Most popular WoW Armory crafter gear

So, let's take a look behind the jump and talk about what the most popular crafter gear is for each profession.

Gems

The most popular gem on the Armory is the Runed Scarlet Ruby. (I'll pause a moment for all your dramatic gasps of shock.) It's almost three times as popular as any other gem cut, presumably because the +19 Spell Power gem is worthwhile to the largest cross-section of characters: any spell caster. (Strength gems only really work out for the three plate-wearing classes, for example, while the rest of the physical types tend to rock raw Attack Power.) A close second to the Runed Scarlet Ruby, according to WoWPopular itself, is the Runed Cardinal Ruby. The epic level pattern is probably slightly less popular because the epic gems are more difficult to come by. There will be proportionally more alts and dusty characters wearing the old blue-quality gem.

The next most popular gems are the Solid cuts of either the Sky Sapphire or the Majestic Zircon. The Sky Sapphire is actually much more popular, but I'm guessing it's for similar reasons as the Scarlet Ruby. It's cheap and easy to get compared to the only slightly better Majestic Zircon. This +Stamina gem probably ranks so high because every tank wants as much Stamina as possible . . . and so do many PvP players. The cross-section makes Stamina a very attractive gem stat. (I guess it'd only be completely useless to those players who never, ever die and are somehow nearly immortal. Note that I'm not advocating Stamina over your usual powergame stats, I'm just saying it's not total slop. Dead rogues do no damage.)

The third most popular gem is the Bold Scarlet Ruby. If you got the materials sitting around, expect its epic counterpart -- the Bold Cardinal Ruby -- to go for similar big bucks.While I pointed above that only three plate classes get the big benefit from Strength. But those three classes are immensely popular. So the sheer raw number of people playing death knights, warriors, and paladins drive the demand for these three gems up through the roof.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmiths get a little lucky in their crafted gear choices, since they get to make everyone's weapon. Healers, DPS, and tanks can all find some good stuff from the blacksmithing trade. Still, I bet you can guess the single most popular blacksmithing item still to this very day, right?

If you guessed the Titansteel Guardian, you win yourself a prize. It can service all the healing classes, as well as providing DPS items for all of their casting DPS specs. It goes both ways, you see. Other than that, the next two popular items for blacksmiths are the Tempered Titansteel Helm and the Spiked Titansteel Helm. I think these two items are so popular because of the relative difficulty of picking up a hat until you have sufficient Emblems of Frost, and folks want the quick headstart on gear. (Get what I did there?) The Spiked hat does have a lot of tasty hit rating, as well, which will make it serviceable to plate DPS classes for a very long time.

All of these items are still good for bootstrapping someone into a raid, and they're relatively quickly and easily made for the cost of their materials. That kind of longevity is going to keep these items relevant, even in the current Icecrown Citadel environment.

Leatherworking and Tailoring

Leatherworking and Tailoring both have the same benefit: they provide relevant enchants to even the very highest tier of gear, so they haven't dropped off in value at all. I already talked about these items a great deal a few weeks ago, and I don't want to rehash that territory. Check out What to sell, what to sell.

Inscription

In a radical change from normal operating procedure, there are a few very clear winners for most popular glyphs on the Armory. According to The Crafter's Tome, the four most popular glyphs on the Armory are Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth, Glyph of Raise Dead, Glyph of Horn of Winter, and Glyph of Levitate. So there we go. If you're a master of Inscription, you have a good target for the four most popular glyphs to list on the Auction House.

Engineering

Engineering only has so many saleable materials, two of which are the obvious Icecrown arrows and bullets. The Armor Plated Combat Shotgun is still amazingly popular on Armory characters, as is the Heartseeker Scope. While hunters don't seem to still be the default character class for new players or farming characters, they're still very popular. These crafted staples of hunter gear are still valuable to folks who aren't rocking raid gear.

Explanations for Popularity

The first and obvious example for why many of these items are still so popular has to do with the nature of alts and alting. While you want your secondary, tertiary, and even quaternary characters to be in viable, feasible gear, you're not going to go hilt-deep in trying to equip them with the very best items. And there are so many hours in the day!

So if you want a fresh-to-80 character to be viable without running a bunch of old instances and raids, crafted gear can still give you a quick jog up. If you list a Destroyer on the Auction House for 900 gold, for example, that's not a lot of cash to someone who just wants to get their brand new death knight viable as fast as possible.

Secondly, it's easy to forget that there are millions of players in WoW. This could be hard to believe for many of us, but there are people who don't like raids or instances. For those folks, these crafted items will be the best gear they'll see in Wrath. While it might be below an Icecrown raider's preferred iLevel, it's all still pretty awesome to someone who'll barely see the inside of 5-man isntances.

