There are no fractions once you hit the conversion to defense skill.

In other words, your 13 defense = 5 Defense skill, not 5.499

So its only .4 avoidance, which is fairly trivial at this point but once you start dealing with the numbers in larger amounts, and you are only going to be able to use the 4agi/5def gem once.

I know I can use it once. That was why I pointed out I would never need to use more than one. If I needed 2, then that would be 8 agil and 8 defense I needed (note the 5th point of defense is wasted from a crit reduction perspective). I could get that from an 8 agil gem and an 8 defense gem.

As for the defense conversion, I was under the impression that the rounding was done on your total gearset (if that's wrong ignore the rest of this)? That would make fractions relevant when considering single item pieces because there are enough sources of defense rating in a gearset that you can't presume to know whether that additional .499 will or won't cause a difference of 1 defense skill (technically, it would be a 49.9% probability that it increases your defense skill by 1, but this averages to 0.499 defense skill so for theorycrafting purposes it would be the same thing).

I was talking about gems/gear of the same iLevel. Of course the epic gems will typically give you better results than their lower iLevel counterparts. You're also ignoring the facts that agi scales with Kings and that it adds to your TPS via AP and crit and that resilience reduces damage from DoTs. Anyhow, I suppose it is a tougher call than I made it sound like, but I will never gem defense on my gear. Considering how good our PVP gear is and the 15 res to chest and 12 def to wrists enchants, arguing which gems you'd pick to get uncrittable is just for fun anyway.

On the other hand, if he wasn't already on an exact defense skillpoint beforehand, it could be worth 6 defense skill.

Again, you really should be using items with defense rating or resilience as the majority of your crit immunity strategy, with gems playing a very small part. If you'd need more than 2 or 3 gemmed defense or resilience slots, you're probably doing something wrong.

Note that you can wear 2-pc S3 gear and Vindicator bracers and not worry about crit immunity, at all.

60 defence rating
40 resillience (resillience=resillience rating for all intents and purposes)

Both give 1% crit reduction.

By taking the defence route you gain 1% of dodge and 1% less chance to be hit.
By taking the resillience route you gain 2% less damage from crits and 1% less damage from dots (can be useful), and leaves in effect 20+ itemisation points (I say '+' because the itemisation formula doesn't work on exact trades, it depends on the number of stats on the item, but it would be 20 itemisation points for gems). By gaining 20 agility from these 'points' you gain ~1.5% dodge and ~0.9% crit.

Which is better? I think that's personal preference really. The tradeoff in this case is 0.5% avoidance (which can be a significant amount of damage reduction dependant on base avoidance) against 0.9% crit, 1% less dot damage and 2% less damage from crits (which should be a non-issue). Reduction in incoming damage = defence is probably better, while for general tanking/offtanking the resillience/agi split would be better.

All of this is pretty worthless imo as items don't come like this, and the amount of crit immunity you should be needing from gems should be none if you use a decent setup. If you do seem to be missing some crit immunity, using either 8 defence, 4resil/6stam, or 8 resil depending on exactly how much of a gap you have left and what your preference is seems like the sensible thing to do, right? For pure main-tanking setups, I'd favour stam over avoidance in any case (again personal preference), and for offtanking setups resil/agi is a much better setup because defence is worth nothing when you aren't tanking (at least stam is worth something when you aren't tanking).

@BOHIC: Agi gives no AP in bear form and using 15 resillience on chest is a waste if you can even possibly make it up somewhere else (the only reason I'd ever use it is resistance gear).

Does anyone know if there is a similar list to this for Sustained DPS that is up to date for 2.3 ?

Emmerald has completed the update of his Lists for a quick overview. Toskk is actually giving you also guidance on what your DPS should look like.

Emmeralds new lists:
WoW Feral Druid Gear Lists

It's nice to see the discussion being handled so well.


Allev is correct. This is relevant if you do not have more than 3x Tiers. However, progressing with pure PvE gear you should have the mentioned preraid gear which carries the scarce Defense Rating we are supposed to use. PreRaid gear is not overrated, it's a vital part of your gear progression.
Edit: If you are having trouble being crit-immune then the PvP bracers are a fine choice for the time being - as they are almost as good as [Band of the Swift Paw] for Tanking.

Then again, you will find some PvP gear superior to the PvE gear in your reach. However superior, PvP gear only offers avoidance through agility. Be considerate when selecting PvP gear for Tanking purposes.

The Emmerald list is a gear summary placed in a table. That is in no way guiding. That is why I made this thread.



Edit: As for offtanking - Resilience is great for fights like Solarian, where Feral Druids should be using DPS gear and still be crit immune. I can't imagine a better example right now.

Edenfall, please stop saying things like "defense rating we are supposed to use". It's personal preference. Personally for me the mix of resilience/defence/agility depends on a lot of things including what fight, but I personally prefer PvP bracers to the ones from badges that you link because you can stack a lot of resil/stam in one item and this allows me to use a pure stam/dodge ring rather than an armour/defense ring. It's just a individual decision that people can make based on their preference.

