Tanking Heroics?Follow

I have takin' quite a bit of "helpful" advice in guild and throughtout forums to be a better geared tank. My guild even has Kara on Farm status(not much to some, but sweet for a newer guild). I have tanked many heroics, and most of the time sucessfully. But I swear lately the more "better" gear I get, my tanking/survivability has seemed to plumit!! It is really frustrating to me and I was wondering if you guys could have a gander at my lil ol' bear tank and throw me a few suggestions. Any help would be great, thnx.

Here he be.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Dalvengyr&n=Mattox

I have 15K unbuffed, 417 Defence, 25K armor in form.

Unless WowArmory is wrong(it often can be), you're dodge rating is only 24.51%!? It should be well over 30% for your level of game progress. If it is that low, I'd try swapping some Stam for some +AGI. Also, you're way above uncrittable cap if you count your resilience. You could drop some of the defense rating if needed, because you only need a total of 2.6% crit reduction with SotF.

One of your trinkets is a green that adds attack power. While attack power is good, armor, stam, def and dodge are better on a trinket for druid. I'd reccomend http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?source=live;witem=32658 . For a druid tank, it's one of the best trinkets, since we get the huge +armor multiplier in form.

Finding a badge on the AH can be tough. I checked twice a day for a week and finally got one. When you're checking, try checking for a 'Depleted Badge' as well. This is basically a Badge of Tenacity that hasn't been made yet. I think it takes 50 apexis crystals to charge it, although I'm not entirely certain. Perhaps somebody else could verify this. If you've been doing the SSO dailies, you should probably have some Apexis Crystals on hand already. (They drop in Bash'ir).

If you're not having luck with the Adamantine figurine and want a change in pace, there is a decent trinket that drops from the Black Stalker in UB, http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?source=live;witem=27770. It doesn't have defense rating, but has quite a bit of Stamina and it's Use can help a tiny bit in a sticky situation. Considering you're already uncrittable, this may actually be a better option for you. UB is one of the easiest heriocs, so I recommend giving that a try. Worst case scenario: you walk away with no trinket and 4 extra badges. :D

When searching for badge of tenacity on the ah, just search for badge. There are very few items that are boe that have badge in them, and usually only badge of tenacity are in the ah, or depleted badge.

His dodge seems low because he is not in bear form right now. That would give him an extra 4% just from talents for dodge, add on motw and other buffs and that would be above 30%.

Another great trinket to get is any of the 51 stamina card trinkets.

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?wquest=10940

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?wquest=10941

These will not add avoidance, but will add a good chunk of HP.

I would also switch out the enchant on your gloves to agility, that would give you 15 more dodge, so nothing to laugh at.

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?wspell=25080

As for your original question, do you not get the rage, or do you seem to die faster? If you don't get the rage, swap some of your tanking gear with some dps gear. Make sure you don't drop below crittable. Druids get a lot of their rage from crits and damage, so more damage you do, more rage you get. You will also get more rage from getting hit harder. If you seem to die faster, it might be the mobs or your healers. You should be able to handle just about any heroic except for MgT.

Basicly, you want enough Stamina to survive between heals. If you can't survive a couple back to back crushes or a string of hits, no amount of Dodge (short of 102.4%) will prevent a wipe; you're relying on luck. This generally happens late T4 + a lot of badge gear or T5.

A couple things about going from heroics to raids (and back). Most (10-man) raids, there are 2 healers on the MT. You're taking a lot of damage, but there's 2 people keeping your health bar full, so you notice less. Heroics you've got 80% of 1 healer's attention (He's probably casting 1 spell outta 5 on the rest of the party). Also, there isn't a lot of CC used on Kara trash, for your gear level, you probably still need 2 CC for most heroics.

I usually tank heroic trash mobs in either my pvp gear, dps gear, or a mix of tank gear and the two other sets. I only use my real tanking set in raids and heroic bosses. Gear wise I have the full t4 set and every tanking peice from the badge vendor that has good synergy. Using my dps set or pvp set I have higher threat generation from the increased AP.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that if it gets really bad, I tell everyone to hold of dps for a sec and I turn around with my butt in the mobs so I can't dodge or anything and build up a good chunk of rage. Might not be safe, but its fun to moon the mobs lol.

Edited, May 19th 2008 12:08pm by Narroai

It's not optimal, but if you're in an encounter where you're rage starved, try sitting down. Automatic crit and it'll generate a lot of rage. Then try swapping out gear when out of combat if you still feel the need.