EDITED: Pre-Kara Gear ListFollow

Direct from Shadowpanther.net with enchants and gem suggestions added in.

I switched out the Mantle of Perenolde he suggests for the Wastewalker because the 2-piece set bonus of Wastewalker makes it better.

I also switched out the belts because the one he suggests is from a difficult heroic, where as the one I put in is from an easier heroic.
There are some minimum stats you want to shoot for when starting Kara.

Minimum:
HP: 7000
AP: 1200
Hit: 150
Crit 20%

Ideal:
HP: 7500
AP: 1400
Hit: 200
Crit: 25%

These are of course all unbuffed.

Helm of the Claw
Socketed with:
Relentless Earthstorm Diamond
and
Rigid Dawnstone
And enchanted with: Glyph of Ferocity

Bone Chain Necklace

Wastewalker Shoulderpads
Socketed with:
Shifting Nightseye
and
Glinting Noble Topaz
And enchanted with: Greater Inscription of Vengeance

Cloak of the Inciter
Enchanted with: Greater Agility

Wastewalker Tunic
Socketed with:
3xRigid Dawnstone
And enchanted with: Exceptional Stats

Spymistress’s Wristguards
Socketd with:
Glinting Noble Topaz
And enchanted with: Assault


Edited, Jan 23rd 2008 9:22am by Bigdaddyjug

There are some parallel gear choices that are actually easier to get than many of those pieces. Shackles of Quagmirran and Sun-Gilded Shouldercaps come to mind. The Ogri'la rep bracers, the Primalstrike set, and several other pieces come to mind as well.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2008 9:00am by Demea

Sod it I'll claim too...

Very good. I would like to add some links:
http://www.wow-loot.com/raid_kara.htm
Another thread with more suggestions

Now add some information about minimum stats for Kara:

Minimum (unbuffed):
1200 AP
150 Hit
20% crit
71.7 dps weapons

Ideal:
1400 AP
200 Hit
25% crit
91.2 dps weapons (S1 gear)
8k health

And now PLEASE someone make this a sticky because everyday someone is posting a thread about pre-Kara gear & stats.

Wanted to Bump for any future questions

Now it'll just be a matter of finding the thread ourselves lol. Oh the joys of laziness

Woo! Awesome, I'll have to do that when i get home though as it wouldn't really be useful to me here at work lol

That linked post contains stuff that is much easier to obtain.

Also, concerning the primalstrike set - it is better than anything that you can find *IN* Karazhan, so it certainly serves well as a *pre* Karazhan choice. The cost is negligible. The only obstactle is that you need nethers for it - and of course skilled up LW.

Yeah gimme a day to figure the stuff out on Warcrafter and I'll post up where you can expect to be in Kara gear. Although 1 important thing to remember is a couple of the drops in Kara aren't as good as some of the blues you can get before.

For a basic point of view, you should look to improve your stats by 10% over the "ideal" starting Kara stats. Although if you somehow manage to get over 300 hit rating before starting Kara, you may actually notice your hit rating go down while your AP and crit go up.

In regards to the Primalstrike set, the cost is not negligible. It requires 375 LW, which means you only get to choose 1 other profession which will probably be skinning to fuel your LW. The Primalstrike set IS a little better than the corresponding pieces you would get in Kara, but they require a lot of mats and you need Nethers. You aren't guaranteed to get Nethers from heroics, which means you would have to spend heroic badges on the nethers. And the gear you can get with the heroic badges is MUCH better than Primalstrike.

Edit: I just looked at the Primalstrike pieces again and noticed something. They have a grand total of 12 hit rating on them. At the point where people are starting Kara, mot rogues are severely lacking in hit rating, either because they gemmed for something else or they just don't know. When starting KAra, stacking hit rating as close to the hit cap as possible will be the single biggest DPS boost you can get. Primalstrike just isn't worth the mats you need to farm and the loss of another profession which could make you money or make you items that would be more useful.

Edited, Jan 31st 2008 8:16am by Bigdaddyjug

Here you go.

Netherblade Facemask
Brooch of Deftness
Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless
Drape of the Dark Reavers
Chestguard of the Conniver
Master Assassin’s Wristwraps
Netherblade Gloves
Waistguard of the Great Beast This comes from badges and there isn’t a a rogue badge belt. OR
Belt of Deep Shadow This can be expensive to have made depending on yoru server.
Skulker’s Greaves
Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots
Ring of a Thousand Marks
Garona’s Signet Ring
Romulo’s Poison Vial
Bloodlust Brooch

Meta socket: Relentless Earthstorm Diamond
Red socket: Glinting Noble Topaz
Blue Socket: Shifting Nightseye These are required to satisfy the meta gem requirements.
Yellow socket: Rigid Dawnstone


Enchants are the same as the pre=Kara gear list. The waistguard is a feral druid waste, but it gives decent AP and a lot of hit rating for a waist slot and actually rates as the 5th or 6th best belt in the game for rogues.

Edit: A not on this: The Netherblade Greaves from Gruul are a clear upgrade to these pants. The Netherblade Chestguard is not quite so clear an upgrade. The 4 pieces Netherblade set bonus is very nice and you will have to figure out whether you will be better off replacing the shoulders or the chestguard to achieve that 4-pc bonus.


Edited, Jan 31st 2008 9:10am by Bigdaddyjug

Edited, Jan 31st 2008 12:54pm by Bigdaddyjug

Yeah thanks Prikker. I forgot about those boots and for some reason i didn't see that cloak on Shadowpanther. As far as the belt goes, it is definitely better, however the cost to have it made might be outside the price range for some people.

If you are a min/max person, that belt is definitely an upgrade. However, Great Beast is serviceable since it does have some hit rating on it. I am going to go in and edit my post to include the Tabi Boots and the cloak though.

Edit: Went ahead and put the belt in there too since any rogue who is clearing Kara should know how to make enough money to have that belt made. Hell a good group clearing Kara with minimal deaths should be making 50-70g just from the run.

Edited, Jan 31st 2008 12:57pm by Bigdaddyjug

Let's see where the MUCH better is coming from. The 2 new pieces you can now get for badges (bracers and the druid belt) will give you:
9agi, 42hit, 9sta vs 108AP from Primalstrike (with the set bonus)
As far as *my* AEP are concerned, the 2 sets are about equivalent DPS-wise. The badge pieces will scale better with buffs, and if given free choice I would go for them (and I will certainly but the bracers if I get the ZA belt finally). But you need almost 100 badges for the 2 pieces, but only 1 nether for the LW parts. I am practically done with Karazhan and Heroics since months, and I still don't have 100 badges to burn. So thank you very much.


That hit vs AP argument is completely wrong. DPS gains from AP are linear, while from +hit and crit are multiplicative. With low level gear, it is much easier to increase DPS by adding AP first. If your DPS sucks, adding 10% hit will not change anything. Stacking +hit (just for the sake of having high +hit) on pre-Kara gear is just stupid (unless you consider it a future investment)

You missed the mark by more than 5 times. I am impressed.
According to the DPS spreadsheet (which may have bugs, but cannot be blatantly wrong) 20AP is better than 8hit. That is already with 2000AP base, plus raid buffed and against lvl73boss (so I assume already includes glancing effects).
I am talking from my current hemo spec - will happily agree if somebody posts different AEP for a different spec.

But 100AP is worth a lot. Or did you mean 10?

Btw, we usually compare buffed AEP, but I have witnessed many 10-man groups with such limited buffing capacity that it may be worth to check the unbuffed AEP too. For non-buffed me, 8hit is worth 15AP...