Monday, December 13, 2010

[Cat] Cataclysm heroic drops by slot and by dungeon

This is a quick and dirty list of all the drops that come from the heroic dungeons. I did this mostly for me to be able to see where I should queue if I have a choice of doing only one or two dungeons a day. Note that there's almost no difference between pieces on this list and other pieces at the same ilvl, so don't worry too much about getting the best piece.

The list used.

Back:
Cloak of Thredd - Deadmines
Kaleki Cloak - Lost City

While there are a lot of options here, there are almost as many options outside of dungeons. There's the Revered Earthen Ring cloak and a cheap LW pattern cloak that are just as good, and one that's even better from Valor points. So don't run things just for this - it's a nice thing if it drops.

Chest:
Hieroglyphic Vest - Halls of Origination

Another embarassment of riches here. The justice piece is also good, there's a great LW crafted piece and an even better T11 piece. There's even a reasonably competitive 333 piece from honored Hyjal. So don't bother running dungeons for just this slot.

Feet:
Crafty's Gaiters - Lost City
VanCleef's Boots - Deadmines

These have much fewer rivals. There's only one vendor piece, and it's a valor cost. The next best thing is off of a long quest chain for Halls of Origination - and it's normal. This is a good one to go for if you want to go for something.

Finger:
Nautilus Ring - Throne of Tides
Ring of Dun Alguz - Grim Batol

Rings are always in short supply early on. While there's a good ring for exalted with Earthen Ring that's only one thing - and as you'll see you'll want to get exalted with Dragonmaw first. One of the best rings is a JC recipe, but those are going to be hard to get early on since they cost 4 chimera's eyes to make and 5 to acquire. A better choice is Therazane's revered ring, which you'll be going for rep-wise anyway (unless you're a scribe). So do try to get one of these and get the Therazane rep ring, with the aim to go for Earthen Ring later.

Hands:
Gloves of Haze - Vortex Pinnacle

Ouch. The best comes from Dragonmaw Exalted rep, but that might take a while. The next best is a justice point drop. Vortex Pinnacle doesn't have much, and I'd really aim for getting exalted with Dragonmaw - but if you're unlucky the JP purchase might be the best way to go. Hopefully you get lucky :)

Head

Double ouch. The other option is a justice point drop. Well, or a trash drop from a raid, but chances are you won't be getting that any time soon. Stonecore is a good instance to run for this and for the weapon, so try to get this early. Otherwise it should be one of your earliest justice point purchases as it won't be wasted any time soon.

Legs:

Another low-drop slot with even less competition than the head - the only other piece is the justice point legs. Note that there are a lot of good 333-level quest rewards for legs and helm, so this might not be as huge an upgrade for you as other slots (notably the hands) - but this will not be wasted. Also BRC doesn't have that much to offer, making this even better.

Neck:

Not many dungeon drops, but all sorts of weird options abound. There are world drops that are super expensive but awesome, JC recipes (which are also expensive), a Guardians of Hyjal Revered purchase, a justice point purchase and another random BoE. While GoH doesn't have much going for it to get to revered, you might already be close to it if you did Hyjal - so consider doing that. Otherwise go to Stonecore.

Relic:

Forgot this category in the prior list...oops. So this makes BRC and SFK even tastier. The options you have are an inscription crafted item or the eventual valor purchase. This isn't a crucial slot, so I'd recommend just trying to get it as it comes in one of the two above dungeons.

Shoulders:

Another set of short options. The justice point vendor is good for this if you don't get lucky, and there's almost nothing else. This might be a good thing to buy early since chances are you won't have a good set of shoulders from questing, though a decent entry level piece comes from a quest out of Lost City.

Trinket:
Skardyn's Grace - Grim Batol
Tia's Grace - Lost City

The first two are certainly awesome. I'll go more into trinkets when we move into raids, but there's good reason to first go for the quest in Uldum and then go for BRC or Grim Batol.