The Crafter's Tome and WoWPopular for the data!

Ghostcrawler on hunter ammo replacement

As you may recall, Blizzard announced their intent to get rid of consumable ammo in Patch 3.1, only to withdraw the change a short time later, with the promise of reimplementing it at a nebulous later date. Now, it's been more or less assumed that said later date is Cataclysm itself, or at least Patch 4.0.

In a general forum post created to discuss ammo replacements, Ghostcrawler piped in to remind us that the only change announced for Cataclysm was the removal of ammo, with nothing else yet decided (or, more accurately, announced). While he did acknowledge the possibility of adding in new situational ammo, he did observe that the hassle of collecting and swapping different ammo types might grow old pretty quickly, especially for a class like the hunter that already needs to push a lot of buttons to play at peak potential, in addition to already having a pet to manage.
I do see some wisdom in Ghostcrawler's words. As someone who played a hunter relatively extensively during Burning Crusade and has recently begun leveling that hunter again via random dungeons, I can attest that we do have a lot to juggle if we want to put out a respectable level of DPS or PvP utility. One more thing to worry about could conceivably get a little bit tiresome.

That said, I'm a hybrid player at heart. I played a druid when I first started playing, and I play a death knight as my main now, and in both cases, I always keep a set of gear upgraded and ready for all their respective roles. Those sets include relics. I have my tanking relics and my DPS relics already. If ammo become a similar "relic" system, it might not be so bad. Being able to spice up your shooting with some procs from an ammo relic would be a great way to add a little bit of fun to the system without making it overwhelmingly unmanageable.

Of course, if they just take out ammo altogether and roll the extra DPS back into the base weapon damage, I wouldn't complain too much either. My engineer will be sort of sad that one more source of cash flow is gone, but then again, raw materials sometimes sell for more anyway.

Spiritual Guidance: ICC-10 gear guide for holy and discipline priests

Hey ladies! Hey fellas! You know you're doin' good 'cause they're jealous *Pop-Pop* And they only hate ya 'cause you're a go-getter *Pop-Pop* Pop ya collar - Don't let 'em sweat 'cha! *POP* No clue what I'm talking about? Trust me, it's better that way. Though, if you don't know why I'm talking about popped collars, let me direct you to the picture above. It would seem popped collars are all the rage in Icecrown Citadel. I don't know what Blizzard was thinking with this, especially for priests. If anything, warlocks and mages are the frat boys of WoW. Or paladins. Well, whatever it is, this week I'll be talking about loot drops in Icecrown Citadel.

But first, a story.

The other day, I was in 10-man ICC with my guild and a Thaumaturge's Crackling Cowl dropped. At the time I was playing my new Alliance priest, and the helm was a significant upgrade from the Onyxia 10 helm that I was wearing. We'd been running with the default need over greed system all night, so I just hit need and went on my merry way, exploring Deathbringer Saurfang's platform for the first time. It seems you Alliance folk don't get a repair vendor (that I could find) after the Saurfang fight like the Horde do, but I guess this is the trade off for having a much shorter story sequence before the encounter. Anyway, a few moments later, while I was bouncing around inside the Skybreaker, the rolls went out and I won the helm with a 99. The only person who had rolled and lost against me was a mage.

That's when the conflict started.

Well, at least the internal conflict. No one actually said anything about it, and since the raid was called for the night I was free to go stand on some crates in Stormwind while I performed my interior monologue for some rats. You see, I have always held the idea that when faced with an equal upgrade, a DPS should get loot before a healer.

Of course, this is a frequently disputed idea. Some players believe that if you gear your healers first they will have the equipment necessary to heal the raid through difficult progression. Other players, like myself, argue that if you gear your DPS first, you can blast your way through the content and the healers won't need as much gear since they won't need to endure such long encounters.

The way I see it, DPS don't have ceilings the way healers do. What I mean by a ceiling is that there is a finite amount of healing you can do simply because your raid members only have so much health, and there is only so much damage. Even if the damage is constantly incoming, you will only be able to heal so much before you're overhealing. For DPS though, there is no ceiling, just a finish line with a dead boss and shiny treasure. The sky is the limit. And yes, I know about that one encounter -- I'm not changing my argument for one fight that gimmicks you into stacking paladins.

