• If there is a yellow or blue slot, I put a Quick King’s Amber in it.  Red Slots got Reckless Ametrine.  Slot bonuses are accounted for.  Enchanting bonuses are also accounted for in the rankings, where noted.
• Metagems are not included in the rankings.
• Tier bonuses (as well as breaking tier bonuses) are ignored.  But remember, the 2xT9 bonus is pretty damned good, while the 4piece T9 bonus is worthless.
• I went by the Elitist Jerks Shaman HEP ratings: SP = 1, MP5 = 1, Intellect = .6, Haste = 1.5, Crit = .8

So, in terms of rankings…

What does this REALLY mean? Well, we would expect the three i264 pieces to show a good value (and for the most part, they do). However, this doesn’t take into account the tier bonuses. Seeing as how the 2 piece T9 bonus was ~100 HEP, I’d argue that you will probably get a better value by buying the tier pieces first, followed by the cloak. Sometime soon I’ll put up a post with comparison values and the spreadsheet used….

Trash:
Belt of the Lonely Noble

I doubt that’s what they were going for.

Beasts of Northrend: (2 shot)
Gormok’s Band
Icehowl Binding

Lord Jaraxxus: (1 shot)
Darkspear Ritual Binding
Sabatons of Tortured Space (I got it!)

Faction Champs: (1 shot)
Vengeance of the Forsaken
Sunreaver Assassin’s Gloves

Twin Val’kyr: (2 shot)
Sandals of the Grieving Soul
Band of the Twin Val’kyr

Anub’arak:
4 shots, no kill. Lacking DPS hardcore….

A CotA only run.
Empowered Deathbringer
Coif of Ten Storms
Judgement Cover

25m Northrend Beasts:
Stygian Bladebreaker
Forlorn Barrier
Sabatons of the Courageous
Trophy of the Crusade
Plans: Saronite Swordbreakers
Crusader Orb

25m Lord Jaraxxus:
Dawnbreaker Sabatons
Solace of the Fallen
Talisman of Heedless Sins
Trophy of the Crusade
Crusader Orb
Same composition as the previous boss.

25m Faction Champs: (2 shot, first kill for CotA)
Sabatons of Tremoring Earth
Leggings of Concealed Hatred (I got it!)
Icewalker Treads
Trophy of the Crusade

Raid with combined CotA and Faction of Doom people.  Healed on Delarnmint.

Drops (aside from the normal stuff):

Eskhandar’s Links

Dragonstalker’s Helm

Dragonstalker’s Helm

Yes, we got 2 Dragonstalker’s Helms.

So I finished my first 25m Naxx last night. It was a run with the guild Retribution on Khaz Modan-US.  I was the only shammy in the raid and managed to get the following gear:

Crown of the Lost Protector
Mantle of the Lost Protector
Cult’s Chestguard
Atonement Greaves
Bands of Mutual Respect
Cloak of Averted Crisis
Gloves of Calculated Risk
Pauldrons of the Abandoned
Helm of the Grave
Soul of the Dead

Needless to say, it was an excellent night of loot for me.  I had never been in such a smooth raid before, but it was very obvious that Retribution had 25m Naxx on farm.  The speed at which they went was an incredible change from PuGs.  Almost makes me want to join a raiding guild…

• Bioshock
• Ultimate DOOM (aka DOOM I)
• DOOM II
• Sid Meier’s Civilization III Complete

I think DOOM 1 and 2 were probably the best deals.  They were only $1 each and it’s nice to have them on your Steam account so you don’t have to worry about going around, finding a version, having it be illegal/full of trojans/etc.  Civilization III was only $3.75 for Civ III and all of its expansions so I jumped all over that.

I will admit that I passed on Peggle Deluxe and Portal because I already had them, but probably would have gotten them if I didn’t.  I still wish more people would buy Defcon–it has to be one of my favorite games just because it shows how haunting the most simplistic of games can be.  I have Defcon and I do love it, but I think their price point may be a bit high at this point.  I bought it initially for $20 and I’m glad I did, but $10 is kind of high 2 years out.  GTA: Vice City and GTA 3 were on there for $9, which I guess isn’t bad for people who haven’t played them yet.  I was honestly kind of angry that Valve was selling Half Life 2: Lost Coast for the same as Half Life 2: Episode One.  HL2E1 was a pretty damn good game (especially for their list price of $10) whereas Lost Coast was basically a tech demo for HDR.  I almost grabbed Rainbox Six: Vegas because I once started playing a friend’s game and never got all of the way through it, but decided against it.  Doom 3 (Working Title: “We’ll spawn monsters in every dark corner. Act Surprised”) was selling for $18 on this discount.

I have to say that I was surprised by the pure amount of selection on Steam whenever I was going through all of their games.  Sure, they have a lot of games that I would never be interested in, but the number of high quality non-Valve games they have is mildly astounding.  I know Steam is a DRM service and, as a general rule, I don’t like DRM systems but I can handle Steam’s approach.  I like having the ability to install as many games as I want and not have to deal with finding their discs, entering their CD-Keys, downloading patches, etc. That convenience is worth it to me.

That being said, it looks like a great update.  Support for upgradable teleporters AND upgradable dispensers which, frankly, is something I think they’ve needed for a long time.  Engineers in TF2 are a fairly static class.  Build your entrance, your sentry, your dispenser, and then your exit.  Upgrade your sentry at various points in between and then sit there hammering away until an uber-Demo comes and knocks it all down.  With this patch hopefully it will provide more depth into what you build as an engineer.  Is it more beneficial to upgrade your teleport and let your allies get to the front lines faster or to upgrade your dispenser so you’re guaranteed to have a constant supply of ammo and metal?  This should add some (much needed) depth to the Engineer class.