Weapon
Darkling Staff - Stonecore
Seliza's Staff - Lost City

Ah, the real reason to do Stonecore - just like you did Violet Hold last expansion. There is a BoE that drops from a world boss, but it's likely that you won't be killing him any time soon. There's also a revered weapon from the Tol Barad dailies, but that will take a while to get just because of the daily limits. Finally, there's an absurdly expensive weapon from blacksmithing, but don't bother unless you really are loaded and want something now now now.

Waist:
Red Beam Cord - HoO

Yeah, not a lot of drops. HoO is good because of the sheer amount of bosses in it (and thus JP). But there are a lot of options for belts. There's the epic LW belt which will compete until you get to heroic raids. There's a JP belt as well. I'd personally go for the revered Ramkahen belt, since you want revered with Ramkahen to get your head enchant for cats anyway. Finally, there is a BoE belt from random guys in Uldum, but chances of this being around are rare.

Wrist:

This slot has almost no options. One of the 'best' is the PvP bracers from LW. Another is the normal version of Halls of Origination, but that's painful to do just for this (even if it drops from the first boss). So running SFK and HoO should be something of a priority until these drop.

In terms of dungeons, here's how I'd rank the priority of doing them.

Blackrock Caverns:

Legs with no other drop competition, a weapon, a trinket and a ring? Awesome. Number one for me. Heck, it even drops the best relic!


A weapon, a neck, a helm without a drop replacement and a trinket make this a really high choice for me.

Lost City:
Kaleki Cloak - Lost City
Crafty's Gaiters - Lost City
Seliza's Staff - Lost City
Tia's Grace - Lost City

Boots, a decent trinket and a weapon are good reasons to do this one. This gets the nod over HoO simply because of the importance of getting a weapon.

Halls of Origination:
Hieroglyphic Vest - Halls of Origination

So much stuff! There's nothing insane here, but there's a ring, bracers, an okay trinket, and a belt if you don't get the rep one.

SFK:

Boots and bracers are both hard to come by replacements. The shoulders aren't bad either. Not amazingly great, but definitely good. The relic doesn't hurt matters either.

Deadmines:
Cloak of Thredd - Deadmines
VanCleef's Boots - Deadmines

While cloaks and chests are easy to come by, boots are not. Plus this is a fun, fun dungeon. Still, it does take a while and is a beast to pug.

Grim Batol:
Ring of Dun Alguz - Grim Batol
Skardyn's Grace - Grim Batol

The trinket is the only super awesome piece here.

Throne of the Tides:
Nautilus Ring - Throne of Tides

I wanted to be excited about this because it's a great instance, but honestly? Skip it. It takes a while and there just isn't that much stuff there.

Vortex Pinnacle:
Gloves of Haze - Vortex Pinnacle

While gloves are hard to get a replacement for, that there's only one drop at all is bothersome. It's a somewhat fast dungeon but not very pug-friendly.


15 comments:

Jey said...

I'm pretty sure that there is a tanking trinket in throne of tides too but im not sure of the name. It gives stam and increases armor when you get below a certain health percentage.

It also seems like your best bet for a first reputation would be earthen ring. Personally I had mor trouble finding rings that I could use than I did gloves, and they also give you your arcanum and a piece for helping to flush out your "get into heroics" gear. Obviously reputations depend a lot on what your personal situation is but earthen ring seems like a better first choice than dragonmaw to me.

Kalon said...

Jey, depends on if you're going for tanking or DPS primarily. While the ring is great (and will be great long into raiding if prior experience has anything to go on) it's a lot easier to pick up a couple heroic rings than it is to get those gloves. If you feel confident that you'll get a ton of JP and can blow it, sure - go for the ring. Or if you feel like you'll be able to get raid drops fairly quickly.

Put it another way: if you're the kind of person who runs 9 heroics every day, you should likely get the ring rep first. If you're the kind of person who can run one heroic a day, you should likely go for something else that'll give you a higher reward faster.

Felkan said...

If we are just working on heroics for the next month or so. What should we be doing with gems/enchants? Just +sta? mix of +sta and +agi? Is there a goal health level we should reach and then gem avoidance? Is there an avoidance level we should reach before switching to +sta?