The other reason is a bit more subjective but deals with much the same ideology. Imagine that a progression encounter is a hill. The kill is at the peak and your raid is trying to climb up to it. When you get to that peak by killing the boss you find out there are two paths. The DPS go to the left, which leads up another hill, while the healers go to the right where there are changing rooms for them to suit up in their swim attire and play on a Slip 'n' Slide for the next 6 months. I hope that analogy wasn't too convoluted... Basically what I'm saying is that after you kill a boss there is really no more work for the healers to do. Each week after the first kill, the encounter will constantly get easier and easier to heal. Meanwhile the DPS can keep going up and push the bar a little higher, making the fights shorter and the clearing of the content for the 20th time more bearable.

Now let's go back to my priest though, since I mentioned a conflict. After my navel gazing above you'd think there wouldn't have been a conflict. I would have just passed the helm to my mage buddy and gone on my way. Except as I said, this priest is a new character. She has six, level 200 blue items on and while the upgrade from a 232 helm to a 251 helm isn't that big, I have so much heroic gear on my character that it would have helped get me closer to the gear level the rest of my guild's healers are currently at. So for once, an upgrade going to a healer over a DPS made sense. What would you have done?

While that mulls over, let's go ahead and look at the drops in ICC. For today, I'll just be examining the 10-man drops since that's what we've been talking about. Later this week, you can expect a write up on the 25-man drops, as well as their badge and crafted competition. I will also be discussing my thoughts on tier at that time. Now, without further ado:

Back

• Heartsick Mender's Cape -- 10-man Prince Valanar -- This is a great cloak for any healer. Priests of either spec can look to this if they do not plan on buying a badge cloak (Volde's Cloak of the Night Sky and Drape of the Violet Tower) or venturing into 25-man ICC.

Chest

• Bloodsoul Raiment -- 10-man Prince Valanar -- Depending on how you feel about tier, this may be an acceptable 251 upgrade for holy priests. Compared to the 251 tier 10 there is less spirit and spellpower on these robes, but the addition gem slot levels the difference.


• Robes of Azure Downfall -- 10-man Sindragosa -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] Again, if you're not going for tier bonuses, this is is a fine choice. Disc priests who are avoiding spirit like the plague can look to this if they do not want to save their badges for the Meteor Chaser's Raiment.

Feet

• Pale Corpse Boots -- 10-man Prince Valanar -- These boots with spirit are more ideal for holy, but if you don't plan on raiding 25-man plague wing for Plague Scientist's Boots, there is no drop or crafted option for disc priests.

Finger

• Signet of Putrefaction -- 10-man Festergut -- The mp5 will create less competition for this ring. It is suitable for both holy and disc.


• Cerise Coiled Ring -- 10-man Prince Valanar -- A nice throughput ring for either spec priest. The tooltip doesn't show a socket bonus, but a commenter on WoW Head states it as being 5 spellpower.

Hands

• Gloves of Broken Fingers -- 10-man Rotface -- Much like the Bloodsoul Raiment, this piece is about on par with the 251 tier 10. If you want your tier bonuses, you can skip these, but if you don't they're not bad. The 264 badge vendor gloves (Gloves of Ambivalence and Gloves of False Gestures) offer better itemization options for disc priests, though.

Head

• Thaumaturge's Crackling Cowl -- 10-man Deathbringer's Cache -- Just like other gear pieces with a tier alternative, this is a nice choice if you don't care about set bonuses. If you value haste over crit, this is better in raw stats than the tier. Also, again, is the helm that dropped for me in the story. As you can see it doesn't have the best itemization for disc due to the spirit.


• Cowl of Malefic Repose -- 10-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- If you don't want tier, this is the option for disc priests or holy priests who want throughput over regen.

Legs

• Kilt of Untreated Wounds -- 10-man Festergut -- These are a fantastic leg option for priests of either spec. Compared to the tier 10, you gain both crit and an extra gem slot in exchange for the loss of spirit and set bonuses.


• Leggings of the Refracted Mind -- 10-man Valithria Dreamwalker -- [Disclaimer: This item can't be confirmed as a drop until the fight goes live!] If you're a holy priest, these are a comparable stand in for 251 tier 10. There is less spirit on these legs, and no additional spellpower, but the extra gem socket makes up for it. The socket bonus can't be confirmed until the fight goes live, unfortunately.

Main Hand

• Midnight Sun -- 10-man Gunship Armory -- Good for either holy or disc. It is nearly identical to the Lockjaw, but take in mind that paladin healers can't use daggers, so you might want to shoot for this one to be nice to any paladin healers you might run with. Both options will look equally cool on your hip, though, in my opinion.


• Lockjaw -- 10-man Rotface -- Basically the Midnight Sun, in mace form. You get a bit more haste for a little less intellect and mp5. This is suitable for both holy and disc.

