[Druid, 3.2] Coliseum loot for Faction Champions/Valkyr

Because I'm lazy, and because I (ahem) don't remember which comes first, you'll get a two-for-one deal on the loot that drops from the Coliseum this week.

And yes, I'll be lumping this in together in one big guide you'll be able to use.

I get a lot of questions about what you should upgrade, how you should upgrade it, where you should spend your badges first, etc. This...isn't really answerable for everyone, everywhere, but in general I agree with Jacemora in spirit. You should try and spend your emblems wisely on things that you won't quickly upgrade.

That means for bear, buy the tanking ring. For cat, buy the DPS ring. If you get a Trophy of the Crusade, get either the chest or the gloves depending on which will be a bigger upgrade for you, and gem it so you can use it for either set. Then work on the head and shoulder pieces.

The 4-piece bonus isn't worth it for either spec, honestly. It's good for cats, but it's nothing so insane that you must have it. The tier bonuses for bears are trivial. However, thanks to blizzard laziness, all the tier and non-tier gear have almost precisely the same base stats - which make them very interchangeable.

The long and short of that means that it will always - always - be a DPS upgrade to go up a tier regardless of what the piece is. This only applies to the coliseum gear, but it means that if you get an coliseum-10 piece, a coliseum-25 (or heroic 10)piece in the same slot will be an upgrade to it. And a heroic-25 will beat that. Always. That makes it a lot easier to evaluate gear.

The question then becomes - what should you really go for?

The big ticket item is the weapon. That remains the thing that's hardest to get and the biggest overall gain. Now, it's rumored that Onyxia drops an actual tanking polearm; if so, awesome for bears. Otherwise, it's the same as usual - look for the Lupine Longstaff/Twin Pact and grab it.

The other thing that makes recommendations difficult is that it's not clear how hard the hard modes actually are. Will the 10-man be fairly easy for 25-man raiders again? Will the 25-man hard modes be akin to Mimiron and Yogg, or Flame Leviathan? No one knows. My bet is that the hard modes will not be too difficult and most guilds will have all the hard modes done, and a few of them (like beasts and jaraxxus) will be done fairly early. That means lots of tier pieces, lots of high-end loot, and lots of good times. That's just a guess, though; we'll know more in 3 weeks.

Me personally? The biggest bang for the buck is the DPS ring for me, followed by the DPS idol. Then I'll go for the shoulders. Assuming I can do all 25, 10 and every daily heroic, that'll take me 3 more weeks to compile, and should put me in a good position to do hard mode content assuming no other upgrades.

Anyway, on to the gear lists.

25-man Faction Champions:

Satrina's Impending Scarab/Juggernaut's Vitality -drops from 25-man Faction Champions. (awesome for bear). This is a huge chunk of stamina that also adds...more health on emergency. It's a giant stam sandwich with extra stam. Now, keep in mind that you can't use this and the heroic version at the same time. However, also keep in mind that tanks are dirty bastards, and they'll fight you for this tooth and nail. Just get it and be happy, and pray it drops often so anyone who does tank can get it.

Ring of Callous Aggression/Band of Callous Aggression - drops from 25-man Faction Champions. #5 cat. This is a solid ring that isn't quite as good as dexterous brightstone ring, but is still likely an upgrade unless you've been very lucky with Algalon loot. I'd probably pass and get the badge ring first, but note that rings are sparse and competition is high; if you have the option, grabbing it isn't the worst thing you can do.

Treads of the Icewalker/Icewalker Treads - drops from 25-man Faction Champions. (#2 cat, #3 bear). These are about a 5-point upgrade from Runed Ironhide for bears and a 5 point for cats. Shockingly for bears, the thing that beats them? PvP gear. Still quite good, and because they're boots they can happily pull double duty for cat and bear. I'd definitely prioritize these if possible.

