Bear tank item comparisons - Page 61

Maratai · 06/14/07, 11:59 PM

For those interested in the 2nd season arena gear, the new pieces provide an upgrade of:

191 AC
17 ST
19 Agi
30 Stam
6 Int
7 resilience

If all 5 Season 2 pieces are worn, upgrading from all 5 Season 1 pieces.

So, slight upgrades in the bear tanking department.

osirisunnefer · 06/15/07, 12:45 AM

Veteran's Dragonhide:
Bracers: 216 ac, 25 sta, 18 agi, 17 res, 19 str, 20 heal, Red socket (+2 res)
Belt: 283 ac, 39 sta, 26 agi, 26 res, 27 str, 17 int, 42 Heal
Boots: 336 ac, 39 sta, 26 agi, 26 res, 27 str, 17 int, 42 heal

Veteran's Leather:
Bracers: 174 ac, 29 sta, 21 agi, 15 res, 20 ap, 9 crit rating, Yellow socket (+2 res)
Belt: 241 ac, 45 sta, 30 agi, 30 res, 34 ap, 16 crit rating
Boots: 294 ac, 45 sta, 30 agi, 30 res, 34 ap, 16 crit rating

Hmm, have we now got a replacement for Umberhowls in the Veteran's Dragonhide Bracers?

Kilmarnok · 06/15/07, 12:51 AM

Just an FYI the list of items on the first page needs to be updated with the values of items after our most recent patch.

Nathariel · 06/15/07, 1:09 AM

Originally Posted by Kilmarnok

Just an FYI the list of items on the first page needs to be updated with the values of items after our most recent patch.

Skytor produced an updated version of his spreadsheet, on page 28, and I am pretty sure he is no longer playing the game.

Regarding the Veteran's gear, I will definitely be swapping my Umberhowls for the Dragonhide Bracers

Kier · 06/15/07, 10:55 AM

Unless you're sorely hurting for armor, the Leather Bracers (and Belt if you're still using Manimal) are already upgrades.

I'm glad to see they upgraded the PvP rewards in addition to Arena. We had a bit of a debate the other day in our druid chat as to whether they would actually do that or not. I admit I'm not looking forward to getting back in the PUG train trying to get honor/badges but I suppose it's not the end of the world. See you all on the battlefields. Hopefully those idiots who yell, "Just let the Alliance win" have all got what they wanted and left.

Mythological · 06/15/07, 11:20 AM

I've just returned to the game after a pretty long hiatus, and I've spent the last couple weeks leveling to 70 and getting my gear up to snuff. I'm pretty new to tanking and feral in general and have a couple questions.

I can tank pretty well on a boss mob with a lot of rage generation, usually around 800+ tps using mangle on cooldown and spamming maul and lacerate, refreshing ff and demo when needed. In a low rage situation or multiple mobs I can only manage around 500+ though, which seems bad.

Problems arise when I have to pull large packs of mobs, and getting enough aggro to keep them off the healers while keeping the assisted mob glued on me. Rage starved situations can be nasty too, sometimes when I've tanked heroic pens or SV, I just dont get enough rage to keep all the mobs on me.

Do you find it better to tab target mobs, and if so do you mangle or lacerate? Swipe seems good but tends to break sheep or ice trap, since it seems to have 360 reach and a large range. I tend to pull with ff, then demo roaring once mobs get into my rage and mangleing the main target. Around this time I'm hurting for rage and its the most likely time the add mobs will peel off to a healer or multishotting hunter. I've heard some people pulling with balance spells and casting regrowths during the pull - what is the proper sequence to do this, and is it really effective? I've tried it a couple times and its dicey if I'll get all those spells off in time to shapeshift.

Also any suggestion on my gear? Armory should have my tanking set up. I fucked up and put green gems in my clefthoof though, I should fix that but I'm hoping to pick up some kara set pieces to replace it. My trinket slots are pretty bad, badge of tenacity goes for huge amounts on my server, and I'm not sure what to pick up that doesnt drop in kara. I'm halfway through revered so I will pick up earthwarden asap to replace beasts. Is it worth going back to azeroth to pick up a brutality charm for my idol? I'm really lacking in hit rating also and strings of misses and dodges really hurts, I'm not sure what pieces to pick up to maximize on it, or should I cram in as much agi/hit rating gems as I can.

