These days on my realm, there are a billion Primals on the Auction House at any one time - Water, Air, Mana, Fire, etc etc.

And they’re cheap.

I just bought 10 each of Primal Water and Primal Life for just over 10g each, and am now well-stocked for continuing to transmute Primal Mooncloth every 4 days on two tailoring toons as I swap out all my 16-slot bags for 20-slots (about 10 bags made so far, 100 to go ;) ).

It occurred to me that while the market is so flooded of these once-expensive materials (everyone getting rid of things before the expansion hits and the materials are completely outdated), that I should take advantage of it to build some gear sets that would otherwise be tremendously expensive.

Deciding On The Gear Set

My Priest has been my ‘main character’ since June or so, so I decided I’d concentrate on her and see what types of gear-ups I could get.

I thought about the Whitemend Set briefly, but since it uses the same Primal Mooncloth that my bags do, I tossed that one aside. Bag space > Gear which will be replaced soon after the expansion releases, as one of this blog’s readers so eloquently put it.

I then went to Be Imba! and looked myself up, and used their “search for gear upgrades” feature and started to look at the pieces of gear I had that were old and in need of replacement. That is, everything that didn’t have Haste as a stat on the gear, and there’s lots of that ;)

(Note, if I were a DPS Priest instead of a healing priest, I would have headed over to MaxDPS.com to find the best gear upgrades for me)

Turns out, since I have a belt and shoulders with haste on them already, there really aren’t many things I could get crafted that would help my primary set.

So, I stuck this ‘gear up while it’s cheap’ goal into the back of my mind and went back about my business of living life and playing WoW.

WTB Hearts of Darkness

This morning, while the game is down for weekly maintenance, I went back and looked over the recent applications for the guild I am vying to get into, and one part of my own application stood out to me - I have no shadow resist gear that is purposeful. And this guild takes people on trial runs in Black Temple, where for at least one of the fights, shadow resist is basically REQUIRED.

So, I started my trek of finding out what it was that I needed to get crafted to be able to improve this terrible situation. I ended up on WoWWiki’s site, looking at an article tailor-made for what I’m looking for:

Shadow resist gear for the Mother Shahraz fight in Black Temple

The article says I can get the following, which will total 370 or so Shadow Resistance:

• Night's End
• Soulguard Bracers
• Soulguard Leggings
• Soulguard Girdle
• Soulguard Slippers

So, when the game comes up, I’m going to head to the Auction House with my savings and see if the materials I need are underpriced like the Primals:

• 9x Heart of Darkness

• 5x Void Crystal
• 13x Primal Life
• 18x Primal Shadow
• 6x Bolt of Imbued Netherweave

And then of course I’ll need to get healing enchants on all the pieces, because my +heal while in that set will be neutered otherwise.

I estimate it’s going to cost around 2500-3000g of my in-game savings.

And, I still believe this to be a “steal of a deal” for this particular gear set, because I know it would have been triple that amount just three months ago.

True, I’ll need to crank up the money-earning to get it back over the next few weeks, but I hope it will be “the thing” that gets me into an official trial run with this guild I want to get into.

Wish me luck!

Tags: black temple, healing in black temple, level 70 priest gear, level 70 raiding gear, make hay while the sun shines, mother shahraz, priest healer, shadow resist gear for priests, shadow resist sets

My Healing Priest (Holy/Disc, goes on occasional raids) is my third toon to 70, and my first non-DPS character that survived past 40.

According to "_new" href="http://www.warcraftrealms.com/charsheet/49256651">WarcraftRealms.com, she hit level 70 on or around July 16, 2008 - exactly a month ago.

Since she was my 3rd to 70, I was well-prepared for her to ding 70 and put on some powerful gear. Not as powerful of gear as someone who’s been running heroics and raiding at 70, or PvPing through their 60s like there’s no tomorrow, but powerful enough to get me starting Heroics as soon as I dinged 70, where most others are still gearing up for Heroics when they hit 70.

And of course, I got an epic flyer 45 minutes after hitting 70 as well, so this toon is well-prepared for being a 70 amongst my friends and Heroics PUG mates.

Revered With Thrallmar, +Heals Top 1600

I’ve been using Be Imba! for improvement tuning of all three of my level 70 characters, and have used it to help friends direct their improvement goals as well when they asked.

Slowly but surely, I get the various enchants and gem and gear upgrades recommended by Be Imba!, and my position on the gear-o-meter climbs as I do it.

The recent upgrade accomplishment on this toon has been getting to Revered with Thrallmar, buying the Glyph of Renewal healer’s head enchant and the Ancestral Band healer’s ring in order to bring me up to just above 1600 +heals, unbuffed.

What’s Next?

This toon is getting to a point where unless I decide I want to “progress” further into raiding, upgrades are now just for fun, and not because I don’t think I can handle the various Heroics.

With that said, I do still have goals, because I do enjoy playing this toon and am having a lot of fun in Heroics with her, and PvP is fun as well, especially as a healer when I know I’m making a difference during each battle.

I’ve been collecting a Shadow set while I do my Heroics, asking if the rest of the group minds if I roll for off-spec when it’s clear it’s not an upgrade for anyone else in the group, and I’m down to needing only Bracers, a Belt, one ring, and a one-handed weapon and I’ll have a full shadow set.

Of course, I’ve only ever played this toon as shadow to grind from 52-58 when I got frustrated with the lack of BRD PUGs, so it’ll take some getting used to…

I’m sure looking forward to WoTLK where, I’ve heard, players will be allowed to set 2 specs and then simply pay the respec fee to alternate between one and the other. That’ll sure help in so many ways!

Other than that, I’ve collected all but the Ace of Beasts for my Darkmoon trinket… so I guess it’s time to head into LBRS to get keyed, and UBRS to try for that rare drop!!

I’m glad I have game-friends to trade favors with :)

Tags: +1600 heals, be imba, healing priest gear, heroics geared priest, holy disc priest, level 70 priest gear, pvp priest gear, revered with thrallmar, shadow priest gear