WoW Classic Gear Guide - What is worth equipping in Vanilla

About gear in WoW

Arguably the most important part of World of Warcraft is gearing. Equipment determines whether you are strong or weak. With better items, you are able to fight stronger monsters, complete better dungeons, dominate in competitive battlegrounds and finally take part in end-game raiding. Whether you are a low-level player that just began his journey, experienced adventurer, or straight-up pro - you want to gear up efficiently.

Players can find equipment in different qualities marked by corresponding colors. Grey items are common and usually sold to vendors for a little bit of gold. Green items are uncommon and those you will be most likely using for most of the leveling process. Blue items are rares and often provide better bonuses than those mentioned before. Purple pieces of equipment are called Epic and usually come with various additional stats and maybe even passive effects. Lastly, we have Legendary items which are marked orange. There are only six legendaries in Classic WoW and those require often the completion of very long quest chains and tough battles.

Types of equipment

As you start your Journey through Azeroth you will find many equipable items on your way to level 60 and past that gap. Wearing them will increase your stats and make you stronger so you can fight harder mobs and face more difficult challenges. There are 19 slots which you can fill with chosen equipment these are: Helmet, Necklace, Shoulder, Shirt, Chest, Waist, Legs, Feet, Wrist, Gloves, Rings x2, Trinkets x2, Back, Main-hand, Off-hand, Ranged, and Tabard. Now I want to bring you a closer insight into items as some of those aren’t as obvious.

Helmet, Necklace, Shoulder, Chest, Waist, Legs, Feet, Wrist, Hands, Fringers, Back, Main-hand, Off-hand, and Ranged are pretty self-explanatory. They are just pieces of gear that are there to improve your armor, damage and other stats as well as change your looks. The shirt is mainly a cosmetic item used to change your character look by a tiny bit.

Trinkets are special items which can grant additional stats but their most important role is to bring on use abilities. They can act similarly to skills and they can be put on an action bar for faster use. They are often more powerful and more sought after than other pieces of equipment.

Tabards are sleeveless jerkins consisting only of front and back pieces with a hole for the head. They can represent your allegiance to certain guild and faction since they can be created with a predefined logotype. Although they do not provide stats they can often grant bonuses to certain faction reputations. Additionally, there is one small slot for your ranged weapon ammunition.

armor types

Cloth - Thin material worn by Mages, Warlocks, and Priests.

Leather - More thick material which is worn by Druids and Rogues.

Mail - Light armor worn by Hunters and Shamans after level 40.

Plate - Heavy armor worn by Warriors and Paladins.

Although they are bound to classes like this they are not exclusive at all times since Plate users can wear Mails, Leathers, and Clothes as well. Mail users can wear Leather and Cloth. And Leather users can wear Cloth. Only Mages, Warlocks and Priests are bound to use most thin of materials. On top of that Necklace, Rings, Trinkets, Cloaks, Shirts, and Tabards do not belong to any type.

Item stats

Pieces of gear as mentioned before providing stats which makes our character stronger. Although these stats might seem easy to allocate to certain classes it isn’t as obvious which gear is the best for our class at a time. This is called stat priority which we will discuss later. Stat priority will let you see which stats are most important to you and rank all of them in terms of usefulness. However, for now, let’s see which stat does what for your character:

Strength: Increases melee attack power depending on your class. 1 Strength gives additional 2 attack power for Warriors, Paladins, Druids and Shamans and 1 attack power to other classes. It also increases your chance to block by 1 for every 2 points in Strength.

Agility: Improves armor ratings by 2 for every point. Increases ranged attack power by 2 for every point to Warriors, Rogues, and Hunters and melee attack power by 1 to Hunters, Rogues and Druids. Additionally, around 20 points in Agility will increase your Critical and Dodge chances by 1%.

Intellect: Gives +15 to mana for every point. Increases the rate of learning weapon skill. Increases the critical ratio of spells for every 60 points by 1 (on average).

Stamina: Each point in this stat increases health by 10

Spirit: Increases health and mana regeneration

These are just main stats and on top of them there are many others like attack power, spell power, healing power, parry chance, spell hit chance or block chance.

Durability

Most of your gear also has a Durability which determines if it is damaged or not. When fighting monsters and generally using the equipment, the durability of your equipment slowly degrades until it reaches 0. After that, you need to find Blacksmith NPC who can repair it for you. Degraded gear loses its abilities and acts like a worthless shell. Although you lose some durability during combat, deaths are taking a big chunk of it. Keep in mind to be careful as repairing your gear costs gold.

Item rarity

As mentioned before items come with different rarities. Dark grey items are just a junk which usually is completely useless and should be sold to vendors for a little bit of cash.

[Common] Is most often occurring rarity of items which is marked by white color. These pieces of equipment have no additional stats and are often only used on beginning of the game.

[Uncommon] Those items are marked by light green color. They have some additional stats to them and are mostly used after finishing the first phases of leveling. They are very often rewarded from quests.

