That's a nice way to introduce people to PVP

[Imogene]

So, huzzahs all around, I finally got my first level 80 toon in WoW the other day, after nearly a year of playing. I've had two quests lingering in my quest log, both of which involve playing in the Isle of Conquest battle ground. I've been trying, off and on, for the past week, to get into a game, wait four to five hours, nothing. So, today, on a lark, as I'm out questing and leveling my weapon skill, I pop into the queue, and get right in, four or five times in a row. Sadly, one of those quests is to win in the battle ground, and we Alliance suck at that, apparently...
The final time I played, before the battle started, someone just randomly said, out loud, "Congratulations, Puce, I think you have the lowest gear score for a level 80 I've ever seen!"
Flabbergasted, I reply, "Thanks?"
Someone else chimes in with, "Where's your other weapon?"
My who what now?
We lost anyway, and I wasn't at the exact bottom of the results board, but neither was I way up there, due to my limitations, of course... plus, my relative inexperience with PVP/that battle ground.
I exist on RP servers because I enjoy questing alone, for the most part. I JUST hit 80 three days ago. I'm not geared well enough to even get into Heroics yet...

If anyone wants to come in game and teach me... Puce, on the Scryers server

[Zoom]

There's a GearScore addon which will tell you what people's gear score is. (Both my mains are over 4800 at the moment.)

Once you hit 80 you should do random daily dungeons for emblems of frost and triumph, and turn them in when you get enough, for nice purple items in Dalaran.

Also you will need to pay attention to which types of items are for which sets. DPS (stamina, strength, agility, hit rating, haste rating + a couple more), tank (defense, parry), heals (spell power and intellect) and of course PvP (resilience rating).

Oh, and check this out! I can see some greens and blues...

[Imogene]

Oh, and check this out! I can see some greens and blues...

Yes, indeed... I've been trying to upgrade my equipment whenever I see a good piece, but, still, I'm mostly just going through the quests and using those rewards. I've done a few daily dungeons, and am just now starting to get keeper's shards... But, still, looking at some of those upgrades for just my helm... it's like: Ulduar, 25 man raid... how do I even join a raid? Where is that information in the game?

[Hanzoku]

Hey, a fellow WoWer. First, congratulations on your first 80.

First thing I can recommend is going to Elitist Jerks for information on specs, glyphs and what not. Their information is normally very well researched, and while your milage with it might vary, it should help quite a bit with damage in PvE

It looks like you're blood tank / unholy dps specs?

Tanking - http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t44638-s...dgame_tanking/
Unholy DPS - http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t72364-u...y_nothing_all/
Blood DPS - http://elitistjerks.com/f72/t61176-b...updated_3_3_a/

I will say that starting off as a tank is rough - you'll get queued for dungeons fast, but people can be bitchy and demanding if you aren't well over defense cap and sporting 50k health. Don't let them get to you as you're learning the role.

Quick notes for tanking stuff:

Neck - You can buy Torta's Oversized Choker or Burning Skull Pendant on the Auction House - they shouldn't be that expensive at this point. These should be the best option before you hit heroics.
Cloak - Wyrmrest Accord has the Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions for you at Honored
Chest - Utgarde Pinnacle has the Silverplated Battlechest after completing the quests located right at the front entrance inside.
Waist - The Waistguard of the Risen Knight is available on the Auction House, and is an excellent pre-epic belt. Otherwise, the Tempered Saronite Belt is a craftable piece you can buy.
Legs - Special Issue Legplates can be gotten from the Argent Crusade at Honored.
Ring - The Solid Platinium Band can be gotten from a quest done inside Gun'drak dungeon, but you need to do some quests outside first to start the chain.
Trinket 1 - Seal of the Pantheon from normal Halls of Lightning is a great defense trinket to get you closer to the 540 defense minimum.
Trinket 2 - There's a distinct lack of good tank trinkets from normals... the next ones are in heroic instances.
Weapon - No idea what you're currently using as you're not holding a weapon in the Armory, but Kalu'ak has a good polearm with plenty of +hit for threat, and once a Stoneskin Gargoyal runeforging is stuck on there, it makes a decent weapon until you can upgrade further.

[Fire_on_High]

All I can say is you poor bastard...I've been playing a blood DK for a while now and I just can't IMAGINE having started off trying to tank. Folks are friggin brutal...they'll rip you to shreds if you're not raid quality, even for easy heroics like UK.

Unfortunately it's patch time so I can't log in and switch to DPS mode for the armory, but there's my profile in tankmode...currently dual wielding with a few points in frost for tanking, but looking to grab a two hander to do this properly as soon as I can.

I built my tank set by running a ton of stuff with guild and a few PUGs before the new tool came out...I ran it as dps and any unwanted tank drops, I asked the group for to use for offset.

I'm a two hander in DPS mode of course, Edge of Ruin...been trying to get either another one I can toss Stoneskin Garg on for tanking, or the mace from PoS, or the sword from HoR.

Your best bet for an easy weapon upgrade might be normal COS, the chest at the end, or if you've worked on your rep, there's one you can buy at Shadow Vault with revered and some cash. Failing that, got Argent rep? Even enough to just buy a tabard? There's a mace there that would work in a pinch if you've got the rep or can get it easily, I think revered also. You'll end up wanting both reps for Arcanums anyway, so....

EDIT: And of course I forgot the original reason I was posting...the low hanging fruit.

