Approaching 70Follow

my understanding of pally tanking is that while dodge/parry are important, block is the better stat. it allows you to still take enough damage to get the heals to regen your mana, and getting hit is largely how you'll generate threat.

Defense is the most important will you hit 490 and become uncrittable. Then you want mostly Block Rating when you can get it. Don't exclude Dodge and Parry though as it's still good to have them, but don't stack them as high as you can get them.

Like Maul said, pre-70 you're pretty much going to want to focus on the +def. It's going to be the easiest to get yourself to uncritable/ready for heroics.

You talked about going to Netherstorm for gear, if you're hlding up ok in instances now, I'd just get to 69 and start running SV and SL and SP (ok run SP now if you want :-) ). They're going to have some good stuff in there for you.

SL has the shield from the first boss, the Greatsword of horrd dreams from Murmur which is a nice weapon until you get crystalforged or continuum blade, Blackheart drops the adamantite figurine. SP drops a light saber with some good spell damage on it to (and cracks me up because it's a lightsaber). SV has some stuff as well notably the devilshark cape.

I wouldn't tank SH before 70. SL is even a titch hard at 69, but it's definitely doable (I pretty much levelled from 69-70 in SL) if you've got a good group with good DPS.

I'd say block's more important early on as a secondary factor in gear. 1) because it makes a bigger impact (pun intended) on your stats as well as your abilities and 2) because, again, it's easier to get without sacrificing too many other stats.

Dodge is great but only a few pieces at your level and even at 70 give you decent dodge without totally gimping your other stats. And when your other stats are gimped it becomes had to make that up to hit the magic numbers.

Oh... on a sidenote. Looking at your armory I was struck by one thing. You may want to re-think your gem choices. Stam gems are good. Str and melee crit rating? Not so much. If you're not going to gem for stam I'd (at this point) gem for +def, +spell dmg or, to a lesser degree, +dodge. Actually I wouldn't worry too much about the dodge gems and just stick with +stam, +def and +spell dmg.

A rule of thumb that I used (though this was before our little stam buff) was if I didn't need the socket bonus (i.e. an AP increase with my 41.4 DPS weapon wasn't really going to do me ANY good) the item got all stam gems. If I liked the bonus then usually +def, +spell dmg (or the hybrid gems of those and/or stam) could usually better fill the sockets and get me the bonus.

edit: Oh and with regards to parry - when you parry an attack it resests the mob/boss' swing timer. I've kept my points in deflection so far but I would be interested in hearing what others think about that choice.


Edited, Jan 10th 2008 11:03am by Celcio

Just to add a little bit of info; at 70, every ~8 block rating will increase chance to block by 1%, every ~19 dodge rating increases chance to dodge by 1%, and every ~32 parry rating increases chance to parry by 1%. Since you already will be uncrittable, block rating will help you get to uncrushable more efficiently than dodge or parry rating. If you really want more complete avoidance, dodge is probably the better way to go.

Celcio;

ROFLMAO! That's funny. I find that as a tank I'm tanking and saying:

"Dang, this guy feared me, oops... the mage died"
"Dang, I didn't see that guy that ran off me because the mage nuked the target I wasn't hitting"
"Oh... holy shield has been down for 20 seconds now... crud!"
"What do you mean I can't judge yet!"
"Priest... stop smiting!"
"No, I don't want you to pull with your pyroblast..."


;-) It is indeed what we're used to. As a mage, I find it easy to sit back, see the big picture and nuke when ready (and watch Omen). As a tank I'm saying "What?! You don't have Omen???" Seeing stuff close up (and being a dwarf), sometimes I'm pounding on a boss' knees.

It's entirely possible I have that backwards. I tend to look at life as though through a mirror. Well, as much of the world as I can see around my own glorious visage.

It makes it handy for reading DaVinci's notes though...

Oh and I forgot to actually send my reply to this here - I think part of my problem truly IS a mater of perspective. My Pally is a dwarf as well and it's true that you can't see a whole lot. (wait till you AOE tank reg shattered halls ) So I think I get overwhelmed by everything that's going on when I can actually SEE it from way back in the nosebleed seats.

I wonder, too, if my tank mindset bleeds over. I don't usually just sit back, I'm watching to see if other people are getting in trouble and trying to figure out what I can do to help.