I'm gearing my druid and I realized just how different Bear Tanks need to gear relative to my Paladin Tank. So I have some general questions. I did read the sticky, but want to clarify....
1. Is tank gear the same as Melee gear... just Gem'd and Enchanted differently? Heck the T9 gear is the same...
2. As a paly I need to consider each piece (Does it drop me below Def value of 540). It seems like all I need is an item with more Stamina and more Agility... Is there something I'm missing here?
3. What are the stats needed to start heroics. As a Paly it was such a big deal to get "Def-Cap'd". I feel like this whole thing took about 3 seconds...
4. Should I gem for Agility or rely just on gear? (As a paly it was alway Def Cap, then Stamina, then Block Cap, then threat)
5. Are the LW pieces worth my time? As a paly the BS stuff was very helpful to reach Def Cap and get enough STA to avoid getting 1 or 2 shot...
Thanks
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Get Rawr. It's really helpful for figuring out which upgrades you need and where you get them. It allows you to evaluate cat/bear choices. Some gear works well for both, other pieces are one or the other.
In general, yes, you only need to worry about getting gear that increases Agi and Stam (defense is taken care of with talents). Gear with Dodge is also nice, as are Hit and Expertise.
Gemming for Agi versus Stam is a bit of personal preference. It depends on whether you want/need more avoidance (Agi) or more survivabilty (Stam). Your needs may change over time, too, as your gear improves and dependent on what content you're dealing with (i.e., raids vs. 5-mans). I believe Rawr generally rates Stam higher than Agi.
There are a couple good LW pieces and great ones (e.g., Bracers of Swift Death) as well. Lower iLevel ones shouldn't be too costly and help in the early stages of gearing up. Higher iLevel ones will be expensive, but are also very good.
In general, keep plugging away at heroics collecting emblems. There are numerous updgrades via emblems. What I did was run kitty for a while until I got to a comfortable threshold where I thought I could tank without dying too easily and maintain threat.
In general, yes, you only need to worry about getting gear that increases Agi and Stam (defense is taken care of with talents). Gear with Dodge is also nice, as are Hit and Expertise.
Gemming for Agi versus Stam is a bit of personal preference. It depends on whether you want/need more avoidance (Agi) or more survivabilty (Stam). Your needs may change over time, too, as your gear improves and dependent on what content you're dealing with (i.e., raids vs. 5-mans). I believe Rawr generally rates Stam higher than Agi.
There are a couple good LW pieces and great ones (e.g., Bracers of Swift Death) as well. Lower iLevel ones shouldn't be too costly and help in the early stages of gearing up. Higher iLevel ones will be expensive, but are also very good.
In general, keep plugging away at heroics collecting emblems. There are numerous updgrades via emblems. What I did was run kitty for a while until I got to a comfortable threshold where I thought I could tank without dying too easily and maintain threat.
I'm only an off-spec bear, so I'll hand you a grain of salt to use with my rambling. ;-)
Some bear gear is the same as kitty. I think out of 17 pieces I have 8 shared between the sets. The stuff for my bear tends to have more stamina, along with expertise/attack power/critical for the secondary stats. My Kitty stuff usually has higher agility along with Armor Pen.
I've often used the purple agility/stamina gems myself, then used stamina gems for my high-HP set, and agility gems for my cat set. Sometimes when I go too stamina heavy I become a massive mana sink for the healers... :S
I don't know what's needed for heriocs these days. I had a mix of i200 blues and purples, along with the polar stuff when I started. However I wasn't trying to hold threat on someone with 5500 GS at the time.
My wife is the pally tank. I'd say she has a lot more difficulty balancing her stats then I do with my bear. However I have a harder time finding well itemized pieces, and seem to get less solid upgrades. I'm still using this for example.
Some bear gear is the same as kitty. I think out of 17 pieces I have 8 shared between the sets. The stuff for my bear tends to have more stamina, along with expertise/attack power/critical for the secondary stats. My Kitty stuff usually has higher agility along with Armor Pen.
