Friday, January 24, 2014

Challenge Mode Gear

I've been tanking challenge modes lately with some friends from my guild. We have 6 gold medals so far, with 3 to go. I'm looking forward to getting the title, the mount and the pet for the guild vendor. But most of all I really want the transmog set.

Regal Lord Armor with
Preened Tribal War Feathers
and Crab-Leather Tabi

It's been a very fun experience, kind of like a mini-raid. They haven't been as difficult as we thought they would be. We've had a hard time in some that are considered easy, and we've breezed through others that are considered difficult. I would very much recommend everyone to try them out!

We've been reading tips and watching videos from WoW Challenger, which is a great site that covers everything there is to think about regarding challenge modes! This post is a summary over how I decided to gear for our challenge mode runs.

Stats

As challenge modes are timed, any way we can help it go faster helps. If the healer needs mana, we can let them enter their Restorative Amber while we use a cooldown or two and pull the next trash pack. Our damage output matters, a lot. This means I've been ignoring stamina, mastery and other defensive stats when I've put together my gear.

The most difficult, dangerous and time-consuming part of the challenge mode dungeons is the clearing of trash packs. Bosses are kind of easy in comparison. Since the trash is level 92, I've decided to go for 6 % hit and 12 % expertise, instead of the 7,5 % hit and 15 % expertise I usually have for raiding.

Eye of the Black Prince

There are a lot of things that are disabled in challenge modes; set bonuses, the legendary meta gems, the sha-touched gems and the legendary cloak procs.

However, there's one nifty little detail that does work! Eye of the Black Prince provides Sha-Touched and Throne of Thunder weapons with an extra gem slot.

Sockets sockets sockets

All gear is scaled down to item level 463 in challenge modes. So we should "simply" take the gear with the best optimized stats that we have acquired through-out the expansion. For me, that meant visiting the Item Restoration website to get back a couple of trinkets that I had vendored.

All cloaks (without sockets) that are at least item level 463 will have (about) the same amount agility, stamina and secondary stats on them when they are scaled down. That means it doesn't matter if we acquired the item in a heroic dungeon, in heroic tier 14, in normal tier 15 or in raid finder tier 16. But there are two things that do matter! 1) We should go for the items that have the most sockets, as gems and socket bonuses don't scale down, and 2) we should go for the best secondary stats.

As an example I'm gonna compare a cloak without sockets, a cloak that has a socket and a cloak from the legendary quest chain:

Cloak without socketCloak with socketCloak from the legendary quest chain
501 Agility
752 Stamina
651 Secondary Stats





421 Agility
752 Stamina
585 Secondary Stats

Socket bonus: 60 Agility
Gem: 80 Agility + 160
Secondary Stats or 320
Secondary Stats
421 Agility
752 Stamina
711 Secondary Stats

Socket bonus: 60 Agility
Gem: 80 Agility + 160
Secondary Stats or 320
Secondary Stats
501 Agility
752 Stamina
651 Secondary Stats
561 Agility
752 Stamina
745 Secondary Stats
561 Agility
752 Stamina
876 Secondary Stats


















The Gear

SlotCommentWowhead search
HeadThe legendary meta gem is disabled in challenge mode, so the next best thing is Agile Primal Diamond.
1 socket.
Best socket bonus: 180 agility
Neck1 socket.
Socket bonus: 60 crit or 60 exp
Link
Shoulder2 sockets.
Best socket bonus: 180 agility
Back1 socket.
Best socket bonus: 60 agility
Best: Fen-Yu, Fury of Xuen and Tigerfang Wrap
Chest3 sockets.
Best socket bonus: 180 agility
WristOnly one wrist has socket: Bracers of the Midnight Comet!
1 socket.
Socket bonus: 60 agility
Link
Hands2 sockets.
Best socket bonus: 120 agility
Link
Waist2 sockets (+ belt buckle).
Best socket bonus: 120 agility
Link
LegsThere is one pair of legs that has 3 sockets, Cosmicfire Legwraps, but it's from Ra-den and I'm gonna assume not many have it.
2 sockets.
Best socket bonus: 120 agility
Link
FeetThere are two boots that have 2 sockets. Quilen Hide Boots, that are made from Leatherworking, and Twist-Toe Tabi, another drop from Ra-den.
2 sockets.
Socket bonuses: 120 agi/ 120 mastery/ 60 crit/ 60 expertise / 60 mastery
Link
Fingers1 socket.
Best socket bonus: 60 crit (60 agi on ring from Ra-den)
Link
TrinketsThere are no trinkets with sockets. Trinkets are a more personal choice, depending on what we prefer. The ones I chose were Relic of Xuen and Terror in the Mists.-
WeaponsGoing with two 1handers I get two Dancing Steel and double amount of gem sockets. The best weapon choice would be dualweilding Hellscream's Cleaver. The second best is to take advantage of that Eye of the Black Prince! That means weapons from Throne of Thunder with one gem socket.
2 sockets.
Best socket bonus 120 agi (60 agi)
Link





























































I've been using the same gear in proving grounds, but I think I need another strategy for that. Sure, it's nice to get mobs down quickly, but it would also be nice surviving. :)

Good luck and have fun! Oh, and if everything's going to hell in the challenge mode, here's a handy macro: /script ResetChallengeMode()

/bow

8 comments:

  1. That is a great break-down of how the gear comes down to 463. Didn't think there would be such a difference, but it looks like twinking up is the best option in there. Thanks for the great post! :p

    ReplyDelete
  2. ooh that transmog set is lovely! good luck getting the rest of your gold medals :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks a lot. :) We got one more last night, so now it's only 2 left!

      Delete
  3. Anonymous28/3/14 18:08

    What happens if you have sub 463 gear? Does it scale up? I barely know anything about this mode and I haven't found that answer yet. - Thommas

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sub 463 remains it's original item level, so it's best to get at least 463 in all slots.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous28/3/14 20:39

    That's what I was assuming. Thanks for the info. :) - Thommas

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for the info and the links Lae - here I was bumming around in my crappy old gear, I should pay more attention to my sockets!

    ReplyDelete