit, or free life if you block more damage than you take. Paladins can do sick shit with this combo.
Gnomish Poultryizer - Use isn't that great but the stamina IS. Requires engineering.
Adamantine Figurine - Defense rating and +armor use.
Dawnstone Crab - Amazingly awesome trinket that sadly requires you to be a jewelcrafter.

Necklace:
Mark of the Ravenguard - Better than the Strength of the Untamed IMO. Freebie for doing Sethekk Halls.
Medallion of the Valiant Guardian - Freebie for completing Shattered Halls.
Nastaha's Battle Chain - Another solid quest reward.
Strength of the Untamed - Good if you need avoidance.

Weapons:
Grom'tor's Charge - About the best you can do for a pure tank weapon before you do heroics or get enough rep for HH/Thrallmar.

[Paelos]

Fab, yeah I thought about a few of those, but I personally hate Gromtar's Charge. It's an ax, and if you are a human tank it's worthless. I'm not saying I didn't possess it for 3 weeks at some point, but HH rep isn't that bad if you're smart about tanking groups.

All in all, your list and mine is fairly close.

PS - I didn't include heroics because at that point you should be tanking Kara.

[Jayce]

Wow, look at all that good info.

Grom'tor sounds good for me because I'm an orc - the racial gives me +expertise with axes.  I'll probably be tanking more heroics than Kara, just due to time constraints, so the heroic loot is relevant to me.

Bottom line is that between you guys' posts, I should have plenty to do for the foreseeable future.  Thanks!

[Righ]

All the tank gear you are likely to consider:

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/gear-lists-rankings/32083-berg-s-tank-gear-rankings-11-16-2007-wow-2-3-a.html

[Jayce]

All the tank gear you are likely to consider:

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/gear-lists-rankings/32083-berg-s-tank-gear-rankings-11-16-2007-wow-2-3-a.html

Wow, that's even better.  I have a spreadsheet that ranks gear by armor equivalence points but it's pretty limited compared to this site.  Thanks.

edit: oh crap, I just said spreadsheet.  I guess I'll need to brace for snide comments now.

[slog]

shadowpriest.com has a great thread in the gear section called "The best gear for the casual gamer."  While some of it really pushes limit's of casual, it's a great place to start.

[Venkman]

I particularly like Kaliban's Class Loot Lists at wow-loot.com, and especially the gear planner (though it seems incomplete).

[Nebu]

I have a spreadsheet that ranks gear by armor equivalence points ... 

I'm speechless. 

[Venkman]

That's what separate "hitting 70" from "being 70" 

[schild]

That's what separate "hitting 70" from "being psychotic" 

[MrHat]

That's what separate "hitting 70" from "being psychotic" 

No way dude.

I walked into my bud's office today.  There were spreadsheet print ups, hand scribbed notes and literally 50+ papers scattered all over his office.

He had 3 excel files open on his monitor 1.

His monitor 2 had eve forums open.

I glanced closer at all of the paperwork.  That fucking game looks so complicated that I thought it was work stuff.  It wasn't.  It was all eve stuff.

[Jayce]

The thing is, you don't have to have spreadsheets.  In fact I have never created a spreadsheet concerning anything to do with WoW.  I just use the results of other (possibly psychotic) people who have generated spreadsheets.  And anyway, the one I have is essentially a list, but with some calculations based on relative stat values.

That's what they call a deep game.  Easy to learn, difficult to master.  More precisely, hard to learn everything there is to know to maximize your performance, not overly hard in a twitchy way.  But if you don't care to know all about it, just want spur of the moment adrenaline rushes, then that's there too I guess. 

[Venkman]

That's what separate "hitting 70" from "being psychotic" 

No way dude.

Way.

When you're not at the cap, you're a) learning the game; and, b) trying to hit the cap (or stuck in a tiered BG and loving it). Maximizing your stats at any given is not as important as gaining more levels themselves. At best, you get "deep" into it by either doing instance runs for one bit of gear (like that staff from SM back in the day) and using websites to get answers. You can though all of this and still achieve the cap, because the pre-70 PvE game is balanced based on what the game gives you through drops and quests.

But when you're at the level cap, that game is over. What you're left with is the desire to get more stuff but the reality of doing so much slower than before. You can still achieve, but you'll need a lot more info to do it well. And if you decide to go the Raiding route, you're joining the portion of the game where achievement is about making the next achievement first possible and then easier.

