WotLK Lordaeron New Feral Tank Gearing Guide

[Bealta]

This guide is meant to help new bears on Lordaeron get from dinging 80 to stepping into ICC as efficiently as possible. I made a ton of mistakes in my personal journey that set me back about 10k gold at this point and would like to share my mistakes and what I learned from them. Before we go into too much detail, it is important to understand that there are 4 resources at our disposal with which to acquire gear. Gold, Emblems of Triumph, Honor, and Emblems of Frost. Each of these resources only gives us access to certain items so we need to make the most of all of them.

So you just dinged 80. You should head directly to the AH to buy 3 pieces of jewelry: Wodin's Lucky Necklace, Harbringer's Bone Band, and Ring of Rotting Sinew. They are fairly inexpensive and you will be likely using all three of these for a very long time so it is a worthwhile investment. For now, stick a Precise Scarlet Ruby in each socket for threat purposes and you will replace them with Solid Majestic Zircon once you get the next two items. The next pieces you should be saving gold for are Footpads of Impending Death and Ikfirus's Sack of Wonder. These are both very expensive and will most likely take you a significant amount of time to get. You will not be replacing either of these items until ICC25 Heroic so feel free to invest in expensive gems and enchants as well. If you are willing to do some battlegrounds, that is the end of the gold you will be spending on gear. If battlegrounds are not your thing, you can also buy Bracers of Swift Death and Death-Warmed Belt but I would strongly advise against it as they can be easily replaced by off-set pvp gear. If you have a spare 10k or so laying around, you could also buy Bladeborn Leggings but they will be replaced by T10 legs for the set bonus.

Emblems of Triumph (EoTs) can easily be your most abundant resource because you get 2 from each random heroic dungeon and 1 from each heroic dungeon boss that you kill on top of 5 from the weekly raid quest and more from ToC10/25. The first things you should buy with EoTs are the 245 ilvl off-set head and shoulders from the EoT vendor (Hood of Lethal Intent and Duskstalker Shoulderpads are the Alliance versions). These will likely last you until you get your hands on T10 for each of those slots so feel free to invest in gems and enchants there as well. The next thing you should buy is Idol of the Corruptor. This is not your best in slot Idol but will do the job for now. You should next buy either the T9 Gloves and Legs or Furious Gladiator Gloves and Legs. The T9 2 set bonus will output slightly more threat but if you are finding threat is not an issue, the pvp set has more EHP and will help you farm honor in a later section. Once those slots are filled, pick up Glyph of Indomitability and Clutch of Fortification as those will last you for quite a while as well.

Before we get into the most valuable of our resources, I should point out my big mistake. When gearing myself, I did not think to look at pvp off-set pieces even though I was using Furious Glad gear for quite some time. You can easily pick up Wrathful Gladiator's Armwraps of Triumph and Relentless Gladiator's Belt of Triumph in just a handful of battlegrounds. Both of these pieces will last until ICC25 at the very least and they're an upgrade over BoE's that normally go for thousands of gold each.

Assuming you bought the 5 recommended BoEs, both 245 and both 232 pieces, the EoT accessories, and picked up Orca Hunter's Harpoon, you are pretty well geared. If you haven't already, start trying to farm out The Black Heart from ToC5 normal and join ICC rep farms to work towards Ashen Band of Endless Courage. The ring will not be an upgrade until you get revered so be patient but you should not need it to be tanking Ony 10 and ToC 10 and 25. While you're in there, you should be trying to pick up Reclaimed Shadowstrike, Runed Ring of Binding, and Satrina's Impending Scarab. Shadowstrike has an on-use ability to summon Reclaimed Thunderstrike which has some nice tanking stats as well as an aoe on-hit ability that will help tanking multiple mobs. The ring should be replacing Clutch of Fortification, and the scarab will be replacing The Black Heart. And we've done all of that without touching our most valuable resource.

Emblems of Frost are going to be your most valuable resource by far. Before you are raiding Ice Crown Citadel, you can only collect 19 per week (2 per day from the random dungeon tool and an additional 5 from the weekly raid quest) so it is wise to not waste these. If you are willing to do some battlegrounds, I would suggest first buying Sentinel's Winter Cloak simply because there are no good alternatives. After that, you should save all your EoFs to buy the Lasherweave Headguard and Lasherweave Shoulderpads. The ilvl upgrades will provide some nice stats and the 2 piece set bonus has some extra threat built in. Unless you are finding yourself raiding ICC before then, this will take you more than 10 weeks to acquire (assuming 19 EoFs per week). At this point, you should be more than geared enough to be pugging Ony25, VoA, RS25(RS 10 has no gear for us), and ICC so the rest of the EoFs should come fairly quick. Now you should pick up Idol of the Crying Moon and Corroded Skeleton Key. If the T10 hands and legs haven't dropped from VoA yet, definitely just buy them to get the 4T10 bonus. I have also found Titanium Frostguard Ring very useful for VoA though I have not done any testing with either Ony ring for comparison.

Now that you have more gear than Aang in that one episode of The Last Airbender, you are free to do as you wish. Again, I am no expert but I hope this guide was helpful and informative. I picked up almost all of my bear knowledge from Raenel's Comprehensive Feral Tanking Guide so please go there for a more in-depth guide into BiS lists, macros, and stats.