10-man Faction Champions:

Gloves of the Silver Assassin/Sunreaver Assassin Gloves - drops from 10-man Faction Champions. (#3 cat, #10 bear) - thanks to their poor stamina, these are worse than T8 gloves; skip if you're a bear. If you're a cat and you're not dealing with set bonus breaking, this can be a fairly strong choice; despite the item level they're just barely worse than the T9.25 pieces. As above I'd still likely pick the T9.25 piece and plan on using it for bear and cat, but this is a good stopgap, and if you don't already have T8 this is a very solid piece with tons of armor pen.

Victor's Call/Vengeance of the Forsaken - drops from 10-man Faction Champion. (?? cat, bleh bear) - this one is likely a big pass. It gives expertise, which isn't that special for cats, and it gives 1250 AP for a short time, which also isn't that special for cats. I'd ignore it unless your trinkets are atrocious or you're one of those freaks who doesn't like primal precision.

Fervor of the Frostborn/Eitrigg's Oath - drops from 10-man Faction Champions. (Bleh for cat, ?? for bears) - it's an interesting situational trinket that adds armor when you want it to (instead of The Black Heart) as well as adding about 2% dodge. That's okay (and stellar for Algalon) but fairly situational. Definitely grab it if it drops, but don't fight too hard if another tank wants it.

25-man Twin Valkyrs:

Lupine Longstaff/Twin's Pact - drops from 25-man Twin Valkyrs. (#5 bear, #4 cat) A really solid piece with good stamina and agility combined with the best threat stats for bear and the best DPS stats for cats. Only the weapon from Anub'Arak beats it in normal modes for cats, and only barely - we're talking a tenth of a point, if that. The Vezax hardmode staff (along with the pvp weapons) beat it for bears. If it drops, get it. It's really that simple. Don't wait for the slightly better piece. Just get it and be happy, and then get it again on hard mode.

Belt of the Merciless Killer/Belt of the Pitiless Killer - drops from 25-man Twin Valkyrs(#3 bear, #2 cat) This only loses to pvp gear for bears (along with the hard-mode upgrade), and this only loses to the hard mode upgrade for cats. Do keep in mind that for cats, you'll likely start wanting to bleed off hit, in which case something like the Soul-Devouring Cinch or Relic Hunter's Cord will start looking pretty tasty. And if you have the Soul, don't bother on this; it's barely an upgrade and may have more annoying itemization depending on what you have. It's also not a big upgrade no matter how you go; if you can get the Death-Warmed Belt made, do that first and only get this if no one else wants it.

Arbiter's Muse/Legionnaire's Gorget - drops from 25-man Twin Valkyrs (#2 bear, bleh for cats) - the only thing that beats this is the hard mode version. It's absolutely stellar for a bear, and beats the next option by about 10 rating points. I'd definitely try and get this if at all possible.

Death's Verdict/Death's Choice - drops from 25-man Twin Valkyrs (#2 cat, bleh for bears) - the hard mode version of this trinket is better, of course - but that doesn't mean this isn't amazing. It's not as good as a switch hitter trinket like DM:G is for bears, but 450 agility on a proc + 256 AP is a very, very strong trinket. Rawr has this version ranked 40 points higher than Mjolnir, if that tells you anything. It's a trinket, it'll have tons of competition, and you'll never see it again in your lifetime. Try and get it quickly if possible.

10-man Twin Valkyrs:

Armor of Shifting Shadows/Vest of Shifting Shadows - drops from 10-man Twin Valkyrs (#6 for cat, #7 for bears) This is an okay piece. It's only marginally better than the normal 25-man Hodir drop Winter's Icy Embrace for cats, and not as good as Embrace of the Gladiator. If you've been unlucky or want a marginal upgrade, grab it - but likely let others get it first. For bears, it's barely an upgrade over the Conqueror chest. I wouldn't bother at all with it there.

Loop of the Twin Valkyr/Band of the Twin Valkyr - drops from 10-man Twin Valkyrs( #5 bear, bleh for cats) - another high armor ring with good stamina and no parry? Sign me up! It's worse than the hard mode version, the hard mode agility ring mentioned above, and the Clutch of awesome. But that's it. And there's really not a lot of rings for bears, especially ones with armor. I'd definitely try for this if possible.

