Bear tank item comparisons - Page 84

Rannasha · 08/17/07, 5:02 PM

Originally Posted by meringue

When offtank/dps occur in the same fight, what do you guys think is more important: armor or uncrittability? Currently my theory is to wear DPS accessories and then either 5/5 T4 for high base armor plus set bonus (but crittable) or 2/5 Merciless Gladiator and be uncrittable with lower armor (around 23k). Would your answer change from fight to fight?

Depends on what you're OTing really. And on your HP/armor. If you have to OT something that hits for 2K while you're at 16K HP, there's not a real need to be uncrittable.

dukes · 08/17/07, 5:04 PM

Meringe: Being uncrittable is more important for fights where you're tanking for a short time (karathress if you're on first add, for example) as mana isn't really an issue but burst damage is. For fights where you can expect a few healers and burst doesn't matter so much but damage over time does, stack armour. Generally I'd stick to uncrittability though.

Dogy: That looks like a very nice setup, but I'd go for 12 agi or 6agi/runspeed on boots, and 4agi/6stam in chest instead of the 12 stam. I'd also stick to using the legs over T5 for the moment unless you have T4 gloves, as the set bonus (imo) outweighs the stats from one piece of T5. If you can get an earthwarden (and afford the enchant, otherwise it's not worth it), you might be better off using that for the tanking part of fights before swapping to the S2 Maul. If you have the razor-scale battlecloak, using that with necklace of the juggernaut is probably better than the gilded+deep too. Depends on if you can lose the 5def rating or not.

Kaber · 08/17/07, 5:05 PM

Originally Posted by dogy

I recently started to buy in to the theory of tanking trash in SSC with primarily DPS gear. Here is what I am currently thinking of switching to:

[Stag-Helm of Malorne] DPS enchant
[Necklace of the Deep] *2x 8-agi gems
[Mantle of Malorne] *2x 8-agi gems, DPS enchant
[Gilded Thorium Cloak] *12 agi- enchant
[Breastplate of Malorne] *12 sta, *8 agi, *4 agi/4hit, +6 stats
[Veteran's Leather Bracers] *8 agi gem, +4 stats
[Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation] *2x 8 agi gems, +sta (no one with +agi on server till the patch)
[Girdle of Treachery] *2x 8 agi gems
[Greaves of Malorne] *+30 sta, +10 agi (waiting on T5 for best enchant)
[Boots of Natural Grace] *Boar's Speed
[Violet Signet of the Great Protector]
[Ring of Unyielding Force]
[Hourglass of the Unraveller]
[Badge of Tenacity]
[Merciless Gladiator's Maul] *+35 Agi

As a guild we have not seen a [Belt of Natural Power] or a [Wildfury Greatstaff]. I know both of these would be upgrades.

My question is what else that's pre-vashj would be an upgrade. We are currently (5/6) SSC (1/4) TK. I am also an engineer so I have [Deathblow X11 Goggles].

The gear I use when I am taking Tidewalker/Leothress/Tidalvass are all up here.

Any suggestions for what would be a good trade for tanking gear or trash gear would be greatly appreciated.

Or you could tank in arena/PvP gear and have good DPS, armor, and be uncrittable.

It's something I was kicking around as an idea for my druid, though since he is no longer my main I am not going to be following through on it. I did get a bit of a start on it, and even though I went from 28k armor to 25k, my AP came up from 1200 (yes, pathetic I know) to around 1500 and I saw a remarkable increase in my TPS, rage generation, and crit rate with a very small increase in the amount of damage I was taking (IIRC it was just 1%, maybe 2% tops).

dogy · 08/17/07, 5:54 PM

I currently do have the T4 gloves, and I use them on fights where I want maximum armor (no shaman or priest healing me).
I currently have an Earthwarden and have been using it to tank trash but I though the S2 Maul might be better. I guess the easy solution is to use the Earthwarden to tank and then switch to S2 Maul to DPS.

