Celthis

I chose 2x8 agi (we're only in SSC / TK at the moment, no epic gems), because with agility gems, BoNP was better than my previous DPS belt. If twin gearsets didn't enter into the issue, I'd probably use Shifting Nightseye for some extra stam.

 

Penicilin

Hello, I read through most of the posts. Still I would ask you to tell me your opinion on ideal tanking stats.

I am casual druid who dinged 70 1-2 weeks ago. Still I am part of hardcore guild, but I am not aiming to join them in BT, TK or SSC. More like occasionaly Gruul/Karazhan pug guild raids. So mainly I will end up in 5-man groups of all kinds (pug/guild/heroic).

I am asking if you could tell me how high I should stack stats which are needed for tanking (those important or even those less important - amor, dodge, htps, +hit, attack etc etc). I know all these stats are not reachable at once and there is needed some kind of compromise. But I would like to work from some raw numbers. Some pple says 13k hp 19k armor, but what bout attack, +hit, crit and other "less" important tank stats?

Thanks

 

Vykromond

Since you're a casual player I'd recommend you focus on stamina and armor. Offensive stats will be pretty unimportant for you in 5-mans and occasional Karazhan pugs- you're unlikely to ever deal with people who can push your TPS output. On the other hand, dying will be an ever-present danger.

Of course, your possible avenues of upgrading are fairly limited as well.

 

Dosaches

I picked up the Spyglass of the Hidden Fleet recently in anticipation that Blizzard would eventually fix its feral form bug. (The PTR patch notes state that it will be repaired in patch 2.2) In the mean-time the 40 stam on it has been helpful in fights in which I need to be able to survive heavy bursts of damage. I have been using the Badge of Tenacity and Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch When I pop them together they boost my dodge to over 50% and have been quite useful as panic buttons during some sticky situations.

Once 2.2 goes live I will be able to use the spyglass as a very slow health pot. something that is reasonably appealing to a bear tank who doesn't have the luxury to pop a health pot during battle. The 1300 health over 12 seconds might sound a bit lame, but I find that I often hit frenzied regen in fights where my healers are stretched a little thin. If I pop the spyglass it in tandem with Frenzied Regen I will end up with 1300 more hp at the end of the cycle. The other option would be merely to spam it whenever it's up to help keep a little stress off of the healers.

What do you think? Should I replace the pocket watch with the spyglass after patch 2.2 in my main tanking set? Since I can't test it until 2.2 is released, I'd appreciate anyone's opinion.

Thanks!

 

Liar

The problem is as you said yourself: It's a slow ticking HoT that is even worse than Frenzied Regen. And IMO if you managed to stay alive just because of a 100 HPS HoT then chances are you could have most likely live without it or you would have prevented more damage wiith the additional avoidance the Pocketwatch provides. Also if your healers are asleep on Tidewalkers (the one with the nasty poison DoT) I like to shift out when tanking them and abolish myself. Having dodge (passive and active) is better than 45 Stamina or an underwhelming HoT. (Just as an aside, even with 0% dodge I would advise you to do this. They melee for roughly 3-4k damage in caster IIRC and the poison ticks for nearly 6k if not dispelled so you avoid atleast 2k damage in the worst case and all of the damage if you dodge the attack in caster form.)

So much for the boring reason. Now the fun reason: I am sure you like dying as much as the other guy and those trinkets actually increase your chances to stay alive during wipe calls when everyone legs it to reset. Naturally tanks are the least likely people to make it out alive but man, it just feels great to reset the, let's say, Karathress encounter (tanking the shammy) just because you managed to break the snares by shifting into cat, dodging the next 1 or 2 swings because of double trinketing and sprinting out like everyone else. Make sure to return and /mock the dead Warriors to remind them who the better tanks are. :P

EDIT: WTB smiley for :P

 

Vykromond

and both work pretty well for situations where a :P would be called for.

Moroes is way better than the Spyglass for PVE, the HoT really isn't as significant in terms of keeping you alive as the dodge is.