[Druid]STAM STAM STAM STAM STAM STAM STAM

(sung to the tune of SPAM by monty python)

In the last few days I've been asked from several sources why my gemming strategy (and my gearing strategy) is so focused on stamina. I had thought I had explained it reasonably before in the Ulduar gearing guide, and I'll reprint it here:

For starters, you need to know the gearing strategies for Ulduar tanking. And they're different than Naxx:

• Heart of the Wild nerfed to 10% stamina means you need stamina more. Don't go nuts on this, but you will need to have a good amount of stamina and you'll probably have to regem some of your gear or use certain choices.
• Things hit like a semi carrying a truck carrying small missiles. Seriously, most everything hits like Patchwerk's evil big brother on meth. You can reasonably expect to take 20k-25k hits from bosses, and there are plenty of special abilities that do far more than that.
• With the loss of armor, you need EVEN MORE stamina. Seriously.
• Also, with the loss of armor, more armor is a bit better. So armor as a stat improves greatly on a lot of these fights.
• Threat is actually important for druids. Other tanking classes have much better threat now, but druids are still a bit far behind. This means that you can't just ignore hit and expertise on your gear in Ulduar; there will be fights where your threat really matters.
• DPS stats matter a little bit for SD, but not insanely so. While Savage Defense is decent, it's not a substitute for armor. 100 AP means you prevent 25 damage, which would be (from the above boss) equivalent to .125% mitigation. So don't go nuts here. But do get some. And uptime is more important than raw mitigation most of the time, so go for crit if you're going for any specific DPS stat.

Now some of that isn't quite as true as it once was; things aren't hitting quite so hard in normal mode Ulduar as they were when it came out (oh hi, Ignis 1.0), but most of that is fairly true. Furthermore, those things are still the case for many of the hard modes and many of the encounters so far in Coliseum (all Ulduar items mentioned are hard modes only):

• Thorim still drastically favors stamina over agility and avoidance as he steadily increases his damage; even 2k can make a difference here.
• Mimiron favors a reasonable amount of stamina to be able to use survival instincts to mitigate his P1 barrages and to simply be able to soak all that magic damage flying around.
• Freya is the same; high health is quite nice for all parts of this encounter.
• Iron Council desperately favors high stamina to soak engorged Fusion Punches.
• Yogg tanking likes having a good amount of stamina to deal with those big Immortal Guardian hits
• Vezax actually likes having some avoidance to save the healers mana. To a point.
• Acidmaw and Dreadscale both like having good amounts of HP for all that magic damage soaking, and having big HP for Icehowl can make the difference between a wipe and a miraculous save if someone screws up the ram.
• Jaraxxus is all about magic damage, which means avoidance is pointless

That doesn't still mean that avoidance is bad, and it doesn't mean agility (which provides avoidance, crit and armor) is that bad. It's still a good stat.

It's just not the stellar stat it was.

The reason is that stamina is similar to hit and expertise for DPS: once you have enough stamina, it really doesn't do much. The trick is figuring out what 'enough' is, and that's hard. Is enough when you can't be hit twice in a row without heals and die? Is that number 3? Is enough when you can take a certain amount of DPS in and live? Each encounter is different to where it's hard to evaluate, especially since this largely depends on how your healers are working to save you as well. In Naxx, for example, I recommended going strongly away from stamina since you had more than enough of it - at least until Sarth3D.

But how much stamina is enough in Ulduar hard modes? How much is enough in Coliseum? And right now, I feel like there's never a time where you can say 'yes, I'm way overstaminaed for this encounter'.

The other reason is a simple gearing philosophy that I've had since BC: Gear to your strengths, not your weaknesses. Right now, bears can have simply much higher health and higher effective health (health * mitigation) than basically any other tank, save perhaps paladins under certain circumstances. They can't have as high of avoidance. They can't have as high of threat. There's no way to beat other tanks at these things. They can't deal as well with smaller hits that come more often. They don't have the cooldowns.

But damned if they don't have huge tracts of..health.

