Gearing Up

I've recently been gearing up my two 80s, with a primary focus on my Paladin- Alenena. Before 3.3 I was gearing Vitos, my Warlock because it was just as easy to get into a group with him and he did much more dps. This makes sense considering he is a pure class, not a hybrid.

Anyways, with 3.3 Al can now offer to tank or dps and can consequently get a group in under a minute easily. Vitos has to wait fifteen+ minutes in general, and if he screws up, many people are very willing to boot a dps who does not perform to their exalted expectations.

In any case, 3.3 hit just as my winter break started so I could really sit down and gear up. Within a week I had 4 pieces of T9. In the month or so since then I've gotten another 3 pieces of tier (one more for tanking and two for dps). Additionally, I've gotten excellent loot from the new 5-mans, finally replacing a year old Demise.

I also got a Triumph ring and trinket as well as a Conqueror's Libram. My average iLv rocketed from 205 (tank gear) to 229 (tank gear). However, there were two pieces that evaded my grasp. Bracers and Back. I did buy one of the 30 emblem Valorous capes, but that left if at 213, which, compared to the rest of my gear, was pretty low. Even worse were my bracers. I had gotten them in my first H-CoS run. They were the blue iLv 200 bracers that dropped off Salramm. Now, they aren't bad, they did in fact serve me well through Naxx, Ulduar, some ToC, and Onyxia. Hell, they were with me when I went to ICC for the first time.

I spent a long time researching where to upgrade them. First there was a iLv 200 Epic drop in Heroic AN. A small upgrade, but one nonetheless- so far, it has not dropped for me. Then there are some other guys who drop much better bracers. Instructor Rasuvious- One of the first bosses in Naxx drops iLv 200 and 213 bracers- depending on 10 or 25 man. The Flame Leviathan, first boss in Ulduar 10, drops 219 bracers. Northern Beasts, first boss in ToC 10, drops 232 bracers. Lord Marrowgar, first boss in ICC 10, drops 251 bracers.

The problem with all those is that I rarely raid, and when I do, they don't drop for me. That makes me sad. In any case, there are two epic level BoE bracers. The 60 Emblem of Valor ones, which cost 900g minimum if you want to buy them because whoever it is could buy 6 epic gems instead, so that hardly makes sense for an iLv 213 at this point in the game. The other BoE bracer is Saronite Swordbreakers. They're a crafted piece and the recipe drops in ToC 10-H or 25 (I think). They require 8 titansteel bars, 4 crusader orbs and 20 saronite bars. There were two of them on the AH when I checked each going for about 3000g. I then chose to look at the actual prices of the materials and determined that, if I got them, I could get the bracers for about half price. I proceeded to do so spending- 1350 in total including a 50g tip for the crafter I found and got me my new bracers. Now I'm very much over def cap (by about 10 points) so I'm going to be regemming and reenchanting some of my gear.