A lot has changed in WoW and I now get xp for BGs and the BG daily quest. I like BGs much more than questing so it’s safe to say I’ll be doing some of this as I take my priest from 70-80.

Now my priest, Bakayoko, is funny. I’m a shadowweave tailor and was shadow in TBC when we were the awesome mana batteries everyone loved. So I’m pretty much all purple with the frozen shadoweave and spellstrike tailoring stuff.

My gloves, wrists, back, and belt (plus my staff) were blue though. The back I replaced with a 70 pvp epic Volanthius shroud.

Now I have to buy more pvp gear as I level up because I don’t want to hit the 75K honor cap. The question is when do I stop buying 70 pvp epics and start stocking up on items for level 80?

I don’t plan on hitting 80 all that soon so there may be upgrades in the gear I buy. I might buy something for honor points now only to find when I’m higher level that there’s a better one available.

I’ll also be able to craft the frostsavage pvp starter set (can’t wait to wear that in the 70-79 bracket at level 78 and kick some ass) – maybe I should be a 78-79 twink without the xp cap since it will take forever to level up doing a couple bgs a day anyway.

So my plan is to buy a few more 70 pvp items – belt might be next. But eventually I’ll do the 108 resilience medallion of the horde, another trinket, necklaces, and rings. And save up for level 80.

There’s one major similarity that strikes me between WOW and LARPing: your chance of surviving an encounter is directly related to your skill out of game and your gear in game. Your in game skills and talents help too, but as long as they’re not totally stupid it’s the OOG skill and your character’s gear that matters most.

Now in terms of gear there’s a huge difference between WOW and the LARP I play. In WOW, everyone pretty much wants the same gear. If you’re into pvp it’s S4. If you’re raiding you need certain pieces before you’re ready for new content.

In Alliance, the LARP I play, no two characters have the same gear. Magic items are fairly random. At the last event I went to, a PA LARP at this campsite, I picked up a web x2 item. That allows me to cast 2 web spells per day. Someone else might find a web x2 item, but chances are slim that the same item will drop again for a while. There are 30 other spells that can be stored into a magic item.

The other thing is that no one needs a web x2 item. It’s sure nice, but it’s not a requirement for anything. In WOW some items are kind of required.

The closest thing to a requirement in the Alliance LARP is a damage aura weapon. Some monsters are only affected by magic so if you have a normal or silver weapon you’re not going to be real effective.

Damage aura swords (or other weapons) are pretty rare, though, and often made by players. Because the scrolls and components a player is able to get can vary, usually magic weapons are a bit different. You can have damage aura from +0 to +3, you can have different spells, you can have different defensives. If I make a magic sword it will be different than the one you make.

Notes to self:

1. Save up honor and marks for S2 weapon.
2. Save up arena points for S3 gear plus S4 hands and off-hand. I’d like more but who know if my arena ratings will be good enough for it. Rating requirements can be found on this rant.
3. Save up enchanting mats and pvp gems (those will be in high demand when people get their new gear).

So tailors can make 2 pieces ov pvp gear (not counting the back) but how does the unyielding set compare to the s3 stuff buyable through honor? It seems to me that tailoring is still screwed in terms of pvp gear:

Belt – Vindicator’s Dreadweave Belt (17,850 honour, 40 arathi basin) = 49 Stamina, 32 Intellect, 31 resilience, 41 spell damage. No socket.

Bracer – Vindicator’s Dreadweave Cuffs (11,794 honour, 20 warsong gulch) = 34 Stamina, 20 Intellect, 17 resilience, 29 spell damage, yellow socket (Bonus: +2 Spell Damage)

Assuming 4 resil, 6 stam gems the 2 combined give 89 stamina, 52 intellect, 52 resilience, 62 spell damage

vs.

Unyielding girdle = 28 Stamina, 20 resilience, 32 spell damage, blue socket, yellow socket (3 intellect bonus)

Unyielding bracers = 39 Stamina, 12 resilience, yellow socket (bonus: +2 Spell Hit Rating),

Unyielding girlde + bracers set bonus: increases resilience by 20.

With the set bonus and sockets filled with 4 resil, 6 stam steady talasite we get 85 stamina, 64 resilience, 3 intellect, 2 spell hit

So the vindicator’s belt and bracer compared to the unyielding set: Vindicators has 4 more stamina, 49 more intellect, 62 more spell damage. The unyielding set has 12 more resilience, 2 more spell hit. I didn’t do armor, but the gladiator stuff has more armor as well and looks to be the superior choice. The only thing is when season 4 comes out we’re not sure what will happen but the new stuff will probably be better than the s3 stuff I used for this analysis.

There could be a choice between the unyielding girdle and s3 belt however the s3 belt is superior in every way = (assuming steady talasite again for the 2 sockets unyielding girdle has) s3 belt has 9 more stamina, 29 more intellect, 3 more resilience, 9 more spell damage.

Why even bother giving tailoring a pvp set if it’s not really a viable choice? Sorry tailors but you need to go grind more honor because your profession is useless for pvp gear.

The purple Medallion of the Horde / Alliance rocks pretty hard. It costs 40k honor, but it has 45 resilience instead of 20. The 2 minute cooldown effect remains the same:

Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. (2 Mins Cooldown).

But 45 resilience on a trinket is real nice!