So if you can do that, shouldn't you? There are plenty of fights (some of the ones mentioned above) where huge health has a great effect on your success rate as a tank, and can drastically change how well or poorly you do. And right now, druids get 16 health back from every point of stamina; no other tank gets even close to that.

So that's the reasoning - play to your strengths. That might make you the EH-armor-soak tank, and let other tanks have a better shot at other encounters; I personally think that's a stronger overall raid position. If you feel differently, that's great too; you know your raid best, and what works best.

[Druid, 3.2.2] Free Nature spells! Sign me up!

As an anonymous poster pointed out, the 3.2.2 patch notes have hit the airwaves, and in it is this fairly interesting little mechanic:

• Predatory Strikes: This talent now also causes the druid's finishing moves to provide a 7/13/20% chance per combo point to make the next Nature spell with a cast time below 10 seconds instant cast.

As anon asks, should this be considered in the kitty rotation to make it even more challenging and awesome?

Well, quickly: the short answer is no. At least not in a standard way. Wrath does about 620 damage max per cast. Moonfire does 1276 possible, but it's arcane anyway so wouldn't be instant. Starfire also does 1200 damage or so, but is also arcane. Hurricane might be okay, but it being 'instant' doesn't really help things.

So an instant-cast wrath doing about 620 damage? Not worth losing 2 seconds of melee attacks and 2 GCDs (one to switch to caster and cast the spell, one to swap back). Especially when melee attacks are about .8 seconds long, they do at least 600 damage each, and can crit, proc OoC, etc.

So what about nurturing instincts and healing spells? Healing touch heals around 4k, and with Nurturing instincts you'll get about 700-800 spellpower, making that a decent-sized heal at NS/HT speeds. Could that be okay?

Well...maybe. It really depends on how long 'the next' means. If it's similar to clearcasting, where you have a 10-15 second window of opportunity, that could be a fairly decent deal situationally where you absolutely need to save someone. But the key here is situational; healing 5k on one random target every 10-12 seconds or so is about 500 health per second healing assuming no overheal, and it's not something that healers can reasonably rely on. It's also a decent chunk of DPS hit; again, you're losing at least 2 seconds of melee time, 2 GCDs, and potentially energy depending on your furor levels. You're also losing talents going into nurturing instincts; if you lose improved leader of the pack, you've traded having all melee and hunters heal themselves every 6 seconds for about 800 health for one 5k heal every 12 seconds on one target. That doesn't sound like a very good trade to me. I can see it being used in random points to save the day - things like a heroic that's gone pear-shape, or one random raid where for some reason all the healers aren't available, or even on something like Vezax to potentially help the tanks out a tad.

I think it's a good addition to PvP - probably mandatory to allow things like instant cyclones and heals - but I also think that it's not particularly useful to consider regularly. But that doesn't mean you should forget it - keep it in your box of tools and remember it now and then.

[Druid, 3.2] Coliseum loot for Jaraxxus

Short and sweet, and hopefully in time for raiding tonight - here's Jaraxxus' loot table for cat and bear interest. Which is made doubly difficult with wowhead not actually, ya know, having the things. Note that I"m simply comparing against the non-heroic gear; heroic gear is going to blow all of this away.

25-man Jaraxxus:
Cuirass of Calamitous Fate/ Vest of Calamitous Fate(chest)- drops from 25-man Jaraxxus (#3 bear, #2 cat). This is a serviceable upgrade, and is better than anything in Ulduar for bears - but it's not as good as the crafted Knightbane carapace (higher hit) and not quite as good as the T9 piece. But the comparisons between it and the T9 are almost miniscule, so if you're wanting to spend your badges on something else (like you should) this isn't a bad thing to pick up if it drops. For cats, this is just barely worse than the T9 chest and is a very strong piece to get in the slot.

Pride of the Eredar/Pride of the Demon Lord (back) drops from 25-man Jaraxxus (#2 bear). The tribute pieces and the 258-piece is better than this, but with the high stamina and avoidance this is a great cloak. And there aren't any cloaks with high armor in this patch, so this is about as good as it gets for a while. Definitely pick this up if you can unless you've got the Titanskin cloak; with epic gems that beats this barely.

