New Shiny Armour

TiceNits and I are not doing all that well in arenas. Have you noticed? It might have something to do with the fact that TiceNits' hunter has never set foot in a battleground; or thatHolyWarrior has only done enough battlegrounds to get 37K honour on his way to the 40K honour Medallion of the Alliance. Probably both!

As a result, neither have any resilience. TiceNits' hunter (I have gotta think up a name for her) is equipped in quest greens and blues and a few Karazhan epics. HolyWarrior is mostly decked out in T5 quality gear with a few bits of T4 and a few bits of T6 quality gear.

I decided it might be time to get a little resilince. I started off by checking my bank for unused T4 tokens. 3 - Legs, Shoulders and Chest. I want to keep the chest for my Retribution set so I cashed in the legs and the shoulders for season 1 gear.

Gladiators Legguards
Gladiators Pauldrons

That's some resilience, gem slots and a 2-piece set bonus of +35 resilience.

The I looked at season 2 gear. It needs honour and AV/AB marks to purchase.

Merciless Gladiators Chestpiece - 14,500 Honour + 30 Arathi Basin marks.
Merciless Gladiators Handwraps - 10,500 Honour + 20 Alterac Valley marks
Merciless Gladiators Headpiece - 14,500 Honour + 30 Alterac Valley marks

I only had 37K honour, 34 Av marks and 22 AB marks, so I got the Headpiece and was surprised to see that the tooltip changed on the first to pieces to show that the Merciless piece was part of the set. Nice.

I then spent the majority of Sunday in Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley. Arathi was the usual collection of losses with a surprise win for my last match.

A quick trip to the vendor and I had the chestpiece and then I moved into Alterac and got a good collection of wins following the usual tactic of rush Galv, take and defend Iceblood Tower then move onto Tower Point and ensure that doesn't get abandoned. Meanwhile other teams have moved down to Frostwolf and taken the GY, towers and relief hut. By the time the Iceblood and Tower Point teams arrive Drek has either just been engaged or gets downed as you enter his room.

Then it all went to shit, the Horde started defending Galv and the next few games declined into a war of attrition usually taking place on the road from Stonehearth to Stormpike with the Horde winning every time on reinforcements. Gah!!

Finally with only 2 more losses required to get my marks we won another giving me an early exit and my last piece of season 2 - the handwraps. Resilience of 164 and some gems to buy. 4 red, 2 yellow and a meta gem to be exact. What should I gem for? Resilience or Healing? I have dropped a few hundred bonus healing with this set in preference for resilience, intellect and stamina.

So with my honour bank empty and only EOTS marks left it's time to make a PvP shopping list.

First off I looked at the new Guardians Waist Belt thing. This actually has better, stamina, intellect and spell crit at the expense of only +2 bonus healing. This at the cost of 17,850 Honour and 40 Arathi Basin marks. That's probably close on 40 actual Arathi Basin battlegrounds!! But after that I should be well only my way to the honour required.

Then we have a couple of old Vindicators items, the wrist and the feet for 9,199 honour/20 WSG marks and 13,923 Honour/40 EOTS marks.

After that it is the weapon and shield S2 gear (I think) at 25,200 and 15,000 Honour and 20 EOTS marks each.

And once I have finished that off it time to re-grind that 40K honour for the Medallion of the Alliance for Mother Shiraz encounter (or is it Archimonde?)

Update: Adding the Guardians Necklace which is another 15,300 Honour and 10 EOTS marks. Another Update: BRK reckons his Guardians necklace is the best PvE necklace in the game, I may need to bump that up the wish list when I get home and check out if the healing one is any good!

Total Required:
136,472 honour
20 WSG marks
40 Arathi marks
0 Alterac marks
80 EOTS marks

Currently Have:
1,100 Honour
20ish WSG marks
1 Arathi mark
1 Alterac mark
100 EOTS marks

So the plan

1. Grind 8000 honour in Arathi and buy Vindicators wrists.
2. Grind remaining Arathi marks up to 50 (yes 50).
3. Grind up to a total of another 10 WSG badges.
4. Move to Alterac grinding (better honour) and get enough honour for Guardians waist. Or is there a Vindicators Waist?
   
5. Continue grinding Alterac to at least 10 marks.
6. Hand in 10 lots of concerted efforts with 10 marks from each battleground.
7. Get Vindicators Feet.
8. Grind out another 40K honour for season 2 Mace and Shield utilising Concerted Efforts hand ins but ensuring 50 EOTS marks are saved for them and the necklace.
9. Repeat step 8 for the Guardians Necklace.
   
10. Repeat step 8 for Medallion of the Alliance.
11. Breath.
12. Work out what's required for cloak, other trinket, both fingers and libram!
13. Look for upgrades to Vindicator gear.
14. Upgrade season 1 gear
    
15. Give up.
    

Blue rep gear? Screw that! (I suspect at this time I have better anyway) Might be worth a little looksy though.

Enchant and gem-wise

1. Gem up head. Check.
   
2. Grind Revered with SSO for head enchant.
   
3. Gem up shoulders. Check.
4. Investigate shoulder enchants.
5. Gem up chest. Check.
6. Enchant chest.
7. Investigate glove enchants.
8. Get leg armour.
9. When honour grind (1) is complete gem/enchant wrists.
10. When honour grind (4) is complete gem waist ??
11. When honour grind (7) is complete gem/enchant feet ??
12. When honour grind (8) is complete gem/enchant weapon and sheild.
13. When honour grind (12) is complete enchant cloak.
    

Enchants and Gems, I hate to say it but I may need to get to revered with SSO. I've only ever done a few dailies there, so that may take some time, but they have a head enchant that gives +18 stamina and +20 resilience.

So, updates coming for correct names of items, links for mouseovers, running resilience totals etc.

But please, if anyone can give me a pointer as to what gems a healadin should use for PvP I would be very happy.