I've often used the purple agility/stamina gems myself, then used stamina gems for my high-HP set, and agility gems for my cat set. Sometimes when I go too stamina heavy I become a massive mana sink for the healers... :S
I don't know what's needed for heriocs these days. I had a mix of i200 blues and purples, along with the polar stuff when I started. However I wasn't trying to hold threat on someone with 5500 GS at the time.
My wife is the pally tank. I'd say she has a lot more difficulty balancing her stats then I do with my bear. However I have a harder time finding well itemized pieces, and seem to get less solid upgrades. I'm still using this for example.
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
You'll largely be wearing tanking accessories, rings and such, with the occasional "dps" item that just happens to be itemized better. But all your leather pieces will be effectively "dps" gear.
And my guess is that I get zero value from Block. The Savage Defense thing is all about AP right? So on those "Tank-Jewelry pieces" - Anything that says block is just wasted Itemization?
Block and parry are worthless to us. Critical increases the proc rate of SD, and Attack Power increases its effectiveness.
That monster in the mirror, he just might be you. -Grover
Borsuk wrote:
And my guess is that I get zero value from Block. The Savage Defense thing is all about AP right? So on those "Tank-Jewelry pieces" - Anything that says block is just wasted Itemization?
This is correct, but you'll find the occasional one that may be better than what you have simply by sheer budget difference (I wore the parry ring from ToC5 for the longest time), though I'd never take such a thing over a tank who can use those stats.
As already mentioned, use Rawr to get specifics for your character (though lately I've started becoming puzzled by their recommendations, I'm getting recs for full 20 agi gems all over my ICC upgrades...and the modeling options still don't include Tier 10 (can only go to Tier 9 Heroic), so I have to wonder if it's thinking I have enough EH for T9 and should get more dodge but isn't thinking about T10 EH?
Borsuk wrote:
I'm gearing my druid and I realized just how different Bear Tanks need to gear relative to my Paladin Tank. So I have some general questions. I did read the sticky, but want to clarify....
1. Is tank gear the same as Melee gear... just Gem'd and Enchanted differently? Heck the T9 gear is the same...
2. As a paly I need to consider each piece (Does it drop me below Def value of 540). It seems like all I need is an item with more Stamina and more Agility... Is there something I'm missing here?
3. What are the stats needed to start heroics. As a Paly it was such a big deal to get "Def-Cap'd". I feel like this whole thing took about 3 seconds...
4. Should I gem for Agility or rely just on gear? (As a paly it was alway Def Cap, then Stamina, then Block Cap, then threat)
5. Are the LW pieces worth my time? As a paly the BS stuff was very helpful to reach Def Cap and get enough STA to avoid getting 1 or 2 shot...
Thanks
1. Is tank gear the same as Melee gear... just Gem'd and Enchanted differently? Heck the T9 gear is the same...
2. As a paly I need to consider each piece (Does it drop me below Def value of 540). It seems like all I need is an item with more Stamina and more Agility... Is there something I'm missing here?
3. What are the stats needed to start heroics. As a Paly it was such a big deal to get "Def-Cap'd". I feel like this whole thing took about 3 seconds...
4. Should I gem for Agility or rely just on gear? (As a paly it was alway Def Cap, then Stamina, then Block Cap, then threat)
5. Are the LW pieces worth my time? As a paly the BS stuff was very helpful to reach Def Cap and get enough STA to avoid getting 1 or 2 shot...
Thanks
1) Yes.
2) Yes, expertise is an awesome stats. You want it as well. Hit doesn't hurt either. The focus is on Agi and Stam though.
3) I forget.
4) You could gem Agility but gemming Stam or Shiftings is better.
5) Yes, most of them are very well itemized.
Don't scared of block/parry jewelry but try and avoid them unless they are just so well itemized aside from that, the ToC5 ring is a good example.