Charge of the Demon Lord/Charge of the Eredar (neck) - drops from 25-man Jaraxxus ( #5 cat) - this isn't even the best neck that drops so far; the Collar of Ceaseless Torment is better and drops from Icehowl. It's also not as good as Pendulum of Infinity if you've got that and barely beats Seed of Budding Carnage. Not a great thing to spend your DKP on, if you're going that route; save it for the rogues who want all that haste.

10-Man Coliseum:

Planestalker Signet/Planestalker Band (ring) - drops from 10-man Jaraxxus (#5 cat) - now, in this case I do know a bit more about the rings out there, and this is excellent; the only things that beat it are the badge ring, the upgraded version of this and the one ring out of 25-man on hard mode difficulty (the normal mode doesn't beat it). The only reason you might skip it is if you're high on hit, but I'd still recommend it; hit, armor pen and good agi make this a great piece, and rings are hard to come by.

Endurance of the Infernal/Fortitude of the Infernal (neck) - drops from 10-man Jaraxxus (#7 bear) - while this isn't that bad, Boundless Ambition and Mark of the Unyielding both beat it fairly handily, much less the better items from earlier. This just doesn't have the armor, and that means it loses. I wouldn't bother with it unless you've really gotten unlucky with drops from before.

And...that's it! Nothing too exciting in my opinion; the best piece by far that you can grab that'll do you for a while is the cat ring and then the bear cloak. Good luck; it appears to largely be a tank&spank fight with a lot of healing and raid damage requirements.

[Druid] General list of all items for 3.2 - later

Patch 3.2 is going to come out - tomorrow!. And typically I have a shiny loot list for you to tear up, digest happily and take you through the rest of your day.

And I do...kinda sorta. The thing is...that list is incomplete. It doesn't have all the Naxx gear, all the Ulduar gear, and is missing a lot of the 3.2 gear because it's not on Wowhead.

And it's significantly harder to do a gear ranking without the gear being in the ranking system.

That being said, I can make some early pointers to get you through the next couple of days. We do know a few things that'll make it a bit easier:

1. The trial of the Champion is the new 10 and 25 man raid. And in the first week...one boss will be available. That boss will be the deadly "Not one but TWO Jormungar" Northrend Beast encounter. So...we'll only focus on that loot for right now.
   
2. The trial of the Crusader is the 5-man instance. It will drop Champion Seals on heroic difficulty as well as Emblems of Conquest. It will also be in the rotation for the daily heroic. All items that drop from it are ilvl 213, and are significantly better-itemized than a lot of Naxxramas gear. And because almost all of it has been previewed, I can actually talk about almost all of it; this article will focus on it quite a bit.
   
3. While there won't be new arena gear for a bit that you can get with arena rating(that'll be happening soon) there will be new Wintergrasp rewards and a new Wintergrasp boss. All evidence points to that boss dropping Relentless-level PvP gear. Even if he doesn't, the new Titan-forged gear is still competitive and often better than what you can get via emblems of conquest, at least for bears.
   
4. While there are some very sexy new craftable pieces, you can't get them in the first week; they require both a rare drop to happen and a rare orb from the bosses to happen.
5. There will be no hard mode raids available for the first week. Or really, the first 5 weeks.
   
6. Epic gems are coming out - and they will cost honor (10k per gem), emblems of heroism (20 for the red,yellow and blue, 10 for the green, orange and purple), can be prospected from Titanium Ore and can be transmuted once a day by an alchemist. Note Alchemists must transmute all 5 other types before they learn how to transmute reds.
7. Because the maximum amount of emblems of triumph you can earn in the first week is 18 (2 per raid boss on any difficulty), you cannot mathematically buy any T9 gear in the first week. So don't worry about it! You should, if it drops from the raid boss, try and get the Trophy of the Champion if possible - you absolutely will want tier pieces. But you don't need to worry about it too much.
   