[Rare] Items of this quality are colored blue. They have at least two additional stats and up to four. They might also have special effects like a chance to stun on hit or healing increase upon equipping. They might come as a set of items which will grant additional bonuses upon wearing few parts of the same set. They are very rarely seen as a drop in the wild and more regularly in dungeons as a drop from bosses and chests.

[Epic] This very rare quality of the gear is marked by the purple color. They have very good stats and some of them are best in slots. Epic items drop extremely rare in open world and very rarely in dungeons. Most elaborate and long quests sometimes reward players with epic gear but mostly they come from Raid instances. They have absolutely best bonuses and are very good overall.

[Legendary] Few items which exist marked by Legendary rarity have orange colour. These are items which are usually important lore-wise. There will be only three of those upon WoW Classic release: Thunderfury, Sulfuras, and Atiesh. These items require completion of hardest quests and tasks in the game to be obtained and you will see them on other players extremely rarely.

How to check if the item is tradeable

On your gear, you can also find additional information which will show you if your items are tradeable. If the item is Soulbound it means that the item is untradeable to players, but still might be sold to a vendor. When its Bind on Pickup (BoP) it means that after picking it up it will become untradeable. Bind on Equip (BoE) means that your item will become untradeable after equipping it. If the item doesn’t state any of the above it just means that it is always tradeable.

Stat priority

General stat priority for each class before raiding:

Hunter : Agi >  Stam > Int > Str > Spirit

Paladin : Int > Stam / Spirit > Agi > Str

Druid : Agi > Str > Stam > Int > Spirit

Priest : Spirit > Int > Stam > Agi > Str

Warlock : Int > Spirit > Stam > Agi > Str

Mage :  Int > Spirit > Stam > Agi > Str

Shaman : Agi > Str > Stam > Int > Spirit

Rogue : Agi > Str / Stam > Spirit > Int

Warrior : Spirit > Str > Agi > Stam > Int and post 40 Agi > Str > Stam > Spirit > Int

Those are only general main stat tiers which should be looked for while leveling. There are different builds and different variations for classes which might use other stats but in general, your class should become stronger after acquiring those.

Gear progression

As soon as you equip your first item in the game you start to progress your gear. By equipping more and more valuable items your character becomes stronger - hits harder, have more hp and mana and regenerates his stats more quickly. Your first pieces of equipment will come from monsters that you kill and very likely will be all on common quality. Make sure to do a lot of quests since these reward gold and often green items which have much better stats than their white counterparts. Blue and Purple items are much more rare and you will find them most likely in dungeons and chests so make sure to run those instances as soon as possible. Keep in mind your stat priority as it will determine which items are better for you. If you won’t keep an eye on that you will perform considerably worse in fights against monsters and you might struggle during leveling.

Upon reaching level 15 you will unlock your first dungeons - gather a group of friends and visit them as soon as you will feel strong enough. They have valuable drops inside, boss encounters that can reward you with great loot and quests that might speed your leveling process. This gives you a general idea on how you will be progressing through content until level 60. Make sure to open every locked chest and door and loot what you can to find the best possible items. After getting to 60 you can start gearing by using professions either by yourself or skilled by others. Equip as many best in slot items as you can and you will be ready for end game content which is Raiding. There you should find the best items in the game.

Gearing up with professions

Tailoring

Skill designed to create pieces of cloth equipment can be very useful not for only cloth users. By becoming a Tailor you will be able to make Cloth Armours, Robes, Shirts, Bags and other creations. It also doesn’t require any profession to support it as materials are often found in bodies and chests. From early levels, Tailors can make items such as Spidersilk Boots, Robe of Power or Azure Shoulders which can help in leveling journey. Dreamweave pieces become available from level 40 in the form of Dreamweave Gloves, Dreamweave Vest and Dreamweave Circlet.

On top of that Tailoring offers amazing Robes which are bound on pickup. Robe of Archmage is probably the best in slot chest piece that Mages can wear prior to AQ40 with amazing on use mana restore bonus. Truefaith Vestments are another amazing check piece - this time for healers. It offers three bonuses to the healing done, to mana regeneration and to cooldown reduction - all much needed in end game content. Finally, there are Robes of the Void which increase damage and healing done at the same time. Although this one might be skipped it is definitely a very good piece of gear.

After the release of Zul’Gurub, Tailors will also be able to craft Bloodvine set pieces: Bloodvine Goggles, Bloodvine Leggings, and Bloodvine Boots which provide very strong bonuses. Although these pieces are BoE and can be sold only Tailors will benefit from 2% spell crit strike bonus.

On the release of AQ40 Sylvan Crown, Sylvan Shoulders and Sylvan Vest can be crafted for a decent fee so make sure to sell those to your friends, guildmates and other players. As this set is required to progress through this Raid it will be on high demand upon release.

