Note: “Badge” in this case refers to Emblems of Heroism, not Emblems of Valor of Badges of Justice.

Items Without a Badge Replacement

If I were you, these are the items I would focus on getting every day while accumulating badges to purchase other items.  This is especially the case if you don’t have a lot of play time.

Weapon: Run Utgarde Pinnacle until you’re blue in the face and pick up the Red Sword of Courage.

Bracers: Head over to Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom and get yourself a pair of the Bracers of the Herald.  Just make sure you didn’t do what I did and bring a Death Knight who wants to tank; they will win the roll and force you to come back nine or ten more times to get your own pair.  As an aside, I’m not bitter.  Really I’m not.

Ring: At the end of Drak’Tharon Keep is the most boring boss in the expansion, Prophet Tharon’ja, but he drops Keystone Great-Ring so it’s not all bad.

Pants: Violet Hold is where you’ll find the Bolstered Legplates which drop off of Cyanigosa.

Shield: I hope you enjoy the Culling of Stratholme since you’ll want to run it every day until you get the Royal Crest of Lordaeron. Not only is this an awesome shield but it looks amazing as well, one of Blizzards best-looking models ever.  Note: there is a badge-shield available but unless you got really bad luck with the drop from Stratholme, I don’t really think of it as a replacement, per se.  Plus this shield looks amazing while the Badge one looks like some hairy skin pulled over a metal frame.

Items With a Badge Replacement

Belt: You can find the Ancient Aligned Girdle clutched within Anub’arak’s talons at the end of Azjol-Nerub.

Gloves: And finally in Gun’drak you’ll have to beat a silly troll named Gal’darah senseless to get him to drop the Horn-Tipped Gauntlets.

And Finally… the Badge Gear

I’m not really going to bother repeating everything that Veneretio over at TankingTips.com has already said.  Go read his Emblem of Heroism article entitled, The Badge err… Emblem of Heroism Pick Order.  It should have everything you need to make an informed decision on what pieces of gear to get next.

Drops from heroics and badge items will be included in another post later this week.

Step One – Reputation

The very first thing you’re going to want to do is make sure you’ve done all of the quests in Dragonblight that have to do with the Wyrmrest Accord, this will save you massive amounts of time getting to Revered and picking up their amazing tanking pieces. I completely missed the long question chain that starts with A Strange Device and it cost me; don’t be like me. This quest chain also leads to the ability to do the Wyrmrest Accord daily which you should run every day until that magical limit has been reached.

• Honored – Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions
• Revered – Breastplate of the Solemn Council
• Revered – Sabatons of Draconic Vigor

Make sure to pick up your tabard and wear it in level 80 dungeons!  Once you hit Revered, switch it out with the Argent Crusade Tabard and start working your way to Revered with them for the helm enchant.

Step Two – Crafted BoE Items

If you know a blacksmith, are a blacksmith, or have some gold laying around to spend on the Auction House, then I highly recommend getting these pieces to bump you up to the defense cap. These items should last you quite a while until you replace them with pieces from Naxx and heroics.

• Tempered Saronite Belt – 6x Cobalt Bars, 5x Saronite Bars
• Tempered Saronite Bracers - 13x Saronite Bars
• Tempered Saronite Gauntlets – 14x Saronite Bars
• Saronite Bulwark – 14x Saronite Bars

Total materials: 46 Saronite Bars, 6 Cobalt Bars.