Anyway, from that we can actually start looking at gear a bit. Again, these aren't perfect ratings that are mathematically super awesome; these are basically me eyeballing things and telling you what to look for on the loot tables. I'll do the math when wowhead's been updated.

This will also be for bear and cat - I'll give a 'ranking' for each in slot, based on what I know of the item tables (and if I can do it, based off of the loot ranking I've used in the past). Also, the first item listed is the alliance version of the piece, the second is horde. They're identical save the name and model of the item.

25-man Coliseum:

Leggings of the Broken Beast/Legwraps of the Broken Beast (legs) - drops from 25-man Northrend Beasts.(#1 cat, #1 bear)- these are almost exactly the same as the T9.245 legs - same stamina, same agility, same AP, and same hit rating. They're slightly better than the T9 for cats because of the haste, but cats want that 2p and 4p bonus (at least so far), so it's not like it's a big upgrade. I'd still roll on these anyway if possible for bear; they will beat every single item from Ulduar that you can think of. Depending on how you do your set bonuses though, you may want to skip on this for cats. They're a significant upgrade over most things in Ulduar (not over hardmode Yogg's legs though) and they may not be worth losing out on a set bonus if you have to.

Drape of the Untamed Predator/Cloak of the Untamed Predator (back)- drops from 25-man Northrend Beasts (#2 cat, #20ish bear) - these have the highest base agility so far on a cloak, and have significant crit, haste and AP. What they don't have are sockets, making Drape of the Faceless General significantly better. Still, good cloaks are hard to find, and this is a good one. For bears, of course, it's useless.

10-Man Coliseum:

Acidmaw Boots/Acidmaw Treads (feet) - drops from 10-man Northrend Beasts (#6 bear, #4 cat). This is currently the best foot option available for cats; while there will be others down the road, this is the best at the first week's inception. They're a bit weak simply because of all that hit and expertise - for some cats, they'll be great, but for others it'll be a waste. On the Bear side, they're not quite as good overall as Runed Ironhide, but they're a great threat piece and will remain so for a while.

Collar of Ceaseless Torment/Collar of Unending Torment - (neck) - drops from 10-man Northrend Beasts (#3 cat, #20ish bear). This ranking isn't super great, but note that the neck does beat out most things from Ulduar and only loses to Seed of Budding Carnage and Pendulum of Infinity. Heck, and that 'loss' is by a whopping .4 points or so. It's definitely a nice piece and may be better than anything short of hard modes, given that the other piece that is known doesn't have armor pen. Obviously for bears it's not that useful.

Wintergrasp:
Titan-Forged Leather Leggings of Triumph (legs) - obtained from 40 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor (#30ish cat, #7 bear). These aren't the best ever and aren't as good as T9, but they are better than any piece in Ulduar save Leggings of Cunning Deception (hardmode Yogg-25) and are better than the 232-level T9 gear. That being said, they're not that significant of an upgrade over Conqueror, and are worse than Furious Legs. Only get it if you're really desperate or have WG marks to burn.

Titan-Forged Armwraps of Triumph (wrist) - obtained from 15 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor (30ish cat, #8 bear) - much like the legs, these are decent and better (barely than some pieces in Ulduar, but not as good as the hardmodes in Ulduar, not as good as other pvp pieces, and not really exciting.

Heroic Trial of the Crusader (5-man):

Mark of the Relentless (ring) - obtained from heroic trial of the Crusader (bad for cat, #6 for bear). This is a pretty solid tanking ring, especially given that it's so low item level. It beats out everything save Fate's Clutch. If you're wondering why, it's simply the socket - a blue socket in a tanking ring that also gives stamina? It's just a huge stamina ring for bears, basically. It's just barely better than Leviathan's Coil and doesn't have big armor, so it might be a situational thing, but you should likely grab it unless you have two rings that can have more stamina than this.

Treads of Dismal Fortune (feet) -obtained from heroic trial of the Crusader (#8 for cat, #13 for bear). A shockingly decent piece, again. Not stellar for bears - Ulduar gear beats it handily, as do Polar pieces and a few Naxx pieces - but for cats, it's about 10% below Runed Ironhide thanks to that great socket. If you've been unlucky, this isn't the worst piece.