 

Lavode

Penicilin: you wont be aiming for specific stats as much as for specific pieces of kit here.
First step; Get the heavy clefthoof set + the high armor quest awards for a starting point, this will take about an evening and 300 gold -Dont collect the materials for heavy clefthoof, the patterns are very popular for skilling leatherworking with, so the kit is always dirt cheap on auction. At this point Get your heroic keys and start doing them as much as you can- The 4 holy grails of heroic drops for a feral are boots from the underbog (very easy, really) belt from the ramparts (again, not harsh) Leggings from manatombs (all easy, save end boss who is a tad challenging without spellreflect - Bring very awake dps) and the bracers from shattered halls. (hmm.. not really sure how hard this is for a not epiced out bear these days. Its near trivial to me at this point but I havent tried the nerfed version in less than 30 k armor/stupid dodge)
doing coilfang heroics will get you earthwarden very quickly, and badge gear is really quite amazing for feral.

 

• Neshalin

As an alternative to the bracers from Shattered Halls, you could spend a few evenings in battlegrounds to get the Veteran's Dragonhide Bracers. Seven Warsong Gulch wins get you the marks, and Alterac Valley during the weekend brings plenty honour. You can even use all of your new tanking gear in AV and get some practice!

 

Penicilin

Stylin' Purple Hat
High Warlord's Dragonhide Spaulders (Mantle of Shadowy Embrace)
Heavy Clefthoof Vest
Veteran's Leather Bracers (Forestheart Bracers)
Verdant Gloves
Veteran's Leather Belt (Belt of Natural Power)
Heavy Clefhoof Leggings
Heavy Clefthoof Boots
Thoriumweave Cloak
Necklace of the Deep
Ring of Unyielding Force
Iron Band of the Unbreakable
Badge of Tenacity
Darkmoon Card: Vengeance
Earthwarden

Am I on the right way? Its what I plan to get. Got some staff from this list already. Clefthoof set enchanted with +12sta gems and Badge of Tenacity with Styln' Purple Hat. I will put +8agi gems into Necklace of the Deep and use it when i get revered with KoT. With KoT and Scryers glyphs and with enduring talasite gem in Veteran's Bracers I should be at 156 defence rating without resilience from belt I think.

 

◊ Farstrider

That's definitely a good start. Sucking at PvP as badly as I do the Warlord's stuff was never really an option for me but that's pretty much what I was sporting when we started Kara. I've since shifted out the Thoriumweave for a crafted [Resolute Cape], the extra resilience allowing me to switch out Heavy Clefthoof vest for a Chestguard of the Talon. Put a tier 4 helm on there and that's pretty much what I wear in my tanking gear at the moment - we're working on Mags at the moment. Take a look at my armory profile for a few other easy wins - you left out the Violet Signet from Kara rep, and the Tree-Mender's belt from heroic Ramparts is a good high armour replacement for BoNP.

Edit:- Sorry I logged off in my healing gear, what an idiot, was PvPing last thing last night and we were healer light - I'll switch back to my tank gear after work today so you can check it out later on.

 

tunah

(Forgive the linkspam, seems useful but looks ugly)

[Cowl of Beastly Rage] is a nice upgrade to [Stylin' Purple Hat] if you have a bunch of badges kicking around. (Socket + meta = 30STA). T4 is slightly better again so might want to spend the badges elsewhere if that's a prospect.

[Merciless Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders] are considerably better than [High Warlord's Dragonhide Spaulders], joining a casual arena team and playing 10 games a week will eventually net you those.
If you can get a second piece of the set (a lot of it's decent for tanking) then the 35resil eases your DEF pressure somewhat.
[Shoulderpads of Assassination] with 2xSSOE are better than [Mantle of Shadowy Embrace] IMO. EDIT comparable, rather - didn't see the armor difference.

[Necklace of the Deep] is good (better than the karazhan/heroic options I think), but why AGI gems? 2xSSOE makes it 44STA + 21AGI.

Even the friendly [Violet Signet] (that you get on your first run) is better than [Iron Band of the Unbreakable].

Farstrider: why take [Chestguard of the Talon] over [Heavy Clefthoof Vest]? The stamina difference is so huge - you trade 57sta 24def 122armor for 36str 34agi - that I can't see swapping unless you were desperate for threat.

