Much like Falk, I have always geared for high threat. However, with the fights in Sunwell / changes in 2.4, I am also going to build a high stamina set (25k raid buffed is the same mark I am setting for myself). In fact, our raid leader was even thinking about having one of our warlocks switch to affliction to provide tanks with the imp stamina buff (we currently don't use imp stamina). And yes, the fights will blow up avoidance tanks. I haven't seen the new Felmyst, but in terms of the first two fights, I don't think healers will run out of mana healing the tanks (in other words, its the raid healing that really puts a strain on the healers).
I won't go into details, since EJ's policy about PTR raid discussion still applies, but basically on Kalecgos, there's a situation where you WILL take a ~10500 instant spike in one attack which also stuns you, guaranteeing you'll be hit for 1-2 more 4.5k melee attacks. (This is at capped armor).
Likewise on Brutallus, you can very well get hit for 5k + 2.5k + 5k + 2.5k in the space of under two seconds, very frequently. That's survivable (naturally :P) but if he does it right after a Stomp, which is guaranteed to land, deals ~5k and reduces your armor by half that shit can hurt... a LOT.
My gear on live was for maximum threat since we were looking at clearing BT/Hyjal as fast as possible each week. After the first night on PTR, I regemmed 15sta's over all the 5agi/5hit and 10agi's (and died a little inside), reenchanted helms, shoulders, pants for max mitigation tanking, and swapped a few pieces around to maximize the amount of armor/stam/dodge I could squeeze out of being just over crit immunity. The difference between 21.5k hp raid buffed and 25k raid buffed on both those fights was like night and day. It's like Blizzard balanced around the higher number consciously. (This is as they are most recently tuned on PTR, to be fair - things can change before they go live)
Both fights have all tanks sharing the MT role - and as a gearcheck they really push hard against the weak links in a raid's tank lineup.
I had the same experience on PTR, Kalecgos hits like a truck. Long story short, the boss hits hard, and the incoming damage on tank is insane. I am armor capped, and the hits came in around 4-5k physical damage on top of that I think I ate a 7.5k magical damage. You can pretty much take almost 12-13k spike damage in 2-3 seconds as you mentioned. My ideal setup for tank gear would be to aim for 24-25k health raid buffed because I don't think 20k health will cut it.
I don't want to break EJ's policy on the 2.4 stuff so I won't say any thing about the bosses. Only thing I can say is having high amount of dodge is great but it won't help you on the high amount of magical damage you will be taking, lucky warriors with their 10% less damage taken.
Don't forget the Imp Defensive Stance talent, which boosts their magic mitigation by another 6%. Druids really should get a talent for magic dmg reduction like that. Every other tank class has one.
Both Sathrovarr and Brutallus are capable of 2-seconding any tank, Warrior or Druid alike. Right now I'm getting a 2nd feral set from BT/Hyjal and gem for pure stamina for fights such as this. Brutallus is just stupid in his version 3 form in terms of physical damage. As a Dual Wielding mob, he hits me for 8k/4k on full armor mitigation, WITHOUT the Dual Wielding miss penalty. That combined with stomp damage can 2 round any tank.
In short, gemming for agility and stamina is really the way to go for me. I don't recommend stacking 10 agility unless you use the same piece to do DPS, and you don't have access to the same item for a period of time. In terms of overall mitigation, gemming pure stamina really gimps the druid's overall ability as a tank (more overall damage taken, less threat, in favor for spike damage buffer) in my opinion.
I have a little different experience on Kalecgos. I tanked with roughly 21k HP and had no problems surviving the spikes. The warriors were the ones who died every try, because they get approximately 1.5x the damage we get from normal hits.
I built a set of tanking gear which allows me to get completly hit-immun when i activate my trinkets and this every 2 minutes (agi-totem or hunter sting is enough to reach this). I think this is the way to go, because you get much less damage and the healers can concentrate on healing the raid damage which i found to be enormous on kalecgos. And if i get a spike i activate the trinkets. When you have only 50% armor the only way to mitigate damage is dodge.
T6 belt now got changed back to 23 hit rating. Sorry if it's already mentioned.
What would be the best idea to socket the new red T6 sockets for tanking those bosses then? All 5agi/7sta?
I'm currently using my T6 gloves with a 5agi/7Stamina for my Meta gem requirements and the Nyn'jah Tabi boots for the second one..
Ideally my perfect gear set will end up using all 10 Agi except for the 2 5agi/5hit for the meta socket requirements so, since the Belt and the boots Tier 6 will be used for both Tanking and DPS set, i'll be using those 2 pieces to keep my 2 blue gems and offer those two pieces maximum versatility between DPS/tanking.
Most people will bitch about the belt getting back the hit rating, some won't. I see it as a god send, seeing my perfect gear set, till the end of sunwell requires the hit rating to even make use of the 4th Boss staff :S (0.6% dodge set aswell)
Shard of contempt + t6 boots + Belt of one hundred deaths = 91 expertise afaik (89 being cap)
I have a little different experience on Kalecgos. I tanked with roughly 21k HP and had no problems surviving the spikes. The warriors were the ones who died every try, because they get approximately 1.5x the damage we get from normal hits.
