Feral Druid Preraid Tank Gear Guide - Page 8

Merple · 01/24/08, 2:56 PM

At the very worst, you'll generally be running with some variation of [Violet Signet of the Great Protector], as well as either the [Ring of Unyielding Force] or, at best, [A'dal's Signet of Defense].

At worst, you're probably getting ~35 def from rings, which reduces the reliance on either stat for your primary set pieces.

Reaching the cap is a breeze for druids as compared to other tanks.

Arlak · 01/28/08, 12:35 AM

You might add [Umberhowl's Collar] (quest reward from The Cipher of Damnation - The Third Fragment Recovered in Shadowmoon Valley) to the pre-heroic list for the Wrist slot.

Lorretine · 02/07/08, 6:52 AM

Alright, after just getting to level 70 last sunday I started getting my pre heroic/raid gear together. As you can see I followed the guide, and I am only up to 405 defense (mostly because of the trinkets). I am not uncrittable yet, I have all the quest rewards that were advised too (the cloak I am not wearing because I thought I needed the defense rating on this one more)

The World of Warcraft Armory

Also I only have 13k health points if I go into bear form, which does not seem like a lot to me and I have trouble doing normal instances if I do not have a good healer. And of course I am certainly not ready to tank heroics just yet, how am I supposed to get badges if I cannot do karazhan or heroic instances? The tanking itself seems to go fine, getting around 600 constant tps, which seems like a lot to me at my gear level.

Any suggestions on how I can improve my survivability fast?

Thanks in advance.

Farstrider · 02/07/08, 7:24 AM

OK Lorretine here's a few thoughts - a few cheap stam enchants would help e.g. boots and bracers - as would pure stam gems in your clefthoof boots. Personally I wouldn't go for dodge so early - so replace your dodge ring with the [Iron Band of the Unbreakable] from normal Hillsbrad. That should also allow you to switch out that cloak for the higher stam one, and by putting a +12 agi enchant on it you will regain most of your dodge, particularly if you get a +agi enchant (whatever you can afford) on your staff, and when you get some better gloves ([Verdant Gloves]) put +15 agi on them.

Trinkets are another good place to get defense, and/or stamina - if you can get say [Adamantine Figurine] and perhaps [Timelapse Shard] if you can stomach the CoT rep grind, that will give you much greater gear flexibility. Otherwise I would say you can definitely off tank Kara with 3 healers with that gear.

[e] I see you are a Jewelcrafter - is there a reason that you have not gone for [Figurine - Dawnstone Crab] and/or [Figurine - Living Ruby Serpent] -on the last one it's obviously not an ideal tank item, but it does have the benefit of giving you 33 extra stamina which should be close to 500hp in bear.

dakalro · 02/07/08, 7:35 AM

13k hp in bear unbuffed is nice, you don't get much above 15k anyway with full heroic/t4 gears.
Use trinkets/neck (Adamantine, CE neck), Clefthoof sta gemmed, CE mace to get uncrittable, buy badge of tenacity. At first get all the feral tanking quest rewards then go for the heroic drops (bracers/boots/belt/legs) or just go Kara OTing and buy the badge ones (S3 feral bracers are better imo though, and cheap). If you get an arena team, might want s3 legs over heroic drop ones but if it's too much the heroic drop leggings are great.

Lorretine · 02/07/08, 7:58 AM

Reasons are the long and dull reputation grind with honor hold and CE. And thanks for the advise

.

Edit: how will I know when I am ready to tank heroics? Right after I reach uncrittable or is there some soft or armor or avoidance limit I should have? I ran into heroic ramparts the other day to see for how much the mobs were hitting me, about 900/1000 each blow. No druids in my guild could give me insight on this.

Ulfgar · 02/08/08, 6:42 AM

You really need to find some armour on your staff. [Braxxis' Staff of Slumber] is far superior to what you're using at the moment, and will add a massive amount of mitigation at your gear level.

If you can find a few people to drag you through UBRS to Rend, [Mark of Tyranny] is still phenomenal.