Step Three – Quest Items

• Argent Vangaurd, Icecrown – Do the fast and fun quest line that starts with Into The Frozen Heart Of Northrend and ends with The Crusaders’ Pinnacle for the reward of The Crusaders Resolution.
• Halls of Stone, Storm Peaks – This is both a dungeon run and a quest item. You pick up the quest Halls of Stone right in the front of the instance from Brann Bronzebeard, after you complete it you are rewarded with Pauldrons of Reconnaissance.
• Camp Tunka’lo, Storm Peaks – Complete the quest Changing the Wind’s Course for the reward of Weighted Throwing Axe.
• Gundrak, Zul’Drak – Another reward from a quest that is completed inside an instance. First you must complete the quest Just Checkin’ , which is found in a small camp just to the west of the Gundrak summoning stone. After Just Checkin’ , the quest you want to pick up is called For Posterity which will reward you with the Solid Platinum Band.
• Light’s Breach, Zul’Drak - Pick up the quest Wanted: Ragemane’s Flipper, a quick quest that will reward you with the Hammer of Quiet Mourning. If you have some of the high defense trinkets from Burning Crusade and are already at 540 Defense you might want to pick up the Sword of Heartwrenching Laughter instead since it isn’t as ugly as the Hammer. This is a very quick group quest but I managed to solo it, your mileage may very.
• Ebon Watch, Zul’Drak – There is an item drop called the Unliving Choker that drops off of Withered Trolls and begins a chain of nine quests starting with An Invitation of Sorts… and ending with Betrayal. The quest chain rewards the neck piece Betrayer’s Choker. The last quest in this chain pretty tough, I had to bring a friend along.

Step Four – Dungeon Drops

• Halls of Lightning, Storm Peaks – The last boss in this instance, Loken, drops the Seal of the Pantheon.
• The Occulus, Borean Tundra- The last boss in this instance, Ley-Guardian Eregos, drops the Dragonflight Great-Ring.

Step Five – Not Quite Done!

If you have acquired every single piece of loot from this guide then you will still be short 21 defense raiting from being uncritable.  I suggest either swapping out one of the high +defense trinkets from The Burning Crusade listed here on TankingTips.com or you can get +22 defense to chest and +20 defense to shield enchants to bump you over the edge.  Don’t forget that you can use the shoulder and helmet enchants from the Burning Crusade, too!

A priest, a hunter and a DPS warrior in my guild have for Pete’s sake, but I haven’t even seen it drop.  In the meantime I’ve had the Abomination Shoulderblades drop from Gluth in Naxx-10 (which according to WoWHead have a drop rate of 0.7% from Gluth since he drops everything else in the zone).  My frustration has peaked to the point where the others who have it wear it around me before pulls and I’m going crazy.

Not to mention the Hammer of Quiet Mourning is one of the ugliest models and skins in the game.

Anyone else running into frustrating drop rates?

UPDATE (12/5/08): Woohoo it finally dropped for me!

The reason for this is simple: it makes your life a lot easier as a Warrior when you’re trying to AOE tank. Since the fantastic changes such as Damage Shield and and removal of the target limitations to Thunder Clap aren’t yet in the game, this shield still has it’s place especially when you throw a Felsteel Shield Spike on it.

Places to use this shield:

• Magister’s Terrace. In the room with all of the mana worms if you slap on this baby and tell your group to wait until you’re at half health before doing anything you can watch and giggle mischievously as those Mages and Warlocks go crazy and can’t pull aggro off of you.  Glorious!
• Zul’Aman. The Dragonhawks adds on Jan’alai can be frustrating as a warrior tank, no doubt about it.  Use this shield along with a well-place Earthbind Totem or Frost Trap and it becomes much more manageable.
• Ata’mal Terrace. Nothing like some relaxing AOE grinding to keep you feeling refreshed.  Equip this sucker when fighting the hordes of Demon Hunter Initiates and just stand there as they kill themselves.  Loot and profit.
• Shattered Halls. There are some grossly exaggerated stories of how hard Shattered Halls is to tank, especially if you have a patient group and this baby on.  Seriously try this out and you’ll see Shattered Halls in an entirely new light.
• Auchenai Crypts. This shield is especially useful on the large groups of mobs right before the last boss.  Have your DPS burn down the big guy while you get some passive threat on the skeletons.

I’m sure I’m missing a ton of other places where you can use this shield but that’s a pretty good list and should show you the versatility of carrying the Lichen Guard around.  To top off everything I’ve already said, this shield only requires Honored with Sporregar, 15 Glowcaps and level 62 to acquire!  For the amount of use you’ll get out of this thing it’s basically free.  Hell, the mats for the Felsteel Shield Spike will cost you more gold and time than the shield itself.

Here’s to hoping Blizzard has another shield like this one in the expansion!