Modular Gearing

As I mentioned in my last post, since getting Ulu's gear back, I've been experimenting with a more modular approach to his gear. This is to allow him to tank in various situations without carrying 3-4 full sets of gear. This represents his basic Main Tanking gear. It's loaded with nearly 54% avoidance unbuffed and nearly 17k health.

What it really lacks is a decent "on-use" avoidance trinket since I foolishly got rid of my Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch. I can load up the Scarab of Displacement if I need to, but having that much spare Defense when I'm over the uncrush mark feels like a waste. Ah well, I'll keep grinding Kara and hoping for another drop.

To this set, I mix in a smattering of different items if I need to do something other than tank a progression Boss. For Soloing and farm bosses, I tend to use my threat "set". Basically I replace the gloves with the Crystalforge Handguards (enchanted with Threat), the shield with the Sunward Crest, his Libram with the Libram of Divine Purpose and his trinkets with the Tome of Firey Redemption and Eye of Magtheridon. This boosts Ulu's spelldamage well over the 500 mark whilst still keeping his avoidance and health reasonably high.

The second "set" Ulu has is for AoE trash. Again the Crystalforge Handguards and Eye of Magtheridon make an appearance, this time joined with the Crystalforge Faceguard, (complete with Eternal Earthstorm Diamond), Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 4000, Libram of Eternal Rest and Sabatons of the Righteous Defender. Again Ulu hits about 500 Spelldamage, but he also gains 530 Block Value, which is more than adequate in most AoE situations.

That's three distinct functions reliably provided for only an additional 9-10 bag slots. Not bad.

The Eye of Magtheridon is a weird little trinket. I picked it up when Ulu was reacquiring his gear and it seems to work amazingly well in AoE situations. Since Holy Shield and the first tick of Consecrate can be resisted, it procs a lot on the Mount Hyjal waves. I've been considering switching it out for my Commendation of Kael'thas for the AoE waves (especially the ones containing Abominations) but I'm finding the massive threat boost it gives hard to surrender (my Consecrate was at 230/tick last night with the trinket and Avenging Wrath up).

In other news, the unusually warm summer has started affecting raid sign-ups, and my home PC should have finished downloading the Age of Conan early release client. I may be spending more time with my Aquillonian Dark Templar than I suspected.