I built a set of tanking gear which allows me to get completly hit-immun when i activate my trinkets and this every 2 minutes (agi-totem or hunter sting is enough to reach this). I think this is the way to go, because you get much less damage and the healers can concentrate on healing the raid damage which i found to be enormous on kalecgos. And if i get a spike i activate the trinkets. When you have only 50% armor the only way to mitigate damage is dodge.
The problem with Brutallus (or what it feels like to me), is that I'm not dodging nearly as much as I should (75% nontrinked, with everything else up). If he really has "expertise" to allow him to bypass at least a significant portion of dodge, then stacking stamina is not just the way to go, it is the only way to go, heh.
About Kalecgos, he hits like nothing. It is Sathrovarr the Corruptor inside that gibs tanks. Corrupting strike hits for 9k as well as causing 4 second stun (dodge becomes useless at this point). I don't know if FAP works or not, but it seems to be a plausible solution here if it works.
The argument I want to make is that as a main tank for fights, I can understand wanting to stack stamina. Warriors also have significant advantage to stack stamina because their tanking gear gives them a significant boost in defense, which is their best method of avoidance (as our agility stat). So all they have to do is fill up on stamina and let defense take care of the avoidance.
For us, agility is the superior stat both offensively and defensively. While I don't recommend stacking purely agility, I don't really think stamina is the only way to go either. Ideally having 2 tanking sets is nice, however.
He shouldn't be hitting capped armor for more than 5k main hand with the appropriate debuffs up, so that's probably with Stomp up. And yeah, that shit hurts
Now that I've got my first pipece of t6 (gloves off azgalor), and I'm going to be MTing a bit more often than before (Our guild MT quit raiding), I'm wondering... would it be worth specing out of Thick Hide for Feral Aggression? When I'm MTing, I have a priest and shaman healing me, meaning I'll have the +25% armor buff up most of the time. I go way over the armor cap with that thing, so I'm thinking that Thick Hide is kinda redundant. Any suggestions?
Now that I've got my first pipece of t6 (gloves off azgalor), and I'm going to be MTing a bit more often than before (Our guild MT quit raiding), I'm wondering... would it be worth specing out of Thick Hide for Feral Aggression? When I'm MTing, I have a priest and shaman healing me, meaning I'll have the +25% armor buff up most of the time. I go way over the armor cap with that thing, so I'm thinking that Thick Hide is kinda redundant. Any suggestions?
If at all possible have a DPS warrior pick up Imp demoralizing shout instead. More AP reduction for a very minor hit to DPS, vs potentially losing a decent chunk of armor on the MT.
Acknowledging EJ's stance concerning PTRs, I was wondering about a previous posts inquiry about crushing blows on PTR, from what is implied from previous posts, it seems the sunwell bosses don't. Can anyone attest?
Another question about ptr, I know that adamantite stones now work in kitty, however a guildie told me that there's a new weapon enchant(s) that now work in feral form as well. I'm sure this isn't mongoose or executioner because I would have read about it in a previous post. Is this true concerning a new weapon enchant?
Now that I've got my first pipece of t6 (gloves off azgalor), and I'm going to be MTing a bit more often than before (Our guild MT quit raiding), I'm wondering... would it be worth specing out of Thick Hide for Feral Aggression? When I'm MTing, I have a priest and shaman healing me, meaning I'll have the +25% armor buff up most of the time. I go way over the armor cap with that thing, so I'm thinking that Thick Hide is kinda redundant. Any suggestions?
Feral aggression isn't needed. You should have at least 1 DPS warrior that's able to put up Demo shout during his free GCD. He should be doing thunderclap as well (wow, this gimps his damage so much though, might as well make him go prot)
If you don't have ANY warrior, then yeah you should spec into feral aggression. But not having a warrior in the raid is beyond my imagination.
Update for a new "best DPS list" using Rawr. Good news is that I finally found a way to get rid of 2 piece t4, heh. It's only by 9 DPS, and it requires killing Kil'jaeden. Which means those in sunwell will still be using 2p t4 until they get the T6.5 helm. Anyway, here's the list, and I'll put the old, pre-Kiljaeden items in (), if it exists
*: The difference here is the presence of Gloves of Immortal Dusk: the added armor pentration here makes Signet of Primal Wrath better than Hard Khorium Band
**: This one I actually don't know the reason. However Everbloom idol comes out to be <1 DPS short, so you might want to stick to everbloom
Theoretical DPS: 2142 (2133)DPS against 6200 armor boss, fully buffed, fully consumable other than 2 minute Potions (no haste potion option available), Improved Seal of the Crusader (not a whole lot of guilds run it), Expose Weakness at 200AP (should be higher in sunwell level), Bloodlust/Heroism at 15% uptime (~4.5 minute fight), Drums at 100% uptime (a lot of Rogues are swapping to LW anyway for Sunwell if they're not already)
Hmm, looks like a possible bug. I just checked what you did, and if I turned off expose weakness, idol of terror drops back down to normal rating, but with it enabled, it skyrockets.
