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 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).

Just use Toskks DPS Gear Methodology The Druid Wiki » ToskksDPSGearMethod
Or read through the Megathread http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t16902-f...egathread/p25/

No offense meant, but I'm not entirely certain why pre-raid tanking gear warrants a 2nd thread, I see at most 3 options for each slot, and Emmerald's list covers everything you have here already.

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.

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.

Well, no.

The equivalence is 1 Rating = 1 Stat = 0.667 Stamina

If we ignore Int and Spi from 6 Stats to chest, you get 6 + 6 + (6 * 0.667) = 16 Stats vs the 15 Rating for the Resilience enchant. For gems, it's a 1:1 trade.

There's too much preferential bias and dependency on exactly what equipment you have available for there to be an objective answer to this question anyway.

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.