3.3 Gearing: How to Irk Your Shaman

[Nadina]

I put together a gearset that I'll be shooting for in IC, I thought it would be helpful to share. It's really no different than what I've been gearing for in 3.2 - max regen through MP5, 676 haste soft cap, int stacking Holy Light madness. Since I generally run as a tank healer, I want to be able to last the longest spamming HL without interruption. That said, in 3.3 you can put an MP5 piece in every single gear slot available and still hit the haste softcap. We should be avidly shooting to hit 2pc T10, but we're also limited since we have absolutely no set pieces that have haste/mp5 this patch, leaving us with the only two pieces that have MP5 - gloves and legs. It's crippling to have these two particular pieces of our gear have that kind of stat spread since two of our best haste/mp5 pieces from 3.2 are...you guessed it...T9 hands and mail legs. To even be able to use the set pieces to get the 2 pc bonus, we'll have to have a large haste buffer from other pieces of gear, so we may not be able to use our 2pc bonus until the time we get enough haste through other pieces of gear.

As a debatable choice, I will not be shooting for 4pc T10. It's less HPS when spamming HL, less longevity. It does have some debatable perks, such a being good for mobility and burst healing, but I won't make the choice to lose MP5 gearing sub-optimal pieces to hit the bonus. It's not going to turn us into a Druid or Priest by any means.

With all that said, here's a pen-...er, my gearing choices for Icecrown.

You may notice that this gearset is slightly under (11) the haste softcap. You can either choose to hit your meta with a sp/haste gem in the bracers, which will put you at 675 haste, or replace one piece of Crit/MP5 gear with crit/haste/sp gear (helm or shoulders with Tier), or gem a slot for haste. I do not know if any of these pieces have gemming socket bonuses for haste, which may affect your choices.

Head - Faceplate of the Forgotten, Heroic 25 Festergut
Neck - Choker of Filthy Diamonds , Heroic 10 Rotface
Shoulder - Rusted Bonespike Pauldrons, Heroic 25 Marrowgar
Back - Heartsick Mender's Cape - Heroic 10 Blood Princes
Chest - Mail of Crimson Coins - Heroic 25 Blood Princes
Wrist - Coldwraith Bracers - Heroic 10 Marrowgar
Gloves - Sanctified Lightsworn Gloves - Tier 10 token
Belt - Belt of the Blood Nova - Heroic 25 Deathbringer Saurfang
Legs - Sanctified Lightsworn Greaves - Tier 10 token
Feet - Shuffling Shoes - Heroic 10 Rotface
Ring - Marrowgar's Frigid Eye - Heroic 25 Marrowgar
Ring - Ashen Band of Greater Wisdom - Ashen Verdict Reputation
Trinket - Meteorite Crystal - Algalon 10
Trinket - Solace of the Fallen - Jaraxxus 25 Heroic
Weapon - Val'anyr / Lockjaw - Heroic 10 Rotface
Shield - Lost Pavice of the Blue Flight - Heroic 10 Sindragosa
Libram - Libram of Renewal

Enjoy farming Heroic 10 Rotface forever. Rawr available on request.

[Jarlyn]

I think there's some value to 4pc for fights like Festergut 25h, where there's a heavy amount of burst healing needed, so I'll be putting together a 4pc set even if I don't use it 100% of the time. Otherwise yeah, yay mail.

[Nadina]

Updated with Sliver of Pure Ice Heroic having a 1m cooldown as opposed to 2m, making it better than Solace 258, kept in Meteorite Crystal due to it still being a very solid trinket and an alternate to Solace 258.

[Jarlyn]

Revised a BiS list to accommodate Arthas weapons.

Head: Faceplate of the Forgotten
Neck: Holiday's Grace
Shoulders: Sanctified Lightsworn Spaulders
Back: Heartsick Mender's Cape
Chest: Mail of Crimson Coins
Bracers: Coldwraith Bracers
Hands: Unclean Surgical Gloves
Belt: Belt of the Blood Nova
Legs: Sanctified Lightsworn Greaves
Feet: Shuffling Shoes
Ring: Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom
Ring: Marrowgar's Frigid Eye
Trinket: Meteorite Crystal
Trinket: Solace of the Fallen
MainHand: Royal Scepter of Terenas II
Offhand: Bulwark of Smouldering Steel
Libram: Libram of Renewal

Do note that technically the Arthas 1h sword would be our BiS, but if that's ever given to a paladin before your mages and locks, you have a very stupid guild.

With all 264(10h)/277 versions, you come out with 734 haste. As it will be a long time before any of us sees a full set of heroic gear, it's probably advisable to swap out the neck or the helm for, respectively, Choker of Filthy Diamonds and Ice-Reinforced Vykrul Helm.

There's also the issue of the Sliver of Pure Ice, which is still listed as having a 1m cooldown. It would rank up there pretty highly if that cooldown remains, but given how out of line it is with the non-heroic version, that seems unlikely.

[Tumpys]

Originally Posted by Nadina

Updated with Sliver of Pure Ice Heroic having a 1m cooldown as opposed to 2m, making it better than Solace 258, kept in Meteorite Crystal due to it still being a very solid trinket and an alternate to Solace 258.

Tooltip on it being 1 minute was a bug; still 2 minutes

[Nadina]

Updated again.