Kier · 06/15/07, 11:40 AM

@Mythological: I was about to comment that strategy discussions were a bit off topic in the gear thread but you snuck in the gear question there at the end so I guess you're ok

You appear to have done a good job of picking up "the usual" gear that people start out with at 70. You touched on most of the basic upgrade paths. If you venture back to Azeroth and pick up the Mark of Tyranny and the Idol of Brutality (both will serve you well) that could help and you can do it with 3 people (MoT) and Solo, respectively.

An easy upgrade is to buy youself a Stylin' Purple Hat. Those are crafted, easily made, and will hold you over until you get a Stag-helm.

Seems in general you know what you need.

As to holding agro on large packs. I use 'v' to replace nameplates with health bars and try to target the mob with the highest health and swipe. After maybe 3-4 swipes (depending on the size of the pack) and you've hit everything once or twice then you can pick a target and have your DPS kill it.

Edit: Oh, and in response to pulling with a heal: a heal generates one half point of threat per damage healed (if you consider 1 damage = 1 threat, untalented). Overheal does not generate threat. So if you happen to be 1000 health less than full and you pull and then top yourself off, you've given yourself 500 threat. One thing that is useful about this is it will spread evenly among all mobs that you pull. If you are pulling a big pack, this technique will get you a bit of threat on each mob. Another way to do it (more useful in a raid setting) is to have your hunter pull for you but apply the same technique. Have the hunter remove and reequip their weapon right before the pull and toss a regrowth on them after they pull. Once the mobs have transfered to you, the Hunter FD's and you've got the pack on you.

• Vykromond · 06/15/07, 11:56 AM

Your gear looks good to me. For trinkets, I'd go for Argussian Compass from heroic Underbog- running that instance will help you get your Earthwarden and you get a shot at some very nice tanking boots as well for when you can afford to phase out the Clefthooves. Also, get a Stylin' Purple Hat as recommended by the previous poster.

Pulling a multi-mob pack: if you're seeing yanks of that nature, don't Mangle the mob you FFF'd. FFF one mob, autoattack it as it comes into range, then Mangle the other mob (if you're pulling 2) or immediately Swipe (if 3). When tanking 4 or more, I just demo shout, tab, swipe, tab, swipe, shift back to main target, mangle maul, then swipe again as necessary. Obviously with 3+ mobs on you you'll never be rage starved so it's 2 packs that will cause the most trouble. Speaking of heroic Underbog, the 2 Bog Lord pull before Hungarfen is an excellent place to practice multi-mob tanking.

Dealing with CC: as long as you have initial aggro on the mobs, just move 5-10 yards away from the CCed stuff so it's not in danger of getting Swiped out of CC. A "yank" can actually help you here since you can always catch up to fleeing mobs with Feral Charge.

Gamei · 06/15/07, 2:59 PM

So I know my gear is pretty decent. I have a good idea of where I'm going for upgrades, as well.

I do however have a question to other somewhat high end ferals: what, if anything, do you do for +hit? I'm a well equipped tank regarding almost every stat except +hit, and I just don't know what to do about it. I could adjust my gems, but that seems like a bad tradeoff - losing hundreds of hp/some agi for 2% hit doesn't seem worthwhile, but I'm open to counter arguments.

I have dps gear, but as of this post my armory is showing my tank gear. I'll try to remember to keep it like that. Hope Blizzard implements some way to designate alternate gear sets, or someone picks up where ctprofiles left off.

If it helps:

I generally off tank for my guild whenever necessary. We're working on Kael right now. I still try to get a kara run in once a week(prince helm where are you,) and I haven't seen Mag drop the war/pri/dru token in weeks. I try to be sure I can dps somewhat effectively after my OT role is finished, when applicable, and as such I love the tier gear for its dual role.

Oh, I haven't been able to get Badge of Tenacity to drop for me. Once I get that, I'll probably change my other armor trinket to a sta(furies deck!) or defense trinket, dependent upon if I need the def for 415 or not at that point.

