Last updated: patch 3.2
Interested in starting raiding with your balance druid but not sure what kind of gear you should have? Then this post is for you. First few pointers:
- I will list 3-5 items for each slot and where you can get them. Items from patch 3.2 included.
- These are not all possible items you can use – only few selected ones that I feel are most viable.
- Only items obtained from 5 mans, crafting (BoE) and reputations are included. It is a pre-raiding guide after all.
- I know you can buy all kinds of stuff with Emblems of Triumph but for someone who is just beginning to raid getting those with just daily dungeon quest will take very long time so I am excluding them from this post.
- I will also exclude tier items bought with emblems lower than Conquest. For those you would have to downgrade your Conquest emblems and those are far better saved for higher level tier items. I would suggest downgrading emblems only when there is not a better item available with higher item level.
- Ebonweave vs. Spellweave items. Great items but they are very expensive and with all the purples falling from heavens into your lap you probably would replace them very soon. I’ve listed Ebonweave ones in the guide but you should not think about getting them unless you really need the hit. Or maybe if you’re rich. Actually this goes for all crafted epic items: save your money unless you really badly need the particular item.
- PvP items are also left out because they sacrifice too much DPS stats for defensive ones. However if you got some PvP item which is better than something in your PvE gear then by all means use it. But even if so PvP items are a temporary solution only.
- Your first priority is to get to the hit cap, after that you can go for the (soft) haste cap and finally crit. What items you ultimately end up using is totally up to how much time you can invest and even luck. All items are good choises as long as you follow the hit > haste > crit rule.
- Since you’re starting to build raiding gear from scratch you might have mana problems. Haste increases the amount of mana used while crit gives you mana. So if it seems you have mana issues feel free to favor crit over haste. Hit cap is something you absolutely must have – haste can wait a little longer if needed.
- Hit cap is 263 if you have (and you should have) Balance of Power and Improved Fearie Fire.
- Soft haste cap is 400 and after that you will gain more DPS with crit. There is nothing wrong in having more haste but thanks to the changes made for Eclipse in 3.2 you will be switching between Wrath and Starfire more and hence crit gains more value.
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