Felkan said...

Ooops! Sorry, Kalon, that was a bear question in a Cat post. You can move/delete it if you want.

Kalon said...

Felkan, that's okay - I'll post something about bears in a bit. For heroics for the most part it depends a bit on how many pugs you're running. If you're running a lot of pugs and you have healers that are a bit prejudiced, you might need to go for all stam. But most likely the best situation is to go with agility and mastery, with stam coming in from the enchants and trinket slots. Mastery is especially strong for heroics, as the static reduction from small hits means SD can block attacks almost fully some of the time.

I don't have a clear idea on what specific benchmarks to go for, but from what I've seen having huge stam isn't as important as using CDs at the right time and doing the right mechanics for the fight.

Also, Jey - the stam trinket is from Stonecore. There's a dodge trinket in Throne of Tides, but it's not that hot.

Jey said...

you are right about the trinket, i thought my guildies were in throne of tides when they linked it.

Willowbear said...

I'm ranting inside right now. I just went to the justice point vendor to buy some of the gear listed (I'm 83) so I don't keep wasting justice points to the cap. It won't let me. I have to be friggen 85 to buy the damn things.

Felkan said...

Willowbear, I agree, that is annoying. The same thing happens in Mt. Hyjal. You get to Honored and Revered just doing quests, but you can't buy the gear until you are lvl 83 or 85. Which is sort of odd given that it is a 78-82 level zone.

Beable said...

Really glad to see you're still at this for Cataclysm!

Chambord said...

It's worth noting the PVP vendor is out and item are available via honor if you have it. As usual there are some great items for bears. They don't show up in Kalon's list (thanks for that, very helpful) but they are in the linked wowhead rankings - so check them out.

LR said...

Hi guys,

Looking at weapons how does weapon dmg scale with our abilities? Will we notice any major differences by choosing polearms over staffs?

For instance in this comparison of the PvP weapons:

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=67451;67448

Going with the Polearm a better choice versus the Staff?

I'd be interested if there are any numbers on how our abilities scale with weapon dmg.

Thanks for any tips!

LR

Anonymous said...

@LR

The Fluid Druid posted some rankings that address your questions about weapon choice: http://fluiddruid.net/2010/11/the-cataclysm-feral-dps-gear-wishlist-part-1/

The short version is to use the highest ilvl staff or polearm you can. Agility weapons are preferred, but ilvl trumps even primary stats. As far as secondary stats go, mastery is slightly better than crit/haste/hit/expertise.

ilvl>primary stats>secondary stats.

Hope this helps.

LR said...

@ Anon

Thanks, I guess I should have been more specific. When comparing a Staff and Polearm that have identical ilvl, and stats. (in this case both PvP vendor weapons) The only difference is the melee dmg and swing speed.

I'm interested if Fury Swipes proc dmg is based on actual weapon dmg, or if it's normalized by our forms somehow?

Both Mewn and Rawr rate the polearm slightly higer, so I'm optimistic that the melee damage does come through on our paws.

I guess I'll have a better idea come this Tuesday when I can buy both and bang on a training dummy to test. I'll be excited to see if the polearm does more. If not I guess I'll just go with what ever weapon looks cooler. ;)

Thanks,
LR

Bearmount said...

Weapon dmg is completely normalized and weapon speed or weapon dmg are irrelevant stats to us, only weapon dps matters.

LR said...

I had a chance to compare this morning:

Fury Swipes Cat
Vicious Gladiator's Staff
min, avg, max, count
hit 2910, 3224, 3425, 25
crit 6021, 6563, 7081, 18


Vicious Gladiator's Pike
min, avg, max, count
hit 2898, 3179, 3430, 32
crit 6096, 6608, 7067, 14



Fury Swipes Bear
Vicious Gladiator's Staff
min, avg, max, count
hit 6950, 7482, 8204, 33
crit 14301, 15406, 16774, 12


Vicious Gladiator's Pike
min, avg, max, count
Hit 6936, 7646, 8296, 43
crit 14509, 16175, 17054, 8