I just dinged 70 last night, and am wondering what the fastest way to get geared for Kara and heroics is. Two questions, really:

For PVE, should I concentrate on cloth gear for +damage and for +heal when I respec resto? My impression is that I will not be able to achieve the same stat level with leather that I can with cloth.

Which leads to my second question: if crafting gear is the fastest way, should I level up leatherworking or tailoring?

Thanks,

Oiy

I too have been struggling with gear questions lately. I noticed that as I get higher level the only good stuff seems to be in instances, as quest rewards dont give out many good balance gear items. As a result i noticed that my gear is migrating to cloth, and I was shocked to look at my mitigation stats. I was once around 57% and now im Level 67 and around 35% OUCH!

I guess it depends on your play though, if you do solo and you dont want to waste mana rooting all the time or are inside and cant root, the leather gear will help, but if were talking Kara, you hopefully don't plan on taking damage and might want to go for higher dps or hps, that is if you want to get invited back to Kara, what good is leather if your not taking damage?

If you solo however the leather depending on the gear might be worthwhile, just so you dont have to pop out of form and lifebloom all the time. Plus wearing cloth kinda throws the idea of melee for mana out the window.

Thankfully, from what I've seen blizzard did a decent job of putting decent moonkin gear in the instances. Also dont forget if you have any greens left you might want to compare your stuff to the cheap pvp gear that is available at honored for all the main 5 factions in BC. Hope this helps :dance:

Good advice, druid.
The itemisation for moonkins becomes better once you start raiding. Particularly in 25 man instances, and of course the tier4/5/6 sets.

Professions, I would say you don't really need either leatherworking or tailoring to gear up adequately. If you want to choose one of those anyway, go for leatherworking as it's likely to yield more long term benefits, as the items you will be making are leather instead of cloth.

But to be honest all druids should spec alchemy/herbalism.. ;) Those professions were just totally designed for the class...


-Annikk

Well, after a few hours of research on wowhead the best I've been able to come up with is to pursue pieces of the Moonglade leather and Hallowed cloth tier 3 dungeon sets, and just keep running the 70 dungeons until the pieces are filled out.

I tried healing a normal Magister's last night (900 bonus heals unbuffed in heal gear, and first time going there) and could not heal the second boss fight. We got close to downing him, but I just did not have enough healing power to get it done. Never had mana troubles or anything else. Bummed about that because it was the first time I totally failed and just could not get it done as Balance spec.

So I guess the plan is to farm all the other level 70 instances for the Moonglade and Hallowed sets (and upgrade the other slots as well) to get my bonus heals and bonus damage up a few hundred more points, and I'll have to start speccing Resto when I'm healing anything Magister's and above.

One other question: when do most folks start putting the big enchants or the high end gems on their gear? I hate to spend big gold on those things when I am trying to save up for my epic flight form, but I'm feeling like I may not have a choice if I want to progress.

Thanks again for answering my noob questions, only been playing a few weeks.

Oiy

One other question: when do most folks start putting the big enchants or the high end gems on their gear? Lvl 70 Blue (or greater) items. Once in a while you'll find the "perfect" green item (there are a couple of feral tanking items that are green) that is worthy of an enchant, but they are rare.

Could also look at the item's "item level" (see wowhead). Most any blue/purple over 100 is worthy of an enchant (assuming it is the correct item for your spec/class).

Get the S1 healing mace from honor and throw a +81 healing enchant on it. That will last you until you get the Light's Justice from Prince in Kara. Only 25k honor, which can be gathered over a long AV weekend. Total 456 +healing.

If you are exalted with Cenarion Expedition, grab the Windcaller's Orb, which will give you +64 healing

Grab the helm from CE revered (cloth, but /shrug) and throw the thrallamar / honor hold +healing encahnt on it. Total 114 +healing.

Have a leatherworker craft the Gloves of the Living Touch for you and put a +35 healing enchant on them. Total 112 +healing.

Thats +682 healing from three pieces of enchanted gear. (746 if you are exalted with CE.) Should be easy to get an additional 400 from your other slots to get over the 1000 mark