In general you need to find more bonus armour on weapons/trinkets/rings. Your HP is fine but your armour is not. It's been a long time but I seem to recall being about 13k HP unbuffed/24k armour when I started doing heroics. You will be well below that given your current gear.

PVP for resilience gear to get non-crittable.

Kalaghan · 02/08/08, 3:11 PM

Originally Posted by Ulfgar

1. 156 defence rating to get uncrittable.

2. 103 resilience rating to get uncrittable with the spare stats in the item budget (i.e. difference between resilience rating and defence rating) being used for agility.

The 'spare' item budget in option 2 will allow you to get 93 agility, which is worth far more in avoidance terms than 156 defence rating, to say nothing of the fact that it's a far superior hybrid stat.

Where is the 93 agility coming from? I was under the impression 1 agility = 1 defense = 1 resilience from an itemization standpoint (and gem ilevels seem to reinforce this).

Edit: This of course would mean that it's 53 agility (if I'm right, not saying I am), and math will show that the to be missed plus the dodge from the defense gives you more avoidance than 53 agility would.

Dodge from Agility = 53/14.7 = 3.61%

Defense Skill from 156 defense rating = 156 / 2.36 = 66.10
Dodge from 156 DR = 66.10x0.04 = 2.64%
To Be Missed from 156 DR = 66.10x0.04 = 2.64%
I forget exactly how the roll system for NPC attacks works, but I believe the "To Be Missed" portion is substantial enough at 2.64% to easily make up for the 0.97% difference in dodge.

Hence, it appears to me defense as a stand alone provides more avoidance than the resilience + agility combination. However, if you wanted to stack stam instead of avoidance resilience would be the way to go since it will get you uncrittable for fewer ipoints (and in all probability also come with a lot of stam).

Fringe_Worthy · 02/08/08, 6:37 PM

Originally Posted by Kalaghan

Where is the 93 agility coming from? I was under the impression 1 agility = 1 defense = 1 resilience from an itemization standpoint (and gem ilevels seem to reinforce this).

Edit: This of course would mean that it's 53 agility (if I'm right, not saying I am), and math will show that the to be missed plus the dodge from the defense gives you more avoidance than 53 agility would.

I think you're using the wrong pricing formula for stats. Only single stat items have their stat linear with the item's ilevel. (Gems are different/funny. I think they are linear )

What I was told is that the formula is something like ilvl = (sum[ for all stats i on item, (mod_i *stat_i ) ^3/2 ])^(2/3)

If you have one stat on an item, it simplifies to ilvl = (mod_1 * stat_1)^(3/2)^(2/3) = mod_1 * stat_1.

So for a single stat, the stat is proportional to the item level, subject to the cost multiplier. (Ie, healing's mod < AP's mod < Str's mod < old world +1% crit)

Now, if you have 2 stats:

( (mod_res *stat_res ) ^(3/2) + (mod_agi*stat_agi)^(3/2) )^2/3

Lets pretend the mod_def = mod_res = mod_agi = 1 to make life easy. (This is not right, but it doesn't mess up the stats)

Item with 8 def: 8 agi -> ilvel = 8

Item with 4 agi and 4 resi, ilvl = ( 4^(3/2) + 4^(3/2) ) ^ (2/3) = (8+8)^(2/3) = 16^(2/3) = 6.35

(Actually, if we go 3 stats, ilvl = ( 3* (4^(3/2)) )^(2/3) = 8.3. So 8 def ~= 4 agi, 4 resi, 4 sta, using these costs)

As you can see, you get more bang for the buck the more stats you spread around an item.

So you could wear Head = 8 sta, Shoulder = 8 resi, belt = 8 agi, or head=shoulder=belt=(4 resi,4 agi,4 sta). (8,8,8) vs (12,12,12).