Neck

• Soulcleave Pendant -- 10-man Deathbringer's Cache -- Great throughput neck for any caster. There are many neck options in 25-man ICC as well, so everyone should find something that works for them.


• Choker of Filthy Diamonds -- 10-man Rotface -- This neck will work for either disc or holy.

Shoulders

• Bloodstained Surgeon's Shoulderguards -- 10-man Festergut -- Compared to the Crimson Acolyte Shoulderpads, the additional socket doesn't make up for the differences in stats and tier bonuses, unless you are trying to socket one type of stat. These will save you the badges that you'd need to spend on tier, however.


• Stiffened Corpse Shoulderpads -- Zone Drop -- There are confirmation comments that these BoE, 264 shoulders drop in 10-man ICC off trash, but not enough to be certain. If they do, these are going to be your best choice if you don't intend to raid 25-man content. There are currently no shoulder options without spirit, so disc will want these shoulders if they're not going for tier.

Trinket

• Sliver of Pure Ice -- 10-man Lord Marrowgar -- I know that use effect trinkets are never as popular, but this one isn't too bad given the spellpower on it. The mana regen works out to 67mp5 over 2 minutes, more or less depending on how long your encounters last.

Two-Hand

• Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff -- 10-man Deathbringer's Cache -- This is a great staff for a holy priest. The spirit doesn't make it ideal for disc, but if you desperately need a weapon upgrade then this should be easily farmable. Unfortunately, the 25-man staff off Blood-Queen Lana'thel is the same way: lots of spirit. I suspect that if there is going to be a throughput staff in ICC it will drop from Arthas. One more thing as a note: the spellpower on this staff is the same as the Midnight Sun and Lockjaw. With the current off-hands in ICC, staff-wielders will be straggling behind rather significantly if the staff spellpower enchant doesn't get a considerable buff.

Waist

• Cord of the Patronizing Practitioner -- 10-man Lord Marrowgar -- The spirit on this belt will make disc priests want to avoid it. Holy shouldn't have any problems with it though.


• Cauterized Cord -- 10-man Professor Putricide -- This throughput belt is ideal for either spec priest, as well as all other cloth wearing casters.

Wand

• Lana'thel's Bloody Nail -- 10-man Blood-Queen Lana'thel -- If you will not be raiding 25-man ICC, this is your only wand option in 10-man. That means priests of either spec can take this without hesitation.

Wrists

• Bracers of Dark Blessings -- 10-man Lady Deathwhisper -- These bracers are a tiny step above the crafted 245 bracers (Royal Moonshroud Bracers and Bejeweled Wizards Bracers). If you didn't ever get those bracers made, this is an option, but they will be better for holy priests due to the spirit. Notice that there is even more spirit from the socket bonus.

With this list I hope you will find some convenience in deciding what gear you'll be looking for in ICC. Remember to check back later this week for a 25-man version.

Now, back to my story: I ended up whispering my guild mate and having him come pick up the helm in exchange for a port to Dalaran. (What? My hearth was on cooldown.) I figured that, despite all my blue gear, in the long run that little bit of DPS would help out my raid more than me. Also, since I play disc in raids the itemization on the helm was better for him than me, because he can utilize the spirit for crit in combat. To further help me swallow the loss of such a pretty piece of gear (okay, not really, the popped collars are ridiculous) the mage was very appreciative, which made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside. He even whispered me after an hour of heroics to let me know it was a big upgrade for him. Granted, I didn't ask how much a big upgrade was to him, but I don't think that matters.

So why did I tell you this story? Because I wanted to force feed you more of my hippie healing philosophy, suckers! to give you all some food for thought. Again, what would you have done? What is your philosophy on who should get gear first? If you have a differing and constructive opinion I'd like to see them in the comments. Consider this open forum week at Spiritual Guidance. Make it good!

The Colosseum: Bearzerk, rogue of Mannoroth

Gladiator Bearzerk of US-Mannoroth won't be wearing his gladiator title much longer -- he'll be upgrading to Relentless Gladiator! Our rogue interviewee today is team captain of a rogue-mage-priest composition named A B C that was able to go on a victory streak and get the coveted title on the last day of the season.