Update for a new "best DPS list" using Rawr. Good news is that I finally found a way to get rid of 2 piece t4, heh. It's only by 9 DPS, and it requires killing Kil'jaeden. Which means those in sunwell will still be using 2p t4 until they get the T6.5 helm. Anyway, here's the list, and I'll put the old, pre-Kiljaeden items in (), if it exists
You forgot to list your cloak. Also does this include Shaman totems and if so which ones.
Cloak added, and also improved GoA is active since most enhancement shaman in high end content have the ability to, and should be totem twisting in a dps-testing fight
Update for a new "best DPS list" using Rawr. Good news is that I finally found a way to get rid of 2 piece t4, heh. It's only by 9 DPS, and it requires killing Kil'jaeden. Which means those in sunwell will still be using 2p t4 until they get the T6.5 helm. Anyway, here's the list, and I'll put the old, pre-Kiljaeden items in (), if it exists
*: The difference here is the presence of Gloves of Immortal Dusk: the added armor pentration here makes Signet of Primal Wrath better than Hard Khorium Band
**: This one I actually don't know the reason. However Everbloom idol comes out to be <1 DPS short, so you might want to stick to everbloom
Theoretical DPS: 2142 (2133)DPS against 6200 armor boss, fully buffed, fully consumable other than 2 minute Potions (no haste potion option available), Improved Seal of the Crusader (not a whole lot of guilds run it), Expose Weakness at 200AP (should be higher in sunwell level), Bloodlust/Heroism at 15% uptime (~4.5 minute fight), Drums at 100% uptime (a lot of Rogues are swapping to LW anyway for Sunwell if they're not already)
Also of note, its probably more raid dps to use the Epic flight form idol if you're in the melee group now thats it been buffed to almost 1% crit.
Was playing around a bit with RAWR and come to think about tank trinket usage in 2.4. I always liked the ohshit-possibilites in Badge + Moroes but I of course also picked up Shadowmoon.
The new trinket from Mag Terrace is really good even after nerf and, as I approve of the earlier posts pointing out that stamina will be needed in the beginning of Sunwell, I probably will use that one.
Shadowmoon is awesome because it frees up alot of defense obviously and especially so when loosing S3 bracers and Magtheridon ring to T6 and new badge ring respectively.
On the other hand you loose the ohshit-usage of the old ones and I cant really decide which two to use, and want to hear some other opinions about this. Of course there are different trinkets for different situations but what would you use for your general tanking set, say for example on Kalecgos and Brutallus?
Was playing around a bit with RAWR and come to think about tank trinket usage in 2.4. I always liked the ohshit-possibilites in Badge + Moroes but I of course also picked up Shadowmoon.
The new trinket from Mag Terrace is really good even after nerf and, as I approve of the earlier posts pointing out that stamina will be needed in the beginning of Sunwell, I probably will use that one.
Shadowmoon is awesome because it frees up alot of defense obviously and especially so when loosing S3 bracers and Magtheridon ring to T6 and new badge ring respectively.
On the other hand you loose the ohshit-usage of the old ones and I cant really decide which two to use, and want to hear some other opinions about this. Of course there are different trinkets for different situations but what would you use for your general tanking set, say for example on Kalecgos and Brutallus?
I would personally use Shadowmoon and Commendation of Kael'thas. I think shadowmoon is a no-brainer, so the tossup is between Moroes and Commendation. Commendation has only 30 second cooldown, and is self-activating, not to mention the 57 stamina translate into around 800 hp in bear form feral specced, which is quite a boost.
Cloak added, and also improved GoA is active since most enhancement shaman in high end content have the ability to, and should be totem twisting in a dps-testing fight
Well then I'm lost because no matter what I do, I cant equate to the DPS you have listed. I have higher than that with your setup. Do you have the +hit listed back on the Thunderheart Waistgaurd? Do you have 74agi/47/str on the stanchion? are you using pots rather than flask? It would be helpful if you screenshotted your buff list so I could check it out. Are you using Improved FF? How often are you powershifting?
Update for a new "best DPS list" using Rawr. Good news is that I finally found a way to get rid of 2 piece t4, heh. It's only by 9 DPS, and it requires killing Kil'jaeden. Which means those in sunwell will still be using 2p t4 until they get the T6.5 helm. Anyway, here's the list, and I'll put the old, pre-Kiljaeden items in (), if it exists
So that is for a Leatherworker. and I did some testing and if you are not a Leatherworker, then you lose 22 DPS but there is a different set of gear. You will need [Thunderheart Gauntlets] and [Demontooth Shoulderpads]. Adjust the helm gem to an orange gem, and keep all the other gear the same.
I do not believe any of the items listed on that list are BoP Leather workers only items. The only item that requires leather working to the best of my knowledge are the [Gloves of Immortal Dusk] but they are BoE so it shouldn't be that big an issue.
03/01/08, 3:00 AM
(89 being cap)
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