Of course, this does mean the ultimate item set for cat druids would be having every piece of your gear with str,ap,agi, crit,hit,haste,expertise(assuming you hit the rounding right)and gem sockets (They are priced funny) since the earlier points of each stat cost less then the later points. Wearing 8-10 items specced like that would give you the biggest heap of stats. (Subject to certain breakpoints. For example, if your total hit > 9%, you'd better off off buying more expensive agi in exchange for less expensive, but useless hit, oh, and Kings/No kings can change the exact final proportion between Str and AP)

So that's why def <> agi + res when summing stats. (Unless you're doing head = def/2, shoulder = def/2 vs head = agi, shoulder = res)

(I'm also skipping the slot modifier. ie, bracers give less bang for the buck then chest. I think it would be more like slot_mod * ilvl = sum(....)(2/3) => ilvl = (sum(...)^(2/3) )/slot_mod. )

Oh, and ( 103^(3/2) + 93^(3/2) )^(2/3) ~= 156. Do note, this is wrong,since we're not actually wearing a single item with either 156 def, or 103 resi/93 agi. But still.... Close enough.

Ulfgar · 02/10/08, 7:12 PM

Exactly.

As I said before

This all assumes a single theoretical item which is also not the case in reality but the relative weightings hold true at smaller stat values.

So for example 10 Res + 9 AGI ~= 15 Def.

In practice it all depends on what you're actually wearing and your upgrade options but the general message is that resilience + agility is decently superior to defence in terms of the item budget, and you should bear that in mind in terms of your gearing decisions.

Kalaghan · 02/13/08, 3:15 PM

Originally Posted by Ulfgar

Exactly.

As I said before

So for example 10 Res + 9 AGI ~= 15 Def.

In practice it all depends on what you're actually wearing and your upgrade options but the general message is that resilience + agility is decently superior to defence in terms of the item budget, and you should bear that in mind in terms of your gearing decisions.

So I gather then that if you were comparing an item with Defense + Agility + Stam to a Resilience + Agility + Stam item, the defense one would be better. Though obviously you would need more such pieces to reach uncrittable status, however the remaining pieces would likely just have stam+agil. It seems like it's as much about item design as it is stat superiority when put into those terms (as you noted - my fault for not catching the importance of this). Of course, I took a cursory look over the gear and realized you're probably right, there aren't a whole lot of +defense items out there appropriate for druid tanking that also have agility on them (whereas resilience generally has it), in which case the rule of thumb probably should be to go for the resilience items. Thanks for clarifying! I guess it generally will always bear a closer look, but I'll certainly make a point of evaluating the value of multiple stats on gear a higher priority.

Jheusse · 02/15/08, 12:01 PM

I'm not certain I'm elite enough for elitist jerks, but I have tried to do my homework and research, I'm just hitting a wall juggling variables.

I'm very limited in the time (1 raid night tops) I can put into the game (children), so I have to plan upgrades very carefully because I generate badges, honor, arena points, gold slowly.

I cat or OT when raiding in our alliance, then I'll OT/MT for guild runs, bringing back what I learn, and solo in cat. Late Kara/mid Gruul/ early ZA in terms of progression.

Read the megathread (excerpted 12 pages, Valerian at #259 and wuffles at #1319 may be my idols), Emmerald and Toskk a ton for the last week.

Armory
Cat :
7774hp, 3009 AP, 130 hit, 32.83 crit, 5 expertise
T4 helm (poorly gemmed and enchanted) and gloves, Mithril Chain, Bladed shoulderpads (2 cheap +6 str gems), Capacitus cloak (+12 agi), Conniver chest (6 stats), Spymistress Wrists (24 ap, +8 str), raven lord belt (8 agi, 4agi/6sta), Shattrath Leggings (cobrahide), Edgewalker (poorly gemmed, boar speed), Overseer and Kaylaan's signet, Core of Ar'kelos and crystalforged, terestrian's (35 agi), Idol of terror

Bear (self buffed):
14514 health, 28526 armor, 420 def, 27.49 dodge, 0 resil, 1519 AP, 34 Hit, 24.24 crit, 6 expertise
Fast summary is full clefthoof (all 12 sta, 6 stats, clefthide, boar's speed), T4 helm/gloves, necklace of deep, VE exalted and shermanar rings, EW (35 agi), badge of tenacity, commander's badge, gilded thorium (12 agi), Manimal's, umberhowl, sun-gilded shoulders (last 3 very weak), Idol of terror.

