Saga gearing guide

Are you one of those people that curiously popped in here and wanted to join us, only to be scared away by our gear requirements? Well, I'll show you how relatively easy it actually is to prepare yourself. Throughout the guide for finding the replacements, we're using www.wowhead.com and it's built-in weight system. Learn how to use it!

Current gear:

This is the current gear of a Beastmaster Hunter. As you can see, nothing fancy. One green item, two blue items and the rest epics. We'll cut the kit down a bit and analyze it a bit further.

Karazhan-drops

Some of the items are drops from Karazhan (headpiece, necklace, the weapons, and both rings). One of the rings is the reputation item, and not even the Exalted one. These items were obtained by completing Karazhan twice, by lending a helping hand on killing the Prince twice, and going on "first night" raids twice, up to Curator, both runs included Nightbane. In addition, this hunter has obtained the Master Key and has completed the Nightbane questline. This is in fact the "hardest" part of the gear kit to obtain. But all these items can be replaced with PvP items or from other sources. Let's see how!

Karazhan
Replacement			??

• The helmet is easily replaced with either the engineering helmet [Surestrike Goggles v2.0] or the most common hunter helmet in the game, [Gladiator's Chain Helm].
• The necklace is, according to the stat-weights on www.wowhead.com, the sixth best epic necklace available to a Beastmaster. Look above it in the table, though. There's the [Choker of Vile Intent], purchased with 25x[Badge of Justice] from G'eras in Shattrath City.
• As for the ranged weapon, we have two possible contenders, [Veteran's Musket] and [Wrathtide Longbow]. The gun is by far the easiest to come by, just get your reputation to Exalted with Honor Hold. The bow, as you can see, drops in Heroic Steamvault.
• I have deliberately left the melee weapon slot open. Looking at this list of weapons, you can see that it is in fact a very good weapon! The list only presents two-handed weapons, though. I would personally suggest getting two [Breeching Comet]s and poke them with an Intellect enchant if you want the mana. And you do want a nice mana pool when you raid!

Some of the suggested replacements are in fact upgrades to this hunter's existing gear, and they can all be obtained either through soloing (PvP and crafting), or purchased with [Badge of Justice]. On a good week, a commited heroic raider can walk away with 40 badges.

Purchased PvP-items

The leggings in this example are the purchased leggings that requires nothing more than Honoured reputation with Cenarion Expedition and some gold in your pocket. All classes have at least one set available requiring Honoured or better reputation with Cenarion Expedition, Honor Hold, Keepers of Time, The Sha'tar and Lower City. As for the leggings here, it's possible to upgrade them with quest rewards and purchased items with Badges of Justice.

Zul'Aman drops

The new troll raiding instance, Zul'Aman is by no means an easy instance. You usually don't pick up a group and just go there. Our hunter has managed to walk away from there with a pair of the the better shoulderpads available to a beastmaster hunter in the game, but don't despair! [Merciless Gladiator's Chain Spaulders] are a good replacement.

As for the rest...

This hunter is walking around with the belt from Gruul, two heroic items (chestpiece from Magister's Terrace and boots from Botanica), a green trinket from a level 68 quest in Netherstorm and the cloak from a lvl 66 elite quest in Nagrand, a quest that she soloed. Here's a list of possible replacements for some of those items:

• Belt - [Guardian's Chain Girdle], 17,850 honor points and 40 Arathi Basin marks.
• Cloak - [Blood Knight War Cloak], sold for 25 Badges of Justice or [Sergeant's Heavy Cloak], 7,548 honor points and 20 Arathi Basin marks.
• Trinket - This kind of depends on what special effect you're after. Look at this list and make your choice. As you can see, quite a few of them are crafted.

Conclusion

From this example hunter, you can see how you can either by yourself or with some commited PUG:ing, get yourself a kit that is either just as good, or in many cases better than this one. Why was this hunter chosen as example? Well, take a look at her Gear-o-Meter.

So, if you're not in the situation that you can get into the T4 content to gear up, heroic instances, some basic Battlegrounds farming and a little gold in your pouch will eventually take you all the way. And for some people, this way is actually faster than the once-a-week farms in Karazhan. Learn how to use the weight-system on Wowhead, and go get farming!