Echoing what Boevis said, I'm not sure why this is a seperate thread rather than a nicely tailored section of Dukes' megathread - it's useful but it doesn't really need its own thread.

Yeah, forgot Agi doesn't do AP in bear. 15 resilience on chest is less of a waste than gemming resilience. We've both already stated that bears shouldn't have to enchant or gem for uncrittable, but if you have to, the chest enchant gets you there faster and with less sacrifice than gems.

Your tier pieces also only offer avoidance through agility. This does not stop them from also being an upgrade over all pre-raid gear.

Most of my tanking gems say +12 Stamina on them. Giving up 24 stamina to gem 16 defense is not (by a long shot) better than giving up +6 stats to enchant 15 resilience. Are all of your tanking gems 8 agility? Even if you're married to avoidance, you're talking about losing 16 agi via gems vs. 6 agi via chest. I suppose some subjectivity comes into play if you have MH/BT gems at your disposal, but that's not what this thread is about and it's already been written multiple times that people at those gear levels won't need to gem or enchant to hit the -crit cap.

This topic is entirely subjective and down to preference, so I don't really see the point in arguing it further. Gearing for tanking is character preference once you get past a certain point, and a lot of that is dependant on the people you play with even more than actual personal preference.

edit2: Actually, removing this post as it's just fuelling a fairly non productive argument.

"defense rating we are supposed to use"
That sounds kinda harsh, but it's the vile truth that avoidance is important for tanking.
If you can reach crit immunity with Defense rating on your current gear, that is preferred.
If you need resilience to compensate crit immunity with a new gear upgrade, that is preferred.

This thread is not a section of Dukes' Feral Megathread because neither of us has suggested it.

First, Edenfall, thanks for the preraid tank gear guide. As a member of a casual guild (in Karazhan) it's very handy to know what you can do on your own to make the most out of being a tanking druid.

I'm currently Hybrid (0/30/31) specced with a focus on healing, but occasionally I tank or offtank (not tanking in Kara, I'd be gimping the raid) So I've spend my points in Heart of the Wild and not Survival of the fittest. I know that I would have to crunch my way to 490 if I'd wanted to be 'uncrittable'. But I used 'the code" and checked anyway.

In my best Bear outfit I currently have 430 defence and 31 resillience (about 20346 armor and 12.4 k health, 31% dodge) when I ran the code it returns -1.7etcetc.

Does this code only measure up correctly if you already have the points in Survival of the fittest?

You seem to be missing the point that for druids defence does not provide a huge amount of avoiudance over what is possible by using resilience and gemming for avoidance.
You have T6 running druids trying to tell you that while defence is good, is is not the be all and end all of reaching crit immunity.

And as for your comments on PvP gear. Currently some of the PvP gear is the best available (Including T6 items) for the slot so please dont encourage people not to attain them. A t4 running druid can find no better item than S3 chest and helm until well along into the game and provides the much needed survival factor.

You must realise that a balance of avoidance and survivability must be attained.
And taking a position of influence and creating a thread such as this you must be willing to accept those with more knowledge when they advise you if you seek to infuence others in their choices.
Just my 2c

One thing I searched for in the thread, but didn't see, is the Emerald Beholder Eye of the Monkey. Granted, your chances at one aren't terribly high as it drops from a rare elite. However, I did manage to pick one up off the AH and have been quite pleased with it. You get less agility, but more stamina so it's a nice item if you want the extra health. I'm sure some will prefer the higher agility on the Purple Hat.

Sadly, I don't see it on Emmerald's 2.3 list, but it did rank higher than the Stylin' Purple Hat on the older list.

Hey,

Thank you very much for this pre raiding feral tanking list of gear.

I was browsing through the trinket list and I saw there was one missing. Runed Fungalcap - Items - World of Warcraft

It drops in normal Slave pens and has quite a lot of Resilience. Should this be in the trinket list?

That can be useful if you are lacking anticrit, but the majority of pre raiding druids will have the heavy clefthoof gear, and so the resilience on it would be wasted.

I was wondering why this trinket should be worse than the pvp trinket with only 20 resilience on it .

If you don't need the "Use: of the PvP trinket, I'd shy away from using both equally. Rings and trinkets should ideally be filled with gear that gives you armor since those are the slots that don't come with an armor value naturally. [Badge of Tenacity], [Mark of Tyranny] (or if you can't get a group for that, a stamina trinket such as [Darkmoon Card: Vengeance] works too) and 2 armor rings such as [Ring of Unyielding Force] and a blue ring with armor are aways better choices over resilience gear on these slots. Especially since you can get your lionshare of crit immunity with 2-3 S3 pieces and enchants but you will be hardpressed to get a high enough armor value before you start getting tier sets (though, Arena gear is pretty good, too).