Recently have gotten Grips of Deftness, T4 legs, Bracers of Maliciousness, Girdle of Treachery and most mats for a guildie to make me shadowprowler's. Only enchants is Brawn on bracers.

This is my tentative plan, how's it look?

Snag Gruul runs as I'm able to chase T4 shoulders (which way to enchant, since they'll do double duty?)

Stick it out in BGs and get the dragonhide bracer (double duty too, which gem and enchant?)

Belt upgrades Tree-Menders hasn't dropped, do I BG grind or make the badge belt my next buy?

Badge priority? Everbloom? Belt? Wrist? Pants?

2t4 is cat king for my stage of gear, is 4t4 worth it as well? And is 2t4 and/or 4t4 worth aiming for in bear?

For Arena points I had thought S2 shoulders since mine are so bad, now leaning to S3 head or chest if I can get T4 shoulders. I started arena very late and often can't get my games in for a week. Also need a lot of practice.

T4 legs dps only? Or chase skulker's and bypass T4? Maybe T4 legs with Grips of Deftness, maintaining 2t4 (helm)

Re-gem most any tank gear that could double duty for agi or agi/stam?

Rings-Garona's and a faction ring to upgrade cat.

How should I lay out my T4 gear to work best with cat and bear (especially since I OT a lot), and getting a meta gem activated in both sets is a pain (hence the crap meta I have right now, I have an uncut earthstorm vaulted).

I tried to wrestle this all with research, but I'd like a little input from the pros, because my online time is so bloody cramped. And I tried to edit for length as best I could. How am I doing?

Marru · 03/18/08, 8:36 PM

I really like your list but I have one piece of gear I think you should add as an alternate for gloves to both pre-heroic and pre-raid, Verdant Gloves from a shadowmoon valley chain quest, very easy to acquire and a usable alternative for tanking.

Jamu · 05/15/08, 5:42 AM

A few additional items to consider for the pre-heroic list:

Dragonhide Helm (Blue PvP set, Lower City honored)
Dragonhide Shoulders (Blue PvP set, Sha'tar honored)
Dragonhide Gloves (Blue PvP set, Keepers of Time honored)
Bogstrok Scale Cloak (Slave Pens, regular)
Mok'Nathal Clan Ring (Ramparts, regular)

The new blue PvP Dragonhide head and shoulders are spectacular for a new 70 bear tank. They both have significantly more armor than regular gear, decent amounts of stam, and can be gemmed up nicely with additional stam. In addition, being a PvP set, you have a 2 piece set bonus of +35 resilience. These two pieces are easily obtainable at level 70, and are rock solid until you can upgrade to Glad gear or other pieces. The best part is due to the 2 piece set bonus and the resilience, it makes it much easier to be crit immune.

In fact, with 3/3 Heavy Clefthoof and the blue Dragonhide PvP head and shoulders, you can be crit immune provided you gem appropriately (easily done with either Enduring Talasites or Enduring Deep Periodot). So if you get to 70 and don't have tank rings (or just respec'd feral), here's 5 pieces of gear to get crit immune immediately.

If Sha'tar rep is a problem, Keepers of Time have the blue PvP feral gloves, which may be a bit easier to get immediately at 70 for the 2pc bonus as you probably ran CoT1 at least a few times to get the tanking ring (Iron Band of the Unbreakable). And remember - the CoT1 ring is not unique, so you can have 2 of them equiped!

I saw that mentioned somewhere, and was yelling for about an hour as I'd been running Ramparts for the Mok'nathal Clan Ring - another spectacular pre-heroic ring that's not on the list with 180 armor(!!!), 16 stam, and 13 resilience.

