I think you can do better then 25 stam from food too now though I would have to double check that.

[Spicy Crawdad] is 30 Stamina, but it requires 375 fishing to farm.

You can also buy +15 stam Rumsey Rum Black Label in Old Hillsbrad I believe and Elixir of Mastery Stack with all for another 15 stam.

That sword dropped for us yesterday from Nexus-Prince Shaffar on Heroic difficulty. He's a good deal more difficult than the rest of the instance, and I'd recommend bringing plenty of DPS if you hope to kill him.

Quick question on this topic. I know the new defense cap to prevent crits is 490, but I missed the math on where that number comes from. Is there a spreadsheet or a post on EJ somewhere where someone laid out the math of how various defense ratings impact crit / crushing chance against various level mobs at level 70?

Thanks in advance.

490 is derived like this:

1 defense reduces your chance to be crit by .04%. Mobs have a base crit chance of 5%. Therefore it takes 125 defense to completely negate a mob's base crit. 125*.04% = 5%. There's also a +3 level skill difference, which you negate by adding 3 levels worth of defense. That is, you add 15 defense. 125+15 = 140. By default at level 70 you'll have 350 defense. Therefore the "magic number" is 350 + 140 = 490 defense. The old number of 440 defense is derived similarly, using 300 as your default defense at level 60.

Nowhere near 500 defence is needed to achieve crit-immunity these days, because of resilience that is available in some of the tanking pieces. We've got tanks in our guild who sit at ~440 defence and consider themselves critimmune because they have around -4% crit from defence and something like -1.5% crit from res.

The problem with resilience is, that it's a really expensive stat compared to defence, and especially so for tanks who already have achieved crit immunity, because half of the effect "-crit% and -critdamage" is useless for them.

What am I missing? If crit immune, which of -crit% and -critdamage does anything at all?

If you are already crit immune: Neither, if resillience is what took you the last bit to the magic number.. -crit damage

No wonder my tank almost never gets knocked off her horse. I knew all the other things you wrote, but not that little nugget :P

Question if someone can answer it, is what is a hunters' pet considered as?

I was summoning some people for our Karazhan run last night, so was in my full tank setup in which I have 495 defense. Some hunter was hanging round the area and he set his (level 69) pet on me, and the damn thing crit me. I was facing the pet if that has any bearing on it, but are pets given the same crit rates as players or something?

So simple an answer, apologies for the derail.

/blush

Jade Skull Breastplate seems to be better than a socketed Breastplate of the Bold.

Am I crazy?

I would say so, since Bold has three sockets so you can fill in that stats that you are weak in; however Jade Skull would be a decent choice until you get Bold.

While this isn't a question about tanking plate, it is relevant.

With the change to Thunderfury, (or, to tanks without), what weapons are you guys looking at tank wise?

I am considering going for the Honor Hold tanking weapon. I guess King's Defender would be better, however we aren't yet to the Chess encounter.

Even with changed threat, do any of you still plan on using Thunderufy and at what point would you change weapons now?

I'm a big fan of block for standard 5-mans and most solo content, but dodge is certainly preferable against stuff that hits extremely hard. I'd be inclined to put one 12 stam and 2x [6sta/4agi] gems in it, because breaking socket bonuses makes me sad.

Still not entirely sure what the deal is with block as it relates to eliminating crushing blows. Common interpretation of the hit table indicates that Shield Block should be enough to push off all crushing blows while it's active. Nevertheless, I've heard people report that crushing blows can occur unless you've got 25% block (I guess it would be 25.6% against level 73's?). The block rating on Jade-Skull would more than likely bring you much closer to this number.

Why you put into the Shoulders Shifting Nightseye + Soild Star. You get from this: 4 Agi + 3 parryrating + 18 Stamina. Isn't 24 Sta better then this ? You loose 4 Agi/3parryrating and win 6 Stamina.

Bold Breastplate:
8 Agi + 24 Stamina + 4 defensrating versus 36 Stamina. (loose: 8 Agi/4 defrating win: 12 stamina). Breastentchant: 6 str/agi/sta/int(useless)/spirit(useless) versus 150 hp. (loose: 6 str/6,agi win: 90 hp)

Yes, the stamina is better, but people love their worthless socket bonuses. You just gave a rather typical example of poor socketing on warriors... parry rating omg.

Parry rating is horribly expensive - you need like 35 rating for 1% parry. Basically just ingore parry rating if you see it.

To be fair, the original post was made before TBC was even released. Most people did not have a clear idea of just how important the Solid Stars of Elune would turn out to be.

and it is in some need of editing by now. I'll have a look at my ophan post here.

Major update done.

Looks much better now, if a little heavy on +def. I prefer Obsidian Clodstompers to either of those boots, and Timewarden's for leggings. I realise you mentioned the Tinewarden's, but I much prefer the extra hp to defence over 490.