Tuesday (4 Jan) - It Comes and it Goes

Tuesday (4 Jan) - It Comes and it Goes

Over the past six days Wild has made numberless changes to his gear. That is nothing unusual, particularly early on in an expansion. What was both frustrating and kind of funny was watching the numbers change on his gear without doing anything at all to them.

On 30 Nov 2010 Wild's gear sheet listed his average ilevel as i321. As Wild has said way more times than he needs to, the magic number is i329, when Wild will be able to sign up for random Heroic mode dungeons. On 2 Jan 2011 Wild spent 2200 justice points for a new helm, and earned additional gear when he reached Revered with the Mount Hyjal faction. Those items plus a few more adjustments and Wild's score jumped to i327. On 3 Jan Wild replaced his last pre-cata piece of gear, an i264 +135 int trinket, with an i305 +194 int trinket. Wild's score notched up two more points to the magic i329. Wild went so far as to check the dungeon finder. Sure enough, Wild was now capable of running random Heroics. WOOT!

Later that day Wild noticed that his chest piece wasn't enchanted. Wild isn't paying that much attention to enchants at the moment, since gear tends to change fast. However, I had a +40 spirit enchant I'd made while leveling enchanting that would work just fine on the chest piece. Wild enchanted the chest. Later, I went to update the stat sheet I keep on every gear change I make, and my jaw dropped when I saw that the average ilvl score was now i328, not i329. WTH? I swear Wild was wearing the exact same gear; nothing had changed but a gear enchant that should have made no difference, and if it did anything, should have raised the ilevel. Baffling and frustrating. Another day passes and Wild buys a shoulder piece off the AH. Wild opens his gear sheet to compare his new shoulder piece with the old and his jaw drops again. Wild's score now reads i330. Wild had not equipped the shoulder. Wild was wearing the same gear that the day before had said first i329, and then i328.

Since then Wild's gear score has remained i330, and stayed that way even after Wild replaced the old i318 shoulder with the i339 shoulder. But I'm watching.

One other note. The shoulder gear Wild bought is a part of a set of pvp gear that tailors can craft. Wild liked it because it had most of the stats he wanted except for +spi. However, it had all this Resilience that I didn't need and so I planned to reforge that into +spi. Word of warning - Resilience cannot be reforged. Sigh. The shoulder was still worth having, fortunately, but that was a lesson learned.

I just peeked again and Wild's ilevel is still i330. I wonder if it will stay that way.

More stray notes -

Wild discovered that another faction called the Dragonmaw sold an ilvl333 shoulder at Honored rep. Wild really ought to study more. It took Wild about an hour to reach Honored with the Dragonmaw (he was already most of the way there via questing in Twilight Highlands), and Wild collected his new shoulder gear. Now, the pvp shoulder Wild already bought is i339 and is slightly better than the Dragonmaw one. But had Wild discovered the Dragnonaw shoulder earlier, he would never have bought the pvp one.

Here is the lesson learned - in Cata there are some nice goodies available at even the modest rep of Honored, and even more good stuff at Revered. Grinding that rep is not that hard, either. There are four general Cata rep factions: Guardians of Hyjal, Therazane, Ramkahen, and the Earthen Ring. And there are two each horde and alliance factions. For Horde it's the Dragonmaw Clan and Hellscream's Reach. For alliance it's the Wildhammer Clan and Baradin's Wardens. There is worthwhile stuff available in all of them. All them have several daily quests as well, once they've been unlocked through questing.

Happy has a surprise. He says it was time for a change.