I have a a razor-scale battle cloak. I currently do not have a Necklace of the Juggernaught but I do have [Barbed Choker of Discipline]. Do you think this combination would be better? I could flask up for trash easily enough to get 10 more defense.

dukes · 08/17/07, 6:00 PM

The reason I said the Juggernaut is because it has 19 agility on it, but I suppose the Choker would probably work about the same. Being short on defence is one thing, but using a flask over 35 agi/20 crit from a pot is a big difference, and you're probably better off using one of the pure-def items with the agi pot than you are using the flask with DPS items. If you really want to hit the crit cap easily with that gear set, get the PvP belt and then you can just use the DPS items for neck/cloak, or swap the Badge for Timelapse shard/def trinket if you want to do it that way. There's plenty of options.

Krag · 08/17/07, 8:05 PM

If you are short being uncrittable an [Elixir of Ironskin] is nice and cheap to make and goes well with an agility pot.

Astrylian · 08/18/07, 11:41 PM

Hey all. I just posted Beta 3 of Rawr, my program for bear theorycrafting, as first mentioned a couple pages back. Give it a try if you would, and leave some feedback.

WoW Forums -> >>> Rawr (Beta 3) Now Available (UPDATED)

Tasonir · 08/19/07, 3:14 AM

I played around with rawr 3 a bit today. Looks nice, only some minor issues. A feature that would be nice is to be able to remove a gem from a socket. I added a third gem to the necklace of the deep and the only way I could get rid of it was to delete the necklace and import it again. Also, the impossibly socketed item still showed up on the graph after being deleted from the items list. As a result, I'd really like a necklace of the deep with 3 sockets now.

One thing that interested me though was that it reports that the necklace of the deep, socketed with +4agility/+6stamina gems, is the best necklace in the game. It beats out the barbed choker and the juggernaut necklaces (although juggernaut is only behind by a hair: 3630 vs 3605*).

Do players agree with this? Should we all be wearing blue necklaces? And if so, are the 4/6 gems ideal for general use? One caveat would be to not lose uncritable status, of course, but let's say you can deal with the defense loss (such as having too many stupid arena pieces...grrr....)

*exact item values are based on your character and buffs...This is raid buffed with my gear, roughly T4 with some t5 equivalents.

Astrylian · 08/19/07, 3:30 AM

Originally Posted by Tasonir

I played around with rawr 3 a bit today. Looks nice, only some minor issues. A feature that would be nice is to be able to remove a gem from a socket. I added a third gem to the necklace of the deep and the only way I could get rid of it was to delete the necklace and import it again. Also, the impossibly socketed item still showed up on the graph after being deleted from the items list. As a result, I'd really like a necklace of the deep with 3 sockets now.

Ahh... Very good point. Heh. I'll add that for beta 3a.

EDIT: Regarding it showing back up after you deleted it... If you have something equipped and delete it, it'll add it back in. Unequip it first. If that's not what was happening, there must be some bug going on, please let me know. I guess I should put some sort of error dialog up when you delete an equipped item, or it should unequip it or something.

One thing that interested me though was that it reports that the necklace of the deep, socketed with +4agility/+6stamina gems, is the best necklace in the game. It beats out the barbed choker and the juggernaut necklaces (although juggernaut is only behind by a hair: 3630 vs 3605*).

Well, potentially... Yes. Crittable vs. Uncrittable doesn't really have a quantifiable 'value' to it; you just really want to be uncrittable. So the ratings just assume that you are. It's up to you to find the best set of gear, while maintaining uncrittability. So, if you're uncrittable without the def on the juggernaut or barbed choker... Then yes, Necklace of the Deep is better (with either delicates, or shiftings, depending on how much agi you already have).

Tasonir · 08/19/07, 2:59 PM

I'm wearing the barbed choker of discipline while playing around with the neck. When I reloaded the program today, the 3-gemmed neck showed up on the item list again, and the graph. After deleting it, it stops showing up on the item list. Also, which I didn't notice yesterday, it will not show up on the graph. But when you load the item editor again, it will recreate itself, and then regraph itself unless you delete it before leaving the item editor. Completely exiting the program and bringing it back up inserts the neck back into the item list also.

