New Paladin Gear with the Call
of the Crusade

Patch
3.2 has come and gone (heck, some people are already
testing patch 3.2.2!), but we’re just now getting through all
of the new loot
available. Just to put it into perspective, there are 41 new Plate
chest
pieces. That is a whopping big number. Of course the gear includes new
Heirlooms, crafted (blacksmithing gear got a big upgrade), PvP rewards,
dungeon
loot and emblem rewards. In reality though, the PvP rewards are
available to a
very select set of arena runners, so we’re going to focus on
the gear that
takes us to the next step. We’ll look at gear for leveling,
gear for freshly
minted level 80s and then what gear is available to prep upcoming
raiders.

Before
we get too far ahead of ourselves, we do need to
discuss the coolest Paladin addition in a while, the Argent Charger. An
upgrade
to the epic Charger, the Argent Charger looks awesome:

style="text-align: center;" align="center"> style="font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%;">

style="width: 224px; height: 160px;" alt="Argent Charger"
src="/image/view/73025"
v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1">
thanks
to WarcraftMounts.com

style="font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%;">

Now
that we have that out of our system we can concentrate
on the critical gear selections. In progression terms, we’re
going to start
with new gear available to help Paladins level.

style="">A Less than Level
Playing Field

Leveling
up is no longer the tedium it once was, and with
the new gear adding experience boosts, it is much faster. This bonus
plus the
stats stacking as you level provide some great benefits. Only two new
heirlooms
weapons are available from the latest patch; a one hand and two hand
mace. The href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=48718">Repurposed
Lava Dredger
could be used by Retribution Paladins, but the one handed href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=48716">Venerable
Mass of McGowan
is mostly useless for Paladins. As for adding some additional
experience and
reducing the need to find gear, a new chest piece is available; the href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=48685">Polished
Breastplate of
Valor is worth a look.

style="">Load me up, I’m going
in!

For
those characters new to the ranks of end game
Paladinning (you know, Paladin as a verb, come on) then there are two
types of
gear to run after. One is the new 5 Man Heroic gear in the Trial of the
Champion;
the other is Emblem rewards from the new Emblems of Conquest. style=""> The
gear from 5 Man heroic Trial of the
Crusader is iLevel 213 which is a nice upgrade from the iLevel 200 gear
dropped
in normal heroic modes. The next step up is the Emblems of Conquest
gear which
is iLevel 226.

[protip]For
those enjoying the new PvP experience gains, you can also rack up
significant honor and Wintergrasp tokens so that when you hit 80 you
can pick up 3-4 pieces of new gear right off the bat. Gear up through
PvP if you're leveling solo, it is well worth it. Leveling through
PvP leaves a bunch of quests you can complete for gold
too.[/protip]

Tank
this, and one of these! Of the entry level rewards, the
best for Paladins looking to do some taking are; href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47497">Helm
of the Crestfallen
Challenger (Head), href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47514">Regal
Aurous Shoulderplates
(Shoulders), href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47201">Boots
of Heartfelt
Repentance (Feet), href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47212">Mercy’s
Hold (hands) and the href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47227">Girdle
of the Pallid
Knight (belt). As for weapons,
the href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47500">Peacekeeper
Blade is worth a look.

Don’t make me smack you, ok that does it. Retribution
Paladins will want to look out for the href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47176">Breastplate
of the Imperial Joust
(chest), href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47197">Gauntlets
of the Stouthearted Crusader
(hands), href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47220">Helm
of the Violent
Fray (head), href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47495">Legplates
of Relentless Onslaught (legs),
and the href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47511">Plated
Greaves
of Providence (feet).
Don’t be afraid to venture into Wintergrasp and get your
hands on href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=48978">Titan-Forged
Bracers of Triumph (wrist)
either. When it comes to
weapons, stick with href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47493">Edge
of Ruin or maybe href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47522">Marrowstrike
to pick up a cool
looking polearm with a gem slot.

style="">Last
and certainly
not least, Holy Paladins will be keeping their fingers on the need
button for
href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47199">Greaves
of the Grand Paladin (Feet), href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47172">Helm
of the Bested Gallant (head),
href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47567">Gauntlets
of Revelation (hands), href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47503">Legplates
of the Argent Armistice (legs).
Another
Wintergrasp reward in the form of href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=48977">Titan-forged
Bracers of Salvation is worth a
few trips to pick up. The choice of weapons is pretty meager, the href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47509">Mariel’s
Sorrow mace is nice and should
hold you over until you can get to href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47206">Misery’s
End
(now that is a real sweetheart).

style="">Moving On Up

Once
we start hitting the 10 Man Trial of the Crusader the
loot takes a nice step upward. With the iLevel 232 loot that drops in
the
instance plus the Emblems of Triumph you’ll be picking up,
you can start
getting some iLevel 245 gear. Again, these will set you up for
progressing into
the 25 Man Trial on normal and then on heroic once decked out.

style="">Don’t Shed a Tier

Each
of the sets has different naming schemes, so the tier 9
gear starts with Conqueror’s Turalyon’s and style=""> 
Liadrin’s gear and
then moves up in to Triumphant Turalyon’s and
Liadrin’s gear. Once you start filling those in, you will be
looking for
Totally Triumphant Tualyon’s and Liadrin set pieces. Totally.
The tier gear
progression is as follows:

• style="font-family: Symbol;"> style=""> style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">

  href="http://www.wowarmory.com/search.xml?searchQuery=conqueror%27s+aegis&fl%5Bsource%5D=all&fl%5Btype%5D=all&fl%5BusbleBy%5D=all&fl%5BrqrMin%5D=&fl%5BrqrMax%5D=&fl%5Brrt%5D=all&advOptName=none&fl%5Bandor%5D=and&searchType=items">Conqueror’s
  Aegis
             
             
             
             iLevel
  226 style=""> style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">

• style="font-family: Symbol;"> style=""> style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> Conqueror’s
  Turalyon’s and Liadrin style="">         
     
          iLevel 232 and 245 style="font-family: Symbol;"> style=""> style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">
• style="font-family: Symbol;"> style=""> style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> Totally
  Triumphant Turalyon’s and Liadrin style="">            
  iLevel 258

style="">Don’t covet thy
neighbor’s Hellscream Slicer or Stormpike Cleaver

With
Trial of the Crusader we have some interesting naming
conventions going on. The weapons are almost all mirror images
depending on the
faction – meaning that each weapon that drops for the Horde
has a carbon copy
of it that drops for the Alliance with a different name.

In
true Paladin fashion, the weapon with the best name is
the href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47078">Justicebringer.
And it will bring the pain to any evildoers, second only to
the href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47446">Dual
Blade Butcher in cool names but
similar stats. In reality though, the
best of the rest are;
  href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47483">Suffering’s
End
and href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47206">Misery’s
End for the healer in all of us.
The Ret-Paladins will be looking
for the two mentioned earlier (Justicebringer and Dual Blade Butcher).
If you
are the tanking type, then href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47967">Crusader’s
Glory/ href="http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=48044">Ardent
Guard will be just the
ticket.

There
are over 200 new items available since the Call of the
Crusade went live so there are plenty of options. Today we looked at a
few that
should help you step up your game to the next level.