Bogstrok Scale Cloak is another spectacular lowbie instance find. Available from regular Slave Pens, this thing has 271 armor, 22 stam, and 16 defense rating. If the cloak from Mech won't drop, this is a decent one to start out with and, like the ring from Ramparts, is easily gotten before you even hit 70.

Gem wise, I highly recommend Enduring Deep Periodots for new bear tanks. These gems are cheap junkers (+3 def +4 stam) that you can use in your clefthoof set or other gear to get crit immune and not feel bad about replacing when you get better gear and no longer need to gem for defense.

My bear has been 70 for a grand total of 2 days, and has 14k health and 24k armor. Everything he uses is on the pre-heroic list, except for the blue Violet Eye rep ring (I snuck into a guild Kara run 30 minutes after hitting 70), the blue PvP Dragonhide shoulders/head mentioned above, and the Bogstrok Scale Cloak from Slave Pens. No problems tanking trash in Kara (and Moroes!), or Heroic Underbog and Heroic Ramparts with this gear set.

Mythirdnut · 05/20/08, 7:35 AM

Here's a pre-heroic setup I made on Rawr which you might want to put into your initial thread.

Stealther's Helmet of Second Sight - after gorfiend qs in SMV (2 group qs but one is possible solo'd)
Necklace of the Deep - for stacking stamina, relatively cheap mats and if you know a JC in guild then it's a free craft
Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders - i found that these should be the only honor grind as they are marginally better than Shoulderpads of Assassination, also you are not relying on them dropping (also pointing the finger of 'please drop' at Mantle of Shadowy Embrace)
Cloak of the Valiant Defender - seen this in one of the earlier replies which is easier to rely on getting before Thoriumweave Cloak as mentioned
Heavy Clefthoof Vest - i've found this to be an amazing bit of kit, although the mats are very expensive if you did the same as me and didn't become a LW, stacking stamina gems will help to reach a reasonable hp pool before entering heroics
Umberhowl's Collar - quest reward in SMV as mentioned in previous replies, honestly can't remember how the quest went, if it was a group q then i either attempted it on my own or had 1 other healer to help out. but i have it now.
Verdant Gloves - these were my initial thought, but the amount of effort that needs to be done can be more time consuming than leeching AV for the Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves, so this was a toughie to decide over, but my choice which i'm still after is Verdant Gloves
Manimal's Cinch - definately worth getting to greatly boost your armor. nice easy q in SMV aswell
Heavy Clefthoof Leggings - another expensive but valuable item, especially if you're a LW again amazing for stacking stamina gems
Heavy Clefthoof Boots - why not complete the set, i've commonly seen these ungemmed and unenchanted on the AH for around 30 - 60g, pretty cheap tbh. i've not taken the time to look for better ones as these should be tough to beat
Braxxis Staff of Slumber - really cheap on the AH, seen a few for about 20 - 50g and is possibly one of the best until you get Earthwarden, as mentioned in previous replies

i'm not too sure about rings but the 2 that stood out which can drop and make that little bit of difference are

Mok'Nathal Clan Ring - if you spent time grinding rep in Ramparts as soon as you hit Outlands you could pick this up and has a nice little bonus to your armor and has a little resilience
Iron Band of the Unbreakable - drops off Lieutenant Drake in Old Hillsbrad, this still hasn't dropped for me but definately worth grabbing for the little armor bonus again, also has some stamina and some defense

again i'm not sure about trinkets really and can only really name one (which is what i have), engineer's always have the better profession sometimes...

Runed Fungalcap - this is what i went for as i was busy building up my crit-immunity from early days, also this is a nice bonus if you go into bg's to grind for the gloves and shoulders

maybe Charm of Alacrity is an option, it's a quest reward and with all of the gear above, you will be crit-immune so no point stacking more resilience or defense

All of this gear will net you these approximate stats...

~13k HP
~23k Armor
~15% Dodge
crit-immune

this is unbuffed, without enchants and has 15 slots with +12 stamina gems. of course you can swap out some of the gems for agility gems to get your dodge up as 15% dodge is dangerously low.

agility enchants are your friend and help you stack more dodge also.

hope this helps people out.