I am currently running with a lot of resilience I wish I didn't have, but even I don't think I'd have enough to go completely defenseless on my neck. I would, if I had a better cloak (still using thorium weave), but I can't replace my neck until I've replaced my cloak.

Also, while I don't think you should assign any weight to the other stats, it would be nice to see what the other stats the item has. +strength, +hit may not be mitigation stats, but they may break ties in some cases, or make the difference between 12 stamina vs 4/6 gems in the necklace.

Astrylian · 08/19/07, 3:51 PM

Originally Posted by Tasonir

I'm wearing the barbed choker of discipline while playing around with the neck. When I reloaded the program today, the 3-gemmed neck showed up on the item list again, and the graph. After deleting it, it stops showing up on the item list. Also, which I didn't notice yesterday, it will not show up on the graph. But when you load the item editor again, it will recreate itself, and then regraph itself unless you delete it before leaving the item editor. Completely exiting the program and bringing it back up inserts the neck back into the item list also.

Huh... Odd... Could you do me a favor and e-mail me your itemcache.xml? cnervig at hotmail dot com

Farstrider · 08/20/07, 6:11 AM

As far as tanking trash, what you have to remember is that you generally (always?) are only tankign 72s. We obviously have 3% of crit immunity already from SotF, so we can shirk a little on the crit immunity for tanking trash. Personally I'm a big fan of the school of thought that says, wear as much dps gear as possible, and swap in trinkets/rings/cloaks/necks if necessary. I'm almost always tanking using [Mithril Chain of Heroism] and a dps ring now, since I don't value armour much above 26k.

It depends on your dps really, but given how hard a lot of my guys dps, and how little head start they give you, I'd never want to run with less than about 1800 AP in bear form, these days.

dukes · 08/20/07, 7:20 AM

Originally Posted by Farstrider

As far as tanking trash, what you have to remember is that you generally (always?) are only tankign 72s. We obviously have 3% of crit immunity already from SotF, so we can shirk a little on the crit immunity for tanking trash. Personally I'm a big fan of the school of thought that says, wear as much dps gear as possible, and swap in trinkets/rings/cloaks/necks if necessary. I'm almost always tanking using [Mithril Chain of Heroism] and a dps ring now, since I don't value armour much above 26k.

It depends on your dps really, but given how hard a lot of my guys dps, and how little head start they give you, I'd never want to run with less than about 1800 AP in bear form, these days.

It also depends on what group you're in. I generally end up in the melee DPS group, even when tanking, and because we're too lazy to switch it on trash it means I can just use my tanking gear and not worry (unless the paladins are slacking on salv, but that's a given).

Rurik · 08/20/07, 7:42 AM

Originally Posted by Farstrider

As far as tanking trash, what you have to remember is that you generally (always?) are only tankign 72s. We obviously have 3% of crit immunity already from SotF, so we can shirk a little on the crit immunity for tanking trash. Personally I'm a big fan of the school of thought that says, wear as much dps gear as possible, and swap in trinkets/rings/cloaks/necks if necessary. I'm almost always tanking using [Mithril Chain of Heroism] and a dps ring now, since I don't value armour much above 26k.

It depends on your dps really, but given how hard a lot of my guys dps, and how little head start they give you, I'd never want to run with less than about 1800 AP in bear form, these days.

I never switch out the tanking neck from morogrim (unless I'm on pure DPS duty). The 18 hit rating makes it quite valuable for when I tank the first trash mob then go DPS.

Atleast the way I've seen it. Also some hit rating is very nice for the spike aggro needed when you tank the first mob. I perhaps value hit too high (looking at the values in the DPS thread), but especially when tanking mobs that need high threat (first trash mob, Leo, VR), I prefer stacking hit over anything else.

Edit: That came out wrong. I prefer stacking hit over any other 'offensive ability' is what I meant.

Farstrider · 08/20/07, 8:43 AM

Yeah I'd agree, but I've never killed Morogrim, so I don't have access to that neck sadly. Hit rating is nice for trash when the guys just don't really watch Omen. For tanking bosses, sod it, frankly, the dps can learn to watch the damn meters.