Mask of Distant Memory (head) - obtained from heroic trial of the Crusader (#17 for bears, #13 for cats). This isn't that bad either. It's actually better than the T7.25 head for bears, and better than the T8.10 for cats. Don't kill yourself to get it, but consider it if you're not super well geared.

Armbands of the Wary Lookout (wrist) - obtained from trial of the Crusader (#14 for bears, #6 for cats). That's right - while these are about 10% better than the Valorous gear token turnin bracers for bears, they're great for cats; they're better than anything in Ulduar save Fluxing Energy Coils. They're very good and shockingly well-itemized. If you're looking for something to drop in the 5-man, this is your piece - at least if you're a cat.

Ancient Pendant of Arathor (neck) - obtained from heroic trial of the Crusader (#40ish for bears, #10 for cats). A serviceable cat neck, it's not nearly as good as the conquest-badge neck (about 20% worse) - so don't bother unless you're really hurting for a good piece here.

The Warlord's Depravity (neck) -obtained from heroic trial of the Crusader (#40ish for cats, #20ish for bears). Really, just don't - there are plenty of other pieces that are better.

Marrowstrike (weapon) - obtained from heroic trial of the Crusader (#30ish for bears, #20ish for cats) - This is on par with many of the weapons from Naxx-25 for cats; it's around Black Ice/Inevitable Defeat levels. If you need something around that level, this is a good piece to try and grind. For bears, note that there are a lot of other options that are better and easier to get, such as the Champion Token weapons.

Normal Trial of the Crusader (5-man):
Gloves of the Argent Fanatic (hands) - obtained from normal trial of the Crusader (20ish for bears, 20ish for cats). Not horrible, but there are better obtained from Emblems for both. Only if you're really desperate.

Leggings of Brazen Trespass (legs) - obtained from normal trial of the Crusader (20ish for bears, 15 for cats). Oddly decent for cats. Still, better can be found for Emblems.

Shoulderpads of the Infamous Knave (shoulders) - obtained from normal trial of the Crusader (20ish for bears, 15 for cats). Oddly decent for cats. And until you get enough Triumph emblems to get Duskstalkers, these may be your best bet, sadly, for cat. They're only slightly worse than T8.10 shoulders, if you're curious.

Belt of Fierce Competition (waist) - obtained from normal trial of the Crusader (20ish for bears, 12 for cats). This was another surprise, though vendors have a better belt that's easily obtained. Still, if you're broke this isn't a bad piece given the armor pen.

Uruka's Band of Zeal (ring) -obtained from normal trial of the Crusader (40ish for bears, 30 for cats). Even with all the ring problems I've had I'd still turn this down. Just badly itemized for either. Skip it.

Banner of Victory (trinket) - obtained from normal trial of the Crusader (50ish for bears,?? for cats). I'm not quite sure how valuable this is. It's not nearly as good as (for example) Grim Toll; it gives 84 consistent armor pen instead of about 150 armor pen over time. However, the proc rate, if it's similar to Grim Toll, may make this better than or at least equivalent to Darkmoon Card:Greatness. I'd definitely grab it if you're running this and/or are under the armor pen cap, and I'll try and figure out how great it is later. Rawr, for instance, ranks it as #5 behind Mjolnir, Grim, Comet's Trail and DM:G, and about 40 points higher than Mirror of Truth.

The Black Heart (Trinket) - obtained from normal trial of the Crusader (?? for bears, 50ish for cats). Another one I'm not quite sure how good it is. While it gives less stamina than Royal Seal of King Llane, the proc is exceptionally nice against hard-hitting mobs. Currently the theorycrafting says that the proc rate/cooldown is around 10 seconds for 45 seconds, meaning that you'd get roughly 1700 armor from this. Rawr ranks this as better than any trinket currently in the game. Definitely go after this one.

Anyway, hope that helps for either tomorrow or next Tuesday. A longer list will be coming, honest. :)