Elementium Earthguard

Nice, but it's no Elementium Reinforced Bulwark.

Total base mats required (what you need if you are gathering the mats to give to a Blacksmith):

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• 60 Elementium Ore
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• 12 Volatile Earth
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• 18 Pyrite Ore
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• 30 Volatile Fire
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• 30 Volatile Air
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• 30 Volatile Water
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Required mats from Blacksmith to craft Elementium Earthguard:

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• 1 Chaos Orb
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Required mats for Blacksmith to purchase :

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• 40 Elementium Ore
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• 8 Volatile Earth
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Expertise might be a bit better threat wise, but I don't know any tanks with ANY threat problems atleast in normal cataclysm raids. Then again being hit capped makes your interrupts always land, which can be mandatory for 10 man raiding. Edit: If you down rate, you might aswell point out where I'm wrong. Edit2: In 4.1 non-damaging interupts will have a 100% hit change

Strength, stamina, hit, and mastery are all primary tank stats. Hit is the single best threat stat for tanks up to the cap.

Expertise is much better than hit, until you reach the expertise soft cap.

I guess, in terms of equivalence, this would be the Titansteel shield wall of Cataclysm.

There's one big difference. There were alternatives to the Shield Wall that were relatively easy to obtain. The only other 359 epic tank shields are from Nefarian or a BoE dungeon drop.

This is supposed to get a socket in 4.1.

The stat changes that will occur:

Old:
190 Strength
286 Stamina
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 127
Equip: Improves hit rating by 127

New:
170 Strength
286 Stamina
Blue socket with +15 stamina socket bonus.
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 117
Equip: Improves hit rating by 117

A fair change if you ask me.

dwarven? twilight's hammer seems more likely, though why I as a blacksmith would make a shield with their symbol on it is somewhat confusing to me... maybe it is just an art mix up, but I'm happy to finally have some shields without faces on them again.

Looks like a corrupted Dwarven shield.
I guess, in terms of equivalence, this would be the Titansteel shield wall of Cataclysm.

In addition to the mats needed to craft this shield, it should be noted that in order to purchase the recipe you will also need 2 additional Hardened Elementium Bars.

I'm extremely disappointed with this shield. Blizz makes the content harder and they give me hit? Threat is the least of my worries.

So... is this shield, being an epic crafted piece of armor, going to get a socket?

[item=69629] is a 353 shield, not a 359 shield, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise that it doesn't stand up well in comparison.

I wouldn't expect this to get a socket. When the PTR notes say that crafted armor will be given sockets in the patch, they seem to only be referring to the crafted belts, pants, and chests that the crafting professions can make. This is because the lack of sockets made the epics frequently less appealing; there were several of these items that were actually worse than what you could get through heroics or Justice Points. On the other hand, there are currently no shields in Cataclysm with sockets. There's no disparity between the quality of the crafted shields and other 359 epics, the way ther

Old vs new if you put a Puissant Dream Emerald in it. you gain: 45 STA 10 mastery rating you lose : 20 STR 10 Hit rating 5 parry rating (from the STR)

By my math all the 359 shields are pretty close. I believe [item=69629] falls behind this slightly because it shorts Mastery too much (an important stat for shield tanks) while the other two (Blockade's Lost Shield and [item=59444]) pull slightly ahead by not wasting a little budget on hit (despite them lacking a socket).

Don't know about other realms, but this shield is a great money maker. On my realm I can buy truegold for about 1.5k. Well this shield sells for 3-4k on my realm.

After the big patch all T11 is now JP worth so making the chest pieces is just a waste of mats or unless an idiot buys it.
Making a dps belt also a very bad idea, i have yet to make a tank belt.

But I have sold three of these so far, 2 for 4k and 1 for 3k. Sure its not a huge amount of gold making but Its a nice steady income.

Actually it is more than that becuase it says Elementium Reinforced Bulwark suggesting it was made with something else and reinforced with Elementium. If it was made out of Elementium it would be called Reinforced Elementium Bulwark. Unless of course you meant that this is nothing compared to this simply because of looks, but by realising that you most likely meant that halfway through this post has rendered this post completely useless so you

Hit has also turned out to be rather lackluster tanking stat since maintaining threat isn't much of a challenge outside of the first fifteen seconds of a fight and that can be overcome in any number of ways (Tricks and Misdirect being the easiest, if you have a rogue or hunter). After that, you're much better off just reforging into mitigation stats like dodge, parry, or mastery.

All in all, the shield is not a huge improvement over the JP shield.

Now if they buffed the size of this shield just as they have done with Blockade's Lost Shield... Its just waay to small for my Nelf Warrior.

Someone was saying that this is now the BiS raid-tier tank shield because of the socket and stamina socket bonus. Is there any truth to this, or is it still inferior because of the hit?

It really becomes: JP one --------- 62 dodge vs BS one (reforged Hit for Dodge) ----------- 200 armor 34 Stamina 15 Mastery 5 Parry 77 Hit Overall, they are pretty close. JP one is just so much cheaper at this point in time, that I think the choice is a no brainer unless you have lots of extra cash laying around.

This VS Elementium Earthguard Shield of the Blood God 11803 Armor +180 Strength +270 Stamina +122 Dodge +117 Mastery Elementium Earthguard 11896 Armor +170 Strength +286 Stamina +117 Hit Rating (Reforged into either Dodge or Parry, lets assume Dodge to keep it simple) +117 Mastery Blue Socket This should be gemmed +20 Dodge/Parry/Mastery +30 stamina (one of the 3, lets pretend mastery) So basically Elementium Earthguard gives: +86 Armor (with the 12% armor bonus, this is 96 armor, which isn't even .1% damage reduction) -10 Strength (This is a loss of maybe .01% parry rating, and also 20 att

Weird in all posts here there is not one about the the shield that comes from justice points Shield of the Four Grey Towers witch to me seems better than this to start raiding A quick compare between them 11896 Armor +190 Strength +286 Stamina Equip: Increases your hit rating by 127 (1.06% @ L85) Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 127 (0.71 @ L85) 11696 Armor +168 Strength +252 Stamina Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 112 (0.63% @ L85). Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 112 (0.62 @ L85). +200 armour +34sta +12mastery +127 hit -11

Sadly Shield of the Blood God is way better. Sure this shield gives tad more armor and stamina, but the hit is useless compared to Blood God's dodge

Everyone is talking about mitigation but your missing the point avoidance is great but once your actually doing cataclysm raid content this shield's value goes up alot more as at least from my standpoint im seeing a lack of hit rating on alot of tank armor.

So if you socket it with a http://www.wowhead.com/item=52231 that brings the net changes to: -20 Str +45 Stamina +10 Mastery -10 Hit Not bad.

It's really pointless to put a green gem in to get the socket bonus. If you're over 24% avoidance, then it's better just to stick a Fractured Amberjewel in for the +40 Mastery. Compared to avoidance and mitigation stats, stamina just isn't worth it to gem for, you'll get a hell of a lot more mileage out of Parry/Mastery if you're under 24% avoidance, or straight Mastery if you're above.

way overbudget

Currently using this shield, gemmed with Puissant Dream Emerald, with a +50 Mastery Enchant.
Not too bad, but it will sustain until I start raiding further and such.

Anyone know what the closest upgrade would be? I'm assuming it would be a heroic raid?