 

◊ Farstrider

Yeah I guess the stam on Heavy Clefthoof is nice - I still use it for those fights where I REALLY need the health, but I switch in the CotT for any fight that we outgear even slightly - 3 pieces of Heavy Clefthoof is just too much of a drop in threat generation - I have a lot of trigger happy mages and they tend to embarrass me by nabbing aggro if I run with 1200AP (or even less).

 

SS_Keera

I'm not sure what the general consensus on this topic is, but from a personal expirience i would suggest to focus on high stamina and AC when you start raiding. I have tried it myself and got only bad results from running around in pre raid gear and trying to focus on avoidance stats. I don't think that makes to much sense, but i'm ready to be corrected by the more expirienced guys here.

Therefore i agree with tunah on the [Necklace of the Deep] with two SSOE instead of the 8agi gems. If you really have problems with aggro generation i wonder how your "happy mages" are handling your warriors tanking, cause with equal gear your tps should be higher then the warriors one.

[Belt of the Raven Lord] is also an option pre raid i would say. Nice addition for getting the swift flight form. Of course if you can get the BoNP go for that one.

 

◊ Farstrider

Socketted, it's pretty much on a par with [Tree-Mender's Belt], although loses out on quite a bit of armour. I guess obtaining them is roughly the same difficulty. That said I'm getting pretty annoyed with resocketting gear all the time, so the Tree-Mender's will keep me happy for a while.

 

SS_Keera

I agree but i never got Tree-Menders although running ramparts daily....think i just had bad luck. Therefore i used Raven Lord belt since i got it at completion of my swift flight form quest. Just wanted to mention it, but as he is speaking of [Belt of Natural Power] i think there is no question what to wear.

 

dukes

Another option is the [Veteran's Dragonhide Belt] (or [General's Dragonhide Belt]). The resillience is nice for once you've got tier items in all slots, and it's got more than the default amount of armour. I'm still using the generals because of lack of pattern drops and because otherwise I wouldn't be crit immune (although I'm sure I could find a way round that with swapping trinkets). It's also a "guarenteed" item to farm rather than a drop, which is always nice.

 

osirisunnefer

The [Veteran's Leather Belt] is slighty better than the [Veteran's Dragonhide Belt] and is a nice upgrade to the [General's Dragonhide Belt].

 

tunah

Isn't that rogue only?

 

Mooncrow

No, the off-set pieces are not class-specific.

 

dukes

In DPS terms the Leather and Veterans are approximately equal. In tanking terms the Veterans has 6 more stam, 4 more agility and 4 more resillience but lacks 40 armour (~176 in Bear). They're pretty comparable really but I'd probably take the Leather over the other. I hadn't even considered that the Leather would actually be comparable.

 

Sozar

Would anyone be willing to look over my gear and give me some tweaking ideas? I just picked up the Season 2 shoulders, and haven't had a chance to socket them. I also tank with an Earthwarden with 35 agi, just happened to have my squid on.

My guild is small, so anything beyond Karazhan is not obtainable for me right now.

The Armory

By upgrading to the S2 shoulders and bracers I added some resilience that makes some of my +def pointless. I was thinking about picking up a Neckalce of the Deep and putting the CE helm enchant on my T4 helm.

Any suggestions or tweaks gladly welcomed.

Thanks

 

Mooncrow

Not that they are particularly easy upgrades, but you may want to spend some time farming for your Badge of Tenacity to replace the Mark of Tyranny. Also, the season 2 chest will be a substantial upgrade over the wastewalker tunic. Aside from that, run some heroics and get your Necklace of the Juggernaut, and swap in a Thoriumweave Cloak if you're past the crit cap. Not much to add aside from those; your gear is looking pretty good.

 

Vykromond

If you're already over the crit cap, don't bother with the Juggernaut and just use the [Necklace of the Deep].

 

Sozar

Badge of Tenacity or Bane of Tenacity. They are still at 1700g on my server, and no one in my guild has had one drop. *grumble*

What about socketing? Do you guys usually slap 12 stam gems in everything or maybe some 8 agi for the dodge?

 

Daenerys