The neck upgrades are only 19 emblems each, which makes them a stellar way to get a fast improvement. Belts are cheap also off the same merchant (Conquest) and you can get rings for 35 off the Triumph vendor. Up at the Tourney Grounds you can buy your tier set, which is 30 for shoulders and gloves, 50 for helm, chest, and legs IIRC. I'm not looking this up so CHECK before you make solid plans, so you don't get a rude surprise due to my poor memory.

I know Cadane's in older tier pieces...I've played my shaman more lately. You don't want the Conq Darkruned, you want I think it's called Thassarian's.

[Imogene]

It looks like you're blood tank / unholy dps specs?

Not holding a weapon currently because I'm out and about working my Unarmed up to 400, for the achieve and the Master of Weapons...
Also, Blood yes, tank no... got the Unholy dual spec solely for On a Pale Horse while I'm clearing out low level quests...

[Kaylyn]

That's incredibly rude of them to criticize your gear score without knowing anything about you. Did they forget that not everyone's been playing the game since birth? Yes, there are going to be new 80s without heroic-running/raiding guilds to carry them to the gear they need quickly. Some of us still have to work for our gear!

With the dungeon finder, sign up as DPS for random dungeons, or stick to Nexus/Utgarde Keep heroics for a few runs until you get some upgrades. If you're gearing yourself properly, you can use Wow-heroes.com to see what you're ready for. It only goes by gear score, so you need to know what stats to gear/enchant/gem yourself up for based on what role you're trying to fulfill. Doing random dungeons will get you Emblems of Frost (2 per day for a random heroic) and 2 emblems of triumph (per dungeon, plus more triumph emblem drops from bosses). Trade in those badges in Dalaran or at the Argent Tournament grounds for huge gear upgrades. You can also downgrade emblems, which is useful for getting heirlooms for alts or certain pieces that you can't get with the higher tier emblems. Frost emblems buy you Icecrown-equivalent gear, while triumph buys you Ulduar-level gear.

I got completely fed up with my old server and have started fresh on a new one (Wyrmrest Accord). I'll likely be transferring my sole 80 just to have the heirloom gear for my new characters.

Good luck, and enjoy level 80!

[Amina516]

People are stupid. I had someone cuss me out b/c I wouldnt give them a weapon that dropped, which i won in a roll, and then went on the quest line to retrieve it...which then became soulbound. Idjits.

Keep on playing, youll get there.

Just remember, Opinions are like assholes...everyones got one. Lol.

[Fire_on_High]

Gratz on your hilt :P

Ok, blood but not a tank? Str, crit, and hit. Abuse heart strike liberally, and if you get the stuff for it, death strike can give you some insanely big hits.

I don't use the Elitist Jerks stuff, I play it my own way, more fun. Reload my profile now if you wanna peek at my dps mode stuff.

[CaptainThrifty]

When I first read the title to this thread, I thought you were talking about the web comic.

[Imogene]

Yerg... got another comment on how much I suck as an 80 tonight, only it was in An'Kahet, and it was a comment that I'm only barely breaking 800 dps... which works just fine for me... I only die on the very rare occasion... Someone suddenly chimed in, "He's working on his unarmed..." Not going into new territory, I'm not... I had a polearm on, but not my favorite one... just one I had on me...
In other news, I got that damn 400th skill point for unarmed, and got my dual achieve!

[Fire_on_High]

It'll come up as you get geared, too.

[ApolloSZ]

People are insanely brave..... behind a computer.

Was playing Gears Of War on Xbox 360, not long after I got it, so my "gamer score' was pretty low. ((For those not on 360 - Gamerscore is points for games played, acheivements in games etc))

Went online, as I had a month free of Xbox. Joined a multiplayer game with these two young chaps in america. They had headsets, so I could hear them talking back and forth, next thing I hear "Hey a new guys joined. He's got a pretty shitty gamerscore" just after i joined. While it may be possible they were talking about someone else, I doubt it.

I thought to myself (didn't have a headset to reply) "well... f*ck you then." Played the round, then left to join another game.

They invited me back. Strangely, I accepted. Four rounds. two vs one (them vs me).


I won all four, killing both of them each round, curb stomp finishing moves twice. For some odd reason, they were very quiet. assh**es.

/threadjack

[Sunsetsky]

This is EXACTLY why I quit that damn game. There are so many sucky assholes on it who take the game way too seriously. The last time I was on, I was in an Onyxia raid and had to listen to some elitist ass whine about mine and my fiance's gearscore and DPS. Irritating part is that I've constantly warned my guild that I'm not geared for a lot of the raids (only geared for PvP) and I hated raiding anyways. I ended up getting sucked into this raid and had to go through the embarassment of getting thrown out of the raid by my own guild. I'd understand if my guild was a raiding guild but it wasn't only raiding. Alot of the guys PvP'd and we all did rather well together in BGs. I finally became fedup with it and quit the game this past November. I'll probably go back when the new expansion comes out but I probably won't be joining any guilds.

Just keep practicing. Don't feel rushed to get new gear because other people are assholes. Do it at your own pace.

[Fire_on_High]

That's one thing I can't understand...my guild has one hard and fast rule, you AREN'T allowed to slag on your guildies...to the point the leader would rather just have to shrug and give up after a 60g repair bill than tell some of the less gifted players that green Elder gear really isn't the best match for a DK.

The serious players play serious, the super casuals end up being ran on stuff since we're used to working around em. When you've got a couple 4.4k+ GS dps, carrying a 1700 isn't so hard.

Can't imagine tossing someone like that....just never happen. Might call the raid, might see if tactics could be adjusted, but that's it.