Gear

Resists
When doing most high level instances, resist gear is a must. Make sure to farm for that resist gear that will be required for that encounter, this is mostly for the tanks and melee groups. Resists gear is less required for casters/range since you aren’t up close to the threat of what is happening as much. But! Stamina gear is. It is tempting to just go all out dmg gear that maximizes your character, but if you can’t take a hit, whether it be from pulling too much aggro or ae effects, when your dead, you are no use to the raid. Stamina is, and always will be, your number one stat.

Everyone should be working on some type of resist gear. Tanks more so than melee, melee more so than ranged. But there may be events that require a bit of resist gear from ae effects and the like. So this is the “be prepared” post and how to go about it without gimping yourself too much on the stats you want.

There are those decent greens with a nice chunk of resists, but they generally only have two stats, x school of resist and 25ish stamina. There’s a better way to go at this, and it involves using a lot of the dungeon 3 sets. Most of the D3 sets have a lot of sockets and are pretty decent in stats. For example, a warrior could use Shoulderguards of the Bold then install two Prismatic Sphere’s (or Void Sphere if the item is pretty nice) and the Inscription of Endurance shoulder enchant from Violet Eye rep. This would give good stats for tanking and then +13 resists to all just from the shoulders.

Personally, I think most of the D3 sets are made for this purpose since there are so little blue resist gear like in the past. Then you pick up the gear that is available specific for a boss (ie Plans: Wildguard Breastplate) to finish off for that resist required.

Do not sell/de/throw away decent (blue) gear with sockets, it can be made into resist gear that gives you resists and stats that you can use rather than using generic green gear with stamina and x school of resist.

Probably the best D3 gear to use for this is helm, shoulders, (some) gloves (not all have sockets) and even the chest if not a tank. You will need this type of gear if we plan to progress as a guild, and that’s for everyone. So get farming and preparing.

Exceptional Blues
While we are gearing up the best we can, there are those exceptional blues out there that people should be farming until you can get something better. For example, Devilshark Cape from last boss SV is the best cloak in game until the last boss in TK. If you are tanking and have a shield, this is the thing to farm and have. Another example is a melee cloak:

Delicate Green Poncho
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66 Armor
+14 Agility
+19 Stamina
Equip: Improves hit rating by 14 (0.9%).
Equip: Increases attack power by 28.
Quest Reward from Nagrands.

Auchenai Death Shroud
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78 Armor
+15 Agility
+15 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves hit rating by 17 (1.1%).
Equip: Increases attack power by 36.
Boss drop in heroic Crypts.

Drape of the Dark Reavers
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97 Armor
+24 Agility
+21 Stamina
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves hit rating by 17 (1.1%).
Equip: Increases attack power by 34.
Boss drop off Shade of Aran.

All three cloaks are comparable in stats. Delicate Green Poncho is very easy to get, Death Shroud is easier to farm plus you can farm for badges and nether, and Dark Reavers really only adds some extra agi/sta. Getting an epic item doesn’t mean that its necessarily better.

Look For Options
If you are new to raiding, let me explain one thing: Random drops suck. This means you will probably be disappointed in not getting what you want from certain bosses. You need to look for options in the stats you want to get, whether from exceptional blue or other stats from different items.

Crafted Gear (Edit: Analyssa)
We also have quite a few high lvl crafters that can help to make crafted BOE gear. Check the “Crafting” tag on the forums for a list. Or you might want to take up an armor crafting skill for the BOP crafted epic gear available exclusively to crafters. (Primal Mooncloth set, Spellfire, Frozenshadoweave, Ebon Netherscale, etc). But, make sure you read: Understanding the limitations of crafted gear.