Read on after the break to see what Bearzerk had to say!
WoW.com: Who are your teammates?
Bearzerk: My teammates in season seven were Nobodyseven (mage) and Lfv (priest).
WoW.com: What's your general plan against other 3v3s?
Bearzerk: Usually, our general plan for 3's is to make clutch switches. When we get a kill, the opposing team doesn't expect it at all. However, at times we do train a single target when a switch is unnecessary.
WoW.com: What challenges does your team have?
Bearzerk: I think our team honestly doesn't have any challenges since we've played together more. When we first started the team it took us a bit to get along and get strats/coordination and play styles down -- which got us off to a very bad start. We've progressed over time to play nearly at the top of our game.
WoW.com: You mentioned that your 3v3 team "got off to a very bad start" -- why didn't you stop playing when you were doing poorly?
Bearzerk: At times I thought we would not play anymore at the start. I'd have to say our team stayed together because Nobodyseven would influence us to keep going and that we'd only get better. Apparently, it worked out for the best.
WoW.com: What's your opening strategy?
Bearzerk: Opening strategy for us mainly depends on what map it is and how the opposing team is positioned. If we get Ring of Valor, sometimes I will be able to get a Sap -- but we don't depend on it. On that map, our mage usually opens with a Frost Nova into a Psychic Scream from the priest. Any other map we usually know what we'll do and when we'll switch.
WoW.com: How do you work out target designation and swaps?
Bearzerk: Since we all know when to call a good switch, over time we've learned to listen to each other. It will be a good switch any time it is called. If a switch is called at a wrong time, the person calling switch will go back to our main target. At times we will call to fully dispel someone and make an easy switch to clinch the win depending on what setup our opponents are playing.
WoW.com: What signals that you need to radically change strategy midmatch? (And how do you accomplish that change?)
Bearzerk: Symbols we mainly look for is:

1. Someone is not dying for whatever reason.
2. Need to change the crowd control because of diminishing returns, or if the crowd control will be broken at the time.
3. Need to peel off of my mage or priest or even the need for my teammates to peel off of me at times.
4. Someone is fully dispelled and our target is not dying.

WoW.com: Do you have favorite classes to kill on the opposing team?
Bearzerk: I'd have to say my favorite class to kill is rogue, not sure why I just like to. Another two would have to be mages and shamans. We had numerous games this season where my mage would not do any damage. In those games, if he did any damage, it was very little -- and I would end up soloing the opponent. This happens with other classes but rarely compared to these three.
WoW.com: What spec do you play? What advantages does that spec provide you that others do not?
Bearzerk: I play 44/4/23 assassination. I feel this spec gives the best damage I've tried of all specs thus far. I spec into Focused Attacks and gear for agility. I'm up to 46.03% crit unbuffed so my energy shoots up really fast for top damage.
WoW.com: Why did you choose to play rogue-mage-priest over other possible compositions?
Bearzerk: To be honest, I transferred to play with Nobodyseven as we have known each other for some time. We ended up getting lucky to have a great priest like Lfv. As a team, we became closer over time which kept us together more than any other players I have played with before.
WoW.com: How do you schedule your playtime? Do you try to play at times when lots of teams are queueing up?
Bearzerk: Our playtime was scheduled around my raids mainly, and when Lfv wanted to queue! We took a very long break from December 21st to January 18th (which was the final day of the season). Nobodyseven went on vacation and my computer was infected for three weeks. Luckily, I got it fixed on January 17th and was able to play the next day. My internet went down Tuesday (the 19th) from no payment as well! We were very lucky!
WoW.com: How does it feel to be a Relentless Gladiator?
Bearzerk: Almost makes up for not getting glad in season four or five for team hopping!
WoW.com: What are you trying to improve?
Bearzerk: I'd like to keep improving my win-loss ratios to the best of my ability.
WoW.com: What did you think of season seven in terms of balance?
Bearzerk: In terms of balance, I think it was the best in Wrath of the Lich King thus far -- besides protection warriors.
WoW.com: What do you think about the resilience changes for season eight? Do you think it's the right move?
Bearzerk: I think resilience changes will be a good move. I do think it is the right move as I hate losing to teams like death knight + warrior that don't do anything but Charge and Bladestorm -- they land kills without Mortal Striking anything. However, I believe they should take off the 47 minute timer for each arena game.
WoW.com: Will certain classes be affected more than others?
Bearzerk: I do not think certain classes will be effected more than others. They will just have to find new strategies to land a kill, mainly by draining mana and cooldowns.
WoW.com: What's the biggest thing that differentiates a good player from a great player?
Bearzerk: I believe what differentiates a good player from a greater player is:

1. Knowing what to do and when to do it.


2. Quickness of abilities.


3. Knowing your position and role in the game.

WoW.com: What's your advice to players who might be wanting to pick up arenas for the first time?
Bearzerk: My advice would be to watch PvP videos (I am looking into making one before expansion)! Also, duel classes to learn abilities and when your opponents would possibly use those abilities.
WoW.com: Thank you so much for giving us a great interview Bearzerk -- is there anything else you'd like to say?
Bearzerk: Looking forward to another great season and hope to get rank 1 in all brackets.