Tasonir · 06/15/07, 3:07 PM

Speaking of badge prices, how much do badges (depleted, or the final badge of tenacity) go for on most servers?

I was very lucky and managed to get my badge off a 35 shard summoned boss (one of the demons). There were two druids in the group, but they didn't want us to roll need, so everyone did a greed roll. The mage won it, and -immediately- sent him a whispered offer for 300g. Being a mage and seeing the item is a blue, he took the offer right away. After I already had it, I asked if he'd have taken 50g, he said yes. Mentioning that I had the badge in general chat got me an immediate offer of 800g.

If I had seriously considered selling it, I imagine I could have gotten around 2000g? Maybe 3000g? In the end, I decided to equip it. I am wondering if I should try my luck on getting a second one, for the resale value. I got it about a week after 2.1, when I am sure it was worth more. The price will go down as supply increases, but from people's complaints here, it doesn't seem like that's happening very quickly.

Kier · 06/15/07, 3:09 PM

@Gamei: From a pure tanking perspective I consider +hit "useless." Threat generation is a strength of ours and enhancing it (especially once you're already well geared) is unnecessary IMO. A benefit of +hit that has been mentioned already is when you first pull a mob. If you miss a bunch in a row then you might lose it at the start. If you don't have a hunter to misdirect I suppose that could be an issue. I have personally had that happen to me once on Maulgar but never since and I MT/OT every night.

You make a valid point as far as the transition from tank -> DPS during a fight. To maximize your effectiveness as a DPS you probably want to enhance your hit. If you can do it without hurting your tanking too much then that might be a good investment. I prefer the role of MT so I have specialized myself for that role. If you're more of an OT then you can probably make the tradeoff without too much worry.

And I totally feel for you on the Badge. Fuck that stupid thing!

Kier · 06/15/07, 3:12 PM

Originally Posted by Tasonir

Speaking of badge prices, how much do badges (depleted, or the final badge of tenacity) go for on most servers?

I don't think "farming" the badge is an efficient means of making money. Kind of like buying a lotto ticket each week trying to make a million bucks. The fact that they sell in excess of 2k on a lot of realms is testament to the rarity.

For reference, I don't think anybody on Horde side even has one yet on my server. I've heard people say there's at least one on Alliance side but the gang that gets together every night to farm the plateaus has been the same since the patch hit. None of the guys I've made friends with have one yet.

Runnybabbit · 06/15/07, 3:24 PM

Originally Posted by Gamei

I do however have a question to other somewhat high end ferals: what, if anything, do you do for +hit? I'm a well equipped tank regarding almost every stat except +hit, and I just don't know what to do about it. I could adjust my gems, but that seems like a bad tradeoff - losing hundreds of hp/some agi for 2% hit doesn't seem worthwhile, but I'm open to counter arguments.

I can't access your armory profile from work, but if you're still using any Clefthoof pieces consider filling the yellow sockets with +4hit/+4agi or +8hit gems. I use the former in all my yellow Clefthoof sockets at the moment. I was actually joking with my guild's prot warrior MT the other day that I'm going to resort to stacking +spellhit gems in my tanking gear so I stop getting so many resists of Faerie Fire on pulls.

Kier · 06/15/07, 3:29 PM

In theory spellhit should result in fewer resisted taunts as well

Alandriel · 06/15/07, 3:41 PM

Originally Posted by Tasonir

If I had seriously considered selling it, I imagine I could have gotten around 2000g? Maybe 3000g? In the end, I decided to equip it. I am wondering if I should try my luck on getting a second one, for the resale value. I got it about a week after 2.1, when I am sure it was worth more. The price will go down as supply increases, but from people's complaints here, it doesn't seem like that's happening very quickly.

I bought mine from Ricefarmer (a Warlock on our server), for 2800g, around that time. I made that back already from daily quests, etc, plus the random greens and cloth from the week I spent farming for it.

I haven't seen a second one for sale since then. Riyaa (another druid on BH) had an open offer of 2500g when 2.1 hit, and went up to 3k.