Heroics and Gear

It's been an interesting experience leveling to 80 in WotLK. With very few upgrades, I would categorize the general difficulty as easy. I'm a slow leveler (I averaged from 6-10 hours per level), so it still took me a while to level. But defeating the mobs was not difficult at all - even without gear upgrades along the way. The only reason why I was able to level as quickly as I did was because I injured myself right after the expansion came out, so I had a few days off from work while recovering.

Along the way we ran all of the normal instances. How were they? Easy. Really easy. I was starting to believe all the hype about how blizzard made everything easy. Then we started trying heroics. What do I think now? Gear matters! If you're still wearing T4/T5/Badge gear, you're probably not ready. Start stacking yourself up with the iLevel 187-200 gear (though the sunwell badge gear does hold up well). There's some really nice stuff to be found from the normal 80 instances and rep rewards as well as some quests. And don't overlook the craftable gear either. There is some great stuff out there.

For me, the main thing I have left to do is get my defense up to 540. For Naxx I meet the other requirements. But taking crits off the table can be a big deal. So I really need to do that as soon as possible. The mobs in heroics hit hard. A normal hit can be a good 4-5k. Take a crit and it hurts. Even with 20k health, that's not a lot of hits before you're dead.

We'll be doing heroics all week, and Naxx this weekend, so I'll be sure to give some more updates on my experiences and views after doing so. At the moment I know there are some heroics we can do - and others where we either need to learn the pulls much better, have a different class makeup, or get better gear.

Overall I find it exciting. In the endgame, things start to matter again!

-Boman