Leatherworking

Those who choose to craft Leather and Mail pieces of equipment should go with Leatherworking profession. Leatherworkers can also craft Cloaks and items which can improve armor ratings on pieces of gear. Unlike Tailoring this skill is split into three categories Elemental, Dragonscale and Tribal Leatherworking which limits the number of things that you will be able to craft. After the release of Zul’Gurub make sure to craft Primal Batskin Set which has movement speed bonuses and good Agility stats overall and on AQ40 craft Bramblewood items which hold huge stamina bonuses and help tremendously in progressing the raid.

The first specialization called Elemental Leatherworking is aimed especially for Rogues and Druids. It allows crafting Stormshroud set consisting of Armor, Shoulders, Gloves, and Pants. This is a great set that can be worn just before hitting level 60 and might be used for quite some time after getting to the max. There are also two pieces of Fire Resistance gear that can be made by those who do Elemental Leatherworking - Molten Belt and Molten Helm which can be made to others for a small fee and Living Breastplate which will be needed by Restoration Druids. There is also Shifting Cloak which can be crafted for profit although it is not as good as pieces mentioned before.

Dragonscale Leatherworking is aimed for Hunters and Shamans because it allows creating mail items. It might be good to choose if you aim to farm dungeons that have a lot of dragons inside since those provide scales needed for this specialization. The set that can be crafted through this one is Black Dragonscale set consisting of four pieces: Armour, Shoulders, Leggings, and Boots. Additionally, Dreamscale Breastplate provides best in slot Nature Resistance bonuses for AQ40.

Tribal Leatherworking lets you craft much needed Devilsaur set which consists of Devilsaur Gauntlets and Devilsaur Leggings. This set is almost best in the slot for every physical damage dealer. Hide of the Wild is best in slot healer Cloak which requires a rare recipe. Corehound Belt is another best in slot before AQ40 which requires pattern.

Blacksmithing

The best choice for Warriors and Paladins when it comes to crafting professions is Blacksmithing. It allows creating heavy plate armors as well as weapons. Since most are available only to those who crafted them, picking this profession gives you a slight advantage in gearing. Weapons which are available to be crafted by Blacksmiths are: Heartseeker, Shatterer, Truesilver Champion, Dark Iron Pulverizer, Dark Iron Sunderer, Phantom Blade, Blight and two epics Blackfury and Black Amnesty.

Upon further specializing into Axesmithing you gain the ability to make Annihilator, Dark Iron Destroyer, Dawn’s Edge and epic weapon Nightfall. However if you choose Swordsmithing you can create Blazing Rapier, Dark Iron Reaver and two epic swords Sageblade and Blackguard. Hammersmithing allows you to make Enchanted Battlehammer, Hammer of the Titans and an epic Persuader.

If you choose to become Armorsmith upon completing introduction quest you will be rewarded with Glimmering Mithril Insignia trinket which has on use effect that gives 50 armor, +10 to all resistances and immunity to fear for 30 seconds. Although it has 10 minutes cooldown it is a very strong PvE and PvE trinket. Armorsmiths can also craft Dark Iron set which provides amazing Fire Resistance bonuses. Helm of the Great Chief at 56, Invulnerable Mail at 57, Wildthorn Mail at 49, Storm Gauntlets at 54, Whitesoul Helm at 55, Lionheart Helm at 56, Stronghold gauntlets at 57 and Enchanted Thorium parts for tanking, with advanced crafting manuals.

vanilla wow gear

We hope that you have liked our Classic WoW gear guide and that it brought you a little bit of insight on how gear in World of Warcraft Vanilla looks like. Make sure to leave a comment below and join our community which is growing to be one of the biggest in online gaming. Additionally, add us on Discord, Facebook and Twitter for daily news from MMO world. Be always up to date with MMOAuctions.

This guide was made to help you enjoy playing the Blizzard title World of Warcraft Classic that we have all fell in love with. We also hope that you will have just as much fun with this game as we do - whether you are starting your journey or you have been playing for a long time. Just make sure that you focus on real social aspects with other people and avoid boring grind for large amount of time. Set your target on making your time worth a while and reach your goals within a year rather than in days. If you burn yourself with mindless leveling you will lose whats best in classic - keep that in mind.

wow classic

Those of you who want to learn more about Vanilla WoW can check out our 1-60 class leveling guides for each of the Classes like Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, Druid and also all Specializations including : Holy, Fury, Frost, Shadow, Feral, Protection, Arcane, Resto, Enhancement and others.

From our specific Classic overview you can gain knowledge of both factions - Alliance and Horde and their pre raid dungeon like Stockades or Ragefire Chasm. You can gain also insight on how to challenge bosses like Onyxia or other powerful adversaries in Molten core or Naxx here. You can also learn everything about Primary and Secondary professions: Enchanting Engineering Mining Skinning Engineering Herbalism Cooking Alchemy Blacksmithing First Aid Fishing and others in Classic WoW Professions guide.

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