Author’s note: I have quit playing WoW before patch 3.0.5. Warcraft-related content is no longer being updated, and information in this post may not reflect the live game anymore
Based on a mail sent by one of Blessing of King’s readers, and assuming you have leveled as Ret so far, here’s how you can build a basic tanking set from scratch before you even set a single foot into any instances.
The Outer Shell
First things first, get yourself a set of Tempered Saronite gear, except for the Legplates and the Gauntlets. For these two pieces, you’ll want to take Daunting Handguards and Daunting Legplates instead.
Mats you’ll need to get all of this crafted for you:
81x Saronite Bars
15x Cobalt Bars
3x Crystallized Earth
2x Eternal Earth
The Tools for the Job
As a weapon I recommend getting the Hammer of Quiet Mourning from the Zul’Drak Quest “Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper“. You can get that one from the wanted poster in Light’s Breach.
For your shield, you should be at least honoured with your faction’s main Wrath group (Alliance Vanguard or Horde Expedition), which will give you access to their respective defense shields, Shield of the Lion-hearted for allies or Bulwark of the Warchief for hordies.
The Shinies
For rings, your best choices are:
To get yourself a Stoneguard Band crafted by a JC – requires two Eternal Earths, but is apparently quite popular for JCs to skill up, so you should be able to find plenty at the AH.
To collect and keep the Ring of Misinterpreted Gestures, a reward from the Scholazar quest “Fortunate Misunderstandings” which is part of the chain to align your toon with either the Oracles or the Frenzyheart, something you’ll want to do sooner than later anyway.
For your neck: Try to troll the AH for Torta’s Oversized Choker, a blue drop which seems to be relatively common since there’s always one or two up for auction on my server. Alternatively, you can complete the Scholazar Frenzyheart / Oracle quest chain and pick the Blood-Infused Pendant as a reward for “A Hero’s Burden“.
To cover your back, you’ll want to start with the crafted Cloak of Tormented Skies, which a leatherworker can make for you for 6 Borean Leather, 5 Crystallized Air and 5 Crystallized Water.
Trinkets are a huge problem though, since there’s not a single tanking trinket in wrath which you can get outside of instances. If you have banked TBC tanking trinkets, best hang on to them for a while.
The Finishing Touches
Your Stoneguard Band has a blue gem slot, you may want to put an Enduring Forest Emerald into that slot. Add an Eternal Belt Buckle to your belt and another Enduring Forest Emerald.
The end result will bring you to 528 defense and a bit over 17k HP, assuming you have no TBC defense trinkets. Way enough to grab the next upgrades through normal instances. You can see a mock-up of this equipment here.
And Beyond That?
The only quick to get upgrade from factions at this stage comes from Wyrmrest accord – if you have completed Wrathgate in Dragonblight, you should be pretty close to honoured, which would allow you to upgrade your cloak to the Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions. You’re now at 532 defense, almost crit immune for normals and heroics. You can run every normal instance in the game with that kit to grab the next upgrades and build your faction rep from there, but you’re probably still a bit light on the HP side for heroics.
A series of potential upgrades:
In Gundrak, Gal’darah drops a nice ring.
In Halls of Lightning, you’ll want the defense trinket off Loken.
In CoT – Stratholme, you’ll find a shield from Epoch and boots from Meathook.
At that stage, it’s going to be enchanting / enhancing time, since further upgrades will pretty much require you to run heroics.
Related posts:
This is one of those reasons why I’m not really working on my Pally alt at the moment. I don’t know what (if anything) I want to do with him at 80, and I do know that leveling will mean having to make decisions between quest rewards for the three separate sets of gear I may or may not want him to own. The joys of being a hybrid….
Actually, in the above list, the only two items which are competing with other builds are the neckpiece and the weapon. For the latter, there are better options for healing builds available from other quests though.
There are some really nice drops and quest rewards from normal Utgarde Pinnacle and Oculus as well. Especially the chestpiece from the UP quest you pick up inside. Also I wish everyone else more luck then I have had on the trinket from Loken, I have made 13 attempts so far and no dice.
I got it on my second run Mister K
As usual, love reading your blog. Thanks again.