WotLK Beta: Picked up some Crafted Green Cobalt Gear.

Questing in my BC gear has being relatively easy in Howling Fjord. One thing I notice for the new zones is a almost absence of any kind or real Tanking gear. So I decided to log on my Hunter Krovon since he is a miner to mine me some of all that Blue Cobalt I keep seeing around on my Paladin exploring the zone.

So far quests green rewards seem to be for a Holy Paladin in stats or Plate with lots of Haste, Crits or Ignore Armor on Plate. Having quested a bit in my own normal gear and trying new spell currently, wanted a idea what it felt like being in what will soon be our new gear stats of Strength and Stamina. So how about trying that 8 piece Cobalt set green that BS can craft?

Went mining for a while, yeah it was a while as currently nodes are not so many in Beta. But after running all over mining Cobalt nodes managed to get 80 pieces of Ore which got me 40 Cobalt Bars. That was enough to ask in /1 for a BS that could craft the green set pieces. So one friendly guy a 77 DK said he could and happily crafted me the entire set as I provided the mats. I asked what he charge for crafting me the set? He said just provide him some Cobalt Ore as fair trade of service. Fair enough.

So went back out mining, for a while! For Cobalt Ore. I managed to mine enough Cobalt to mail the DK who crafted the set 25 Bars of Cobalt. More than fair enough return of service. It always help to never be a ass about getting good service. I have a good pocket BS to craft me things in this one guy even in Beta. I may need that same guy to craft me a "Saronite" Plate set at 74. It helps to always be fair with a good crafter that can craft you stuff, even if the service is free on live or Beta. One piece of green Plate in the AH was 250g a piece. I saw a Blue 74 Plate at 2500g absolutely nuts in Beta at prices like that. All that running aroung gave me a Zone full explored achievement and around 412 mining.

Anyway I swapped out all my Epic Pieces for the equivalent green piece for testing stuff and talents. It was really late at this point and didn't have time to do much. Will do details later, but has a bit less stamina, armor and avoidance in set was noticable. Currently in Beta with talent change I was around 473 defense with change to Anticipation from defense to avoidance. In the cobalt green set I had over 506 or so defense. Overall had lower normal gear avoidance stats. But WotLK Tanking gear packs lots of Stamina/ Strength and a whole lot of raw defense rating. However the greens are also non enchanted as compared to my Epic pieces for Tanking.

I had picked up a Green 1H Cutlas on a quest, so equipped that. In my normal Tank gear Strength gave me a total of 51 Block Value. In just the unchanted 8 piece green Cobalt set was up to around 168 Block Value. Also can't remember what my AP was gor sure. Went off to quickly try out a few human NPC's. Without changing my talents I could see a noticable difference in spell scaling. Had up Blessing of Might vs usual Blessing of Wisdom for more AP to scale spells. I think I was around 1200 or so AP with Might up.

With a higher damage base weapon Hammer of Righteousness scales up allot and quite noticable on 1-3 mobs. I did notice the spell in combat log can be partially blocked and at times deflected not sure I get that one. But on 3 targets HoR hits much harder than in my Epic gear by at least x2 at least. Almost every spell was scaled higher in damage/threat or yellow damage. However consecration scaled up a fair bit in the cobalt set. I didn't have time to use SoR, SoC or threat seals to check things. I was just grinding with SoW on mob. And so I very much noticed that Seal of Wisdom also scales up quite a bit in my Cobalt gear.

One strike of Seal of Wisdom before was doing if I remember was getting me around 138 mana in my Epic gear. I will have to recheck later. But with SoW active in just the Cobalt set I was doing around 205 mana back. Big difference as when I just used SoW mana was no real issue at least here in this instance. Judgements of Wisdom also returned increased mana as well. What also been uncovered by others is that Hammer of Righteousness also proc Seal of Wisdom for even more mana when HoR goes off. It's unsure at this point if this is intended by the Devs in Beta but via last Beta notes does say other effects if I can remember can now proc SoW. Their is a Thread in the Beta forum about this asking the Devs if this is intended effect with HoR on SoW procing the Seal.

Either way I really didn't have long to play around on three mobs as it was really late. But that's what I had time to test quickly just donning 8 pieces of green crafted Cobalt gear that's unenchanted. Don't pick up Shield of Righteousness till 75 I think so can't test that till then for the shield slam on increased block value. Which at that point would be good to have Devine Strength talented as well for the 15% increase in strength. So far just playing around with things.

With the recent XP change implemented right before I started on Thursday which increased XP by 80% I'm only like 80% to 71. So trying to level as well.