Some people take that to extremes, ekking out every 100th of a point they can get from their gear. And there's a lot of debate with a number of classes on how best to combine spec, stats and situations. This is a numbers game at heart, so it's logical to go to the spreadsheets.

I personally don't. This is due to my schedule. It doesn't matter what I know, because it's pure Time that's holding me back.

My spreadsheet games were SWG (for the energy business... everything I learned from MS Excel was from that experience) and Eve, which also really compels one to use them as well. But these games are less about pure time and more about how one wants to exist in the game world.

(for schild: yes, people do find it fun. And we know you don't )

[MrHat]

My no way response was suppose to cause you to come to the conclusion that Eve players are far more psychotic than Jayce's spreadsheet.

[Merusk]

If you don't think EvE's about pure time, then you're not playing it anything more than casually, or in 0.0.  You know, the game the devs WANT everyone to play, despite 2/3 of the players being in Empire.

[Venkman]

I meant "time that I can control". Eve is about Time, but it is so obvious, everyone knows that going in, and knows they can't do much about it. The game's first filter is making players decide whether they want to wait 5 months for that coveted ship or not.

WoW (and other DIKUs) meanwhile perpetuate the belief that anyone can get to the endest of the endgames for the bestest gear. Unfortunately, after trying and believing for the same five months, players get filtered between those who have the lifestyle (or were willing to change it) and those who don't want to. The latter group either accepts or gets all pissy and dramatic.

It's the difference between knowing the facts going in and learning the truth along the way.

At least in Eve, the pissiness and drama is for different reasons ;)

[Cim]

What realm does everyone play on?

[Chimpy]

What realm does everyone play on?

I play alliance on Eldre'Thalas, my original realm (where my horde toons are but I dont really go to anymore) was Garona.

[Selby]

What realm does everyone play on?

Stormrage and Uldum (a really dead server the other half chose when she started playing) for Alliance
Runetotem for Horde

[Xanthippe]

Alliance on Korgath.

[Zetor]

Alliance on Crushridge... aka "that server jammno used to play on" (ugh)


-- Z.

[Nebu]

Kurnai faction - done.

Scryer faction - almost exhalted.

Flying mount - done.

Bleh... I think this may be the new CoH.  It's more fun leveling to 70 than it is being 70.  If any of you know of a good place to get information on the pvp aspects of the game (zones, levels, etc.) I'd be interested... especially if there are places I can wander around solo.  I'm trying to figure out how to get honor points with the central place in Nagrand to buy some gear, but I'm failing miserably. 

If anyone has a 5 man that needs a regular body, let me know.  I'll play about anything as long as I don't have to deal with pugs or drama.

[Koyasha]

Halaa will require a group to get good tokens, but that's not too difficult, depending on the general atmosphere of the server.  If people are taking Halaa, there's usually raid invites to be had easily.  Any kills within a certain range of Halaa always give Halaa battle tokens to the entire group of whoever got the killing blow.  A good rough-and-tumble fight over the place can net a lot of tokens very quickly, but those aren't that common.  Usually one side overpowers the other pretty quickly, then it either stays that way a while or the other side hits back with an even more overpowering force.  You also need research tokens, which come from collecting dust (20) and turning it in while your faction has control of Halaa.  You need a lot less research tokens than battle tokens to get anything, but since they require considerable mob-killing they can come slowly.  Of course, the dust comes from many mobs that are useful to kill for other reasons - for example, elementals that also drop motes, ogres that give Consortium and Kurenai/Mag'har faction, stuff at the Twilight Ridge you need to kill for a Netherwing daily, and so on.

Honor Hold/Thrallmar tokens work much the same way, only those get earned by kills in the vicinity of the Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh PvP objectives.  They're also more soloable, cause it's more often that a lone person goes to take those objectives.  Most of these marks (of both types) are pretty useless after a point.  The gear is mid-60's range, and replaceable, but some of it will last until 70 and until you get better blues/purples from either battlegrounds or arenas.  The trinket you can get from honor hold/thrallmar marks can be quite good, though, and is worth getting, but beyond that, the main thing worth getting is the devices to increase faction gain with Honor Hold/Thrallmar.  The other thing worth getting is the gem from Halaa (which you will periodically have to replace as you upgrade whatever item you socketed it into).

[Nebu]

Thanks for the information.  It's funny that you comment that way on the gear.  Most of the gear on the quartermasters there is vastly superior to anything I've gotten so far as a soloer and apparently it's trash by the raider's standards.