Loot QQ: Bolstered Legplates

Today’s Loot QQ comes from Romeo on Nazjatar (I can only assume US). He writes:

I’ve attempted Heroic Violet Hold to get a hold of the Bolstered Legplates.  I ran it daily for roughly two weeks and it still has not dropped.  At that point, my guild was doing 10-man Naxx and Loatheb drops even better pants so I gave up.  To this day, I still wear the crafted Daunting pants.

I too ran Heroic Violet Hold for about a week before I got the drop. It felt good to drop the daunting legplates I was wearing so I feel your pain. Looking at loatheb’s drop though I can see how both of them are pretty equal but in different ways.

A Death Knight would go for Bolstered 100% of the time since shield block is useless to them, but if you’re not defense capped at 540 I would stick with the bolstered. It’s a touchy subject because even wearing the bolstered pants you could have a very valid argument for getting the Legplates of Inescapeable Death. In heroics there really aren’t many +block/shield block items. There are, however, a lot of high defense items.

So the mentality here with itemization is that you get the defense cap so you can survive Naxx. Then IN Naxx, you get upgraded items with less defense but more of other stats. Since there are many other rings/trinkets/etc that can make up for the lost defense you’re still at the cap but now have more shield block as well.

Also, I don’t have a single +defense enchant on my gear because if I did I would be wasting the points as I am already capped at 540. Getting a chest armor with less defense but more block rating, then dropping the enchant on it evens everything out. So all in all look at your current stats, if you need more block then go for Loatheb’s drop, if your block is fine then keep running Violet Hold! Checking out your armory it looks like you’re just over the defense cap so getting the Naxx drop is your best bet!

I hope other folks on Nazjatar see this and give Romeo a helping hand, happy hunting!