
Now that I have my team of tanks, I've been staying off the quest trail (as planned) and found myself flying through whatever dungeon I encounter. I'll be writing about each one in the near future. For now, I want to focus on the changes coming in Patch 2.4, and how they'll effect my plans as I inch closer to the big 7-0.
The problem with hitting 70 this late in the game, is that PvPers are already geared. Heck, we're coming up on the 4th Arena Season! This means that when I step into the BGs as 5 brand new level 70 Shaman, I'll likely be in level 90-100 Blues at best, while others are in level 146 Epics. Yikes.

I'm going to miss this once I hit 70s BGs.
The most painful part will be my lack of Resilience, a stat that reduces your chances to BE crit, and reduces the damage you take when you ARE crit. You have exactly zero resilience in your base stats, so the only way to build it up is to get resilience gear. That's easier said then done.
Up till now, with the exception of a few raiding rings, you could only get resilience gear by pvping, but you need it to pvp competitively. So the only option for you is to run BGs, in terrible gear, and save your honor until you can afford to buy the gear you need.
After Season 3 came out, the original Season 1 (S1) gear became available for bulk sums of honor. This is great! But when you add up the honor you need, you'll be stuck pugging through BGs for many months before you've got the gear you need to survive in Arenas.
This is where 2.4 comes in. Blizzard recognized this gear gap, and decided to make available a set of Blue quality level 115 pvp gear, complete with resilience, and even a +35 resilence 2 piece set bonus. So how do you acquire this fabulous new wardrobe? PvE.
In the expansion, Blizz decided to reward us with faction quartermasters. These are NPCs who offer you fabulous gear for rock bottom prices, based on the level of reputation you hold with their faction. So they're using these quartermasters to distribute the new pvp armor, an I couldn't be happier.
WoWInsider posted a wonderful little spreadsheet pointing out what factions you need to get, in order to get the gear you want. They spread the gear out over five factions: Cenarion Circle, Thrallmar, Keepers of Time, Lower City and Sha'tar.

As you can see from the chart, there are three types of Shaman gear. Elemental, Enhanced and Resto. Each is of course itemized around it's spec, and each one has it's own set bonuses. The Elemental set, which I'm obviously looking to, has a pretty stupid 4 piece bonus: 2% crit to shocks. This is frustrating because you're rarely in range to use shocks as an Elemental Shaman. What i'm more interested in, is the 2 set bonus that each set shares.... +35 resilience.

So how do I get there? Well, I just need to run instances and complete quests that build up my reputation with the 5 needed factions. Normally, this is hard. Because after you run any available quests, you're left needing to run instance, which requires 4 other "good" players... not if you multibox. :)
So I'm choosing instances that pay out the rep I need. How do I keep track of that? By using one of my favorite WoW sites of course! WoW Reputation Calculator. (www.wowreputationcalculator.com)
Punch in your toon's name, your server and your region (US or EU) and BAM! The dishes are done! The page will build a beautiful bar chart showing exactly where your reputation is with all of the important TBC factions. But wait... it gets BETTER!

When you click on each one, it actually shows you where and how you can build up your reputation, and even calculates how man mobs you need to kill, quests you need to finish or instances you need to run to reach the next reputation goal. WOOT! This makes it incredibly easy to keep track of my Reputation TO-DO list. I'm already well on my way to being Honored with all five factions long before the patch gets here.
I can't wait!
The patch also brings us a NEW faction to grind, the Shattered Sun Offensive which brings a pile of new dailies, server based progression and a pile of sweet new epics when you hit Exalted. I'll go over all of that, and my SSO plans in my next post.
Shortly after that, I'll be sharing my experience in Sethekk Halls (oh man the first boss blows), my party with Thrall in the CoT, and even the Big Ding! It's all right around the corner. Stay tuned.
Boom