If you try and do heroics and for what ever reason are having issues, just go as DPS. The gear you get from them 90% of the time is leather so you can need as DPS and use for tanking. Plus most taks have all of the jewelery now anyway so that is usually easy to win as well. But really you are running them for the badges.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
3) I think I had around 28k hp (unbuffed in bear), 32% dodge and can't remember AC (18k ish) when I started tanking heroics. This was just with my guild though and not the ICC ones. I'm now up to 35k hp, 24k AC and not sure on dodge (definitely gone up though) and I feel comfortable queueing for random pug heroics. Not had any comments about my hp being too low so far, though I'm sure that will come :)
Holding threat off well geared dps can be a pain, but in part that's probably me being a lazy tank and not building threat on all mobs. If you have a dps consistently pulling threat off you then it might be worth politely asking them to wait for you to build some threat or use their own threat reduction tools (if they have any).
Somewhat off-topic: I needed on some blue boots in a heroic yesterday and felt embarassed, they were an upgrade, but I think that was part of the trouble :P
Holding threat off well geared dps can be a pain, but in part that's probably me being a lazy tank and not building threat on all mobs. If you have a dps consistently pulling threat off you then it might be worth politely asking them to wait for you to build some threat or use their own threat reduction tools (if they have any).
Somewhat off-topic: I needed on some blue boots in a heroic yesterday and felt embarassed, they were an upgrade, but I think that was part of the trouble :P
Quote:
Somewhat off-topic: I needed on some blue boots in a heroic yesterday and felt embarassed, they were an upgrade, but I think that was part of the trouble :P
I've had that happen to me too. Some random blue item will drop and everyone instantly hits DE. No one even looks at what it is... (Heck I think DE'ing Blues is standard for even BOE items now.)
I still ask if I can need... It feels dirty... hahahah
Overlord Norellicus wrote:
You'll largely be wearing tanking accessories, rings and such, with the occasional "dps" item that just happens to be itemized better. But all your leather pieces will be effectively "dps" gear.
Generally yes.
But this is where you have to take care and compare stats between pieces. All the leather pieces in the IC heroics heavily favor dps over tanking (relatively low stam/high agi).
Choosing druid tanking gear is great practice where ilevel upgrades may not be better performance upgrades.
Tynuv wrote:
3) I think I had around 28k hp (unbuffed in bear)
I have the same HP now in bear when I tank heroics.
The 50% dodge and mostly iLvl 232-245 or better gear push the armor up a bit. Over 50% is nice to especially since I have much ArP.
No one has yet asked why I just got a GT proc or have low health.
I think it is because of the chain pulling, leaves less time to type.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
Horse, you make me wish we could run an instance together so I can go all out and drive you into a panic trying to keep aggro.
I wonder if I could get you killed with your low HP
In heroics, given that the tank and healer don't suck I follow these two rules:
If misdirect is on cooldown something is wrong.
If misdirect is used on a group we're already fighting something is wrong.
I wonder if I could get you killed with your low HP
In heroics, given that the tank and healer don't suck I follow these two rules:
If misdirect is on cooldown something is wrong.
If misdirect is used on a group we're already fighting something is wrong.
I use RAWR to decide roughly what upgrades i want, because with leather gear usually having 3 additional stats on it, besides Agi and Stam, it can be a little hard to judge at a glance, or by iLevel.
Does anybody else think that RAWR over-values armor a lot? it seems to really love rings and cloaks with extra armor (even though these aren't increased by the Bear Form multiplier any more), and some gear is ranked as better just because of the armor inherent in it's iLevel, even if to my eye it's other stats aren't as good. I suspect it ranks Agi a little high too, for the same reason.
I also have a prot paly and armor is not given anywhere near as much attention in RAWR.
Does anybody else think that RAWR over-values armor a lot? it seems to really love rings and cloaks with extra armor (even though these aren't increased by the Bear Form multiplier any more), and some gear is ranked as better just because of the armor inherent in it's iLevel, even if to my eye it's other stats aren't as good. I suspect it ranks Agi a little high too, for the same reason.
I also have a prot paly and armor is not given anywhere near as much attention in RAWR.
Borsuk wrote:
3. What are the stats needed to start heroics. As a Paly it was such a big deal to get "Def-Cap'd". I feel like this whole thing took about 3 seconds...
Max out Survival of the Fittest, get some kind of gear with sta/agi and go to town. Hell, my Shaman has 18k armor, 24k health and no additional defense and he's tanking heroics often enough.
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
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